Imagine you created a commercial, and you wanted to pay a television network to air it. They air it, receive complaints, and decide not to air it any more. Have you lost free speech rights? Of course not, you can approach any number of other networks and cable stations to get them to air it. You can broadcast your message in other mediums.
In your interpretation, the first ammendment guarantees to every American the right to step up on a cactus in the Arizona desert and howl their opinions to their hearts' content. Others might say that the first ammendment protects speech as a form of communicating with other human being, a radical idea that might entitle people to a reasonable access to communication media. Nah, that's communism.
FYI check adbusters to see how corporate media makes sure you are not exposed to speech that might harm their commercial interest.
In many GUI systems ( KDE , OS/2) a desktop is a directory. The article argues basically for representing the information in the computer as a flat list of directories with depth = 1. It is the same as having a disk in which all directories are top level. Another way to think about it is that everything the user accesses is addressed by two idnexes exactly ( item[ desktop, name ] )
Once you see it that way you realize immediately that this is very limited. Directory depth is there for a reason. Searching is easier, both for the computer and for human mind, once a certain number of elements is exceeded ( for the human mind that number is about five to eight)
If all the information the user needs can be stored in six to eight directories in a logical way, eliminating death may help useability. For users with more complex needs, this is a very bad idea.
While user friendliness is important, what makes or breaks an OS is developer friendliness. Microsoft's success has much to do with the savyness of its marketing to developers. Linux has managed to become a major OS because enough developers are ready to do top quality work for it for free.
Sharp seems to believe that it can replicate the success of linux on the PDA by enticing developers
to create applications. hope they are right.
So, if you bought that copy, and you own it, it is yours. And according to property law, I can do what I want with what I own, including disassemble it
Maybe in libertarian wonderland. According to your reasoning, if you buy your AK-47 legit, you can kill your neighbors legit. The DMCA says certain actions are illegal. Hence, you cannot do them, regardless of any issue of ownership.
What this court case does is allow you ( assuming you live in California) to sell software you bought. This is an issue of ownership because the right to sell is pretty much the core of the concept of ownership.
Re:What the hell is wrong with the Judiciary
on
DMCA 2, Freedom 0
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· Score: 2
and 2600 will presumably file a cert petition with the US Supreme Court. No guarantee that the Supremes will find this one certworthy,
The chances are nill. The supreme court will take the issue only if different courts interpret the DMCA in significanly different ways or if all courts interpret it in a way a majority of the justice don't like. Given that 2600 is the first case and the decision doesn't seem to be the kind to energize the present court, I'll bet my hat they'll pass.
PS. I think the EFF had no case here. The DMCA explicitely excludes encryption research. And there was no governmental attempt to silence Felten. Free speach means nothing if people won't speak unless their get a written guarantee that nobody is going to sue them.
Maybe this is a good thing. Suppose prodigy caves in and BT thes sues half a dozen US companies. Maybe after that you will be able to explain why indiscriminate software patents are considered harmful in a way that even a US politician can understand.
Simple. Chomsky and other "American lefties" as you call them have made their careers as apologists for Pol Pot (Chomsky in particular) and Stalin and Lenin and Mao.
Limbaughlogics again. Or rather the general rule of propaganda: truth is a lie repeated. Could you cite a single paragraph in which Chomski defends/justifies/excuses Pol Pot, or are you just parrotting the party line?
The US Ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, is a terrorist.
No he isn't, he just "sponsored" terrorism
But wait, Bush said we don't distinguish betwwen terrorists and those who sponsor them. So I guess you are right.
Which leaves me with this conundrum. What about the people who appoint people who sponsered terrorism to prestigious governmental posts? Do we distinguish between such people and terrorists, or do we not? Ouff, my head is swirling.
For you American leftists, you need to get a grip and realize that your ideas are killing people every day
Boolshit! What people are killed by American lefties? Do American lefties control the American army. And BTW, 17 American soldiers dead in one very ill conceived military operation is not the same as "killing people every day." Who was your logic teacher, Rush Limbaugh?
...Your effects are disasterous.
Yes, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty Int., Greenpeace, all terrible organizations that have only death and destruction to show for results. Instead, watch how a few oil companies have used greed to transform earstwhile areas of disaster such as Sudan and Nigeria into florishing democracies and bastions of freedom and prosperity. Yes! Greed is the engine of progress!!
..Guys have given the world during the 20th century
Oh I see. So when you say lefties, you mean Pol Pot and Stalin. What, in the name of the Lord and the complete angelic Parliament, does Chomsky or any other American lefty has in common with them, except of occupying adjacent memory addresses in your logicaly challenged mind?
Re:Not a KDE fan but I'm happy for them.
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KDE 2.2.2
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KDe could use some bottleneck cleaning, especially the nifty stuff like konqueror. But I really don't understand your gripe about load time. I load kde about once every three months, when I upgrade. It is very stable, and there is no reason to load and unload it. And Yes I do work with the command line all the time. I usualy have about eight konsole windows open simultanuously.
Furthermore, a nice new terrorist-supporting regime would rapidly busy itself with supporting attacks on US soil.
I think you are exagerating the risk. The reality is that in today's world, anti American governments are powerless without Anti-American terrorists. As far as I know, they were no Iranians, Iraquis, nor Afghans in the terrorist attack on September 11, despite the fact that all those countries are ruled by Muslim fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a loosing proposition. And onoe way ( surely not the best) to get Muslims to understand it is to let them try it as a form of government.
Granted, letting the Middle East fall into a civil war is not in anybody's interests. What I think the US should do is take a course of action that has a small risk of deteriorating into civil war.
Any US policy carries some risk. This risk can be managed, and hopefully we can get there without it.
America has to adopt a foreign policy doctrine that is basd on enlightened self interest. The principles of this doctrine should be
America has an interest in an open, free an
democratic world.
Such a world depends on a community of nations, each commited to the pursuit of happiness of all its citizens and residents.
Every policy that harms this interest requires strict scrutiny and will be adopted as a last resort (not as first instinct, as it is now.)
