I did try to talk to them once. Unlike every other religion where I have done a similar thing I was prodded to either pay for some auditing and pay for the intro training. I was curious about their religion as well as a number of other ones so I figured what better way than to talk to actual representatives of each. I was well aware of the CoS's tactics but didn't know how much to actually believe but after the brief shitty movie and sales pitch they didn't provide any info other than trying to get you to buy some stuff.
I would also say Scientologists aren't like Christians as I could go and walk into any Christian church and talk to the priest there and find out all about their belief system and the hows and whys things are done and believed unlike Scientology where you have to pay. Most of them will be more than willing to give you a copy of their holy book for free (some it is almost impossible to walk away without one) again unlike Scientology where you have to pay. I have found this to be true with a number of proper religions, like Islam, the various flavors of Christianity, Hebrew, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism but not Scientology (yes I did try and until you start breaking out the cash you get almost nothing).
You need to expand your culinary palette. Get some maple syrup or brown sugar cured bacon (the good stuff from a butcher shop that makes it in house with real ingredients, not some mass market thing loaded with unpronounceable preservatives) with a nice hardwood smoke and it is great. That way you are hitting 3 of the 4 food groups, although I am surprised I haven't seen caffeinated bacon yet so either someone hasn't gotten that idea yet or I haven't looked hard enough.
And now I only wish I had ripe tomatoes and lettuces out of the garden as I want BLTs for dinner.
If its a majority, then how come in practice the majority of the people that you actually know are against being spied on?
It probably is a majority of people as most seem to have the "I haven't done anything wrong so I have nothing to fear" mentality. Once I get outside of the group of people I work with who are technology minded and into my friends from college who aren't there is a huge difference in opinion. Also there is the phrasing of the question which is typically lead by "To stop terrorism do you support X" which then gets reported as the majority of people support X.
Lets make some big assumptions here that yes every year they stopped ten 9/11 level events every year with all of their snooping. Granted this is assumption is completely false but it works to show what a waste these programs are even when we assume phenomenal results from them. So each year we would prevent about 30,000 deaths which if not prevented would put terrorism as the number 9th leading cause of death in the US just behind firearm related ones (19,000 of those are suicide but that is another subject) but just above STDs. A better question would be is there a better way where we could have prevented those same 30,000 deaths per year and gotten to keep our rights. I think they answer would be a clear yes and as an added bonous we probably would have saved even more lives.
I was against this crap under Bush and still am under Obama, then again I seem to be a fairly rare individual who wants to expand personal freedom not restrict it. To the partisan individuals on each side a good question when they start spouting how their guy won't ever abuse this power is: What about when the other side gets that same power? If they say it is fine then they probably don't fully understand how the law can be abused. If they are against the other side having the power then you have just made your case as to why it was a shitty idea.
Given that, the number are probably worse (from an individual rights perspective) given how many young people will shared every stupid thought they have with the general populous.
Actually I think this is pretty shitty. I don't want the government to be snooping and having these overly broad warrants issued. I do understand what can be done with this meta data (AI and data mining were my area of expertise when I did my undergrad and some in my masters as well) and so do these officials but they down play it. I think the only way for them to knock it off is if someone did the same to them since they are claiming that this data is so "innocuous" and "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear". Lets see just how much they want to hide and how innocuous their data and then they might realize how people want to be left alone as I am sure they feel that they are insulated from this.
I was going more for sarcastic or snarky comment as I am getting sick of government officials eroding our rights. The vast leeway given to agencies in the name of fighting terrorism seem excessive. I actually don't have a problem with warrants or the other things you issued so long as they are well bounded as per the constitution. Lets say some law enforcement agency wanted to search all homes in the city looking for all illegal items. The judge would laugh them out of court as that is way too broad, just like it is here. Except here it is for fighting terrorism and I haven't seen anything that would indicate that there is probable cause that all Verizon, MSN, GMail, Yahoo mail, etc users are involved in terrorism at all times.
My choice of elected office holder, their staff, and judges was because these are the people who can put a stop to this sort of thing but they probably feel insulated from this. These are also the people telling the public if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear and other similar stuff. I tossed in their staff as well because they probably have more sway over our office holders than the average voter does. Also wouldn't it be great to know that Senator X talked 87 times with dodgy Lobbyist Y right before a vote on crappy bill Z that would benefit Lobbyist Y that Senator X voted for?
- All future search warrants (Your honor, its only fair to give the suspect your data too.)
See the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. There it is well bounded not this wide net crap we see now.
- A prerequisite for submitting tax forms ( Give me your data tax examiner and I'll give you mine?)
Given that there was a specific law written as well as a constitutional amendment for this this seems specious. The information provided is necessary to file your taxes.
- Answering census forms (So, census taker, do you have your data along with the Commissioners?)
