What would we need to do to make this kind of shit illegal? A law? A constitutional amendment? I don't think it would be too hard to get 2/3 of Americans to agree that any amendment or rider to a bill should be relevant to that bill's stated purpose.
It's hard to get 2/3rds of Americans to do anything other than watch TV.
If the Founder Fathers wanted efficiency, they would not have created the federal system with a bicameral legislature. Stupid shit like this slowing down the process is there by design - to protect our rights. If government were efficient, they would just erode our rights faster.
There was plenty there to protect our rights without having to resort to something like designed-in inefficiency.
Probably be better if they removed all our rights as fast as possible because then people might actually do something about it whereas they seem to be quite prepared to lose a right or two at a time and doing nothing at all to stop the metaphorical bleeding out every orifice.
Shit like this is why you should always travel in heavily-armed groups.
TSA goons may have no qualms about taking out one 'wacko' with a gun, but 20 of them (or, even better, an entire airport full) all traveling together will force them to reconsider their position.
Our forefathers made sure we had a right to keep and carry weapons, to ensure we would always have a means of throwing off the shackles of tyranny - let's not disappoint them.
Won't work unless the entire population rises up at once...which won't happen anytime soon if ever. Anything less than a full revolution would be an armed insurrection and itself classified, no doubt, as terrorism.
The only realistic way to effect change in the US is with very large scale (ie 100s of thousands or millions) non-violent protest. Millions sounds like a lot until you realize that France, with it's population of only 60 million, had 6 million people demonstrating against some employment contract changes the government was going to put into place. Needless to say that when 10% of the population were out on the streets very nicely making their point of view 'heard', the government listened and did what the people demanded. In the US that 10% would be some 50 million people demonstrating...and that would get listened to.
OWS was a beginning, but wasn't strong enough to work given how the deck is stacked.
I'm not sure that slowing down airport lines for a protest is the best way to make people mad at the TSA. They're more likely to get mad at you for fucking up their travel plans. Write your damn congresscritter or protest OUTSIDE the security zone, please.
What about going through the security line stating you don't want to be groped or scanned and then turn around and leave?
You didn't break any laws but have the same effect. If enough people did it with insured/refundable tickets a point would be made at several levels. The airlines have bigger lobbying pockets than rape-scan.
What the TSA is allowed to do is sick and discusting. If people are only annoyed by being inconvienced it is really rather difficult for me to to find enough sympathy to care.
You can't to the security line if you don't have a boarding pass so the financial cost of such a demonstration will be prohibitive.
Americans are going to have to remember how to actually organize and demonstrate and not just sit on our fat asses and do nothing but verbally complain about things....oh wait...OWS tried that and got pushed out by the Fed organized and coordinated local police enforced 'eviction' from public spaces.
When that happened the rest of America should have been in the streets but...
Huawei is heavily recruiting software developers in the Silicon Valley right now. They contacted me. I did not seriously consider it. In this picture, I identify more with the man in front of the tank than I do with the guys driving the tanks. To spend my life working for Huawei would figuratively put me behind the controls of the tanks.
It would be nice to think that by working for American companies you wouldn't be also be behind the controls of the tanks, but unfortunately that's not the case.
I'm against injustice, regardless of whether it is committed by Americans or Chinese or anyone else. You seem to be arguing that crushing children with tanks at Tiananmen Square was morally allowed because the USA government has been known to also have moral failures. That's an interesting world view on your part.
I can't even begin to imagine how you could come to such a conclusion based on what I said. In fact it's so far off from what I said, and what I think, that I have trouble figuring out what to say to you without being offensive.
I'll rather try and clarify what I said in other terms. The original poster was saying that he wouldn't work for Huawei because to do so would, in effect, be moral support for the Chinese government who was / is responsible for human rights violations. So far I think you had the same understanding. I then said, that it would be good to think that by working for American companies one would have the moral high ground in such an argument, but that the reality is that many American companies support not only the Chinese government but anyone who has money by selling them services, weapons, products to repress and control their population and so forth. In other words that working for an American company does not automatically mean that you are not supporting the Chinese or any other repressive regime.