America will continue to work with unpleasant regimes when necessary. But it will only support and protect these regimes in extreme circumstances and only temporarily, while an alternative is being sought. Making this policy explicit will clearly convey the message to those who enjoy US protection that they are living on borrowed time and had better shape up.
I want to stress that this is not a matter of altruism. It is a matter of enlightened self interest. the US economy is nourished by global trade and global trade thrives on peace
and the rule of law. And peace and the rule of law are most easily found were government works for its citizens rather than the other way around. Consider just how much this one attack is costing the US economy.
What is the implication of such a doctrine to Saudi Arabia?
In Saudi Arabia there is a power struggle going on since the king is incapacitated. On the one hand stands Crown Prince Abdalla, who has been more outspoken in his criticism of the US but also more popular and has a reputation of a corruption buster. On the other hand stand the rest of the familly, who are trying to prevent Abdallah from succeding to the crown because he threatens their corrupt franchises. A US that adopted my doctrine would find a new friend in Abdallah. He would be a tougher client and might ask the military presence to be cut. But otherwise he is will likely be a force for the better and, especially with US prodding, will push towards greater openess and freedom.
Remember that the US has never asked anything from the Saudis. That is unacceptable. The Saudis should be under pressure to create, first of all, a publicly accountable administration, as lessening corruption will severely weaken anti-democratic forces.
The US can invest in getting more students from Saudi Arabia to study in the US. They will have to be closely watched. But as the old saying goes: keep your friends close and your ennemies closer. The US can adopt a positive and even protective attitude towards Al-Jazzera. Al-Jazzera is one of the best things that had happened to the Arab world. Al-Jazzera focus is not fundementalism, but the very Western value of governmental accountability. The people who work there are not fundamentalists, they are the most westernized Arab proffessionals. The present animus they have towards the US is purely a result of circumstances and they will be the first to hail anything America does to push Arab countries towards democratization.
I am sure there are other things, but the details are less important than the animating vision. Do what you must when you must, but don't let others suffer out of lazyness and inertia.
My problem with the way you seem to want to go about things is that you want to
change the meaning of the Constitution as we go along. That turns a fundamental
and constant enumeration of rights into a meaningless bunch of words that should
be twisted to fit the temper of the times.
I do not want to be condescending but the above sentence suggests you are not very
informed about the concept of interpretation. This is a subject that can easily fill a library. They
are people spending their whole life trying to figure out what exactly interpretation
is. If you find the subject interesting you might like to read a little about it.
I'll make a few brief notes about how I see the issue. words do not have an abstract
and unchanging meaning. Speech conveys meaning in a particular context. One way to think of reading is that When you read a text you create an instance of the text as speech in your mind and that speech
conveys meaning. The most difficult question is 'what anchors meaning'. The problem is this.
Take 10 readers of Hamlet and you are going to get 20 very convincing arguments about the
meaning of Hamlet. ( s/hamlet/bible/ or s/hamlet/constitution, etc.). Obviously the
words themselves, the black glyphs on the page are not enough. People suggest context,
the theory that the interpreter uses, history, biorgaphy, etc. And yet, surprisngly,
not anything goes. If you try to argue that Hamlet is a receipe for blueberry jam,
you will be laughed at. One way of looking at this is that any interpretation is work.
It is something you do with material for previous interpretations as well as other raw
materials. And that to do it well you have to have mastery in the particular category
of texts you are interpreting. This seems a low requirement in theory but in practice it
is actually quite formidable. Veryy few people can succesfully push forward new interpretations.
One of the results of this attitude is that the meaning of
texts comes bundled with an interpretive community. The same text can mean totally different
things in two different interpretive communuities. Consider the meaning of the Bible for
deeply pious protestants vs. the same Bible for historians studying the Roman Empire in
the first century. If you put the two groups in the same room you will know immediately that
they are not talking about the same book, and indeed they aren't.
The constitution has a layered interpretive community. At the center stand the justices,
around them the law professors, and around them the whole citizenry. Arguing in favor of strict
costructionism, Antonin Scalia argues that it is the purpose of the constitution to prevent change,
therefore it is by definition a conservative document. However, the interpretive community is
also a conservative body. Remember that the work of interpretation always starts with previous
interpretations. And one learns how to interpret by reading previous interpretations. That procees
assures that the constitution is anchored in the past. The purpose of this process is
on the one hand, to allow change to happen, adjusting the law to new circumstances. But
on the other hand, change is dampened significantly, and instead of the law changing with every
electoral moodswing, only persistent and steady political changes make it all the way to
the constitution. The success of this process depends on the soundness of the political institutions
that organize the interpretive community. That is the weak point. I suspect that a lot of
people are attracted to minimalist positions because of their low faith in the soundness of
American political institutions. That safety is however illusory. Can a piece of paper stand in way of a nation bent on destroying itself? The political system has a number of vital functions.
If these functions are not carried out well, the result is general national decline.
Political functions are political, so you cannot expect them to be fulfilled
by non-political mechanisms except for very short time. And political functions are essential, so
you cannot solve the problem by downsizing the job description of the political system.
Eventually, either you fix the political system or you suffer the consequences.
You will probably note that the argument is circular. The interpretive community preserves the
meaning of the constitution. The constitution preserves the political organization, which then
defines the interpretive community. The circle however is extended in time. Every iteration of each
factor interact with other factors at a different iteration. That is how change is dampened and
meaning does not become arbitrary.
Now, for the most part the Constitution has been interpreted to provide a more
generous smattering of rights--but it can also be interpreted to provide fewer and
more limited rights. Our protection against that is to read the Constitution plainly,
and reduce things which did not exist at the time to their fundamental functions in
order to compare them to what the Constitution says.
That is true of the Warren court. It is certainly not true of the Rehnquist court.
The net effect is that the Fourth Amendment ceases to apply the moment you plug in
a network cable or turn on a modem. All because the Court wanted to interpret
things instead of doing the more logical--drawing an analogy between the new thing
and whatever accomplished its function back when the Constitution was written. If
you do that, then clearly a person's telephone calls and Internet packet headers are
personal effects, covered under the Fourth Amendment from being searched or
seized without a reason and a warrant. They are information in the form of electronic
signals, no different in function from words on a paper. Can law enforcement stop a
courier carrying a letter and read it? Or even read the address on it if it were passed
by private courier? No? Then they should not be able to do the same with telephone
calls or tcp/ip traffic.
