That is the kind of attitude that results in millions of people getting killed. Basically, your argument says, "Let's wait until things get really obviously bad before we do anything. Until then, it's not our problem."
Well, we've tried that approach before. And some 60 million people died as a result. So we've changed our policy to be proactive in the future. I think this is a good thing.
All indications so far are that fewer people die when those who are able to, take proactive measures to prevent things from getting "really obviously bad". And this doesn't necessarily mean military action. It just means having the attitude that it is our problem too.
I did not want to feel like I had been intimidated into silence
So you're not okay with being intimidated into silence, but you are okay with terrorists intimidating us all into giving up our privacy and liberty?
People who speak out against the NSA's illegal domestic spying program aren't pro-terrorism. They are people who cherish freedom and the rule of law that guarantees that freedom. I understand that for you personally, there is no freedom/security trade off, probably because you couldn't care less if the government spied on your telephone conversations.
But that's not the point. The point is not that the government is spying on us. It's that they are doing it illegally. If the Bush administration had decided to change the Constitution in order to allow them to use these "vital" law enforcement tools, then that would be fine. But they didn't take that route. Instead the chose to circumvent the laws (by bypassing the FISA court).
If they are allowed to simply ignore these laws, what's to prevent them from ignoring other laws? Which laws do they need to ignore before you finally feel like there is a security/freedom tradeoff? And by then, will it be too late for you to act?
Anything Congress authorizes still has to be Constitutional, and the Judge has already ruled that these shenanigans are not.
The only thing Congress could do is ammend the Constitution and with the party line splits we have now (both in Congress and between the states) that just ain't gonna happen.
The problem with former President Jackson's remark, is that it's not up to the Judges to enforce laws. That responsibility rests with the Executive branch. In fact, that's really where the branch gets it's name from: they are supposed to execute the laws of the state, and that means enforcing them in a way that is compatible with the Constitution.
Willful failure to enforce, of the kind espoused by Jackson, at the very least amounts to a breach of the executive's inaugural oath to uphold the law, and may even be tantamount to treason.
So, to answer your question, "What can anyone do?" Impeach the motherfucker.
Of course, with regard to the NSA's illegal domestic spying program, we're not at that stage yet. The ruling may be appealed, so may have to go to a higher court. And, Bush hasn't yet indicated that he'll ignore the ruling. The White House's most recent comments on this issue seem to indicate that they're willing to back down. I think they do see the writing on the wall, and I doubt they think fighting it will be worth the risks.
They should just ask the NSA to send their copies of the emails to PlusNet.
Heck, the NSA could turn this into a side business. If they spin it right, maybe they can convince the general public that they're not spying, they're just providing a cutting-edge data backup service!
1) Write down how you are going to do something. 2) Do it the way you said you would.
If I'm ever put in charge of developing an ISO-9000 compliant software development process, I'll be sure to add a requirement that each engineer is required to drink a beer after fixing every bug!
Show me raw, tangible statistics pitting Agile methodologies against other more traditional approaches, like "waterfall". I'd like to see a whole range of games (or other applications), developed using various methodologies and scored based on parameters like: shipped on time, end product quality, popularity, critical review scores, and, of course, amount of profit. This would be the only way to see how much "better" Agile is compared to other methodologies. Otherwise this is all just theory, speculation, and unadulterated opinion.
as participation in extracurricular activities is not a required part of the educational mission, it can be subject to restrictions that would otherwise be unconstituional.
I'll assume that your assertion that this doctrine has been upheld at the highest levels is true (citations/sources would have been helpful).
I'll then argue that this conclusion is faulty, and will eventually be overturned, or at least that it faces serious limitations that need to be clearly spelled out and rationally based. Otherwise, you could argue that no citizen is required to go to the local park, and therefore the local government should be completely free to infringe all kinds of rights within the boundaries of the park. Extend this to sidewalks, roads, and any other public places ad nauseum.
