The... program helped the NSA stop a 2009 al-Qaida plot to blow up New York City subways.
That is at best an extreme exaggeration of the value of the cell phone records. I'm sure his data was in the database, and was probably accessed after he was discovered, but his plot was discovered as a result of monitoring that was (or easily would have been) warranted.
On November 9 2009 The Telegraph reported that the operation produced the tip that lead American security officials to place Najibullah Zazi under investigation. British security officials were reported to have intercepted an email from a Pakistani planner to Najibullah Zazi containing instructions on how to conduct his attack.
The alleged plot was unmasked after an email address that was being monitored as part of the abortive Operation Pathway was suddenly reactivated.
Operation Pathway was investigating an alleged UK terrorist cell but went awry after the then Met Police counter-terrorism head Bob Quick was pictured walking into Downing Street displaying top secret documents.
Eleven Pakistani suspects were arrested immediately after the gaffe but later released without charge.
However, security staff continued to monitor the email address which eventually yielded results.
Most women I've known are attracted more to a thick wallet. I've seldom seen one trade down, if you know what I mean. Often I've seen them leave the cute hunk once they get a few years of just getting by and land the ugly engineer. Just sayin'.
You raise a strong point. I think there's a function of age involved, at least in my observations. I have some friends who are DJs, and through them I have been friends with a number of very attractive women. When we became friends, they ranged from late 20's to mid 30's. They were very focused on guys with big pecs and sick abs. I was a little jealous, but hey, they're my friends, and they were having fun so I'm happy for them.
Now, as they're in their mid 30's to early 40's, most not yet having settled down, there is a great deal of reevaluation going on. The party boys they have been with haven't really made much of themselves. Now they're looking for more substance (success is a big part of it, but it's bigger than that).
And here's the part that is a bit painful to see in people I care about: They're realizing they are no longer the hot commodity. Having not spent too much time on their own educations or careers, they are wondering if their window is slipping past. Same can be said of some of the men I've known -- particularly those in young-mans careers (eg: I know some investment bankers).
Here's the truth that runs throughout it all though: The sooner a person comes to terms with reality and accepts themselves for who they are, the happier they are. By miles. The lies are poison.
While there are fewer 'booth babes' than in earlier shows (and while some are trying to bring balance by adding 'booth bros')
Now that is a solution I can get behind. I'm not a hot guy. But I'm not full of shit either -- I know that straight women like hot guys, just like straight men like hot women. There's a hundred thousand years of evolution behind it. Pretending it is not true is stupid. Women are naturally drawn to men with a pronounced V shape from their waist to their shoulders -- a trait I do not posess. And men are naturally drawn to big chests. That is reality.
You can argue that it is not sound economic policy, because it directs consumer spending in ways that are not reflective of product quality. Fine, let's talk about that, and maybe start by making advertising not count as a business expense for tax purposes. But if you are upset because it is objectification (or, more realistically, because you are, like me, not hot) -- you've got to get over it. Pretending it is not true is just lying to yourself. It will not change reality.
what makes you worth tracking?... do you really think that there is a guy sitting in the NSA tracking you for no reason?
What makes you think collaborative filtering and similar analyses are done one person at a time? The state of the art is done with linear algebra and similar maths, and solves simultaneously for each individual in the sample set.
I call shenanigans! This is key jingling. The NHTSA is not entirely staffed with people who have never been in a car with a passenger before. They are not idiots. They know this is a stupid, unworkable idea. I submit that this is key jingling to distract us from the surveillance leak.
I know plenty of people (mostly liberals) complained when the warrant-less wiretaps happened under Bush.
As it happens, I know plenty of people (mostly liberals) who are complaining about the warrant-less wiretaps happening under Obama. The few people I know who still don't have a problem with it are right wingers (though most of my right wing friends are just as pissed as the lefties).
This isn't about left and right -- it's about authoritarian versus American.
See, I believe that when we give up our freedoms because we're afraid of terrrorists...now, that's when the terrorists win.
