The telecommuting telecommunications isn't using NYC's resources much, though in fact NYC telecom taxes do pay for that - in a vastly complex, usually unfair system that doesn't pay its own way.
The NYC company consuming NYC services to employ the telecommuter has to be paid by taxes. And the NYC corporations don't pay enough to support that. I already specified just one kind of NYC service, legal/justice, consumed by telecommuters, but every respondent has ignored it.
NYC residents do demand NYC not give tax breaks to companies. But corporations have much more clout than humans, in NYC as elsewhere, so corporate demands trump human ones, in combination with other issues politicians use to cover the corporate welfare.
FWIW, one reason Giuliani was so hated by most New Yorkers by the end of his term as mayor was because he dropped the commuter tax on the physical commuters who depend on NYC services for their way of life. Not just the services keeping their office working. But also as a sink for poor people who can't afford the cost of living in the commuters' hometowns, who keep those hometown service demands low by living in NYC. Where it's also cheaper to service them, in our economy of scale.
What's the basis for the "so" with which you start off your question? I asked how the NYC services consumed by the telecommuter should be paid. The story summary, and framers of the telecommuter tax issue present an all-or-nothing false choice.
I don't think that the telecommuter should pay for all the redundant services delivered in multiple places. In fact, it's long been clear to me that the most appropriate tax is sales tax, with true necessities excluded - and labor included (instead of income tax).
In telecommuting, the labor takes place simultaneously in multiple locations, which split the tax on its wage price proportionately. If Chicago had a 10% sales tax and NYC had a 15% sales tax, and you charged your NYC employer $200, you'd owe Chicago 10% of $100 = $10 and NYC 15% of $100 = $15, so you'd probably tack $25 onto the $200 price.
It's a lot easier, cheaper and more likely to collect sales taxes from the fewer vendors than consumers, using the more frequent government controls on vendors for enforcement. Which means lower cost of collection and higher collections. All based on a system that costs people proportionate to their benefit from it, while reserving subsidy for necessities for the poor without the overhead of cycling the money through those less competent people.
If our $12T+ GDP paid 21% sales tax instead of income tax, we'd have the $2.5T Federal budget without debt - and a surplus. Include the other government income, and total Federal, state and local sales taxes would account for expenses, before any debt or even a 25% sales tax, not even considering the savings of such a simpler system. And it would make tax reporting much cheaper and easier, not to mention fairer and less invasive.
In NYC, where we know all about reality, the inadequacies of telecom crime law enforcement come mainly from underfunding professional training and staffing. Though we do spend an awful lot of money on what they do cover.
Here in realitytown, we know that the extra demand on the ISP placed by its customers makes extra work for the legal services. And that the ISP is even more likely to have telecommuters.
Which part of pretend-land do you live in? The part where there's always someone else to pay the tab, so the bill never lands anywhere?
I already pointed out that the company underpays taxes already. And that the same people push for reduced taxes on both corporations and individuals (but mainly corporations and the individuals who own them).
How can you miss that?
Those people are also responsible for more than their proportional share of action by government, especially legal action.
Maybe you think there's such a thing as a free lunch, like the people trying to drown government in a bathtub.
Poorly constructed example. When the telecommuter's NYC company gets a new bill from their ISP raising rates on their VPN, the company calls the Consumer Affairs department, the cops, the Attorney General, or some other government office, or their lawyer does.
Remember, corporations don't pay as much taxes as they consume in services already. Especially in cities like NYC which have cut taxes and made deals, supposedly to keep companies from leaving for places like New Jersey which don't charge taxes - or offer services.
How can you quote the specific example of the NYC justice system protecting your job and your employer, then ignore it in your response? Sounds like you're overpaying for your Kansas schools. I don't think you need any other references to the Dark Ages beyond what we've already mentioned here.
When the NYC company doesn't pay its telecommunting workers, the jursidiction is in NYC. Who pays for the justice system protecting that worker? Who pays for its ongoing activity that deters NYC companies from stiffing workers? Telecommuters who don't have any contact with each other, across the globe, are even more vulnerable to such attacks.
