...I dont see it as a 4th amendment issue anymore then someone on the street overhearing what you are doing inside your house.
Yup, you're right; it's not a 4th amendment issue. It's a ninth amendment issue -- the lost and forgotten amendment which, if we could only rediscover it, would stop all of this nonsense handily.
The Navy tried to develop an approximately circular airplane, with conventional propulsion, during WW2 -- long before the 1947 incident that added "flying saucer" to the vernacular. Google "Flying Flapjack".
Little known fact: before being invaded during WWII, the French military was working on a top-secret aircraft dubbed "the flying souffle". It was unfortunately too delicate for active warfare and was infamous for its trouble with stable vertical lift.
I keep a D10 handy for just such mundane decisions - those where the outcome really doesn't matter - and it makes life interesting. It's actually fun not knowing what you are going to do all the time.
It is also a bit relaxing to know that I don't have to waste any time on those thoughts; just roll the die and get on with life. I can't say I apply it to getting dressed, but choosing what to have for breakfast falls into that category.
Actually, now that you mention it, I think it'd be freakin' awesome to roll the dice when it comes to choosing what to wear -- especially if a critical fumble means you then have to wear your underwear on your head for the rest of the day.
It's not the clothes that I'm concerned about. There are far larger matters at stake every day of our lives as one day we will die, and the best that we can hope for is that we leave a better world for friends, family and other people to live in.
Well, it's the clothes I'm worried about. I mean, when I'm invited to a dinner party, I do my utmost to not clash with the Robertsons, naturally, but I also dress so I don't clash with the drapes. It would be utterly beastly of me to do either.
I was unclear. I was saying that as an agnostic, I don't see how either side are so sure of themselves. There's no clear evidence that I can see either way. So, to me, atheists and theists both are making unproven assertions of faith.
Oh, alright, I appreciate your clarification.
My main point is that, depending on what god is described, it certainly can be (and has been) disproven. In these instances, it is not a mere assertion that this particular god doesn't exist. Also, due to the null hypothesis, it's reasonable, rational, and logical (i.e., normal) to have a stance toward any god-concept to be that it/they do not exist without providing some sort of positive evidence of that existence. Again, no faith required for the null hypothesis; in other words, no faith is required to firmly state that gods do not exist without having some evidence to support this existence.
There is also ample evidence that gods have been and are invented by humans and do not have any kind of existence outside of imagination. So there is that then as well.
Any way you slice it, there is simply no equivalence between theists and atheists, even if some atheists have arrived at their particular conclusions in an illogical or purely irrational manner. The irrationality of some atheists and their particular manner of concluding the non-existence of gods does in no way support the theist perspective of the existence of gods.
I wonder if you could just point out that atheism by some standards is just as much a religion as theism.
Oh, this old canard again? Yawn.
You believe there are no gods,
Firstly, a lack of evidence isn't a belief no matter how hard the theists try and spin it. Secondly, the null hypothesis states that gods do not exist unless evidence is shown for them.
you can prove it only as much as one can prove there ARE gods.
Thirdly, on those rare occasions where a theist puts forth a coherent, rational god concept, it's found to be easily disproven, thus your statements are incorrect.
How the hell would we ever have enough "social funds" to cure the important things like flaccid penises and hair loss that affects millions of very rich people?
My penis is flaccid, you insensi... I mean... my hair is being lost, you insensitive clod!
I also believe that the GP is incorrect. Using your market power to literally exclude other competitors is textbook monopolization and I'm sure MS wouldn't do that.
LOL
What they would do, however, is to offer huge discounts if you use an all-MS shop. You can use GPL software for stuff like Apache or Pidgin, but desktops would be much cheaper if you all used Windows and Office, for example.
True, plus another thing that I guessing is keeping non-MS software out of some businesses is that the MS rep says something along the lines of, "Oh, sure, you can run whatever software you want, it's your shop. We won't support it though. We'll of course still charge full price for support of our software whether you use it or not."
This will keep many businesses from obtaining other software more so than any kind of supposed contract.
Right there, driving a passenger vehicle that is emitting detectable and significant amounts of radiation
Detectable, obviously. You're piling on words like "significant" to bolster your emotionally-laden position. It's not enough to kill the guy that has the shit coursing through his veins, now is it?
