It's US policies in US airports. If they want to stop people from flying, or if they insist on searching people then they need a constitutional justification. Other countries having issues are beside the point. The constitution still gives the US government no right for unconstitutional searches. There's no exception for flights to other countries.
If the US removes security scans and planes start coming down then they may find themselves unable to fly through foreign airspace...again, the system evolves around the problem.
Given that it's the US insisting on this security, I don't understand how that's likely. More to the point, terrorist attacks aren't very common.
When did sitting in a thin metal tube surrounded by barely controlled raging fires and flammable liquid whilst travelling thousands of miles at 30k feet become some kind of basic human right?
Where in the constitution is the government permitted to prevent this?
So why the bomb threat? Which is by the way illegal.
Only if made with intent to cause distruption. There was no intent. The CPS were aware of this and didn't charge him with a bomb threat.
Why did he threathen people who had no way of knowing whether he was serious or not?
Why was the airport not closed if they thought there was some possibility he was serious.
If only then people had listened. How is the police to know if someone is just spouting off or making a serious threat? Damned if they do nothing, damned if they do something.
"Doing something" could involve questioning the guy and telling him to be more circumspect in the future. That would have been reasonable.
Should the police have ignored the threat, like they ignored others that did turn out to be right? Or just put a fullscale alert on the airport just in case and let the taxpayer pay for it?
This story is just more evidence of the sad state of our voting population who just doesn't seem to be aware of the real world and its rules. If you do not like them vote to change them but don't go into some kind of hissy fit when long established laws end up biting you in the ass.
They applied a somewhat arcane law that was intended for a somewhat different purpose.
Guess what, freedom of speech does not exist in the UK,
Yes it does. Firstly by tradition, secondly because it's actually enshrined in the Human Rights Act.
Real story: Asshole who wanted to show off got send to jail for breaking the law.
He had no intention of showing off and was fined, not sent to Gaol.
Really, this guy wasn't making a political statement,
No. Nobody thinks he was.
this was just someone wanting to scare others because his penis is to small.
He had no intention to scare anyone
And before you get all outraged, answer me this. WHY did he send this message out into the world?
He sent it to his friend. Normally the only people who would have seen it were those who were friends of both of them. Do you have the first idea of how Twitter works? The only reason anyone else saw it was because of a search for "Robin Hood Airport".
When THAT reason gets reported I think his public sympathy outside wanker land will be lost instantly.
If he wanted anyone else to see it why did he direct it at a single specific person?
I have a certain fondness for the First amendment, but it does also mean that mandatory school uniforms are illegal, election finance reform is essentially impossible. There are occasions when freedom of speech and democracy are potentially at odds. I think there's an argument for limiting freedom of speech in those specific cases.
So are the only options to do absolutely nothing, and to throw the book at the guy?
The police had several hours to determine whether the guy meant it or not.
And as for taking things seriously, the airport manager didn't consider it serious enough to close the airport. Perhaps what they should do have done is ask the guy a few questions and then suggest that he consider his tweets a little more carefully in future when they determined he wasn't a threat.
The airport guy wasn't charged with making a bomb threat though. That requires intent to cause distruption. Instead he was charged with a law that makes it a crime to "[send] by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character".
Which is a pretty bizarre charge given the nature of the "communication"
The Baroness could easily be a terrorist. According to the security agencies, the pilots may decide to blow up the planes as well. I see no reason that Barack Obama and David Cameron are above the law in this respect, and they have access to a lot of information that could aid terrorism.
But then, Europeans never seem to complain about "welfare moms,"
That's likely because you're loooking for the wrong term. In Britain, the term is "benefits". Unemployment benefit, housing benefit etc. If you goodle for "benefits scroungers" you'll get plenty of British tabloids complaining about them. I'm sure the rest of Europer has its own term.
Yes. It can be done. I think though the main difference between fixable and non fixable equipment though is design for failure. Electronic equipment can last for decades without going wrong. The XBox 360's high rate of failures weren't caused by wear and tear, but by a manufacturing fault.
I expect my car to need a oil change every so often, for the clutch to wear, for the brakes to need replacing and so on. I expect a valve to go once in a while. I also expect lightbulbs to be designed for easy replacement, an opto-mechanical mouse to get grime on its rollers. These are parts that expire or get worn, dirty or used up through normal use. If a part is prone to failure then I want to be able to replace it.
Chips should not go wrong. The high rate of failures is down to poor manufacturing. Given a choice between increasing access so I can fix it or process improvements so I don't have to, I'll go for the process improvements.
And I think I should add, since I'm digressing fromthe original argument, having read all the points, I do agree with the overall point that taking things apart and modifying them is discouraged far too strongly.
