Your personal reading of the 4th amendment is neat and all, but the SCOTUS' reading is the one that matters, legally, and those guys are nothing if not creative. We're in a sorry situation, to be sure, but "plain reading" of the constitution is grounds only for moral outrage, not claims of illegality.
That's exactly the conspiracy against the constitution to which I referred.
Of course a plain reading is what matters. The Constitution is only valid because it was ratified by common people, people like you and me who speak plain English. The only basis for just government is consent of the people, and consent is only valid if it's informed consent. The People cannot provide informed consent to anything other than plain English. If the Constitution is not meant to be read in plain English, it has no legitimacy at all, and every government act is therefore a crime.
And anyhow, the 4th isn't a law.
It's not just a law, it's the highest law of the land.
Laws are made by congress, and stand unless a particular law is not to the personal taste of enough of the SCOTUS
Congress has the power to make laws only because it is granted by the people, via the Constitution. Congress has no authority to pass laws that violate the constitution. They can try, but that doesn't make it a law. It has the exact same legal standing as "laws" issued directly from my ass.
What you are describing here is not the rule of law, on which all civil society is formed. What you are describing is arbitrary government by men. Under your logic, all a corrupt executive has to do is pack the supreme court with his cronies, and nothing in the Constitution matters.
What's that? Elections? Of course we have elections, just ask my buddies on the Supreme Court who have redefined elections to mean "bushels of overripe elderberries". We have elections all the time.
Two term limit? Four years each? No problem. Our friends on the Supreme Court have decreed that in the context of constitutional law a year is 36500 days. You can't expect to interpet the constitution in plain English, don't be silly.
With the inclusion of a real money auction house, I'm glad it's online only.
Which is of no value to anyone except Blizzard, who takes a cut of all those transactions. How about providing us a game that's actually well balanced, and doesn't require players to fork over cash to win?
All of those - all of them - are things that you think should be illegal (and many would agree) but are not so
Read the 4th amendment again. Generalized surveillance is not legal. It is our government who wishes these things were legal, but they are not. The Constitution is the law of the land, and our government has repeatedly and flagrantly violated it. That makes them criminals.
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning." what crimes?
Torture, bribery of foreign officials, child sex trafficking.
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden." it's on going, and he uncovered very few crimes. Asking a company for documents is not a crime. Keeping warrant secret for an investigation is not a crime.
Eavesdropping without probable cause is a crime. Issuing warrants that do not specifically describe the places to be searched or things to be seized is a crime. The NSA cannot even abide by the unconstitutionally lax privacy rules it sets for itself, breaking those rules over 2000 times per year. Every one of those overreaches is a violation of the CFAA, those NSA analysts deserve the same treatment Aaron Swartz got.
As a culture we haven't even decided if information sent though multiple servers around the globe IS private.
Somehow it's private when one individual reads the emails of Sarah Palin, but when the NSA reads all of our emails it's not private anymore?
You can repeat what you here in your echo chamber, that doesn't make it true.
The echo chamber is within the US government. Espionage against US citizens is forbidden by the constitution. That the executive, legislative, and judicial branches have all conspired against the American people to ignore the constitution doesn't change that fact.
Whether Bradley Manning deserves to be punished is something reasonable people can disagree about. What reasonable people cannot disagree about is that those responsible for the crimes he did expose deserve to be punished.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning. No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden. No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Kiriakou. No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Binney. No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Drake.
All these people reported on crimes committed by the government and government officials. Crimes ranging from fraud, to wiretapping, to murder. In none of these cases have any of the true criminals been tried, and in every one of these cases the whistleblowers have been the subject of harassment by the government, or worse.
If you're going to fall back on the "it's the law" excuse for prosecuting whistleblowers, you have to apply the law to everyone. Anything else is despotism.
If the banks had a way to extract more money from us, wouldn't they already be doing it? Why would they wait until they were hacked and lost money to raise prices, if they thought it would increase their income?
The chances that they crack the encryption by brute force is very low. It's much more likely that they compromise the keys. Either by compromising CAs, compromising the VPN provider, or compromising your own PC.
If you actually want to be secure, it's very likely that an air gapped PC running GPG on debian or BSD will be able to provide that for you.
If people don't value their entertainment enough to pay for it, nothing of value will be lost if it goes away. Nobody expects people to work for free. We expect people to monetize their time and skills in a way that makes sense, by charging for what is scarce instead of what is is infinite supply.
What service did Lavabit provide if it's even possible for them to let the NSA to eavesdrop? Did Lavabit have the private keys of their users? Why did anyone ever trust such an arrangement?
It's a little strange that this post has been up since August 9th and there are only 4 comments on it. Has no one noticed this post until now, or are 99% of comments deleted?
Abolish copyright. Supply and demand make copyright completely unworkable in the digital age. When the marginal cost of a good is zero, the marginal price of that good will be zero. You cannot legislate around basic laws of economics. It's time for artists to find other ways to monetize their time and skills. The only alternative to aboliton of copyright will be a war on copyright infringement that will destroy our liberties. And the copyright hawks will still lose, just like they lost the war on drugs.
