The point is, is that these companies are not being fair about the renegotiations. There are actually no negotiations going on at all. They just change the contract, tell you if you don't like it, you can leave...
In the U.S. I believe it is called an adhesion contract and they are generally valid as long as the terms are reasonable, reasonable to a judge not slashdot readers.:-) To be unreasonable, or more accurately legally unconscionable, oppression or surprise is usually involved. Clickwrap and shrinkwrap are often upheld in court as long as they were not defectively implemented, for example when a download link appears at the top of a page and a license at the bottom, currently offscreen unless you scroll down.
We need to more fully subsidize those degrees in fields where we're starting to lose our edge.
Perhaps the university sees that coming and that is why they are raising engineering tuitions. Once government starts paying the bill rather than the consumer you have lost an important cost control.
Think how many millions of engineers China will churn out this year. More than the total graduating class for all of the US, in every category, I'd guess.
Be careful with raw numbers, not all universities/degrees in a developings nation are equivalent to those in the developed world. Notice how the elite often study abroad.
I'm not sure that the government has the right to influence what students major in, nor do I believe that giving them this power would benefit our society.
Nonsense, this is absolutely one of the roles of government. To *influence* people to make decisions in the national interest, note "influence" not "compel". Some short term decisions may be best left to market forces and such, but some long term decisions are properly done by governments. For example a government may decide that environmental cleanup and alternative energy will be major industries in coming decades so it starts offering incentives to businesses in those fields and to students to pursue related majors.
That intel figured out that 5 percent market share mattered a whole lot when it's only a two player game, and it's running close. Obviously, if intel can control the entire *NIX world, AMD is in for some hurt.
Cross platform support:
* Provides a single solution for Windows*, Linux*, and Mac OS* on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms using Intel®, Microsoft, and GNU compilers.
* Supports industry-leading compilers from Intel, Microsoft and GNU.
Threading Building Blocks supports the following processors:
* Non Intel processors compatible with the above processors
I recommend all of you, to wait and see how everything turns out here in sweden, before you buy this. As most swedes do right now.. Wait and see if the first computers arrive at all.
FWIW, some scams pay/ship to the first round to ease fears and score even bigger with the second round. Unlikely in this case though, unless someone stole a shipment of laptops.
Maybe the author doesn't grok the idea of setting the kernel to be responsive for the desktop. It's not rocket science, you know.
Of course not, Microsoft does it for the customer so they don't need to learn how to do it themselves. Would it be so hard for a Linux distro to do so as well when it is doing a "workstation" rather than a "server" install. Some distro ask and have this info regarding intended use.
I think you are exemplifying the "by nerds for nerds" attitude that the author of the article would probably argue is holding back Linux adoption.
I would avoid phrases like that if you are going to compare and embedded application to a desktop.
I use Linux as a PVR and it's more than up to the task
A PVR proves nothing about a desktop environment. A PVR is a far simpler application and easy to tune for since it is an embedded application. A desktop has a far greater load and a much more unpredictable one at that.
"Donors have power and it is naive to believe otherwise."
Either the donors are donating as a charitable act or they are not. I am not being naive, I do not believe that charity should be tied to something in return.
You are still missing the point. "Power" in this case is not getting something in return, it is having a say in how the shared goal is attained. The shared goal may be to bring the net to children in the developing world, however whether or not to have porn filters is an implementation detail where the organization founders and the donors may have legitimate disagreements. My point is that the donors have more power when it comes to which way the decision should go, and secondarily that it is not necessarily wrong that donors have such power. It is their money being spent, they should have some say in how the shared goal is obtained.
... it is meant to be a charitable gesture to provide IT education those who otherwise would not have access to it.
And donors asking for porn filters is not incompatible with this gesture. Those who create a charity should not have dictatorial control, they can be both well meaning and fallible. The donors provide an important check and balance.
If those that donate the funding believe that they have the right to dictate how other countries should behave then they are attempting to buy influence by their actions.
They have the right to make sure that their donations are being spent wisely and appropriately. There is no influence buying by requiring porn filters on donated computers. That is a quite bizarre conclusion you have.
Vista is new and replaces XP, so obviously Vista will be increasing from near zero upwards.
No, Vista does not replace XP, neither in a literal nor a practical sense. Microsoft sells both XP and Vista on new computers, many consumers have a choice of one or the other. It would be more accurate to say that Windows 2000, Me, and 98 are being replaced. With respect to the latter two, the remnants of Win9x, hurray. Life is so much better as a Windows developer if you can say Windows 2000 is a minimum.
