I don't always agree with you, but . . . For more on the insideous contol that corporations have on the political process, see Jim Hightower's new book, "If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates." Even non-radical ideas are marginalized, and all of the "ins" are deep in the pockets of corporations. The anti-utopian fantasy from Brave New World, Stand on Zanzibar, Mockingbird, Brazil, 1984, etc. is drawing close. Maybe there is hope in the WTO protests and the Microsoft decision.
Katz: I'd love to see links added to your story to some straight news reports on this. Because this WAVE is a for-profit enterprise, it is not a governmental agency. What that means is that the Fourth Amendment is not implicated. The Fourth Amendment only applies to searches and seizures by governmental agencies (i.e. the police, the FBI, etc.). So we should be scared. I assume that this will work as follows: 1) There is an anonymous tip that someone is drinking bat blood and threatening students; 2) This information is stored; 3) if the threat is credible (or maybe even if it isn't credible) the activity will be reported to the school (or maybe even to the police). At that point, all of the usual Fourth Amendment issues would crop up again, e.g., whether the tip is reliable or whether there is confirming information. So in step three our rights would be protected (to the extent that our rights are protected at all). The biggest worry for me is step 2, i.e., the retention of information. Will this program retain the data indefinitely, will there be the equivalent of "moral credit checks" before college admission, mortgage approval, or hiring at the post office? Adolph Guiliani is defending the shooting of another unarmed black man in NYC by pointing out the juvenile arrest record of the unarmed man, as if that were at all relevant to his being slaughtered. I worry that the retention of WAVE information will follow us around throughout our lives like a juvenile arrest record. If the WAVE program is abused against gamers and goths, etc., the system could be presumably be crashed or overloaded by reporting the peculiar frat boy rituals of the them. That's something that the WAVE folks should worry about. How the hell are they planning on making a profit? Ahhh the joys of the information age.
The true innovation in the publishing world was getting Stephen King to write a "novel" that was less than 600 pages. Apparently the e-forum allowed him to get over his editor-phobia. On the other hand, it is somewhat encouraging to see the publishing industry make an attempt to engage in the new media. Maybe this will ultimately help authors who aren't traditional best-sellers, and who aren't promoted any longer by the publishers. Lastly, Katz, not all content needs to be shocking and provoking to be on the net. In fact, the net can benefit from hyper-pods that are thoughtful and reserved as long as they don't commit the greatest sin, which is being boring.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't always agree with you, but . . . For more on the insideous contol that corporations have on the political process, see Jim Hightower's new book, "If The Gods Had Meant Us To Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates." Even non-radical ideas are marginalized, and all of the "ins" are deep in the pockets of corporations. The anti-utopian fantasy from Brave New World, Stand on Zanzibar, Mockingbird, Brazil, 1984, etc. is drawing close. Maybe there is hope in the WTO protests and the Microsoft decision.
Katz: I'd love to see links added to your story to some straight news reports on this. Because this WAVE is a for-profit enterprise, it is not a governmental agency. What that means is that the Fourth Amendment is not implicated. The Fourth Amendment only applies to searches and seizures by governmental agencies (i.e. the police, the FBI, etc.). So we should be scared. I assume that this will work as follows: 1) There is an anonymous tip that someone is drinking bat blood and threatening students; 2) This information is stored; 3) if the threat is credible (or maybe even if it isn't credible) the activity will be reported to the school (or maybe even to the police). At that point, all of the usual Fourth Amendment issues would crop up again, e.g., whether the tip is reliable or whether there is confirming information. So in step three our rights would be protected (to the extent that our rights are protected at all). The biggest worry for me is step 2, i.e., the retention of information. Will this program retain the data indefinitely, will there be the equivalent of "moral credit checks" before college admission, mortgage approval, or hiring at the post office? Adolph Guiliani is defending the shooting of another unarmed black man in NYC by pointing out the juvenile arrest record of the unarmed man, as if that were at all relevant to his being slaughtered. I worry that the retention of WAVE information will follow us around throughout our lives like a juvenile arrest record. If the WAVE program is abused against gamers and goths, etc., the system could be presumably be crashed or overloaded by reporting the peculiar frat boy rituals of the them. That's something that the WAVE folks should worry about. How the hell are they planning on making a profit? Ahhh the joys of the information age.
The true innovation in the publishing world was getting Stephen King to write a "novel" that was less than 600 pages. Apparently the e-forum allowed him to get over his editor-phobia. On the other hand, it is somewhat encouraging to see the publishing industry make an attempt to engage in the new media. Maybe this will ultimately help authors who aren't traditional best-sellers, and who aren't promoted any longer by the publishers. Lastly, Katz, not all content needs to be shocking and provoking to be on the net. In fact, the net can benefit from hyper-pods that are thoughtful and reserved as long as they don't commit the greatest sin, which is being boring.