There's lots of other government expenses keeping the telecommuter's job available and worth keeping. You can cherrypick from the many expenses saved by telecommuting, like the obvious road maintenance (except for its role enabling the other services more directly consumed by telecommuters). But I asked about the services actually consumed by telecommuters. And I referred to the other end of the equation, already more advanced, where the resident corporations already pay too little taxes for the services they consume, and are even closer to paying even less. If you stop trying to rationalize a free ride at the expense of those of us who actually do pay our way, you'll have to admit they need to be paid. And that discarding them on telecommuters either underserves telecommuters, overcharges residents, and usually both.
Here's a good test for sarcasm: take the communication at face value. Is a response ridiculous? If not, it's safe to assume you're not dealing with sarcasm.
How should NYC pay for the costs of legislating, policing, and judging the protections of the workers while they're telecommunting to NYC businesses? Or any of the other municipal/state costs that keep NYC such a great place to work, even virtually?
The same people pushing telecommuter tax exemption are even more insistent on corporate tax exemption. Of course, those same people want government out of the way of unrestrained corporate activity, regardless of its effects on humans - and nonprivileged corporations. It's corporate anarchy, and it looks a lot like the Dark Ages.
"The government should regulate our ability to use reflected energy to identify and examine objects."
You describe the privacy invasion when people shine a special artificial light through a usually opaque barrier so vaguely that you're also describing the practice of looking at anything that's not just emitting its own light. To say the government should regulate seeing is obviously sarcastic, obviously saying that the government shouldn't regulate this THz imaging.
As for an analogy to listening devices, which I didn't mention (nor has anyone else in this thread or story, until you threw that straw man), it's similarly analogous to freshly churned butter.
Pretty lame troll. Especially your followup, in which you show your hand as you grasp at more straws. BlabberMouth.
Actually, I seem to remember that case, or one like it based on infrared scopes through a shaded (in visible spectrum only) window, was resolved recently in favor of the person who expected privacy. They were reasonable to expect it because the emission wasn't general knowledge. I'm not sure that has changed since then, or how a given judge's own "reasonable expectations" influence this kind of analysis.
But THz imaging doesn't use reflected ambient light, or light generated by the material owned/controlled by the suspect. The cop shines THz light on the subject near a sensor. Which violates any reasonable expectation of privacy, with the possible exception that people might expect to have their privacy invaded at security checkpoints. That might be a BS circular self-justifying argument, or it might just be part of the "exceptions" to protections of our liberty we're forced to accept these days. Regardless (pun intended;), the fineness of the legal points deteriorate our natural sense of freedom and integrity, our distrust of the authorities, and show no evidence of increased security beyond measures that respect privacy until evidence justifies otherwise.
The government already protects our efforts to shield ourselves from people shining extra energy through covering expected to protect our privacy. New laws specifiying that these new energies are just as regulated as the old ones will protect us better.
Especially from people making artifically broad and vague descriptions of the privacy invasion in order to justify them.
If that tech really works as simply as that, then we should immediately have laws to protect our privacy, while offering security. Like requiring the imaging be allowed only when the material detection shows an illegal, controlled substance - like anthrax or uranium. A strict list of controlled substances, with contingencies for substances with "dual use" (legal as well as illegal) should allow imaging of legal objects to stop the intrusions.
It's like a movie where the TrollMod must stop Doc Ruby from being read in time for the next election! Since the TrollMod is fresh out of counterexamples, facts or even logic of any kind, and must not reveal their identity, they must mod down, before it's too late!
That's great, except that the Espionage Act to which you link was used to jail a publisher in only one instance, which conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, and wasn't for leaking, but for editorial opposition to the war. And which wasn't used to fight the war well, but rather to fight American Socialism, jailing a publisher running for relection to represent Wisconsin in Congress from the Socialist Party. He won, despite the conviction that suppressed his taking office - and suppressed the majority of Wisconsin voters from representation. After he was cleared, he was reelected to Congress 3 more times, then resumed his newspaper publishing career.
His case proves my point: jailing leak publishers had nothing to do with fighting those wars well. It has everything to do with political repression. That's why Gonzales is twisting the laws he and his buddies usually insist were graven in stone in the 1700s to find a way to intimidate publishers from informing the people of the government's secret abuses.
It's a good thing Gonzales can't disconnect Wikipedia, or we might have to believe the lies you're spinning to back his tyranny. At least, he can't disconnect it yet. But you can stop lying.