The "specific crime" part comes after they arrest you
No, it comes before. I'll type this very slowly for you so you understand: police officers cannot decide to pull you over or stop you on a whim. They need to have a reason to do so -- which means a specific crime that they think you're committing.
This dogged insistence that they cannot and will not arrest you, or even investigate you, until they've determined the specific crime they think you may have committed is adorably naive, and no doubt based on hours of studious review of NCIS, CSI, and Law & Order reruns... but... still... it's wrong.
So in other words, cops can stop you on a whim and decide what crime to charge you with after they've investigated you for anything whatsoever. What you're saying now is that cops suddenly do not need reasonable articulable suspicion of wrongdoing which you've claimed all along in this thread that they do need. Or are you saying that reasonable articulable suspicion is whatever a cop decides at the moment and will arrest you for whatever later?
I think I'm now going to ask you to provide evidence of your assertions then and you can go ahead and help me recover from my adorable naivete.
He doesn't have to. If the stop were actually challenged, all he has to day is that his detector showed radioactivity at that time
Great, then he'd be able to provide evidence that that's what the detector showed.
or more likely, "I don't remember the incident your Honor." Now, all you have to do is prove he's lying.
LOL A cop telling the judge he "doesn't remember the incident" but he's standing in court anyway? What are you, twelve? "+3 Insightful" my ass.
Anyway, I don't have to prove jack shit in court as I'm the defendant. If the cops can't come up with valid evidence that the prosecution can use to try and convict me, then the judge throws it out -- or more likely, the prosecution doesn't even bother with filing charges AND if it's really bogus, the cop may open himself up to legal charges of his own (fat chance, though).
One more time: that's not the only crime which it is possible to commit with radiological materials. And it is *reasonable* to suspect that someone who is driving down the street emitting enough radiation to show up on a radiation detector may be engaged in unlawful activity, or a *victim* of unlawful activity.
What specific crime, then, is he being investigated for? That's what the cops need to show.
"I detected radiation being emitted from the vehicle. I saw no signage indicating the vehicle was being used in transportation of hazardous radioactive material. Based on this, I suspected that the operator might be transporting radioactive material illegally, and might intend to dispose of it illegally, creating a public health hazard during the transport and after disposal. Based on this suspicion, I made a traffic stop to investigate."
It isn't enough even for reasonable articulable suspicion to stop someone for something that, absent any other factors, does not demonstrate a crime taking place.
Without knowing exactly what they did, it's reasonable to assume they searched his car. Generally, this requires a warrant unless it's incident to an arrest, and even then, there are limits.
Exactly, and what happened is more than likely that the man complied because he's under the mistaken notion that "if I don't have anything to hide, there's no reason to refuse."
There's not much legal precentdent either way as to whether or not slight radioactivity consitutes probable cause, but it's a very worrying slippery slope if it does.
There's plenty of legal precedent that says that cops can't pull you over or question you without at least reasonable articulable suspicion that a specific crime is being committed. In other words, slight radioactivity is not, in and of itself, enough to constitute probable cause nor reasonable articulable suspicion.
But what a human being *does with* those radioactivity-emitting isotopes can very well be a crime, or can be evidence that they themselves have been a victim of a crime.
Sure, and that's why I also included the crime of attempted bombing which would still need more for reasonable articulable suspicion. As I said, I don't think this was the case and the man was stopped purely for the radioactivity which ordinarily is not enough to justify the detention.
As it is, here on Slashdot, all you have to do to guarantee a host of "HURR DURR KKKOPS R KKKURUPT" comments is post an article titled "Police Officer does something." Because nothing else is required to try, convict, and sentence a cop in the court of Slashdot's public opinion other than a job title.
Me, personally, I hold cops (and, by extension, judges and other government personnel) to a much higher standard than I would other persons. But, at any rate, I think that my comments rise higher than "HURR DURR KKKOPS R KKKURUPT" however.
What is seemingly lost during this particular debate is that the cops still need suspicion of a SPECIFIC law that is being broken.
If it's an attempted bombing, then the presence of higher than normal levels of radiation is still not enough even for reasonable articulable suspicion because it's not illegal in and of itself.
