Like the rest of the world, the U.N. would like to think that China and their human rights abuses don't exist.
You're aware of the fact that the United States was kicked off the human rights counsel, and that's when China became a member, correct? Unlike the United States, China has pledged to the UN to make human rights reforms -- whereas the US was stubbornly belligerant about the whole "enemy combatant" / Guantanamo Bay business, as well as a lack of shield laws for journalists, who can be jailed indefinately for publishing information critical or embarassing to the government. Apparently a "we're pretty bad, but we're working on it" means more to the counsel than "we're okay, not great, but we're not changing" from a policy standpoint.
If government control was working so well, this officer would have had no reason not to stay within the (ahem!) "proper" channels.
Not taking sides here, but this doesn't account for people who go outside the system because they want attention or to make a political statement. Having "proper" channels doesn't ensure their use.
No, blatantly misrepresenting the concept of freedom of speech in the US, arguing for censorship of the information in the US on the basis of German laws, and making an extremely dishonest comparison between the release of private information like pictures of yourself naked and public information like that you fucking murdered someone is flamebait. The only thing sad here is that you think you actually have a proper argument.
"These people [i.e., the printers] think they have a right to everything, however secret or sacred." -Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1815.
...people with large sums of money have more freedoms than people who don't.
He had a large sum of money on him, and as a result was detained for hours and strip-searched, as well as being accused of being a terrorist and denied access to a lawyer or charged with any crime. Meanwhile, the guy who only had $15 and a cracker in his pocket was able to get on the plane. Tell me again how the guy with the money had more freedoms in this case?
The article and your comment is that convictions should be private and I pointed out where that information is useful to the public.
Mentioning pedophilia is trolling. It has no bearing on the discussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan's_Law
Megan's Law "requires persons convicted of sex crimes against children to notify local law enforcement of any change of address or employment after release from custody (prison or psychiatric facility)." There is no public disclosure requirement. That is handled by each state individually.
I'll bet there are a lot of dictators who agree totally
I'd prefer a smart dictator over majority rule any day of the week. At least with the dictator, I know what I'm getting. With a mob, anything's possible. There's a lot to be said for choosing the devil you know.
Do you really think it's appropriate to block an employer or a potential spouse from getting this information?
Honestly, yes. The harm to society for having all these people who are marginally employable, or completely unemployable, is a lot higher than the benefit from public disclosure. These people are disadvantaged and have been in jail: They may not have been a professional criminal before, but when they leave each and every one of them has the skillset. If we're going to lower the rate of re-offending they need to be given an even footing and help reintegrating. If we aren't willing to do that, then we might as well just lock everyone up who's convincted of any non-trivial offense and never let them out -- because we've doomed them to a life of crime without any possibility of redemption.
And when they kill again, say at a job, the employer can just shrug off responsibility because the law says you're not supposed to know they kill people.
Yes, and the gun manufacturer will also "shrug off responsibility" for making the gun he used to kill again. Other people are not responsible for your actions, and vice versa.
How about pedophiles being hired at schools?
Most of my friends have been molested, especially my female friends. Many of us have been sexually assaulted as adults. For every one they catch, there's fifty more they miss. You want to make a difference? Find a treatment for the problem, or at least a way to accurately identify them. The legal system does an abysmal job of it and often convicts the innocent as well. That said -- your comment was a troll. pedophilia has nothing to do with the legal doctrine under discussion here, nor of free speech, any other related concept.
What about the rights of Walter Sedlmayr, who the duo tortured, mutilated, and killed because he was gay? He apparently doesn't matter anymore, you know, because they murdered him.
Speaking as someone who is gay, he certainly does matter. Every life matters. But that's not what's at issue, and this is just an emotional appeal. And probably flamebait too.
Everyone makes mistakes, right? Hogwash.
Okay, you're perfect. It's the rest of us that are mortal.
So these men should have a chance at a normal life again? What about Sedlmayr's normal life?
Yes, they should. As to Sedlmayr's "normal life" -- it's been over for some time. I prefer to focus on the living, and what can be done for them. Once my time has come, I would hope my family and friends would not dwell on it to the point that they forget to live as well.