I honestly think you are being naive. The constitution strikes a balance between the needs
of law enforcement and individual ( privacy is not a constitutional
issue). Every judge has a feeling about were this balance should be drawn. The constitution
basically says that there should be a balance. It doesn't define 'probable cause' or 'unreasonable
search'. Every judge then interprets legal history to square with her own sense of the
proper balance. The general position of the balance is essentially political
(Conservatives want more law enforcements, civil-libertarians and lefties want more
individual rights). Not surprisingly, politicians decide the general balance by
appointing like-minded judges.
A judge can follow your interpretive method and still arrive to the conclusion you
deplore. Why compare headers to addresses in the bag of private courrier? why not
compare it to a note tucked on your door from the outside? Why not say that cyberspace
is like a public space, and when you visit a website you are like visiting a physical space
outside your house? I am not saying this is a better interpretation. But don't try to argue with
'yes but the difference is...' When you compare different things there are always differences. Every
choice of metaphor privileges a similarity and ignores a difference.
When you interpret you make choices. The point of making these choices is not to get it
absolutely right. It is to get a useful and predictable legal framework that is not too far away
from the one used before. If the choice turns out to have unwanted side effects,
it can be changed or adapted later.
This placement of any interpretation on the modern things to be compared with
Constitutional protections, rather than on the Constitutional protections to get them
to reference the modern things, results in a better protection of rights in a more
unwavering and less subjective way.
First, I disagree with the claim, see above. But I also disagree with the goal.
The goal of the forth amendment is not to protect individuals against law-enforcement. That
could have been done simply by prohibiting searches and arrests altogether. The purpose
of the ammendment is to force the legal system to come up with a measured balance
between the needs of law-enforcement and the protection of individual rights. I do not
see any constitutional reason for putting that balance here rather than there, beyond
what is literally said.
Now, none of this prevents operation of what the Framers intended to be the vehicle
for changing the Constitution when such changes are needed: amendments. They
are hard to pass for a reason--we shouldn't go atround changing the arbiter of our
rights willy-nilly, without good reason and reasonable agreement, without time and
deliberation and debate. There is a definite, long process for amending the
Constitution. And notice, please, how that process is completely short-circuited
today through the process of judicial interpretation. Instead of the legislatures
reacting to new situations by initiating the long process of debate and compromise
to form new amendments when needed, the judiciary just does the same thing with
the stroke of a pen, with no public review or discourse or input.
I completely agree that the judges have been to aggressive lately. But the ammendment
process is designed for major changes. It is not designed for the day to day working
of the legal system. Do you really want to pass a constitutional ammendment to decide
whether internet addresses are effects or not? Do you want the constitution to be a 3000
pages document? Consider this. If you go this way, you have practically disabled the process
of legislation. Instead of passing laws, congress will only pass constitutional
ammendments. Since that is so much more difficult, legislation will be even more slow
and paralized. Who will fill the vacuum? judges! Besides, there is a well understood
mechanism for correcting over-zealous judicial interpretation. It is called judicial
nomination. Call your senate representatives and tell them that each new judge should be
asked a single question in their senate confirmation. "What standard should the supreme court
use when deciding whether it has authority to overturn congressional legislation?". If
the reply is to close to the position of the present court, kill the nomination.
That is the real problem. Legislatures are lazy and inept. They never want to
undertake the method of deliberate change provided by the Founders, because it is
too hard. Bah. And because the people in every state would have input. Double-bah.
That is simply not fair. The US political system is designed to make legislation slow.
This design is in the constitution itself.
Judicial activism has short-circuited our whole Constitutional system of government
in a way. You may not see the dangers inherent with such opportunity for quick and
thoughtless change without understanding the long-term consequences, but the
Framers did, and that's why they provided a deliberately slow and public and
broad-based method of Constitutional change.
And they also wrote a very short and minimal constitution with the expectation
that the details will be worked out with flexibility in the common law tradition
which was not alien to them. If they did not like the common law system ( in which
judges are very free to interpret laws, relative to the Imperial tradition in
continental Europe ) they would have certainly said it.
Re:Most worrisome invention on the list...
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Inventions of 2001
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· Score: 2
Actually, I am more concerned about all those gizmos for enhancing the male ego by travelling very fast over water while spewing motor oil and gasoline freely, and occasionally bumping and killing people who happen to be in the water at normal speed. And I was naive enough to believe the water motorcycle was bad enough.
Sorry Pal, I thought that was New York Time grammar.
But..
the rationale for filtering due to
religious senstivities is a legitimate one, however we may see it.
if the filter is installed in your house, yes. A national religious filter is only justified if the state has the right to enfore religious sensibilities. I think it doesn't.
The political situation where an elite of 5000 royals enforces its will on a discontented underclass of millions with US backing is the real story.
You really need to do a teeny tiny bit of thinking for yourself about this problem rather than just spewing out Euro-commie rhetoric.
There is no discussion in the world that cannot be avoided by an honest-to-god mixture of obsceneties and name-calling.
know lots of Iranians who hate the current regime. They are the ones who left. Naturally the ones who stayed were largely opposed to the Shah. Or too moderate to care either way. So that's a fucking truism and an imbecilic metric for anything.
Ah logic!
Lots of Iranians inside Iran hate the
current regime, including, BTW, the Iranian President.
Almost none of the Iranians who hate the current regime miss the Shah.
Even those Iranians who do find the current regime worse than the Shah will probably point out that the current regime is the grand-child of the US 1956 toppling of Iranian democracy and putting the Shah in power.
Your comment about how Americans fuck peoples lives and therefore we should just bend over and let people commit acts on terrorism for us for a while until they've finished with their revenge is borderline retarded.
That American foreign policy fucks people life is an established fact. Your former posts suggest that you agree and think that this is justified. You wouldn't have justified a policy if you thought there was nothing to justify.
