Whether or not you have a legit copy of the materials in question is irrelevant to the MPAA. Their definition of "fair use" doesn't recognize the right of a consumer to keep a backup copy of their copyrighted material.
Their lawyers would probably also argue that if someone wants to make a backup of their legitimately purchased media, then technology exists to make that copy locally and not require that they download it elsewhere. I'd have a hard time arguing with that, personally (IANAL.) Nevermind that while they argue that this backup can be made locally, any software used to do so is a DMCA violation. The MPAA never allows logic to get in the way of protecting their business model.
I don't agree with a lot of what Pres. GW Bush does but I really do think he does what he thinks is right.
That's the problem. He does whatever he wants to do, damn the precedent, consequences, illegality, or amorality of it. The man's self-admittedly guided by the voices in his head.
While I can respect sticking by your principles, in fairness, he wasn't elected to do "what he thinks is right". He was elected to represent the will of the people; that should be his guiding principle above all others. Considering his approval rating is on the frigid side of 30% at the moment, you could argue that he shouldn't be doing *anything* at all.
To pardon a man for participating in a cover-up (which had the intent of insulating the executive decision-makers from the consequences of their illegal actions) is the height of presidential depravity. The whole incident exposes the rampant hypocrisy within the neo-conservative movement. Clinton gets a bj and half the world falls apart, or so the GOP would have you believe; however, when top White House officials commit acts that could be interpreted as treasonous, that's Just Fine.
Please, conservatives, take back your party from these lunatics. I as a liberal can at least have an intelligent discussion with a traditional conservative over matters of politics. What the neo-conservatives have fundamentally wrong is this: The discussion and the negotiation is a vital part of the process of running a representative government. Refusing to discuss issues on the basis of your belief that you're right and anyone who tries to discuss things with you is a traitor is a sure path to fascism.
"Good faith effort"? In hiring practices? What are you smoking?
Who's to say that they're not looking to hire a US worker? More importantly, can you prove it? If they found a US worker with the right qualifications who was willing to work for half the going rate, you don't think they'd consider them?
Hell, there's a tech employer around here (rhymes with tingles.net) that has had multiple ads up for php developers for the better part of a year now. I was in the running for it (even got a phone interview) through multiple recruiters. All of them expressed their frustration at the fact that they had trotted out every single candidate they could find, some real rock stars, and they wouldn't hire anyone. Wouldn't even interview anyone. The conclusion that was collectively reached was that the company was exploiting the recruiters to do marketing for them; in other words, when they called the candidate and told them who the employer was, that was getting their name out there. Tell me how that's a good faith effort, even if the marketing thing ISN'T true. Either the people they're looking for don't exist, or there's something else going on.
The problem is not the employers who skirt the law as it exists. The problem is the law as it exists.
And I'm curious why you think a Democratic president would declare martial law.. every one of the problem we're talking about have been created by the current Repuglican administration.
I think you misunderstood me. What I meant was, once it had been official that a Democrat had been elected, THEN the current lame duck administration would declare martial law "for the good of the country".
If we are to win the "War on Terror" the first step is to restore Freedom and the Constitution. Then we can deal with everything else.
Why do you hate Amer.. oh, wait. Nevermind.
The real litmus test will be in 2008, if/when the Democrats win the presidential election and martial law gets declared for the good of the country. (I seriously don't put it past this bunch of losers. Tinfoil hat? Maybe. Plausible? That's the problem, it is.) One only hopes that the military sees that for what it is, an unconstitutional attempt to hold on to power in the name of "national security." If it happens, that is.
I was going to mod you up but I decided to comment instead. I wish more people got that. While I don't think that we're at the torches-and-pitchforks, ruby-ridge-bunker stage, I can see how people would get there from here.
We're operating under the specious principle that if we restrict freedoms in the name of preventing terrorism, we will be safer. Not even a LITTLE. All this does is cause inconvenience and infringe on the civil rights that our founding fathers found so essential to the existence of our country. I took a vacation last week that took me out of the USA, and even I, not being a trained "terrorist", figured out about a dozen ways that I could have gotten a weapon/explosive on the plane. It's not helping at all. Suicide bombers are happy to be martyrs for a cause they believe in; shouldn't we be ready to do the same if we REALLY want to fight fire with fire?
