I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly, all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
The thing is, everyone else has generally decided that one group of people acting like assholes beats having a ton of people acting like assholes. If you prefer Somalia, or Juarez, or some other place with no effective government, you know where to find it.
It's unconstitutional to do so without a warrant. That's the point where they went wrong.
How it's supposed to work: 1. Agents think John Doe has committed or is involved in a conspiracy to commit a crime. For instance, they maybe heard somewhere that he was planning to rob an armored car. 2. Agents gather information either by consent or public sources that give them probable cause to search and / or arrest. For instance, they watched John Doe sitting around watching armored cars and making notes. 3. They go to a judge and get a warrant to search / arrest. In this case, maybe they ask to search John Doe's apartment for the notes to see if they match the schedule of the armored cars. 4. Then, and only then, can they go into John Doe's apartment to try to find the notes.
The part about asking a judge "mother may I" is the key step that was left out of this investigation.
First, let's upgrade the patent clerks to "patent engineers", because that's what they should be, with appropriate qualifications and salary.
Next thing, you're going to be saying that some well-qualified patent examiner might be capable of producing top-notch research in physics or something!
It's unconstitutional, in part because it's the FBI. FBI agents, like cops, have limits on what they can do without a warrant. The agents in this case had no warrant.
Let's look at your facts, shall we?
1) It was attached with magnets (ie: no damage to the car)
Totally irrelevant to whether the search is legal. If I'm stopped by an officer as part of a traffic stop, refuse the officer entry to my vehicle (which is totally legal to do), and he grabs the keys and searches my vehicle anyways, that doesn't make the search legal despite the fact that it didn't damage the car in the least.
2) The car was likely in public (i.e. government property) when they did so
Irrelevant for much the same reason as the last one. Cars on public streets are still considered "persons, houses, papers, and effects". Also, it's more likely the car was parked in his driveway (where he found the device), or a privately owned parking lot.
3) The device was readily removable and findable, though most definitely "hidden in plain sight"
So? If my phone is bugged without a warrant, just because it's an amateurish job does not mean that the wiretap was legal.
I've met a couple Republicans in person who supported this crap, but one was a senator who couldn't explain how the pork Homeland Security funding for his district would help reduce the federal deficit, and the other was clearly a bigot who thought the correct solution to the various problems in the Middle East was to nuke the entire place.
And as a left-winger who usually votes Democrat due to lack of better options, be aware that most of the Democratic rank-and-file does not support a lot of the totalitarian crap either. If you actually look at the polls, you'll find that they're primary concern is that large businesses don't run roughshod over everyone else. I can appreciate the concern that the US government can run roughshod over people too, but these days multinationals are by all appearances more powerful and thus more dangerous.
Well, actually, instead of papers (which of course could be forged or passed from one person to another) we'd probably instead put some sort of special mark directly on a person's body, perhaps their forehead (so they can easily be identified) and another one on their right hand (for easy scanning). I'm sure the right-wing crowd in the United States would have no problems with that, as it sure would make it hard for somebody to infiltrate the "in" group.
What these guys clearly want is the right to search any and all persons without their knowledge and without anything remotely resembling probable cause. Right now, they can at least claim that you consent to being searched when you decide to board a plane. But this is something different, because you do not consent to a search when you walk down a street.
A transcript of Ballmer's side of the conversation (with apologies to Peter Sellers):
"Hello?... Uh... Hello S- uh hello Sergey? Listen uh uh I can't hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?... Oh-ho, that's much better... yeah... huh... yes... Fine, I can hear you now, Sergey... Clear and plain and coming through fine... I'm coming through fine, too, eh?... Good, then... well, then, as you say, we're both coming through fine... Good... Well, it's good that you're fine and... and I'm fine... I agree with you, it's great to be fine... a-ha-ha-ha-ha... Now then, Sergey, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Patents... The *Patents*, Sergey... The *software* patents!... Well now, what happened is... ahm... one of those patent trolls, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head... you know... just a little... funny. And, ah... he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his lawyers... to sue your company... Ah... Well, let me finish, Sergey... Let me finish, Sergey... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?... Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Sergey?... Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?... *Of course* I like to speak to you!... *Of course* I like to say hello!... Not now, but anytime, Sergey. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened... It's a *friendly* call. Of course it's a friendly call... Listen, if it wasn't friendly... you probably wouldn't have even got it..."
The trials after WWII set the standard for what is and what is not a war crime. Dick Cheney proudly stated that he did things that fell into those standards. Ergo, Dick Cheney, by his own admission, committed war crimes.
The American public are the greatest threat to the US military and intelligence agencies doing whatever the hell they want.
