It is not extortion because extortion is done to make money.
Thankfully, people tend to interpret legal terms the way the law does, not the way you do -- this is a good thing, as you obviously have no clue as to what the hell you're talking about. Here's how the 8th edition of Black's Law Dictionary defines extortion (quotes removed for the sake of my tired, tired hands):
extortion,n. 1. The offense committed by a public official who illegally obtains property under the color of office; esp., an official's collection of an unlawful fee. 2. The act or practice of obtaining something or compelling some action by illegal means, as by force or coercion.
There is absolutely no chance the RIAA is making any money with all the legal fees they are spending here. Typically they ask people to settle for very small amounts. Lawyers cost hundreds of thousands or even millions just to hire a few.
Got any numbers you can cite? Any references at all to back up your supposed knowledge of the RIAA's legal expenses and profits? Or are you just making stuff up? Put up or shut up.
Apologies are in order for my snarkitutde. I really need to remember to get the caffeine fix *before* replying to posts on slashdot.
I agree with you entirely that one providing e-mail services to paying customers really ought to inform those customers of what they're doing to filter their e-mail. I had to pick my e-mail provider very very carefully for this reason, and thus far I've had no problems (been with 'em going on 4 years) because they're entirely up-front about what they do by default (nothing) and give you complete control over a huge list of spam-filtering options (whitelist, goldlist, greylist, bayesian filtering, a whole slew of RBLs) that you can *choose* to apply to your incoming e-mail. Of course, this is a service specifically tailored for the more clued-in users out there.
I'd think for somebody managing the e-mail service of a medium to large sized ISP, this is less of an option. Then again, any e-mail administrator who uses RBLs as a sole means of determining whether or not a message should be delivered to its recipient ought not to be employed as an e-mail administrator for much longer. It's been my personal experience that a customer will happily take hundreds of spam, but god help you if you drop a legitimate e-mail of theirs.
Well, there's your problem right there! Most people don't really like legal threats, and amongst the more fanatical anti-spammers, they're quite the source of amusment. I submit for your consideration the cart00ney.org blacklist, which is an RBL specifically for listing people that send legal threats to blacklist operators. I also suggest that you search Google Groups' archive of NANAE for 'Matthew Sullivan' and 'cart00ney', because I'm sure your threat got a good laugh out of everybody there. I'm sure that was your last resort after trying to do all the things a civil and reasonable person would and failing to see any results, but it was definitely not the wisest thing to do.
Actually, I was not attempting to 'counter' or debate anything. I asked a simple question. Welcome to third-grade reading comprehension.
At no point did I suggest that the ends justified the means, I merely asked what alternatives an RBL operator has when faced with an ISP that knows, but does not care that spammers reside on and operate from their network. What precisely *are* they supposed to do? Playing whack-a-spammer by only listing IPs that send spam does not work when there are ISPs that actively aid their spamming customers by moving them around as their existing IP space gets listed. I'm not suggesting that SPEWS' actions are the right ones, but since people seem to frequently (entirely reasonably, IMO) criticize and villify SPEWS, surely they have a viable alternative to suggest that isn't "shut up and take your spam".
What exactly is an RBL operator supposed to do about large server parks that simply do not give a shit about the spammers residing on their network? What do you do about networks that actively aid spammers by moving them around and around to clean IP space as they're blacklisted? Playing IP whack-a-spammer went out of fashion years ago, and obviously asking politely doesn't work. Yeah, finding your ISP listed on SPEWS sucks, because there's no real way to contact them; though you can beg in NANAE and NANABL for the entertainment of the wannabe 'spam-fighters' till you're blue in the face -- but if your ISP does not care about the fact that one of their customers is stealing bandwidth, CPU cycles, and time from other people and their ISPs, what else can SPEWS do about it?
My understanding of the SPEWS escalation process is that they notify the ISP about the spammer on their network, and then if nothing is done, they list the surrounding IP blocks in an ever-increasing fashion. Meaning if the ISP simply does not care that there's a spammer on their network, they are made to care by virtue of their entire netspace being (eventually) listed. What else *can* an RBL operator do when the ISP does not listen or care?
I ask this as a serious question. IANASFBFNANAE (I am not a SPEWS fan boy from NANAE) - in fact, I don't directly use RBLs any longer.