Oh yes, I completely understand. I was not glibly bashing some perceived lack of sufficient jingoism in your comment. I intended to express my own dismay at the painful position these authoritarians are putting us in.
Well, that, and an attempt at some seriously dark humor. Cuz you've gotta find a way to laugh.
If our government believes throwing out the Constitution is what it takes to protect our nation from terrorist threats, I'm less scared of the terrorists than I am of the government.
Jeez -- that's a cold bucket of ice water to the noggin. Our government has become such an afront to our nation that the epithet, "You want the terrorists to win!" invokes the contemplative response, "Well, not exactly..."
a 7-day turnaround of fixes for actively exploited unpatched vulnerabilities, is rather naive and devoid of commercial reality.
I read that and I was thinking, "Well, yeah, sure - I shoot for one hour and can't recall the last time it took more than a day to get a critical bug patch out, but that's not really reasonable for everyone. The team I work on is pretty focused on keeping the tracks polished so we can get high priority things through. I think 7 days is OK. It could be better, but it's OK. And Google isn't even saying it will take 7 days, they're saying 7 days is the max. But, whatever, I guess -- ultimately agitating for faster patches is something I support."
for 95+% of the rest of the world's software development companies making thick-client, server and device-specific software this is unrealistic.
What?!? You mean it's not realistic to get the patch available within 7 days? I mean, obviously you can't expect users to have their systems patched immediately, and sometimes a third party (like a walled garden approval path) can lock you out. But is the writer saying 95% of companies can't even have a patch pushed for release in 7 days?
If that is true, we, as a society, need to drop what we're doing and focus on security, build management, QA workflow, whatever it is that is making that a reality. 7 days is acceptable. 95% of companies can't hit 7 days? First, that is not true in my experience. But if it is? That is not acceptable, if it is true. There really are bad people out there trying to root our electronics. Seven days to get a patch out for an actively exploited in the wild vulnerability is enough. Work the problem. Figure out why you can't hit that number, and fix it.
If W3C were to scrap the plans for HTML5 DRM the content providers would simply cling on to proprietary plugins and we'd be no better off than we are already.
And if we start calling proprietary things that almost everyone is forbidden to implement "standards" then we will be worse of than we are already.
With the HTML5 DRM we could atleast shed all the excess weight provided by these plugins
That's it?!? That's all we get for making the term "standards" mean "proprietary thing that you are forbidden to implement"? That is a horrible trade.
the idea of going after the sites as a business, which in practice would mean strangling their (often voluminous) advertising budget.
So this would be another avenue of extrajudicial shutdowns of businesses accused of harming some other, more privileged business, that also has a financial relationship with the largest market-share search engine company, which would be executing the takedown. That doesn't sound like a just and free market to me. That sounds like plutocracy.
And before you say, "But maybe plutocracy would be good, maybe Google loves us and just wants us to be happy," consider this: Most superpower societies in history have bookended their dominance by evolving some close variant of plutocracy or oligarchy.
circulated a video on Facebook of her appearing drunk and disheveled in a bathroom at a party. The Italian Parents Association has filed a criminal complaint against Facebook for allegedly having a role in the instigation of Carolina's suicide.
Why just Facebook? Clearly Sony did nothing to prevent the video from being recorded by the handicam they manufactured. For that matter, the architect of the house where the party took place did nothing to prevent the poor girl from being drunk and disheveled in the bathroom he designed.
And if the architect can't be bothered to be responsible in the first place, where was he when she was being harrassed? Where was he when this poor young girl needed someone to talk to, to explain that people can be horrible sometimes, and it doesn't mean she is any less of a person? That she needs to develop the strength in herself to withstand these kinds of attacks, because they are a part of life in a world that is sometimes cruel? Where was the architect when she needed to understand that getting too drunk and making a fool of herself was a dangerous, but ultimately healthy cautionary tale for a young girl, and that she should take it as a learning experience on the risks of underage drinking and those who might take advantage of her? I mean, obviously her parents -- the ones filing the suit -- weren't doing their job, so where was the architect?
