More to the point, there are certain classes of research which are very well understood to be avoided by industry: they are the type of research which requires very large investments, but produce results which are available by everyone the moment the research is concluded (this can make it difficult-to-impossible for the original researcher to recoup their investment, because the organizations that follow get the benefits without the expense, leading to a lower marginal cost of production). While there are some classes of research which are unavoidably of this type, one should also ask a more open question: should we have research which, when concluded, is immediately available to everyone? And the answer to this question is obviously "yes, at least somewhat".
While patents exist to create a private good out of what would otherwise be a public good, this cannot work for every class of research, and regardless of this, I think what the 21'st century is making clear is that there are limits of what the Public should allow when it comes to patents. If anything, we need to back off of intellectual property protection more than we need to increase it.
Some portion of the debt that you would propose to "forgive" is debt the US owes to the Social Security trust fund. God help you if you propose forgiving that. You and yours would be first up against the wall.
I hear what you are saying, and understand your hesitation; I favor my interpretation, because this is something that a court order would not grant. The allegation is that they have, in effect, sabotaged a piece of software, exposing all who have used it to significant risk, and therefore create significant liability. It would be illegal for you and I to do it.
I do see the ambiguity, however. Nevertheless, my first offer is that this NDA was not lawful and could have safely been ignored. An attorney should have been asked.
It is my opinion that this person could have stood up to the disclosure even if this fact were CLASSIFIED. Although I will grant, that's a lot of heat.
Interesting, and you're right. It's too bad that Mr Perry agreed to the NDA
I'm personally puzzled by the story. But to a point: a contract is not lawful if it involves contracting you to an unlawful thing. For example, I feel relatively sure that "backdooring" security software would be not lawful. Therefore the NDA is not lawful.
Your approach is interesting to me, though. Basing the federal income on a portion of state revenue may be cleaner.
If each State had a huge federal mandate, the States are by and large not very distinguished from the other. That's how it is right now. We all pay a big federal tax, and a small State tax, relatively. As a consequence, it hardly matters what State you are in. I'd rather it matter, and allow each State to go on experimenting with what the right answer is in the size of government. To Federalize that would be to continue to assert that we know what the right answer is. I do have my beliefs about that, but any firm conviction that the answer is right is inherently wrong, at least on the grounds that things change from time to time.
Well. I dream. No one would ever implement my method. Granting that, I prefer:
1) The Fair Tax, not because it's best, but because it's the only alternative with any political support at all,
2) VonMises' Land Value Tax (LVT). Lots of reasons for that, but they would take a pageful to articulate. This one would require a Constitutional Amendment.
I think Income Taxes are evil. I think that even if the Federal Government collects the same revenues. Again, for reasons that would take a pageful.:-)
It's a better deal for everyone all the way around, as it creates an environment where the States must "compete" with each other. If any one State raises taxes too much (or creates too much legislative burden), State citizens move to another one. This is one of the reasons I believe that the Fed should have narrower powers of taxation, with most taxes levied by the Fed mostly constrained to taxing the States themselves. E.g., "25% of all State income" or what not. Any state lowering its own taxes by definition also lowers Fed taxes.
There are some standardization based benefits of uniform law. Mostly that's all getting out of the way by itself, such as through things like Uniform Electrical Code or Uniform Probate Code, stop lights that all have the colors in the same spot, and so on and so forth. I nod conceptually to these being a good thing, although won't go so far to say that a Fed government should be able to dictate them. My reticence has something to do with how the Commerce Clause is abused. I can imagine just about anything as a standard, and if I can, certainly some conniving corrupt politician can imagine worse.
In reality, what difference is there between Communism and Fascism?
You might enjoy reading a recent edition of _The Road to Serfdom_, by Hayek. Hayek's fundamental argument was that concentrating power in the hands of the few was always a dangerous error. Because when the book was written the US was allied with Russia he did not say what he wanted to say about Russia also, however in the later editions he did provide some editorial notes on the subject. Power is best at the edges, not the core.