Actually, I have one of these sitting around under wraps at home. I've been off at school and haven't had much time for nerdly side-projects, and so it's mostly just sat in storage. It's a DEC 300/800 'Flamingo II' I *think*, and it weighs an f***ing ton. I don't know how the hell I'd ship it to you, but if you'd like to give such a thing a good home, leave me a response.
It's not like cops didn't know how to subdue a person prior to the adoption of tasers. Most of the police officers I know are trained to do all sorts of painful things to whatever part of you they've got ahold of. I thought that pretty much defined 'pain compliance'. Pressure points, joint locks, compression locks, batons, boots, pepper spray, tasers, they're all pain compliance tools - and there's nothing wrong with using them. However, they all have their appropriate uses and places, and in this case the police chose to use the most extreme and dangerous option. Why is that? Why did this student's misbehavior not warrant an outcome like:
A:Show student what happens when your wrist bends in ways it's not supposed to B:Place handcuffs on disruptive student C:Drag very noisy, whiny student out of the building because he's tresspassing and needs to leave
how was that not a plausible scenario? I don't sympahtize with that student's misbehavior (and can't help but wonder if it was not instigated by the student as some kind of Sheehanesque attention-getting 'fighting the man' thing) at all, but I think it's very, very important to question the police using such a disproportionate level of force against somebody who was simply not a threat. If you've been tasered, you *WILL* not be getting up and walking outside very quickly; and for those police to do what they did was an act of punishment. It is not the police's job to punish anybody.
There were plenty of less violent ways the police could have removed that student from the building, and I think that people under the jurisdiction of that police force have every right to demand to know why they chose the most violent and dangerous, and why they crossed the line from serving and protecting to what seems awfully close to inflicting an extra-judicial punishment.
Because it's not the government's $%&@ing job to trawl the WWW looking for what it deems to be "inappropriate" sites to add to a National Blacklist, that's why.
As somebody who has to see those things every $^&# day on the feet of dumb Sorority girls, I think I can safely say that Australia can have them back.
They're called ugg boots 'cause every time I see somebody wearing them, my inner gay man goes "ugh!".
Hey, jackass, why don't you come back to Slashdot when you get the joke/pop culture reference instead of presuming racism? That kind of ignorance isn't welcome here, either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooked_on_Monkey_Phon ics
It happened to my brother (girlfriend told him she was on the pill but was not), my grandfather (the pill + antibiotics = my uncle), four of my male friends (similar situations and 2 of them simply had drunken unprotected sex), and I've seen three of my female friends perpetrate it (one of them wanted to cash in on the rich guy she was dating, the other just wanted a child, and the third wanted to get married....guess what? they're all single mothers now, and their 'baby-daddies' have been granted the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars every month in child support).
Like Oswald said: young men, protect yourselves. That *cannot* be emphasized enough.
No offense intended to the ladies; but guys, you simply cannot trust your woman to not get pregnant, because that's what female humans are designed to do. Whether by accident or design, you'll be stuck with the responsibility of a child you may or may not be ready to deal with. In many states, if you fail to pay your child support, you go to jail. Seriously.
Use condoms, use them right. Know the risks of what you're doing and BE CAREFUL. No condom, no sex. Period. EOF
I buy meat from the farmers near my city at the weekly farmers' market. It costs more than grocery store meat, and astronomically more than fast-food meat, but I know exactly what I'm getting. This means I eat a lot less meat, but that's fine by me - there's many other foods out there that'll give you the necessary elements.
I buy much less of this more expensive meat specifically because of the process by which the animals are raised. Basically, the farmers get a bunch of animals, let them go out and be their natural selves, and then decidedly unnaturally slaughter them when they're big enough to be dinner. Of course they take care of their wards during the process, but this process also doesn't involve cramming tens of thousands of animals into confined spaces and jamming them full of food their bodies were not designed to digst, resulting in fucked-up animals that require heavy doses of antibiotics, growth hormones, and other drugs to grow to the required size -- to say nothing of what the creatures themselves must experience in such a setting.
I don't want that crap in my body, and I want no part of any business that treats animals in that way. Did I mention that traditionally-raised meat actually tastes better? Go try a steak from a farm that has happy and healthy animals more or less living their natural animal lives. Then go try the same cut of meat from Wal-Mart or something for 1/5th the price. You'll very quickly taste the difference in quality.
