Sorry, I was unclear. I did not intend to disagree and do not disagree with any of your points here.
The most absurdly over the top loathsome aspect is, as you correctly pointed out, the 5th Amendment issue.
Without advice of an attorney, it is not even possible to have a civilized discussion about how to appropriately comply with the law. It boils down to do what they say, or dare them to arrest me under laws I cannot understand and cannot get assistance in understanding.
If I actually received such a letter, I would inclined to refuse to comply until I received a revised letter that explicitly allowed me to seek advice of an attorney. "I am sorry but I do not understand the contents of this letter. I have both legal and ethical obligations to my clients. I need advice of an attorney, or I cannot help you without risk of breaking the law."
But, of course, talk is cheap, but it would not cost anything to try it twice. Nicholas Merrill did the wise thing, really.
This law isn't troubling because the ISP owner can't tell the public about the NSL. It's troubling because he can't even tell his own lawyer. If the law is found to be unconstitutional that will be the reason why.
On the nose.
This NSL is so manifestly loathsome it would be so tempting to simply publish the letter. It puts a citizen in a position where he may be breaking the law no matter what, without the Constitutionally protected advice of an attorney.
What happens if the FBI were to demand from you actions for which you could be civilly or even criminally libel? Would "just following orders" in defiance of your own common sense be a defense you want to rely on?
Absolutely. If I want to ensure that I will always be able to see to the horizon without any structures in my way, I need to buy the land to the horizon. What's so difficult to understand about that?
In 99.9999% of the real world cases, your land-to-be already had a set of restrictions called Zoning Laws at the time of purchase. If you have a problem with that, you are free to go find land without such infringements.
In fact, most everyone welcomes *some* amount of restrictions, including land developers. Zoning Laws significantly improve the perceived value of the land, because no one wants to plunk down their life savings on a property that could very easily go south on the whim of a neighbor.
"If it involves taking people's income to pay for government services, it's socialism. You're just conditioned to it."
Well, that kind of macho posturing may impress the weak-minded, but it is worst than patently wrong; it is perfectly useless.
Taking people's income to pay for government services is exactly what every civilization has done since we moved out of the caves. What has varied is what class of person bore which degree of tax burden, what were the spending priorities, who benefited, and the relative degree.
Java and C++ have been built towards one end of a logical extreme . Python, Perl, etc. have been built towards to the other end of a logical extreme.
Specifically, both Java and C++ are both statically typed and compiled. Java and C++ are both very verbose as well, because that happens to be the simplest path towards accomplishing those two goals.
On the other hand, the scripting languages are both dynamically typed and (usually) interpreted.
But there are other available approaches that live in between these worlds. It is possible be lighter weight by offloading work to the compiler (and perhaps the IDE), while still gaining all the advantages of a statically typed language.
As a twice victim of identity theft (once stolen checks, once false credit cards), I have strong circumstantial evidence that "insiders" were involved in both cases. One might wonder if that is not the norm...
Vigilance can only limit the damage. If the criminals are within the banking/credit system, it is not even theoretically possible for you to fully protect the banks from themselves in your name.
Based on my experience I am a strong believer in NEVER using debit cards. The inherent weakness of debit cards is that they take money right out of your bank account.
A credit card company has a strong incentive to reasonable in resolving disputes: if push comes to shove, you can simply walk away from debt you deem fraudulent (and the burden of proof and costs of getting the court case rolling will be on their shoulders). This level of indirection protects you, and allows you to put food on the table and gas in the car while straightening out the mess.
A bank has a strong incentive to screw you over with regards to debit cards: any monies that have falsely left your account are costs they may have to eat. Banks will swear up and down that debit cards offer "all the protections" of credit cards. At one time that was close to true. Sort of. But when someone ugly goes wrong with your checking account, it is easy to rack up lots of late fees quickly left and right. And the banks are happy to label straightening these issues your problems, while hemming and hawing over whether you get access to any of the money that should be rightfully in your account.
Fradulent credit card debt is a "paper" problem, and have future headaches. Debit card fraud can mean you are truly screwed in the here and now.
Yes it would actually hurt China. They need markets to sell to. While it wouldn't also cause other short term pain, it would allow development of markets in other countries, eroding China's long term markets. China is not the only game in town by a long shot.
Exactly.
The If/When/How of making major investments in China is always in flux. Even if the US gov't plans no action, by taking "token" steps of this kind, it eventually creates another bullet point to be weighed by the board of directors of every tech company that is thinking about stepping into China: "The Chinese government will steal our technology."
That just does not look pretty on a powerpoint presentation.
China wants to move "up the food chain" to eventually be world technology leaders. They have a long ways to go, and they need foreign tech companies to teach Chinese engineers and managers how it is done. Scaring away the best tech companies has its down side.
Miranda and its secrecy is easy to believe IMO.
By its nature, one might expect Miranda to be a bit hush-hush, at least until it was a proven success.
It was a risky experiment that might become the prototype for re-engineering the human race. That something like that might go wrong was obvious. That something might go so catastrophically wrong so quickly was not. It was always plausible that they might need to employ Pax 1.1 or Pax 2.0 or Pax 3.2, before bragging to the whole galaxy.
The Alliance had the wisdom to pick a far corner of space that was out in the boondocks, in the first place. Once the Reavers were unleashed, no one was going to poke around a dangerous neighborhood looking for a failed terraforming effort.