"... If you do not want governments, churches, corporations, etc attaching strings then don't take their money. If you take their money, expect them to exert some control. If you are so silly that you do not expect this then you have doomed your project through naive mismanagement. Harsh, but true."
So OLPC is nothing about charity, is not about bringing IT to children who might otherwise not have access to it? - "Our goal: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves." (http://laptop.org/vision/index.shtml). It is, in your view, an opportunity for whomever is funding OLPC to exert their views on children around the world...
No. It is my view that a charity has to match its goals with its donors. Donors have power and it is naive to believe otherwise.
... probably in the hope that it will win them favour in years to come when those children are adults. If we provide aid to poorer nations it shouldn't be at a price, it should be because we wish to help someone who needs help. Those that believe it is right to use charity to gain influence have, in my view, become cynical individuals.
What you naively fail to realize is that both those who organize a charity and those who fund a charity may both have noble goals and wish to help, but there is a power imbalance between those two groups favoring the later. You should also be careful tossing around the word "cynical", your assumption that donors wish to gain favor is a strong example of cynicism. You should consider that some donors legitimately believe that porn filters will further the goal of exploring the net by making it safer to do so. That this is the digital equivalent of putting plastic inserts into unused electrical sockets so that a child may more safely explore the home. Believing in filters and desiring to help children in developing nations are not incompatible ideas.
Be careful not to let politics limit your interpretation of events. The world is a complicated place and motivations for the same action care vary quite widely from person to person.
Not only will he get booted off ResNet without recourse, but all the girls will think he's gay now when they look at his MP3 collection.
Without net access he will have more time for girls. Secondly, girls like gays, and since he is really straight they will get a tremendous ego boost as they misread reality and think they are turning a gay straight. Be prepared for more bumping and less sleep.
Cutting you off the campus net is an entirely private decision, no due process required by law.
That is not true if it is a public school. However, due process does not mean that a judge or the courts are involved, an administrative process by staff is allowed.
Those who fund OLPC. If you do not want governments, churches, corporations, etc attaching strings then don't take their money. If you take their money, expect them to exert some control. If you are so silly that you do not expect this then you have doomed your project through naive mismanagement. Harsh, but true.
I'd rather those Nigerian children would browse porn instead of sending out 419 emails.
You think they will stop at the free stuff? No, they will move on to the pay-for-access sites and develop a greater need for cash. After all, porn is more expensive than food. Expect a lot more scams and phishing coming nations benefiting from OLPC.
If they truly only blocked porn, then maybe it would be a matter of discussion, but certain filters' habit of censoring all sorts of irrelevant contents, political and otherwise really makes porn the lesser of the two evils.
Blocking US Football Superbowls XXX through XXXIX and the movies "xXx" and "XXX: State of the Union" are hardly evils, and probably goods.
and why in the heck did they not key the boxes so that they can't be installed in the wrong slot (say 2 divots for $5 and 3 divots for $20)
There are two types of keying. Keying the magazine for its position in the ATM and keying the magazine for the denomination. I was referring to the later, which can't be done in the US since all denominations are the same size.
Actually something like this happened already with an ATM. Was in 2006 IIRC. Hacked ATM machine was giving out far too much money ($20 bill instead of $5 bills.) Finally someone reported it (like at the casino) after about nine days.
It is highly unlikely that the ATM was hacked. There were many such incidents when ATMs were originally introduced. Basically early ATMs in the U.S. offered multiple denominations, $5, $10, and $20 for example. Each had its own magazine for bills. Occasionally there were human errors where the person loading the machine would put the wrong denomination in a magazine, for example putting $20s in the $5 magazine. This quickly led to the situation where nearly all ATMs became single denomination machines, $20s.
FWIW in Europe this is far less of an issue, the Euro denominations come in different sizes so it would be far easier to key the magazine to prevent misloading.
military grade GPS have higher precision, although it seems unlikely that this is the reason they are bulkier, probably just the usual shock-resistant packaging for military use I guess.
however, civilian GPS signal is apparently less accurate because noise is intentionally added, see graph here: http://www.byte.com/art/9602/img/511022c2.htm
My understanding is that the military GPS have a more limited battery life, heavier spare batteries, and that for normal navigation the civilian units are more than adequate. Some military GPS integrate with targetting devices and that may account for additional weight and size, plus it may just be using older technology.
"It's essentially a cross between a UMPC, Phone, PDA, and portable GPS."