Oh, wait, dying for your country is only for the poor. What was I thinking?
It seems to me (and IANAL, or, for that matter, an open source contributor) that the open source licensing model exists to specify the terms under which a given intellectual property may be used. If I write some code and make it publicly available, it's still automatically subject to copyright law unless I specify another licensing model. If someone takes that code and uses it without my permission, I have legal standing to sue based on copyright infringement, despite the fact that I made it very easy to obtain.
If I release it under an alternative license, then I'm saying "these are the terms under which you may use my intellectual property", and you are bound to obey the terms that I've laid out (attribution, contribution of changes, and so forth.) If I find that someone is using this code in violation of these terms, I have grounds to sue under the terms of the license.
If I'm understanding this right, the OSI is helping the IP owners (and they DO retain ownership) pursue legal action based on the license violations. Why all the hate? If someone is profiting from the code I've generated without following the rules, IMHO it's the same as if I copy a DVD and sell it on the street (both are violations of the licensing agreement; in the DVD's case, normal copyright law applies, as they haven't specified a different license in most cases.) Hate them as you might (and I deplore their tactics, it seems like once you start invading someone's privacy you should forfeit the right to redress under copyright law) the RIAA and MPAA have legal legs to stand on, respectively.
I'm sure someone will correct me on a nuance or two (even if I've gotten said nuance right) but that's my take. People who violate licensing for profit should be punished appropriately. (I'm drawing a distincion here; if I copy a DVD for my own purposes or give a copy to my friend for no financial gain, then the MPAA can kiss my ass; however, technically, it is a copyright violation and they're within their rights to pursue legal remedy.)
If you ever want to see someone laugh until they puke, try telling Dell's lawyers that they're violating the GPL and there are consequences.
They don't give a shit. Plus, Ubuntu will probably lean on anyone who tries to enforce the GPL on these grounds, since they're partnered (technically) with Dell now and that's a relationship they need to protect.
I think what the GP was saying was that just because you had never heard of something, doesn't mean it's not cool or useful. That's a marketing problem, not an engineering problem. Things that are 'mainstream' enough to be in your little segment of the collective consciousness aren't necessarily 'better', just better promoted. Millions of people shop at WalMart, but that doesn't change the fact that what they're buying is cheap Chinese crap.
Personally, I don't trust marketing to tell me the sky is blue without applying large amounts of sodium chloride. If a product fits my needs and is well supported, I don't give a crap if I can't buy it at a Best Buy.
Not hardly. That law requires that the reader know what a '"key logger" or equivalent key tracking software' is, what a network is, what software is, and what a computer or terminal is.
All this information is beyond most private sector workers, and nearly all public servants. While ignorance of the law is not a defense, if the idea is to prevent the crime in the first place, this is a miserable failure. Any attempt by IT personnel (if the city even has them) to educate their workers will be wasted, as you can't teach a state worker anything beyond how to avoid making a decision. (I've worked in state agencies where the workers' union had managed to get its members protection from being compelled to learn anything about computers, lest computer literacy become a job requirement and therefore a reason to lay someone off. I really wish I were making that up.)
I wish I could suggest a solution. Typically in a case like this in the private sector, someone would be held responsible for the breach (even if it's some scapegoated IT worker who tried to secure the network but was prevented from doing so by beancounters/ignorant executives/office politics) and would lose their job. In the public sector, however, workers have become so adept at the art of CYA that I find it very unlikely that any action will be taken beyond lip service (especially since their constituents only know about "money" and "computer" and instantly set DUMMY_MODE = ON as a result.)
By the way, what company would fire you for plugging in an outside laptop? I've worked at companies that would require you to bring your OWN laptop because they wouldn't buy one for you. I've worked at (Fortune 500) companies that won't tell their workers not to do anything related to the IT environment, for fear of stifling their creativity. I've worked at companies that wouldn't even take a meeting to explain what spyware was, let alone what to do about it. In a lot of cases my attempts to explain a problem and how to prevent it from occurring again are met with "Oh I don't have to know that." Actively protecting ignorance is how I define "stupid", and there's a lot of stupid people out there.
