USA has declared Status of National Emergency in 4th of march 1933 but never undeclared. And under a National Emergency the jurisduction of the constitution is not enforced.
I know that's a favorite of conspiracy theorists, but there is no mechanism in the Constitution to declare a "National Emergency" under which it does not apply. The National Emergencies Act is a way for the Congress to temporarily delgate some of its power to the President to allow for quick action; we can argue whether that act is Constitutional or a good idea, but all it does is shift the power balance of the federal government around between the executive and the legistlative branches, it does not suspend the Constitution. See here for details.
Certainly the government has, and continues to, ignore the Constitution. But that has fsck all to do with some declaration by Roosevelt, it's just politics and government as usual.
Re:Paraphrasing the End of the Article
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Do you really think if the US military had technology like this, they wouldn't be using it, say in Iraq, right now??
To do what, exactly? We own the skies over Iraq. We can pretty much own the skies over any place in the world we choose except for the nuclear powers. But air power does little against an insurgency or in a civil war.
as a greater intellect would likely make an creature more competitive and successful
The most competitive and successful beings on Earth are bacteria and insects. "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value,", as some wag once put it.
Re:Aliens, ghosts, and gods never leave evidence .
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it's also doubly funy because a great mathmatician,and philosopher PASCAL demonstrated a proof positive in the benefit for believing in god.
Um, no, he didn't. Pascal's Wager is one of the most glaring examples of sophistry in history. It supposes that belief is a matter of choice; it assumes the belief comes without cost; and it makes unfounded assumptions about the nature of god(s).
Pascal knew his math, but his opinions on theology belong in the same bin with Newton's on alchemy: proof that even very smart people can be infected with very stupid ideas.
The distinction you're drawing is as silly and absurd as that old saw about the tree that falls with nobody around. When you are "in a public place," other people have a right to "look at what you're doing."
Well, first, there's nothing silly or absurd about the question of the nature of "objective" reality versus the nature of observable reality, it's a problem that vexes Zen masters and quantum physicists alike.
But that's beside the point. When you are in a place, public or private, other people who are there have a right to look at what you're doing. It is an exchange, an equality: you seem them and they see you.
That does not in any way inform the question of whether people who are not there should have any right to look at what you're doing. That is not an exchange, it is a taking; it is not an equal relationship, it is lord and serf, jailor and prisoner.
Law enforcement cameras are entitled to be anywhere an officer of the law is entitled to be.
If we want a society that respects and promotes liberty, law enforcement cameras are entitled to be only where officers of the law are present - wearables and copcar-cams are fine, provided that civilians can also wear or dashboard-mount cameras. That would be an equal relationship. (See Steve Mann's thoughts on wearable webcams, interesting precursor to contempory camera phones.)
But your approach to surveillance cameras in every space that's not privately owned turns every public place into a panopticon jail, sacrificing liberty for little if any reduction in crime. (Besides depriving people of their liberty, prisons are actually not very safe places, tending to harden both inmates and guards.)
There has never, ever, ever been a right to privacy in public.
You're confusing "being in public" with "being in a public place". Being in public means being in the company of, or at least the view of, other people - not merely being in a place to which the public has access.
Eavesdropping laws go back to antiquity; they are a recognition of the right to privacy. AFAIK, they did not make a distinction about who owned the space - eavesdropping on someone else's property would already be covered under trespass anyway.
No one has an expectation of privacy in a public place. By definition, public is never private.
You're confusing "public place" with "public action". A public place is a place the public has access to; a public action is an action done in the presense of the public. If the public isn't around, it's not a public action, regardless of the legal ownership of the place; likewise, if people are around and can see the site, it's a public action, regardless of the ownership of the place.
When the Pope stands on his balcony to address a throng of Catholics, it's a public appearance, even if he's standing on Vatican property; when I steal a kiss in a secluded area of the park, it's a private moment, regardless of who owns the land.
A camera, however, if monitored live, can dispatch an actual law enforcement officer to assist you if you are being victimized. At the same time, it records evidence that can be used to convict the offender.
Great, somebody can call 911 for me. Do you know how long it takes the cops to get there, versus how long it takes to get beaten, raped, or killed?
The cops will get there in time to take a statement or draw a line around the body, not in time to stop a crime. You need actual patrol officers to make that a possibility - patrol officers who could be hired and trained with money now spend on cameras. I'd rather spend that money on replacing bad cops, and giving the good ones huge raises, than on a tool that does little to promote safety but has a tremendous potential for abuse.
