Well, for starters we (the US) have been whacking hornet's nests all around the world for years now, that has got to have some repercussions at some point. I mean, it is not unreasonable to be a little concerned about an attack, it is quite likely that more people hate us now than in 2001. Of course, it is very much the fault of the same people who have spent most of that time trying to scare us.
They will just use the decline in sales to boost their claims that they need to stop piracy and get some more RIAA friendly laws passed by their pet congressmen. Because there can be no rational explanation for a decrease in CD sales (or even a slowdown in the growth of sales) other than piracy.
I don't know, how is that different from any kind of sting.
"I wasn't really buying drugs from a drug dealer, it was a cop posing as a drug dealer"
"I didn't really hire a hitman to kill my wife, it was a cop posing as a hitman"
"I didn't really pick up a prostitute, it was a cop posing as a prostitute"
"I did not seriously consider taking a bribe from a lobbiest, it was an FBI agent posing"
Courts have long interpreted these as not entrapment (given certain controls, obviously the contact has to be initiated by the subject and not the cop), so how is this kind of case any different?
Every cop knows what to say about dealing with incidents like this.
No, sadly they don't. There are cops who are more pissed at the meddling bystanders than anything else. I haven't listened to right wing talk radio recently but I suspect their take on this is that the liberal students all cooked this scenario up just to get some poor hardworking defender of the peace fired. (that was certainly their take on the Mark Foley case)
I was hoping for a well thought out position, and you didn't disappoint:)
My opinion in this area is a little fuzzy, for many of the reasons you listed (and having step children, it is probably influenced by my desire to see anyone to tries to hurt a kid killed).
Officers of the Law have extraordinary powers granted to them. As a result, they require extraordinary checks and balances on the utilization of that power.
Almost my own words from the UCLA student tazing threads, thrown back at me:) I am still on the fence regarding these "try to catch the predator" stings, but regardless I do believe that they need to be strongly monitored and controlled. Especially in cases where the evidence is a text file on a computer that anyone could have typed up after the fact.
So you are against stings of any kind to catch people attempting to engage in illegal behavior (murder for hire, drug dealing, sex with minors, etc.)? I'm not saying this is an invalid viewpoint, I'm just trying to clarify.
Soliciting a minor for sex online is a federal crime (ironically because of a law Foley helped write). Removing the word "online" from that federal law would pretty much solve the problem right? I'm all for state's rights but some crimes (murder, rape, etc) should be standardized across the board by the federal government. Case law has already upheld that Federal law trumps state law in the case of a murder for hire crime which did not cross interstate boarders, so why not child predator crimes as well?
agree with you finkployd, but that begs the question:
What will the politician's job be then? Or the lawyers for that matter.
Well, one of two things in the long run I suppose.
1. We as a society look around and decide that a tax law which is specifically written so that only accountants an understand it (keeping H&R block, etc. in business), and such that the IRS can probably get anyone they want at anytime is wrong and needs to be completely scraped for something simple, manageable, and fair.
We also look around and realize that the laws have been written such that it is nearly impossible to avoid breaking them, and even harder to understand them, giving the hordes of parasitic lawyers who produce nothing in this country lucrative jobs and the government a convenient way to control the population. Then we as a society decide to change this. Most likely be voting out everyone in congress who has made it their career to further this mess (all of them).
2. (See the movie Brazil)
Those are our options long term. Realistically we can try to effect change whenever we want but we will be easily distracted by (in the case of tax laws) class warfare and (in the case of any criminal law changes) sensational crime stories and/or terror attacks (or just rumors of implausible plots, either one effectively controls us).
Well if we are going to reduce this to pure economic decisions then it needs to be balanced on the other side as well. The police who are willing to put themselves in dangerous situations (be in bad neighborhoods or dangerous assignments) should get paid more, and have more money put into training for them. The risk of being filmed (again any police officer who considers this a risk is not fit to wear the badge) will always be there, nothing short of making it illegal to film police (which some would love to do) will change that.
If we are to continue allowing them to choose their own risk level, then they should be rewarded accordingly. I already mentioned that with their additional powers comes responsibility, and with responsibility should come greater reward. I suspect we are not paying these guys nearly enough, obviously UCLA was not paying enough to attract the best and brightest. They seemed to have just enough to hire a repeat bully who was already kicked out of a real police department.
In my state, the crime is still a crime (soliciting sex from a minor), but there are additional penalties assessed if the crime occurs over Internet.
But for Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake, WHY???! What the hell does the Internet have to do with it? Is it somehow worse for a 13 year old to be raped in the Internet was somehow involved? Then you get into the debate over what exactly is the Internet? TCP/IP? What if part of the connection went over an ATM link? Or Packet Radio? Isn't it just a lot easier to say "boffing 13 year olds is illegal" and spell out a punishment for that rather than trying to create a sliding scale of punishment based on what protocol was used during some of the communication?