I respect the Israelis for winning the Six Days' War. I believe that they earned their right to exist then, and I do not discount that in any way.
However, since the 1970's, Israel has been on the US Taxpayer dole to the tune of EIGHTY FOUR BILLION DOLLARS of foreign aid from 1949 until 1997. This does NOT include the billions of dollars a year Israel has recieved since then to this very day - I believe on the average of 2 BILLION dollars a year.
Israel may have prospered, but you and me and all the other US Taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for it.
I would not at all be surprised that the mainstream media (everybody has a bias) glossed over something like that, but at this point it's still just a claim made by some random person on Slashdot. You've provided no URLs or anything else that stands as proof that Clinton did what some are claiming.
Both of those links state that Clinton had no involvement. A prosecutor making such a statement seems to be a bit more credible than the "liberal media" boogeyman.
Can you show me any credible sources that say otherwise? I'd be willing to look at any verifiable information that you have. I'd really appreciate a response on this, I'm genuinely curious about this subject now.
I don't think it's got anything to do with people sticking their heads in the sand, but rather asking the OP to back up their claim with actual facts. Who among the other posters in this thread said that what Clinton did was OK?
Most everybody has heard of Nixon and Watergate and his abuses thereof, but I've not heard of Clinton pulling anything of that magnitutde. I too would like to see some kind of proof to substantiate the OP's claim about Clinton being "one of the worst abusers of governmental information gathering". Put up or shut up, it's that simple.
I don't take this stance because I have any real love for the former president (I think he was a coward and a sleazeball), but because I have love for the truth. The OP made a non-obvious claim, and now they need to back it up with proof - that has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats or party preferences. It's a simple matter of intellectual honesty. If Clinton ranks up there with Nixon in terms of government information gathering abuses, I'd like to know exactly what he did. I'd like to see verifiable proof to back up this claim, as would many others, it would seem. That's really not too much to ask from somebody making such a claim.
as a fellow hoosier, i can assure you that if indiana adopts the ID lunacy, I'll be hitting the US-Canada border as soon as I'm done with my undergrad at IU, and I'll deal with the postgrad stuff up north
Firstly, to everybody claiming that "Slashdot is a blog and Taco can post whatever he wants on it": Slashdot stopped being Taco's personal blog when VA Software bought it and employed him. Oh, and let's not forget the advertisements, slashvertisements and the subscription sales. This makes slashdot a BUSINESS VENTURE (granted a very poorly-run one, if VA's stock is any indication (it's lower in value than SCO's!)), and somebody's personal blog no longer. To paraphrase a previous poster: FoxNews may be Rupert Murdoch's property, but does that make it alright for him to have his "i didnt read the speed limit sign, how dare they give me a speeding ticket" story read as headline news by the anchors? Taco's bad experience belongs on his journal, because that's what the journals are for. He's abusing his ability as a site editor to put this on the front page.
This would be relevant to gaming if it were a well thought out article about online identity, instead of somebody whinging that they had to change their name in WoW because they didn't take the time to read the rules of the game. I've seen Taco point others to Slashdot's years out of date FAQ, so now I'll take the time to point him to one: Part 3, Section A, Subsection 13 (naming conventions) AND I QUOTE (though the emphasis is mine alone):
In particular, you may not use any name... 13. That incorporates titles. For purposes of this subsection, "titles" shall include without limitation 'rank' titles (e.g. , "CorporalTed," or "GeneralVlad"), monarchistic or fantasy titles (e.g., "KingMike", "LordSanchez"), and religious titles (e.g., "ThePope," or "Reverend Al").
Now, if you're going to join a service that you must pay a monthly fee to use, that you're going to put in all sorts of time over, then don't you think it would behoove one to read the fucking rules of the service? it's pretty clear that Taco was breaking the rules, so what exactly does he expect to happen? Does he expect to get an exception just because he's That Guy Who Makes Slashdot Run? If it took him "dozens of inquiries to get that explained" then he needs to learn to read the rules of the game before he plays. I don't play Wow, and it took me about 10 seconds to find the relevant rules page and its section regarding names. It's really not that hard.
This is a non-story, the only reason it's on the front page is because of Taco's abuse of power. To be fair, at least it's something fresh and recent instead of the usual "news items" (or duplicate posts) that showed up on the BoingBoing RSS feed weeks ago...
you know, i don't know many indian folks, and i had no idea that's how you pronounced indian names. thanks for the info, you've probably saved me from a pretty embarassing situation in the future!