There must be a clear state interest at stake to infringe constitutionally protected rights, and even then the infringement must be as narrowly applied as necessary to protect the state interest. And we're talking state interests on par with public safety and national security. I don't see that here -- not with the facebook case or with the drug testing.
this could be via genetics or nanotechnology or something weirder and not yet discovered
I prefer the "super-race of robots that are programmed to kill every living thing" method. Then the robots could worry about perpetuating their own survival and colonizing space. Of course, then you eventually get that one deviant robot that creates a super-race of organic beings that destroy all non-living beings. That would be teh roxor.
Anybody can Sue ANYBODY for ANYTHING (In the U.S.). I could sue you for eating a grilled cheese sandwitch, but chances are it will be thrown out of court.
I just don't see that court's line of reasoning. They're saying that a caller has no reasonable expectation of the privacy of the numbers they dial because those numbers are "exposed" to the phone company in the ordinary course of business.
That same line of reasoning should then conclude that the conversation itself has been "exposed" to the phone company in the ordinary course of business. After all, the caller's voice must be handled by the phone company's equipment, just as the number he/she dials does. So, the caller should have no expectation of privacy for their conversation either. The only way to have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a conversation, using this line of reasoning, would require the absence of any third-party who facilitates the conversation in any way.
Yet it is illegal, and no doubt this court would have agreed, to place wiretaps without warrants. Just doesn't make any sense to me.
And maybe it didn't make sense to Congress either, which could explain why subsequent acts of Congress have criminalized the dissemination of customer calling records without a court order.
47 U.S.C. 222 makes it illegal for communications service providers to disclose customer proprietary network information (calling records fall under this category) without a court order. No court order was issued compelling the telcos to cooperate with the NSA. They did it voluntarily. The absence of a court order means that the telcos broke the law.
IAANAL and I asked myself the same question. And for a moment, I was just about ready to call up my lawyer and get the ball rolling on a lawsuit against my wireless provider, Cingular (a joint venture of AT&T and BellSouth).
However, after doing a little bit of research, I found that such a lawsuit would almost certainly not survive, and so would probably not even be worth an attempt. The reason is because of this: statement of interest from the DoJ in the EFF v. AT&T lawsuit. You only need to read the first paragraph of the introduction to get the gist of it. Basically, the DoJ will invoke the "military and state secrets privilege" to shut-down any such lawsuit against the telcos. The lawsuits will be summarily dismissed and the telcos permanently indemnified.
It appears that it doesn't even matter if the telcos broke any laws. Because this is a secret government program concerning national security, they can basically break any laws they want. It also looks like they'll absolutely get away with this. Only Congress can stop them, but even Congress probably will be powerless here (one only need to look at the other NSA wiretapping program uncovered in December -- nothing meaningful has happened there to determine if the government's agencies are breaking the law).
I believe you are absolutely right. However, I'm afraid that no court will ever be able to rule one way or the other on the legality of the NSA program. This is because the Department of Justice will intervene in any legal action regarding this program and assert the "military and state secrets privilege" to summarily dismiss the proceedings.
This has already all but happened in the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T (which, at it's core, is probably involving the same program that was uncovered today). See the DoJ's statement of interest in that case, announcing their intention of shutting the lawsuit down.
What really bothers me about this way of "resolving" these lawsuits is that this completely circumvents any and all checks and balances. The executive branch has authorized these programs without legislative oversight or approval. The legality of these programs cannot be questioned or judged by the judicial branch. So, what we have here is a single branch of the government that is able to do as it sees fit, and neither of the other two branches may intervene.
How this is even possible boggles my mind, yet here it is actually happening. This is absolutely surreal.
Re:I don't trust the article...
on
Faking a Company
·
· Score: 1
How do we know the *reporters* are the real IHT reporters?
How do we know this article was posted on the *real* slashdot?
How do we know this website is on the *real* Internet?