It's REASONABLE ARTICULABLE SUSPICION and when a person isn't doing anything illegal, there must be more to it than simply emitting radiation which isn't illegal.
"Reasonable suspicion" is a yes/no question: could a reasonable person conclude that these facts are indicative of a crime? If the answer is "yes" (and yes, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for "car emits radiation" that would make that scenario criminal), then the officer has *reasonable suspicion* to make a traffic stop and ask some questions.
Would a reasonable person conclude that the mere presence of radiation above normal levels is indicative of a crime? No. Emitting radioactivity is not a crime in and of itself. So, a reasonable person would ask themselves, what other factors are in play that might give rise to reasonable articulable suspicion? In this instance, there were probably none. As such, he should have been left alone.
A cop, on the other hand, will not bother asking himself anything and pull the car over because he knows that people are generally easy to take advantage of.
I can only assume you know all of these facts, which is why you've concluded that this is a tyrannical police state activity.
It's a tyrannical police state activity because the man did nothing illegal; he wasn't stopped for doing something illegal. Most likely, there were no other signs or indicators of a crime about to be committed; they probably relied on peoples' general willingness to be 'helpful' to the cops, so they pulled him over.
Well, since all they need to stop you and investigate is *reasonable suspicion,* I'd say that this stop was entirely within the bounds of good sense and reason.
And what crime was he being investigated for? The phrase is called, by the way, reasonable articulable suspicion -- a cop has to (theoretically) be able to explain in front of a judge just exactly what his suspicion was and how it was reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
...I dont see it as a 4th amendment issue anymore then someone on the street overhearing what you are doing inside your house.
Yup, you're right; it's not a 4th amendment issue. It's a ninth amendment issue -- the lost and forgotten amendment which, if we could only rediscover it, would stop all of this nonsense handily.
I think this is just a bunch of guys wanting to get thermal images of Women's breasts.
Isn't that what the TSA is for?
If there's breast cancer in your family, particularly in male members
If there's breast cancer in male members, wouldn't it be called penis cancer?
The Navy tried to develop an approximately circular airplane, with conventional propulsion, during WW2 -- long before the 1947 incident that added "flying saucer" to the vernacular. Google "Flying Flapjack".
Little known fact: before being invaded during WWII, the French military was working on a top-secret aircraft dubbed "the flying souffle". It was unfortunately too delicate for active warfare and was infamous for its trouble with stable vertical lift.
On the other hand, it was quite delicious.
I'm trying to still wrap my head around the inspirations for Renaissance paintings like The Madonna with Saint Giovannino.
Try: http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/ufos-in-ancient-art/
HTH
I keep a D10 handy for just such mundane decisions - those where the outcome really doesn't matter - and it makes life interesting. It's actually fun not knowing what you are going to do all the time.
It is also a bit relaxing to know that I don't have to waste any time on those thoughts; just roll the die and get on with life. I can't say I apply it to getting dressed, but choosing what to have for breakfast falls into that category.
Actually, now that you mention it, I think it'd be freakin' awesome to roll the dice when it comes to choosing what to wear -- especially if a critical fumble means you then have to wear your underwear on your head for the rest of the day.
It's not the clothes that I'm concerned about. There are far larger matters at stake every day of our lives as one day we will die, and the best that we can hope for is that we leave a better world for friends, family and other people to live in.
Well, it's the clothes I'm worried about. I mean, when I'm invited to a dinner party, I do my utmost to not clash with the Robertsons, naturally, but I also dress so I don't clash with the drapes. It would be utterly beastly of me to do either.
So tell me, how many wars have you fought?
By myself or me with whose army?
It depends.
There ya go. There's your answer.
Wear Depends adult diapers while at work and you'll never have to suffer the humiliation of pressing the 'bathroom' button again!
I was unclear. I was saying that as an agnostic, I don't see how either side are so sure of themselves. There's no clear evidence that I can see either way. So, to me, atheists and theists both are making unproven assertions of faith.
Oh, alright, I appreciate your clarification.