Huawei is heavily recruiting software developers in the Silicon Valley right now. They contacted me. I did not seriously consider it. In this picture, I identify more with the man in front of the tank than I do with the guys driving the tanks. To spend my life working for Huawei would figuratively put me behind the controls of the tanks.
It would be nice to think that by working for American companies you wouldn't be also be behind the controls of the tanks, but unfortunately that's not the case.
Harvard is supposed to be a non-profit entity and, unless I am mistaken, is tax exempt for this reason.
I think Universities should pay taxes right along with the rest of us. Fuck 'em. They should get deductions for scholarships but they should be paying tax on all their profits, just like any other greedy money hungry bunch o' sumbitches.
Collecting e-mail without a warrant violates the fourth amendment. Any government official who does this or orders it done is violating the civil rights of both the sender and the addressee under color of authority. If we had a justice system in this country, they'd end up behind bars for that.
-jcr
Unless they're a corporation in which case they'll 'come to a settlement' and be on their merry way.
The court explicitly declared that the money should go to the artists. If the artists decide it should be used for that, fine, but it should be going to the artists first. If they decide to give it to someone else for some other purpose, whatever, but not giving it to the artists is violating a direct court decision.
And how many of those artists do you think are going to risk their careers by standing up and complaining about it?
The US government does not benefit anything from this, but on the other hand, those who are paying the politicians, ie, the king makers get to thumb their collective noses down to the rest of us
Tax revenue and US corporate profits, not necessarily in that order.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
An executive branch agency just deciding to keep your property because they don't like the outcome of their attempt to indict you is not the "due process of law". In fact, it's quite the opposite: it's grand larceny.
While I hold no illusions about the US government's willingness to break the law and violate the constitution whenever they find it convenient to do so, the constitution remains the entirety of the legal basis for its existence. When the government violates the constitution, it does not act as the agent of the people, but as usurpers of the people's sovereign power.
-jcr
So far as I know, the US constitution applies only to US citizens.
Kim Dotcom is not an American Citizen and does not have the protections of the Constitution (those that are left) so there's nothing stopping the US corporate run government from staying on his ass for the rest of his life. Applies to Julian Assange as well - they can fight it legally all they want but there's never going to be an end to the persecution they face.
Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision....
People sometimes need to get a grip.
Companies overreact. As soon as an HR ticket is opened for SH, the company imagines that it has to defend itself against a lawsuit and anything that might possibly be construed as illegal is handled very heavy handedly.
In your post, "simple" and "not very serious" are highly subjective and are nothing compared to the fear that companies have of being sued.
Equating a dumb spoken remark and physical abuse is stupid.
You've never been hurt by something someone said or did?
In addition to real emotional abuse, which does exist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse) and does hurt (especially but not only in the family), reputations can be shattered, be they professional or personal.
That is why you pull your team aside before anything happens and remind them "if you harass another employee then you will be fired". Someone who hears that and does it anyway deserves the boot. This has nothing to do with being harsh or being PC; it is about having a respectful work environment and not getting sued.
Just because the law says something is or is not appropriate/right/etc doesn't mean that's the case everywhere.
Tell that to the judge who is asking you to liquidate all of your company's assets to pay for the harassment penalties.
I'll add to this that employees (and contractors) really need to be well educated about what can constitute sexual harassment because it isn't nearly as obvious as some might think. Add to the already vague and broad definition of sexual harassment that you can run into that different countries (and the EU which is another layer on top of the individual EU countries) have different laws and differing definitions about what constitutes sexual harassment.
I found a load of these on the ground in a park. Never mind how they got there, how do you expect children to read the warning which isn't present with these things?
Never mind that nail, rock, and used condom over there on the ground. What if someone's kid picks that up and tries to swallow it? Lets ban all that stuff!