To the contrary; I have been entirely consistent. My first major position was this:
"There is a push and pull occurring here. Revealing select unethical behaviors is one thing, revealing all the material is another. Hence the idea of encouraging him to "behave like a journalist. In the US, and I suspect most first world countries, the Free Press does not entirely trump state secrets. It only does so when their is a clear and present political/public interest in the matter at hand."
I have never varied, and my position that "the Free Press does not entirely trump state secrets" is in fact, correct. The "Free Press" is not entirely free in this matter.
My objections are the same objections that led his own team of information transparency movement workers to walk away from him and do something different. His narcissism just isn't helpful.
Whether you personally think that should be so is of little consequence to me.
Impassioned angry name-calling retorts and long messages suggest otherwise.
I have nowhere in my thread said he did anything illegal. What I said was that he is hurting the cause of information transparency by his actions (which, IMO, he has), and have objected to the notion that the Press can print anything they like without consequence (which they can't). My suggestion to Julian would be, if I were speaking with him: focus clearly on revealing political corruption and other muckraking. It will keep his cause pure, and his person free.
I wrote: "Meh. Try publishing the actual engineering design artifacts and see what happens."
You wrote: "When will you accept that you are simply wrong? I already gave you an example of somebody doing that!"
So, no, you didn't personally use the words "artifact," but I did, and you insisted that such a thing had been done. Which it hasn't.
So do you think calling me an idiot because A) you couldn't keep track of your own threads, and B) you didn't know what a thermonuclear weapon was... do you still think that was the right thing to do?
Your examples of third parties printing the plan for something "dangerous" is an interesting one, but such material does not begin life as classified document under the united states system of classification. While sometimes facts themselves in combination are considered to be classified facts, third parties who put them together into a form that the government would rather have be classified cannot be convicted of espionage or related activities unless the government establish mens rea for the act. They have been known, however, to classify a document, and do so occasionally. This has happened inadvertently with student documents such as dissertations from time to time.
No, I do not agree that WikiLeaks has done what it needs to do in terms of due dilligence with these documents. I do not agree that even were he to do so that printing them all is the right thing to do. I do actually believe that when the Press finds select documents implicating a group in illegal or unethical activities (e.g., US ordering its diplomats to conduct espionage in contravention of international law) then this is the time to publish such a document.
You have very poor memory for your threads. Just give it a review. To wit: I said 'try that with a engineering design artifact,' and you stated that it was one...
An "atom bomb" is also a thermonuclear device, which is easier to make,...
"Atom" bombs are nuclear, not thermonuclear.
Your use of bold font won't help you here, and if you had bothered to follow your own advice ("look it up"), you would know what I'm saying is true. The "thermo" part of the reaction is one triggered by high temperatures and is a fusion one. Strictly speaking it could be something other than hydrogen, but in fact it actually is hydrogen for the actual devices we make.
BTW: my last paragraph should have said does "not" per se establish prior restraint. That was the major finding of the Pentagon Papers case. Or, IOW, using classification markings cannot by itself be used as a mechanism to squelch free speech...
As an aside, any time you feel the need to be insulting in your threads, consider the idea that such remarks always say more about the remarker than those they are remarking on.
A thermonuclear device is a hydrogen bomb, and no, the student did not publish an "engineering design artifact." This would be the actual plans for the device resulting from the original scientists/engineers doing the design. As a 20 year veteran of the DoD engineeringfield, from me to you: this is standard terminology amongst DoD engineers.
The Pentagon Papers case did not establish that the Press has the willy-nilly right to print whatever classified material that they like. The case also established that the term "classified" also does per se establish a restraint on the Press. It would seem that you, and not me, needs to learn more about the relevancy of the Pentagon Papers to what the Press can and cannot print.
Meh. Try publishing the actual engineering design artifacts and see what happens. "Life in prison" will be your most likely outcome, and if you give the material to a threat nation "death" will be what they are discussing with you unless you sing like a canary about every last one of your sins. SCOTUS would say the same.
