Thanks for the citations, orthogonal. (Doesn't the Internet just beat the heck out of the Readers Guide To Periodicals as a research tool?)
Both of these articles cite money laundering as the non-terrorist activity being prosecuted under the Patriot Act. But that's a little misleading, since both the Money Laundering Control Act and the Bank Secrecy Act already existed.
I'm not going to lose sleep at night over the fact the government knows how much is in my bank account, since it can infer it from my tax returns anyway. I'd just prefer that every telemarketer in the world not know.
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"
I fail to see how sharing pirated songs and movies is a form of speech.
The other difference between Anton Pillar and the Patriot Act is that the legislative intent of the Patriot Act was that its provisions should apply only to suspected acts of terrorism. However,
US Attorney General John Ashcroft has aggressively pushed to ignore the legislative intent behind the Patriot Act, and use its provisions for to investigate non-terrorist related activity.
Ever read Earth by David Brin? It's about a near-future where there is no privacy anymore because everyone is rigged with video cameras and pipes it to the Internet in realtime. I'd say we're almost there with camera cellphones...
I'm actually much more concerned about the government's ability and willingness to repress political speech than I am whether some database knows I bought a couple of cans of jock itch spray with my credit card.
But dude, then you aren't "free" to buy cold pills at a dozen different stores with your credit card and cook meth in the "privacy" of your own home without the man hasslin' you.
You want safety more than you do privacy, but in reality you will have neither.
You don't have a "right" to privacy outside the confines of your person, home or automobile. Everything you do in public is legally subject to scrutiny. Wouldn't you say the Internet is every bit as much public as the town square? All you have right now is the illusion of privacy. And things like Carnivore and MetaCarta destroy that pretty little illusion.
Really, I could understand Slashdotters getting their panties in a bunch over the Patriot Act if it defined a terrorist as "a pimply overweight geek who lives in his parents' basement and likes to argue over Star Trek trivia". Then you'd really have something to worry about.;-)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
And another thing: said right does not mean you can commit crimes in the privacy of your home.
No, if anything, this system will actually increase the amount of criminal activity, whether terrorism or kidnapping, or crimes in between. It only serves to aggregrate power from the many onto the very few, which means more corruption and less representative government, which in turn means more disillusionment, apathy and frustration.
Maybe the I.R.S.'s heuristics to detect fraud lead to more tax cheats?
No wait, survellience cameras increase shoplifting?
How about dusting for fingerprints causes more murders?
No. Obviously, criminals/terrorists will adapt their modus operandi in response to such a system. (OBL, for example, probably doesn't talk on clear cell phones anymore.) But to suggest a forensic tool like VICAP actually causes the crime it seeks to analyze, through social backlash, is invalid, I think.
So what you're saying is, Bill Gates possibly secretly wishes to quash the pro-democracy movement in China???
(How utterly thoughtful of IBM to leave all the evidence right there in their archives for Edwin Black to discover! Lucky for him Hollerith didn't destroy it, what with all the war crimes commission and all...)
IBM sold punchcard machines to Germany. Germany used them (so you say) to track Jews. Thereby implying IBM is complicit in the Holocaust. This is an example of a non sequitur, which is Latin for "you are a dumbass". I'm kidding! It is Latin for "it does not follow".
To prove IBM's complicity you would have to show that at the time of the sale they actually knew that the Germans intended to use them in the direct commission of a crime, say dropping them on somebody. (Or as in the case of the firearms used in the Columbine shootings, that the sale itself was illegal.)
Keep that in mind the next time you talk about Bush/Bin Laden, Clinton/Indonesian Coal, Kennedy/NAZI sympathizing, ad infinitum.
To paraphrase Tokerat:
Germany: Guten tag? Ve need five hundred government electronic punch card machines! IBM: Alright, would you like the System 360, or System 370? Germany: Vichever one better for tracking Jews!
Ridiculous bid for attention? What? All AI reports read like this. They cricize human rights violations no matter who it is or the situation. Their job as they've set it out for themselves is to defend human rights and this article is a fair criticism of US companies... that make a good deal of money building censor networks in other countries.
