Gee, now I feel better. The two political parties that exist in the USA should be sued under the RICO laws. They've entagled themselves into the framework of government and excluded any chance for a third party by making rules that only they can meet. We're not even a democratic republic anymore, we're now two party communism.
We need a new ammendment, something along the lines of...
Congress shall provide no funds respecting a political party, or pay for the free exercise thereof
Let the bastards pay for themselves. The FEC shouldn't be handing out checks to the 2 parties candidates, they should be checking that elections aren't rigged and that people have access to the polls.
There is a huge number of clever ways to attack America and kill people. You've just found 1 and really it's not that brilliant. 9/11 was ingenius in that it attacked our military, our citizens, our airline industry, landmark structures, first responders, our economy and our naive sense of security.
I can think of lots of ways to attack America, and while some may be ingenius, none of them are great ideas.
These guys hold a ton of WiMax patents. The summary said wifi, which may or may not include WiMax. I'm more interested in WiMax. If I knew for certain that they would never get any money, I'd be willing to wait until the patents expire.
But you obviously didn't build your own OS and your own game.
What a bunch of cry babies. A lot of us linux types would love to have games with unskippable ads and cut scenes. I'd pirate a 10 year old Wing Commander port if I thought it might actually run in X windows.
"We only took the road down extended prison stays, more draconian sentencing laws, and larger prison populations as a result of the violence after the Kennedy Immigration act, and after several severe riots."
It was rehabilitation that done it. The 'good' people wanted to reform criminals instead of punishing them. So they made the prison stays longer and the conditions easier. However, they could never find a way that didn't involve punishment or taking lsd that actually led to a rehabilitated criminal.
If you want to look at a prison system that works and is cheap, look to Japan. Breaking rocks and eating fish heads and rice will rehabilitate just about any criminal. In Japan, 2 years is a tough sentence and 5 years is like serving a life sentence in this country.
My personal favorite idea is '3 strikes and your in Alaska'. Career criminals get a one way ticket to the frozen north. We wouldn't even have to build any walls, just don't build any roads.
I think the op has a point when the examples of American 'torture' are non-fatal and the examples of those we have been fighting include sawing off heads, rape rooms, human paper shredders, stoning, etc.
During the same time that Americans were being kidnapped in Lebanon, some Russians were also kidnapped. The Russians responded by kidnapping the male relatives of those they thought were responsible, cutting of their genitalia, stuffing the genitalia in their mouths and dumping their bodies in front of their homes. The Russian kidnappees were released and no more Russians were kidnapped.
That's the Chicago way, and the overly civilized here in America, and the rest of the world, have forgotten that it takes more than just good intentions.
#5. Develop for the web ala facebook, google, ebay, etc.
#6. Develop for something other then the x86 desktop, ie. cell phones, portable game devices, game consoles, etc.
On my own, I've tried #6 and #5. I've made a little money on #5 and no money at all on #6. Still, gotta keep trying or just accept working for the man.
So Iran is an example of CIA success? Were you in a coma at the end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s? Vietnam and Greece would be two examples of CIA blowback, but I'm sure there are more. I can't think of any CIA backed governments in existence at this time.
When taken on its own, this all seems like scary stuff, but when you consider 1/2 of europe behind an iron curtain, its naive to think that the CIA wasn't just doing its job.
"overthrowing democratically elected governments abroad?"
I'd say they have a mixed record. The CIA tried to dabble in fixing governments, but mostly they failed. The intelligence gathering of the US never changed directions after the cold war until 9/11.
I'd be worried if the US government had a track record of good intelligence or building computer systems. All evidence is to the contrary. If the US government had kept control of the internet, there would be less then a million computers on it and none of them could do anything even remotely interesting.
Thank ElRon for the tactic of suing in every jurisdiction to win your case. The telcos can win 1000 times over and it only takes one loss for them to get raped.
Or maybe you refine your methods. Still, I doubt they are transmitting their wiretaps over a wire to their home network. More then likely they use over night express and probably not every night.
It's all just nit picking. They are not sitting in a closet at AT&T, Verizon, etc. They hopefully aren't sending across the network. Is the 72 hours from the time they tap or 72 hours from the time they realized they tapped or 72 hours after they figure out what language is being spoken and get someone to translate it? If it's not the later, then it really is a race against time.
