Not if the exchange is a one time event. However, suppose that the business allows customers to run a tab with a contract stating that the tab must be paid at a future date in gold coin, not dollars. If the business takes the customer to court for non payment of the debt, the court will uphold that contract. This is a big part of the reason why it's so difficult to get any kind of alternative currency, such as Bitcoin, into the mainstream. Without legal backing most people will not rely upon it except for niche transactions which are already illegal and where the benefits of anonymity and lack of a centralized controlling authority outweigh the downsides for those involved.
It need not accept it, but neither can it refuse to accept payment in legal tender notes when offered in service of a debt. For example, here in the United States it's specifically written into law and courts have upheld that a contract which specifies payment in gold cannot be enforced. The courts will refuse to order the debtor to pay in gold instead of in the legal tender currency and if the creditor refuses to accept legal tender then the courts can and have simply extinguished the debt as if it had been paid. Laws like this are all part of the government's scheme to prevent people from using alternative currencies or at least make using them less convenient and more risky due to legally unenforceable transactions.
Let P be the probability that either Apple or Samsung "wins" the patent war. In this case "winning" would be any market outcome that, due to the litigation, is substantially better than what would otherwise have been achieved through more conventional means such as advertising, features and price competition. The probability of losing then is 1 - P. Let cost of litigation be C and amount of winnings be W. Now, what will be the expected "winnings" for a party involved in the patent war? It would be as follows:
Expected Winnings = P * W - C * (1 - P)
As long as the expected winnings of continuing the litigation remain positive compared to the alternatives of either settlement or reversion to straight competition, the parties are likely to continue until, one way or another, the courts force them to stop. The smartphone and tablet markets are absolutely enormous in size worldwide. They are a very significant "prize" to any company which can capture and retain a commanding share. Given that companies like Samsung and Apple maintain lawyers and law firms on salary and retainer (a sunk cost) and the potentially enormous benefits of winning, even a small chance of winning is likely to make continuing the fight worthwhile for both sides.
To make a long answer short: The stakes are too high and the costs to low, relatively speaking, for either Apple or Samsung to fold before the river card is dealt and the final betting begins. Obviously, both companies believe that they have a strong hand.
So let me get this straight - you actually think that people will vote for Mitt Romney?
The temptation for many people will be to throw Obama out as long as Romney maintains a good family man image and doesn't do or say anything too crazy. The problem for the Obama campaign is that Romney actually does meet that standard. He's a successful business man and all around American dad with an attractive wife and a clean-cut family. He will appeal to middle of the road "family values" voters who are tired of the recession and Obama's east cost ivy league "elitist" attitude and quasi-socialist policies and rhetoric. They will want to give Obama the old heave-ho in November and all Romney has to do in the meantime is to stoke the fires of their discontent. Are they better off now than they were four years ago? For many of them the answer to that question is a resounding, "No", so come November they'll take that anger with them into the voting both. No need for expert political analysis and pollsters here; a blind man could foresee all of this.
Obama has no control or input what so ever on the price of gas. However, most people will not forget the blathering, frothing at the mouth, idiots that the republicans became when prices were going up trying to blame it on Obama.
I believe that it was Harry Truman, a Democratic president, who said, "The buck stops here." Like it or not, the sitting president always gets the blame in the minds of the voters. This is especially true with gas prices, inflation and unemployment. No president since Jimmy Carter has faced an election with such a high Misery Index as Obama is facing now and we all know how that one ended. Reagan asked the voters if they were better off after 4 years of Carter than they were before he was elected. Unless an economic miracle arrives sometime between now and November (unlikely), Obama will be joining the ranks of the unemployed. It certainly would be a fitting punishment for his failure to fix things. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Maybe we should blame Bush in November because hey It could have been worse, right? Put that in your bong and smoke it.
Young black men are unemployed largely because the only jobs they can get don't pay enough to make it worth working.
In other words, they've got an attitude problem. Contrast that with the Mexicans or Asians who work hard, don't complain and accept the wage offered. In a few generations their children and grandchildren are joining the ranks of the working professionals and the upper middle class. Meanwhile there are still many blacks who sit on their hands and complain that the deck is stacked against them and that low paying jobs "aren't worth it". Give me a break.