Slashdot Mirror
The most absurdly over the top loathsome aspect is, as you correctly pointed out, the 5th Amendment issue.
Without advice of an attorney, it is not even possible to have a civilized discussion about how to appropriately comply with the law. It boils down to do what they say, or dare them to arrest me under laws I cannot understand and cannot get assistance in understanding.
If I actually received such a letter, I would inclined to refuse to comply until I received a revised letter that explicitly allowed me to seek advice of an attorney. "I am sorry but I do not understand the contents of this letter. I have both legal and ethical obligations to my clients. I need advice of an attorney, or I cannot help you without risk of breaking the law."
But, of course, talk is cheap, but it would not cost anything to try it twice. Nicholas Merrill did the wise thing, really.
This law isn't troubling because the ISP owner can't tell the public about the NSL. It's troubling because he can't even tell his own lawyer. If the law is found to be unconstitutional that will be the reason why.
On the nose.
This NSL is so manifestly loathsome it would be so tempting to simply publish the letter. It puts a citizen in a position where he may be breaking the law no matter what, without the Constitutionally protected advice of an attorney.
What happens if the FBI were to demand from you actions for which you could be civilly or even criminally libel? Would "just following orders" in defiance of your own common sense be a defense you want to rely on?
Absolutely. If I want to ensure that I will always be able to see to the horizon without any structures in my way, I need to buy the land to the horizon. What's so difficult to understand about that?
In 99.9999% of the real world cases, your land-to-be already had a set of restrictions called Zoning Laws at the time of purchase. If you have a problem with that, you are free to go find land without such infringements.
In fact, most everyone welcomes *some* amount of restrictions, including land developers. Zoning Laws significantly improve the perceived value of the land, because no one wants to plunk down their life savings on a property that could very easily go south on the whim of a neighbor.
Well, that kind of macho posturing may impress the weak-minded, but it is worst than patently wrong; it is perfectly useless.
Taking people's income to pay for government services is exactly what every civilization has done since we moved out of the caves. What has varied is what class of person bore which degree of tax burden, what were the spending priorities, who benefited, and the relative degree.
Java and C++ have been built towards one end of a logical extreme . Python, Perl, etc. have been built towards to the other end of a logical extreme.
Specifically, both Java and C++ are both statically typed and compiled. Java and C++ are both very verbose as well, because that happens to be the simplest path towards accomplishing those two goals.
On the other hand, the scripting languages are both dynamically typed and (usually) interpreted.
But there are other available approaches that live in between these worlds. It is possible be lighter weight by offloading work to the compiler (and perhaps the IDE), while still gaining all the advantages of a statically typed language.
As a twice victim of identity theft (once stolen checks, once false credit cards), I have strong circumstantial evidence that "insiders" were involved in both cases. One might wonder if that is not the norm...
Vigilance can only limit the damage. If the criminals are within the banking/credit system, it is not even theoretically possible for you to fully protect the banks from themselves in your name.
Based on my experience I am a strong believer in NEVER using debit cards. The inherent weakness of debit cards is that they take money right out of your bank account.
A credit card company has a strong incentive to reasonable in resolving disputes: if push comes to shove, you can simply walk away from debt you deem fraudulent (and the burden of proof and costs of getting the court case rolling will be on their shoulders). This level of indirection protects you, and allows you to put food on the table and gas in the car while straightening out the mess.
A bank has a strong incentive to screw you over with regards to debit cards: any monies that have falsely left your account are costs they may have to eat. Banks will swear up and down that debit cards offer "all the protections" of credit cards. At one time that was close to true. Sort of. But when someone ugly goes wrong with your checking account, it is easy to rack up lots of late fees quickly left and right. And the banks are happy to label straightening these issues your problems, while hemming and hawing over whether you get access to any of the money that should be rightfully in your account.
Fradulent credit card debt is a "paper" problem, and have future headaches. Debit card fraud can mean you are truly screwed in the here and now.
Yes it would actually hurt China. They need markets to sell to. While it wouldn't also cause other short term pain, it would allow development of markets in other countries, eroding China's long term markets. China is not the only game in town by a long shot.
Exactly. The If/When/How of making major investments in China is always in flux. Even if the US gov't plans no action, by taking "token" steps of this kind, it eventually creates another bullet point to be weighed by the board of directors of every tech company that is thinking about stepping into China: "The Chinese government will steal our technology." That just does not look pretty on a powerpoint presentation. China wants to move "up the food chain" to eventually be world technology leaders. They have a long ways to go, and they need foreign tech companies to teach Chinese engineers and managers how it is done. Scaring away the best tech companies has its down side.
Miranda and its secrecy is easy to believe IMO. By its nature, one might expect Miranda to be a bit hush-hush, at least until it was a proven success. It was a risky experiment that might become the prototype for re-engineering the human race. That something like that might go wrong was obvious. That something might go so catastrophically wrong so quickly was not. It was always plausible that they might need to employ Pax 1.1 or Pax 2.0 or Pax 3.2, before bragging to the whole galaxy. The Alliance had the wisdom to pick a far corner of space that was out in the boondocks, in the first place. Once the Reavers were unleashed, no one was going to poke around a dangerous neighborhood looking for a failed terraforming effort.