The 3 days is a reference to 24, which shows how the world can be saved in 1 day by 1 angry (drunk) man.
In this case, search and seizure doesn't apply since the papers and effects are crossing our border. Go to the border and cross it some day and you will find that they can and will search your car. Not always, but often enough that they seize something probably several times a day.
"not laws which de-criminalize what was criminal at the time"
According to FISA, they have 72 hours after tapping a thing, to get a warrant. The phone companies, for FISA to work, must allow the NSA to tap the lines 72 hours in advance of a warrant. The phone companies, have done nothing wrong. The NSA, in this instance, has done nothing wrong. It is only after 72 hours of tapping something that the NSA could have possibly done something wrong. The NSA cannot be expected to also provide the phone company with a warrant that says 'gee, we tapped this line on this date for this guy and these two numbers, but don't tell no one else'.
The phone companies can not compel the NSA to provide the warrant after the 72 hours and even if they did, it wouldn't change the fact that they can't travel back in time 72 hours to not provide them with the information. In short, the phone companies should not be prosecuted because some bureaucratic cya attitude by some namby-pamby pencil pushers get cold feet when their daddy-complex superior had to get his colon scoped and didn't sign the extension for the 72 hours their boss was in the hospital.
Fixed my Ubuntu display finally. It was the video card. Linux rocks.
Unfortunately, it probably takes a lot longer then 72 hours for any intelligence gathered to reach a person who can actually use the intelligence. 72 hours is 3x too long for a television show and probably 1/10th of the time needed for the intelligence bureaucracy to do anything with it.
"corrupt officials using this"
Not sure how any official can use calls to countries and places of interest to further their own agenda. Sounds a little far fetched and even so, it's in the stung by a bee range of worries. It's also fixable, thru civil courts, whistle blower and witness protection programs. If a corrupt official uses the information in an illegal way, they should go to PMITA prison.
The right to make international calls is not protected by anything in the bill of rights, except maybe a thin line to freedom of speech. I would be appalled to find out that the government wasn't looking at these calls to places of interest, at least at some level.
"For ages 5 to 7... At that age, you're primarily looking for educational slower-paced games."
At that age, your parents should still be making decisions for you. Hopefully they are looking for educational, slower paced games. You also have to factor in that at that age any game you do buy had better be durable or cheap.
Just from the list of sample questions that this commitee is asking:
"whether the administration asked them to install equipment to intercept e-mails"
If the answer is yes or no, the knowledge of that would be damaging to our state and empowering to our enemies. Just like releasing the info that we are tracking monetary transactions abroad has been damaging. No actual data was ever released about that program, but the knowledge that we were doing it basically ended the usefulness of that completely legal program.
My question for you is why does this committee feel the need to hold a public investigation? If they only need this knowledge to write better laws, they can do that and not have it out in the public. The fact that they are publishing the response from these companies is pretty telling and in my opinion an act of bad faith.
Seriously, there are other commitees that are looking into this that aren't just trying to make political hay.
There's not much anybody can do to stop a congressional committee from holding hearings on anything the chairperson wants to hold hearings on. However, being a congress critter does not automagically give you a high enough security clearance to hear everything.
Dingle, et al, know what they are doing, even if you do not.
There is a congressional committee that can hear their testimony. The one making the request is not it.
This is just a fishing expedition, in a long list of fishing expeditions. It will be a sad day for congressional democrats when Bush and Cheney step down, because then they will actually have to do their jobs, which is write laws that make sense.
The US Government is just lawyers, all the way down. Hooray for the United States of Lawyers.
Slashdot Mirror
We need a new ammendment, something along the lines of...
Congress shall provide no funds respecting a political party, or pay for the free exercise thereof
Let the bastards pay for themselves. The FEC shouldn't be handing out checks to the 2 parties candidates, they should be checking that elections aren't rigged and that people have access to the polls.
"I think it's a great idea."
I just don't know where to start.
There is a huge number of clever ways to attack America and kill people. You've just found 1 and really it's not that brilliant. 9/11 was ingenius in that it attacked our military, our citizens, our airline industry, landmark structures, first responders, our economy and our naive sense of security.