I'd rather they but the stuff, certainly, and would encourage then to do so but it turns out a lot of them actually do buy a decent amoutn of media as well as pirating.
It does have a small advantage that everything in the shared folder is shared. So if anyone on the network has that song you want you should be able to get hold of it. Torrents explicitly need to be seeded.
So? Assuming you could access them, how would a person of reasonable technical ability repair one? A valve radio is easy. You take out the faulty valve and replace it.
To repair the xbox 360, you'll need to resolder a chip. Very likely to be surface mounted, possibly BGA. I'm sure there are people who can fix these, but they're really designed to be soldered by machine.
Yes. You could get an injunction gainst the dealer selling cars fairly easily, but you would actually need to get the injunction. There is a difference between stealing and copyright infringment. There are laws explictly dealing with handling stolen goods. Whether there are laws about resellers of copyright infringing media or not I don't know but if there are they're different from those dealing with stolen goods.
This isn't a car. It's consumer electronics. How many pieces of consumer electronics allow easy access to the insides? Even the electronics in cars tends not to. Cars need to allow access because they require maintenance. A camera doesn't.
Did the experimentors call Nintendo's press office and demand a statement regarding a modification they've previously not heard of and not giving any details about exactly what it is?
Microsoft isn't suing. The company is simply making sure it reserves the right to sue in case this violates its legal rights. They're covering their butts
"MS isn't going to waste time finding out what this is. We'll just make some vague threats in case at some point in the future we think it might be harmful, just so there's no implicit endorsement"
Owing to the fact that it's impossible to test all combinations of devices and planes, under all circumstances and actually know what might/could happen -- they've chosen to ban the whole thing.
Why would they need to? Surely interference at mobile phone frequencies is interference whether it's an iPhone, an ancient 3310, or just a noise generator operating at those frequencies.
What could/might happen? People forget to turn their equipment off all the time. It hasn't happened yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Missed the bit where it says that Congress shall have the power to restrict air travel.
This has nothing to do with the constitution.
It's US policies in US airports. If they want to stop people from flying, or if they insist on searching people then they need a constitutional justification. Other countries having issues are beside the point. The constitution still gives the US government no right for unconstitutional searches. There's no exception for flights to other countries.
If the US removes security scans and planes start coming down then they may find themselves unable to fly through foreign airspace...again, the system evolves around the problem.
Given that it's the US insisting on this security, I don't understand how that's likely. More to the point, terrorist attacks aren't very common.
Then you don't even need a kill list. There's a principle of self defence against immediate danger. Anwar al-Awlaki is not shooting anyone.
When did sitting in a thin metal tube surrounded by barely controlled raging fires and flammable liquid whilst travelling thousands of miles at 30k feet become some kind of basic human right?
Where in the constitution is the government permitted to prevent this?
If a US citizen is actively fighting against the US in support of a foreign power, then no trial is needed.
How do you establish that a citizen is doing this?
But the 386 does a specific task. It's adequate for the purpose. Might as well stick with it.
So why the bomb threat? Which is by the way illegal.
Only if made with intent to cause distruption. There was no intent. The CPS were aware of this and didn't charge him with a bomb threat.
Why did he threathen people who had no way of knowing whether he was serious or not?
Why was the airport not closed if they thought there was some possibility he was serious.
If only then people had listened. How is the police to know if someone is just spouting off or making a serious threat? Damned if they do nothing, damned if they do something.
"Doing something" could involve questioning the guy and telling him to be more circumspect in the future. That would have been reasonable.
Should the police have ignored the threat, like they ignored others that did turn out to be right? Or just put a fullscale alert on the airport just in case and let the taxpayer pay for it?
False dichotomy.
This story is just more evidence of the sad state of our voting population who just doesn't seem to be aware of the real world and its rules. If you do not like them vote to change them but don't go into some kind of hissy fit when long established laws end up biting you in the ass.
They applied a somewhat arcane law that was intended for a somewhat different purpose.
Guess what, freedom of speech does not exist in the UK,
Yes it does. Firstly by tradition, secondly because it's actually enshrined in the Human Rights Act.
Real story: Asshole who wanted to show off got send to jail for breaking the law.
He had no intention of showing off and was fined, not sent to Gaol.
Really, this guy wasn't making a political statement,
No. Nobody thinks he was.
this was just someone wanting to scare others because his penis is to small.
He had no intention to scare anyone
And before you get all outraged, answer me this. WHY did he send this message out into the world?
He sent it to his friend. Normally the only people who would have seen it were those who were friends of both of them. Do you have the first idea of how Twitter works? The only reason anyone else saw it was because of a search for "Robin Hood Airport".
When THAT reason gets reported I think his public sympathy outside wanker land will be lost instantly.