My response to that is still the same. If the police cannot do their job for fear someone might see them doing it, then we have a serious problem. Either that police officer is not fit to do the job and needs to be replaced, or he/she needs more training before going out in the field.
As bad police are in a position to do much more damage to society than bad citizens (if only because they have the means, training, and benefit of the doubt both in and out of court), I would prefer the police be more cautious even if it means less effective police work. It is a simple risk assessment, and the crooked cop is potentially much more dangerous given the privileges and powers we as a society give them. Thanks to the proliferation of camera phones we are seeing more and more of this, and more people are realizing that the police are not always the models of truth and justice we thought, they are human just like us. Humans with much greater responsibility however, and obviously in need of constant monitoring.
Apparently it's also illegal to solicit an adult for sex if they happen to type "I AM OWNLY THIRTEEEN LOL!". Shall we discuss Thoughtcrimes now?
So what is your suggestion to fix this? Throw out all "intent" based laws and require that a 13 year old actually be raped before catching someone who is clearly trying to do so?
Maybe we should make it perfectly legal for someone to walk into a bank and shout "nobody move this is a robbery" so long as they do not actually take any money off the premises.
On the other hand, you don't want too 'limp' a police force either...
I cannot think of a single thing a beat cop or traffic cop (lets leave out undercover detective for a second) would do where having a citizen filming it would make them "limp" (lets try to keep this out of the gutter). There is no "national security secrecy" going on here, all of their actions while on duty should be completely transparent and available for public scrutiny (bathroom breaks excepted).
In fact, every honest cop should welcome it, as it would provide evidence in the event of an unwarranted brutality charge. Cops like the ones in this video who threaten to "taser" anyone who so much as asks for a badge number do not deserve to be on the force. No desk job, no paid leave, they need to be "out on their ass" fired.
it's time to rewrite the law from "e-mail" to "electronic correspondence".
Why even specify that? It is illegal to solicit a minor for sex, it does not matter if you do it with email, carrier pigeon, or two plastic cups on a string. What makes email, or even electronic correspondence special?
There would be a lot less loopholes if legislatures would stop trying to be clever and writing laws for specific implementations of technology (which will always out pace them) and just stick to the concepts of what is illegal and what is not.
The decision was definitely in the spirit of the law, even if it does mean "bending" the letter of the law.
I'm glad the guy was convicted, but this is still a dangerous road to go down. What other technical concepts can a judge stretch and break to get the desired result in court?
The fault partially lies with the legislature for writing a law which is limited to email (did they specify RFC 2821 or something?) which really should hold true no matter what communication protocol was used. Why is email special? Technology moves many time faster than the speed of legislation (usually this is a good thing) so they really ought to stick to referring to concepts and no implementation details when writing laws.
I'll be watching this thread closely, I made the mistake of putting of my my pictures in iPhoto (which is a fine program otherwise) and I find I am unable to get out of it. The pictures are categorized nicely in directories but the tags and such are not transferable to any other program as far as I can tell. I would really like to move to F-Spot but I don't feel like duplicating hours of work on some 3000 pictures.
Well lets face it, nobody wants a camera on them the entire time they are working just looking for a slip up. I doubt I would fare very well, hell, I'm posting to slashdot right now.
The difference is that a law enforcement officer is given (by the people) enhanced powers and rights above that of a normal citizen. Enough cannot be done to ensure that nobody in this position ever abuses this power or messes up when they have this responsibility. As far as I am concerned there should never be a time when an officer is on duty that he/she does not have a camera on them. I have severe distrust for any police officer who does not believe that the citizenry can (and should) film them performing the duties we pay them for (like that officer who arrested the guy for taking a picture of him arresting someone a while ago).
When you need to struggle to convince people that they NEED to buy your new product, and that the old one is not good enough, perhaps the problem is with you. Or perhaps the problem is that your customers know that in 2010 Microsoft will be trashing the software they are talking up now in a pathetic attempt to get you to upgrade again.
You know, there is only so many pointless features you can cram into programs that basically replace a typewriter and calculator (with graph paper) respectively. I know very few people who need more than Office 95 had to offer.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it urgent now?
Well, for starters we (the US) have been whacking hornet's nests all around the world for years now, that has got to have some repercussions at some point. I mean, it is not unreasonable to be a little concerned about an attack, it is quite likely that more people hate us now than in 2001. Of course, it is very much the fault of the same people who have spent most of that time trying to scare us.
Finkployd
They will just use the decline in sales to boost their claims that they need to stop piracy and get some more RIAA friendly laws passed by their pet congressmen. Because there can be no rational explanation for a decrease in CD sales (or even a slowdown in the growth of sales) other than piracy.
Believe me, this is exactly what would happen.
Finkployd
1. Fire / discipline teacher
For rising to the deliberate bait of the student?