As opposed to all those non-portable GPS units that are so popular nowadays. I bought a very expensive non-portable GPS and had it installed in my basement, so that I will immediately know if Carmen Sandiego steals my house.
I realize you are joking, but this joke needed to be rethought/reworked. Mobile != Portable. Many GPS units are not portable, portable as in carried by a person, and are installed in cars, aircraft, ships, etc.
Also if you check with troops who have carried the "portable" military GPS units around the mountains of Afghanistan you will probably find that they consider those unit to be "non-portable". Want to send a "care package" to troops over there, send a Garmin or something.
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
7. the absence of or release from ties, obligations, etc.
17. Philosophy. the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination.
The GPL exercises control, restrains some actions, creates some obligations, limits some choices,... The FSF is benevolent and kind to those who accept its obligations and limitations, but they are not about freedom except in a self serving redefinition of the word. I'm not saying that the FSF of GPL are bad, just that "freedom" is an inappropriate word to use. They are engaging in redefinition and doublespeak on par with politicians and advertising agencies in order to sell their ideology.
Except Alberto Gonzales is firing prosecutors for being democrats,...
As Clinton did when he entered office, and this included those investigating his whitewater scandal. It seems that dismissing these prosecutors are within the president's authority. As is installing likeminded individuals, even questionably so, as Clinton did when a former student of his took over the whitewater scandal investigation. You falsely label this as a Republican or a Bush thing. Unseemly of Clinton and Bush? Yes. Withing their constitutional power? It seems so.
... and Bush is stacking the supreme court with sympathizers...
That is pretty much what every president does. It is his constitutional right to nominate and nominating likeminded individuals is part of the power you receive when you get elected.
Meanwhile good ol Scooter Libby lies to congress, gets caught doing that, and when convicted Bush steps up and commutes his sentence and pundits anticipate a pardon is likely when he steps down.
Pardons are also part of presidential authority and there is no limit, as we saw when Clinton pardoned relatives of big campaing contributors, drug dealers, those who renounced US citizenship, etc. Again, you falsely present this as some kind of Republican or Bush thing.
So much for checks and balances...
The President's ability to dismiss/apoint certain federal prosecutors and to influence the direction of the supreme court *is* part of the checks and balances system. A check or balance is a branch exercising power or authority, and it is likely that some people are going to vigorously disagree with what branch's decision, sometime rightfully so. However with a web of authority and power spread over three branches you need all three to conspire and collaborate to create the grade B movie scenarios you suggest. Is each branch going to do unseemly things on occasion? Yes. Will democracy survive? Yes.
Meanwhile the FBI spews a report detailing thousands of illegal incidents it perpetrated and covered up.
You realize you are undermining your own argument, you are acknowledging that the system is self correcting.
The CIA is running secret prisons...
Irrelevant, US citizens are not being picked off of the street and sent there. If these prisons are where al-quaida and talliban fighters, and similar jihadi fighters, are being sent then it is unclear if anything illegal or improper is being done. It also makes sense to keep secret where a concentration of such individuals are being kept. Various "rescues" have been attempted by their comrades when such locations were known. This topic is also irrelevant since we have crossed the line from law enforcement to fighting a war.
And at the end of the day the whole system is vulnerable, because WHO ultimately regulates the police and the other government law enforcement bodies? The government does. The very same entity we fear of abusing their power is the entity charged with ensuring it doesn't happen.
Your logic is flawed. Your use of the the word government suggests that your are referring to the executive and legislative branches, the branches that wield power. What you fail to consider is that law enforcement is checked by the same authority that checks these two branches, this check is the third branch, the courts. For your paranoid scenario to occur the judicial system must be corrupted. With a functioning judiciary you will have no shortage of attorneys willing to sue any abusive law enforcement officer or agency.
If they pull you over for speeding, beat you up, take your watch, and then toss you in jail for a week without access to a lawyer or phone, then drive you out to the outskirts of town and dump you in a ditch -- what are you going to do about it? Call the police?
Lets pretend your grade B movie or third world scenario occured in the US. In the US, you call a higher law enforcement agency, the local district attorney, or one of many private attorneys who will be more than happy to file a lawsuit on your behalf. We already have a check and balance upon law enforcement, it's called the courts.
Slashdot Mirror
The point is, is that these companies are not being fair about the renegotiations. There are actually no negotiations going on at all. They just change the contract, tell you if you don't like it, you can leave ...
