My takeaway was that they were using non-government email addresses. Not that they were using secret government addresses.
Sadly, no:
The AP decided to publish the secret address for Sebelius -- KGS2(at)hhs.gov -- over the government's objections because the secretary is a high-ranking civil servant who oversees not only major agencies like the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services but also the implementation of Obama's signature health care law. Her public email address is Kathleen.Sebelius(at)hhs.gov.
This is a second government email address for the same person, which is a little baffling, and definitely a little shady.
There is no logical reason for using a non-government address.... The ONLY reason for this is attempting to do an end-run around their email regulations and laws so that they won't get busted for whatever they are doing.
The only reason I can think of to have a secret email address is to try to skirt any paper trail and FOIA requests.
If people are conducting their official business in secret email accounts, it's hard NOT to think the sole motivation is to fly under the radar. If at the end you provide the 'official' account (which has nothing interesting in it), you can claim nothing happened.
These people already *had* official accounts, why would they need a second, undocumented email address? This stinks of having the official account to do mundane things, and the secret account to do all of the other stuff.
In this case, I'm going to assume malice -- since it actually had the effect of people inadequately responding to FOIA requests, because all of the good stuff was buried in a second account nobody knew about.
Over the years I've found that the cost of the consumables for any form of color or photo printing just isn't worth it. You can get someone to print you those things incredibly cheap these days.
I still have a laser printer/scanner/photocopier combo that I use for some stuff. But for anything else, it's cheaper to just get it printed for a relatively tiny cost.
There already exists a popular Linux based satellite receiver called Dreambox.
Is it a 3D printing vending machine?
Having the same name in an entirely different market segment means you can freely have the same name. Trademarks and the like only apply in the area of business, not every company in the world who could possibly use that name.
Allowing customers to be sued for patent infringement has always struck me as stupid.
If I buy a product from a vendor, and *they* infringed on a patent, there's no way I should be in a position to get sued by some asshole who thinks he owns a patent on a "system of connecting two machines with a network".
Even more so if the product is something I bought at a retail store -- if I can walk into Wal Mart and buy it, and you think that infringes on your patent, take it up with someone else. NMFP.
In the second frame it's another plane which is taking off in the opposite direction by the looks of it.
I'd say if this is declassified footage, and the Germans are up in arms about it, it likely isn't a photoshop job.
And it also suggests to me that all of the claims they're perfectly safe and won't ever interfere with civilian aviation is probably optimistic. I suspect this isn't the only near miss from a drone.
Border stops are justifiable in their eyes because of security paranoia and constituents who want to be safe.
And, quite frankly, as soon as they can convince the populace collecting genetic samples from everyone will make them safe, people will go along with it.
No one in Washington has the guts to sneak around anti-discrimination legislation because it's too obviously an attack on core American values.
Again, I say 'not yet'. Really, Americans have already demonstrated a willingness to enact discriminatory legislation if it suits them, more than once in history, so you'll excuse me if I don't take that as assurance. The screeching mob can vote for all sorts of things.
Try not to be so cynical that you can't even detect blatant self interest.
I've found cynicism is very beneficial to my blatant self interest.
I've also come to assume that both corporations and governments act so cynically and in their own blatant self interest, that I don't trust any of them to not turn this against us after we've become used to it. I've also come to assume they'll work together to achieve that end.
Which is why I'm against them doing it in the first place -- because then I'm just a paranoid curmudgeon, instead of being paranoid and right about what they'll do if left to their own devices. Unfortunately, they keep doing these things.
I like your vision of the future. I don't believe it, but I do like it.
The world is not actually quite as horrible as you're gloomily projecting.
The world steadily gets more horrible, and things intended for one thing invariably go through some scope creep.
I have very little faith that in even 5-10 years they couldn't find some way to get around these laws, they always do. If corporate profits are seen to be suffering, many lawmakers will give them anything they want, and won't give us a second thought.
I don't need to worry what happens to information they don't collect. But as soon as they do start collecting it, that's when stuff starts to go awry.
You may trust the government to not eventually be assholes and douchebags, but I don't.
If you can be stopped for a 'border check' within 100 miles or so of the border, I wouldn't exactly keep counting on them not to do whatever they please. Once the courts validate the ridiculous positions government puts forth, there's no going back.