If he wanted anyone else to see it why did he direct it at a single specific person?
I have a certain fondness for the First amendment, but it does also mean that mandatory school uniforms are illegal, election finance reform is essentially impossible. There are occasions when freedom of speech and democracy are potentially at odds. I think there's an argument for limiting freedom of speech in those specific cases.
So are the only options to do absolutely nothing, and to throw the book at the guy?
The police had several hours to determine whether the guy meant it or not.
And as for taking things seriously, the airport manager didn't consider it serious enough to close the airport. Perhaps what they should do have done is ask the guy a few questions and then suggest that he consider his tweets a little more carefully in future when they determined he wasn't a threat.
The airport guy wasn't charged with making a bomb threat though. That requires intent to cause distruption. Instead he was charged with a law that makes it a crime to "[send] by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character".
Which is a pretty bizarre charge given the nature of the "communication"
The Baroness could easily be a terrorist. According to the security agencies, the pilots may decide to blow up the planes as well. I see no reason that Barack Obama and David Cameron are above the law in this respect, and they have access to a lot of information that could aid terrorism.
I do hope they get the security pat down as well.
But then, Europeans never seem to complain about "welfare moms,"
That's likely because you're loooking for the wrong term. In Britain, the term is "benefits". Unemployment benefit, housing benefit etc. If you goodle for "benefits scroungers" you'll get plenty of British tabloids complaining about them. I'm sure the rest of Europer has its own term.
But people seem to not do that for whatever reason.
Getting the more obscure files was always easier on the Kazaa/gnutella type networks than bitorrent.
Yes. It can be done. I think though the main difference between fixable and non fixable equipment though is design for failure. Electronic equipment can last for decades without going wrong. The XBox 360's high rate of failures weren't caused by wear and tear, but by a manufacturing fault.
I expect my car to need a oil change every so often, for the clutch to wear, for the brakes to need replacing and so on. I expect a valve to go once in a while. I also expect lightbulbs to be designed for easy replacement, an opto-mechanical mouse to get grime on its rollers. These are parts that expire or get worn, dirty or used up through normal use. If a part is prone to failure then I want to be able to replace it.
Chips should not go wrong. The high rate of failures is down to poor manufacturing. Given a choice between increasing access so I can fix it or process improvements so I don't have to, I'll go for the process improvements.
And I think I should add, since I'm digressing fromthe original argument, having read all the points, I do agree with the overall point that taking things apart and modifying them is discouraged far too strongly.
I make digital content.
I don't think they steal.
I'd rather they but the stuff, certainly, and would encourage then to do so but it turns out a lot of them actually do buy a decent amoutn of media as well as pirating.
Ah. Fair enough. Although as I mentiond in another comment, MS isn't actually threatening to sue anyone, just reserving the right to do so.
It does have a small advantage that everything in the shared folder is shared. So if anyone on the network has that song you want you should be able to get hold of it. Torrents explicitly need to be seeded.
So? Assuming you could access them, how would a person of reasonable technical ability repair one? A valve radio is easy. You take out the faulty valve and replace it.
To repair the xbox 360, you'll need to resolder a chip. Very likely to be surface mounted, possibly BGA. I'm sure there are people who can fix these, but they're really designed to be soldered by machine.
Yes. You could get an injunction gainst the dealer selling cars fairly easily, but you would actually need to get the injunction. There is a difference between stealing and copyright infringment. There are laws explictly dealing with handling stolen goods. Whether there are laws about resellers of copyright infringing media or not I don't know but if there are they're different from those dealing with stolen goods.
Back in the good old days, radios and TVs came with parts that failed after extended use.
This isn't a car. It's consumer electronics. How many pieces of consumer electronics allow easy access to the insides? Even the electronics in cars tends not to. Cars need to allow access because they require maintenance. A camera doesn't.
Did the experimentors call Nintendo's press office and demand a statement regarding a modification they've previously not heard of and not giving any details about exactly what it is?
Microsoft isn't suing. The company is simply making sure it reserves the right to sue in case this violates its legal rights. They're covering their butts
The response seems prettty vague. Sort of
"MS isn't going to waste time finding out what this is. We'll just make some vague threats in case at some point in the future we think it might be harmful, just so there's no implicit endorsement"
Owing to the fact that it's impossible to test all combinations of devices and planes, under all circumstances and actually know what might/could happen -- they've chosen to ban the whole thing.
Why would they need to? Surely interference at mobile phone frequencies is interference whether it's an iPhone, an ancient 3310, or just a noise generator operating at those frequencies.
What could/might happen? People forget to turn their equipment off all the time. It hasn't happened yet.
You can always spot the visitors to London because they'll actually press the open door button on the underground trains.