It's all a big friggin conspiracy I tell ya. There is no NEC. There is no IHT. There is no Slashdot. There is no Internet.
run-ahead threads -- use another core/hyperthread to perform only the work needed to discover what memory accesses are going to be performed and preload them into the cache - mainly a memory latency hiding technique, but that's not a bad thing as there are many codes that are dominated by memory latency
Good god man! Where did you dig up this EVIL research?!?
How could a thread possibly be executed far enough in advance to make the time savings worth while, yet be sure that it is "predicting" memory accesses correctly? The only way that could happen is with code where memory accesses are independent of the result of previously executed instructions. Where does this happen in the real world? Almost nowhere.
Such a technology would inevitably make incorrect predictions. As a result, there's a high probability that it would induce a cache miss where there otherwise would not have been one (not to mention the extra memory bandwidth used by these shenanigans).
What's worse is this sort of thing would play absolute havoc with programmers' and compilers' cache optimizations. This is pure EEEEEVVIIIILLL.
The DMCA isn't a bad law - it is a typical law. It has the same type of negative effects than any law has.
I have to disagree with this argument. Before the DMCA, there was a better law on the books. It said, in a nutshell, "if you get caught selling pirated copies of copyrighted materials, you go to jail and pay a hefty fine".
That was a good law. Not many unintended side effects, if any at all. Compared to the prior law, the DMCA is a bad law.
I think what he's really upset about is that Apple is basically being forced to add this feature to protect the company from lawsuits. It's a good feature, and they should have added it anyway, but it's the reason they've added it that is bothersome.
Instead of parents taking liability for allowing their children to harm themselves, the liability is put on the company for simply making it possible to damage your hearing. I realize this isn't a black-and-white issue: if the edges of the iPod were so sharp that you could easily accidentally cut your fingers off just by trying to pick it up that would be a totally different story.
The question is, why is this suddenly a problem? This wasn't a problem 30 years ago with the Sony walkman. Why Apple? Becaue they're so popular? Because we've become a society of overly litigious bastards? As a libertarian, you should already be familiar with these types of questions.
Yep. That was a big question mark in my mind as I watched the show last night. As soon as the first vehicle left the gate, I had to wonder, "What's going to happen if one of them catches up to the vehicle in front of them?" Passing a moving object is not like avoiding stationary objects -- which is all the qualifying course contained.
Surprisingly, Stanley seemed to have no trouble at all passing Highlander, but I wonder how much of that was just pure luck (and the fact that it happened during a stretch where the trail was much wider than in many other spots).
Slashdot Mirror
That is the kind of attitude that results in millions of people getting killed. Basically, your argument says, "Let's wait until things get really obviously bad before we do anything. Until then, it's not our problem."
Well, we've tried that approach before. And some 60 million people died as a result. So we've changed our policy to be proactive in the future. I think this is a good thing.
All indications so far are that fewer people die when those who are able to, take proactive measures to prevent things from getting "really obviously bad". And this doesn't necessarily mean military action. It just means having the attitude that it is our problem too.
C++ in a kernel? Sweet mother of God! Please don't do it! :D
So you're not okay with being intimidated into silence, but you are okay with terrorists intimidating us all into giving up our privacy and liberty?
People who speak out against the NSA's illegal domestic spying program aren't pro-terrorism. They are people who cherish freedom and the rule of law that guarantees that freedom. I understand that for you personally, there is no freedom/security trade off, probably because you couldn't care less if the government spied on your telephone conversations.
But that's not the point. The point is not that the government is spying on us. It's that they are doing it illegally. If the Bush administration had decided to change the Constitution in order to allow them to use these "vital" law enforcement tools, then that would be fine. But they didn't take that route. Instead the chose to circumvent the laws (by bypassing the FISA court).
If they are allowed to simply ignore these laws, what's to prevent them from ignoring other laws? Which laws do they need to ignore before you finally feel like there is a security/freedom tradeoff? And by then, will it be too late for you to act?