There are millions of new customers born every year. Every year a generation turns 8 or 12 or 15 and their parents decide to buy or are cajoled into buying personal electronics for them.
Have you looked around lately? I'd say it's more like 5 or 6 these days.
And I routinely see toddlers playing games on mom's smart-phone to keep them quiet, which tells me that age is probably dropping pretty steadily.
If Google wishes to hold true to their motto, "Do No Evil", they can start by disobeying these orders.
But, but... they're fighting evil, so if Google doesn't help, they themselves become evil. You're not questioning the government are you? That would be sedition!
Almost 12 years? Is this some reference to 9/11? Or is that just when you started paying attention?
No, that's just when they started doing it blatantly and saying it was their right. I have no doubt it was done before, but since then it's been pretty egregious.
How can the NSL process possibly be construed as anything other than a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment?
Executive Orders.
It's basic, black-letter law: warrants have to be issued by the judicial branch, not the cops themselves
But these aren't warrants, they're letters. Much more powerful, because they say so.
Are the courts really going to allow the Fourth Amendment to be read out of the Constitution by a meaningless invocation of "national security"?
Have you not been paying attention? The 4th amendment has been interpreted so narrowly that if it isn't actually 'paper' and on your person, it's not covered by the Constitution. And the whole border check thing within 100+ miles of any border. And free speech zones. And holding US citizens without trial. And assassinating citizens.
They've been bypassing the Constitution for almost 12 years now, when and how they see fit.
If their concerns are valid, why don't they simply get a warrent?
Because a warrant has provisions for letting people know about them.
NSLs are super duper top secret, and you can't tell anybody about them. As in, there's no real oversight of them, and as long as they keep them secret they can do anything they want to.
Surely you don't expect an open and honest process? They wouldn't be looking at these people if they didn't already know they were terrorists... what are you, some kind of hippy?
Then to clarify, this offers no gain or benefit at all to the people whose irises were scanned or those around them.
Which basically means this boils down to incompetent and overly zealous school officials doing something they had no permission to do and which can only benefit industry and government, but stands to harm the people who were scanned.
My fav has always been line from the exploding whale video where the announcer says "The blast blew blubber beyond all bounds of belief" -- that and watching people running from the falling chunks of whale is just awesome.
Slashdot Mirror
Sadly, no:
This is a second government email address for the same person, which is a little baffling, and definitely a little shady.
It's the only reason I can think of.
No, no they aren't:
There is no 'private' in this context. This is official government business, and by law it needs to be recorded.
This doesn't pass the smell test. In fact, it fails it utterly.
I disagree.
The only reason I can think of to have a secret email address is to try to skirt any paper trail and FOIA requests.
If people are conducting their official business in secret email accounts, it's hard NOT to think the sole motivation is to fly under the radar. If at the end you provide the 'official' account (which has nothing interesting in it), you can claim nothing happened.
These people already *had* official accounts, why would they need a second, undocumented email address? This stinks of having the official account to do mundane things, and the secret account to do all of the other stuff.
In this case, I'm going to assume malice -- since it actually had the effect of people inadequately responding to FOIA requests, because all of the good stuff was buried in a second account nobody knew about.
Agree totally.
Over the years I've found that the cost of the consumables for any form of color or photo printing just isn't worth it. You can get someone to print you those things incredibly cheap these days.
I still have a laser printer/scanner/photocopier combo that I use for some stuff. But for anything else, it's cheaper to just get it printed for a relatively tiny cost.
Is it a 3D printing vending machine?
Having the same name in an entirely different market segment means you can freely have the same name. Trademarks and the like only apply in the area of business, not every company in the world who could possibly use that name.
So, there is no issue here.
Allowing customers to be sued for patent infringement has always struck me as stupid.
If I buy a product from a vendor, and *they* infringed on a patent, there's no way I should be in a position to get sued by some asshole who thinks he owns a patent on a "system of connecting two machines with a network".
Even more so if the product is something I bought at a retail store -- if I can walk into Wal Mart and buy it, and you think that infringes on your patent, take it up with someone else. NMFP.
In the second frame it's another plane which is taking off in the opposite direction by the looks of it.
I'd say if this is declassified footage, and the Germans are up in arms about it, it likely isn't a photoshop job.