Look, parents: If your daughter gets in a situation like this and kills herself, we don't want to have to point out that you are the best chance she had, because that is a horrible reality for you and it does not necessarily mean you caused her death. You may not have done anything wrong -- these horrible tragedies just happen sometimes. But if you are going to pull out the lawyers and start insisting that the blame be placed on someone -- if you are going to corner society, through its legal system, into putting the blame on someone -- you leave us little choice but to point out that the people most responsible for your daughter's ability to cope with the harsh realities of the world are you. If you can't accept that it is not Facebook's fault, how can we not point out that you are vastly more responsible for your daughter's psychological wellbeing than a website?
Actually, both geurilla and conventional warfare were used by American forces in The Revolution. I didn't didn't say geurilla tactics won the war, I said they were used by one side and not the other, and implied that the willingness to adapt to the battlefield reality unrestrained by traditional propriety -- including the use of unconventional tactics -- was an important element in winning the war. You can point to a dozen other factors from supply lines to Lafayette, as well. So I could just as easily take the piss out of your post by saying, "Actually, the belief that conventional tactics by the American forces won the war is a popularly held misconception. If it were not for long supply lines and war-weariness at home, England would have stayed in the fight longer and broken the American forces."
Also, a tip: The phrase "popularly held misconception" almost always suggests you are calling the other person a member of the unwashed masses. That tends to invite a stern retort, so make sure you have your research down cold when you tread such ground.
I can't help but get an image of the English soldiers in the American Revolution, standing out in the field in ranks, getting shot by George Washingtons troops, thinking, "WTF, man, you're not allowed to hide behind stuff!" Washington thinking, "Well, yeah, but... we're winning."
American diplomats in China saying, "Like, what the fuck, guys? We're not at war, why are you stealing our stuff?" Chinese guy just completely baffled thinking, "Ummm, because we're trying to win? You fuckers have been twisting our nuts in a global economic vise for half a century because you can't get over your own propaganda from the 1950s, and you don't get what we're doing? Idiots."
Strip away the right/wrong of it and just look at the realpolitik, it's kind of funny.
I think you may be mistaking what are actually contrasting and often contradictory statements of discrete individuals across several communities for a monolithic statement of belief by a single collective mind.
He is quoted as saying "I'm starting the Revolution. I'm done waiting." I don't know about you, but when a person trained in war says that they are going to start a revolution, that would make a little worried.
Note that such a thing is the basis for treason..."Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
Did you mean to say, "Note" or "Not"? I want to make sure I am giving you the benefit of the doubt -- that you may have intended to disclaim the implication that his actions could be considered treason.
If you did mean "Note", then the above is a non-sequitur. You charge him with this: a person trained in war says that they are going to start a revolution
You identify the relevant legal statute: levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
And you imply that the former is a violation of the latter: such a thing is the basis for treason.
He did not levy war against our nation, he did not adhere to our Enemies, and he did not give them Aid and Comfort. At the most he may have presented a clear and present danger, which grants authority to law enforcement officers to detain or use force to stop the immediate threat. Beyond that moment, the detention authority of the civilian government is only granted under the limits of due process.
In the end Facebook, despite what we want to believe, is a public venue and we should not be plotting revolutions using it.
In this sentence the word "should" can have one of two meanings: You might be saying, "He would be unwise to use this means, because it would elicit the just and lawful scrutiny of the law enforcement community, which would be unhelpful to his pursuit." Or you could mean, "He should be stripped of due process for saying what he did."
If you mean the former, you are quite correct, obviously. But I would hasten to add that regardless of his interests, we prefer it when he speaks in public. We want him to make his plans in public. We want our law enforcement community to hear about his intentions, and to have the opportunity to consider whether he presents a threat and should be detained. We want our health professionals to have the opportunity to detect an illness and engage in community outreach to offer him the help he may need. Regardless of whether his speech has any merit or even if it is a violation of law, and even if he would be a fool for doing so, we want him to speak in public.