I think that would be a bit more clear what you mean.
My suspicion (although I obviously can't prove it) is that the career spooks in the DIA, CIA, and FBI more-or-less make stuff up when they present what they're doing to the politicians with the goals of increasing their budget and avoiding any and all real oversight, and making it clear to the politicians that all information they receive from the intelligence agencies is classified. They come to the civilian leadership occasionally to ask about stuff that doesn't really matter to them, to make the civilians feel like they're in charge. And they bury everything in secrecy to prevent the public or inspector generals or anyone else from seeing what they're up to. There have been occasional instances of the civilians learning about some illegal program and shutting it down, which lends some credibility to my theory.
Hey, don't leave out Dick Cheney, who admitted to war crimes on national television.
Of course, just because he did something the US tried, convicted, and executed Japanese officials for doing isn't cause for accusing him of war crimes, right?
Perjury isn't a liability issue, it's a criminal issue. If found guilty of either perjury or suborning perjury, Darl McBride could find himself in PMITA prison.
Sure they can. For instance, if corporations are property, thanks to asset forfeiture it's possible for the government to charge property with a crime and confiscate it.
Or alternately, assume they are neither property nor persons. That means that Congress can pass whatever laws about corporations they like (since they nearly always fall under interstate commerce), and the state where the corporation is incorporated can also exercise unchecked control. Either of them could pass a law that states something like "Corporations who commit criminal offenses will be tried as criminal defendants."
One could argue whether either of those is a good or bad thing, but it's hardly a situation where they can't be charged with a crime.
Not all sysadmins can be above average. By definition, some of them will suck. As more stuff move into Linux-based systems, those admins which suck will be working on Linux. Ergo, bad admins will do less-than-ideal work.
Slashdot Mirror
I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly, all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.
Hesiod, circa 700 BC
Now, now, the Canadian Government has apologized for Bryan Adams on several occasions!
The thing is, everyone else has generally decided that one group of people acting like assholes beats having a ton of people acting like assholes. If you prefer Somalia, or Juarez, or some other place with no effective government, you know where to find it.
I mean, I wouldn't want his experiment to escape and start eating silicon in order to survive and reproduce.
It's unconstitutional to do so without a warrant. That's the point where they went wrong.
How it's supposed to work:
1. Agents think John Doe has committed or is involved in a conspiracy to commit a crime. For instance, they maybe heard somewhere that he was planning to rob an armored car.
2. Agents gather information either by consent or public sources that give them probable cause to search and / or arrest. For instance, they watched John Doe sitting around watching armored cars and making notes.
3. They go to a judge and get a warrant to search / arrest. In this case, maybe they ask to search John Doe's apartment for the notes to see if they match the schedule of the armored cars.
4. Then, and only then, can they go into John Doe's apartment to try to find the notes.
The part about asking a judge "mother may I" is the key step that was left out of this investigation.
Although the exact designs are of course kept under wraps, a likely model might look like this.
First, let's upgrade the patent clerks to "patent engineers", because that's what they should be, with appropriate qualifications and salary.
Next thing, you're going to be saying that some well-qualified patent examiner might be capable of producing top-notch research in physics or something!
"Your plastic pal who's fun to be with"
And if it's tele-operated, the applications of this tech for adult entertainment are obvious.
Your post was too long, so I hope you don't mind that I stopped reading it after 16 steps or so.
It's unconstitutional, in part because it's the FBI. FBI agents, like cops, have limits on what they can do without a warrant. The agents in this case had no warrant.
Let's look at your facts, shall we?
1) It was attached with magnets (ie: no damage to the car)
Totally irrelevant to whether the search is legal. If I'm stopped by an officer as part of a traffic stop, refuse the officer entry to my vehicle (which is totally legal to do), and he grabs the keys and searches my vehicle anyways, that doesn't make the search legal despite the fact that it didn't damage the car in the least.
2) The car was likely in public (i.e. government property) when they did so
Irrelevant for much the same reason as the last one. Cars on public streets are still considered "persons, houses, papers, and effects". Also, it's more likely the car was parked in his driveway (where he found the device), or a privately owned parking lot.
3) The device was readily removable and findable, though most definitely "hidden in plain sight"
So? If my phone is bugged without a warrant, just because it's an amateurish job does not mean that the wiretap was legal.
To paraphrase: "All suspects are guilty. Otherwise they wouldn't be suspect, would they?"
People like you should never ever ever serve on a criminal jury.
I've met a couple Republicans in person who supported this crap, but one was a senator who couldn't explain how the pork Homeland Security funding for his district would help reduce the federal deficit, and the other was clearly a bigot who thought the correct solution to the various problems in the Middle East was to nuke the entire place.
