You know what would be nice? Being able to have a grown-up discussion about issues like TFA without being distracted by whatever bullshit the GOP is using rise the hackles of their Tea Party base this week (death panels? Benghazi? Who can even keep track?). The signal-to-noise ratio is really low when a conversation about press freedoms needs to be overpowered by "No, really, defaulting on national debts would be Bad, you fucking morons."
As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.
A bill won't get to a House vote if Speaker Boehner doesn't allow it. Despite majority support for such a measure, Boehner unilaterally refuses to put a clean CR to an up-or-down vote.
Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.
Where does "right of the House" end and "prerogative of the Speaker" begin?
this is just as petty as blocking if war mamorials in parks and threatening old vets with arrest for wanting to view an open memorial
And nobody will start to scream bloody murder when the trash starts piling up and the graffiti appears?
The entire department is shut down. Why should there be special exceptions made for ones that are visible from Capitol Hill? The Photo Op Exception Act of 2013?
This is just an example of Washington Monument Syndrome, wherein the government (or a branch of it), when faced with budget cuts, first shuts down whatever site or service will cause the most uproar.
If you think parks and monuments are the only things that have been shut down, you haven't been paying attention at all.
But regardless, what does this say of House Republicans trying to now fund parks and monuments piecemeal, ignoring things like food inspection in the process?
1. In a lot of these cases, the person who uploaded the picture to the revenge site did not take the picture.
First off, this would require the copyright holder to publicly assert their claim, potentially bringing attention to the pictures to begin with (a la Streisand).
Secondly, copyright laws are essentially focused on recouping lost revenue. Generally speaking, these pictures were not taken with the intent of monetizing them to begin with, and the "damages" as far as the victim is concerned are more of a "harassment" or "defamation" character, which a (good) judge probably wouldn't allow.
And finally we're talking about enforcing copyright on the internet. On Slashdot.
Thus shuttering the buildings in preparation for an extended year long shutdown would be premature, it would be a waste of money if things are back up again in a month.
Nobody knows how long the shutdown will last, which is why things are shut down to begin with.
And you can't just say "Oh, just mothball it for a few days, things will be fine" because not only is the money not there, the budget isn't there. Congress can constitutionally do whatever it wants with federal money (hence the shutdown), so even if Congress decides the overall shutdown is "over" it can still decide that particular agencies and departments get drastically reduced (or no) funds for '14. This is what budgets are all about.
Thus they still pay for the security guards of the buildings and a skeleton staff.
They're protecting real, government-owned assets. They'd be doing the same regardless of whether the buildings, et al would be used again or sold off.
If they have zero money to spend, why are the websites still "up", but returning a "sorry, we're closed" page?
First off, as has been noted elsewhere, the traffic appears to be rerouted to a single "We're closed" server rather than each organization hosting their own.
Secondly, these organizations, as public servants, still have an obligation to inform the public of the situation (i.e. "It's us, not you. And don't bother faxing, calling or driving in, either.").
As did the "development" time to produce the pages and install them.
The federal government spent the past few days and weeks preparing. The mothballs were prepared, all that was left was to commit.
Even if that's so (and I doubt federal agencies would be allowed to pay for things too far in advance, or too out-of-synch with the fiscal year), there's no point spending bandwidth when you can't power the routers.
It's all political theater. The Administration... is doing today exactly what it did with the sequester - it's punishing the American people as much as it can.
Why are you blaming "the Administration" for something that is the constitutional responsibility of the House?
It's despicable. Instead of doing their jobs and negotiating the best possible compromise between all interested parties, they've become a bunch of extremists (on both sides) who refuse to negotiate.
The 2012 elections were nothing if not a national referendum on this one particular issue. The Republicans lost, to the point where the only reason we're even having this conversation is gerrymandering. So long as we're still pretending to care about representative government, this is the best possible compromise.
Obama in particular ought to be ashamed of himself. He campaigned on a platform of unity and leadership
He campaigned on his passage of the Affordable Care Act, as did Mitt Romney.
In fact he's the biggest one going on national TV proclaiming with pride that he refuses to negotiate.
Democrats have been asking for negotiations for the past six months. If nothing else, it would be foolish to go through the farce of negotiations now that the House Republicans have shown just how far they are willing to go to gain the upper hand in such talks.
Fire them all. Seriously. Every last despicable goddamn one of them.
That was the Republican platform last year. It lost. The Republicans that remain are now throwing a temper tantrum. One does not "negotiate" with someone throwing a temper tantrum; if nothing else, it just enocurages more.
What does it cost to leave a website up, let it run on autopilot for a while, and not update any content? Just bandwidth and electricity.
I don't know where you live, but where I sit both bandwidth and electricity cost money.
Everything that is "non-essential" has zero money to spend, for an indefinite time. Not "very little," not "not much," but jack and shit, and Jack just got furloughed.
They're not hurt by the spying but by the disclosure. If these California companies didn't like the spying itself, you'd have seen them pour money into unseating Dianne Feinstein last year.
Expect instead to see these companies to lobby for feel-good measures that are simply aimed at making the story "go away."