How about a real example where circumventing privacy in favor of such urgency has saved a single life?
I'm not interested in political theory or espionage "what if" scenarios. If there isn't even a single real example to support this need, in our extremely complex, dangerous, long-historied world, I'm not sympathetic. Not compared to the proven invasions of personal lives by government power abuse, in any given week. If I want to let my imagination run unfettered by reality, I can rationalize anything. Which today is standard government policy.
I keep hearing about all these movie-plot scenarios that require immediate decryption - in the movies. I have yet to hear one actual scenario in which a few hours decrypting threatened even a single life. Until I do, with a healthy faith in science and a long memory of selfserving government lies covering up crime with "national security" claims, why should I pay any attention to these demands for urgency?
Maybe not, but the change in relative values of two currencies over time, which is what I posted, can say a lot. It certainly says the amount of profit made/lost by traders at those points. When price inflation is factored in, the change in buying power is the "currency power" we're talking about.
"it was decided that an exchange rate of One Euro = One ECU "
The ECU was an artificially valued monetary unit. That was the basis of the artifically specified value at which the euro was introduced. However reasonable the basis, that value was not its natural value, as demonstrated by the test of actually trading it in public. Which quickly established a much lower value, 31% lower in about a year, then climbing over 54% as subsequent global events unfolded.
The euro started trading at an artifically specified U$1.18, dropped quickly to just over $0.82 in actual markets, and has climbed from that natural valuation to $1.27. That's an over 54% increase. The euro's superiority is clear, defining supremacy over the formerly supreme dollar.
You can't be "sarcastic" simultaneously about both a false euro introduction rate of $2.00, and predicting the imminent supremacy of the euro. Especially when getting the intro rate wrong isn't sarcasm.
Slashdot Mirror
The telecommuting telecommunications isn't using NYC's resources much, though in fact NYC telecom taxes do pay for that - in a vastly complex, usually unfair system that doesn't pay its own way.
The NYC company consuming NYC services to employ the telecommuter has to be paid by taxes. And the NYC corporations don't pay enough to support that. I already specified just one kind of NYC service, legal/justice, consumed by telecommuters, but every respondent has ignored it.
NYC residents do demand NYC not give tax breaks to companies. But corporations have much more clout than humans, in NYC as elsewhere, so corporate demands trump human ones, in combination with other issues politicians use to cover the corporate welfare.
FWIW, one reason Giuliani was so hated by most New Yorkers by the end of his term as mayor was because he dropped the commuter tax on the physical commuters who depend on NYC services for their way of life. Not just the services keeping their office working. But also as a sink for poor people who can't afford the cost of living in the commuters' hometowns, who keep those hometown service demands low by living in NYC. Where it's also cheaper to service them, in our economy of scale.
What's the basis for the "so" with which you start off your question? I asked how the NYC services consumed by the telecommuter should be paid. The story summary, and framers of the telecommuter tax issue present an all-or-nothing false choice.
I don't think that the telecommuter should pay for all the redundant services delivered in multiple places. In fact, it's long been clear to me that the most appropriate tax is sales tax, with true necessities excluded - and labor included (instead of income tax).
In telecommuting, the labor takes place simultaneously in multiple locations, which split the tax on its wage price proportionately. If Chicago had a 10% sales tax and NYC had a 15% sales tax, and you charged your NYC employer $200, you'd owe Chicago 10% of $100 = $10 and NYC 15% of $100 = $15, so you'd probably tack $25 onto the $200 price.
It's a lot easier, cheaper and more likely to collect sales taxes from the fewer vendors than consumers, using the more frequent government controls on vendors for enforcement. Which means lower cost of collection and higher collections. All based on a system that costs people proportionate to their benefit from it, while reserving subsidy for necessities for the poor without the overhead of cycling the money through those less competent people.
If our $12T+ GDP paid 21% sales tax instead of income tax, we'd have the $2.5T Federal budget without debt - and a surplus. Include the other government income, and total Federal, state and local sales taxes would account for expenses, before any debt or even a 25% sales tax, not even considering the savings of such a simpler system. And it would make tax reporting much cheaper and easier, not to mention fairer and less invasive.
In NYC, where we know all about reality, the inadequacies of telecom crime law enforcement come mainly from underfunding professional training and staffing. Though we do spend an awful lot of money on what they do cover.