It boils down to this: you have no right to privacy in a public place. None.
Throughout all of human history, you had a right to privacy whenever no one else was around, whether in a "public" or in a "private" place. It's a shame you're so willing an eager to give that up in return for an illusion of safety.
The thing you keep missing is that no one has an expectation of privacy in a public place.
Of course you have an expectation of privacy in a public place, if no one is around. Expectation of privacy is based on the presence or absense of other human beings, not vague distinctions been a "public" or a "private" space. I expect that I can kiss my lover with extra passion in the park if no one is around, in a way that I might not do in my own home if my housemate is there.
What about video cameras on the dashboards of police cars? Are they not the same as the camera mounted on poles if both cameras point to the same location?
So who is afraid of a camera connected to a radio transmitter? True it does reduce our privacy slightly. It's one more camera in a world already full of cameras. Given a choice between hidden cameras in my workplace, and cameras mounted on people in my workplace I'd choose the latter. Both are intrusions into my privacy, but the latter is far less intrusive, and far more symmetrical. With the latter, you use the simple rule: when somebody's looking, you're on camera, when nobody's looking you're not on camera. You can still pick your nose when nobody's looking. In the toilet stall or department store changeroom, nobody else is present so you're not on camera. Privacy equals seclusion. Observation needs company.
If we envision a society in which fixed-cameras of all kinds are prohibited, and only wearable cameras are allowed, and assume, further, that wearable cameras are cheap enough that everyone could afford one, such a society may well be more private than the one in which we are currently living. In fact, if we were all wearing cameras we could certainly reduce crime. Crimes would be solved by cooperation among individuals. In a sense we would be witnesses with augmented visual memory, and augmented visual communications skills. These augmentations would eliminate the need for surveillance cameras, and it would not be necessary to have fixed cameras (hidden or not).
Why are you claiming a right not to be observed in public? It doesn't exist.
Why are you equating a human observer on the ground, a person you can talk to and who might be able to help you if you're in trouble, with a camera mounted high in the air, that can zoom in to snoop on you without your knowledge, that can't do anything to help you? They are not the same.
Because they only increase safety until the point where the government begins to abuse it. Then the government presents a threat to your safety.
It is already the case that government agents will kidnap you at gunpoint if you engage in a variety of consensual behaviors that are none of their business. It is already the case that police have been known to spy on, and then kidnap at gunpoint, political activists who oppose current policy. It is already the case that the U.S. has the highest number of people in prison, both in absolute numbers and per capita, than any other nation in the world. It is already the case that in Baltimore, each year tens of thousands of arrests - incidents of kidnapping at gunpoint - are made that don't result in even charges being filed.
In these circumstances, putting more surveillance power - indeed, more power of any type - into the hands of the cops can only be considered a threat to people's safety.
Could someone explain the reasons for *not* having ads on Wikipedia?
Because you cannot consistently claim to have an objective and neutral point of view, while at the same time allowing people to place any content they want on your page in return for money.
I know that my local daily paper or local TV news is not going to be objective about any news involving the department stores and car dealers who buy lots of ad space. I know that my local alt-weekly would not be objective on a story about the phone sex industry, since its back pages are full of ads for the same. I know that NPR or ABC News will not be objective about any story involving agribusiness since it has a strong incentive not to piss off ADM.
In this case Wikipedia has the opportunity to raise very large amounts of money in a manner which need not interfere at all with their current operation
Of course accepting advertising would interfere with their current operation. It immediately opens the door to pressure from advertisers to change the rules in their favor, or worse yet puts pressue on Wikipedia itself to be advertiser-friendly.
Advertising is not just free money; it's money in return for favors. You can't claim to be an objective source of information if you've shown that your favors can be bought.
I see no problem with adverts on Wikipedia so long as its obvious they're advertisments and corporate sponsorship does not affect the content.
And I see no problem with pouring gasoline on myself and lighting a match, just so long as fire doesn't burn flesh.
Unfortunately advertisments and corporate sponsorship by their very nature affect the content of sponsored media, just as fire by its very nature burns flesh.
I work at a job where I'm definitely not making as much money as I could doing it on my own, but the company pays full insurance (medical and dental) for my entire family....Medical security doesn't mean much when you only have yourself to take care of, but it means the world when three other lives depend on you.
It's not sad that medical security means a lot when you have a family to care for; it's sad that due to our pathetic system of health care, medical security usually means being stuck in a job at a large company.