They let you preview all of the songs on every album for sale, and though they may not have RIAA-signed artists, they've got a pretty good selection, and I try to shamelessly plug them every chance I get. Best of all, all you need is an mp3 player of some sort to listen to the 128kbps song previews (which are the full songs, not 30 second snippets). The prices are very reasonable, and 50% of the sale price of the album goes straight to the artist; so you can buy more music than you would on amazon, and the people who made it will get fairly compensated for their work and talent. You should check it out, you might like it.
I think you've just described the same thing twice. I respectfully disagree.
The wrongs that would ensue if illegally obtained evidence is allowed to be used are the same as the wrongs that are created by illegally obtained evidence.
If by "the wrongs that are created by illegally obtained evidence" you mean the results of a crime (say, the wrong created by a handgun fired at the cashier of a liquor store during the course of an armed robbery, resulting in the cashier's death); then I would argue that the wrongs are not the same at all.
The idea of not allowing illegally obtained evidence to be used in a criminal trial is to protect 'The People' from abuses by 'The State'. Using evidence that has been illegally obtained may result in the conviction of a guilty person, except that doing so is (usually) found to be a violation of an U.S. citizen's right "...to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures".
I believe the theory is that if the police were regularly permitted to use illegally obtained evidence in a trial, it would moot the Fourth Amendment protections of the Constitution, resulting in something awfully similar to a police state. Think of this: if a police officer knows that any "evidince" they find during the course of an investigation will be permitted in a trial, then there is no check upon their power to search and seize (illegal searches are often the reason why evidence is suppressed). If an officer knows they don't need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a search, what's to stop them from randomly searching ANY person, place, or thing, at ANY time, for ANY reason (under the guise of 'conducting an investigation', of course)?
An innocent person may feel they have nothing to hide, but do you really want the police tossing your home at 3AM because you fit the description of somebody who committed a crime recently? What if that description was merely "black male"? What if you happen to be a black male, and the cops go digging through your home looking for a firearm and find your marijuana stash instead? Oops, now you're gonna go to jail for drug charges, and it doesn't even matter that you were nowhere near that liquor store when it was robbed. The sort of damage that such a system would do to our freedoms is far worse than the damage done to the prosecutor's case by suppressing evidence of a murder/armed robbery that had been illegally obtained.
Furthermore, what if the police don't find anything during the search of your house, but decide that they need a conviction, so they simply plant evidence instead? Things like warrants and chain of evidence are designed to prevent such abuses, but if police do not have to follow those procedures, you can kiss that notion goodbye.
Slashdot Mirror
Thankfully, people tend to interpret legal terms the way the law does, not the way you do -- this is a good thing, as you obviously have no clue as to what the hell you're talking about. Here's how the 8th edition of Black's Law Dictionary defines extortion (quotes removed for the sake of my tired, tired hands):
extortion, n. 1. The offense committed by a public official who illegally obtains property under the color of office; esp., an official's collection of an unlawful fee. 2. The act or practice of obtaining something or compelling some action by illegal means, as by force or coercion.
There is absolutely no chance the RIAA is making any money with all the legal fees they are spending here. Typically they ask people to settle for very small amounts. Lawyers cost hundreds of thousands or even millions just to hire a few.
Got any numbers you can cite? Any references at all to back up your supposed knowledge of the RIAA's legal expenses and profits? Or are you just making stuff up? Put up or shut up.
because people who were criminals under US law passed through the United States?
Apologies are in order for my snarkitutde. I really need to remember to get the caffeine fix *before* replying to posts on slashdot.
I agree with you entirely that one providing e-mail services to paying customers really ought to inform those customers of what they're doing to filter their e-mail. I had to pick my e-mail provider very very carefully for this reason, and thus far I've had no problems (been with 'em going on 4 years) because they're entirely up-front about what they do by default (nothing) and give you complete control over a huge list of spam-filtering options (whitelist, goldlist, greylist, bayesian filtering, a whole slew of RBLs) that you can *choose* to apply to your incoming e-mail. Of course, this is a service specifically tailored for the more clued-in users out there.