Here in realitytown, we know that the extra demand on the ISP placed by its customers makes extra work for the legal services. And that the ISP is even more likely to have telecommuters.
Which part of pretend-land do you live in? The part where there's always someone else to pay the tab, so the bill never lands anywhere?
I already pointed out that the company underpays taxes already. And that the same people push for reduced taxes on both corporations and individuals (but mainly corporations and the individuals who own them).
How can you miss that?
Those people are also responsible for more than their proportional share of action by government, especially legal action.
Maybe you think there's such a thing as a free lunch, like the people trying to drown government in a bathtub.
Poorly constructed example. When the telecommuter's NYC company gets a new bill from their ISP raising rates on their VPN, the company calls the Consumer Affairs department, the cops, the Attorney General, or some other government office, or their lawyer does.
Remember, corporations don't pay as much taxes as they consume in services already. Especially in cities like NYC which have cut taxes and made deals, supposedly to keep companies from leaving for places like New Jersey which don't charge taxes - or offer services.
When your NYC company's ISP gets DDoS'ed by an extortion racket, they call the NY Attorney General. Who pays for that?
How can you quote the specific example of the NYC justice system protecting your job and your employer, then ignore it in your response? Sounds like you're overpaying for your Kansas schools. I don't think you need any other references to the Dark Ages beyond what we've already mentioned here.
When the NYC company doesn't pay its telecommunting workers, the jursidiction is in NYC. Who pays for the justice system protecting that worker? Who pays for its ongoing activity that deters NYC companies from stiffing workers? Telecommuters who don't have any contact with each other, across the globe, are even more vulnerable to such attacks.
There's lots of other government expenses keeping the telecommuter's job available and worth keeping. You can cherrypick from the many expenses saved by telecommuting, like the obvious road maintenance (except for its role enabling the other services more directly consumed by telecommuters). But I asked about the services actually consumed by telecommuters. And I referred to the other end of the equation, already more advanced, where the resident corporations already pay too little taxes for the services they consume, and are even closer to paying even less. If you stop trying to rationalize a free ride at the expense of those of us who actually do pay our way, you'll have to admit they need to be paid. And that discarding them on telecommuters either underserves telecommuters, overcharges residents, and usually both.
No.
Here's a good test for sarcasm: take the communication at face value. Is a response ridiculous? If not, it's safe to assume you're not dealing with sarcasm.
How should NYC pay for the costs of legislating, policing, and judging the protections of the workers while they're telecommunting to NYC businesses? Or any of the other municipal/state costs that keep NYC such a great place to work, even virtually?
The same people pushing telecommuter tax exemption are even more insistent on corporate tax exemption. Of course, those same people want government out of the way of unrestrained corporate activity, regardless of its effects on humans - and nonprivileged corporations. It's corporate anarchy, and it looks a lot like the Dark Ages.
"The government should regulate our ability to use reflected energy to identify and examine objects."
You describe the privacy invasion when people shine a special artificial light through a usually opaque barrier so vaguely that you're also describing the practice of looking at anything that's not just emitting its own light. To say the government should regulate seeing is obviously sarcastic, obviously saying that the government shouldn't regulate this THz imaging.
As for an analogy to listening devices, which I didn't mention (nor has anyone else in this thread or story, until you threw that straw man), it's similarly analogous to freshly churned butter.
Pretty lame troll. Especially your followup, in which you show your hand as you grasp at more straws. BlabberMouth.
Actually, I seem to remember that case, or one like it based on infrared scopes through a shaded (in visible spectrum only) window, was resolved recently in favor of the person who expected privacy. They were reasonable to expect it because the emission wasn't general knowledge. I'm not sure that has changed since then, or how a given judge's own "reasonable expectations" influence this kind of analysis.
;), the fineness of the legal points deteriorate our natural sense of freedom and integrity, our distrust of the authorities, and show no evidence of increased security beyond measures that respect privacy until evidence justifies otherwise.