The Pentagon Papers case material will give you what you need to know about when something that is "classified" can be freely printed by the press. The rule is not merely "because the press wants to," a little FYI there for ya.
The material is far too voluminous for me to believe that due diligence has been taken here. This is the whole nature of my objection: the willy-nilly nature of the whole thing, which appears increasingly motivated more by narcissistic grand-standing than advancing the information transparency movement.
Since I don't wish to argue the specifics of this exact point ("the nuclear weapon plans") on the grounds of the specifics not being material, I will change my example:
Detailed and current plans pertaining to a pending military engagement. Encryption codes for radio communications for forward deployed troops in an active operational area. Current name and address of agents in enemy territory.
Does the press have a Free Speech right to print any of that?
(A somewhat abstract thing; patently the Russian press would have the right to print the name and address of a US agent illegally present on Russian soil).
The international nature of some of this does confound the issue.
You blithely left the nuclear weapon plans discussion point untouched. The subject which you ignored provides you with all you need to think about the issue further.
I view this question as neither here nor there. The reason I said what I did is that if we're to call him a "journalist," he should begin acting like one. In the US, supposing he were a Citizen, the First Amendment would not actually protect him the way that some free speech activists think. For the Press to exercise their right to trump state secrets, there are certain legal tests, which he would be failing. To understand the limits, look at a clear example:
If you have detailed plans for a nuclear weapon, do you have a Free Speech right to print the plans and disseminate it to the world?
The answer to this question is unambiguously "no". For a US citizen to do so, the legal answer could be as extreme as Treason, for which the penalty is Death.
If you find Free Speech and State Secrets suddenly conflicted, you could review the issue by looking at case history associated with the Pentagon papers. In summary, a state secret isn't something that is rightfully secret just because the state says so; if there is a clear and public interest, especially a political one, Free Speech over-rules.
So, for example, if you picked selected diplomatic missives from the set (such as Hilary ordering diplomats to spy in conflict with certain matters of international law), this would be a real example of Free Speech trumping State Secrets.
Dumping the entire database is not only irresponsible, but is most likely going to eventually cost Mr. Assange dearly pretty soon.
That's an interesting take. Never quite heard it put that way. You are saying that if the US government got word the New York times was going to print specific detailed plans on something sensitive like a nuclear weapon, they are unable to respond legally until after the event? Citation?
The void would be equally well filled by some judicious editorial control. Publishing a database of all SIPRnet intercepted diplomatic cables does not "fill a void," rather it is merely an act of a self-aggrandizing attention-demanding narcissistic egoist. Assange is a bad helmsman. They need new leadership.
There is a push and pull occurring here. Revealing select unethical behaviors is one thing, revealing all the material is another. Hence the idea of encouraging him to "behave like a journalist".
In the US, and I suspect most first world countries, the Free Press does not entirely trump state secrets. It only does so when their is a clear and present political/public interest in the matter at hand.
This is why the New York times could not publish detailed plans for an Thermonuclear Weapon. It would mean life in prison top to bottom for all involved in making the decision to do so, and not even SCOTUS would protect them.
Julian's decision to dump "everything" has hurt his cause, will do quite a lot of damage to the information transparency movement, and is far from complete in hurting him. This bit of foolery is just that: foolery.
I asked you the previous question because it would appear that you think about the 3rd world as a static place. The entire world is 1st world-ifying. I would find it morally abhorrent to limit a cure for death to any human being; I also foresee no need to do so. Each country where such medical systems are in effect will have to deal with food-resource-population controls in their own way. I don't anticipate much of a problem: people who know they are immortal have little urgent need to breed, and will know it.