I know of no such restriction that protection of speech is limited to only speech regarding the government. In fact, I'm quite sure that speech protection covers discussing all historical events. Some of the few restrictions are libel, slander, and obscenity.
Your list of restrictions is way too short:
* copyright protection * commercial speech, such as advertising. * slander, libel, obcenity. * on private property * on public property where there are "security concerns" -- see also: 'free speech zones', public protest. * hate speech * child pornography * political campaigns / finance laws * time, place, and manner restrictions * inciting a crowd...
Specifically, you state that historical references must be protected. That is simply not true.
The examples you give are potentially private matters, so addressing them only clouds the issue. This particular case is very much NOT a private matter, and from the article was extraordinary public and common knowledge.
Legally, it doesn't matter how many people observe or know about it.
The idea that the public at large is supposed to "by law" forget about a very public event and not refer to the perpetrators in print is simply abhorrent to me. Are the victims no longer allowed to refer to the assailants by name?
The victims are no longer allowed to name the person(s) who committed the crime once their sentence is completed. And the law does not state you must forget the event, merely that you must not state (by name) the person(s) involved, once the sentence has been carried out.
Forgive and forget? Seems pretty short-sighted. I'm not sure I'd call murder a "mistake". An act like this *should* haunt the perpetrators for the rest of their lives.
The life of the law has not been logic: It has been experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes And as far as calling murder a mistake -- come home and find your wife sleeping with another man and then we'll talk about that.
Except for the guy they killed. Where's his freedom and chance? Lastly, what about the victim's family and friends? How about their chances for normal lives without the murder of their loved-one haunting them. Some things cannot be forgiven and some things should definitely not be forgotten.
A standard disclaimer for the stock market is also true of the legal system: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." And for the record, forgiveness isn't for the benefit of the criminal, but rather the victim.
Actually, no that is not the fundamental premise of the US concept of freedom of speech. It is that the prior restraint of speech is so onerous that it is not allowed; so that open debate can be had around issues.
*face palm* This is just a restatement of what I said, but with bigger words.
Yes, and in the US we have the right of free speech. The solution is not to suppress speech but to change the concept of how past infractions are viewed. While the later is a difficult task; repressing speech in the name of protecting people's rights is far worse.
Actually, in this case, the solution is the suppression of speech: If such speech is harmful. Slander and libel cases in this country move forward and information is removed from the internet all the time on this basis. You can't change other people's minds -- there's always going to be some person or group that believes they are right and the law is wrong. Unfortunately for them, the law is better armed.
Of course, as information becomes easier to access people also need to modify behaviors in light of changing technology; which they have been doing since the beginning of time. That is the real solution, IMHO.
A very general statement; And one that ignores the role the government plays in guiding the behaviors of its citizens.
Our society would do well to simply accept the present state of instant and everpresent information instead of trying to suppress it.
"You should just accept it because everyone else has. It's inevitable. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." We all know how well that's worked out historically.
Once the information is out, there's no way to lock it down again,
Just because there's not a way to do it now is not somehow proof against it ever being done, or the necessity of finding a way. Also, my delete button still works. Is your keyboard busted?
Essentially, it's impossible, no matter how many laws you make.
That is because of cross-jurisdictional and international law considerations... An entirely artificial problem. And thus, solvable.
The technology for instant everpresent information can't be unlearned. We've spent many centuries perfecting it since Gutenberg's printing press.
Well, the technology for blowing us all up in a nuclear holocaust also exists, and we've spent about fifty years perfecting that. While it can't be unlearned either, we've figured out ways of living with it, as opposed to dying because of it. You're assuming the temporary state that we have now with current technology being ahead of effective controls for it is a permanent situation. It isn't.
Also, Gutenberg was sued, went bankrupt, and then exiled for his work. While it may not have stopped the advancement of the printing press, it certainly left its principal creator in ruin. He was rescued near the end of his life by the government, who gave him a stipend (welfare) as thanks. Few people knew of his achievement in his lifetime and he died in relative obscurity.
I'm sure a lot of people are going to come out against the position of Germany's culture on this, citing freedom of speech. Freedom of speech, in the United States at least, is not given to citizens so that they can harm other people's reputations or hold them accountable for their actions. It is there so that actions by the government can be openly criticized and constructive dialog be established between (and amongst) citizens and the government, without fear of reprisal. It is there for the betterment of everyone. If there is no benefit to society, no protection is granted.