The therefore in the sentence above is your addition. I made no such implication. I only said that is in the long term interests of the US to stop fucking lives.
I have no idea how you can expect me to take you seriously.
I don't expect you to take me seriously. I am just pointing to you the uncomfortable fact that there are billions of people around the world who hate your guts with a blinding and consuming hatred. I am trying to tell you that it is in your
best interest to take these billions seriously. Feel free to ignore this advice.
Fundamentalism in the Saudi regime is responsible for a lot of what some people find disgusting about them.
Very true, but fundamentalism is only dangerous when it enjoys popular support. And popular support of fundamentalism is a function of Western sponsored oppression. Compare Saudi Arabia and Egypt where fundamentalism is popular, to Iran, where fundamentalism is fighting a loosing war against the western friendly popular mood.
So it's not that they hate the west because the west supports the Saudis, it's that they hate the Saudi royal family because they are friendly with the west.
The objective truth is that the Arab world is in a mess. Islamic Fundamentalists believe that modernization is the source of this mess, and they are fifty percent right. From that perspective, the Saudi royal family and the Western support thereof is one and the same thing. Both stand in the way of saving the Arab world by turning the wheel back. Regular people, there as everywhere, are not really interested in theories of history. Once the fundamentalists take control, as they did in Iran, the people will judge them by their ability to show results. At that moment, the connection betwwen Western interference and oppression will have disappeared (as it had in Iran). The goverment may still be regressive, but recruiting suicide terrorist against America will be almost impossible.
Anti American and even fundamentalist countries will still sell us as much oil as they have. Show me an oil exporting country that wouldn't sell oil.
The problem with a revolution in Saudia is not the suuply of oil itself, which will be probably unchanged or even increased ( if the new regime leaves OPEC).
The problem is twofold: price stability and ownership.
price stability
The uncertainty of civil war will create price spikes that will damage economic forcasting in the West and thus cause some economic pain. In addition there is the potential for physical damage to the oil rigs, which will temporarily reduce supply and cause economic pain in the West.
Ownership
Oil is not sold by Saudis to Americans directly. It is sold to Oil companies, some of which are also partners in the production. An anti American revolution will probably switch the favors of the government to non-US companies. That will hurt these companies but will have negligble effect on oil prices.
To sum, there will be pain, but nothing unmenageable. The real losers will be a few US corporations. And it is their interest, not yours and mine, that effectively keep all Saudis hostages.
if you could operate a nation under purely idealist moral principles, then you
would be right
Somehow, this maxim of realpolitics is used in the US to explain why foreign policy should have all moral considerations excluded. cf. Condolezza Rice.
The opposite is true. Foreign policy should have as much moral consideration as possible given our current resources. We have an interest in a secure and open world in which a general sense of trust in the beneveolence and decency of others encourages interactions, exchange, and trade, and promotes non zero-sum solutions to world problems. Every time foreign policy offends moral sensibility we undermine this vision to the detriment of all humanity including Americans ( though sometimes that is exectly what some in the ruling class wants ).
The going theory for a long time is that we HAVE to support the Saudis because all of the alternatives possible in Saudi Arabia are so much worse.
Been there, done that. Vietnam, Chille, Guatemala, Iran, Nicaragua, et al. The result, even when we suffer a mayhem, people around the globe say America had it coming. Does being a member of the most hated nation on earth enhance your feeling of security?
You can't really do much to fight fundamentalism other than start with young
children and make sure they get a proper secular education.
Essentially, you justify the continuation of colonial policies by a variation on the old colonial theme of the "white man burden". We can't let them rule themselves until we instill in them our values through gradual education. It doesn't work that way, because people are not that dumb. The value most Saudis associate with the West is not democracy and pluralism but cynicism and hypocracy. And they are right because they judge the West by its actions and not by its words. You cannot educate without moral authority, and you cannot have moral authority when the example you set belies everything you say.
There is no painless solution to the Saudi problem. But if the US force the Sauds to democratize, or let them fall if they don't, it will have sown the seeds for future friendship with the Saudi people.
The reason we don't do that is not because of some tough logic of national self-interest. We don't do it because our foreign policy is contolled by special interests, especially oil.
In other words, our failure to support democracy abroad is an extension of the failure of our democracy at home.
The US doesn't think the Saudis are nice. They are better than the Taliban but not by much. However, the regime does not support terrorism and is cooperative with the international community in general.
How nice. The US supports with money and weapons a disgusting regime because it provides a steady supply of oil and generally cooperates with the US. Then you are surprised that people want to kill you? And now, in a nice revarsal, you justify supporting this ugly regime by the necessity of protecting yourself from those that want to kill you because you are fucking their lives. How about you stop fucking their lives?
Yes, if the Saud fall the resulting regime will be very Anti American for a while, but the real cause for hatred will have disappeared, so that eventually , there will be possibility for real cooperation between the people. This is what happened in Iran. But people in the US still miss the Shah. which is really obscene because nobody in Iran misses the Shah.
If you want to know what the Founders meant by speech and press, and don't want to merely use common sense and basic English knowledge and your knowledge of Jefferson's writings, there's a simple answer: look at the definitions indictionaries and encyclodepias commonly found in the libraries of the literate at the time the Constitution was written. Accept all the definitions you find as valid ones, and move on.
While you seem to argue infavor of no interpretation, which IMHO is nonsense, the passage above suggests that you are really after original intent. When original intent is not sufficient because the object did not exists, you want to perform the most minimal interpretation that will find some equivalent or close that did exists.
Others have pointed out that this minimal interpretation is often simply not enough. My problem is your desire to keep the US outside of history. The success of strict constructionism suggests that this desire is common in America. The constiution was written in the eightenth century. Wouldn't it be strange indeed if someone in the eighteent century was prescient enough to provide with his imagination for all eternity. The Muslim fundamentalists believe exactly the same about a text written in the seventh century. Granted, 1200 years is a lot of time, but do you doubt that one day the literal meaning of the US constitution will be as outdated as the literal meaning of the Koran? Historically, cultures that sanctify the literal meaning of their founding documents turn up as the great losers. Successful cultures keep their founding documents in constant flux, using them to anchor themselves in the past but not to bury themselves in the past.