Slashdot Mirror
More to the point, there are certain classes of research which are very well understood to be avoided by industry: they are the type of research which requires very large investments, but produce results which are available by everyone the moment the research is concluded (this can make it difficult-to-impossible for the original researcher to recoup their investment, because the organizations that follow get the benefits without the expense, leading to a lower marginal cost of production). While there are some classes of research which are unavoidably of this type, one should also ask a more open question: should we have research which, when concluded, is immediately available to everyone? And the answer to this question is obviously "yes, at least somewhat".
While patents exist to create a private good out of what would otherwise be a public good, this cannot work for every class of research, and regardless of this, I think what the 21'st century is making clear is that there are limits of what the Public should allow when it comes to patents. If anything, we need to back off of intellectual property protection more than we need to increase it.
C//
Some portion of the debt that you would propose to "forgive" is debt the US owes to the Social Security trust fund. God help you if you propose forgiving that. You and yours would be first up against the wall.
C//
I hear what you are saying, and understand your hesitation; I favor my interpretation, because this is something that a court order would not grant. The allegation is that they have, in effect, sabotaged a piece of software, exposing all who have used it to significant risk, and therefore create significant liability. It would be illegal for you and I to do it.
I do see the ambiguity, however. Nevertheless, my first offer is that this NDA was not lawful and could have safely been ignored. An attorney should have been asked.
It is my opinion that this person could have stood up to the disclosure even if this fact were CLASSIFIED. Although I will grant, that's a lot of heat.
C//
Interesting, and you're right. It's too bad that Mr Perry agreed to the NDA
I'm personally puzzled by the story. But to a point: a contract is not lawful if it involves contracting you to an unlawful thing. For example, I feel relatively sure that "backdooring" security software would be not lawful. Therefore the NDA is not lawful.
C//
Your approach is interesting to me, though. Basing the federal income on a portion of state revenue may be cleaner.
If each State had a huge federal mandate, the States are by and large not very distinguished from the other. That's how it is right now. We all pay a big federal tax, and a small State tax, relatively. As a consequence, it hardly matters what State you are in. I'd rather it matter, and allow each State to go on experimenting with what the right answer is in the size of government. To Federalize that would be to continue to assert that we know what the right answer is. I do have my beliefs about that, but any firm conviction that the answer is right is inherently wrong, at least on the grounds that things change from time to time.
Well. I dream. No one would ever implement my method. Granting that, I prefer:
1) The Fair Tax, not because it's best, but because it's the only alternative with any political support at all,
2) VonMises' Land Value Tax (LVT). Lots of reasons for that, but they would take a pageful to articulate. This one would require a Constitutional Amendment.
I think Income Taxes are evil. I think that even if the Federal Government collects the same revenues. Again, for reasons that would take a pageful. :-)
C//
It's a better deal for everyone all the way around, as it creates an environment where the States must "compete" with each other. If any one State raises taxes too much (or creates too much legislative burden), State citizens move to another one. This is one of the reasons I believe that the Fed should have narrower powers of taxation, with most taxes levied by the Fed mostly constrained to taxing the States themselves. E.g., "25% of all State income" or what not. Any state lowering its own taxes by definition also lowers Fed taxes.
There are some standardization based benefits of uniform law. Mostly that's all getting out of the way by itself, such as through things like Uniform Electrical Code or Uniform Probate Code, stop lights that all have the colors in the same spot, and so on and so forth. I nod conceptually to these being a good thing, although won't go so far to say that a Fed government should be able to dictate them. My reticence has something to do with how the Commerce Clause is abused. I can imagine just about anything as a standard, and if I can, certainly some conniving corrupt politician can imagine worse.
C//
California. A State, not the Federal Government.
In reality, what difference is there between Communism and Fascism?
You might enjoy reading a recent edition of _The Road to Serfdom_, by Hayek. Hayek's fundamental argument was that concentrating power in the hands of the few was always a dangerous error. Because when the book was written the US was allied with Russia he did not say what he wanted to say about Russia also, however in the later editions he did provide some editorial notes on the subject. Power is best at the edges, not the core.