(I was taking with a friend of mine who just finished her Ph.D. and got a teaching job at a college; she says that had she not gotten a job with benefits it would have been cheaper for her to work part time and go back to school and take a class in order to get a student discount on health insurance for her family, than to take a full time job without benefits and pay for insurance out of pocket. That's bizarre, twisted, and sad.)
If you meant to say that capitalism cannot exist without an interventionist government, i think i'd have to disagree with you. Capitalism worked just dandy prior to copyrights in the US, which was one of the first instances of artificial or intellectual property coming into existance.
The U.S. passed the its first Copyright Act in
1790, just two years after the Constitution was ratified. "Intellectual
property" has been a constant in American law. (And I certainly would have
to question any claim that the American economy worked just dandy any time
prior to about 1865; I can't see any economy using slave labor being
described as "dandy".)
But artificial property is hardly limited to "intellectual property". All land and natural resource deeds that are not based on simply occupancy and use are artificial property; every claim on land - and thus every claim of physical property, which is made of things that came from the land - is ultimately based on a government claim. Corporations are certainly artificial property.
If you want to talk about reducing government interference in the
marketplace, start by eliminating all corporate charters (which are issued,
as I'm sure your realize, by governments). Eliminate the reserve banking
system, by which the state allows certain private entities to create money.
Reform the system of land "ownership" based on state action, into one of
land stewardship, based on recognizing the actions of ordinary people on
the land. Eliminate copyrights and patents, or perhaps replace them with a strictly limited right to royalties on for-profit use (certain software patents must go); and reform trademark law back
to its intended use as a consumer protection.
Only then, when we've eliminated the roots of a system that puts control
of economic resources into the hands of few, when we have no more
corporations large enough to thrive not by competing in markets but by
controlling them; no more landlords; no more absentee ownership of capital,
no corporate veil, but a system economic system based and rewarding useful work rather than control of capital; only then should we talk about eliminating the few small
governors we've placed on that system of capitalism.
Until then, I'll be thoroughly in favor of minimum wage and other worker protection laws, that serve to slightly slow down the juggernaught of state action in favor of wealth concentration.
Yeah, right. Capitalism is so fair that Starbucks can frickin' trademark the Italian word for "twenty", but when poor farmers try to trademark the names of their coffee varieties (which is what this dispute is about), they get the shaft.
Just another example of why "libertarian capitalism" or "free market capitalism" are contradictions: capitalism is reliant on a powerful state to create and enforce all sorts of artificial property rights, from trademarks and copyrights to corporate charters to land deeds. And once the state has concentrated weath into the hands of a few, those few can then exercise that wealth to unduly influence the state. What a perfect system of trade.
Starbucks is one of the most socially responsible companies out there. They are pretty much why their is such a thing as "fair trade" coffee.
Starbucks is certainly quite successful at projecting an image of social responsiblity, yes - so much so that uninformed people like you believe that they created the fair trade movement, when actually Fair Trade is a decades old idea and Starbucks use of a tiny amout of Fair Trade coffee is just greenwash.
While Starbucks is certainly not the Pure Concentrated Evil of, say, a Halliburton or a Monsanto, neither are they the angels that their PR department would like you to believe. That they seem to treat their direct employees fairly well, is no indication of what ethics apply (or don't apply) to their deals with suppliers.
And to all the people that say *bucks pushes out the mom and pops: when was the last time they offered carreers or health insurance?
Uh huh. So rather than owning one's own small business, being a successful entrepreneur, the new American dream is to work for a national franchise, so that you can get health insurance. How incredibly fscking sad is that?
I wouldn;'t spend paper money, let alone true money i.e. gold on it.
There's nothing "truer" about gold as money than about colored paper with certain marks on it. Money is a social agreement. Gold won't get you far in a society where cattle are the agreed means of exchange.
I personally get excited about the potential birth of freedom in a formerly murderous dictorship.
Nice fantasy, but I personally get depressed about the reality of the birth of a theocratic murderous dictorship in a formerly secular murderous dictorship, an exchange obtained at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
Problem is, the tree of depostism is also refreshed by blood.
Does that right not to breath radioactive smoke apply to any right to not breath the radioactive gas radon?
We all face a certain amount of background risk. I have no legal or ethical right to not be hit by a falling meteorite; that doesn't mean that I don't have a legal and ethical right to not have stones thrown at me. Legal and ethical rights apply to human actions only - to the questions of "what shall the state do?" and "how shall we, as social individuals, live"? Rights don't apply to questions of physics or chemistry.