But I digress. If you mean the latter, that he should be stripped of due process, you are speaking against the bedrock freedoms on which this nation was formed. The right to speak freely is the right most fundamental to Our Grand Experiment and due process when accused based on dangerous speech is an absolute necessity to the preservation of that right.
He was denied due process. Regardless of whether he broke the law, he was not given due process. That is the problem that is being examined.
The government has some responsibility to monitor public communications to keep the country safe.
The government is not being charged with violating his right to privacy or surveillance without authorization. They are being charged with denying him due process.
In either case, be it prevention or help, I don't see how this is a bad thing.
There are legal means for detaining people when they are believed to be a threat. The government can take them into custody. The government can hold them without explaining its reason for a brief period, and can charge the person with a crime and hold them for much longer, subject to the limitations of due process. They are accused of detaining him unlawfully. They are accused of exceeding the authorization that we, the people, sovereigns of this nation, have granted them. They are accused of breaking the law -- something which, as far as I know, still has not happened to Brandon Raub.
Here's the math that explains why you are wrong. When it comes to compatibility issues, like standards, it is easy for a laissez-faire system to get stuck on a local maxima. It is one of the primary reasons that a well regulated market can be a closer approximation of the theoretical ideal free market than can laissez-faire. This sort of problem is exactly why people institute governments.
Police printed the 15 parts required to assemble The Liberator in 27 hours and assembled it within 60 seconds with a firing pin fashioned out of a steel nail.
27 hours for a.38? You could make a dozen 12 gauges in that time, and really get your rampage on. Let me know when they start regulating black pipe and twine.
My apologies for the false accusation. I was conflating what I believe to be YouTube's over-aggressive takedown process with parent company Google's general practices.
Slashdot Mirror
The ... program helped the NSA stop a 2009 al-Qaida plot to blow up New York City subways.
That is at best an extreme exaggeration of the value of the cell phone records. I'm sure his data was in the database, and was probably accessed after he was discovered, but his plot was discovered as a result of monitoring that was (or easily would have been) warranted.
Wikipedia: Operation Pathway:
On November 9 2009 The Telegraph reported that the operation produced the tip that lead American security officials to place Najibullah Zazi under investigation. British security officials were reported to have intercepted an email from a Pakistani planner to Najibullah Zazi containing instructions on how to conduct his attack.
The Telegraph: British Spies / Zazi:
The alleged plot was unmasked after an email address that was being monitored as part of the abortive Operation Pathway was suddenly reactivated.
Operation Pathway was investigating an alleged UK terrorist cell but went awry after the then Met Police counter-terrorism head Bob Quick was pictured walking into Downing Street displaying top secret documents.
Eleven Pakistani suspects were arrested immediately after the gaffe but later released without charge.
However, security staff continued to monitor the email address which eventually yielded results.
Most women I've known are attracted more to a thick wallet. I've seldom seen one trade down, if you know what I mean. Often I've seen them leave the cute hunk once they get a few years of just getting by and land the ugly engineer. Just sayin'.
You raise a strong point. I think there's a function of age involved, at least in my observations. I have some friends who are DJs, and through them I have been friends with a number of very attractive women. When we became friends, they ranged from late 20's to mid 30's. They were very focused on guys with big pecs and sick abs. I was a little jealous, but hey, they're my friends, and they were having fun so I'm happy for them.
Now, as they're in their mid 30's to early 40's, most not yet having settled down, there is a great deal of reevaluation going on. The party boys they have been with haven't really made much of themselves. Now they're looking for more substance (success is a big part of it, but it's bigger than that).
And here's the part that is a bit painful to see in people I care about: They're realizing they are no longer the hot commodity. Having not spent too much time on their own educations or careers, they are wondering if their window is slipping past. Same can be said of some of the men I've known -- particularly those in young-mans careers (eg: I know some investment bankers).
Here's the truth that runs throughout it all though: The sooner a person comes to terms with reality and accepts themselves for who they are, the happier they are. By miles. The lies are poison.