Maybe it will fail. That's what's great about the free market, it prevents businesses which are inefficient or not economically viable from continuing to operate. Compare this to government which wastes tax dollars year after year on stupid, wasteful and inefficient programs. It's much more difficult to get rid of bad governments and that's a big part of the problem with government trying to do too much and be all things to all people; it doesn't work. Market forces are like natural forces, we ignore them at our collective peril.
If you're a small business and you cannot find the labor that you need, you either do it yourself or do without. I'm not going to hire just any warm body and pay them the "living wage" regardless of whether or not they're capable of doing the job I need done. Running a business is not the same as running a charity; there's a difference.
Living wages leave them unemployed unless they happen to be worth those wages.
Precisely. What the living wage people either forget or ignore is that the alternative to a "living wage" job is not a lower paid one, but no job at all. So the real effect of a "living wage" law is to ensure that anyone whose labor cannot justify a wage that's at least as high as the "living wage" shall remain unemployed. To hire someone who's labor cannot justify the "living wage" is to engage in charity and many small business owners cannot afford to be that generous.
Iran might have a reason conduct a major disruptive campaign against our vital infrastructure.
You give the Iranians too much credit. The Iranian armed forces are a joke compared to those of the United States so I doubt that Iran will make the first move towards open warfare. They may be half crazy, but even the mullahs aren't that stupid. Donald Trump was right about one thing. If we do end up in another war in the middle east we should punish the defeated opponent by helping ourselves to their oil reserves and thereafter taking a permanent tribute monthly cut of their oil production as tribute. This would do much to encourage compliance and discourage defiance amongst the remaining oil producing nations in that region. In other words, if Iran attacks we shouldn't fail to make an example of them for all to see; vae victis.
Unless they figure a good way to validate that someone is making a serious choice
Who gets to decide what is and is not a serious choice? If a choice is not serious then why is it on the ballot? Surely you can see why such a requirement is problematic at best.
the electorate at large can't really make educated decisions about policy.
Even if they can, their vote for or against particular candidates is often only the crudest proxy for what policies are ultimately enacted. I don't consider myself to be a single issue voter, but I have tremendous difficulty every election because the candidates invariably propose policies which I consider to be either entirely or mostly foolish and ill-advised. So for me, it's mostly a question of the lesser of two evils rather than what I would actually like to see implemented as policy. As for running for office, forget about it. The politics here in the United States have become so rancorous that many qualified citizens simply cannot justify putting themselves or their families through that meat grinder. Indeed, it's getting to the point now where a substantial majority of Americans have lost faith in the system itself and that cannot be good for the long term prospects of the United States as a nation.
This could be the basis of an enforced voting question to ensure the voter at least bothered to skim an hours TV
The problem with that here in the United States, and particularly in the South, is that use of questions to test the "competence" of potential voters has a history of being used to disenfranchise certain groups, namely the blacks. So even the mere suggestion of a test as prerequisite for exercising one's voting rights is highly divisive and controversial. In fact, even asking voters to show some form of official photo ID is proving to be a contentious issue in the Presidential elections coming up this fall.
I especially liked the characterization of Elim Garek; a real spy's spy with superior cunning and a touch of ruthlessness that enabled him to do and say things which the Federation crew needed to do, but couldn't be seen doing. And yet despite all of this he still managed to cultivate a sinister sort of charm to offset his sharp wit and shrewd observational abilities. His friendship with the intelligent but naïve doctor, Julian Bashir, made for some wonderfully humorous exchanges playing Garek's bitter experiences and well developed cynicism off of Julian's lack of experience in politics, romantic relationships and other worldly affairs.
You forgot to mention the automatic restraint which prevents you from getting up and going to the bathroom or into the kitchen to get a snack while the ads are being shown.
This wouldn't happen in a private school; Neither the parents of the other children nor the school would allow it. Given all of the horror stories, you'd have to be crazy to send your children to public schools these days. Is it any wonder then that most parents, the ones who care anyway, will do just about anything to ensure that their kids don't end up in one of our failing public schools?
Did you read the part where I said that the US might have played a better hand at times? Of course there were mistakes. Of course there were failures. There always are and always will be. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect solutions. The Japanese even have a saying for such things, Shikata ga nai (It cannot be helped). I don't let it bother me.
Because it makes them more profitable in the short run.
Of course it does. The corporations wouldn't do it if that weren't true. However, that profit opportunity exists ONLY because of government interference in the market. In a market free of government interference the corporations would be forced to spend their capital on productive uses, like R&D or improving the efficiency of their business, instead of unproductive ones like lobbying their governments to pass laws which benefit them unfairly and hobble their competitors. The government interference distorts the natural market outcome which would have otherwise occurred, had the government not interfered.