I can't argue with the planet to stop releasing radioactive radon gas into my house. I do have the right to stop you from deliberate or negligent actions which would expose me to significant additional radon (or its daughter polonium, recently in the news as an assassination tool, which is what's found in cigarettes).
Re:Smoking bans: reducing freedom, or increasing i
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So are you going to ban cars, too?
We do, in fact, place strict regulations on automobile emissions. Here in Maryland I have to take my car every two years for an emissions inspection.
Your right to pollute the air ends where my respiratory tract begins.
Banning trans-fats in New York, banning smoking in Seattle. This has been the year of banning activities in the name of public health. Talk about violating civil liberties!
Banning restaurants from serving food contaminated with toxic substances is not a threat to anyone's liberty, whether the contamination is arsenic, rat droppings, or trans fats. If for some bizarre reason you want to put trans fats into your body, you can still obtain and consume them; you're just not allowed to serve them as food in a restaurant.
Washington's smoking ban appies to public places and workplaces. You are still quite free to breath toxic radioactive smoke in private, but your right to pollute the air ends where my respiratory tract begins.
There's no violation of civil liberties in either of these cases. Serving synthetic chemicals as food is fraud; poisoning the air in a public place is a direct threat to the rights of others.
You just provide a proof of correctness that can be machine or hand checked. Anyone can check the proof just by checking that the proper axioms and lemmas are used at each step.
Which is just about as reliable as checking the logic of each line of code directly. How do you know there's not a bug in your mechanical proof-checker, or somewhere else in your tool chain? How do you know you haven't made an error in you hand-crafted proof?
Formal methods give you a more precise language to talk about code, sure; in some instances that's very useful. But it does not make the problems of writing good code go away.
Er, afford a one-time pad? All you need to do is cat/dev/random, or if you're without a computer, spend an hour or two rolling polyhedral dice. Make two copies of your set of random numbers.
Slashdot Mirror
I know that's a favorite of conspiracy theorists, but there is no mechanism in the Constitution to declare a "National Emergency" under which it does not apply. The National Emergencies Act is a way for the Congress to temporarily delgate some of its power to the President to allow for quick action; we can argue whether that act is Constitutional or a good idea, but all it does is shift the power balance of the federal government around between the executive and the legistlative branches, it does not suspend the Constitution. See here for details.
Certainly the government has, and continues to, ignore the Constitution. But that has fsck all to do with some declaration by Roosevelt, it's just politics and government as usual.
To do what, exactly? We own the skies over Iraq. We can pretty much own the skies over any place in the world we choose except for the nuclear powers. But air power does little against an insurgency or in a civil war.
The most competitive and successful beings on Earth are bacteria and insects. "It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value,", as some wag once put it.
Um, no, he didn't. Pascal's Wager is one of the most glaring examples of sophistry in history. It supposes that belief is a matter of choice; it assumes the belief comes without cost; and it makes unfounded assumptions about the nature of god(s).
Pascal knew his math, but his opinions on theology belong in the same bin with Newton's on alchemy: proof that even very smart people can be infected with very stupid ideas.
Well, first, there's nothing silly or absurd about the question of the nature of "objective" reality versus the nature of observable reality, it's a problem that vexes Zen masters and quantum physicists alike.
But that's beside the point. When you are in a place, public or private, other people who are there have a right to look at what you're doing. It is an exchange, an equality: you seem them and they see you.
That does not in any way inform the question of whether people who are not there should have any right to look at what you're doing. That is not an exchange, it is a taking; it is not an equal relationship, it is lord and serf, jailor and prisoner.
If we want a society that respects and promotes liberty, law enforcement cameras are entitled to be only where officers of the law are present - wearables and copcar-cams are fine, provided that civilians can also wear or dashboard-mount cameras. That would be an equal relationship. (See Steve Mann's thoughts on wearable webcams, interesting precursor to contempory camera phones.)
But your approach to surveillance cameras in every space that's not privately owned turns every public place into a panopticon jail, sacrificing liberty for little if any reduction in crime. (Besides depriving people of their liberty, prisons are actually not very safe places, tending to harden both inmates and guards.)
You're confusing "being in public" with "being in a public place". Being in public means being in the company of, or at least the view of, other people - not merely being in a place to which the public has access.
Eavesdropping laws go back to antiquity; they are a recognition of the right to privacy. AFAIK, they did not make a distinction about who owned the space - eavesdropping on someone else's property would already be covered under trespass anyway.