Ridiculous bid by Amnesty Internation for donations from Microsoft? What? Most likely.
This is why we're losing jobs to India. Indians don't have to worry about looking like dorks because they're interested in science.
A very interesting article here makes that exact point, taking the long view of our information-based economy.
The US won't go down the tubes because of outsourcing. It'll go down the tubes because we're becoming uninteresting to smart people.
What the articles says is--here let's allow Frankenstein's monster to summarize:
Ahem. Republicans BAAAD. Democrats GOOOOOOD. Republicans chase away smart people with torches and pitchforks. They also step on baby ducks. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
Thank you, Monster.
The article is based on several false premises, not the least of which is that other countries send their brightest here to learn. That is not true. Students from many countries (I'm thinking specifically of India, Japan, and South Korea) come here because they can't get into the good universities in the their own countries.
I was unaware that the U.S. was in imminent danger of "going down the tubes", or that during the halcyon days of the Clinton administration geeks were held in higher regard (when anyone who could edit HTML thought they were a programmer). The reason the call centers, et cetera, are being outsourced to India is simple economics: U.S. companies can pay the Indians 4% (that's f-o-u-r p-e-r-c-e-n-t) of what it would cost them to have an American do it. ??? Profit.
"It's inspired me to move out of Denver, which initally looked like a creative capital for the new economy, but has been pulled right into the dirt by an uninspired Republican governor and a near fascist backlash towards immigrants."
Really. I suppose by immigrants you mean illegal immigrants? Fascism? Citations, please.
And I suppose by "new economy" you mean "companies that produce nothing but talk a good game and gobble up investment capital like a pothead gobbles up Cheetos"?
In what section and page, specifically does it say they don't need a warrant? (I did see in another section where they don't have to reveal the evidence used to obtain a warrant--no need to assist the terrorists in improving their organization.)
TITLE V--REMOVING OBSTACLES TO INVESTIGATING TERRORISM Sec. 501. Attorney General's authority to pay rewards to combat terrorism. Sec. 502. Secretary of State's authority to pay rewards. Sec. 503. DNA identification of terrorists and other violent offenders. Sec. 504. Coordination with law enforcement. Sec. 505. Miscellaneous national security authorities. Sec. 506. Extension of Secret Service jurisdiction. Sec. 507. Disclosure of educational records. Sec. 508. Disclosure of information from NCES surveys.
Sorry if I ranted for a moment there, but Bruce Stirling annoys me nearly as much as people who don't consider sci-fi/fantasy "meaningful".;-)
I remember back in high school not being able to do a book report on "The Lord of the Rings" because it wasn't considered "serious" literature. Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford. I think he knew a thing or two about literature.
Sterling is an also-ran compared to Gibson. His book "Distraction" (84,204th on Amazon) is the only science fiction book I couldn't finish due to boredom. Gibson is far more popular (Neuromancer, 1,009th) even though a lot of his conjectures did not pan out (i.e., Japanese ascendency). When Sterling co-authored "Difference Engine" (54,784) with Gibson it quite simply sucked. Bruce Sterling is the Peter Straub of his genre (Straub even makes Stephen King unreadable).
All the books I cite here have been out for at least a couple of years to prove a point: Sterling is not a popular writer or a great futurist like Arthur C. Clarke ("Childhood's End", 54,784th). And his books do not have staying power (Robert Heinlein, "Starship Trooper", 7,816th; H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine", 7,538th).
I have a friend who works for a telecom company that shall remain nameless. They employ Indian programmers for three hundred dollars a month. The average American software developer earns $78K annually (source: sdmagazine.com), more than twenty times as much.
Are you willing to work for 5% of your current salary? Didn't think so.
...though I don't think he would've gone completely digital.
My 2 year old HP 2 MP digital camera is getting a little long in the tooth, but I'm amazed at the quality photos it takes in everyday situations--better than my 35mm. It's not as good in low-light conditions (e.g., sunrise/sunset landscapes), but that's because it's got an effective ISO of 100(!).