Of course, once you leave the original intent you are in the hands of the interpreters. Legal interpretation is technically done by the court but it is eventually the political system as a whole that decides. Maybe a lot of the appeal of strict constructionism comes from the desperation that anything good can come from the US political system.
George Busth will never forgive the internet for allowing itself to be invented by Al Gore.
So he is going to redo the whole things and invent the BushNet, a secure unhackable network based on the ingenious idea of running the following script on all government machine:
I am involved now in a project that I think responds directly to the issue raised by the post.
The project is to create a portal to every company that contributed to financing the campaign of a representative.
The portal will centralize all information needed to ascertain that paid representatives are performing their fiduciary duties to the people who invested hard earned money in their campaigns.
The portal will have forms for donation as well as RFLs ( Request for Legislation ). And we are now devising a method to integrate issues of tax relief and lifting regulation. One idea is to have a law that correlates the amount of tax to the ammount of regulation. But this is all still on the drawing board.
The project is financed from a special tax deduction "for streamlining the interaction between business and government".
Slashdot Mirror
In your interpretation, the first ammendment guarantees to every American the right to step up on a cactus in the Arizona desert and howl their opinions to their hearts' content. Others might say that the first ammendment protects speech as a form of communicating with other human being, a radical idea that might entitle people to a reasonable access to communication media. Nah, that's communism.
FYI check adbusters to see how corporate media makes sure you are not exposed to speech that might harm their commercial interest.
ditto!
Once you see it that way you realize immediately that this is very limited. Directory depth is there for a reason. Searching is easier, both for the computer and for human mind, once a certain number of elements is exceeded ( for the human mind that number is about five to eight)
If all the information the user needs can be stored in six to eight directories in a logical way, eliminating death may help useability. For users with more complex needs, this is a very bad idea.
While user friendliness is important, what makes or breaks an OS is developer friendliness. Microsoft's success has much to do with the savyness of its marketing to developers. Linux has managed to become a major OS because enough developers are ready to do top quality work for it for free.
Sharp seems to believe that it can replicate the success of linux on the PDA by enticing developers to create applications. hope they are right.
tar -xzf /fridge/turkey.tgz / /proc/oven/preheat / /dev/oven
&& echo 380 >
&& cat turkey >
e Voila! dinner is done without me entering the kitchen.
And you're telling me you don't care!?
So, if you bought that copy, and you own it, it is yours. And according to property law, I can do what I want with what I own, including disassemble it
Maybe in libertarian wonderland. According to your reasoning, if you buy your AK-47 legit, you can kill your neighbors legit. The DMCA says certain actions are illegal. Hence, you cannot do them, regardless of any issue of ownership.
What this court case does is allow you ( assuming you live in California) to sell software you bought. This is an issue of ownership because the right to sell is pretty much the core of the concept of ownership.
The chances are nill. The supreme court will take the issue only if different courts interpret the DMCA in significanly different ways or if all courts interpret it in a way a majority of the justice don't like. Given that 2600 is the first case and the decision doesn't seem to be the kind to energize the present court, I'll bet my hat they'll pass.
PS. I think the EFF had no case here. The DMCA explicitely excludes encryption research. And there was no governmental attempt to silence Felten. Free speach means nothing if people won't speak unless their get a written guarantee that nobody is going to sue them.
No further questions.
Limbaughlogics again. Or rather the general rule of propaganda: truth is a lie repeated. Could you cite a single paragraph in which Chomski defends/justifies/excuses Pol Pot, or are you just parrotting the party line?
The US Ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, is a terrorist.
No he isn't, he just "sponsored" terrorism
But wait, Bush said we don't distinguish betwwen terrorists and those who sponsor them. So I guess you are right.
Which leaves me with this conundrum. What about the people who appoint people who sponsered terrorism to prestigious governmental posts? Do we distinguish between such people and terrorists, or do we not? Ouff, my head is swirling.
For you American leftists, you need to get a grip and realize that your ideas are killing people every day
Boolshit! What people are killed by American lefties? Do American lefties control the American army. And BTW, 17 American soldiers dead in one very ill conceived military operation is not the same as "killing people every day." Who was your logic teacher, Rush Limbaugh?
Yes, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty Int., Greenpeace, all terrible organizations that have only death and destruction to show for results. Instead, watch how a few oil companies have used greed to transform earstwhile areas of disaster such as Sudan and Nigeria into florishing democracies and bastions of freedom and prosperity. Yes! Greed is the engine of progress!!
Oh I see. So when you say lefties, you mean Pol Pot and Stalin. What, in the name of the Lord and the complete angelic Parliament, does Chomsky or any other American lefty has in common with them, except of occupying adjacent memory addresses in your logicaly challenged mind?
KDe could use some bottleneck cleaning, especially the nifty stuff like konqueror. But I really don't understand your gripe about load time. I load kde about once every three months, when I upgrade. It is very stable, and there is no reason to load and unload it. And Yes I do work with the command line all the time. I usualy have about eight konsole windows open simultanuously.
Furthermore, a nice new terrorist-supporting regime would rapidly busy itself with supporting attacks on US soil.
I think you are exagerating the risk. The reality is that in today's world, anti American governments are powerless without Anti-American terrorists. As far as I know, they were no Iranians, Iraquis, nor Afghans in the terrorist attack on September 11, despite the fact that all those countries are ruled by Muslim fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a loosing proposition. And onoe way ( surely not the best) to get Muslims to understand it is to let them try it as a form of government.
Granted, letting the Middle East fall into a civil war is not in anybody's interests. What I think the US should do is take a course of action that has a small risk of deteriorating into civil war. Any US policy carries some risk. This risk can be managed, and hopefully we can get there without it.
America has to adopt a foreign policy doctrine that is basd on enlightened self interest. The principles of this doctrine should be
America has an interest in an open, free an democratic world.
Such a world depends on a community of nations, each commited to the pursuit of happiness of all its citizens and residents.
Every policy that harms this interest requires strict scrutiny and will be adopted as a last resort (not as first instinct, as it is now.)