And it also suggests to me that all of the claims they're perfectly safe and won't ever interfere with civilian aviation is probably optimistic. I suspect this isn't the only near miss from a drone.
And, quite frankly, as soon as they can convince the populace collecting genetic samples from everyone will make them safe, people will go along with it.
Again, I say 'not yet'. Really, Americans have already demonstrated a willingness to enact discriminatory legislation if it suits them, more than once in history, so you'll excuse me if I don't take that as assurance. The screeching mob can vote for all sorts of things.
I've found cynicism is very beneficial to my blatant self interest.
I've also come to assume that both corporations and governments act so cynically and in their own blatant self interest, that I don't trust any of them to not turn this against us after we've become used to it. I've also come to assume they'll work together to achieve that end.
Which is why I'm against them doing it in the first place -- because then I'm just a paranoid curmudgeon, instead of being paranoid and right about what they'll do if left to their own devices. Unfortunately, they keep doing these things.
I like your vision of the future. I don't believe it, but I do like it.
The world steadily gets more horrible, and things intended for one thing invariably go through some scope creep.
I have very little faith that in even 5-10 years they couldn't find some way to get around these laws, they always do. If corporate profits are seen to be suffering, many lawmakers will give them anything they want, and won't give us a second thought.
I don't need to worry what happens to information they don't collect. But as soon as they do start collecting it, that's when stuff starts to go awry.
You may trust the government to not eventually be assholes and douchebags, but I don't.
If you can be stopped for a 'border check' within 100 miles or so of the border, I wouldn't exactly keep counting on them not to do whatever they please. Once the courts validate the ridiculous positions government puts forth, there's no going back.
Not yet at least.
How long before school boards decide to start swabbing all children "for their own safety"?
Since this will invariably be done by a for-profit company, that data becomes something forever on file.
I think taking DNA from anybody and everybody is going to cause all sorts of problems down the road.
Stop saying that, someone might hear you .. in his version, we'd find out that Kane was actually Rosebud all along.
I have determined that having Shyamalan's name on a piece of work means it's a movie I need to avoid.
No, that's a different word that starts with p-e-d.
Have you looked around lately? I'd say it's more like 5 or 6 these days.
And I routinely see toddlers playing games on mom's smart-phone to keep them quiet, which tells me that age is probably dropping pretty steadily.
But, but ... they're fighting evil, so if Google doesn't help, they themselves become evil. You're not questioning the government are you? That would be sedition!
end sarcasm.
Don't include me in that 'you' ... I don't own a Volkswagon, but I'm more hippie than not.
I'm certainly not defending them.
No, that's just when they started doing it blatantly and saying it was their right. I have no doubt it was done before, but since then it's been pretty egregious.
Executive Orders.
But these aren't warrants, they're letters. Much more powerful, because they say so.
Have you not been paying attention? The 4th amendment has been interpreted so narrowly that if it isn't actually 'paper' and on your person, it's not covered by the Constitution. And the whole border check thing within 100+ miles of any border. And free speech zones. And holding US citizens without trial. And assassinating citizens.
They've been bypassing the Constitution for almost 12 years now, when and how they see fit.
Because a warrant has provisions for letting people know about them.
NSLs are super duper top secret, and you can't tell anybody about them. As in, there's no real oversight of them, and as long as they keep them secret they can do anything they want to.
Surely you don't expect an open and honest process? They wouldn't be looking at these people if they didn't already know they were terrorists ... what are you, some kind of hippy?
Dude, you can't be that good of a grammar nazi and do it anonymously. ;-)
Putting the Constitution aside a moment ... oh, wait, they've already done that. Carry on citizen.
Then to clarify, this offers no gain or benefit at all to the people whose irises were scanned or those around them.
Which basically means this boils down to incompetent and overly zealous school officials doing something they had no permission to do and which can only benefit industry and government, but stands to harm the people who were scanned.
And yet, we can't put corporations in jail, which makes them pretty much a class of 'person' which is very different from actual people.
Ah, but this is Slashdot, where the pedants get to be pedantic over the pedantry of other persons.
My fav has always been line from the exploding whale video where the announcer says "The blast blew blubber beyond all bounds of belief" -- that and watching people running from the falling chunks of whale is just awesome.
Bleedin' bastards buggered the bunch, bitches.