Slashdot Mirror
Now it's my right to write viruses?!?
Can I also build pipe bombs for "educational purposes"?
Okay, how about a prison sentence like Mitnick's, and teaching them to make license plates while they're serving their time?
As far as intent not being equivalent to guilt: you can be prosecuted for dealing drugs merely by being in possession of enough to distribute.
Thanks for the citations, orthogonal. (Doesn't the Internet just beat the heck out of the Readers Guide To Periodicals as a research tool?)
Both of these articles cite money laundering as the non-terrorist activity being prosecuted under the Patriot Act. But that's a little misleading, since both the Money Laundering Control Act and the Bank Secrecy Act already existed.
I'm not going to lose sleep at night over the fact the government knows how much is in my bank account, since it can infer it from my tax returns anyway. I'd just prefer that every telemarketer in the world not know.
I fail to see how sharing pirated songs and movies is a form of speech.
Care to give an example?
Here's a link to an article in the Harvard Law Review from 1890 that discusses the right to privacy.
I think this companion article is more thorough.
Ever read Earth by David Brin? It's about a near-future where there is no privacy anymore because everyone is rigged with video cameras and pipes it to the Internet in realtime. I'd say we're almost there with camera cellphones...
Did you oppose the BATF's attempt under the Clinton administration to illegally register firearm sales? Just curious.
But dude, then you aren't "free" to buy cold pills at a dozen different stores with your credit card and cook meth in the "privacy" of your own home without the man hasslin' you.
You don't have a "right" to privacy outside the confines of your person, home or automobile. Everything you do in public is legally subject to scrutiny. Wouldn't you say the Internet is every bit as much public as the town square? All you have right now is the illusion of privacy. And things like Carnivore and MetaCarta destroy that pretty little illusion.
Really, I could understand Slashdotters getting their panties in a bunch over the Patriot Act if it defined a terrorist as "a pimply overweight geek who lives in his parents' basement and likes to argue over Star Trek trivia". Then you'd really have something to worry about.
And another thing: said right does not mean you can commit crimes in the privacy of your home.
Does this theory hold water?
Has the Amber Alert System led to more kidnappings?
Or do photo radar vans lead to more speeding?
Maybe the I.R.S.'s heuristics to detect fraud lead to more tax cheats?
No wait, survellience cameras increase shoplifting?
How about dusting for fingerprints causes more murders?
No. Obviously, criminals/terrorists will adapt their modus operandi in response to such a system. (OBL, for example, probably doesn't talk on clear cell phones anymore.) But to suggest a forensic tool like VICAP actually causes the crime it seeks to analyze, through social backlash, is invalid, I think.
So what you're saying is, Bill Gates possibly secretly wishes to quash the pro-democracy movement in China???
(How utterly thoughtful of IBM to leave all the evidence right there in their archives for Edwin Black to discover! Lucky for him Hollerith didn't destroy it, what with all the war crimes commission and all...)
IBM sold punchcard machines to Germany. Germany used them (so you say) to track Jews. Thereby implying IBM is complicit in the Holocaust. This is an example of a non sequitur, which is Latin for "you are a dumbass". I'm kidding! It is Latin for "it does not follow".
To prove IBM's complicity you would have to show that at the time of the sale they actually knew that the Germans intended to use them in the direct commission of a crime, say dropping them on somebody. (Or as in the case of the firearms used in the Columbine shootings, that the sale itself was illegal.)
Keep that in mind the next time you talk about Bush/Bin Laden, Clinton/Indonesian Coal, Kennedy/NAZI sympathizing, ad infinitum.
To paraphrase Tokerat:
Germany: Guten tag? Ve need five hundred government electronic punch card machines!
IBM: Alright, would you like the System 360, or System 370?
Germany: Vichever one better for tracking Jews!
Ridiculous bid by Amnesty Internation for donations from Microsoft? What? Most likely.