America will continue to work with unpleasant regimes when necessary. But it will only support and protect these regimes in extreme circumstances and only temporarily, while an alternative is being sought. Making this policy explicit will clearly convey the message to those who enjoy US protection that they are living on borrowed time and had better shape up.
I want to stress that this is not a matter of altruism. It is a matter of enlightened self interest. the US economy is nourished by global trade and global trade thrives on peace and the rule of law. And peace and the rule of law are most easily found were government works for its citizens rather than the other way around. Consider just how much this one attack is costing the US economy. What is the implication of such a doctrine to Saudi Arabia?
In Saudi Arabia there is a power struggle going on since the king is incapacitated. On the one hand stands Crown Prince Abdalla, who has been more outspoken in his criticism of the US but also more popular and has a reputation of a corruption buster. On the other hand stand the rest of the familly, who are trying to prevent Abdallah from succeding to the crown because he threatens their corrupt franchises. A US that adopted my doctrine would find a new friend in Abdallah. He would be a tougher client and might ask the military presence to be cut. But otherwise he is will likely be a force for the better and, especially with US prodding, will push towards greater openess and freedom.
Remember that the US has never asked anything from the Saudis. That is unacceptable. The Saudis should be under pressure to create, first of all, a publicly accountable administration, as lessening corruption will severely weaken anti-democratic forces.
The US can invest in getting more students from Saudi Arabia to study in the US. They will have to be closely watched. But as the old saying goes: keep your friends close and your ennemies closer. The US can adopt a positive and even protective attitude towards Al-Jazzera. Al-Jazzera is one of the best things that had happened to the Arab world. Al-Jazzera focus is not fundementalism, but the very Western value of governmental accountability. The people who work there are not fundamentalists, they are the most westernized Arab proffessionals. The present animus they have towards the US is purely a result of circumstances and they will be the first to hail anything America does to push Arab countries towards democratization.
I am sure there are other things, but the details are less important than the animating vision. Do what you must when you must, but don't let others suffer out of lazyness and inertia.
I do not want to be condescending but the above sentence suggests you are not very informed about the concept of interpretation. This is a subject that can easily fill a library. They are people spending their whole life trying to figure out what exactly interpretation is. If you find the subject interesting you might like to read a little about it.
I'll make a few brief notes about how I see the issue. words do not have an abstract and unchanging meaning. Speech conveys meaning in a particular context. One way to think of reading is that When you read a text you create an instance of the text as speech in your mind and that speech conveys meaning. The most difficult question is 'what anchors meaning'. The problem is this. Take 10 readers of Hamlet and you are going to get 20 very convincing arguments about the meaning of Hamlet. ( s/hamlet/bible/ or s/hamlet/constitution, etc.). Obviously the words themselves, the black glyphs on the page are not enough. People suggest context, the theory that the interpreter uses, history, biorgaphy, etc. And yet, surprisngly, not anything goes. If you try to argue that Hamlet is a receipe for blueberry jam, you will be laughed at. One way of looking at this is that any interpretation is work. It is something you do with material for previous interpretations as well as other raw materials. And that to do it well you have to have mastery in the particular category of texts you are interpreting. This seems a low requirement in theory but in practice it is actually quite formidable. Veryy few people can succesfully push forward new interpretations.
One of the results of this attitude is that the meaning of texts comes bundled with an interpretive community. The same text can mean totally different things in two different interpretive communuities. Consider the meaning of the Bible for deeply pious protestants vs. the same Bible for historians studying the Roman Empire in the first century. If you put the two groups in the same room you will know immediately that they are not talking about the same book, and indeed they aren't.
The constitution has a layered interpretive community. At the center stand the justices, around them the law professors, and around them the whole citizenry. Arguing in favor of strict costructionism, Antonin Scalia argues that it is the purpose of the constitution to prevent change, therefore it is by definition a conservative document. However, the interpretive community is also a conservative body. Remember that the work of interpretation always starts with previous interpretations. And one learns how to interpret by reading previous interpretations. That procees assures that the constitution is anchored in the past. The purpose of this process is on the one hand, to allow change to happen, adjusting the law to new circumstances. But on the other hand, change is dampened significantly, and instead of the law changing with every electoral moodswing, only persistent and steady political changes make it all the way to the constitution. The success of this process depends on the soundness of the political institutions that organize the interpretive community. That is the weak point. I suspect that a lot of people are attracted to minimalist positions because of their low faith in the soundness of American political institutions. That safety is however illusory. Can a piece of paper stand in way of a nation bent on destroying itself? The political system has a number of vital functions. If these functions are not carried out well, the result is general national decline. Political functions are political, so you cannot expect them to be fulfilled by non-political mechanisms except for very short time. And political functions are essential, so you cannot solve the problem by downsizing the job description of the political system. Eventually, either you fix the political system or you suffer the consequences.
You will probably note that the argument is circular. The interpretive community preserves the meaning of the constitution. The constitution preserves the political organization, which then defines the interpretive community. The circle however is extended in time. Every iteration of each factor interact with other factors at a different iteration. That is how change is dampened and meaning does not become arbitrary.
Now, for the most part the Constitution has been interpreted to provide a more generous smattering of rights--but it can also be interpreted to provide fewer and more limited rights. Our protection against that is to read the Constitution plainly, and reduce things which did not exist at the time to their fundamental functions in order to compare them to what the Constitution says.
That is true of the Warren court. It is certainly not true of the Rehnquist court.
The net effect is that the Fourth Amendment ceases to apply the moment you plug in a network cable or turn on a modem. All because the Court wanted to interpret things instead of doing the more logical--drawing an analogy between the new thing and whatever accomplished its function back when the Constitution was written. If you do that, then clearly a person's telephone calls and Internet packet headers are personal effects, covered under the Fourth Amendment from being searched or seized without a reason and a warrant. They are information in the form of electronic signals, no different in function from words on a paper. Can law enforcement stop a courier carrying a letter and read it? Or even read the address on it if it were passed by private courier? No? Then they should not be able to do the same with telephone calls or tcp/ip traffic.