While there are fewer 'booth babes' than in earlier shows (and while some are trying to bring balance by adding 'booth bros')
Now that is a solution I can get behind. I'm not a hot guy. But I'm not full of shit either -- I know that straight women like hot guys, just like straight men like hot women. There's a hundred thousand years of evolution behind it. Pretending it is not true is stupid. Women are naturally drawn to men with a pronounced V shape from their waist to their shoulders -- a trait I do not posess. And men are naturally drawn to big chests. That is reality.
You can argue that it is not sound economic policy, because it directs consumer spending in ways that are not reflective of product quality. Fine, let's talk about that, and maybe start by making advertising not count as a business expense for tax purposes. But if you are upset because it is objectification (or, more realistically, because you are, like me, not hot) -- you've got to get over it. Pretending it is not true is just lying to yourself. It will not change reality.
what makes you worth tracking? ... do you really think that there is a guy sitting in the NSA tracking you for no reason?
What makes you think collaborative filtering and similar analyses are done one person at a time? The state of the art is done with linear algebra and similar maths, and solves simultaneously for each individual in the sample set.
I call shenanigans! This is key jingling. The NHTSA is not entirely staffed with people who have never been in a car with a passenger before. They are not idiots. They know this is a stupid, unworkable idea. I submit that this is key jingling to distract us from the surveillance leak.
I know plenty of people (mostly liberals) complained when the warrant-less wiretaps happened under Bush.
As it happens, I know plenty of people (mostly liberals) who are complaining about the warrant-less wiretaps happening under Obama. The few people I know who still don't have a problem with it are right wingers (though most of my right wing friends are just as pissed as the lefties).
This isn't about left and right -- it's about authoritarian versus American.
Cool :) And, in case it isn't obvious, I very much appreciated the dry and frank humor in your post.
See, I believe that when we give up our freedoms because we're afraid of terrrorists...now, that's when the terrorists win.
Oh yes, I completely understand. I was not glibly bashing some perceived lack of sufficient jingoism in your comment. I intended to express my own dismay at the painful position these authoritarians are putting us in.
Well, that, and an attempt at some seriously dark humor. Cuz you've gotta find a way to laugh.
If our government believes throwing out the Constitution is what it takes to protect our nation from terrorist threats, I'm less scared of the terrorists than I am of the government.
Jeez -- that's a cold bucket of ice water to the noggin. Our government has become such an afront to our nation that the epithet, "You want the terrorists to win!" invokes the contemplative response, "Well, not exactly..."
a 7-day turnaround of fixes for actively exploited unpatched vulnerabilities, is rather naive and devoid of commercial reality.
I read that and I was thinking, "Well, yeah, sure - I shoot for one hour and can't recall the last time it took more than a day to get a critical bug patch out, but that's not really reasonable for everyone. The team I work on is pretty focused on keeping the tracks polished so we can get high priority things through. I think 7 days is OK. It could be better, but it's OK. And Google isn't even saying it will take 7 days, they're saying 7 days is the max. But, whatever, I guess -- ultimately agitating for faster patches is something I support."
for 95+% of the rest of the world's software development companies making thick-client, server and device-specific software this is unrealistic.
What?!? You mean it's not realistic to get the patch available within 7 days? I mean, obviously you can't expect users to have their systems patched immediately, and sometimes a third party (like a walled garden approval path) can lock you out. But is the writer saying 95% of companies can't even have a patch pushed for release in 7 days?
If that is true, we, as a society, need to drop what we're doing and focus on security, build management, QA workflow, whatever it is that is making that a reality. 7 days is acceptable. 95% of companies can't hit 7 days? First, that is not true in my experience. But if it is? That is not acceptable, if it is true. There really are bad people out there trying to root our electronics. Seven days to get a patch out for an actively exploited in the wild vulnerability is enough. Work the problem. Figure out why you can't hit that number, and fix it.
If W3C were to scrap the plans for HTML5 DRM the content providers would simply cling on to proprietary plugins and we'd be no better off than we are already.