No. How about you teach your kid common sense and save the entire world the trouble of looking after them for you? I'm not going to run around the world slapping warning labels on stuff for your kid that may not even be old enough to read yet.
"Don't childproof the world - worldproof the child."
Does it occur to you that a young child might not know what a condom is? That they might think it is a balloon, for example, and try and blow it up to inflate it?
You educate your kids the best possible and shit still happens, because they are kids and they aren't always going to be able to tell the difference between what's safe and what's not even when they've been well taught. On top of that, these toys might start with one child but be used by any number of them (ie a younger sibling or a visiting cousin, or be resold or donated to charity), who might not recognize the danger.
There's a point where a ban makes sense (ie the toys coming from China that had lead in the paint, for example).
How about a ban on stupid trailer-park dumbass kids who ruin it for the rest of us?
Why is this insightful? It's not the kids, or even their parents that are banning this stuff. They're a vocal minority. It's a government that wants to nanny us 24 hours a day banning things like this. "For the children" is just another variant of "the public good". Various levels of government want to regulate... or outright ban... everything from the size of your soda to the ingredients in your food.
You're right - the ban on lead based paint should be removed as well and who cares if there's plastic in your milkshake, right? It's the consumer's responsibility to stay informed on safety, not the manufacturer!
What would we need to do to make this kind of shit illegal? A law? A constitutional amendment? I don't think it would be too hard to get 2/3 of Americans to agree that any amendment or rider to a bill should be relevant to that bill's stated purpose.
It's hard to get 2/3rds of Americans to do anything other than watch TV.
If the Founder Fathers wanted efficiency, they would not have created the federal system with a bicameral legislature. Stupid shit like this slowing down the process is there by design - to protect our rights. If government were efficient, they would just erode our rights faster.
There was plenty there to protect our rights without having to resort to something like designed-in inefficiency.
Probably be better if they removed all our rights as fast as possible because then people might actually do something about it whereas they seem to be quite prepared to lose a right or two at a time and doing nothing at all to stop the metaphorical bleeding out every orifice.
I know this is the way our government works, tacking on all sorts of stupid shit but it still seems absurd.
Because it is absurd.
It's also why nothing gets accomplished.
Shit like this is why you should always travel in heavily-armed groups.
TSA goons may have no qualms about taking out one 'wacko' with a gun, but 20 of them (or, even better, an entire airport full) all traveling together will force them to reconsider their position.
Our forefathers made sure we had a right to keep and carry weapons, to ensure we would always have a means of throwing off the shackles of tyranny - let's not disappoint them.
Won't work unless the entire population rises up at once...which won't happen anytime soon if ever. Anything less than a full revolution would be an armed insurrection and itself classified, no doubt, as terrorism.
The only realistic way to effect change in the US is with very large scale (ie 100s of thousands or millions) non-violent protest. Millions sounds like a lot until you realize that France, with it's population of only 60 million, had 6 million people demonstrating against some employment contract changes the government was going to put into place. Needless to say that when 10% of the population were out on the streets very nicely making their point of view 'heard', the government listened and did what the people demanded. In the US that 10% would be some 50 million people demonstrating...and that would get listened to.
OWS was a beginning, but wasn't strong enough to work given how the deck is stacked.
I'm not sure that slowing down airport lines for a protest is the best way to make people mad at the TSA. They're more likely to get mad at you for fucking up their travel plans. Write your damn congresscritter or protest OUTSIDE the security zone, please.
What about going through the security line stating you don't want to be groped or scanned and then turn around and leave?
You didn't break any laws but have the same effect. If enough people did it with insured/refundable tickets a point would be made at several levels. The airlines have bigger lobbying pockets than rape-scan.
What the TSA is allowed to do is sick and discusting. If people are only annoyed by being inconvienced it is really rather difficult for me to to find enough sympathy to care.
You can't to the security line if you don't have a boarding pass so the financial cost of such a demonstration will be prohibitive.