I assume that doesn't cover outrages by criminals and terrorists.
Sure it does. Criminals like Barack Obama and James Clapper have abused our rights and deserve to be the targets of outrage.
But I presume you mean typical street criminals and cave dwelling muslims half way across the country. Certainly they deserve outrage too, but since crime is at historical lows, and terrorism causes deaths in the range of a few dozen on an average year* it's not surprising that outrage is low.
*an average year not including 2001. But if you want to discuss 2001, consider that the deaths due to terrorism in 2001 were fewer than the deaths due to our government's response to 2001. Where 3000 people died in the WTC on 9/11, 4500 US citizens died in Iraq, and around half a million Iraqi's died. Once again proving that the US government is a greater threat than islamic terrorism.
Thanks for noticing. This may be more due to slashdot's demographics changing than a shift in public sentiment, but who knows. Personally I get more gratification from rebutting authoritarians than racking up mod points. I've noticed fewer of those, fwiw.
See, this is the point most people miss - you only know when a law, any law, is abused when someone who cares whether it has been abused knows about it
I guarantee you, every traveler who has been detained against his will knows and cares about it.
That this doesn't happen more often speaks well of a society and those who are in place to serve and protect it.
No, what would speak well of society is when every abuse of rights gets the same degree of outrage we see today.
It's never just the politicians. They can't rule without a populace willing to submit to that rule. If Americans were truly interested in freedom and rights, the streets would already be filled with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Laura Poitras, who also received the Snowden leaks, has had this exact experience. Her 2006 film, "My Country, My Country", about Iraqis living under American occupation earned her a spot on the terrorist watch list. Since 2006, she's been detained at the border around 40 times.
An abuse of the law has been brought to light and now those responsible need to be held to account for it with appropriate sanctions, i.e. not just a slap on the knuckles for something as serious as this appears to be.
Appropriate sanctions being jail time for the kidnapping of this man. The most you're actually going to see is a censure, and we'll be lucky if we get that.
Because understanding things is its own reward. It makes the world around you richer and more interesting, and it makes you a more interesting person as well.
Some of them have not only very high scientific degrees, but are also on the board of larger (>600 employees), successful companies.
Neither of those conditions precludes the possibility of being a moron.
How many bright people drive cars without even knowing the simplest things about combustion engines and drivetrains? Are they all morons?
I would say zero. All bright people have at least a "The Way Things Work" level of understanding of the things they interact with. Part of being bright is being curious about the world around you and putting together workable mental models.
Slashdot Mirror
Your personal reading of the 4th amendment is neat and all, but the SCOTUS' reading is the one that matters, legally, and those guys are nothing if not creative. We're in a sorry situation, to be sure, but "plain reading" of the constitution is grounds only for moral outrage, not claims of illegality.
That's exactly the conspiracy against the constitution to which I referred.
Of course a plain reading is what matters. The Constitution is only valid because it was ratified by common people, people like you and me who speak plain English. The only basis for just government is consent of the people, and consent is only valid if it's informed consent. The People cannot provide informed consent to anything other than plain English. If the Constitution is not meant to be read in plain English, it has no legitimacy at all, and every government act is therefore a crime.
And anyhow, the 4th isn't a law.
It's not just a law, it's the highest law of the land.
Laws are made by congress, and stand unless a particular law is not to the personal taste of enough of the SCOTUS
Congress has the power to make laws only because it is granted by the people, via the Constitution. Congress has no authority to pass laws that violate the constitution. They can try, but that doesn't make it a law. It has the exact same legal standing as "laws" issued directly from my ass.
What you are describing here is not the rule of law, on which all civil society is formed. What you are describing is arbitrary government by men. Under your logic, all a corrupt executive has to do is pack the supreme court with his cronies, and nothing in the Constitution matters.
That is essentially what you are arguing for.
With the inclusion of a real money auction house, I'm glad it's online only.
Which is of no value to anyone except Blizzard, who takes a cut of all those transactions. How about providing us a game that's actually well balanced, and doesn't require players to fork over cash to win?
All of those - all of them - are things that you think should be illegal (and many would agree) but are not so
Read the 4th amendment again. Generalized surveillance is not legal. It is our government who wishes these things were legal, but they are not. The Constitution is the law of the land, and our government has repeatedly and flagrantly violated it. That makes them criminals.
Any word on offline single player? No offline single player, no sale.
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning."
what crimes?
Torture, bribery of foreign officials, child sex trafficking.
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden."
it's on going, and he uncovered very few crimes.
Asking a company for documents is not a crime.
Keeping warrant secret for an investigation is not a crime.
Eavesdropping without probable cause is a crime. Issuing warrants that do not specifically describe the places to be searched or things to be seized is a crime. The NSA cannot even abide by the unconstitutionally lax privacy rules it sets for itself, breaking those rules over 2000 times per year. Every one of those overreaches is a violation of the CFAA, those NSA analysts deserve the same treatment Aaron Swartz got.
As a culture we haven't even decided if information sent though multiple servers around the globe IS private.