And if we start calling proprietary things that almost everyone is forbidden to implement "standards" then we will be worse of than we are already.
With the HTML5 DRM we could atleast shed all the excess weight provided by these plugins
That's it?!? That's all we get for making the term "standards" mean "proprietary thing that you are forbidden to implement"? That is a horrible trade.
the idea of going after the sites as a business, which in practice would mean strangling their (often voluminous) advertising budget.
So this would be another avenue of extrajudicial shutdowns of businesses accused of harming some other, more privileged business, that also has a financial relationship with the largest market-share search engine company, which would be executing the takedown. That doesn't sound like a just and free market to me. That sounds like plutocracy.
And before you say, "But maybe plutocracy would be good, maybe Google loves us and just wants us to be happy," consider this: Most superpower societies in history have bookended their dominance by evolving some close variant of plutocracy or oligarchy.
circulated a video on Facebook of her appearing drunk and disheveled in a bathroom at a party. The Italian Parents Association has filed a criminal complaint against Facebook for allegedly having a role in the instigation of Carolina's suicide.
Why just Facebook? Clearly Sony did nothing to prevent the video from being recorded by the handicam they manufactured. For that matter, the architect of the house where the party took place did nothing to prevent the poor girl from being drunk and disheveled in the bathroom he designed.
And if the architect can't be bothered to be responsible in the first place, where was he when she was being harrassed? Where was he when this poor young girl needed someone to talk to, to explain that people can be horrible sometimes, and it doesn't mean she is any less of a person? That she needs to develop the strength in herself to withstand these kinds of attacks, because they are a part of life in a world that is sometimes cruel? Where was the architect when she needed to understand that getting too drunk and making a fool of herself was a dangerous, but ultimately healthy cautionary tale for a young girl, and that she should take it as a learning experience on the risks of underage drinking and those who might take advantage of her? I mean, obviously her parents -- the ones filing the suit -- weren't doing their job, so where was the architect?
Look, parents: If your daughter gets in a situation like this and kills herself, we don't want to have to point out that you are the best chance she had, because that is a horrible reality for you and it does not necessarily mean you caused her death. You may not have done anything wrong -- these horrible tragedies just happen sometimes. But if you are going to pull out the lawyers and start insisting that the blame be placed on someone -- if you are going to corner society, through its legal system, into putting the blame on someone -- you leave us little choice but to point out that the people most responsible for your daughter's ability to cope with the harsh realities of the world are you. If you can't accept that it is not Facebook's fault, how can we not point out that you are vastly more responsible for your daughter's psychological wellbeing than a website?
Actually, both geurilla and conventional warfare were used by American forces in The Revolution. I didn't didn't say geurilla tactics won the war, I said they were used by one side and not the other, and implied that the willingness to adapt to the battlefield reality unrestrained by traditional propriety -- including the use of unconventional tactics -- was an important element in winning the war. You can point to a dozen other factors from supply lines to Lafayette, as well. So I could just as easily take the piss out of your post by saying, "Actually, the belief that conventional tactics by the American forces won the war is a popularly held misconception. If it were not for long supply lines and war-weariness at home, England would have stayed in the fight longer and broken the American forces."
Also, a tip: The phrase "popularly held misconception" almost always suggests you are calling the other person a member of the unwashed masses. That tends to invite a stern retort, so make sure you have your research down cold when you tread such ground.
I can't help but get an image of the English soldiers in the American Revolution, standing out in the field in ranks, getting shot by George Washingtons troops, thinking, "WTF, man, you're not allowed to hide behind stuff!" Washington thinking, "Well, yeah, but... we're winning."
American diplomats in China saying, "Like, what the fuck, guys? We're not at war, why are you stealing our stuff?" Chinese guy just completely baffled thinking, "Ummm, because we're trying to win? You fuckers have been twisting our nuts in a global economic vise for half a century because you can't get over your own propaganda from the 1950s, and you don't get what we're doing? Idiots."
