I for one believe this particular program is good, necessary, and in line with the Constitution, so it's not a matter of "security vs. freedom" for me.
Unfortunately, you are simply wrong. The NSA is not doing anything that it couldn't do legally. All that is required is getting a FISA judge to issue a warrant. Since the institution of the FISA court in 1979, the government has requested more than 10,000 warrants. It has been denied four times.
But wait! Today's terrorist moves fast. Maybe there isn't time to speak to a judge! Bzzzt. But thanks for playing. The FISA judges hold court in the oddest of places -- such as the chief judge's living room at 3 AM -- so that they can be responsive and quick. And even then, the law (as amended) allows the government to conduct an emergency wiretap so long as it gets a (retroactive) warrant within 72 hours. So no nasty terrorist plots can slip through waiting on that burdensome due process.
Should the government be allowed to wiretap suspected terrorists? Of course. Not a single major player has ever said otherwise. But that's the question the Bush people want you to focus on, so that you don't notice the real question: Should the President of the United States be bound by the Constitution and the laws passed under it? And this Administration's clear, stark answer is: NO. The President should be entirely unconstrained.
That is why this Administration is the greatest threat to the Republic since the Civil War.
First, the lawsuit that was thrown out wasn't "wiretapping" at all. It was data mining -- a transfer of supposedly private records to the government so that they could be sifted for patterns. Not covered by FISA.
Second, in the current case, the privacy issue is entirely secondary. The real concern is: President Bush knowingly broke the law. End of story. (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act describes what steps the government needs to take to wiretap the phones of foreign agents. Those steps include a warrant by the special FISA court. The Administration did not seek those warrants on a large number of wiretaps. FISA also specifies that it is the only law covering such surveillance.) Caught at breaking the law -- a law, by the way, he had signaled his complete satisfaction with, and which, if he had asked, he could easily have had amended -- he brazenly declared his intention to go on breaking the law.
A few years back, a hyperventilating minority of the political leaders in this country screamed bloody murder and tried to oust a President for perjuring himself in a civil suit concerning a matter from long before his Presidency. It was, they told us, a matter of high principle: The President must obey the law. He must respect the judicial process. He must not be an oathbreaker, since he swears an oath to uphold the Consititution and faithfully execute the laws of the land.
Now, that group of leaders is shockingly silent -- indeed, worse, vocal in their defense -- when their party's President knowingly and intentionally violated an actual law and thus knowingly violates his oath of office. Even for Washington, the hypocrisy here is rank.
However it works out, someone you disagree with will be in the Oval Office at some point.
No, no, no. You just don't get it. The point of almost everything this White House has done is to ensure a perpetual Republican majority and infinite Republican control of the three branches. Everyone's arguing over whether they're committing a foul, while they're changing the rules of the game.
My fair use includes the copyright to photocopy pages, an entire chapter, for my personal consumption. If I'm a teacher, that even includes giving copies of a chapter (though not the whole book) to, say, 30 people in a class I teach.
It most certainly does not. Despite the many protestations of people for many years, this is not and never has been allowed under copyright law. There is no education exemption. Publishers don't pursue this practice because it's virtually unstoppable and it looks bad to sue schools. But they certainly could.
It's not even clear that you have the right to photocopy a chapter for your own use. Fair use generally means you can quote a portion of a text without explicit permission. But one of the key tests of fair use is whether the copied section is minimal -- i.e., explicitly, that you not wholesale copy passages.
And also contrary to popular rumor, your intent to "profit" from it is entirely irrelevant as well. It doesn't matter if you intend to distribute the material free of charge to the needy. You, as purchaser of a text, do not get copyright to it.
I don't know where you heard of "the Kinko's rule", but it's nonsense. Oh, and by the way, the Kinko's employee has exactly the same fair use rights you do, and "reading the book" is not a "fair use", as it doesn't involve copying it. Under the principle of First Sale, you as purchaser of the book may do anything you like with it, except copy it. You can lend the physical book, you can sell it or give it away, you can even burn it. But you can't, nor can you authorize anyone else, to copy it.
As CDs generally aren't protected (and I'm not entirely sure that some autorun crap would really count), they wouldn't be covered by the DMCA.
And that's the point, really. The music industry has been kicking itself since releasing CDs in digital but unprotected format. Hollywood learned and put the deliberately weak CSS on DVDs simply to trigger laws like the DMCA. Now, the music companies want to get back into that "safe space".
This format will fail. Probably there'll be some sales and it migt bump along indefinitely. But it's not going spark a burst of new sales for the record stores.