It's really a wonder the economy hasn't collapsed, given the unbelieveable ignorance that surrounds these issues.
(Disclaimer: I work for an anti-malware company, apply grains of salt as desired.)
Because low pay is better than none? Because I have a mortgage to pay? Because the job I have is a good opportunity? Because I was out of work two months before I got this job and don't have any reason to think that the next time will be different?
It must be nice to be able to afford to just throw away a job like that. Most of us work for a living.
That being said, I fully plan on finding another job if my current one doesn't take steps to bring my compensation to within the range I was promised. I'd like to give them a chance to make it right before I disqualify myself for unemployment coverage.
I'm always free to leave and get myself another job, I'm an "at will" employee. I can quit or be fired for any reason, no reason, or because the wind's blowing the wrong way. There is no employment contract here. Employment contracts are not enforceable in this state.
Basically without filing a lawsuit, my only option is to quit.
Oh believe me, they know about what happened, and won't be using them again. The thing that might make this actionable is that what they told me couldn't POSSIBLY have been true, due to the tax laws involved. (Basically, they told me that my employer would match a percentage of my salary that the current tax laws don't allow them to do, even if they wanted to.) So while they may not have actually lied, they were definitely negligent at the very least.
I took the position because I was assured of that 'something in writing' being forthcoming, and because it was a great opportunity and I didn't want to lose it because of a delay. And, I didn't have a job at the time. It was very possible that insisting on something in writing would introduce unacceptable delays in my start date or loss of the opportunity altogether.
It's not about the truth. It's never been about the truth. It's about what you can prove, and who will back you up.
Case in point: my current position (which is great) came to me via a recruiter. Said recruiter lied to me about the terms of the offer; the offer I accepted is not what I'm getting. Said recruiter said that I would be receiving a packet in the mail from my future employer with all of the details in writing, which was never sent (nor did my current employer know anything about it when asked.)
It's clear what happened here: The recruiter lied to me to get the sale. I'm out $20K just this year. I basically have no recourse short of a civil suit (which I can't afford). If I had something in writing I would have a better chance of getting somewhere, but I don't. So the recruiter gets to pocket their five-figure commission and walk away scott free, while I'm working for less money than I was promised. I can't reasonably demand it from my employer, because they never promised it in the first place.
If the truth mattered, this wouldn't have happened.
The problem with refusing to take the drug test is this: While nobody is forcing you to, if you want to eat, you gotta do it. I don't know too many people who are so in demand that they can turn down a job based on whether or not the company in question requires a drug test. You also have to consider that if one company starts requiring it, then they all will (because forcing their employees to pee in a cup gets them lower liability insurance premiums, and that represents a "competitive advantage" by reducing their expenses.) This is why I have to conclude that some regulation is required; companies aren't going to voluntarily increase their expenses. (The fact that sometimes this decision is based on upper management's sense of morality is a separate issue; personally I don't think it's right for an employer to force their morals on their employees.)
You might see a parallel in the questions that a company is and isn't allowed to ask in a job interview (because of anti-discrimination legislation). For example, a potential employer isn't allowed to ask a female candidate if she is pregnant or may become pregnant, because it's to the company's advantage to not have to allow an employee to go on maternity leave. By not allowing anyone to ask that question, the incentive to realize some sort of advantage by not hiring that woman is removed, because everyone is subject to the same law.
For me this has nothing to do with "the Man". It has to do with my privacy. What I do while I'm not on the clock is not my employer's business until it starts affecting my job performance.
I can't believe I'm arguing in favor (obliquely) of invasive screening, but IMHO if you rely on HR for anything more complicated than displacing air, you're asking for trouble.