Strip away the right/wrong of it and just look at the realpolitik, it's kind of funny.
is this accurate? im really confused.
I think you may be mistaking what are actually contrasting and often contradictory statements of discrete individuals across several communities for a monolithic statement of belief by a single collective mind.
Why do you care what I look like?
Why do you care what I think you look like?
He is quoted as saying "I'm starting the Revolution. I'm done waiting." I don't know about you, but when a person trained in war says that they are going to start a revolution, that would make a little worried.
Note that such a thing is the basis for treason..."Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
Did you mean to say, "Note" or "Not"? I want to make sure I am giving you the benefit of the doubt -- that you may have intended to disclaim the implication that his actions could be considered treason.
If you did mean "Note", then the above is a non-sequitur. You charge him with this:
a person trained in war says that they are going to start a revolution
You identify the relevant legal statute:
levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
And you imply that the former is a violation of the latter:
such a thing is the basis for treason.
He did not levy war against our nation, he did not adhere to our Enemies, and he did not give them Aid and Comfort. At the most he may have presented a clear and present danger, which grants authority to law enforcement officers to detain or use force to stop the immediate threat. Beyond that moment, the detention authority of the civilian government is only granted under the limits of due process.
In the end Facebook, despite what we want to believe, is a public venue and we should not be plotting revolutions using it.
In this sentence the word "should" can have one of two meanings: You might be saying, "He would be unwise to use this means, because it would elicit the just and lawful scrutiny of the law enforcement community, which would be unhelpful to his pursuit." Or you could mean, "He should be stripped of due process for saying what he did."
If you mean the former, you are quite correct, obviously. But I would hasten to add that regardless of his interests, we prefer it when he speaks in public. We want him to make his plans in public. We want our law enforcement community to hear about his intentions, and to have the opportunity to consider whether he presents a threat and should be detained. We want our health professionals to have the opportunity to detect an illness and engage in community outreach to offer him the help he may need. Regardless of whether his speech has any merit or even if it is a violation of law, and even if he would be a fool for doing so, we want him to speak in public.
But I digress. If you mean the latter, that he should be stripped of due process, you are speaking against the bedrock freedoms on which this nation was formed. The right to speak freely is the right most fundamental to Our Grand Experiment and due process when accused based on dangerous speech is an absolute necessity to the preservation of that right.
He was denied due process. Regardless of whether he broke the law, he was not given due process. That is the problem that is being examined.
The government has some responsibility to monitor public communications to keep the country safe.
The government is not being charged with violating his right to privacy or surveillance without authorization. They are being charged with denying him due process.
In either case, be it prevention or help, I don't see how this is a bad thing.
There are legal means for detaining people when they are believed to be a threat. The government can take them into custody. The government can hold them without explaining its reason for a brief period, and can charge the person with a crime and hold them for much longer, subject to the limitations of due process. They are accused of detaining him unlawfully. They are accused of exceeding the authorization that we, the people, sovereigns of this nation, have granted them. They are accused of breaking the law -- something which, as far as I know, still has not happened to Brandon Raub.
Here's the math that explains why you are wrong. When it comes to compatibility issues, like standards, it is easy for a laissez-faire system to get stuck on a local maxima. It is one of the primary reasons that a well regulated market can be a closer approximation of the theoretical ideal free market than can laissez-faire. This sort of problem is exactly why people institute governments.
Police printed the 15 parts required to assemble The Liberator in 27 hours and assembled it within 60 seconds with a firing pin fashioned out of a steel nail.
27 hours for a .38? You could make a dozen 12 gauges in that time, and really get your rampage on. Let me know when they start regulating black pipe and twine.
Damned straight. You rock.
Thanks for the correction, and for the link to the DMCA claim -- retraction here.
Thanks for the correction -- retraction here.
My apologies for the false accusation. I was conflating what I believe to be YouTube's over-aggressive takedown process with parent company Google's general practices.
I hear you, my friend. It hurts me to see how many people here still give Google a free pass on this stuff because they were once an ethical company.