These people have served their sentences. They have been punished according to the law of their land, and then released. In this country, a person's criminal record haunts them for life -- denying them jobs, restricting their freedoms, and in some cases leading to a greatly diminished quality of life such that they are forced into criminal enterprise in order to meet basic needs. But in Germany, these laws are crafted so that people can have a chance at a normal life again--A chance at redemption. It is recognized that people make mistakes, but these mistakes shouldn't haunt them for the rest of their lives. The government has stepped in to ensure that any adult citizen that has their freedom also has the same chances as the next.
As far as the internet -- do we really want it to be a tool that enables a person's past mistakes to haunt them forever? That any personal information, once released into it, somehow becomes public property? Those naked photos your boyfriend took of you when you thought you'd be with him forever -- are those public property once he breaks up with you and posts them online? How about the records of your divorce, or the reasons why you were fired? What about that one night when your best friend tried to walk out of the bar drunk, and you stole the car keys and the two of you got into a big fight and the police were called? You want the whole world to know about these things? Or--was it just a mistake and once amends have been made then that's the end of it?
Just because the information is out there doesn't mean it should be. Information doesn't have rights -- people do.
"America has no credible deterrent, and our adversaries prove it every day by attacking everywhere,"
And who's to blame for that?
The goverment allowed hundreds of thousands of IT jobs to be shipped overseas, we no longer have the labor resources to secure our domestic infrastructure. The government allowed private businesses to copyright and patent everything, there's no further incentive for innovation from the private sector in this country. We wind up spending what limited resources are available for R&D reinventing the wheel constantly. Because we've handed so much control over to multinational authorities like ICANN, we no longer can impliment policy decisions. Where is IPv6? We're facing a resource shortage, but not only that, IPv6 provides for much wider deployment of encryption, and yet here we are dragging our feet. Why is that?
If this were any kind of a priority, I think we'd see the government making an honest and sincere effort to fix some of these problems. But they aren't. Which tells me that cybersecurity "problems" are a paper tiger. There won't be any changes until a few thousand people die from a "cyber-terror" attack. Our government has always been reactive in nature -- preferring to procrastinate and delay until after the bomb explodes, and then swoop in to justify its relevance and 35% tax rates.
You know, when CDs and DVDs came out, they claimed they would last 50 years. I have yet to find one that lasts longer than 5. So I'd say, 1,000 years translates to about a hundred years, tops. Also, it may not be vulnerable to humidity in a controlled environment, but in the outdoors, a few seasons of freezing/melting and it'll be shot. Water beats rock every time.
Wow! This software is *incredible* if mountain dew spilled on top of one machine is instantly replicated on the other machine! I'm gonna go read the source immediately, this has huge ramifications! In particular, if an officemate gets coffee and I also want coffee, only one of us needs to actually purchase a cup!
I told them quantum computing was a bad idea, but nobody listened...
I told them quantum computing was a bad idea, but nobody listened...
... Of course, this ignores the fact that if it's a software glitch, it'll happily replicate the bug into the copy. Also, there are certain hardware bugs that will also replicate: Mountain dew spilled on top of the unit, for example. There's this huge push for virtualization, but it only solves a few classes of failure conditions. No amount of virtualization will save you if the server room starts on fire and the primary system and backup are colocated. Keep this in mind when talking about "High Availability" systems.
On a different note, nothing that's claimed to be transparent in IT ever is. Whenever I hear that word, I usually cancel my afternoon appointments... Nothing is ever transparent in this industry. Only managers use that word. The rest of us use the term "hopefully".
Slashdot Mirror
Like the rest of the world, the U.N. would like to think that China and their human rights abuses don't exist.
You're aware of the fact that the United States was kicked off the human rights counsel, and that's when China became a member, correct? Unlike the United States, China has pledged to the UN to make human rights reforms -- whereas the US was stubbornly belligerant about the whole "enemy combatant" / Guantanamo Bay business, as well as a lack of shield laws for journalists, who can be jailed indefinately for publishing information critical or embarassing to the government. Apparently a "we're pretty bad, but we're working on it" means more to the counsel than "we're okay, not great, but we're not changing" from a policy standpoint.