C//
To the contrary; I have been entirely consistent. My first major position was this:
"There is a push and pull occurring here. Revealing select unethical behaviors is one thing, revealing all the material is another. Hence the idea of encouraging him to "behave like a journalist. In the US, and I suspect most first world countries, the Free Press does not entirely trump state secrets. It only does so when their is a clear and present political/public interest in the matter at hand."
I have never varied, and my position that "the Free Press does not entirely trump state secrets" is in fact, correct. The "Free Press" is not entirely free in this matter.
C//
You could see this coming from a mile away:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/10/ex-staffers-creating-wikileaks-spinoff-site/?hpt=T2
My objections are the same objections that led his own team of information transparency movement workers to walk away from him and do something different. His narcissism just isn't helpful.
C//
Whether you personally think that should be so is of little consequence to me.
Impassioned angry name-calling retorts and long messages suggest otherwise.
I have nowhere in my thread said he did anything illegal. What I said was that he is hurting the cause of information transparency by his actions (which, IMO, he has), and have objected to the notion that the Press can print anything they like without consequence (which they can't). My suggestion to Julian would be, if I were speaking with him: focus clearly on revealing political corruption and other muckraking. It will keep his cause pure, and his person free.
C//
I wrote: "Meh. Try publishing the actual engineering design artifacts and see what happens."
You wrote: "When will you accept that you are simply wrong? I already gave you an example of somebody doing that!"
So, no, you didn't personally use the words "artifact," but I did, and you insisted that such a thing had been done. Which it hasn't.
So do you think calling me an idiot because A) you couldn't keep track of your own threads, and B) you didn't know what a thermonuclear weapon was... do you still think that was the right thing to do?
Your examples of third parties printing the plan for something "dangerous" is an interesting one, but such material does not begin life as classified document under the united states system of classification. While sometimes facts themselves in combination are considered to be classified facts, third parties who put them together into a form that the government would rather have be classified cannot be convicted of espionage or related activities unless the government establish mens rea for the act. They have been known, however, to classify a document, and do so occasionally. This has happened inadvertently with student documents such as dissertations from time to time.
No, I do not agree that WikiLeaks has done what it needs to do in terms of due dilligence with these documents. I do not agree that even were he to do so that printing them all is the right thing to do. I do actually believe that when the Press finds select documents implicating a group in illegal or unethical activities (e.g., US ordering its diplomats to conduct espionage in contravention of international law) then this is the time to publish such a document.
C//
I did not say he published a "design artifact".
You have very poor memory for your threads. Just give it a review. To wit: I said 'try that with a engineering design artifact,' and you stated that it was one...
An "atom bomb" is also a thermonuclear device, which is easier to make, ...
"Atom" bombs are nuclear, not thermonuclear.
Your use of bold font won't help you here, and if you had bothered to follow your own advice ("look it up"), you would know what I'm saying is true. The "thermo" part of the reaction is one triggered by high temperatures and is a fusion one. Strictly speaking it could be something other than hydrogen, but in fact it actually is hydrogen for the actual devices we make.
BTW: my last paragraph should have said does "not" per se establish prior restraint. That was the major finding of the Pentagon Papers case. Or, IOW, using classification markings cannot by itself be used as a mechanism to squelch free speech...
As an aside, any time you feel the need to be insulting in your threads, consider the idea that such remarks always say more about the remarker than those they are remarking on.
C//
A thermonuclear device is a hydrogen bomb, and no, the student did not publish an "engineering design artifact." This would be the actual plans for the device resulting from the original scientists/engineers doing the design. As a 20 year veteran of the DoD engineeringfield, from me to you: this is standard terminology amongst DoD engineers.
The Pentagon Papers case did not establish that the Press has the willy-nilly right to print whatever classified material that they like. The case also established that the term "classified" also does per se establish a restraint on the Press. It would seem that you, and not me, needs to learn more about the relevancy of the Pentagon Papers to what the Press can and cannot print.