But THz imaging doesn't use reflected ambient light, or light generated by the material owned/controlled by the suspect. The cop shines THz light on the subject near a sensor. Which violates any reasonable expectation of privacy, with the possible exception that people might expect to have their privacy invaded at security checkpoints. That might be a BS circular self-justifying argument, or it might just be part of the "exceptions" to protections of our liberty we're forced to accept these days. Regardless (pun intended
Starting Score: 1 point
Karma-Bonus Modifier +1 (Edit)
Total Score: 2
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3: 24 comments
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Hundreds of modpoints assigned, but none to the comment by the author about the accessable status of TFA.
The government already protects our efforts to shield ourselves from people shining extra energy through covering expected to protect our privacy. New laws specifiying that these new energies are just as regulated as the old ones will protect us better.
Especially from people making artifically broad and vague descriptions of the privacy invasion in order to justify them.
Can U235 be distinguished from U238 (and U234) by these THz rotational sensors? Can't the sensors detect the amount of the material?
If that tech really works as simply as that, then we should immediately have laws to protect our privacy, while offering security. Like requiring the imaging be allowed only when the material detection shows an illegal, controlled substance - like anthrax or uranium. A strict list of controlled substances, with contingencies for substances with "dual use" (legal as well as illegal) should allow imaging of legal objects to stop the intrusions.
"Why should anyone pay attention to a trolling imbecile like you "
You spelled "me" wrong, Anonymous trolling imbecile Coward.
Moderation -1
100% Troll
It's like a movie where the TrollMod must stop Doc Ruby from being read in time for the next election! Since the TrollMod is fresh out of counterexamples, facts or even logic of any kind, and must not reveal their identity, they must mod down, before it's too late!
"That's great, except for the part where it just isn't true."
That's great, except that the Espionage Act to which you link was used to jail a publisher in only one instance, which conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, and wasn't for leaking, but for editorial opposition to the war. And which wasn't used to fight the war well, but rather to fight American Socialism, jailing a publisher running for relection to represent Wisconsin in Congress from the Socialist Party. He won, despite the conviction that suppressed his taking office - and suppressed the majority of Wisconsin voters from representation. After he was cleared, he was reelected to Congress 3 more times, then resumed his newspaper publishing career.
His case proves my point: jailing leak publishers had nothing to do with fighting those wars well. It has everything to do with political repression. That's why Gonzales is twisting the laws he and his buddies usually insist were graven in stone in the 1700s to find a way to intimidate publishers from informing the people of the government's secret abuses.
It's a good thing Gonzales can't disconnect Wikipedia, or we might have to believe the lies you're spinning to back his tyranny. At least, he can't disconnect it yet. But you can stop lying.
How about a real example where circumventing privacy in favor of such urgency has saved a single life?
I'm not interested in political theory or espionage "what if" scenarios. If there isn't even a single real example to support this need, in our extremely complex, dangerous, long-historied world, I'm not sympathetic. Not compared to the proven invasions of personal lives by government power abuse, in any given week. If I want to let my imagination run unfettered by reality, I can rationalize anything. Which today is standard government policy.
I keep hearing about all these movie-plot scenarios that require immediate decryption - in the movies. I have yet to hear one actual scenario in which a few hours decrypting threatened even a single life. Until I do, with a healthy faith in science and a long memory of selfserving government lies covering up crime with "national security" claims, why should I pay any attention to these demands for urgency?
Where's the Zfone (or interoperable) SIP module for Asterisk? And which softphones & ATAs already include one?
Maybe not, but the change in relative values of two currencies over time, which is what I posted, can say a lot. It certainly says the amount of profit made/lost by traders at those points. When price inflation is factored in, the change in buying power is the "currency power" we're talking about.
"it was decided that an exchange rate of One Euro = One ECU "
The ECU was an artificially valued monetary unit. That was the basis of the artifically specified value at which the euro was introduced. However reasonable the basis, that value was not its natural value, as demonstrated by the test of actually trading it in public. Which quickly established a much lower value, 31% lower in about a year, then climbing over 54% as subsequent global events unfolded.
The euro started trading at an artifically specified U$1.18, dropped quickly to just over $0.82 in actual markets, and has climbed from that natural valuation to $1.27. That's an over 54% increase. The euro's superiority is clear, defining supremacy over the formerly supreme dollar.
You can't be "sarcastic" simultaneously about both a false euro introduction rate of $2.00, and predicting the imminent supremacy of the euro. Especially when getting the intro rate wrong isn't sarcasm.