Concerns over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), as well as attempts by intelligence agencies to collect user information from email and social networking sites, appeared on the second-quarter lobbying disclosure reports of several tech firms.
The topic wasn't mentioned in any first quarter 2013 reports, before public revelations that the National Security Agency was collecting data on American citizens from email and social networking sites.
While it's not clear from lobbying reports how much money or time each of the companies, or trade associations that represent them, have spent on the specific subject of FISA, the resources each one (of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Twitter) has available are substantially larger than any of the watchdog or civil liberties groups. In fact, each one of these five groups lobby substantially more than the other eight organizations that disclosed lobbying on FISA -- combined.
In the first three months of 2013, (Google) spent $4.1 million, which put it on track to spend less than 2012, but still a substantial amount. In the second quarter of 2013, however, spending contracted, coming to about $3.6 million.
Why, it's almost like nobody cared until, by shear coincidence, something happened in the second quarter of this year.
No telecommunications company has ever challenged the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court's orders for bulk phone records under the Patriot Act, the court revealed on Tuesday.
Now, do you want to split hairs and argue that "maybe Google isn't a 'telecommunications company'" or "maybe the orders they got weren't for 'bulk phone records'," or do you want to maybe acknowledge that the industry in the US doesn't give a flying fuck if nobody is looking (or is even allowed to look)?
Google has quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity to provide 'extra protection' for searchers, and possibly to block NSA spying activity.
What would encryption do when the NSA has access to the servers?
'I suspect the increased encryption is related to Google's NSA-pushback,'
Except that pushback itself is also pure political theater. Funny how these court challenges only started happening when stuff started to become public.
Not even. The job involves 99% playing Solitaire on your office computer, and 1% getting yelled at by Congress on camera whenever someone gets caught doing something.
They say that it will work with every game and work better.
That's still "evolutionary" versus "revolutionary," though. At the very least, it still doesn't seem to justify the author's apparent assertion that "This Changes Everything!"
And if they actually had a problem with NSA snooping they wouldn't continue throwing campaign money at the incumbents on the Congressional committees responsible for said snooping.
That they are big enough to take the risk of standing up for our freedoms speaks volumes about the stewardship of the company.
Or they are simply trying to give such an appearance to try to salvage the loss of business the NSA scandal is creating for such online services. They need not actually care while "framing the message" so longs the ultimate impact to their bottom line is negligible.
Want to see how Google, et al really feel? Keep an eye on their political campaign contributions, past and future.
Slashdot Mirror
You know what would be nice? Being able to have a grown-up discussion about issues like TFA without being distracted by whatever bullshit the GOP is using rise the hackles of their Tea Party base this week (death panels? Benghazi? Who can even keep track?). The signal-to-noise ratio is really low when a conversation about press freedoms needs to be overpowered by "No, really, defaulting on national debts would be Bad, you fucking morons."
As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.
A bill won't get to a House vote if Speaker Boehner doesn't allow it. Despite majority support for such a measure, Boehner unilaterally refuses to put a clean CR to an up-or-down vote.
Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.
Where does "right of the House" end and "prerogative of the Speaker" begin?
this is just as petty as blocking if war mamorials in parks and threatening old vets with arrest for wanting to view an open memorial
And nobody will start to scream bloody murder when the trash starts piling up and the graffiti appears?
The entire department is shut down. Why should there be special exceptions made for ones that are visible from Capitol Hill? The Photo Op Exception Act of 2013?
Why haven't we moved food inspection to the states/territories already?
Because, among other things, "food safety" and "race to the bottom" are two things that shouldn't go together.
The Pure Food and Drug Act is over a century old now. Try asking why a federal law was enacted to begin with.
This is just an example of Washington Monument Syndrome , wherein the government (or a branch of it), when faced with budget cuts, first shuts down whatever site or service will cause the most uproar.
If you think parks and monuments are the only things that have been shut down, you haven't been paying attention at all.
But regardless, what does this say of House Republicans trying to now fund parks and monuments piecemeal, ignoring things like food inspection in the process?
In the Westminster system... pick a new government/senate
In Westminster, the "senate" is chosen exclusively by Betty Windsor.
1. In a lot of these cases, the person who uploaded the picture to the revenge site did not take the picture.
First off, this would require the copyright holder to publicly assert their claim, potentially bringing attention to the pictures to begin with (a la Streisand).
Secondly, copyright laws are essentially focused on recouping lost revenue. Generally speaking, these pictures were not taken with the intent of monetizing them to begin with, and the "damages" as far as the victim is concerned are more of a "harassment" or "defamation" character, which a (good) judge probably wouldn't allow.
And finally we're talking about enforcing copyright on the internet. On Slashdot.
The paper's authors aren't federal government employees, and were working with data pulled down from Voyager previously.
Thus shuttering the buildings in preparation for an extended year long shutdown would be premature, it would be a waste of money if things are back up again in a month.
Nobody knows how long the shutdown will last, which is why things are shut down to begin with.