:-) To be unreasonable, or more accurately legally unconscionable, oppression or surprise is usually involved. Clickwrap and shrinkwrap are often upheld in court as long as they were not defectively implemented, for example when a download link appears at the top of a page and a license at the bottom, currently offscreen unless you scroll down.
In the U.S. I believe it is called an adhesion contract and they are generally valid as long as the terms are reasonable, reasonable to a judge not slashdot readers.
We need to more fully subsidize those degrees in fields where we're starting to lose our edge.
Perhaps the university sees that coming and that is why they are raising engineering tuitions. Once government starts paying the bill rather than the consumer you have lost an important cost control.
Think how many millions of engineers China will churn out this year. More than the total graduating class for all of the US, in every category, I'd guess.
Be careful with raw numbers, not all universities/degrees in a developings nation are equivalent to those in the developed world. Notice how the elite often study abroad.
I'm not sure that the government has the right to influence what students major in, nor do I believe that giving them this power would benefit our society.
Nonsense, this is absolutely one of the roles of government. To *influence* people to make decisions in the national interest, note "influence" not "compel". Some short term decisions may be best left to market forces and such, but some long term decisions are properly done by governments. For example a government may decide that environmental cleanup and alternative energy will be major industries in coming decades so it starts offering incentives to businesses in those fields and to students to pursue related majors.
Right, and guess what? People are no more satisfied now than they were during the rule of Rome.
That is due to higher expectations. Yesterday's luxuries are today's necessities.
That intel figured out that 5 percent market share mattered a whole lot when it's only a two player game, and it's running close. Obviously, if intel can control the entire *NIX world, AMD is in for some hurt.
It is neither Linux nor Intel specific
http://threadingbuildingblocks.org/
Cross platform support:
* Provides a single solution for Windows*, Linux*, and Mac OS* on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms using Intel®, Microsoft, and GNU compilers.
* Supports industry-leading compilers from Intel, Microsoft and GNU.
Threading Building Blocks supports the following processors:
* Non Intel processors compatible with the above processors
I recommend all of you, to wait and see how everything turns out here in sweden, before you buy this. As most swedes do right now.. Wait and see if the first computers arrive at all.
FWIW, some scams pay/ship to the first round to ease fears and score even bigger with the second round. Unlikely in this case though, unless someone stole a shipment of laptops.
Maybe the author doesn't grok the idea of setting the kernel to be responsive for the desktop. It's not rocket science, you know.
Of course not, Microsoft does it for the customer so they don't need to learn how to do it themselves. Would it be so hard for a Linux distro to do so as well when it is doing a "workstation" rather than a "server" install. Some distro ask and have this info regarding intended use.
I think you are exemplifying the "by nerds for nerds" attitude that the author of the article would probably argue is holding back Linux adoption.
Utter rubbish
I would avoid phrases like that if you are going to compare and embedded application to a desktop.
I use Linux as a PVR and it's more than up to the task
A PVR proves nothing about a desktop environment. A PVR is a far simpler application and easy to tune for since it is an embedded application. A desktop has a far greater load and a much more unpredictable one at that.
"Donors have power and it is naive to believe otherwise."
... it is meant to be a charitable gesture to provide IT education those who otherwise would not have access to it.
Either the donors are donating as a charitable act or they are not. I am not being naive, I do not believe that charity should be tied to something in return.
You are still missing the point. "Power" in this case is not getting something in return, it is having a say in how the shared goal is attained. The shared goal may be to bring the net to children in the developing world, however whether or not to have porn filters is an implementation detail where the organization founders and the donors may have legitimate disagreements. My point is that the donors have more power when it comes to which way the decision should go, and secondarily that it is not necessarily wrong that donors have such power. It is their money being spent, they should have some say in how the shared goal is obtained.
And donors asking for porn filters is not incompatible with this gesture. Those who create a charity should not have dictatorial control, they can be both well meaning and fallible. The donors provide an important check and balance.
If those that donate the funding believe that they have the right to dictate how other countries should behave then they are attempting to buy influence by their actions.
They have the right to make sure that their donations are being spent wisely and appropriately. There is no influence buying by requiring porn filters on donated computers. That is a quite bizarre conclusion you have.
Vista is new and replaces XP, so obviously Vista will be increasing from near zero upwards.
No, Vista does not replace XP, neither in a literal nor a practical sense. Microsoft sells both XP and Vista on new computers, many consumers have a choice of one or the other. It would be more accurate to say that Windows 2000, Me, and 98 are being replaced. With respect to the latter two, the remnants of Win9x, hurray. Life is so much better as a Windows developer if you can say Windows 2000 is a minimum.