Again mandated by the constitution and they only thing you are required to fill out on the census form is the number of people living at the location.
- Permit requests (If you want me to open this business here, where is the data for the town council?)
Permits are public record already so the info I provide is the same that others, including government work requiring a permit, have to provide as well. I am free to go examine all the permits I want down at the city, county, or state offices.
So, even warrants have to be specific to a person or specific group of people. I doubt a judge would ever issue a warrant to search all households for all illegal items in a given town as that is really rather nebulous. Also there has to be reasonable suspicion that the person or persons were involved with a specific crime. I highly doubt that the majority (probably all) of Americans are somehow involved with terrorist plots.
To me it seems it would be the only way to get the politicians to take notice and realize that this is a violation of people's rights. Especially since I hear various officials stating things like if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear. I want to see how much they fear their data getting out.
I highly doubt it was just meta data but I try not to wander off into speculation though it wouldn't surprise me. Also even the known meta data can produce a very damning picture of someone when there isn't anything there.
I'll know it is modest if the general public can get a dump of the meta data for every elected office holder as well as their staff members, and all judges. If they have nothing to hide then this shouldn't be a problem. If not then the NSA can fuck off.
Dammit now there is something else I will have to build out of Legos if my oldest son ever see it. I can't see the video (blocked at work) but if it something like the Babbage's Analytical Engine I fear for my life.
The same can be said for any number of things. There is something to actually being able to see and touch something and being able to figure out how it works. This is why I spent the weekend with my 4 year old building a working automatic transmission with planetary and ring gears out of Legos. He became curious about how one worked after seeing a book about Lego machines at the library and made the connection between Lego gears shown in it and gears in a vehicle transmission. So he wanted me to build him one and show him how it works. Granted it doesn't have clutch packs (components are locked using shafts), torque converter, or a valve body (you move the shafts to lock components manually), but it does show how the gearing works. It has 3 forward speeds, neutral, park, and reverse, just like old standard 3 speed automatics did.
I believe it is, specifically perjury, as that is what Slick Willy was charged with and impeached on. I only wish the biggest issue in our government now was if the president lied to congress about an intern smoking his pole.
In addition someone should get kickstarter going to pay the research fee and duplication fee for a FOIA to get all of the NSA meta data on our congress critters. We could even have various levels of funding $100,000 all of the US Senators, $110,000 US Senators + Supreme Court Justices, $400,000 the previous + all house members, and $401,000 all the previous + the president. I mean if they have nothing to hide then they should be just fine with the general public getting this info. I'm thinking this would be a giant ultra loud brown note for our government if funded.
Small claims court is just that to be used for small claims. There is an upper limit of the claim you can make in it that is fairly small with a typical upper limit range of a few hundred to a few thousand. It is nothing like Judge Judy but is still fairly informal formal. My advice is don't BS the judge with legal jargon, stick to provable or proven facts, keep it short and be polite. Be sure to find out what the upper limit is for the claim to be sure you are filing in the correct court, when I had mine I think the upper limit in Minnesota was $5,000 and my suit was for $3,100 + the $35 filing fee. Be sure to be able to justify the value of each part of the claim as well, and when dealing with a large mega corp be sure to list the local branch or representative as the defendant. I hear it also helps if you had made a good faith effort to resolve outside of court first as it really should be a last option as it was in my case because judges typically can tell when some individual is just suing for fun and/or profit.
Part of me wonder if this is why when my following car got totaled the insurance company of the driver who rear ended me gave a real generous offer for a payout. I ended up getting $500 more than I paid for the car but the vehicle was 4 years older and had 99,000 more miles on it than when I got it.
If someone actually wanted to carry out a terrorist attack it would be trivial and the people we have caught have been so inept I am surprised they haven't choked on their own tongue. If I really wanted to tomorrow I could pull off a terrorist attack that would make the Boston marathon bombings look insignificant. The simple fact that you don't see pipe bombs going off right and left in crowded places, continual mass shootings in crowded places, or people blowing up a carry on bag of gunpowder and ball bearing in a security line seems to indicate that terrorism isn't a fucking problem. All 3 of those cases would be trivial to carry out with items that are easy to legally acquire, and only took the amount of time to think up that it took to write this post.
Yes but there even then it is to be done in a respectful manner not the dip and gasoline set ablaze and drag on ground that is usually associated with flag burning. Even then using the flag as speech as in burning it in a disrespectful manner is constitutionally protected and the US flag code does not impose penalties for violating anything in it. For more info read US code Title 36 Chapter 10 for the Flag Code.
Nope. Heard on the radio this morning that the Gov is stating that this activity has prevented or stopped (can't remember) 1 terrorist attack withing the US. They are already running damage control on this so don't expect a change in public opinion. Welcome to the soft tyranny of the USA.