Yes, exactly. If a child can verbally provoke you into yelling and screaming, you are not fit to be a teacher.
Just like if a college student can verbally provoke you into tasering him 5 times and threatening to taser bystanders you are not fit to be a cop.
Finkployd
Ok, but then how DO you catch someone who is trying to hire a contract killer? Or is it not illegal until someone is dead?
Finkployd
I don't know, how is that different from any kind of sting.
"I wasn't really buying drugs from a drug dealer, it was a cop posing as a drug dealer"
"I didn't really hire a hitman to kill my wife, it was a cop posing as a hitman"
"I didn't really pick up a prostitute, it was a cop posing as a prostitute"
"I did not seriously consider taking a bribe from a lobbiest, it was an FBI agent posing"
Courts have long interpreted these as not entrapment (given certain controls, obviously the contact has to be initiated by the subject and not the cop), so how is this kind of case any different?
Finkployd
Every cop knows what to say about dealing with incidents like this.
No, sadly they don't. There are cops who are more pissed at the meddling bystanders than anything else. I haven't listened to right wing talk radio recently but I suspect their take on this is that the liberal students all cooked this scenario up just to get some poor hardworking defender of the peace fired. (that was certainly their take on the Mark Foley case)
Finkployd
I want to make a wiretapping joke here, but I just cannot do it. The visual is funny enough.
Finkployd
I was hoping for a well thought out position, and you didn't disappoint :)
:) I am still on the fence regarding these "try to catch the predator" stings, but regardless I do believe that they need to be strongly monitored and controlled. Especially in cases where the evidence is a text file on a computer that anyone could have typed up after the fact.
My opinion in this area is a little fuzzy, for many of the reasons you listed (and having step children, it is probably influenced by my desire to see anyone to tries to hurt a kid killed).
Officers of the Law have extraordinary powers granted to them. As a result, they require extraordinary checks and balances on the utilization of that power.
Almost my own words from the UCLA student tazing threads, thrown back at me
Finkployd
So you are against stings of any kind to catch people attempting to engage in illegal behavior (murder for hire, drug dealing, sex with minors, etc.)? I'm not saying this is an invalid viewpoint, I'm just trying to clarify.
Finkployd
Soliciting a minor for sex online is a federal crime (ironically because of a law Foley helped write). Removing the word "online" from that federal law would pretty much solve the problem right? I'm all for state's rights but some crimes (murder, rape, etc) should be standardized across the board by the federal government. Case law has already upheld that Federal law trumps state law in the case of a murder for hire crime which did not cross interstate boarders, so why not child predator crimes as well?
Finkployd
I am aware, but what does that have to do with the metadata (tags and such) problem?
Finkployd
agree with you finkployd, but that begs the question:
What will the politician's job be then? Or the lawyers for that matter.
Well, one of two things in the long run I suppose.
1. We as a society look around and decide that a tax law which is specifically written so that only accountants an understand it (keeping H&R block, etc. in business), and such that the IRS can probably get anyone they want at anytime is wrong and needs to be completely scraped for something simple, manageable, and fair.
We also look around and realize that the laws have been written such that it is nearly impossible to avoid breaking them, and even harder to understand them, giving the hordes of parasitic lawyers who produce nothing in this country lucrative jobs and the government a convenient way to control the population. Then we as a society decide to change this. Most likely be voting out everyone in congress who has made it their career to further this mess (all of them).
2. (See the movie Brazil)
Those are our options long term. Realistically we can try to effect change whenever we want but we will be easily distracted by (in the case of tax laws) class warfare and (in the case of any criminal law changes) sensational crime stories and/or terror attacks (or just rumors of implausible plots, either one effectively controls us).
Finkployd
Well if we are going to reduce this to pure economic decisions then it needs to be balanced on the other side as well. The police who are willing to put themselves in dangerous situations (be in bad neighborhoods or dangerous assignments) should get paid more, and have more money put into training for them. The risk of being filmed (again any police officer who considers this a risk is not fit to wear the badge) will always be there, nothing short of making it illegal to film police (which some would love to do) will change that.
If we are to continue allowing them to choose their own risk level, then they should be rewarded accordingly. I already mentioned that with their additional powers comes responsibility, and with responsibility should come greater reward. I suspect we are not paying these guys nearly enough, obviously UCLA was not paying enough to attract the best and brightest. They seemed to have just enough to hire a repeat bully who was already kicked out of a real police department.
Finkployd
In my state, the crime is still a crime (soliciting sex from a minor), but there are additional penalties assessed if the crime occurs over Internet.
But for Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake, WHY???! What the hell does the Internet have to do with it? Is it somehow worse for a 13 year old to be raped in the Internet was somehow involved? Then you get into the debate over what exactly is the Internet? TCP/IP? What if part of the connection went over an ATM link? Or Packet Radio? Isn't it just a lot easier to say "boffing 13 year olds is illegal" and spell out a punishment for that rather than trying to create a sliding scale of punishment based on what protocol was used during some of the communication?