The vinyl -> CD transition did generate a huge uptick in sales as everyone bought the White Album (and the rest of their collection) all over again. But the industry flaks, in true traditional fashion, see the data but not the information: Why was everyone willing to shell out that money again?
The boomers were just reaching prime disposable income -- the key late-30s, early-40s where the amount of money available to be spent recapturing one's youth peaks.
CDs were remarkably superior in terms of portability and survivability. The old LPs were wearing out and would have to be replaced anyway. But CDs don't wear as quickly and now, many people listen to digital tracks that don't degrade at all.
Other options, like the Internet, were simply not available. Once the companies stopped releasing new music on vinyl, you had to buy a CD player to hear the latest tunes. No one prefers split formats for a library, so people upgraded their collection to all-CD. But now, you know that new music will be ripped and posted quickly, so you can get your new music fix without buying the album.
Ironically, this new format would have the net effect of driving more people to casual "piracy", since they probably won't shell out for the format no CD player can handle. I know I have little interest in these "features" that will be used to justify a MSRP of $30 or $40 for an album.
But of course, the purpose isn't to sell more discs. It's to bring audio back into the safe corral of the DCMA.
Exactly. That's why, 30 years after the Clean Air Act, America's skies are in fact worse while the economy tanked.
Except, oh, wait. That didn't happen. In fact, the skies are vastly cleaner than they've been since the 1950s while the American economy has surged for 24 years with only two minor recessions.
Despite the mantra "Government can't work", the uncomfortable fact for neo-Friedman anarcho-capitalists is that, in fact, it can. Which is why the conservatives have officially seceded from the "reality based community" -- If you don't get the facts you like, change 'em.
I like how you guys accepted his initial report unquestioningly, because that report was in keeping with your Microsoft hatred.
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I never accepted his story. Indeed, I recall a number of posts on the original article along the lines of, "This guy is a Microsoft shill. How do we know he really did have problems? It'll be suspicious if, in a couple of days, he posts that -- wonders! -- WGA did exactly what it's advertised to do and, by the way, Microsoft was courteous and supportive and warm and fuzzy to boot!" In other words, astute (or appropriately paranoid) Slashdot readers predicted this sequence of events.
If you think the law protects you, you're sorely mistaken.
The law does protect me. I can walk my neighborhood without a reasonable fear of being mugged or murdered. I can order things online and not worry about my bank ripping me off or someone absconding with the merchandise in the mailroom.
Do such things happen? Yes, but exceedingly rarely, and it's because I live in a community and a nation with a strong culture of the rule of law. Is it perfect? No. Can it be abused? Of course. And there is admittedly the possibility -- indeed, the certainty -- that people are manipulating the law for unjust ends.
But all tinfoil hats and anarcho-libertarianism aside, the laws work mostly well most of the time. Execution of them could be improved for fairness, justice, and equity... but what we ave is far better than what we had a century ago, or two, or ever.
In our topsy-turvy legal system, it might not be.:( But it should be. The nieghbors have no right to expect anything so they should have to just accept whatever the router sends them. As allegedly was said by Truman Capote:
The trouble with living outside the law is, you put yourself beyond its protection.
What about your Fourth Amendment rights? The government can't conduct searches without a warrant:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The AT&T program has been described as roving, broad-based, fishing-expedition data mining, and would seem not to meet Fourth Amendment requirements.
I'm sometimes surprised that California was admitted to the union with the borders it has.
I imagine it had a lot to do with wanting to organize the territory quickly (due to the Gold Rush, etc.) and the politics of admitting states at the time (slave v. free). But I'm no historian.
state divisions are actually pretty natural in a lot of places.
Yes, but especially in the older states. As you go out West, the dividing lines become increasingly arbitrarily drawn. Don't get me wrong: I think it's an amazing statement about this country that the map does look like a bunch of guys took a straightedge and drew boundaries. "Natural" borders are "natural" because they are defensible -- and I like that the US was not laid out with an eye to how each state could defend itself against the others.
Net neutrality potentially threatens to impose the third big sin of the cellular networks:
3. The content/connectivity walled garden where you can't connect to Google or YouTube, Just AT&Tgle and You&T.
I think you've gotten your terms crossed here. Net neutrality would mean that no one is "cut off". The loss of net neutrality would allow a telco to block, say, Google or YouTube.
Vinge has always credited Future Shock, and I don't think he's ever claimed to have come up with the idea of the Singularity. On the other hand, he's been thinking about and publishing about it since "True Names" in 1981, which is why he is often offered up as an expert on the Singularity.