Luckily, you're not smart enough for people to care what you think.
Says the person without a +1 karma bonus...
If government control was working so well, this officer would have had no reason not to stay within the (ahem!) "proper" channels.
Not taking sides here, but this doesn't account for people who go outside the system because they want attention or to make a political statement. Having "proper" channels doesn't ensure their use.
nah. I just think you're a dick.
No, blatantly misrepresenting the concept of freedom of speech in the US, arguing for censorship of the information in the US on the basis of German laws, and making an extremely dishonest comparison between the release of private information like pictures of yourself naked and public information like that you fucking murdered someone is flamebait. The only thing sad here is that you think you actually have a proper argument.
"These people [i.e., the printers] think they have a right to everything, however secret or sacred." -Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1815.
You will not like it.
It will not be over quickly.
...people with large sums of money have more freedoms than people who don't.
He had a large sum of money on him, and as a result was detained for hours and strip-searched, as well as being accused of being a terrorist and denied access to a lawyer or charged with any crime. Meanwhile, the guy who only had $15 and a cracker in his pocket was able to get on the plane. Tell me again how the guy with the money had more freedoms in this case?
She said the directives would not be released unless a Freedom Of Information Act request was submitted by The Washington Times.
The law is not available for inspection, citizen. Now drop your pants.
Defending cultural values that are not popularily held in the United States is apparently flamebait on slashdot. Sad.
The article and your comment is that convictions should be private and I pointed out where that information is useful to the public.
Mentioning pedophilia is trolling. It has no bearing on the discussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan's_Law
Megan's Law "requires persons convicted of sex crimes against children to notify local law enforcement of any change of address or employment after release from custody (prison or psychiatric facility)." There is no public disclosure requirement. That is handled by each state individually.
I'll bet there are a lot of dictators who agree totally
I'd prefer a smart dictator over majority rule any day of the week. At least with the dictator, I know what I'm getting. With a mob, anything's possible. There's a lot to be said for choosing the devil you know.
Do you really think it's appropriate to block an employer or a potential spouse from getting this information?
Honestly, yes. The harm to society for having all these people who are marginally employable, or completely unemployable, is a lot higher than the benefit from public disclosure. These people are disadvantaged and have been in jail: They may not have been a professional criminal before, but when they leave each and every one of them has the skillset. If we're going to lower the rate of re-offending they need to be given an even footing and help reintegrating. If we aren't willing to do that, then we might as well just lock everyone up who's convincted of any non-trivial offense and never let them out -- because we've doomed them to a life of crime without any possibility of redemption.
And when they kill again, say at a job, the employer can just shrug off responsibility because the law says you're not supposed to know they kill people.
Yes, and the gun manufacturer will also "shrug off responsibility" for making the gun he used to kill again. Other people are not responsible for your actions, and vice versa.
How about pedophiles being hired at schools?
Most of my friends have been molested, especially my female friends. Many of us have been sexually assaulted as adults. For every one they catch, there's fifty more they miss. You want to make a difference? Find a treatment for the problem, or at least a way to accurately identify them. The legal system does an abysmal job of it and often convicts the innocent as well. That said -- your comment was a troll. pedophilia has nothing to do with the legal doctrine under discussion here, nor of free speech, any other related concept.
What about the rights of Walter Sedlmayr, who the duo tortured, mutilated, and killed because he was gay? He apparently doesn't matter anymore, you know, because they murdered him.
Speaking as someone who is gay, he certainly does matter. Every life matters. But that's not what's at issue, and this is just an emotional appeal. And probably flamebait too.
Everyone makes mistakes, right? Hogwash.
Okay, you're perfect. It's the rest of us that are mortal.
So these men should have a chance at a normal life again? What about Sedlmayr's normal life?
Yes, they should. As to Sedlmayr's "normal life" -- it's been over for some time. I prefer to focus on the living, and what can be done for them. Once my time has come, I would hope my family and friends would not dwell on it to the point that they forget to live as well.
I know of no such restriction that protection of speech is limited to only speech regarding the government. In fact, I'm quite sure that speech protection covers discussing all historical events. Some of the few restrictions are libel, slander, and obscenity.
