The US Constitution was ratified in 1788 (though the Bill of Rights was not made effective until 1791, and they were not made to apply to the states in superseding state law until the 'incorporation' under the 20th century 14th Amendment interpretation explicit in cases like Gitlow v. New York), the US Civil War began in 1861. Please, please tell me that you are not a US voter.
Please note even by your own quote, 'Stalin followed [...] Lenin'. Lenin is not the Pope of Atheists. There is no Atheist Bible. There is nothing about Atheism that commands its ranks to do anything . It is not a system or a process. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in gods. That is all. If an one atheist decides to kill people, and another decides to make their life's work feeding the homeless, those are just personal decisions. Neither one proceeds from their shared lack of belief in gods.
It's a difference between 'negative' and 'positive' rights (his reference to Moses is, I suspect, nothing more than a rhetorical device). Freedom to speak or from slavery doesn't cost anything. TV is a service, and in order to make a 'right', somebody has to pay for all the production and distribution costs (unless the people doing that work are going to be slaves). It can be argued, and is implied by the GP, that no 'positive' right (entitlement) can be 'inherent' because that creates a continuous financial burden on others for things they may or may not want/use.
When the militia was designed at the federal level under the Militia Act of 1792 signed by ol' George Washington himself, it was codified into law that every enfranchised citizen of the US between the ages of 18 and 45 was required to acquire and keep in good order a long gun of some sort (musket, flintlock, whatever) and appropriate ammunition for it. Unfortunately Americans are so lazy that they didn't want to bother mustering to train, and consequently the militia was phased out in favor of a voluntary standing army and national guard. For my part I would love to see the original law reinstated.
How many are that 'good'? I mean if a nervous guy with a crotchload of PETN can make it through, is somebody with a coin full of files going to be nervous enough to draw attention? Unless that guy is a total putz, I kinda doubt it.
Up to the company/agency/contractor/operator. Not to mention a lot of people routinely lump things that need to be scanned (like phones) in with their change.
You're not getting it. I'm not saying that it wouldn't look different from a normal quarter on an x-ray typical of a US federalized airport. It most certainly would look different. What I'm saying is that it is so small, appears so innocuous, and the frequency so rare, that without a specific directive few if any TSO's would push a threat button for it and give secondary screening. Even with a specific directive to look for such things, size and rarity would likely lead to very high miss rates.
I cannot evaluate the other uses you have seen having not seen them myself, but I am fairly convinced that the use here is, no pun intended, warranted. Most importantly, it is behaviors like these perpetrated by governments that lead down the road to people 'disappearing' instead of simply gadgets. I recognize you were probably primed to go off, but I can't agree that this use was inappropriate.
Yeah, warrantless seizure by state agents of expensive personal property for the purposes of finding state-disapproved data is so trivial. I can't imagine why it could be compared to warrantless seizure of persons by state agents. {/sarcasm}
... of the slippery slope, somebody excavates another hundred feet and oils it up. 'Oh but they'll never go that far!' Uh-huh. How long before somebody sells this footage for a tidy sum to a fetish website?
You made the blanket statement that x-rays used for screening "can’t see through solid metal". This is false, depends on the thickness of the metal and the nature of the alloy. Also, metal obscurance up to a certain thickness only decreases resolution and this can be compensated for in software. See here. (Smiths machines are used at most US federal airports.) Trust me, I work with this stuff, modern x-rays used for screening will make the difference between a real gun and anything but a realistic model very obvious. Not to mention an operator worth his salt will slam the threat button if anything looks remotely like a weapon, and the bag will be searched. So it's a moot point.
Lower end != decent. That's why I used that qualifier. Yeah, a shitty and/or used laptop costs less than the hottest, newest phone. That's not a surprise.
Money is not fair game unless a) you have a suspicious metric fuckton of it or b) you have already committed a crime and the possessions on your person are already forfeit. No unprovoked seizure of an unsuspicious amount of money would stand up to review, let alone court. (Unless they already figured out you were using this money to smuggle data that they deem you 'shouldn't have' for whatever reason, but then that falls under the 'committed a crime' exception.)
Not all laptops are seized, duh. They are simply fair game, and so are phones, it's just that seizure of phones is currently not a common practice for data inspection.
I also think you're kidding yourself about the prevalence of laptops among travelers. Yes, more people carry phones than laptops, but the number with laptops is far from insignificant. I could see somebody making the same 'there are too many!' argument about them in the past, but those issues have already been overcome. It's a matter of both time and motivation for that to change in regard to phones, partial inspection could begin at any time, and selective inspection/seizure does occur already, just not frequently and usually not for data-related reasons.
While it is true that many companies, especially defense contractors, have strict regulations about device possession/usage, there's not a lot of point to having flash memory (by whatever means of transport/concealment) if you can't read/write to it due to readers/ports being disabled on company systems.
Though in practice these regulations are not so strictly enforced, except in Top Secret-secured areas where people have to check practically everything on their person before entry. (I have worked in a companies of this sort with government contracts.)
I can back up my phone more easily than my computer because it has a microSD card. Pull it out, copy it, done. So long as you don't keep much on the SIM card you should be fine. In pure monetary terms though, a new decent laptop still almost always costs more than a new decent phone, and I don't foresee that changing in the near future.
Slashdot Mirror
The US Constitution was ratified in 1788 (though the Bill of Rights was not made effective until 1791, and they were not made to apply to the states in superseding state law until the 'incorporation' under the 20th century 14th Amendment interpretation explicit in cases like Gitlow v. New York), the US Civil War began in 1861. Please, please tell me that you are not a US voter.