Well, other courts besides SCOTUS can rule on constitutionality. Any court lower than SCOTUS can be appealed, of course, but the way that the Supremes make constituionality decisions is often by affirming (or quashing) the decision of a lower court.
No, there's a more troubling thing here than an attempt to dilute the reach of SCOTUS: In the US, in general, courts don't do prior review. They rule only on "actual cases and controversies" -- meaning they don't green-light legislation ahead of time. Partly this is to check the judiciary and partly it's to avoid clogging the court system with hypothetical.
Putting this before FISC without allowing an actual suit is certainly unusual and possibly a tad worrying.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, you are simply wrong. The NSA is not doing anything that it couldn't do legally. All that is required is getting a FISA judge to issue a warrant. Since the institution of the FISA court in 1979, the government has requested more than 10,000 warrants. It has been denied four times.
But wait! Today's terrorist moves fast. Maybe there isn't time to speak to a judge! Bzzzt. But thanks for playing. The FISA judges hold court in the oddest of places -- such as the chief judge's living room at 3 AM -- so that they can be responsive and quick. And even then, the law (as amended) allows the government to conduct an emergency wiretap so long as it gets a (retroactive) warrant within 72 hours. So no nasty terrorist plots can slip through waiting on that burdensome due process.
Should the government be allowed to wiretap suspected terrorists? Of course. Not a single major player has ever said otherwise. But that's the question the Bush people want you to focus on, so that you don't notice the real question: Should the President of the United States be bound by the Constitution and the laws passed under it? And this Administration's clear, stark answer is: NO. The President should be entirely unconstrained.
That is why this Administration is the greatest threat to the Republic since the Civil War.
First, the lawsuit that was thrown out wasn't "wiretapping" at all. It was data mining -- a transfer of supposedly private records to the government so that they could be sifted for patterns. Not covered by FISA.
Second, in the current case, the privacy issue is entirely secondary. The real concern is: President Bush knowingly broke the law. End of story. (The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act describes what steps the government needs to take to wiretap the phones of foreign agents. Those steps include a warrant by the special FISA court. The Administration did not seek those warrants on a large number of wiretaps. FISA also specifies that it is the only law covering such surveillance.) Caught at breaking the law -- a law, by the way, he had signaled his complete satisfaction with, and which, if he had asked, he could easily have had amended -- he brazenly declared his intention to go on breaking the law.
A few years back, a hyperventilating minority of the political leaders in this country screamed bloody murder and tried to oust a President for perjuring himself in a civil suit concerning a matter from long before his Presidency. It was, they told us, a matter of high principle: The President must obey the law. He must respect the judicial process. He must not be an oathbreaker, since he swears an oath to uphold the Consititution and faithfully execute the laws of the land.
Now, that group of leaders is shockingly silent -- indeed, worse, vocal in their defense -- when their party's President knowingly and intentionally violated an actual law and thus knowingly violates his oath of office. Even for Washington, the hypocrisy here is rank.
No, no, no. You just don't get it. The point of almost everything this White House has done is to ensure a perpetual Republican majority and infinite Republican control of the three branches. Everyone's arguing over whether they're committing a foul, while they're changing the rules of the game.
And that's why the Republic is in trouble.
*Sniff* Someone who still believes that Constitutional guarantees still mean something. Brings a tear to my eyes, in thinking of the old days...
It most certainly does not. Despite the many protestations of people for many years, this is not and never has been allowed under copyright law. There is no education exemption. Publishers don't pursue this practice because it's virtually unstoppable and it looks bad to sue schools. But they certainly could.
It's not even clear that you have the right to photocopy a chapter for your own use. Fair use generally means you can quote a portion of a text without explicit permission. But one of the key tests of fair use is whether the copied section is minimal -- i.e., explicitly, that you not wholesale copy passages.
And also contrary to popular rumor, your intent to "profit" from it is entirely irrelevant as well. It doesn't matter if you intend to distribute the material free of charge to the needy. You, as purchaser of a text, do not get copyright to it.
I don't know where you heard of "the Kinko's rule", but it's nonsense. Oh, and by the way, the Kinko's employee has exactly the same fair use rights you do, and "reading the book" is not a "fair use", as it doesn't involve copying it. Under the principle of First Sale, you as purchaser of the book may do anything you like with it, except copy it. You can lend the physical book, you can sell it or give it away, you can even burn it. But you can't, nor can you authorize anyone else, to copy it.