That being said, I have no objection to a criminal background check. I'd argue that if someone is a drug addict and is smart enough to have avoided conviction, then that person is smart enough to do the job I'm hiring them for. (The odds of someone having a drug problem to the point where it would affect their job performance without having run into trouble with the law at some point are pretty low, as far as I know.) I object to drug testing as a screening method for potential hires, as I'm ostensibly being hired for the product of my brain and my hands, not the product of my kidneys, and therefore said product is none of their business. If there's a problem with performance or security, then you could argue for a test if it's warranted (read: there's some legal due process before the request for a sample can be made.)
Personally, if a drug test is part of the hiring requirements, at the very least it's going to cost my potential employer more to hire me (since they're buying the right to invade my privacy.)
As much as I hate to bring the law into this, IMHO there should be SOME sort of regulation regarding who can and can't be legally required to provide a sample for a drug test. I mean seriously, do we care if the guy who stocks the shelves at CVS likes to smoke a joint once in a while? (That shows up for up to 30 days.)
However I believe (with no evidence what so ever and making wild guesses just based on experience with the small people I know, and of course this means nothing either) that most people have no desire to learn the computer because they would rather do other things in their life.
I'd rather not pay taxes, or go to work, or drive at the speed limit, or any number of other things. We do these things because we have to. Becoming computer literate needs to stop being optional IMHO; it should be at the same level as learning to read and write (and, arguably, it's simpler.)
You're confusing "ignorant" with "stupid". Ignorant people can be educated on the particular thing they're ignorant of. Stupid people willfully remain ignorant of a subject that directly impacts their lives. I'm sure your fiancé has knowledge that I'm ignorant of (my knowledge of neuroscience being limited to my A&P classes in college, basically registered-nurse level) but were it useful to me I could learn it.
Anyone can learn to use a computer, there's no magic to it. It doesn't require talent like, say, playing a violin or throwing a curveball. People who choose not to learn how to use a computer when their lives would be improved through that knowledge (either in terms of employment opportunities or, seriously, basic survival skills [for example, using a publicly available computer at a town library or somesuch to research options for public assistance]) are acting in a stupid manner.
People don't use computers willingly because they require that you not be stupid in order to use them proficiently. The American culture coddles and protects the stupid while marginalizing and sabotaging the intelligent. Deception and exploitation of those who have an IQ above room temperature drives the economy, while those whose only talents are passing the buck, blaming others, and using influence gotten through subterfuge and blackmail can ascend to the Presidency, if their fathers are the right people.
The short version: People are Wicked Fucking Stupid (tm).
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Whether or not you have a legit copy of the materials in question is irrelevant to the MPAA. Their definition of "fair use" doesn't recognize the right of a consumer to keep a backup copy of their copyrighted material.
Their lawyers would probably also argue that if someone wants to make a backup of their legitimately purchased media, then technology exists to make that copy locally and not require that they download it elsewhere. I'd have a hard time arguing with that, personally (IANAL.) Nevermind that while they argue that this backup can be made locally, any software used to do so is a DMCA violation. The MPAA never allows logic to get in the way of protecting their business model.
While I can respect sticking by your principles, in fairness, he wasn't elected to do "what he thinks is right". He was elected to represent the will of the people; that should be his guiding principle above all others. Considering his approval rating is on the frigid side of 30% at the moment, you could argue that he shouldn't be doing *anything* at all.
To pardon a man for participating in a cover-up (which had the intent of insulating the executive decision-makers from the consequences of their illegal actions) is the height of presidential depravity. The whole incident exposes the rampant hypocrisy within the neo-conservative movement. Clinton gets a bj and half the world falls apart, or so the GOP would have you believe; however, when top White House officials commit acts that could be interpreted as treasonous, that's Just Fine.
Please, conservatives, take back your party from these lunatics. I as a liberal can at least have an intelligent discussion with a traditional conservative over matters of politics. What the neo-conservatives have fundamentally wrong is this: The discussion and the negotiation is a vital part of the process of running a representative government. Refusing to discuss issues on the basis of your belief that you're right and anyone who tries to discuss things with you is a traitor is a sure path to fascism.
I doubt that's what the GP meant.