I'd think for somebody managing the e-mail service of a medium to large sized ISP, this is less of an option. Then again, any e-mail administrator who uses RBLs as a sole means of determining whether or not a message should be delivered to its recipient ought not to be employed as an e-mail administrator for much longer. It's been my personal experience that a customer will happily take hundreds of spam, but god help you if you drop a legitimate e-mail of theirs.
I have threatened SORBS with legal action.
Well, there's your problem right there! Most people don't really like legal threats, and amongst the more fanatical anti-spammers, they're quite the source of amusment. I submit for your consideration the cart00ney.org blacklist, which is an RBL specifically for listing people that send legal threats to blacklist operators. I also suggest that you search Google Groups' archive of NANAE for 'Matthew Sullivan' and 'cart00ney', because I'm sure your threat got a good laugh out of everybody there. I'm sure that was your last resort after trying to do all the things a civil and reasonable person would and failing to see any results, but it was definitely not the wisest thing to do.
Actually, I was not attempting to 'counter' or debate anything. I asked a simple question. Welcome to third-grade reading comprehension.
At no point did I suggest that the ends justified the means, I merely asked what alternatives an RBL operator has when faced with an ISP that knows, but does not care that spammers reside on and operate from their network. What precisely *are* they supposed to do? Playing whack-a-spammer by only listing IPs that send spam does not work when there are ISPs that actively aid their spamming customers by moving them around as their existing IP space gets listed. I'm not suggesting that SPEWS' actions are the right ones, but since people seem to frequently (entirely reasonably, IMO) criticize and villify SPEWS, surely they have a viable alternative to suggest that isn't "shut up and take your spam".
What exactly is an RBL operator supposed to do about large server parks that simply do not give a shit about the spammers residing on their network? What do you do about networks that actively aid spammers by moving them around and around to clean IP space as they're blacklisted? Playing IP whack-a-spammer went out of fashion years ago, and obviously asking politely doesn't work. Yeah, finding your ISP listed on SPEWS sucks, because there's no real way to contact them; though you can beg in NANAE and NANABL for the entertainment of the wannabe 'spam-fighters' till you're blue in the face -- but if your ISP does not care about the fact that one of their customers is stealing bandwidth, CPU cycles, and time from other people and their ISPs, what else can SPEWS do about it? My understanding of the SPEWS escalation process is that they notify the ISP about the spammer on their network, and then if nothing is done, they list the surrounding IP blocks in an ever-increasing fashion. Meaning if the ISP simply does not care that there's a spammer on their network, they are made to care by virtue of their entire netspace being (eventually) listed. What else *can* an RBL operator do when the ISP does not listen or care? I ask this as a serious question. IANASFBFNANAE (I am not a SPEWS fan boy from NANAE) - in fact, I don't directly use RBLs any longer.
Actually, I have one of these sitting around under wraps at home. I've been off at school and haven't had much time for nerdly side-projects, and so it's mostly just sat in storage. It's a DEC 300/800 'Flamingo II' I *think*, and it weighs an f***ing ton. I don't know how the hell I'd ship it to you, but if you'd like to give such a thing a good home, leave me a response.
A:Show student what happens when your wrist bends in ways it's not supposed to
B:Place handcuffs on disruptive student
C:Drag very noisy, whiny student out of the building because he's tresspassing and needs to leave
how was that not a plausible scenario? I don't sympahtize with that student's misbehavior (and can't help but wonder if it was not instigated by the student as some kind of Sheehanesque attention-getting 'fighting the man' thing) at all, but I think it's very, very important to question the police using such a disproportionate level of force against somebody who was simply not a threat. If you've been tasered, you *WILL* not be getting up and walking outside very quickly; and for those police to do what they did was an act of punishment. It is not the police's job to punish anybody.
There were plenty of less violent ways the police could have removed that student from the building, and I think that people under the jurisdiction of that police force have every right to demand to know why they chose the most violent and dangerous, and why they crossed the line from serving and protecting to what seems awfully close to inflicting an extra-judicial punishment.
Because it's not the government's $%&@ing job to trawl the WWW looking for what it deems to be "inappropriate" sites to add to a National Blacklist, that's why.
As somebody who has to see those things every $^&# day on the feet of dumb Sorority girls, I think I can safely say that Australia can have them back. They're called ugg boots 'cause every time I see somebody wearing them, my inner gay man goes "ugh!".