And you can't just say "Oh, just mothball it for a few days, things will be fine" because not only is the money not there, the budget isn't there. Congress can constitutionally do whatever it wants with federal money (hence the shutdown), so even if Congress decides the overall shutdown is "over" it can still decide that particular agencies and departments get drastically reduced (or no) funds for '14. This is what budgets are all about.
Thus they still pay for the security guards of the buildings and a skeleton staff.
They're protecting real, government-owned assets. They'd be doing the same regardless of whether the buildings, et al would be used again or sold off.
If they have zero money to spend, why are the websites still "up", but returning a "sorry, we're closed" page?
First off, as has been noted elsewhere, the traffic appears to be rerouted to a single "We're closed" server rather than each organization hosting their own.
Secondly, these organizations, as public servants, still have an obligation to inform the public of the situation (i.e. "It's us, not you. And don't bother faxing, calling or driving in, either.").
As did the "development" time to produce the pages and install them.
The federal government spent the past few days and weeks preparing. The mothballs were prepared, all that was left was to commit.
Even if that's so (and I doubt federal agencies would be allowed to pay for things too far in advance, or too out-of-synch with the fiscal year), there's no point spending bandwidth when you can't power the routers.
It's all political theater. The Administration... is doing today exactly what it did with the sequester - it's punishing the American people as much as it can.
Why are you blaming "the Administration" for something that is the constitutional responsibility of the House?
It's despicable. Instead of doing their jobs and negotiating the best possible compromise between all interested parties, they've become a bunch of extremists (on both sides) who refuse to negotiate.
The 2012 elections were nothing if not a national referendum on this one particular issue. The Republicans lost, to the point where the only reason we're even having this conversation is gerrymandering. So long as we're still pretending to care about representative government, this is the best possible compromise.
Obama in particular ought to be ashamed of himself. He campaigned on a platform of unity and leadership
He campaigned on his passage of the Affordable Care Act, as did Mitt Romney.
In fact he's the biggest one going on national TV proclaiming with pride that he refuses to negotiate.
Democrats have been asking for negotiations for the past six months. If nothing else, it would be foolish to go through the farce of negotiations now that the House Republicans have shown just how far they are willing to go to gain the upper hand in such talks.
Fire them all. Seriously. Every last despicable goddamn one of them.
That was the Republican platform last year. It lost. The Republicans that remain are now throwing a temper tantrum. One does not "negotiate" with someone throwing a temper tantrum; if nothing else, it just enocurages more.
What does it cost to leave a website up, let it run on autopilot for a while, and not update any content? Just bandwidth and electricity.
I don't know where you live, but where I sit both bandwidth and electricity cost money.
Everything that is "non-essential" has zero money to spend, for an indefinite time. Not "very little," not "not much," but jack and shit, and Jack just got furloughed.
They're not hurt by the spying but by the disclosure. If these California companies didn't like the spying itself, you'd have seen them pour money into unseating Dianne Feinstein last year.
Expect instead to see these companies to lobby for feel-good measures that are simply aimed at making the story "go away."
2% of requests overall get message content, or 2% of requests that specifically ask for message content?
It'd be in Microsoft's interest to dilute the hell out of this number.
As far as I can tell, the internet companies have done more that any others is trying to hold back the NSA.
Meh.
Why, it's almost like nobody cared until, by shear coincidence, something happened in the second quarter of this year.
STFU and do your research,
Your source (emphasis mine):
My source:
Now, do you want to split hairs and argue that "maybe Google isn't a 'telecommunications company'" or "maybe the orders they got weren't for 'bulk phone records'," or do you want to maybe acknowledge that the industry in the US doesn't give a flying fuck if nobody is looking (or is even allowed to look)?
Google has quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity to provide 'extra protection' for searchers, and possibly to block NSA spying activity.
What would encryption do when the NSA has access to the servers?
'I suspect the increased encryption is related to Google's NSA-pushback,'
Except that pushback itself is also pure political theater. Funny how these court challenges only started happening when stuff started to become public.
Google has made their bed. Let them lie in it.
Not even. The job involves 99% playing Solitaire on your office computer, and 1% getting yelled at by Congress on camera whenever someone gets caught doing something.
No, but there's plenty of teapots out there you can use.
We're talking about the Pentagon, not HHS. Worrying about redactable stuff is their job.
My assumption is that their priority would be maintaining the health and status of nuclear weapons crews.
They say that it will work with every game and work better.
That's still "evolutionary" versus "revolutionary," though. At the very least, it still doesn't seem to justify the author's apparent assertion that "This Changes Everything!"
Your PSP was able to connect to another TV(?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable#TV_output_and_accessory_port
And if they actually had a problem with NSA snooping they wouldn't continue throwing campaign money at the incumbents on the Congressional committees responsible for said snooping.
That they are big enough to take the risk of standing up for our freedoms speaks volumes about the stewardship of the company.
Or they are simply trying to give such an appearance to try to salvage the loss of business the NSA scandal is creating for such online services. They need not actually care while "framing the message" so longs the ultimate impact to their bottom line is negligible.
Want to see how Google, et al really feel? Keep an eye on their political campaign contributions, past and future.