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I did try to talk to them once. Unlike every other religion where I have done a similar thing I was prodded to either pay for some auditing and pay for the intro training. I was curious about their religion as well as a number of other ones so I figured what better way than to talk to actual representatives of each. I was well aware of the CoS's tactics but didn't know how much to actually believe but after the brief shitty movie and sales pitch they didn't provide any info other than trying to get you to buy some stuff.
I would also say Scientologists aren't like Christians as I could go and walk into any Christian church and talk to the priest there and find out all about their belief system and the hows and whys things are done and believed unlike Scientology where you have to pay. Most of them will be more than willing to give you a copy of their holy book for free (some it is almost impossible to walk away without one) again unlike Scientology where you have to pay. I have found this to be true with a number of proper religions, like Islam, the various flavors of Christianity, Hebrew, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism but not Scientology (yes I did try and until you start breaking out the cash you get almost nothing).
But I'd put those extensive background-checkers into the same bag with the Googleing HR-monkeys.
I would then suggest tying that bag closed attaching a few bricks to it and dropping it off a bridge into a cold river.
You need to expand your culinary palette. Get some maple syrup or brown sugar cured bacon (the good stuff from a butcher shop that makes it in house with real ingredients, not some mass market thing loaded with unpronounceable preservatives) with a nice hardwood smoke and it is great. That way you are hitting 3 of the 4 food groups, although I am surprised I haven't seen caffeinated bacon yet so either someone hasn't gotten that idea yet or I haven't looked hard enough.
And now I only wish I had ripe tomatoes and lettuces out of the garden as I want BLTs for dinner.
If its a majority, then how come in practice the majority of the people that you actually know are against being spied on?
It probably is a majority of people as most seem to have the "I haven't done anything wrong so I have nothing to fear" mentality. Once I get outside of the group of people I work with who are technology minded and into my friends from college who aren't there is a huge difference in opinion. Also there is the phrasing of the question which is typically lead by "To stop terrorism do you support X" which then gets reported as the majority of people support X.
Lets make some big assumptions here that yes every year they stopped ten 9/11 level events every year with all of their snooping. Granted this is assumption is completely false but it works to show what a waste these programs are even when we assume phenomenal results from them. So each year we would prevent about 30,000 deaths which if not prevented would put terrorism as the number 9th leading cause of death in the US just behind firearm related ones (19,000 of those are suicide but that is another subject) but just above STDs. A better question would be is there a better way where we could have prevented those same 30,000 deaths per year and gotten to keep our rights. I think they answer would be a clear yes and as an added bonous we probably would have saved even more lives.
With Limbaugh it might have do with his doctor shopping for oxycodone which was well known but has been forgotten.
Most people fear things that are very unlikely to happen:
-Death from terrorism
-Death from oppressive government
There is a difference?
I was against this crap under Bush and still am under Obama, then again I seem to be a fairly rare individual who wants to expand personal freedom not restrict it. To the partisan individuals on each side a good question when they start spouting how their guy won't ever abuse this power is: What about when the other side gets that same power? If they say it is fine then they probably don't fully understand how the law can be abused. If they are against the other side having the power then you have just made your case as to why it was a shitty idea.
Given that, the number are probably worse (from an individual rights perspective) given how many young people will shared every stupid thought they have with the general populous.
Actually I think this is pretty shitty. I don't want the government to be snooping and having these overly broad warrants issued. I do understand what can be done with this meta data (AI and data mining were my area of expertise when I did my undergrad and some in my masters as well) and so do these officials but they down play it. I think the only way for them to knock it off is if someone did the same to them since they are claiming that this data is so "innocuous" and "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear". Lets see just how much they want to hide and how innocuous their data and then they might realize how people want to be left alone as I am sure they feel that they are insulated from this.
My choice of elected office holder, their staff, and judges was because these are the people who can put a stop to this sort of thing but they probably feel insulated from this. These are also the people telling the public if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear and other similar stuff. I tossed in their staff as well because they probably have more sway over our office holders than the average voter does. Also wouldn't it be great to know that Senator X talked 87 times with dodgy Lobbyist Y right before a vote on crappy bill Z that would benefit Lobbyist Y that Senator X voted for?
- All future search warrants (Your honor, its only fair to give the suspect your data too.)
See the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. There it is well bounded not this wide net crap we see now.
- A prerequisite for submitting tax forms ( Give me your data tax examiner and I'll give you mine?)
Given that there was a specific law written as well as a constitutional amendment for this this seems specious. The information provided is necessary to file your taxes.
- Answering census forms (So, census taker, do you have your data along with the Commissioners?)
Again mandated by the constitution and they only thing you are required to fill out on the census form is the number of people living at the location.
- Permit requests (If you want me to open this business here, where is the data for the town council?)