Thank you for reminding me why I like the comments section of SlashDot better than digg.com in its entirety.
Hey, jackass, why don't you come back to Slashdot when you get the joke/pop culture reference instead of presuming racism? That kind of ignorance isn't welcome here, either. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooked_on_Monkey_Phon ics
It happened to my brother (girlfriend told him she was on the pill but was not), my grandfather (the pill + antibiotics = my uncle), four of my male friends (similar situations and 2 of them simply had drunken unprotected sex), and I've seen three of my female friends perpetrate it (one of them wanted to cash in on the rich guy she was dating, the other just wanted a child, and the third wanted to get married....guess what? they're all single mothers now, and their 'baby-daddies' have been granted the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars every month in child support).
Like Oswald said: young men, protect yourselves.
That *cannot* be emphasized enough.
No offense intended to the ladies; but guys, you simply cannot trust your woman to not get pregnant, because that's what female humans are designed to do. Whether by accident or design, you'll be stuck with the responsibility of a child you may or may not be ready to deal with. In many states, if you fail to pay your child support, you go to jail. Seriously.
Use condoms, use them right. Know the risks of what you're doing and BE CAREFUL. No condom, no sex. Period. EOF
I buy meat from the farmers near my city at the weekly farmers' market. It costs more than grocery store meat, and astronomically more than fast-food meat, but I know exactly what I'm getting. This means I eat a lot less meat, but that's fine by me - there's many other foods out there that'll give you the necessary elements. I buy much less of this more expensive meat specifically because of the process by which the animals are raised. Basically, the farmers get a bunch of animals, let them go out and be their natural selves, and then decidedly unnaturally slaughter them when they're big enough to be dinner. Of course they take care of their wards during the process, but this process also doesn't involve cramming tens of thousands of animals into confined spaces and jamming them full of food their bodies were not designed to digst, resulting in fucked-up animals that require heavy doses of antibiotics, growth hormones, and other drugs to grow to the required size -- to say nothing of what the creatures themselves must experience in such a setting. I don't want that crap in my body, and I want no part of any business that treats animals in that way. Did I mention that traditionally-raised meat actually tastes better? Go try a steak from a farm that has happy and healthy animals more or less living their natural animal lives. Then go try the same cut of meat from Wal-Mart or something for 1/5th the price. You'll very quickly taste the difference in quality.
http://www.washington-report.org/html/us_aid_to_is rael.htm
I respect the Israelis for winning the Six Days' War. I believe that they earned their right to exist then, and I do not discount that in any way. However, since the 1970's, Israel has been on the US Taxpayer dole to the tune of EIGHTY FOUR BILLION DOLLARS of foreign aid from 1949 until 1997. This does NOT include the billions of dollars a year Israel has recieved since then to this very day - I believe on the average of 2 BILLION dollars a year. Israel may have prospered, but you and me and all the other US Taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for it.
I decided to do a little bit of searching. So far I've found a couple links that seemed credible:e s/03/16/files.report/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filegate
http://transcripts.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stori
Both of those links state that Clinton had no involvement. A prosecutor making such a statement seems to be a bit more credible than the "liberal media" boogeyman.
Can you show me any credible sources that say otherwise? I'd be willing to look at any verifiable information that you have. I'd really appreciate a response on this, I'm genuinely curious about this subject now.
Most everybody has heard of Nixon and Watergate and his abuses thereof, but I've not heard of Clinton pulling anything of that magnitutde. I too would like to see some kind of proof to substantiate the OP's claim about Clinton being "one of the worst abusers of governmental information gathering". Put up or shut up, it's that simple.
I don't take this stance because I have any real love for the former president (I think he was a coward and a sleazeball), but because I have love for the truth. The OP made a non-obvious claim, and now they need to back it up with proof - that has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats or party preferences. It's a simple matter of intellectual honesty. If Clinton ranks up there with Nixon in terms of government information gathering abuses, I'd like to know exactly what he did. I'd like to see verifiable proof to back up this claim, as would many others, it would seem. That's really not too much to ask from somebody making such a claim.
as a fellow hoosier, i can assure you that if indiana adopts the ID lunacy, I'll be hitting the US-Canada border as soon as I'm done with my undergrad at IU, and I'll deal with the postgrad stuff up north
but how many slashdotters are going to go out and buy the PS3?
where'd it go?