I can think of lots of ways to attack America, and while some may be ingenius, none of them are great ideas.
These guys hold a ton of WiMax patents. The summary said wifi, which may or may not include WiMax. I'm more interested in WiMax. If I knew for certain that they would never get any money, I'd be willing to wait until the patents expire.
But you obviously didn't build your own OS and your own game.
What a bunch of cry babies. A lot of us linux types would love to have games with unskippable ads and cut scenes. I'd pirate a 10 year old Wing Commander port if I thought it might actually run in X windows.
"We only took the road down extended prison stays, more draconian sentencing laws, and larger prison populations as a result of the violence after the Kennedy Immigration act, and after several severe riots."
It was rehabilitation that done it. The 'good' people wanted to reform criminals instead of punishing them. So they made the prison stays longer and the conditions easier. However, they could never find a way that didn't involve punishment or taking lsd that actually led to a rehabilitated criminal.
If you want to look at a prison system that works and is cheap, look to Japan. Breaking rocks and eating fish heads and rice will rehabilitate just about any criminal. In Japan, 2 years is a tough sentence and 5 years is like serving a life sentence in this country.
My personal favorite idea is '3 strikes and your in Alaska'. Career criminals get a one way ticket to the frozen north. We wouldn't even have to build any walls, just don't build any roads.
Quite obviously, no.
I think the op has a point when the examples of American 'torture' are non-fatal and the examples of those we have been fighting include sawing off heads, rape rooms, human paper shredders, stoning, etc.
During the same time that Americans were being kidnapped in Lebanon, some Russians were also kidnapped. The Russians responded by kidnapping the male relatives of those they thought were responsible, cutting of their genitalia, stuffing the genitalia in their mouths and dumping their bodies in front of their homes. The Russian kidnappees were released and no more Russians were kidnapped.
That's the Chicago way, and the overly civilized here in America, and the rest of the world, have forgotten that it takes more than just good intentions.
Not from this side of it, at least.
#5. Develop for the web ala facebook, google, ebay, etc.
#6. Develop for something other then the x86 desktop, ie. cell phones, portable game devices, game consoles, etc.
On my own, I've tried #6 and #5. I've made a little money on #5 and no money at all on #6. Still, gotta keep trying or just accept working for the man.
So Iran is an example of CIA success? Were you in a coma at the end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s? Vietnam and Greece would be two examples of CIA blowback, but I'm sure there are more. I can't think of any CIA backed governments in existence at this time.
When taken on its own, this all seems like scary stuff, but when you consider 1/2 of europe behind an iron curtain, its naive to think that the CIA wasn't just doing its job.
"overthrowing democratically elected governments abroad?"
I'd say they have a mixed record. The CIA tried to dabble in fixing governments, but mostly they failed. The intelligence gathering of the US never changed directions after the cold war until 9/11.
I'd be worried if the US government had a track record of good intelligence or building computer systems. All evidence is to the contrary. If the US government had kept control of the internet, there would be less then a million computers on it and none of them could do anything even remotely interesting.
Thank ElRon for the tactic of suing in every jurisdiction to win your case. The telcos can win 1000 times over and it only takes one loss for them to get raped.
Or maybe you refine your methods. Still, I doubt they are transmitting their wiretaps over a wire to their home network. More then likely they use over night express and probably not every night.
It's all just nit picking. They are not sitting in a closet at AT&T, Verizon, etc. They hopefully aren't sending across the network. Is the 72 hours from the time they tap or 72 hours from the time they realized they tapped or 72 hours after they figure out what language is being spoken and get someone to translate it? If it's not the later, then it really is a race against time.
The 3 days is a reference to 24, which shows how the world can be saved in 1 day by 1 angry (drunk) man.
In this case, search and seizure doesn't apply since the papers and effects are crossing our border. Go to the border and cross it some day and you will find that they can and will search your car. Not always, but often enough that they seize something probably several times a day.