Unless it is, in which case he/she is advocating that we kill people infected with HIV, which is serious douchebag behavior.
"Good faith effort"? In hiring practices? What are you smoking?
Who's to say that they're not looking to hire a US worker? More importantly, can you prove it? If they found a US worker with the right qualifications who was willing to work for half the going rate, you don't think they'd consider them?
Hell, there's a tech employer around here (rhymes with tingles.net) that has had multiple ads up for php developers for the better part of a year now. I was in the running for it (even got a phone interview) through multiple recruiters. All of them expressed their frustration at the fact that they had trotted out every single candidate they could find, some real rock stars, and they wouldn't hire anyone. Wouldn't even interview anyone. The conclusion that was collectively reached was that the company was exploiting the recruiters to do marketing for them; in other words, when they called the candidate and told them who the employer was, that was getting their name out there. Tell me how that's a good faith effort, even if the marketing thing ISN'T true. Either the people they're looking for don't exist, or there's something else going on.
The problem is not the employers who skirt the law as it exists. The problem is the law as it exists.
The real litmus test will be in 2008, if/when the Democrats win the presidential election and martial law gets declared for the good of the country. (I seriously don't put it past this bunch of losers. Tinfoil hat? Maybe. Plausible? That's the problem, it is.) One only hopes that the military sees that for what it is, an unconstitutional attempt to hold on to power in the name of "national security." If it happens, that is.
*waves to the Echelon operator*
I stand corrected. My bad.
I was going to mod you up but I decided to comment instead. I wish more people got that. While I don't think that we're at the torches-and-pitchforks, ruby-ridge-bunker stage, I can see how people would get there from here.
We're operating under the specious principle that if we restrict freedoms in the name of preventing terrorism, we will be safer. Not even a LITTLE. All this does is cause inconvenience and infringe on the civil rights that our founding fathers found so essential to the existence of our country. I took a vacation last week that took me out of the USA, and even I, not being a trained "terrorist", figured out about a dozen ways that I could have gotten a weapon/explosive on the plane. It's not helping at all. Suicide bombers are happy to be martyrs for a cause they believe in; shouldn't we be ready to do the same if we REALLY want to fight fire with fire?
Oh, wait, dying for your country is only for the poor. What was I thinking?
MOD PARENT UP, other people.
It seems to me (and IANAL, or, for that matter, an open source contributor) that the open source licensing model exists to specify the terms under which a given intellectual property may be used. If I write some code and make it publicly available, it's still automatically subject to copyright law unless I specify another licensing model. If someone takes that code and uses it without my permission, I have legal standing to sue based on copyright infringement, despite the fact that I made it very easy to obtain.
If I release it under an alternative license, then I'm saying "these are the terms under which you may use my intellectual property", and you are bound to obey the terms that I've laid out (attribution, contribution of changes, and so forth.) If I find that someone is using this code in violation of these terms, I have grounds to sue under the terms of the license.
If I'm understanding this right, the OSI is helping the IP owners (and they DO retain ownership) pursue legal action based on the license violations. Why all the hate? If someone is profiting from the code I've generated without following the rules, IMHO it's the same as if I copy a DVD and sell it on the street (both are violations of the licensing agreement; in the DVD's case, normal copyright law applies, as they haven't specified a different license in most cases.) Hate them as you might (and I deplore their tactics, it seems like once you start invading someone's privacy you should forfeit the right to redress under copyright law) the RIAA and MPAA have legal legs to stand on, respectively.
I'm sure someone will correct me on a nuance or two (even if I've gotten said nuance right) but that's my take. People who violate licensing for profit should be punished appropriately. (I'm drawing a distincion here; if I copy a DVD for my own purposes or give a copy to my friend for no financial gain, then the MPAA can kiss my ass; however, technically, it is a copyright violation and they're within their rights to pursue legal remedy.)
If you ever want to see someone laugh until they puke, try telling Dell's lawyers that they're violating the GPL and there are consequences.
They don't give a shit. Plus, Ubuntu will probably lean on anyone who tries to enforce the GPL on these grounds, since they're partnered (technically) with Dell now and that's a relationship they need to protect.