"... If you do not want governments, churches, corporations, etc attaching strings then don't take their money. If you take their money, expect them to exert some control. If you are so silly that you do not expect this then you have doomed your project through naive mismanagement. Harsh, but true."
...
... probably in the hope that it will win them favour in years to come when those children are adults. If we provide aid to poorer nations it shouldn't be at a price, it should be because we wish to help someone who needs help. Those that believe it is right to use charity to gain influence have, in my view, become cynical individuals.
So OLPC is nothing about charity, is not about bringing IT to children who might otherwise not have access to it? - "Our goal: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves." (http://laptop.org/vision/index.shtml). It is, in your view, an opportunity for whomever is funding OLPC to exert their views on children around the world
No. It is my view that a charity has to match its goals with its donors. Donors have power and it is naive to believe otherwise.
What you naively fail to realize is that both those who organize a charity and those who fund a charity may both have noble goals and wish to help, but there is a power imbalance between those two groups favoring the later. You should also be careful tossing around the word "cynical", your assumption that donors wish to gain favor is a strong example of cynicism. You should consider that some donors legitimately believe that porn filters will further the goal of exploring the net by making it safer to do so. That this is the digital equivalent of putting plastic inserts into unused electrical sockets so that a child may more safely explore the home. Believing in filters and desiring to help children in developing nations are not incompatible ideas.
Be careful not to let politics limit your interpretation of events. The world is a complicated place and motivations for the same action care vary quite widely from person to person.
Not only will he get booted off ResNet without recourse, but all the girls will think he's gay now when they look at his MP3 collection.
Without net access he will have more time for girls. Secondly, girls like gays, and since he is really straight they will get a tremendous ego boost as they misread reality and think they are turning a gay straight. Be prepared for more bumping and less sleep.
Cutting you off the campus net is an entirely private decision, no due process required by law.
That is not true if it is a public school. However, due process does not mean that a judge or the courts are involved, an administrative process by staff is allowed.
Who decides what the filters should filter?
Those who fund OLPC. If you do not want governments, churches, corporations, etc attaching strings then don't take their money. If you take their money, expect them to exert some control. If you are so silly that you do not expect this then you have doomed your project through naive mismanagement. Harsh, but true.
I'd rather those Nigerian children would browse porn instead of sending out 419 emails.
You think they will stop at the free stuff? No, they will move on to the pay-for-access sites and develop a greater need for cash. After all, porn is more expensive than food. Expect a lot more scams and phishing coming nations benefiting from OLPC.
If they truly only blocked porn, then maybe it would be a matter of discussion, but certain filters' habit of censoring all sorts of irrelevant contents, political and otherwise really makes porn the lesser of the two evils.
Blocking US Football Superbowls XXX through XXXIX and the movies "xXx" and "XXX: State of the Union" are hardly evils, and probably goods.
and why in the heck did they not key the boxes so that they can't be installed in the wrong slot (say 2 divots for $5 and 3 divots for $20)
There are two types of keying. Keying the magazine for its position in the ATM and keying the magazine for the denomination. I was referring to the later, which can't be done in the US since all denominations are the same size.
Actually something like this happened already with an ATM. Was in 2006 IIRC. Hacked ATM machine was giving out far too much money ($20 bill instead of $5 bills.) Finally someone reported it (like at the casino) after about nine days.
It is highly unlikely that the ATM was hacked. There were many such incidents when ATMs were originally introduced. Basically early ATMs in the U.S. offered multiple denominations, $5, $10, and $20 for example. Each had its own magazine for bills. Occasionally there were human errors where the person loading the machine would put the wrong denomination in a magazine, for example putting $20s in the $5 magazine. This quickly led to the situation where nearly all ATMs became single denomination machines, $20s.
FWIW in Europe this is far less of an issue, the Euro denominations come in different sizes so it would be far easier to key the magazine to prevent misloading.
military grade GPS have higher precision, although it seems unlikely that this is the reason they are bulkier, probably just the usual shock-resistant packaging for military use I guess. however, civilian GPS signal is apparently less accurate because noise is intentionally added, see graph here: http://www.byte.com/art/9602/img/511022c2.htm
My understanding is that the military GPS have a more limited battery life, heavier spare batteries, and that for normal navigation the civilian units are more than adequate. Some military GPS integrate with targetting devices and that may account for additional weight and size, plus it may just be using older technology.
"It's essentially a cross between a UMPC, Phone, PDA, and portable GPS."