You're confusing "public place" with "public action". A public place is a place the public has access to; a public action is an action done in the presense of the public. If the public isn't around, it's not a public action, regardless of the legal ownership of the place; likewise, if people are around and can see the site, it's a public action, regardless of the ownership of the place.
When the Pope stands on his balcony to address a throng of Catholics, it's a public appearance, even if he's standing on Vatican property; when I steal a kiss in a secluded area of the park, it's a private moment, regardless of who owns the land.
Great, somebody can call 911 for me. Do you know how long it takes the cops to get there, versus how long it takes to get beaten, raped, or killed?
The cops will get there in time to take a statement or draw a line around the body, not in time to stop a crime. You need actual patrol officers to make that a possibility - patrol officers who could be hired and trained with money now spend on cameras. I'd rather spend that money on replacing bad cops, and giving the good ones huge raises, than on a tool that does little to promote safety but has a tremendous potential for abuse.
Throughout all of human history, you had a right to privacy whenever no one else was around, whether in a "public" or in a "private" place. It's a shame you're so willing an eager to give that up in return for an illusion of safety.
Of course you have an expectation of privacy in a public place, if no one is around. Expectation of privacy is based on the presence or absense of other human beings, not vague distinctions been a "public" or a "private" space. I expect that I can kiss my lover with extra passion in the park if no one is around, in a way that I might not do in my own home if my housemate is there.
Not at all. The dashboard-cam is there only if the cop is there. I have no problem with cameras (sans telephoto lenses, et cetera) in or at least next to the actual physical hands of cops. Steve Mann pointed out the difference between wearable cameras and surveillance cameras more than a decade ago:
Why are you equating a human observer on the ground, a person you can talk to and who might be able to help you if you're in trouble, with a camera mounted high in the air, that can zoom in to snoop on you without your knowledge, that can't do anything to help you? They are not the same.
Because they only increase safety until the point where the government begins to abuse it. Then the government presents a threat to your safety.
It is already the case that government agents will kidnap you at gunpoint if you engage in a variety of consensual behaviors that are none of their business. It is already the case that police have been known to spy on, and then kidnap at gunpoint, political activists who oppose current policy. It is already the case that the U.S. has the highest number of people in prison, both in absolute numbers and per capita, than any other nation in the world. It is already the case that in Baltimore, each year tens of thousands of arrests - incidents of kidnapping at gunpoint - are made that don't result in even charges being filed.
In these circumstances, putting more surveillance power - indeed, more power of any type - into the hands of the cops can only be considered a threat to people's safety.
Because you cannot consistently claim to have an objective and neutral point of view, while at the same time allowing people to place any content they want on your page in return for money.
I know that my local daily paper or local TV news is not going to be objective about any news involving the department stores and car dealers who buy lots of ad space. I know that my local alt-weekly would not be objective on a story about the phone sex industry, since its back pages are full of ads for the same. I know that NPR or ABC News will not be objective about any story involving agribusiness since it has a strong incentive not to piss off ADM.
Of course accepting advertising would interfere with their current operation. It immediately opens the door to pressure from advertisers to change the rules in their favor, or worse yet puts pressue on Wikipedia itself to be advertiser-friendly.
Advertising is not just free money; it's money in return for favors. You can't claim to be an objective source of information if you've shown that your favors can be bought.
And I see no problem with pouring gasoline on myself and lighting a match, just so long as fire doesn't burn flesh.
Unfortunately advertisments and corporate sponsorship by their very nature affect the content of sponsored media, just as fire by its very nature burns flesh.
It's not sad that medical security means a lot when you have a family to care for; it's sad that due to our pathetic system of health care, medical security usually means being stuck in a job at a large company.
(I was taking with a friend of mine who just finished her Ph.D. and got a teaching job at a college; she says that had she not gotten a job with benefits it would have been cheaper for her to work part time and go back to school and take a class in order to get a student discount on health insurance for her family, than to take a full time job without benefits and pay for insurance out of pocket. That's bizarre, twisted, and sad.)
The U.S. passed the its first Copyright Act in 1790, just two years after the Constitution was ratified. "Intellectual property" has been a constant in American law. (And I certainly would have to question any claim that the American economy worked just dandy any time prior to about 1865; I can't see any economy using slave labor being described as "dandy".)
But artificial property is hardly limited to "intellectual property". All land and natural resource deeds that are not based on simply occupancy and use are artificial property; every claim on land - and thus every claim of physical property, which is made of things that came from the land - is ultimately based on a government claim. Corporations are certainly artificial property.
