So if I use ads and merchandise to support my site and try to make something of a living off of my writing I have to register as a lobbyist?
No. Here's why:
`(A) IN GENERAL- The term `paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying' means any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general public or segments thereof to contact one or more covered legislative or executive branch officials (or Congress as a whole) to urge such officials (or Congress) to take specific action with respect to a matter described in section 3(8)(A), except that such term does not include any communications by an entity directed to its members, employees, officers, or shareholders.
You will have to register as a lobbyist if somebody cuts you a check to post, on your blog, a call to the public to write government officials requesting specific official action.
For example, if ExxonMobil pays me $1000 to write a blog post that urges my (over 500) readers to write their Congressional delegation to vote in favor of a bill that opens up ANWR, I would have to register as a lobbyist.
This bill is intended to call fake grassroots astroturfing what it is--lobbying.
Most irritating in a country where standard paper is A4, and your printer doesn't even have a "Letter" tray.
If you want to use our documents, you can damn well print them off using our paper size or do your own repagination. I don't bitch when some dipshit sends me an A4 PDF.
Most countries, in fact, have budgets far less then that of the U.S.A, and they typically have to spend it on things that they feel are more important.
You mean like the United States is doing by assigning a lower priority to orbital Earth science?
I used to live up in Maine, and while the big-name telco and cablecos wouldn't even dream about rolling out FIOS to most markets there, some local companies were.
Great. I still do. In the "other" Maine, even. Time Warner sells fibre connectivity up here, but it costs an arm and a leg. Do they count as "big-name" for you?
Let's face it; if you're not in a major market, then you aren't worth two squirts to a major national carrier. At least with a regional company, they're going to have some reason to pay attention.
If you're not in a sufficiently populated market, then you're not worth two shits to anyone when it comes to getting any new communications infrastructure before the pricing goes way down to commodity levels--by which time something even more whizbang impressive has come out.
With Verizon aggressively rolling out high-speed FiOS (FTTP) in its service area, what will happen to the consumers stuck with a smaller telco like those moving to FairPoint?
Wow! What compelling evidence you bring to the table, sir!
I will accept as fact a 28-month-old statement by a forum moderator named "Thunderbird" from the Netherlands! If anybody were to know who develops Mac OS X drivers for nVidia chipsets, it would be him!
A little bit. I'm not certain how a camera qualifies as an Easement though, which is how the US and UK govs would go about installing them on private land.
By the New Year's issue of Internet Magazine, the '94 elections had already taken place. Gingrich was the 'speaker-elect'. My apologies for jumping the gun by 1 week.
I hope you're not going to try to blame him for CALEA or for Clipper.
You're confusing "being in public" with "being in a public place". Being in public means being in the company of, or at least the view of, other people - not merely being in a place to which the public has access.
The distinction you're drawing is as silly and absurd as that old saw about the tree that falls with nobody around. When you are "in a public place," other people have a right to "look at what you're doing."
Law enforcement cameras are entitled to be anywhere an officer of the law is entitled to be.
And the best bit about your zero tolerance policy is that the fines from the strawmen with coprolalia and copropraxia will pretty much pay for all public services.
I know! It's almost as if the ADA doesn't exist anymore! You're arguing another strawman. I hope you're at least fooling yourself into thinking that's a valid counterpoint, because you're not fooling me.
Negligence is negligence. If a stroke victim can't hold onto a candy wrapper, he shouldn't knowingly put himself in a position where it's very likely that he'll litter. If he drops it, he can go pick it up and put it in the fucking trash can like the rest of us.
So, they should also have our consent to install cameras to watch us. What happened to the old "all fscking power from the fscking people, for the fscking people"?
I know--it's almost as if your municipal, state, and federal government is entirely unelected!
Throughout all of human history, you had a right to privacy whenever no one else was around, whether in a "public" or in a "private" place.
There has never, ever, ever been a right to privacy in public. De facto privacy and de jure privacy are completely different. You have de facto privacy in the park when nobody else is around, but that goes away when someone or something comes within observation distance. You've never had de jure privacy from observation in a public space. You retain de jure privacy in your home.
It's a shame you're so willing an eager to give that up in return for an illusion of safety.
It's a shame you're so willing and eager to produce bullshit arguments to convert something you dislike into a contrived violation of rights that do not and have never existed in this country.
Why are you equating a human observer on the ground, a person you can talk to and who might be able to help you if you're in trouble, with a camera mounted high in the air, that can zoom in to snoop on you without your knowledge, that can't do anything to help you? They are not the same.
You're right--a beat officer and a camera aren't the same thing, just like you and an automaton aren't the same thing.
A camera, however, if monitored live, can dispatch an actual law enforcement officer to assist you if you are being victimized. At the same time, it records evidence that can be used to convict the offender.
Cameras can be abused, just like cars, knives, guns, pointed sticks, chemicals, and computers. That doesn't invalidate them as tools for law enforcement.
It boils down to this: you have no right to privacy in a public place. None. If you want to smoke dope, take a swig form a flask, bang your broad, or pick your nose without being seen, do it in your own home.
Many "public" street cameras are on privatly owned property. While the lamp post is owned and maintained by the state, I own the sidewalk and 1/2 of the street boardering my property (in many states). The feds should have my permission to install a camera on "my property".