Permits are public record already so the info I provide is the same that others, including government work requiring a permit, have to provide as well. I am free to go examine all the permits I want down at the city, county, or state offices.
So, even warrants have to be specific to a person or specific group of people. I doubt a judge would ever issue a warrant to search all households for all illegal items in a given town as that is really rather nebulous. Also there has to be reasonable suspicion that the person or persons were involved with a specific crime. I highly doubt that the majority (probably all) of Americans are somehow involved with terrorist plots.
To me it seems it would be the only way to get the politicians to take notice and realize that this is a violation of people's rights. Especially since I hear various officials stating things like if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear. I want to see how much they fear their data getting out.
I highly doubt it was just meta data but I try not to wander off into speculation though it wouldn't surprise me. Also even the known meta data can produce a very damning picture of someone when there isn't anything there.
I'll know it is modest if the general public can get a dump of the meta data for every elected office holder as well as their staff members, and all judges. If they have nothing to hide then this shouldn't be a problem. If not then the NSA can fuck off.
Dammit now there is something else I will have to build out of Legos if my oldest son ever see it. I can't see the video (blocked at work) but if it something like the Babbage's Analytical Engine I fear for my life.
The same can be said for any number of things. There is something to actually being able to see and touch something and being able to figure out how it works. This is why I spent the weekend with my 4 year old building a working automatic transmission with planetary and ring gears out of Legos. He became curious about how one worked after seeing a book about Lego machines at the library and made the connection between Lego gears shown in it and gears in a vehicle transmission. So he wanted me to build him one and show him how it works. Granted it doesn't have clutch packs (components are locked using shafts), torque converter, or a valve body (you move the shafts to lock components manually), but it does show how the gearing works. It has 3 forward speeds, neutral, park, and reverse, just like old standard 3 speed automatics did.
And for about $2 you can duck tape a pointy stick to it.
If you are using $2 worth of duct tape you are using way too much, you don't need the whole roll.
I believe it is, specifically perjury, as that is what Slick Willy was charged with and impeached on. I only wish the biggest issue in our government now was if the president lied to congress about an intern smoking his pole.
In addition someone should get kickstarter going to pay the research fee and duplication fee for a FOIA to get all of the NSA meta data on our congress critters. We could even have various levels of funding $100,000 all of the US Senators, $110,000 US Senators + Supreme Court Justices, $400,000 the previous + all house members, and $401,000 all the previous + the president. I mean if they have nothing to hide then they should be just fine with the general public getting this info. I'm thinking this would be a giant ultra loud brown note for our government if funded.
Small claims court is just that to be used for small claims. There is an upper limit of the claim you can make in it that is fairly small with a typical upper limit range of a few hundred to a few thousand. It is nothing like Judge Judy but is still fairly informal formal. My advice is don't BS the judge with legal jargon, stick to provable or proven facts, keep it short and be polite. Be sure to find out what the upper limit is for the claim to be sure you are filing in the correct court, when I had mine I think the upper limit in Minnesota was $5,000 and my suit was for $3,100 + the $35 filing fee. Be sure to be able to justify the value of each part of the claim as well, and when dealing with a large mega corp be sure to list the local branch or representative as the defendant. I hear it also helps if you had made a good faith effort to resolve outside of court first as it really should be a last option as it was in my case because judges typically can tell when some individual is just suing for fun and/or profit.
Part of me wonder if this is why when my following car got totaled the insurance company of the driver who rear ended me gave a real generous offer for a payout. I ended up getting $500 more than I paid for the car but the vehicle was 4 years older and had 99,000 more miles on it than when I got it.
So I hear you like a soft tyranny.
If someone actually wanted to carry out a terrorist attack it would be trivial and the people we have caught have been so inept I am surprised they haven't choked on their own tongue. If I really wanted to tomorrow I could pull off a terrorist attack that would make the Boston marathon bombings look insignificant. The simple fact that you don't see pipe bombs going off right and left in crowded places, continual mass shootings in crowded places, or people blowing up a carry on bag of gunpowder and ball bearing in a security line seems to indicate that terrorism isn't a fucking problem. All 3 of those cases would be trivial to carry out with items that are easy to legally acquire, and only took the amount of time to think up that it took to write this post.
Yes but there even then it is to be done in a respectful manner not the dip and gasoline set ablaze and drag on ground that is usually associated with flag burning. Even then using the flag as speech as in burning it in a disrespectful manner is constitutionally protected and the US flag code does not impose penalties for violating anything in it. For more info read US code Title 36 Chapter 10 for the Flag Code.
Nope. Heard on the radio this morning that the Gov is stating that this activity has prevented or stopped (can't remember) 1 terrorist attack withing the US. They are already running damage control on this so don't expect a change in public opinion. Welcome to the soft tyranny of the USA.