What the articles says is--here let's allow Frankenstein's monster to summarize:
Ahem. Republicans BAAAD. Democrats GOOOOOOD. Republicans chase away smart people with torches and pitchforks. They also step on baby ducks. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
Thank you, Monster.
The article is based on several false premises, not the least of which is that other countries send their brightest here to learn. That is not true. Students from many countries (I'm thinking specifically of India, Japan, and South Korea) come here because they can't get into the good universities in the their own countries.
I was unaware that the U.S. was in imminent danger of "going down the tubes", or that during the halcyon days of the Clinton administration geeks were held in higher regard (when anyone who could edit HTML thought they were a programmer). The reason the call centers, et cetera, are being outsourced to India is simple economics: U.S. companies can pay the Indians 4% (that's f-o-u-r p-e-r-c-e-n-t) of what it would cost them to have an American do it. ??? Profit.
"It's inspired me to move out of Denver, which initally looked like a creative capital for the new economy, but has been pulled right into the dirt by an uninspired Republican governor and a near fascist backlash towards immigrants."
Really. I suppose by immigrants you mean illegal immigrants? Fascism? Citations, please.
And I suppose by "new economy" you mean "companies that produce nothing but talk a good game and gobble up investment capital like a pothead gobbles up Cheetos"?
...Slashdotters were for file sharing.
In what section and page, specifically does it say they don't need a warrant? (I did see in another section where they don't have to reveal the evidence used to obtain a warrant--no need to assist the terrorists in improving their organization.)
TITLE V--REMOVING OBSTACLES TO INVESTIGATING TERRORISM
Sec. 501. Attorney General's authority to pay rewards to combat terrorism.
Sec. 502. Secretary of State's authority to pay rewards.
Sec. 503. DNA identification of terrorists and other violent offenders.
Sec. 504. Coordination with law enforcement.
Sec. 505. Miscellaneous national security authorities.
Sec. 506. Extension of Secret Service jurisdiction.
Sec. 507. Disclosure of educational records.
Sec. 508. Disclosure of information from NCES surveys.
If the FBI wants, they can use the Patriot Act (where applicable, which is almost everywhere), to spy on you with out obtaining a warrant.
Care to cite the paragraph of the Patriot Act that permits this, or is it just something "everybody knows"?
Sorry if I ranted for a moment there, but Bruce Stirling annoys me nearly as much as people who don't consider sci-fi/fantasy "meaningful". ;-)
I remember back in high school not being able to do a book report on "The Lord of the Rings" because it wasn't considered "serious" literature. Tolkien was Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford. I think he knew a thing or two about literature.
Sterling is an also-ran compared to Gibson. His book "Distraction" (84,204th on Amazon) is the only science fiction book I couldn't finish due to boredom. Gibson is far more popular (Neuromancer, 1,009th) even though a lot of his conjectures did not pan out (i.e., Japanese ascendency). When Sterling co-authored "Difference Engine" (54,784) with Gibson it quite simply sucked. Bruce Sterling is the Peter Straub of his genre (Straub even makes Stephen King unreadable).
All the books I cite here have been out for at least a couple of years to prove a point: Sterling is not a popular writer or a great futurist like Arthur C. Clarke ("Childhood's End", 54,784th). And his books do not have staying power (Robert Heinlein, "Starship Trooper", 7,816th; H.G. Wells, "The Time Machine", 7,538th).
I would just like to underscore Dr. Bent's point.
I have a friend who works for a telecom company that shall remain nameless. They employ Indian programmers for three hundred dollars a month. The average American software developer earns $78K annually (source: sdmagazine.com), more than twenty times as much.
Are you willing to work for 5% of your current salary? Didn't think so.
I just flew last month with my Micra. No problems. Ditto my full-sized Leatherman when travelling to Mexico.
Of course, I put it in my checked luggage.
...though I don't think he would've gone completely digital.
My 2 year old HP 2 MP digital camera is getting a little long in the tooth, but I'm amazed at the quality photos it takes in everyday situations--better than my 35mm. It's not as good in low-light conditions (e.g., sunrise/sunset landscapes), but that's because it's got an effective ISO of 100(!).