And that's the point, really. The music industry has been kicking itself since releasing CDs in digital but unprotected format. Hollywood learned and put the deliberately weak CSS on DVDs simply to trigger laws like the DMCA. Now, the music companies want to get back into that "safe space".
The vinyl -> CD transition did generate a huge uptick in sales as everyone bought the White Album (and the rest of their collection) all over again. But the industry flaks, in true traditional fashion, see the data but not the information: Why was everyone willing to shell out that money again?
Ironically, this new format would have the net effect of driving more people to casual "piracy", since they probably won't shell out for the format no CD player can handle. I know I have little interest in these "features" that will be used to justify a MSRP of $30 or $40 for an album.
But of course, the purpose isn't to sell more discs. It's to bring audio back into the safe corral of the DCMA.
Exactly. That's why, 30 years after the Clean Air Act, America's skies are in fact worse while the economy tanked.
Except, oh, wait. That didn't happen. In fact, the skies are vastly cleaner than they've been since the 1950s while the American economy has surged for 24 years with only two minor recessions.
Despite the mantra "Government can't work", the uncomfortable fact for neo-Friedman anarcho-capitalists is that, in fact, it can. Which is why the conservatives have officially seceded from the "reality based community" -- If you don't get the facts you like, change 'em.
Since, at the least, the Sharks starting taking over the Jets' territory...
But just be cool, boy.
I'm pretty sure 1 in 1e38 has something to do with proton decay under certain GUTs...
I don't know why, but I take great comfort in the fact that these guys have a sense of humor.
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I never accepted his story. Indeed, I recall a number of posts on the original article along the lines of, "This guy is a Microsoft shill. How do we know he really did have problems? It'll be suspicious if, in a couple of days, he posts that -- wonders! -- WGA did exactly what it's advertised to do and, by the way, Microsoft was courteous and supportive and warm and fuzzy to boot!" In other words, astute (or appropriately paranoid) Slashdot readers predicted this sequence of events.
The law does protect me. I can walk my neighborhood without a reasonable fear of being mugged or murdered. I can order things online and not worry about my bank ripping me off or someone absconding with the merchandise in the mailroom.
Do such things happen? Yes, but exceedingly rarely, and it's because I live in a community and a nation with a strong culture of the rule of law. Is it perfect? No. Can it be abused? Of course. And there is admittedly the possibility -- indeed, the certainty -- that people are manipulating the law for unjust ends.
But all tinfoil hats and anarcho-libertarianism aside, the laws work mostly well most of the time. Execution of them could be improved for fairness, justice, and equity
The AT&T program has been described as roving, broad-based, fishing-expedition data mining, and would seem not to meet Fourth Amendment requirements.
I imagine it had a lot to do with wanting to organize the territory quickly (due to the Gold Rush, etc.) and the politics of admitting states at the time (slave v. free). But I'm no historian.
Yes, but especially in the older states. As you go out West, the dividing lines become increasingly arbitrarily drawn. Don't get me wrong: I think it's an amazing statement about this country that the map does look like a bunch of guys took a straightedge and drew boundaries. "Natural" borders are "natural" because they are defensible -- and I like that the US was not laid out with an eye to how each state could defend itself against the others.
Ouch.
Bonus points for the historical awareness.
I think you've gotten your terms crossed here. Net neutrality would mean that no one is "cut off". The loss of net neutrality would allow a telco to block, say, Google or YouTube.
Vinge has always credited Future Shock, and I don't think he's ever claimed to have come up with the idea of the Singularity. On the other hand, he's been thinking about and publishing about it since "True Names" in 1981, which is why he is often offered up as an expert on the Singularity.
Well, having just posted a confession to potentially millions of witnesses, now you should be worried...
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
-=-Upton Sinclair
Yes, and clearly, in TV and movies, we don't suffer from the regurgitation of proven material over and over and over again, with a focus on blockbusters in a vain pursuit of mega-profit....
Well, other courts besides SCOTUS can rule on constitutionality. Any court lower than SCOTUS can be appealed, of course, but the way that the Supremes make constituionality decisions is often by affirming (or quashing) the decision of a lower court.
No, there's a more troubling thing here than an attempt to dilute the reach of SCOTUS: In the US, in general, courts don't do prior review. They rule only on "actual cases and controversies" -- meaning they don't green-light legislation ahead of time. Partly this is to check the judiciary and partly it's to avoid clogging the court system with hypothetical.
Putting this before FISC without allowing an actual suit is certainly unusual and possibly a tad worrying.
In the crazy world we now inhabit, expect to see a lawsuit against the critics for restraint of trade.