You are fighting last century's war. The only way to get "limited and decentralized government" is to limit the scope and power of corporations.
No. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Who has the guns? Who prints the money? Who can kill and destroy at will and with impunity? It's not the corporations, but the government which has these powers. The corporations merely manipulate the government into doing their dirty work, but without the concentrated might of governments, the corporations would not be nearly as powerful. Failure to recognize the source of your problem will always blind you to the real solution.
There has never been a political milieu in which corporations had more power than they do today. Not the "Gilded Age" and not by a mile.
Notice that when government was smaller and less powerful the corporations were similarly limited and less powerful. You make my point perfectly. As government has grown in size, scope and power so have the corporations grown in lock step. Do you not see the connection?
Big Government is not a creature of one political ideology or another, it is a creature of corporate power.
The corporations and those who control them, recognizing that government backing in the form of monopoly and other privileges was more advantageous than trying to compete fairly, cultivated and encouraged the growth of government power and influence in order to secure and fortify their entrenched positions and vested interests. Corporations, like people, are lazy. They much prefer rent seeking, monopoly and subsidy to the discipline of the free marketplace.
Did you just fall of the turnip truck since 2008? Where have you been since 1980? Government grew faster under the Right
Lies, damn lies and statistics. Cherry pick all you like, but it proves nothing.
but the only difference was that it grew in order to benefit a very very few.
Powerful and centralized government invariably destroys individual freedoms. For example, the Soviet Union had the "nomenkaltura" of party bosses and other elites. Even in an "equal" society, some are more equal than others it seems.
If you want small government, it's corporate power that belongs in your crosshairs.
Again, you confuse the symptom with the illness.
There really is not any "free market" solution.
Wrong. False. The free market is what exists in the absence of government interference. It's almost never allowed to actually operate because most people, for one reason or another, don't like it but it's the only real way to achieve even a modicum of fairness in this world. The path of ever greater government leads only to an equal share of misery.
The theater operator pays the studios for the privilege of showing the film and coughing up 99% of the ticket revenue back to the studios. That leaves concessions as the only real profit center for the theater operator. This explains why some larger theater chains are now building restaurants into their enormous 30+ theater destination multiplexes, complete with full bar, so as to capture more of the money that people would have spent eating out before the film.
Start at the top of the Fortune 500 and work your way down. Rent seeking with exceptions you can count on one hand.
And who made that possible? Why would corporations choose to spend resources on corruption and accumulating undue influence? Do you not see that it's the pervasive power of governments to grant and enforce these monopoly powers and privileges which creates and perpetuates the problem? The only answer that works is to avoid centralization and concentration of power in the first place, which means limited government. Ironically, it's the Left that encourages the sort of large, powerful and centralized governments that make all of this possible while at the same time mocking those who offer up the cure: limited and decentralized government.
make sure you and your communication appear dull enough that your government can't be bothered to look at it.
This is good advice. As any CIA trainee will tell you, attempting to ditch surveillance is the surest way to ensure that it remains stuck on you like crazyglue. Even if you succeed in ditching them temporarily you will find that there are more of them next time and that the surveillance has been intensified. The bottom line is don't make yourself an interesting target. The best response, once you realize that you're under surveillance, is to behave in as normal and boring a fashion as possible. Your goal is to convince whomever is following you that you're no different than any other ordinary person and that they're wasting their time by following you. Only after your certain that they've given up should you even attempt to do whatever it was that you were doing before they began the surveillance.
With the proper encryption software on the endpoints, and properly encrypted storage, why does the server location even matter?
Certain foreign governments, namely the United Arab Emirates but also India, are in the habit of demanding access to servers located within their borders so that they can monitor the cleartext of all encrypted communications which pass through. Of course, all countries make some attempt to monitor communications transiting their borders, it's called SIGINT, but clearly some of them are more aggressive and more public about their monitoring or requests to cough up the keys than others. For example, both India and the UAE have demanded that RIM allow access to private encrypted communications made from blackberry devices or face expulsion.