"not laws which de-criminalize what was criminal at the time"
According to FISA, they have 72 hours after tapping a thing, to get a warrant. The phone companies, for FISA to work, must allow the NSA to tap the lines 72 hours in advance of a warrant. The phone companies, have done nothing wrong. The NSA, in this instance, has done nothing wrong. It is only after 72 hours of tapping something that the NSA could have possibly done something wrong. The NSA cannot be expected to also provide the phone company with a warrant that says 'gee, we tapped this line on this date for this guy and these two numbers, but don't tell no one else'.
The phone companies can not compel the NSA to provide the warrant after the 72 hours and even if they did, it wouldn't change the fact that they can't travel back in time 72 hours to not provide them with the information. In short, the phone companies should not be prosecuted because some bureaucratic cya attitude by some namby-pamby pencil pushers get cold feet when their daddy-complex superior had to get his colon scoped and didn't sign the extension for the 72 hours their boss was in the hospital.
Fixed my Ubuntu display finally. It was the video card. Linux rocks.
"72 hours"
Unfortunately, it probably takes a lot longer then 72 hours for any intelligence gathered to reach a person who can actually use the intelligence. 72 hours is 3x too long for a television show and probably 1/10th of the time needed for the intelligence bureaucracy to do anything with it.
"corrupt officials using this"
Not sure how any official can use calls to countries and places of interest to further their own agenda. Sounds a little far fetched and even so, it's in the stung by a bee range of worries. It's also fixable, thru civil courts, whistle blower and witness protection programs. If a corrupt official uses the information in an illegal way, they should go to PMITA prison.
The right to make international calls is not protected by anything in the bill of rights, except maybe a thin line to freedom of speech. I would be appalled to find out that the government wasn't looking at these calls to places of interest, at least at some level.
The executive has a long history of telling the congress and the courts something to the effect of...
"Yes, you have that power, now try to enforce it."
It's all part of the checks and balances and also makes for interesting political theatre. Right or wrong, it is what it is.
"For ages 5 to 7... At that age, you're primarily looking for educational slower-paced games."
At that age, your parents should still be making decisions for you. Hopefully they are looking for educational, slower paced games. You also have to factor in that at that age any game you do buy had better be durable or cheap.
Just from the list of sample questions that this commitee is asking:
"whether the administration asked them to install equipment to intercept e-mails"
If the answer is yes or no, the knowledge of that would be damaging to our state and empowering to our enemies. Just like releasing the info that we are tracking monetary transactions abroad has been damaging. No actual data was ever released about that program, but the knowledge that we were doing it basically ended the usefulness of that completely legal program.
My question for you is why does this committee feel the need to hold a public investigation? If they only need this knowledge to write better laws, they can do that and not have it out in the public. The fact that they are publishing the response from these companies is pretty telling and in my opinion an act of bad faith.
Seriously, there are other commitees that are looking into this that aren't just trying to make political hay.
There's not much anybody can do to stop a congressional committee from holding hearings on anything the chairperson wants to hold hearings on. However, being a congress critter does not automagically give you a high enough security clearance to hear everything.
Dingle, et al, know what they are doing, even if you do not.
"Would be interesting to see what is faster, a nuclear-tipped GPS-guided cruise missile or a Congressional impeachment procedure"
If we can just guarantee that Bush and Cheney are in the White House at the same time both houses are in session.
Sad and pathetic... but it worked. Is slashdot going the way of digg?
There is a congressional committee that can hear their testimony. The one making the request is not it.
This is just a fishing expedition, in a long list of fishing expeditions. It will be a sad day for congressional democrats when Bush and Cheney step down, because then they will actually have to do their jobs, which is write laws that make sense.
The US Government is just lawyers, all the way down. Hooray for the United States of Lawyers.
This is a civil case and the US DoJ is not an involved party.
This is just lawyers making money off of idiots who will end up getting a voucher. Probably for 6 months of free MSN.
I remember that Best Buy used to give gift certificates for signing up for MSN. I wonder if these same idiots also got the 'free money' from Best Buy.
Hooray for the United States of Lawyers and all the idiots it contains.
It's bad enough when the grammar nazis kick in, now we got the thought police, fixing other peoples comments.
Is there some subtle meaning I'm missing in the fixed sentence? I think it would be obvious that they are talking about 'their' users.
----------
Reminds me of this conversation...
Q: How do ya get to Pismo Beach?
A: From here?
R: No from somewhere else, ya moron!