Anything Congress authorizes still has to be Constitutional, and the Judge has already ruled that these shenanigans are not.
The only thing Congress could do is ammend the Constitution and with the party line splits we have now (both in Congress and between the states) that just ain't gonna happen.
The problem with former President Jackson's remark, is that it's not up to the Judges to enforce laws. That responsibility rests with the Executive branch. In fact, that's really where the branch gets it's name from: they are supposed to execute the laws of the state, and that means enforcing them in a way that is compatible with the Constitution.
Willful failure to enforce, of the kind espoused by Jackson, at the very least amounts to a breach of the executive's inaugural oath to uphold the law, and may even be tantamount to treason.
So, to answer your question, "What can anyone do?" Impeach the motherfucker.
Of course, with regard to the NSA's illegal domestic spying program, we're not at that stage yet. The ruling may be appealed, so may have to go to a higher court. And, Bush hasn't yet indicated that he'll ignore the ruling. The White House's most recent comments on this issue seem to indicate that they're willing to back down. I think they do see the writing on the wall, and I doubt they think fighting it will be worth the risks.
They should just ask the NSA to send their copies of the emails to PlusNet.
Heck, the NSA could turn this into a side business. If they spin it right, maybe they can convince the general public that they're not spying, they're just providing a cutting-edge data backup service!
Yeah, no shit. Just ask Mel Gibson.
If I'm ever put in charge of developing an ISO-9000 compliant software development process, I'll be sure to add a requirement that each engineer is required to drink a beer after fixing every bug!
280 meters? That's one hell of a big euro.
Show me raw, tangible statistics pitting Agile methodologies against other more traditional approaches, like "waterfall". I'd like to see a whole range of games (or other applications), developed using various methodologies and scored based on parameters like: shipped on time, end product quality, popularity, critical review scores, and, of course, amount of profit. This would be the only way to see how much "better" Agile is compared to other methodologies. Otherwise this is all just theory, speculation, and unadulterated opinion.
I'll then argue that this conclusion is faulty, and will eventually be overturned, or at least that it faces serious limitations that need to be clearly spelled out and rationally based. Otherwise, you could argue that no citizen is required to go to the local park, and therefore the local government should be completely free to infringe all kinds of rights within the boundaries of the park. Extend this to sidewalks, roads, and any other public places ad nauseum.
There must be a clear state interest at stake to infringe constitutionally protected rights, and even then the infringement must be as narrowly applied as necessary to protect the state interest. And we're talking state interests on par with public safety and national security. I don't see that here -- not with the facebook case or with the drug testing.
Which just goes to show you really CAN'T sue anybody for anything.
I just don't see that court's line of reasoning. They're saying that a caller has no reasonable expectation of the privacy of the numbers they dial because those numbers are "exposed" to the phone company in the ordinary course of business.
That same line of reasoning should then conclude that the conversation itself has been "exposed" to the phone company in the ordinary course of business. After all, the caller's voice must be handled by the phone company's equipment, just as the number he/she dials does. So, the caller should have no expectation of privacy for their conversation either. The only way to have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a conversation, using this line of reasoning, would require the absence of any third-party who facilitates the conversation in any way.
Yet it is illegal, and no doubt this court would have agreed, to place wiretaps without warrants. Just doesn't make any sense to me.
And maybe it didn't make sense to Congress either, which could explain why subsequent acts of Congress have criminalized the dissemination of customer calling records without a court order.
47 U.S.C. 222 makes it illegal for communications service providers to disclose customer proprietary network information (calling records fall under this category) without a court order. No court order was issued compelling the telcos to cooperate with the NSA. They did it voluntarily. The absence of a court order means that the telcos broke the law.
That is the legitimate complaint.
And so will all the good guys that don't like having their privacy invaded.
IAANAL and I asked myself the same question. And for a moment, I was just about ready to call up my lawyer and get the ball rolling on a lawsuit against my wireless provider, Cingular (a joint venture of AT&T and BellSouth).