Your list of restrictions is way too short:
* copyright protection ...
* commercial speech, such as advertising.
* slander, libel, obcenity.
* on private property
* on public property where there are "security concerns" -- see also: 'free speech zones', public protest.
* hate speech
* child pornography
* political campaigns / finance laws
* time, place, and manner restrictions
* inciting a crowd
Specifically, you state that historical references must be protected. That is simply not true.
The examples you give are potentially private matters, so addressing them only clouds the issue. This particular case is very much NOT a private matter, and from the article was extraordinary public and common knowledge.
Legally, it doesn't matter how many people observe or know about it.
The idea that the public at large is supposed to "by law" forget about a very public event and not refer to the perpetrators in print is simply abhorrent to me. Are the victims no longer allowed to refer to the assailants by name?
The victims are no longer allowed to name the person(s) who committed the crime once their sentence is completed. And the law does not state you must forget the event, merely that you must not state (by name) the person(s) involved, once the sentence has been carried out.
Forgive and forget? Seems pretty short-sighted. I'm not sure I'd call murder a "mistake". An act like this *should* haunt the perpetrators for the rest of their lives.
The life of the law has not been logic: It has been experience. - Oliver Wendell Holmes And as far as calling murder a mistake -- come home and find your wife sleeping with another man and then we'll talk about that.
Except for the guy they killed. Where's his freedom and chance? Lastly, what about the victim's family and friends? How about their chances for normal lives without the murder of their loved-one haunting them. Some things cannot be forgiven and some things should definitely not be forgotten.
A standard disclaimer for the stock market is also true of the legal system: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results." And for the record, forgiveness isn't for the benefit of the criminal, but rather the victim.
Actually, no that is not the fundamental premise of the US concept of freedom of speech. It is that the prior restraint of speech is so onerous that it is not allowed; so that open debate can be had around issues.
*face palm* This is just a restatement of what I said, but with bigger words.
Yes, and in the US we have the right of free speech. The solution is not to suppress speech but to change the concept of how past infractions are viewed. While the later is a difficult task; repressing speech in the name of protecting people's rights is far worse.
Actually, in this case, the solution is the suppression of speech: If such speech is harmful. Slander and libel cases in this country move forward and information is removed from the internet all the time on this basis. You can't change other people's minds -- there's always going to be some person or group that believes they are right and the law is wrong. Unfortunately for them, the law is better armed.
Of course, as information becomes easier to access people also need to modify behaviors in light of changing technology; which they have been doing since the beginning of time. That is the real solution, IMHO.
A very general statement; And one that ignores the role the government plays in guiding the behaviors of its citizens.
Our society would do well to simply accept the present state of instant and everpresent information instead of trying to suppress it.
"You should just accept it because everyone else has. It's inevitable. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." We all know how well that's worked out historically.
Once the information is out, there's no way to lock it down again,
Just because there's not a way to do it now is not somehow proof against it ever being done, or the necessity of finding a way. Also, my delete button still works. Is your keyboard busted?
Essentially, it's impossible, no matter how many laws you make.
That is because of cross-jurisdictional and international law considerations... An entirely artificial problem. And thus, solvable.
The technology for instant everpresent information can't be unlearned. We've spent many centuries perfecting it since Gutenberg's printing press.
Well, the technology for blowing us all up in a nuclear holocaust also exists, and we've spent about fifty years perfecting that. While it can't be unlearned either, we've figured out ways of living with it, as opposed to dying because of it. You're assuming the temporary state that we have now with current technology being ahead of effective controls for it is a permanent situation. It isn't.
Also, Gutenberg was sued, went bankrupt, and then exiled for his work. While it may not have stopped the advancement of the printing press, it certainly left its principal creator in ruin. He was rescued near the end of his life by the government, who gave him a stipend (welfare) as thanks. Few people knew of his achievement in his lifetime and he died in relative obscurity.
I'm sure a lot of people are going to come out against the position of Germany's culture on this, citing freedom of speech. Freedom of speech, in the United States at least, is not given to citizens so that they can harm other people's reputations or hold them accountable for their actions. It is there so that actions by the government can be openly criticized and constructive dialog be established between (and amongst) citizens and the government, without fear of reprisal. It is there for the betterment of everyone. If there is no benefit to society, no protection is granted.