Slashdot Mirror
Not if the exchange is a one time event. However, suppose that the business allows customers to run a tab with a contract stating that the tab must be paid at a future date in gold coin, not dollars. If the business takes the customer to court for non payment of the debt, the court will uphold that contract. This is a big part of the reason why it's so difficult to get any kind of alternative currency, such as Bitcoin, into the mainstream. Without legal backing most people will not rely upon it except for niche transactions which are already illegal and where the benefits of anonymity and lack of a centralized controlling authority outweigh the downsides for those involved.
It need not accept it, but neither can it refuse to accept payment in legal tender notes when offered in service of a debt. For example, here in the United States it's specifically written into law and courts have upheld that a contract which specifies payment in gold cannot be enforced. The courts will refuse to order the debtor to pay in gold instead of in the legal tender currency and if the creditor refuses to accept legal tender then the courts can and have simply extinguished the debt as if it had been paid. Laws like this are all part of the government's scheme to prevent people from using alternative currencies or at least make using them less convenient and more risky due to legally unenforceable transactions.
Let P be the probability that either Apple or Samsung "wins" the patent war. In this case "winning" would be any market outcome that, due to the litigation, is substantially better than what would otherwise have been achieved through more conventional means such as advertising, features and price competition. The probability of losing then is 1 - P. Let cost of litigation be C and amount of winnings be W. Now, what will be the expected "winnings" for a party involved in the patent war? It would be as follows:
Expected Winnings = P * W - C * (1 - P)
As long as the expected winnings of continuing the litigation remain positive compared to the alternatives of either settlement or reversion to straight competition, the parties are likely to continue until, one way or another, the courts force them to stop. The smartphone and tablet markets are absolutely enormous in size worldwide. They are a very significant "prize" to any company which can capture and retain a commanding share. Given that companies like Samsung and Apple maintain lawyers and law firms on salary and retainer (a sunk cost) and the potentially enormous benefits of winning, even a small chance of winning is likely to make continuing the fight worthwhile for both sides.
To make a long answer short: The stakes are too high and the costs to low, relatively speaking, for either Apple or Samsung to fold before the river card is dealt and the final betting begins. Obviously, both companies believe that they have a strong hand.
So let me get this straight - you actually think that people will vote for Mitt Romney?
The temptation for many people will be to throw Obama out as long as Romney maintains a good family man image and doesn't do or say anything too crazy. The problem for the Obama campaign is that Romney actually does meet that standard. He's a successful business man and all around American dad with an attractive wife and a clean-cut family. He will appeal to middle of the road "family values" voters who are tired of the recession and Obama's east cost ivy league "elitist" attitude and quasi-socialist policies and rhetoric. They will want to give Obama the old heave-ho in November and all Romney has to do in the meantime is to stoke the fires of their discontent. Are they better off now than they were four years ago? For many of them the answer to that question is a resounding, "No", so come November they'll take that anger with them into the voting both. No need for expert political analysis and pollsters here; a blind man could foresee all of this.
Obama has no control or input what so ever on the price of gas. However, most people will not forget the blathering, frothing at the mouth, idiots that the republicans became when prices were going up trying to blame it on Obama.
I believe that it was Harry Truman, a Democratic president, who said, "The buck stops here." Like it or not, the sitting president always gets the blame in the minds of the voters. This is especially true with gas prices, inflation and unemployment. No president since Jimmy Carter has faced an election with such a high Misery Index as Obama is facing now and we all know how that one ended. Reagan asked the voters if they were better off after 4 years of Carter than they were before he was elected. Unless an economic miracle arrives sometime between now and November (unlikely), Obama will be joining the ranks of the unemployed. It certainly would be a fitting punishment for his failure to fix things. Are you better off than you were four years ago? Maybe we should blame Bush in November because hey It could have been worse, right? Put that in your bong and smoke it.
it never pays enough to save the minimum amount needed to move away without risk.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Young black men are unemployed largely because the only jobs they can get don't pay enough to make it worth working.
In other words, they've got an attitude problem. Contrast that with the Mexicans or Asians who work hard, don't complain and accept the wage offered. In a few generations their children and grandchildren are joining the ranks of the working professionals and the upper middle class. Meanwhile there are still many blacks who sit on their hands and complain that the deck is stacked against them and that low paying jobs "aren't worth it". Give me a break.
Maybe it will fail. That's what's great about the free market, it prevents businesses which are inefficient or not economically viable from continuing to operate. Compare this to government which wastes tax dollars year after year on stupid, wasteful and inefficient programs. It's much more difficult to get rid of bad governments and that's a big part of the problem with government trying to do too much and be all things to all people; it doesn't work. Market forces are like natural forces, we ignore them at our collective peril.