Americans are going to have to remember how to actually organize and demonstrate and not just sit on our fat asses and do nothing but verbally complain about things....oh wait...OWS tried that and got pushed out by the Fed organized and coordinated local police enforced 'eviction' from public spaces.
When that happened the rest of America should have been in the streets but...
All the judges on the District of Columbia Court Of Appeals have been added to the "No Fly" list.
Well...they are, after all, supporting terrorism by obstructing the TSA right? /ironyoff
Somebody's gotta go to prison.
Consider it direct instruction on how it is to be groped without permission.
Huawei is heavily recruiting software developers in the Silicon Valley right now. They contacted me. I did not seriously consider it. In this picture, I identify more with the man in front of the tank than I do with the guys driving the tanks. To spend my life working for Huawei would figuratively put me behind the controls of the tanks.
It would be nice to think that by working for American companies you wouldn't be also be behind the controls of the tanks, but unfortunately that's not the case.
I'm against injustice, regardless of whether it is committed by Americans or Chinese or anyone else. You seem to be arguing that crushing children with tanks at Tiananmen Square was morally allowed because the USA government has been known to also have moral failures. That's an interesting world view on your part.
I can't even begin to imagine how you could come to such a conclusion based on what I said. In fact it's so far off from what I said, and what I think, that I have trouble figuring out what to say to you without being offensive.
I'll rather try and clarify what I said in other terms. The original poster was saying that he wouldn't work for Huawei because to do so would, in effect, be moral support for the Chinese government who was / is responsible for human rights violations. So far I think you had the same understanding. I then said, that it would be good to think that by working for American companies one would have the moral high ground in such an argument, but that the reality is that many American companies support not only the Chinese government but anyone who has money by selling them services, weapons, products to repress and control their population and so forth. In other words that working for an American company does not automatically mean that you are not supporting the Chinese or any other repressive regime.
I hope that's more clear.
Huawei is heavily recruiting software developers in the Silicon Valley right now. They contacted me. I did not seriously consider it. In this picture, I identify more with the man in front of the tank than I do with the guys driving the tanks. To spend my life working for Huawei would figuratively put me behind the controls of the tanks.
It would be nice to think that by working for American companies you wouldn't be also be behind the controls of the tanks, but unfortunately that's not the case.
Harvard is supposed to be a non-profit entity and, unless I am mistaken, is tax exempt for this reason.
I think Universities should pay taxes right along with the rest of us. Fuck 'em. They should get deductions for scholarships but they should be paying tax on all their profits, just like any other greedy money hungry bunch o' sumbitches.
Collecting e-mail without a warrant violates the fourth amendment. Any government official who does this or orders it done is violating the civil rights of both the sender and the addressee under color of authority. If we had a justice system in this country, they'd end up behind bars for that.
-jcr
Unless they're a corporation in which case they'll 'come to a settlement' and be on their merry way.
Interesting but I doubt it's accurate given the lifestyles that such artists have, the homes they buy, etc.
The court explicitly declared that the money should go to the artists. If the artists decide it should be used for that, fine, but it should be going to the artists first. If they decide to give it to someone else for some other purpose, whatever, but not giving it to the artists is violating a direct court decision.
And how many of those artists do you think are going to risk their careers by standing up and complaining about it?
What the US govt got from this?
The US government does not benefit anything from this, but on the other hand, those who are paying the politicians, ie, the king makers get to thumb their collective noses down to the rest of us
Tax revenue and US corporate profits, not necessarily in that order.
US Constitution, Amendment V:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
An executive branch agency just deciding to keep your property because they don't like the outcome of their attempt to indict you is not the "due process of law". In fact, it's quite the opposite: it's grand larceny.
While I hold no illusions about the US government's willingness to break the law and violate the constitution whenever they find it convenient to do so, the constitution remains the entirety of the legal basis for its existence. When the government violates the constitution, it does not act as the agent of the people, but as usurpers of the people's sovereign power.