And as a left-winger who usually votes Democrat due to lack of better options, be aware that most of the Democratic rank-and-file does not support a lot of the totalitarian crap either. If you actually look at the polls, you'll find that they're primary concern is that large businesses don't run roughshod over everyone else. I can appreciate the concern that the US government can run roughshod over people too, but these days multinationals are by all appearances more powerful and thus more dangerous.
Well, actually, instead of papers (which of course could be forged or passed from one person to another) we'd probably instead put some sort of special mark directly on a person's body, perhaps their forehead (so they can easily be identified) and another one on their right hand (for easy scanning). I'm sure the right-wing crowd in the United States would have no problems with that, as it sure would make it hard for somebody to infiltrate the "in" group.
What these guys clearly want is the right to search any and all persons without their knowledge and without anything remotely resembling probable cause. Right now, they can at least claim that you consent to being searched when you decide to board a plane. But this is something different, because you do not consent to a search when you walk down a street.
Now show me your papers please.
A transcript of Ballmer's side of the conversation (with apologies to Peter Sellers):
"Hello?... Uh... Hello S- uh hello Sergey? Listen uh uh I can't hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?... Oh-ho, that's much better... yeah... huh... yes... Fine, I can hear you now, Sergey... Clear and plain and coming through fine... I'm coming through fine, too, eh?... Good, then... well, then, as you say, we're both coming through fine... Good... Well, it's good that you're fine and... and I'm fine... I agree with you, it's great to be fine... a-ha-ha-ha-ha... Now then, Sergey, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Patents... The *Patents*, Sergey... The *software* patents!... Well now, what happened is... ahm... one of those patent trolls, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head... you know... just a little... funny. And, ah... he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his lawyers... to sue your company... Ah... Well, let me finish, Sergey... Let me finish, Sergey... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?... Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Sergey?... Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?... *Of course* I like to speak to you!... *Of course* I like to say hello!... Not now, but anytime, Sergey. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened... It's a *friendly* call. Of course it's a friendly call... Listen, if it wasn't friendly... you probably wouldn't have even got it..."
The person Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is AFAICT: IS DEAD AS A DOORNAIL since 1791!
Tons of notable stuff has been dead as a doornail for quite some time.
Sure you can.
The trials after WWII set the standard for what is and what is not a war crime. Dick Cheney proudly stated that he did things that fell into those standards. Ergo, Dick Cheney, by his own admission, committed war crimes.
The American public are the greatest threat to the US military and intelligence agencies doing whatever the hell they want.
I think that would be a bit more clear what you mean.
My suspicion (although I obviously can't prove it) is that the career spooks in the DIA, CIA, and FBI more-or-less make stuff up when they present what they're doing to the politicians with the goals of increasing their budget and avoiding any and all real oversight, and making it clear to the politicians that all information they receive from the intelligence agencies is classified. They come to the civilian leadership occasionally to ask about stuff that doesn't really matter to them, to make the civilians feel like they're in charge. And they bury everything in secrecy to prevent the public or inspector generals or anyone else from seeing what they're up to. There have been occasional instances of the civilians learning about some illegal program and shutting it down, which lends some credibility to my theory.
Hey, don't leave out Dick Cheney, who admitted to war crimes on national television.
Of course, just because he did something the US tried, convicted, and executed Japanese officials for doing isn't cause for accusing him of war crimes, right?
Perjury isn't a liability issue, it's a criminal issue. If found guilty of either perjury or suborning perjury, Darl McBride could find himself in PMITA prison.
Among other things, if accurate, it would mean that SCO witnesses committed perjury in depositions, affidavits, and testimony.
The camera can fix ugliness up to 2 anti-milliHelens (in other words, the amount of ugliness required to send 2 ships' crews running in terror).
Oh, they know this perfectly well, but for $25000 in campaign contributions they can conveniently forget it.
Sure they can. For instance, if corporations are property, thanks to asset forfeiture it's possible for the government to charge property with a crime and confiscate it.
Or alternately, assume they are neither property nor persons. That means that Congress can pass whatever laws about corporations they like (since they nearly always fall under interstate commerce), and the state where the corporation is incorporated can also exercise unchecked control. Either of them could pass a law that states something like "Corporations who commit criminal offenses will be tried as criminal defendants."
One could argue whether either of those is a good or bad thing, but it's hardly a situation where they can't be charged with a crime.
Not all sysadmins can be above average. By definition, some of them will suck. As more stuff move into Linux-based systems, those admins which suck will be working on Linux. Ergo, bad admins will do less-than-ideal work.