Please note even by your own quote, 'Stalin followed [...] Lenin'. Lenin is not the Pope of Atheists. There is no Atheist Bible. There is nothing about Atheism that commands its ranks to do anything . It is not a system or a process. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in gods. That is all. If an one atheist decides to kill people, and another decides to make their life's work feeding the homeless, those are just personal decisions. Neither one proceeds from their shared lack of belief in gods.
It's a difference between 'negative' and 'positive' rights (his reference to Moses is, I suspect, nothing more than a rhetorical device). Freedom to speak or from slavery doesn't cost anything. TV is a service, and in order to make a 'right', somebody has to pay for all the production and distribution costs (unless the people doing that work are going to be slaves). It can be argued, and is implied by the GP, that no 'positive' right (entitlement) can be 'inherent' because that creates a continuous financial burden on others for things they may or may not want/use.
When the militia was designed at the federal level under the Militia Act of 1792 signed by ol' George Washington himself, it was codified into law that every enfranchised citizen of the US between the ages of 18 and 45 was required to acquire and keep in good order a long gun of some sort (musket, flintlock, whatever) and appropriate ammunition for it. Unfortunately Americans are so lazy that they didn't want to bother mustering to train, and consequently the militia was phased out in favor of a voluntary standing army and national guard. For my part I would love to see the original law reinstated.
... and who's to say what it should look like in an x-ray. Some keys intrinsically mix metals and polymers. I think you're quite on to something.
How many are that 'good'? I mean if a nervous guy with a crotchload of PETN can make it through, is somebody with a coin full of files going to be nervous enough to draw attention? Unless that guy is a total putz, I kinda doubt it.
I doubt that 'weighing/handling every coin' is part of even the strictest inspection procedures.
Up to the company/agency/contractor/operator. Not to mention a lot of people routinely lump things that need to be scanned (like phones) in with their change.
You're not getting it. I'm not saying that it wouldn't look different from a normal quarter on an x-ray typical of a US federalized airport. It most certainly would look different. What I'm saying is that it is so small, appears so innocuous, and the frequency so rare, that without a specific directive few if any TSO's would push a threat button for it and give secondary screening. Even with a specific directive to look for such things, size and rarity would likely lead to very high miss rates.
Depends on the company or agency. There is no blanket configuration policy for unclassified systems.
Please see here.
I cannot evaluate the other uses you have seen having not seen them myself, but I am fairly convinced that the use here is, no pun intended, warranted. Most importantly, it is behaviors like these perpetrated by governments that lead down the road to people 'disappearing' instead of simply gadgets. I recognize you were probably primed to go off, but I can't agree that this use was inappropriate.
Damn and blast! I am undone!
Yeah, warrantless seizure by state agents of expensive personal property for the purposes of finding state-disapproved data is so trivial. I can't imagine why it could be compared to warrantless seizure of persons by state agents. {/sarcasm}
You dolt.
I agree that hollow coins are unlikely to cause suspicion, and even unlikely to be caught even if declared suspicious by a policy change.
... of the slippery slope, somebody excavates another hundred feet and oils it up. 'Oh but they'll never go that far!' Uh-huh. How long before somebody sells this footage for a tidy sum to a fetish website?
You made the blanket statement that x-rays used for screening "can’t see through solid metal". This is false, depends on the thickness of the metal and the nature of the alloy. Also, metal obscurance up to a certain thickness only decreases resolution and this can be compensated for in software. See here. (Smiths machines are used at most US federal airports.) Trust me, I work with this stuff, modern x-rays used for screening will make the difference between a real gun and anything but a realistic model very obvious. Not to mention an operator worth his salt will slam the threat button if anything looks remotely like a weapon, and the bag will be searched. So it's a moot point.
Lower end != decent. That's why I used that qualifier. Yeah, a shitty and/or used laptop costs less than the hottest, newest phone. That's not a surprise.
You do realize there are fair amount of countries where exactly those conditions you describe exist right? Asia is full of them.
Money is not fair game unless a) you have a suspicious metric fuckton of it or b) you have already committed a crime and the possessions on your person are already forfeit. No unprovoked seizure of an unsuspicious amount of money would stand up to review, let alone court. (Unless they already figured out you were using this money to smuggle data that they deem you 'shouldn't have' for whatever reason, but then that falls under the 'committed a crime' exception.)
Not all laptops are seized, duh. They are simply fair game, and so are phones, it's just that seizure of phones is currently not a common practice for data inspection.
I also think you're kidding yourself about the prevalence of laptops among travelers. Yes, more people carry phones than laptops, but the number with laptops is far from insignificant. I could see somebody making the same 'there are too many!' argument about them in the past, but those issues have already been overcome. It's a matter of both time and motivation for that to change in regard to phones, partial inspection could begin at any time, and selective inspection/seizure does occur already, just not frequently and usually not for data-related reasons.
Sorry but you're extremely misinformed. Please don't make authoritative-sounding comments about things you don't know anything about.
While it is true that many companies, especially defense contractors, have strict regulations about device possession/usage, there's not a lot of point to having flash memory (by whatever means of transport/concealment) if you can't read/write to it due to readers/ports being disabled on company systems.
Though in practice these regulations are not so strictly enforced, except in Top Secret-secured areas where people have to check practically everything on their person before entry. (I have worked in a companies of this sort with government contracts.)
I can back up my phone more easily than my computer because it has a microSD card. Pull it out, copy it, done. So long as you don't keep much on the SIM card you should be fine. In pure monetary terms though, a new decent laptop still almost always costs more than a new decent phone, and I don't foresee that changing in the near future.
I'll admit, hiding them in clothing is a pretty good idea, especially since that's a bit less likely to be lifted from you if you're robbed.