-jcr
So far as I know, the US constitution applies only to US citizens.
Doesn't this violate the Speedy Trial Clause?
Kim Dotcom is not an American Citizen and does not have the protections of the Constitution (those that are left) so there's nothing stopping the US corporate run government from staying on his ass for the rest of his life. Applies to Julian Assange as well - they can fight it legally all they want but there's never going to be an end to the persecution they face.
"... I'm most worried about porn, CC, porn,debit card numbers and porn site passwords I've used in browsers."
FTFY
Once a biometric has been compromised (e.g., someone obtains a copy of your fingerprints), you're stuffed.
Especially if the metric used is "buttock pressure"...
My geek cred is with regards to optoelectronic horticulture tech, not Linux.
Slashdot ain't all computer geeks, yanno. Some of us keep you fed for cheap.
Optoelectronic horticulture...so you sit and watch the grass grow on the TV?
Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision ....
People sometimes need to get a grip.
Companies overreact. As soon as an HR ticket is opened for SH, the company imagines that it has to defend itself against a lawsuit and anything that might possibly be construed as illegal is handled very heavy handedly.
In your post, "simple" and "not very serious" are highly subjective and are nothing compared to the fear that companies have of being sued.
imagine if this was physical abuse.
Equating a dumb spoken remark and physical abuse is stupid.
You've never been hurt by something someone said or did?
In addition to real emotional abuse, which does exist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse) and does hurt (especially but not only in the family), reputations can be shattered, be they professional or personal.
People kill themselves because of such. (for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Tyler_Clementi)
Equating dumb spoken remarks and physical abuse is not at all stupid.
That is why you pull your team aside before anything happens and remind them "if you harass another employee then you will be fired". Someone who hears that and does it anyway deserves the boot. This has nothing to do with being harsh or being PC; it is about having a respectful work environment and not getting sued.
Just because the law says something is or is not appropriate/right/etc doesn't mean that's the case everywhere.
Tell that to the judge who is asking you to liquidate all of your company's assets to pay for the harassment penalties.
I'll add to this that employees (and contractors) really need to be well educated about what can constitute sexual harassment because it isn't nearly as obvious as some might think. Add to the already vague and broad definition of sexual harassment that you can run into that different countries (and the EU which is another layer on top of the individual EU countries) have different laws and differing definitions about what constitutes sexual harassment.
>>>No satellite. They don't have line-of-sight
They must live in a cave...
Never mind that nail, rock, and used condom over there on the ground. What if someone's kid picks that up and tries to swallow it? Lets ban all that stuff!
No. How about you teach your kid common sense and save the entire world the trouble of looking after them for you? I'm not going to run around the world slapping warning labels on stuff for your kid that may not even be old enough to read yet.
"Don't childproof the world - worldproof the child."
Does it occur to you that a young child might not know what a condom is? That they might think it is a balloon, for example, and try and blow it up to inflate it?
You educate your kids the best possible and shit still happens, because they are kids and they aren't always going to be able to tell the difference between what's safe and what's not even when they've been well taught. On top of that, these toys might start with one child but be used by any number of them (ie a younger sibling or a visiting cousin, or be resold or donated to charity), who might not recognize the danger.
There's a point where a ban makes sense (ie the toys coming from China that had lead in the paint, for example).
How about a ban on stupid trailer-park dumbass kids who ruin it for the rest of us?
Why is this insightful? It's not the kids, or even their parents that are banning this stuff. They're a vocal minority. It's a government that wants to nanny us 24 hours a day banning things like this. "For the children" is just another variant of "the public good". Various levels of government want to regulate... or outright ban... everything from the size of your soda to the ingredients in your food.
You're right - the ban on lead based paint should be removed as well and who cares if there's plastic in your milkshake, right? It's the consumer's responsibility to stay informed on safety, not the manufacturer!
Sometimes things should be banned.