If you're a small business and you cannot find the labor that you need, you either do it yourself or do without. I'm not going to hire just any warm body and pay them the "living wage" regardless of whether or not they're capable of doing the job I need done. Running a business is not the same as running a charity; there's a difference.
Living wages leave them unemployed unless they happen to be worth those wages.
Precisely. What the living wage people either forget or ignore is that the alternative to a "living wage" job is not a lower paid one, but no job at all. So the real effect of a "living wage" law is to ensure that anyone whose labor cannot justify a wage that's at least as high as the "living wage" shall remain unemployed. To hire someone who's labor cannot justify the "living wage" is to engage in charity and many small business owners cannot afford to be that generous.
Iran might have a reason conduct a major disruptive campaign against our vital infrastructure.
You give the Iranians too much credit. The Iranian armed forces are a joke compared to those of the United States so I doubt that Iran will make the first move towards open warfare. They may be half crazy, but even the mullahs aren't that stupid. Donald Trump was right about one thing. If we do end up in another war in the middle east we should punish the defeated opponent by helping ourselves to their oil reserves and thereafter taking a permanent tribute monthly cut of their oil production as tribute. This would do much to encourage compliance and discourage defiance amongst the remaining oil producing nations in that region. In other words, if Iran attacks we shouldn't fail to make an example of them for all to see; vae victis .
Unless they figure a good way to validate that someone is making a serious choice
Who gets to decide what is and is not a serious choice? If a choice is not serious then why is it on the ballot? Surely you can see why such a requirement is problematic at best.
the electorate at large can't really make educated decisions about policy.
Even if they can, their vote for or against particular candidates is often only the crudest proxy for what policies are ultimately enacted. I don't consider myself to be a single issue voter, but I have tremendous difficulty every election because the candidates invariably propose policies which I consider to be either entirely or mostly foolish and ill-advised. So for me, it's mostly a question of the lesser of two evils rather than what I would actually like to see implemented as policy. As for running for office, forget about it. The politics here in the United States have become so rancorous that many qualified citizens simply cannot justify putting themselves or their families through that meat grinder. Indeed, it's getting to the point now where a substantial majority of Americans have lost faith in the system itself and that cannot be good for the long term prospects of the United States as a nation.
This could be the basis of an enforced voting question to ensure the voter at least bothered to skim an hours TV
The problem with that here in the United States, and particularly in the South, is that use of questions to test the "competence" of potential voters has a history of being used to disenfranchise certain groups, namely the blacks. So even the mere suggestion of a test as prerequisite for exercising one's voting rights is highly divisive and controversial. In fact, even asking voters to show some form of official photo ID is proving to be a contentious issue in the Presidential elections coming up this fall.
I especially liked the characterization of Elim Garek; a real spy's spy with superior cunning and a touch of ruthlessness that enabled him to do and say things which the Federation crew needed to do, but couldn't be seen doing. And yet despite all of this he still managed to cultivate a sinister sort of charm to offset his sharp wit and shrewd observational abilities. His friendship with the intelligent but naïve doctor, Julian Bashir, made for some wonderfully humorous exchanges playing Garek's bitter experiences and well developed cynicism off of Julian's lack of experience in politics, romantic relationships and other worldly affairs.
You forgot to mention the automatic restraint which prevents you from getting up and going to the bathroom or into the kitchen to get a snack while the ads are being shown.
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa is a friend of Venezuela and Cuba--and NO FRIEND of the U.S.
And yet doesn't Ecuador use the US Dollar as it's official currency?
This wouldn't happen in a private school; Neither the parents of the other children nor the school would allow it. Given all of the horror stories, you'd have to be crazy to send your children to public schools these days. Is it any wonder then that most parents, the ones who care anyway, will do just about anything to ensure that their kids don't end up in one of our failing public schools?
Did you read the part where I said that the US might have played a better hand at times? Of course there were mistakes. Of course there were failures. There always are and always will be. We live in an imperfect world with imperfect solutions. The Japanese even have a saying for such things, Shikata ga nai (It cannot be helped). I don't let it bother me.
Because it makes them more profitable in the short run.