However, after doing a little bit of research, I found that such a lawsuit would almost certainly not survive, and so would probably not even be worth an attempt. The reason is because of this: statement of interest from the DoJ in the EFF v. AT&T lawsuit. You only need to read the first paragraph of the introduction to get the gist of it. Basically, the DoJ will invoke the "military and state secrets privilege" to shut-down any such lawsuit against the telcos. The lawsuits will be summarily dismissed and the telcos permanently indemnified.
It appears that it doesn't even matter if the telcos broke any laws. Because this is a secret government program concerning national security, they can basically break any laws they want. It also looks like they'll absolutely get away with this. Only Congress can stop them, but even Congress probably will be powerless here (one only need to look at the other NSA wiretapping program uncovered in December -- nothing meaningful has happened there to determine if the government's agencies are breaking the law).
I believe you are absolutely right. However, I'm afraid that no court will ever be able to rule one way or the other on the legality of the NSA program. This is because the Department of Justice will intervene in any legal action regarding this program and assert the "military and state secrets privilege" to summarily dismiss the proceedings.
This has already all but happened in the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T (which, at it's core, is probably involving the same program that was uncovered today). See the DoJ's statement of interest in that case, announcing their intention of shutting the lawsuit down.
What really bothers me about this way of "resolving" these lawsuits is that this completely circumvents any and all checks and balances. The executive branch has authorized these programs without legislative oversight or approval. The legality of these programs cannot be questioned or judged by the judicial branch. So, what we have here is a single branch of the government that is able to do as it sees fit, and neither of the other two branches may intervene.
How this is even possible boggles my mind, yet here it is actually happening. This is absolutely surreal.
How do we know the *reporters* are the real IHT reporters?
How do we know this article was posted on the *real* slashdot?
How do we know this website is on the *real* Internet?
It's all a big friggin conspiracy I tell ya. There is no NEC. There is no IHT. There is no Slashdot. There is no Internet.
And there is no spoon.
"Aw crap! My wallet's battery just died."
How could a thread possibly be executed far enough in advance to make the time savings worth while, yet be sure that it is "predicting" memory accesses correctly? The only way that could happen is with code where memory accesses are independent of the result of previously executed instructions. Where does this happen in the real world? Almost nowhere.
Such a technology would inevitably make incorrect predictions. As a result, there's a high probability that it would induce a cache miss where there otherwise would not have been one (not to mention the extra memory bandwidth used by these shenanigans).
What's worse is this sort of thing would play absolute havoc with programmers' and compilers' cache optimizations. This is pure EEEEEVVIIIILLL.
That was a good law. Not many unintended side effects, if any at all. Compared to the prior law, the DMCA is a bad law.
I think what he's really upset about is that Apple is basically being forced to add this feature to protect the company from lawsuits. It's a good feature, and they should have added it anyway, but it's the reason they've added it that is bothersome.
Instead of parents taking liability for allowing their children to harm themselves, the liability is put on the company for simply making it possible to damage your hearing. I realize this isn't a black-and-white issue: if the edges of the iPod were so sharp that you could easily accidentally cut your fingers off just by trying to pick it up that would be a totally different story.
The question is, why is this suddenly a problem? This wasn't a problem 30 years ago with the Sony walkman. Why Apple? Becaue they're so popular? Because we've become a society of overly litigious bastards? As a libertarian, you should already be familiar with these types of questions.
-- slcdb
Yep. That was a big question mark in my mind as I watched the show last night. As soon as the first vehicle left the gate, I had to wonder, "What's going to happen if one of them catches up to the vehicle in front of them?" Passing a moving object is not like avoiding stationary objects -- which is all the qualifying course contained.
Surprisingly, Stanley seemed to have no trouble at all passing Highlander, but I wonder how much of that was just pure luck (and the fact that it happened during a stretch where the trail was much wider than in many other spots).