My main point is that, depending on what god is described, it certainly can be (and has been) disproven. In these instances, it is not a mere assertion that this particular god doesn't exist. Also, due to the null hypothesis, it's reasonable, rational, and logical (i.e., normal) to have a stance toward any god-concept to be that it/they do not exist without providing some sort of positive evidence of that existence. Again, no faith required for the null hypothesis; in other words, no faith is required to firmly state that gods do not exist without having some evidence to support this existence.
There is also ample evidence that gods have been and are invented by humans and do not have any kind of existence outside of imagination. So there is that then as well.
Any way you slice it, there is simply no equivalence between theists and atheists, even if some atheists have arrived at their particular conclusions in an illogical or purely irrational manner. The irrationality of some atheists and their particular manner of concluding the non-existence of gods does in no way support the theist perspective of the existence of gods.
I wonder if you could just point out that atheism by some standards is just as much a religion as theism.
Oh, this old canard again? Yawn.
You believe there are no gods,
Firstly, a lack of evidence isn't a belief no matter how hard the theists try and spin it. Secondly, the null hypothesis states that gods do not exist unless evidence is shown for them.
you can prove it only as much as one can prove there ARE gods.
Thirdly, on those rare occasions where a theist puts forth a coherent, rational god concept, it's found to be easily disproven, thus your statements are incorrect.
This is slashdot, surely there's enough horny geeks to be able to pull this off.
This is slashdot -- most geeks are surely pulling it off, probably nearly every night.
How the hell would we ever have enough "social funds" to cure the important things like flaccid penises and hair loss that affects millions of very rich people?
My penis is flaccid, you insensi... I mean... my hair is being lost, you insensitive clod!
For those who have questions of how such an e-voting type system could work, watch this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_bismark_e_voting_without_fraud.html
Thanks.
I also believe that the GP is incorrect. Using your market power to literally exclude other competitors is textbook monopolization and I'm sure MS wouldn't do that.
LOL
What they would do, however, is to offer huge discounts if you use an all-MS shop. You can use GPL software for stuff like Apache or Pidgin, but desktops would be much cheaper if you all used Windows and Office, for example.
True, plus another thing that I guessing is keeping non-MS software out of some businesses is that the MS rep says something along the lines of, "Oh, sure, you can run whatever software you want, it's your shop. We won't support it though. We'll of course still charge full price for support of our software whether you use it or not."
This will keep many businesses from obtaining other software more so than any kind of supposed contract.
What do you think Wine is?
Well, it's not an emulator, that's for sure!
Right there, driving a passenger vehicle that is emitting detectable and significant amounts of radiation
Detectable, obviously. You're piling on words like "significant" to bolster your emotionally-laden position. It's not enough to kill the guy that has the shit coursing through his veins, now is it?
The "specific crime" part comes after they arrest you
No, it comes before. I'll type this very slowly for you so you understand: police officers cannot decide to pull you over or stop you on a whim. They need to have a reason to do so -- which means a specific crime that they think you're committing.
This dogged insistence that they cannot and will not arrest you, or even investigate you, until they've determined the specific crime they think you may have committed is adorably naive, and no doubt based on hours of studious review of NCIS, CSI, and Law & Order reruns... but... still... it's wrong.
So in other words, cops can stop you on a whim and decide what crime to charge you with after they've investigated you for anything whatsoever. What you're saying now is that cops suddenly do not need reasonable articulable suspicion of wrongdoing which you've claimed all along in this thread that they do need. Or are you saying that reasonable articulable suspicion is whatever a cop decides at the moment and will arrest you for whatever later?
I think I'm now going to ask you to provide evidence of your assertions then and you can go ahead and help me recover from my adorable naivete.
He doesn't have to. If the stop were actually challenged, all he has to day is that his detector showed radioactivity at that time
Great, then he'd be able to provide evidence that that's what the detector showed.
or more likely, "I don't remember the incident your Honor." Now, all you have to do is prove he's lying.
LOL A cop telling the judge he "doesn't remember the incident" but he's standing in court anyway? What are you, twelve? "+3 Insightful" my ass.
Anyway, I don't have to prove jack shit in court as I'm the defendant. If the cops can't come up with valid evidence that the prosecution can use to try and convict me, then the judge throws it out -- or more likely, the prosecution doesn't even bother with filing charges AND if it's really bogus, the cop may open himself up to legal charges of his own (fat chance, though).