Somehow it's private when one individual reads the emails of Sarah Palin, but when the NSA reads all of our emails it's not private anymore?
You can repeat what you here in your echo chamber, that doesn't make it true.
The echo chamber is within the US government. Espionage against US citizens is forbidden by the constitution. That the executive, legislative, and judicial branches have all conspired against the American people to ignore the constitution doesn't change that fact.
Whether Bradley Manning deserves to be punished is something reasonable people can disagree about. What reasonable people cannot disagree about is that those responsible for the crimes he did expose deserve to be punished.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Kiriakou.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Binney.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Drake.
All these people reported on crimes committed by the government and government officials. Crimes ranging from fraud, to wiretapping, to murder. In none of these cases have any of the true criminals been tried, and in every one of these cases the whistleblowers have been the subject of harassment by the government, or worse.
If you're going to fall back on the "it's the law" excuse for prosecuting whistleblowers, you have to apply the law to everyone. Anything else is despotism.
If the banks had a way to extract more money from us, wouldn't they already be doing it? Why would they wait until they were hacked and lost money to raise prices, if they thought it would increase their income?
Canada is big.
Yes, and then you get sued for copyright infringement, even if you didn't consciously know you were riffing on something pre-existing.
The chances that they crack the encryption by brute force is very low. It's much more likely that they compromise the keys. Either by compromising CAs, compromising the VPN provider, or compromising your own PC.
If you actually want to be secure, it's very likely that an air gapped PC running GPG on debian or BSD will be able to provide that for you.
If people don't value their entertainment enough to pay for it, nothing of value will be lost if it goes away. Nobody expects people to work for free. We expect people to monetize their time and skills in a way that makes sense, by charging for what is scarce instead of what is is infinite supply.
I meant the USPTO blog post, not yours. The USPTO blog post is dated "Friday Aug 09, 2013" with comments from the 9th, 10th, and 11th.
I'm guessing it's just been poorly publicized until now. But we'll see if any of our comments show up on uspto.gov.
What service did Lavabit provide if it's even possible for them to let the NSA to eavesdrop? Did Lavabit have the private keys of their users? Why did anyone ever trust such an arrangement?
It's a little strange that this post has been up since August 9th and there are only 4 comments on it. Has no one noticed this post until now, or are 99% of comments deleted?
Here's my comment:
We'll see if it gets approved by the moderator.
I assume that doesn't cover outrages by criminals and terrorists.
Sure it does. Criminals like Barack Obama and James Clapper have abused our rights and deserve to be the targets of outrage.
But I presume you mean typical street criminals and cave dwelling muslims half way across the country. Certainly they deserve outrage too, but since crime is at historical lows, and terrorism causes deaths in the range of a few dozen on an average year* it's not surprising that outrage is low.
*an average year not including 2001. But if you want to discuss 2001, consider that the deaths due to terrorism in 2001 were fewer than the deaths due to our government's response to 2001. Where 3000 people died in the WTC on 9/11, 4500 US citizens died in Iraq, and around half a million Iraqi's died. Once again proving that the US government is a greater threat than islamic terrorism.
Thanks for noticing. This may be more due to slashdot's demographics changing than a shift in public sentiment, but who knows. Personally I get more gratification from rebutting authoritarians than racking up mod points. I've noticed fewer of those, fwiw.
See, this is the point most people miss - you only know when a law, any law, is abused when someone who cares whether it has been abused knows about it
I guarantee you, every traveler who has been detained against his will knows and cares about it.
That this doesn't happen more often speaks well of a society and those who are in place to serve and protect it.
No, what would speak well of society is when every abuse of rights gets the same degree of outrage we see today.
It's never just the politicians. They can't rule without a populace willing to submit to that rule. If Americans were truly interested in freedom and rights, the streets would already be filled with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Laura Poitras, who also received the Snowden leaks, has had this exact experience. Her 2006 film, "My Country, My Country", about Iraqis living under American occupation earned her a spot on the terrorist watch list. Since 2006, she's been detained at the border around 40 times.
An abuse of the law has been brought to light and now those responsible need to be held to account for it with appropriate sanctions, i.e. not just a slap on the knuckles for something as serious as this appears to be.
Appropriate sanctions being jail time for the kidnapping of this man. The most you're actually going to see is a censure, and we'll be lucky if we get that.
Are they idiots, or do they think we are idiots? If a law can be abused, it will be abused. No exceptions.
Because understanding things is its own reward. It makes the world around you richer and more interesting, and it makes you a more interesting person as well.
Some of them have not only very high scientific degrees, but are also on the board of larger (>600 employees), successful companies.
Neither of those conditions precludes the possibility of being a moron.
How many bright people drive cars without even knowing the simplest things about combustion engines and drivetrains? Are they all morons?
I would say zero. All bright people have at least a "The Way Things Work" level of understanding of the things they interact with. Part of being bright is being curious about the world around you and putting together workable mental models.
People* don't really remember full urls any more, they just search for the closest and Google sorts the rest.
If this is a better way of doing things, why did AOL keywords fail in the 90s?