These people have served their sentences. They have been punished according to the law of their land, and then released. In this country, a person's criminal record haunts them for life -- denying them jobs, restricting their freedoms, and in some cases leading to a greatly diminished quality of life such that they are forced into criminal enterprise in order to meet basic needs. But in Germany, these laws are crafted so that people can have a chance at a normal life again--A chance at redemption. It is recognized that people make mistakes, but these mistakes shouldn't haunt them for the rest of their lives. The government has stepped in to ensure that any adult citizen that has their freedom also has the same chances as the next.
As far as the internet -- do we really want it to be a tool that enables a person's past mistakes to haunt them forever? That any personal information, once released into it, somehow becomes public property? Those naked photos your boyfriend took of you when you thought you'd be with him forever -- are those public property once he breaks up with you and posts them online? How about the records of your divorce, or the reasons why you were fired? What about that one night when your best friend tried to walk out of the bar drunk, and you stole the car keys and the two of you got into a big fight and the police were called? You want the whole world to know about these things? Or--was it just a mistake and once amends have been made then that's the end of it?
Just because the information is out there doesn't mean it should be. Information doesn't have rights -- people do.
"America has no credible deterrent, and our adversaries prove it every day by attacking everywhere,"
And who's to blame for that?
The goverment allowed hundreds of thousands of IT jobs to be shipped overseas, we no longer have the labor resources to secure our domestic infrastructure. The government allowed private businesses to copyright and patent everything, there's no further incentive for innovation from the private sector in this country. We wind up spending what limited resources are available for R&D reinventing the wheel constantly. Because we've handed so much control over to multinational authorities like ICANN, we no longer can impliment policy decisions. Where is IPv6? We're facing a resource shortage, but not only that, IPv6 provides for much wider deployment of encryption, and yet here we are dragging our feet. Why is that?
If this were any kind of a priority, I think we'd see the government making an honest and sincere effort to fix some of these problems. But they aren't. Which tells me that cybersecurity "problems" are a paper tiger. There won't be any changes until a few thousand people die from a "cyber-terror" attack. Our government has always been reactive in nature -- preferring to procrastinate and delay until after the bomb explodes, and then swoop in to justify its relevance and 35% tax rates.
You know, when CDs and DVDs came out, they claimed they would last 50 years. I have yet to find one that lasts longer than 5. So I'd say, 1,000 years translates to about a hundred years, tops. Also, it may not be vulnerable to humidity in a controlled environment, but in the outdoors, a few seasons of freezing/melting and it'll be shot. Water beats rock every time.
brb, dividing by zero on bing
Found 1 result:
LHC_Homepage ... LHC Safety. LHC Cooldown Status. LHC@ interactions.org ... Revised: 2009-09-30 LHC Webmaster.
LHC - THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER
LHC NEWS - Cooldown_status - CERN Document Server
www.cern.ch/lhc
Wow! This software is *incredible* if mountain dew spilled on top of one machine is instantly replicated on the other machine! I'm gonna go read the source immediately, this has huge ramifications! In particular, if an officemate gets coffee and I also want coffee, only one of us needs to actually purchase a cup!
I told them quantum computing was a bad idea, but nobody listened...
I told them quantum computing was a bad idea, but nobody listened...
I told them...
Upon turning on your phone, it demands a cookie.
Your phone tells you it needs antivirus installed.
Hold music is replaced by a twisted AI that sings about cake and says it's okay if you want to leave (a message). ...
... Of course, this ignores the fact that if it's a software glitch, it'll happily replicate the bug into the copy. Also, there are certain hardware bugs that will also replicate: Mountain dew spilled on top of the unit, for example. There's this huge push for virtualization, but it only solves a few classes of failure conditions. No amount of virtualization will save you if the server room starts on fire and the primary system and backup are colocated. Keep this in mind when talking about "High Availability" systems.
On a different note, nothing that's claimed to be transparent in IT ever is. Whenever I hear that word, I usually cancel my afternoon appointments... Nothing is ever transparent in this industry. Only managers use that word. The rest of us use the term "hopefully".