The same way they need your permission to allow traffic to pass on "your street?" The same way they need your permission to allow pedestrians on "your sidewalk?"
Streets and sidewalks are rights-of-way. You don't control access to them. Deal with it.
If a candy wrapper blows out of your hand, have you committed a crime? Officer Orwell thinks you have, and he's got a record of it.
If you don't go and pick it up, then yes, you've littered. You're not going to jail for it, but you're going to pay a fine for it.
Maybe we can lower littering fines somewhat if we catch more people doing it--economies of scale and whatnot. People think that if nobody sees them, it didn't happen, so it's okay. Where's your accountability for your actions in a public place?
In many parts of the US, the citizens own the property under the sidewalk and 1/2 the street. Meaning that lamp posts, while owned by the state, are on private property. I don't really see a problem with the state or feds "asking" a property owners permission to install a camera.
Are you familiar with the concept of "right of way?"
You have as much legal right to forbid the installation of a camera on a public utility pole pointed at a public street as you do to forbid traffic from passing on "your" portion of the sidewalk and street.
Because I believe there is a difference between being observed by people and having all of your actions being automatically watched recorded and analyzed.
In your mind, it wasn't possible before, but now that it is, it's something completely different! The difference is only one of semantics. What "you believe" and what "is constitutional" appear not to be the same.
In Britain already there have been 'peeping tom' cases with cctv's.
Two council CCTV camera operators have been jailed for spying on a naked woman in her own home.
What you just proved is that the system, as implemented in the UK, has a provision for removing people who abuse their positions and that it works. Congratulations!
Scattered examples of abuse of a lawful power does not justify the removal of that power from people who actually use it lawfully for the public good.
If you are detained by an officer, he cannot search your persons without probable cause.
Correct.
So perhaps we should stop filming everybody first before probable cause is obtained.
Unless you've invented some sort of magic camera that frisks you as you walk through the park, this isn't the same thing at all.
If a police officer sees you commit a crime, he can arrest you. If a camera, installed in public, aimed at public places, records your commission of a crime, it can be used as evidence to issue a warrant.
Why are you claiming a right not to be observed in public? It doesn't exist.
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You will have to register as a lobbyist if somebody cuts you a check to post, on your blog, a call to the public to write government officials requesting specific official action.
For example, if ExxonMobil pays me $1000 to write a blog post that urges my (over 500) readers to write their Congressional delegation to vote in favor of a bill that opens up ANWR, I would have to register as a lobbyist.
This bill is intended to call fake grassroots astroturfing what it is--lobbying.
If you're not in a sufficiently populated market, then you're not worth two shits to anyone when it comes to getting any new communications infrastructure before the pricing goes way down to commodity levels--by which time something even more whizbang impressive has come out.
I will accept as fact a 28-month-old statement by a forum moderator named "Thunderbird" from the Netherlands! If anybody were to know who develops Mac OS X drivers for nVidia chipsets, it would be him!
I wasn't blaming anybody for it.
How is that inferior to the FOSS Security Model of "Who cares?"
There's a little more prestige or economic incentive to break Windows or Exchange than there is to break PHPNuke again.
Law enforcement cameras are entitled to be anywhere an officer of the law is entitled to be.
Negligence is negligence. If a stroke victim can't hold onto a candy wrapper, he shouldn't knowingly put himself in a position where it's very likely that he'll litter. If he drops it, he can go pick it up and put it in the fucking trash can like the rest of us.
It's a shame you're so willing and eager to produce bullshit arguments to convert something you dislike into a contrived violation of rights that do not and have never existed in this country.
A camera, however, if monitored live, can dispatch an actual law enforcement officer to assist you if you are being victimized. At the same time, it records evidence that can be used to convict the offender.
Cameras can be abused, just like cars, knives, guns, pointed sticks, chemicals, and computers. That doesn't invalidate them as tools for law enforcement.
It boils down to this: you have no right to privacy in a public place. None. If you want to smoke dope, take a swig form a flask, bang your broad, or pick your nose without being seen, do it in your own home.
Streets and sidewalks are rights-of-way. You don't control access to them. Deal with it.
Maybe we can lower littering fines somewhat if we catch more people doing it--economies of scale and whatnot. People think that if nobody sees them, it didn't happen, so it's okay. Where's your accountability for your actions in a public place?
You have as much legal right to forbid the installation of a camera on a public utility pole pointed at a public street as you do to forbid traffic from passing on "your" portion of the sidewalk and street.
For those of you just joining us, that is "none."
What you just proved is that the system, as implemented in the UK, has a provision for removing people who abuse their positions and that it works. Congratulations!
Scattered examples of abuse of a lawful power does not justify the removal of that power from people who actually use it lawfully for the public good.
Just one.
Unless you've invented some sort of magic camera that frisks you as you walk through the park, this isn't the same thing at all.
If a police officer sees you commit a crime, he can arrest you. If a camera, installed in public, aimed at public places, records your commission of a crime, it can be used as evidence to issue a warrant.
Why are you claiming a right not to be observed in public? It doesn't exist.
There isn't, however, "enough demand to make it worthwhile and profitable."