If you want to talk about reducing government interference in the marketplace, start by eliminating all corporate charters (which are issued, as I'm sure your realize, by governments). Eliminate the reserve banking system, by which the state allows certain private entities to create money. Reform the system of land "ownership" based on state action, into one of land stewardship, based on recognizing the actions of ordinary people on the land. Eliminate copyrights and patents, or perhaps replace them with a strictly limited right to royalties on for-profit use (certain software patents must go); and reform trademark law back to its intended use as a consumer protection.
Only then, when we've eliminated the roots of a system that puts control of economic resources into the hands of few, when we have no more corporations large enough to thrive not by competing in markets but by controlling them; no more landlords; no more absentee ownership of capital, no corporate veil, but a system economic system based and rewarding useful work rather than control of capital; only then should we talk about eliminating the few small governors we've placed on that system of capitalism. Until then, I'll be thoroughly in favor of minimum wage and other worker protection laws, that serve to slightly slow down the juggernaught of state action in favor of wealth concentration.
Yeah, right. Capitalism is so fair that Starbucks can frickin' trademark the Italian word for "twenty", but when poor farmers try to trademark the names of their coffee varieties (which is what this dispute is about), they get the shaft.
Just another example of why "libertarian capitalism" or "free market capitalism" are contradictions: capitalism is reliant on a powerful state to create and enforce all sorts of artificial property rights, from trademarks and copyrights to corporate charters to land deeds. And once the state has concentrated weath into the hands of a few, those few can then exercise that wealth to unduly influence the state. What a perfect system of trade.
Starbucks is certainly quite successful at projecting an image of social responsiblity, yes - so much so that uninformed people like you believe that they created the fair trade movement, when actually Fair Trade is a decades old idea and Starbucks use of a tiny amout of Fair Trade coffee is just greenwash.
While Starbucks is certainly not the Pure Concentrated Evil of, say, a Halliburton or a Monsanto, neither are they the angels that their PR department would like you to believe. That they seem to treat their direct employees fairly well, is no indication of what ethics apply (or don't apply) to their deals with suppliers.
Uh huh. So rather than owning one's own small business, being a successful entrepreneur, the new American dream is to work for a national franchise, so that you can get health insurance. How incredibly fscking sad is that?
There's nothing "truer" about gold as money than about colored paper with certain marks on it. Money is a social agreement. Gold won't get you far in a society where cattle are the agreed means of exchange.
Nice fantasy, but I personally get depressed about the reality of the birth of a theocratic murderous dictorship in a formerly secular murderous dictorship, an exchange obtained at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.
Problem is, the tree of depostism is also refreshed by blood.
We all face a certain amount of background risk. I have no legal or ethical right to not be hit by a falling meteorite; that doesn't mean that I don't have a legal and ethical right to not have stones thrown at me. Legal and ethical rights apply to human actions only - to the questions of "what shall the state do?" and "how shall we, as social individuals, live"? Rights don't apply to questions of physics or chemistry.
I can't argue with the planet to stop releasing radioactive radon gas into my house. I do have the right to stop you from deliberate or negligent actions which would expose me to significant additional radon (or its daughter polonium, recently in the news as an assassination tool, which is what's found in cigarettes).
We do, in fact, place strict regulations on automobile emissions. Here in Maryland I have to take my car every two years for an emissions inspection.
Your right to pollute the air ends where my respiratory tract begins.
Banning restaurants from serving food contaminated with toxic substances is not a threat to anyone's liberty, whether the contamination is arsenic, rat droppings, or trans fats. If for some bizarre reason you want to put trans fats into your body, you can still obtain and consume them; you're just not allowed to serve them as food in a restaurant.
Washington's smoking ban appies to public places and workplaces. You are still quite free to breath toxic radioactive smoke in private, but your right to pollute the air ends where my respiratory tract begins.
There's no violation of civil liberties in either of these cases. Serving synthetic chemicals as food is fraud; poisoning the air in a public place is a direct threat to the rights of others.
Which is just about as reliable as checking the logic of each line of code directly. How do you know there's not a bug in your mechanical proof-checker, or somewhere else in your tool chain? How do you know you haven't made an error in you hand-crafted proof?
Formal methods give you a more precise language to talk about code, sure; in some instances that's very useful. But it does not make the problems of writing good code go away.
Er, afford a one-time pad? All you need to do is cat /dev/random, or if you're without a computer, spend an hour or two rolling polyhedral dice. Make two copies of your set of random numbers.