Slashdot stopped being Taco's personal blog when VA Software bought it and employed him. Oh, and let's not forget the advertisements, slashvertisements and the subscription sales. This makes slashdot a BUSINESS VENTURE (granted a very poorly-run one, if VA's stock is any indication (it's lower in value than SCO's!)), and somebody's personal blog no longer. To paraphrase a previous poster: FoxNews may be Rupert Murdoch's property, but does that make it alright for him to have his "i didnt read the speed limit sign, how dare they give me a speeding ticket" story read as headline news by the anchors? Taco's bad experience belongs on his journal, because that's what the journals are for. He's abusing his ability as a site editor to put this on the front page.
This would be relevant to gaming if it were a well thought out article about online identity, instead of somebody whinging that they had to change their name in WoW because they didn't take the time to read the rules of the game. I've seen Taco point others to Slashdot's years out of date FAQ, so now I'll take the time to point him to one: Part 3, Section A, Subsection 13 (naming conventions) AND I QUOTE (though the emphasis is mine alone):
Now, if you're going to join a service that you must pay a monthly fee to use, that you're going to put in all sorts of time over, then don't you think it would behoove one to read the fucking rules of the service? it's pretty clear that Taco was breaking the rules, so what exactly does he expect to happen? Does he expect to get an exception just because he's That Guy Who Makes Slashdot Run? If it took him "dozens of inquiries to get that explained" then he needs to learn to read the rules of the game before he plays. I don't play Wow, and it took me about 10 seconds to find the relevant rules page and its section regarding names. It's really not that hard.
This is a non-story, the only reason it's on the front page is because of Taco's abuse of power. To be fair, at least it's something fresh and recent instead of the usual "news items" (or duplicate posts) that showed up on the BoingBoing RSS feed weeks ago...
PS: unclench, it'll make you seem more friendly
They let you preview all of the songs on every album for sale, and though they may not have RIAA-signed artists, they've got a pretty good selection, and I try to shamelessly plug them every chance I get. Best of all, all you need is an mp3 player of some sort to listen to the 128kbps song previews (which are the full songs, not 30 second snippets). The prices are very reasonable, and 50% of the sale price of the album goes straight to the artist; so you can buy more music than you would on amazon, and the people who made it will get fairly compensated for their work and talent. You should check it out, you might like it.
I respectfully disagree.
The wrongs that would ensue if illegally obtained evidence is allowed to be used are the same as the wrongs that are created by illegally obtained evidence.
If by "the wrongs that are created by illegally obtained evidence" you mean the results of a crime (say, the wrong created by a handgun fired at the cashier of a liquor store during the course of an armed robbery, resulting in the cashier's death); then I would argue that the wrongs are not the same at all.
The idea of not allowing illegally obtained evidence to be used in a criminal trial is to protect 'The People' from abuses by 'The State'. Using evidence that has been illegally obtained may result in the conviction of a guilty person, except that doing so is (usually) found to be a violation of an U.S. citizen's right "...to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures".
I believe the theory is that if the police were regularly permitted to use illegally obtained evidence in a trial, it would moot the Fourth Amendment protections of the Constitution, resulting in something awfully similar to a police state. Think of this: if a police officer knows that any "evidince" they find during the course of an investigation will be permitted in a trial, then there is no check upon their power to search and seize (illegal searches are often the reason why evidence is suppressed). If an officer knows they don't need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a search, what's to stop them from randomly searching ANY person, place, or thing, at ANY time, for ANY reason (under the guise of 'conducting an investigation', of course)?
An innocent person may feel they have nothing to hide, but do you really want the police tossing your home at 3AM because you fit the description of somebody who committed a crime recently? What if that description was merely "black male"? What if you happen to be a black male, and the cops go digging through your home looking for a firearm and find your marijuana stash instead? Oops, now you're gonna go to jail for drug charges, and it doesn't even matter that you were nowhere near that liquor store when it was robbed. The sort of damage that such a system would do to our freedoms is far worse than the damage done to the prosecutor's case by suppressing evidence of a murder/armed robbery that had been illegally obtained.
Furthermore, what if the police don't find anything during the search of your house, but decide that they need a conviction, so they simply plant evidence instead? Things like warrants and chain of evidence are designed to prevent such abuses, but if police do not have to follow those procedures, you can kiss that notion goodbye.