Finkployd
That makes sense until you understand that loopholes empower lawyers. Then suddenly you realize why there are so many of them.
:)
DING DING DING!
The AC wins the thread.
(this also completely explains the current Tax laws)
Finkployd
My response to that is still the same. If the police cannot do their job for fear someone might see them doing it, then we have a serious problem. Either that police officer is not fit to do the job and needs to be replaced, or he/she needs more training before going out in the field.
As bad police are in a position to do much more damage to society than bad citizens (if only because they have the means, training, and benefit of the doubt both in and out of court), I would prefer the police be more cautious even if it means less effective police work. It is a simple risk assessment, and the crooked cop is potentially much more dangerous given the privileges and powers we as a society give them. Thanks to the proliferation of camera phones we are seeing more and more of this, and more people are realizing that the police are not always the models of truth and justice we thought, they are human just like us. Humans with much greater responsibility however, and obviously in need of constant monitoring.
Finkployd
Apparently it's also illegal to solicit an adult for sex if they happen to type "I AM OWNLY THIRTEEEN LOL!". Shall we discuss Thoughtcrimes now?
So what is your suggestion to fix this? Throw out all "intent" based laws and require that a 13 year old actually be raped before catching someone who is clearly trying to do so?
Maybe we should make it perfectly legal for someone to walk into a bank and shout "nobody move this is a robbery" so long as they do not actually take any money off the premises.
Finkployd
On the other hand, you don't want too 'limp' a police force either...
I cannot think of a single thing a beat cop or traffic cop (lets leave out undercover detective for a second) would do where having a citizen filming it would make them "limp" (lets try to keep this out of the gutter). There is no "national security secrecy" going on here, all of their actions while on duty should be completely transparent and available for public scrutiny (bathroom breaks excepted).
In fact, every honest cop should welcome it, as it would provide evidence in the event of an unwarranted brutality charge. Cops like the ones in this video who threaten to "taser" anyone who so much as asks for a badge number do not deserve to be on the force. No desk job, no paid leave, they need to be "out on their ass" fired.
Finkployd
it's time to rewrite the law from "e-mail" to "electronic correspondence".
Why even specify that? It is illegal to solicit a minor for sex, it does not matter if you do it with email, carrier pigeon, or two plastic cups on a string. What makes email, or even electronic correspondence special?
There would be a lot less loopholes if legislatures would stop trying to be clever and writing laws for specific implementations of technology (which will always out pace them) and just stick to the concepts of what is illegal and what is not.
Finkployd
The decision was definitely in the spirit of the law, even if it does mean "bending" the letter of the law.
I'm glad the guy was convicted, but this is still a dangerous road to go down. What other technical concepts can a judge stretch and break to get the desired result in court?
The fault partially lies with the legislature for writing a law which is limited to email (did they specify RFC 2821 or something?) which really should hold true no matter what communication protocol was used. Why is email special? Technology moves many time faster than the speed of legislation (usually this is a good thing) so they really ought to stick to referring to concepts and no implementation details when writing laws.
Finkployd
I'll be watching this thread closely, I made the mistake of putting of my my pictures in iPhoto (which is a fine program otherwise) and I find I am unable to get out of it. The pictures are categorized nicely in directories but the tags and such are not transferable to any other program as far as I can tell. I would really like to move to F-Spot but I don't feel like duplicating hours of work on some 3000 pictures.
Finkployd
Well lets face it, nobody wants a camera on them the entire time they are working just looking for a slip up. I doubt I would fare very well, hell, I'm posting to slashdot right now.
The difference is that a law enforcement officer is given (by the people) enhanced powers and rights above that of a normal citizen. Enough cannot be done to ensure that nobody in this position ever abuses this power or messes up when they have this responsibility. As far as I am concerned there should never be a time when an officer is on duty that he/she does not have a camera on them. I have severe distrust for any police officer who does not believe that the citizenry can (and should) film them performing the duties we pay them for (like that officer who arrested the guy for taking a picture of him arresting someone a while ago).
Finkployd
It has been years since I have run into a banking website that was IE only. Either way, prudence dictates that you test it first obviously.
Finkployd
Once you have done this, logout of your grandma
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner in the "most disturbing thing ever uttered on slashdot" category.
Finkployd
When you need to struggle to convince people that they NEED to buy your new product, and that the old one is not good enough, perhaps the problem is with you. Or perhaps the problem is that your customers know that in 2010 Microsoft will be trashing the software they are talking up now in a pathetic attempt to get you to upgrade again.
You know, there is only so many pointless features you can cram into programs that basically replace a typewriter and calculator (with graph paper) respectively. I know very few people who need more than Office 95 had to offer.
Finkployd