I honestly think you are being naive. The constitution strikes a balance between the needs of law enforcement and individual ( privacy is not a constitutional issue). Every judge has a feeling about were this balance should be drawn. The constitution basically says that there should be a balance. It doesn't define 'probable cause' or 'unreasonable search'. Every judge then interprets legal history to square with her own sense of the proper balance. The general position of the balance is essentially political (Conservatives want more law enforcements, civil-libertarians and lefties want more individual rights). Not surprisingly, politicians decide the general balance by appointing like-minded judges.
A judge can follow your interpretive method and still arrive to the conclusion you deplore. Why compare headers to addresses in the bag of private courrier? why not compare it to a note tucked on your door from the outside? Why not say that cyberspace is like a public space, and when you visit a website you are like visiting a physical space outside your house? I am not saying this is a better interpretation. But don't try to argue with 'yes but the difference is...' When you compare different things there are always differences. Every choice of metaphor privileges a similarity and ignores a difference. When you interpret you make choices. The point of making these choices is not to get it absolutely right. It is to get a useful and predictable legal framework that is not too far away from the one used before. If the choice turns out to have unwanted side effects, it can be changed or adapted later.
This placement of any interpretation on the modern things to be compared with Constitutional protections, rather than on the Constitutional protections to get them to reference the modern things, results in a better protection of rights in a more unwavering and less subjective way.
First, I disagree with the claim, see above. But I also disagree with the goal. The goal of the forth amendment is not to protect individuals against law-enforcement. That could have been done simply by prohibiting searches and arrests altogether. The purpose of the ammendment is to force the legal system to come up with a measured balance between the needs of law-enforcement and the protection of individual rights. I do not see any constitutional reason for putting that balance here rather than there, beyond what is literally said.
Now, none of this prevents operation of what the Framers intended to be the vehicle for changing the Constitution when such changes are needed: amendments. They are hard to pass for a reason--we shouldn't go atround changing the arbiter of our rights willy-nilly, without good reason and reasonable agreement, without time and deliberation and debate. There is a definite, long process for amending the Constitution. And notice, please, how that process is completely short-circuited today through the process of judicial interpretation. Instead of the legislatures reacting to new situations by initiating the long process of debate and compromise to form new amendments when needed, the judiciary just does the same thing with the stroke of a pen, with no public review or discourse or input.
I completely agree that the judges have been to aggressive lately. But the ammendment process is designed for major changes. It is not designed for the day to day working of the legal system. Do you really want to pass a constitutional ammendment to decide whether internet addresses are effects or not? Do you want the constitution to be a 3000 pages document? Consider this. If you go this way, you have practically disabled the process of legislation. Instead of passing laws, congress will only pass constitutional ammendments. Since that is so much more difficult, legislation will be even more slow and paralized. Who will fill the vacuum? judges! Besides, there is a well understood mechanism for correcting over-zealous judicial interpretation. It is called judicial nomination. Call your senate representatives and tell them that each new judge should be asked a single question in their senate confirmation. "What standard should the supreme court use when deciding whether it has authority to overturn congressional legislation?". If the reply is to close to the position of the present court, kill the nomination.
That is the real problem. Legislatures are lazy and inept. They never want to undertake the method of deliberate change provided by the Founders, because it is too hard. Bah. And because the people in every state would have input. Double-bah.
That is simply not fair. The US political system is designed to make legislation slow. This design is in the constitution itself.
Judicial activism has short-circuited our whole Constitutional system of government in a way. You may not see the dangers inherent with such opportunity for quick and thoughtless change without understanding the long-term consequences, but the Framers did, and that's why they provided a deliberately slow and public and broad-based method of Constitutional change.
And they also wrote a very short and minimal constitution with the expectation that the details will be worked out with flexibility in the common law tradition which was not alien to them. If they did not like the common law system ( in which judges are very free to interpret laws, relative to the Imperial tradition in continental Europe ) they would have certainly said it.
Actually, I am more concerned about all those gizmos for enhancing the male ego by travelling very fast over water while spewing motor oil and gasoline freely, and occasionally bumping and killing people who happen to be in the water at normal speed. And I was naive enough to believe the water motorcycle was bad enough.
But..
the rationale for filtering due to religious senstivities is a legitimate one, however we may see it.
if the filter is installed in your house, yes. A national religious filter is only justified if the state has the right to enfore religious sensibilities. I think it doesn't.
The political situation where an elite of 5000 royals enforces its will on a discontented underclass of millions with US backing is the real story.
Amen! see my other posts.
You really need to do a teeny tiny bit of thinking for yourself about this problem rather than just spewing out Euro-commie rhetoric.
There is no discussion in the world that cannot be avoided by an honest-to-god mixture of obsceneties and name-calling.
know lots of Iranians who hate the current regime. They are the ones who left. Naturally the ones who stayed were largely opposed to the Shah. Or too moderate to care either way. So that's a fucking truism and an imbecilic metric for anything.
Ah logic!
Your comment about how Americans fuck peoples lives and therefore we should just bend over and let people commit acts on terrorism for us for a while until they've finished with their revenge is borderline retarded.
- That American foreign policy fucks people life is an established fact. Your former posts suggest that you agree and think that this is justified. You wouldn't have justified a policy if you thought there was nothing to justify.
- The therefore in the sentence above is your addition. I made no such implication. I only said that is in the long term interests of the US to stop fucking lives.
I have no idea how you can expect me to take you seriously.I don't expect you to take me seriously. I am just pointing to you the uncomfortable fact that there are billions of people around the world who hate your guts with a blinding and consuming hatred. I am trying to tell you that it is in your best interest to take these billions seriously. Feel free to ignore this advice.
Fundamentalism in the Saudi regime is responsible for a lot of what some people find disgusting about them.
Very true, but fundamentalism is only dangerous when it enjoys popular support. And popular support of fundamentalism is a function of Western sponsored oppression. Compare Saudi Arabia and Egypt where fundamentalism is popular, to Iran, where fundamentalism is fighting a loosing war against the western friendly popular mood.
So it's not that they hate the west because the west supports the Saudis, it's that they hate the Saudi royal family because they are friendly with the west.