Of course it does. The corporations wouldn't do it if that weren't true. However, that profit opportunity exists ONLY because of government interference in the market. In a market free of government interference the corporations would be forced to spend their capital on productive uses, like R&D or improving the efficiency of their business, instead of unproductive ones like lobbying their governments to pass laws which benefit them unfairly and hobble their competitors. The government interference distorts the natural market outcome which would have otherwise occurred, had the government not interfered.
You are fighting last century's war. The only way to get "limited and decentralized government" is to limit the scope and power of corporations.
No. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Who has the guns? Who prints the money? Who can kill and destroy at will and with impunity? It's not the corporations, but the government which has these powers. The corporations merely manipulate the government into doing their dirty work, but without the concentrated might of governments, the corporations would not be nearly as powerful. Failure to recognize the source of your problem will always blind you to the real solution.
There has never been a political milieu in which corporations had more power than they do today. Not the "Gilded Age" and not by a mile.
Notice that when government was smaller and less powerful the corporations were similarly limited and less powerful. You make my point perfectly. As government has grown in size, scope and power so have the corporations grown in lock step. Do you not see the connection?
Big Government is not a creature of one political ideology or another, it is a creature of corporate power.
The corporations and those who control them, recognizing that government backing in the form of monopoly and other privileges was more advantageous than trying to compete fairly, cultivated and encouraged the growth of government power and influence in order to secure and fortify their entrenched positions and vested interests. Corporations, like people, are lazy. They much prefer rent seeking, monopoly and subsidy to the discipline of the free marketplace.
Did you just fall of the turnip truck since 2008? Where have you been since 1980? Government grew faster under the Right
Lies, damn lies and statistics. Cherry pick all you like, but it proves nothing.
but the only difference was that it grew in order to benefit a very very few.
Powerful and centralized government invariably destroys individual freedoms. For example, the Soviet Union had the "nomenkaltura" of party bosses and other elites. Even in an "equal" society, some are more equal than others it seems.
If you want small government, it's corporate power that belongs in your crosshairs.
Again, you confuse the symptom with the illness.
There really is not any "free market" solution.
Wrong. False. The free market is what exists in the absence of government interference. It's almost never allowed to actually operate because most people, for one reason or another, don't like it but it's the only real way to achieve even a modicum of fairness in this world. The path of ever greater government leads only to an equal share of misery.
The theater operator pays the studios for the privilege of showing the film and coughing up 99% of the ticket revenue back to the studios. That leaves concessions as the only real profit center for the theater operator. This explains why some larger theater chains are now building restaurants into their enormous 30+ theater destination multiplexes, complete with full bar, so as to capture more of the money that people would have spent eating out before the film.
Start at the top of the Fortune 500 and work your way down. Rent seeking with exceptions you can count on one hand.
And who made that possible? Why would corporations choose to spend resources on corruption and accumulating undue influence? Do you not see that it's the pervasive power of governments to grant and enforce these monopoly powers and privileges which creates and perpetuates the problem? The only answer that works is to avoid centralization and concentration of power in the first place, which means limited government. Ironically, it's the Left that encourages the sort of large, powerful and centralized governments that make all of this possible while at the same time mocking those who offer up the cure: limited and decentralized government.
all your encryption is worthless, they will just park outside your lawn and point a device towards your keyboard.
They have to find you first. That's what TOR and unsecured public WiFi is for.
make sure you and your communication appear dull enough that your government can't be bothered to look at it.
This is good advice. As any CIA trainee will tell you, attempting to ditch surveillance is the surest way to ensure that it remains stuck on you like crazyglue. Even if you succeed in ditching them temporarily you will find that there are more of them next time and that the surveillance has been intensified. The bottom line is don't make yourself an interesting target. The best response, once you realize that you're under surveillance, is to behave in as normal and boring a fashion as possible. Your goal is to convince whomever is following you that you're no different than any other ordinary person and that they're wasting their time by following you. Only after your certain that they've given up should you even attempt to do whatever it was that you were doing before they began the surveillance.
With the proper encryption software on the endpoints, and properly encrypted storage, why does the server location even matter?
Certain foreign governments, namely the United Arab Emirates but also India, are in the habit of demanding access to servers located within their borders so that they can monitor the cleartext of all encrypted communications which pass through. Of course, all countries make some attempt to monitor communications transiting their borders, it's called SIGINT, but clearly some of them are more aggressive and more public about their monitoring or requests to cough up the keys than others. For example, both India and the UAE have demanded that RIM allow access to private encrypted communications made from blackberry devices or face expulsion.