C//
Meh. Try publishing the actual engineering design artifacts and see what happens. "Life in prison" will be your most likely outcome, and if you give the material to a threat nation "death" will be what they are discussing with you unless you sing like a canary about every last one of your sins. SCOTUS would say the same.
The Pentagon Papers case material will give you what you need to know about when something that is "classified" can be freely printed by the press. The rule is not merely "because the press wants to," a little FYI there for ya.
C//
The material is far too voluminous for me to believe that due diligence has been taken here. This is the whole nature of my objection: the willy-nilly nature of the whole thing, which appears increasingly motivated more by narcissistic grand-standing than advancing the information transparency movement.
Since I don't wish to argue the specifics of this exact point ("the nuclear weapon plans") on the grounds of the specifics not being material, I will change my example:
Detailed and current plans pertaining to a pending military engagement. Encryption codes for radio communications for forward deployed troops in an active operational area. Current name and address of agents in enemy territory.
Does the press have a Free Speech right to print any of that?
(A somewhat abstract thing; patently the Russian press would have the right to print the name and address of a US agent illegally present on Russian soil).
The international nature of some of this does confound the issue.
C//
You blithely left the nuclear weapon plans discussion point untouched. The subject which you ignored provides you with all you need to think about the issue further.
I view this question as neither here nor there. The reason I said what I did is that if we're to call him a "journalist," he should begin acting like one. In the US, supposing he were a Citizen, the First Amendment would not actually protect him the way that some free speech activists think. For the Press to exercise their right to trump state secrets, there are certain legal tests, which he would be failing. To understand the limits, look at a clear example:
If you have detailed plans for a nuclear weapon, do you have a Free Speech right to print the plans and disseminate it to the world?
The answer to this question is unambiguously "no". For a US citizen to do so, the legal answer could be as extreme as Treason, for which the penalty is Death.
If you find Free Speech and State Secrets suddenly conflicted, you could review the issue by looking at case history associated with the Pentagon papers. In summary, a state secret isn't something that is rightfully secret just because the state says so; if there is a clear and public interest, especially a political one, Free Speech over-rules.
So, for example, if you picked selected diplomatic missives from the set (such as Hilary ordering diplomats to spy in conflict with certain matters of international law), this would be a real example of Free Speech trumping State Secrets.
Dumping the entire database is not only irresponsible, but is most likely going to eventually cost Mr. Assange dearly pretty soon.
C//
That's an interesting take. Never quite heard it put that way. You are saying that if the US government got word the New York times was going to print specific detailed plans on something sensitive like a nuclear weapon, they are unable to respond legally until after the event? Citation?
The void would be equally well filled by some judicious editorial control. Publishing a database of all SIPRnet intercepted diplomatic cables does not "fill a void," rather it is merely an act of a self-aggrandizing attention-demanding narcissistic egoist. Assange is a bad helmsman. They need new leadership.
There is a push and pull occurring here. Revealing select unethical behaviors is one thing, revealing all the material is another. Hence the idea of encouraging him to "behave like a journalist".
In the US, and I suspect most first world countries, the Free Press does not entirely trump state secrets. It only does so when their is a clear and present political/public interest in the matter at hand.
This is why the New York times could not publish detailed plans for an Thermonuclear Weapon. It would mean life in prison top to bottom for all involved in making the decision to do so, and not even SCOTUS would protect them.
Julian's decision to dump "everything" has hurt his cause, will do quite a lot of damage to the information transparency movement, and is far from complete in hurting him. This bit of foolery is just that: foolery.
C//
If you genuinely believe that he's a journalist, genuinely encouraging him to behave like one would be the appropriate next step. Next?
Julian Assange himself has denied that he's a journalist. Next?
I asked you the previous question because it would appear that you think about the 3rd world as a static place. The entire world is 1st world-ifying. I would find it morally abhorrent to limit a cure for death to any human being; I also foresee no need to do so. Each country where such medical systems are in effect will have to deal with food-resource-population controls in their own way. I don't anticipate much of a problem: people who know they are immortal have little urgent need to breed, and will know it.