The objective truth is that the Arab world is in a mess. Islamic Fundamentalists believe that modernization is the source of this mess, and they are fifty percent right. From that perspective, the Saudi royal family and the Western support thereof is one and the same thing. Both stand in the way of saving the Arab world by turning the wheel back. Regular people, there as everywhere, are not really interested in theories of history. Once the fundamentalists take control, as they did in Iran, the people will judge them by their ability to show results. At that moment, the connection betwwen Western interference and oppression will have disappeared (as it had in Iran). The goverment may still be regressive, but recruiting suicide terrorist against America will be almost impossible.
The problem with a revolution in Saudia is not the suuply of oil itself, which will be probably unchanged or even increased ( if the new regime leaves OPEC). The problem is twofold: price stability and ownership.
price stability
The uncertainty of civil war will create price spikes that will damage economic forcasting in the West and thus cause some economic pain. In addition there is the potential for physical damage to the oil rigs, which will temporarily reduce supply and cause economic pain in the West.
Ownership
Oil is not sold by Saudis to Americans directly. It is sold to Oil companies, some of which are also partners in the production. An anti American revolution will probably switch the favors of the government to non-US companies. That will hurt these companies but will have negligble effect on oil prices.
To sum, there will be pain, but nothing unmenageable. The real losers will be a few US corporations. And it is their interest, not yours and mine, that effectively keep all Saudis hostages.
Somehow, this maxim of realpolitics is used in the US to explain why foreign policy should have all moral considerations excluded. cf. Condolezza Rice.
The opposite is true. Foreign policy should have as much moral consideration as possible given our current resources. We have an interest in a secure and open world in which a general sense of trust in the beneveolence and decency of others encourages interactions, exchange, and trade, and promotes non zero-sum solutions to world problems. Every time foreign policy offends moral sensibility we undermine this vision to the detriment of all humanity including Americans ( though sometimes that is exectly what some in the ruling class wants ).
The going theory for a long time is that we HAVE to support the Saudis because all of the alternatives possible in Saudi Arabia are so much worse.
Been there, done that. Vietnam, Chille, Guatemala, Iran, Nicaragua, et al. The result, even when we suffer a mayhem, people around the globe say America had it coming. Does being a member of the most hated nation on earth enhance your feeling of security?
You can't really do much to fight fundamentalism other than start with young children and make sure they get a proper secular education.
Essentially, you justify the continuation of colonial policies by a variation on the old colonial theme of the "white man burden". We can't let them rule themselves until we instill in them our values through gradual education. It doesn't work that way, because people are not that dumb. The value most Saudis associate with the West is not democracy and pluralism but cynicism and hypocracy. And they are right because they judge the West by its actions and not by its words. You cannot educate without moral authority, and you cannot have moral authority when the example you set belies everything you say.
There is no painless solution to the Saudi problem. But if the US force the Sauds to democratize, or let them fall if they don't, it will have sown the seeds for future friendship with the Saudi people.
The reason we don't do that is not because of some tough logic of national self-interest. We don't do it because our foreign policy is contolled by special interests, especially oil.
In other words, our failure to support democracy abroad is an extension of the failure of our democracy at home.
How nice. The US supports with money and weapons a disgusting regime because it provides a steady supply of oil and generally cooperates with the US. Then you are surprised that people want to kill you? And now, in a nice revarsal, you justify supporting this ugly regime by the necessity of protecting yourself from those that want to kill you because you are fucking their lives. How about you stop fucking their lives?
Yes, if the Saud fall the resulting regime will be very Anti American for a while, but the real cause for hatred will have disappeared, so that eventually , there will be possibility for real cooperation between the people. This is what happened in Iran. But people in the US still miss the Shah. which is really obscene because nobody in Iran misses the Shah.
Don't you love it when objective journalism means interviewing the naked king and pretending he wears a three piece suit?
what the hell does filtering the internet for the nation means? Isn't it more like filtering the internet against the nation?
If you want to know what the Founders meant by speech and press, and don't want to merely use common sense and basic English knowledge and your knowledge of Jefferson's writings, there's a simple answer: look at the definitions indictionaries and encyclodepias commonly found in the libraries of the literate at the time the Constitution was written. Accept all the definitions you find as valid ones, and move on.
While you seem to argue infavor of no interpretation, which IMHO is nonsense, the passage above suggests that you are really after original intent. When original intent is not sufficient because the object did not exists, you want to perform the most minimal interpretation that will find some equivalent or close that did exists.
Others have pointed out that this minimal interpretation is often simply not enough. My problem is your desire to keep the US outside of history. The success of strict constructionism suggests that this desire is common in America. The constiution was written in the eightenth century. Wouldn't it be strange indeed if someone in the eighteent century was prescient enough to provide with his imagination for all eternity. The Muslim fundamentalists believe exactly the same about a text written in the seventh century. Granted, 1200 years is a lot of time, but do you doubt that one day the literal meaning of the US constitution will be as outdated as the literal meaning of the Koran? Historically, cultures that sanctify the literal meaning of their founding documents turn up as the great losers. Successful cultures keep their founding documents in constant flux, using them to anchor themselves in the past but not to bury themselves in the past.
Of course, once you leave the original intent you are in the hands of the interpreters. Legal interpretation is technically done by the court but it is eventually the political system as a whole that decides. Maybe a lot of the appeal of strict constructionism comes from the desperation that anything good can come from the US political system.
George Busth will never forgive the internet for allowing itself to be invented by Al Gore.
So he is going to redo the whole things and invent the BushNet, a secure unhackable network based on the ingenious idea of running the following script on all government machine:
I am involved now in a project that I think responds directly to the issue raised by the post.
The project is to create a portal to every company that contributed to financing the campaign of a representative.
The portal will centralize all information needed to ascertain that paid representatives are performing their fiduciary duties to the people who invested hard earned money in their campaigns.
The portal will have forms for donation as well as RFLs ( Request for Legislation ). And we are now devising a method to integrate issues of tax relief and lifting regulation. One idea is to have a law that correlates the amount of tax to the ammount of regulation. But this is all still on the drawing board.
The project is financed from a special tax deduction "for streamlining the interaction between business and government".