I think what the GP was saying was that just because you had never heard of something, doesn't mean it's not cool or useful. That's a marketing problem, not an engineering problem. Things that are 'mainstream' enough to be in your little segment of the collective consciousness aren't necessarily 'better', just better promoted. Millions of people shop at WalMart, but that doesn't change the fact that what they're buying is cheap Chinese crap.
Personally, I don't trust marketing to tell me the sky is blue without applying large amounts of sodium chloride. If a product fits my needs and is well supported, I don't give a crap if I can't buy it at a Best Buy.
All this information is beyond most private sector workers, and nearly all public servants. While ignorance of the law is not a defense, if the idea is to prevent the crime in the first place, this is a miserable failure. Any attempt by IT personnel (if the city even has them) to educate their workers will be wasted, as you can't teach a state worker anything beyond how to avoid making a decision. (I've worked in state agencies where the workers' union had managed to get its members protection from being compelled to learn anything about computers, lest computer literacy become a job requirement and therefore a reason to lay someone off. I really wish I were making that up.)
I wish I could suggest a solution. Typically in a case like this in the private sector, someone would be held responsible for the breach (even if it's some scapegoated IT worker who tried to secure the network but was prevented from doing so by beancounters/ignorant executives/office politics) and would lose their job. In the public sector, however, workers have become so adept at the art of CYA that I find it very unlikely that any action will be taken beyond lip service (especially since their constituents only know about "money" and "computer" and instantly set DUMMY_MODE = ON as a result.)
By the way, what company would fire you for plugging in an outside laptop? I've worked at companies that would require you to bring your OWN laptop because they wouldn't buy one for you. I've worked at (Fortune 500) companies that won't tell their workers not to do anything related to the IT environment, for fear of stifling their creativity. I've worked at companies that wouldn't even take a meeting to explain what spyware was, let alone what to do about it. In a lot of cases my attempts to explain a problem and how to prevent it from occurring again are met with "Oh I don't have to know that." Actively protecting ignorance is how I define "stupid", and there's a lot of stupid people out there.
It's really a wonder the economy hasn't collapsed, given the unbelieveable ignorance that surrounds these issues.
(Disclaimer: I work for an anti-malware company, apply grains of salt as desired.)
Because low pay is better than none? Because I have a mortgage to pay? Because the job I have is a good opportunity? Because I was out of work two months before I got this job and don't have any reason to think that the next time will be different?
It must be nice to be able to afford to just throw away a job like that. Most of us work for a living.
That being said, I fully plan on finding another job if my current one doesn't take steps to bring my compensation to within the range I was promised. I'd like to give them a chance to make it right before I disqualify myself for unemployment coverage.
Oh, and by the way, you're an asshole.
I'm always free to leave and get myself another job, I'm an "at will" employee. I can quit or be fired for any reason, no reason, or because the wind's blowing the wrong way. There is no employment contract here. Employment contracts are not enforceable in this state.
Basically without filing a lawsuit, my only option is to quit.
Oh believe me, they know about what happened, and won't be using them again. The thing that might make this actionable is that what they told me couldn't POSSIBLY have been true, due to the tax laws involved. (Basically, they told me that my employer would match a percentage of my salary that the current tax laws don't allow them to do, even if they wanted to.) So while they may not have actually lied, they were definitely negligent at the very least.
I took the position because I was assured of that 'something in writing' being forthcoming, and because it was a great opportunity and I didn't want to lose it because of a delay. And, I didn't have a job at the time. It was very possible that insisting on something in writing would introduce unacceptable delays in my start date or loss of the opportunity altogether.
It's not about the truth. It's never been about the truth. It's about what you can prove, and who will back you up.
Case in point: my current position (which is great) came to me via a recruiter. Said recruiter lied to me about the terms of the offer; the offer I accepted is not what I'm getting. Said recruiter said that I would be receiving a packet in the mail from my future employer with all of the details in writing, which was never sent (nor did my current employer know anything about it when asked.)