One more time: that's not the only crime which it is possible to commit with radiological materials. And it is *reasonable* to suspect that someone who is driving down the street emitting enough radiation to show up on a radiation detector may be engaged in unlawful activity, or a *victim* of unlawful activity.
What specific crime, then, is he being investigated for? That's what the cops need to show.
"I detected radiation being emitted from the vehicle. I saw no signage indicating the vehicle was being used in transportation of hazardous radioactive material. Based on this, I suspected that the operator might be transporting radioactive material illegally, and might intend to dispose of it illegally, creating a public health hazard during the transport and after disposal. Based on this suspicion, I made a traffic stop to investigate."
It isn't enough even for reasonable articulable suspicion to stop someone for something that, absent any other factors, does not demonstrate a crime taking place.
Without knowing exactly what they did, it's reasonable to assume they searched his car. Generally, this requires a warrant unless it's incident to an arrest, and even then, there are limits.
Exactly, and what happened is more than likely that the man complied because he's under the mistaken notion that "if I don't have anything to hide, there's no reason to refuse."
There's not much legal precentdent either way as to whether or not slight radioactivity consitutes probable cause, but it's a very worrying slippery slope if it does.
There's plenty of legal precedent that says that cops can't pull you over or question you without at least reasonable articulable suspicion that a specific crime is being committed. In other words, slight radioactivity is not, in and of itself, enough to constitute probable cause nor reasonable articulable suspicion.
The rest of your points, I agree with.
But what a human being *does with* those radioactivity-emitting isotopes can very well be a crime, or can be evidence that they themselves have been a victim of a crime.
Sure, and that's why I also included the crime of attempted bombing which would still need more for reasonable articulable suspicion. As I said, I don't think this was the case and the man was stopped purely for the radioactivity which ordinarily is not enough to justify the detention.
As it is, here on Slashdot, all you have to do to guarantee a host of "HURR DURR KKKOPS R KKKURUPT" comments is post an article titled "Police Officer does something." Because nothing else is required to try, convict, and sentence a cop in the court of Slashdot's public opinion other than a job title.
Me, personally, I hold cops (and, by extension, judges and other government personnel) to a much higher standard than I would other persons. But, at any rate, I think that my comments rise higher than "HURR DURR KKKOPS R KKKURUPT" however.
What is seemingly lost during this particular debate is that the cops still need suspicion of a SPECIFIC law that is being broken.
If it's an attempted bombing, then the presence of higher than normal levels of radiation is still not enough even for reasonable articulable suspicion because it's not illegal in and of itself.
It's REASONABLE ARTICULABLE SUSPICION and when a person isn't doing anything illegal, there must be more to it than simply emitting radiation which isn't illegal.
"Reasonable suspicion" is a yes/no question: could a reasonable person conclude that these facts are indicative of a crime? If the answer is "yes" (and yes, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for "car emits radiation" that would make that scenario criminal), then the officer has *reasonable suspicion* to make a traffic stop and ask some questions.
Would a reasonable person conclude that the mere presence of radiation above normal levels is indicative of a crime? No. Emitting radioactivity is not a crime in and of itself. So, a reasonable person would ask themselves, what other factors are in play that might give rise to reasonable articulable suspicion? In this instance, there were probably none. As such, he should have been left alone.
A cop, on the other hand, will not bother asking himself anything and pull the car over because he knows that people are generally easy to take advantage of.
I can only assume you know all of these facts, which is why you've concluded that this is a tyrannical police state activity.
It's a tyrannical police state activity because the man did nothing illegal; he wasn't stopped for doing something illegal. Most likely, there were no other signs or indicators of a crime about to be committed; they probably relied on peoples' general willingness to be 'helpful' to the cops, so they pulled him over.
Well, since all they need to stop you and investigate is *reasonable suspicion,* I'd say that this stop was entirely within the bounds of good sense and reason.
And what crime was he being investigated for? The phrase is called, by the way, reasonable articulable suspicion -- a cop has to (theoretically) be able to explain in front of a judge just exactly what his suspicion was and how it was reasonable.