As opposed to all those non-portable GPS units that are so popular nowadays. I bought a very expensive non-portable GPS and had it installed in my basement, so that I will immediately know if Carmen Sandiego steals my house.
I realize you are joking, but this joke needed to be rethought/reworked. Mobile != Portable. Many GPS units are not portable, portable as in carried by a person, and are installed in cars, aircraft, ships, etc.
Also if you check with troops who have carried the "portable" military GPS units around the mountains of Afghanistan you will probably find that they consider those unit to be "non-portable". Want to send a "care package" to troops over there, send a Garmin or something.
Let someone else do all the work, then find a way to legally steal it and assume all the riches.
..."?
Did you not even read the summary: "... stealing the source code, design, and business plan
GNU is run by the FSF... One of these organizations is a non-profit dedicated to freedom ...
... The FSF is benevolent and kind to those who accept its obligations and limitations, but they are not about freedom except in a self serving redefinition of the word. I'm not saying that the FSF of GPL are bad, just that "freedom" is an inappropriate word to use. They are engaging in redefinition and doublespeak on par with politicians and advertising agencies in order to sell their ideology.
The FSF is not about freedom, it is about ideology.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom
freedom
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
7. the absence of or release from ties, obligations, etc.
17. Philosophy. the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination.
The GPL exercises control, restrains some actions, creates some obligations, limits some choices,
Except Alberto Gonzales is firing prosecutors for being democrats, ...
... and Bush is stacking the supreme court with sympathizers ...
As Clinton did when he entered office, and this included those investigating his whitewater scandal. It seems that dismissing these prosecutors are within the president's authority. As is installing likeminded individuals, even questionably so, as Clinton did when a former student of his took over the whitewater scandal investigation. You falsely label this as a Republican or a Bush thing. Unseemly of Clinton and Bush? Yes. Withing their constitutional power? It seems so.
That is pretty much what every president does. It is his constitutional right to nominate and nominating likeminded individuals is part of the power you receive when you get elected.
Meanwhile good ol Scooter Libby lies to congress, gets caught doing that, and when convicted Bush steps up and commutes his sentence and pundits anticipate a pardon is likely when he steps down.
Pardons are also part of presidential authority and there is no limit, as we saw when Clinton pardoned relatives of big campaing contributors, drug dealers, those who renounced US citizenship, etc. Again, you falsely present this as some kind of Republican or Bush thing.
So much for checks and balances...
The President's ability to dismiss/apoint certain federal prosecutors and to influence the direction of the supreme court *is* part of the checks and balances system. A check or balance is a branch exercising power or authority, and it is likely that some people are going to vigorously disagree with what branch's decision, sometime rightfully so. However with a web of authority and power spread over three branches you need all three to conspire and collaborate to create the grade B movie scenarios you suggest. Is each branch going to do unseemly things on occasion? Yes. Will democracy survive? Yes.
Meanwhile the FBI spews a report detailing thousands of illegal incidents it perpetrated and covered up.
You realize you are undermining your own argument, you are acknowledging that the system is self correcting.
The CIA is running secret prisons...
Irrelevant, US citizens are not being picked off of the street and sent there. If these prisons are where al-quaida and talliban fighters, and similar jihadi fighters, are being sent then it is unclear if anything illegal or improper is being done. It also makes sense to keep secret where a concentration of such individuals are being kept. Various "rescues" have been attempted by their comrades when such locations were known. This topic is also irrelevant since we have crossed the line from law enforcement to fighting a war.
And at the end of the day the whole system is vulnerable, because WHO ultimately regulates the police and the other government law enforcement bodies? The government does. The very same entity we fear of abusing their power is the entity charged with ensuring it doesn't happen.
Your logic is flawed. Your use of the the word government suggests that your are referring to the executive and legislative branches, the branches that wield power. What you fail to consider is that law enforcement is checked by the same authority that checks these two branches, this check is the third branch, the courts. For your paranoid scenario to occur the judicial system must be corrupted. With a functioning judiciary you will have no shortage of attorneys willing to sue any abusive law enforcement officer or agency.
If they pull you over for speeding, beat you up, take your watch, and then toss you in jail for a week without access to a lawyer or phone, then drive you out to the outskirts of town and dump you in a ditch -- what are you going to do about it? Call the police?
Lets pretend your grade B movie or third world scenario occured in the US. In the US, you call a higher law enforcement agency, the local district attorney, or one of many private attorneys who will be more than happy to file a lawsuit on your behalf. We already have a check and balance upon law enforcement, it's called the courts.