It's clear what happened here: The recruiter lied to me to get the sale. I'm out $20K just this year. I basically have no recourse short of a civil suit (which I can't afford). If I had something in writing I would have a better chance of getting somewhere, but I don't. So the recruiter gets to pocket their five-figure commission and walk away scott free, while I'm working for less money than I was promised. I can't reasonably demand it from my employer, because they never promised it in the first place.
If the truth mattered, this wouldn't have happened.
So long as they're not under the influence of whatever their substance of choice is while they're on the job, I don't care.
Are you seriously suggesting it should be ok for a company to not hire someone because they're married? Or because they're female?
I smell a troll.
The problem with refusing to take the drug test is this: While nobody is forcing you to, if you want to eat, you gotta do it. I don't know too many people who are so in demand that they can turn down a job based on whether or not the company in question requires a drug test. You also have to consider that if one company starts requiring it, then they all will (because forcing their employees to pee in a cup gets them lower liability insurance premiums, and that represents a "competitive advantage" by reducing their expenses.) This is why I have to conclude that some regulation is required; companies aren't going to voluntarily increase their expenses. (The fact that sometimes this decision is based on upper management's sense of morality is a separate issue; personally I don't think it's right for an employer to force their morals on their employees.)
You might see a parallel in the questions that a company is and isn't allowed to ask in a job interview (because of anti-discrimination legislation). For example, a potential employer isn't allowed to ask a female candidate if she is pregnant or may become pregnant, because it's to the company's advantage to not have to allow an employee to go on maternity leave. By not allowing anyone to ask that question, the incentive to realize some sort of advantage by not hiring that woman is removed, because everyone is subject to the same law.
For me this has nothing to do with "the Man". It has to do with my privacy. What I do while I'm not on the clock is not my employer's business until it starts affecting my job performance.
I can't believe I'm arguing in favor (obliquely) of invasive screening, but IMHO if you rely on HR for anything more complicated than displacing air, you're asking for trouble.
That being said, I have no objection to a criminal background check. I'd argue that if someone is a drug addict and is smart enough to have avoided conviction, then that person is smart enough to do the job I'm hiring them for. (The odds of someone having a drug problem to the point where it would affect their job performance without having run into trouble with the law at some point are pretty low, as far as I know.) I object to drug testing as a screening method for potential hires, as I'm ostensibly being hired for the product of my brain and my hands, not the product of my kidneys, and therefore said product is none of their business. If there's a problem with performance or security, then you could argue for a test if it's warranted (read: there's some legal due process before the request for a sample can be made.)
Personally, if a drug test is part of the hiring requirements, at the very least it's going to cost my potential employer more to hire me (since they're buying the right to invade my privacy.)
As much as I hate to bring the law into this, IMHO there should be SOME sort of regulation regarding who can and can't be legally required to provide a sample for a drug test. I mean seriously, do we care if the guy who stocks the shelves at CVS likes to smoke a joint once in a while? (That shows up for up to 30 days.)
You're confusing "ignorant" with "stupid". Ignorant people can be educated on the particular thing they're ignorant of. Stupid people willfully remain ignorant of a subject that directly impacts their lives. I'm sure your fiancé has knowledge that I'm ignorant of (my knowledge of neuroscience being limited to my A&P classes in college, basically registered-nurse level) but were it useful to me I could learn it.
Anyone can learn to use a computer, there's no magic to it. It doesn't require talent like, say, playing a violin or throwing a curveball. People who choose not to learn how to use a computer when their lives would be improved through that knowledge (either in terms of employment opportunities or, seriously, basic survival skills [for example, using a publicly available computer at a town library or somesuch to research options for public assistance]) are acting in a stupid manner.
People don't use computers willingly because they require that you not be stupid in order to use them proficiently. The American culture coddles and protects the stupid while marginalizing and sabotaging the intelligent. Deception and exploitation of those who have an IQ above room temperature drives the economy, while those whose only talents are passing the buck, blaming others, and using influence gotten through subterfuge and blackmail can ascend to the Presidency, if their fathers are the right people.
The short version: People are Wicked Fucking Stupid (tm).