I might agree with you, if it weren't for the fact that the people living in rural areas by and large are the same people calling for "low low taxes". Fine. You want low low taxes? Then be prepared for less services. Rural areas receive more tax dollars than they generate. I'm for ending that disparity. Let's see how the people that want those "low low taxes" do when there's no federal and state government donating more money to them to build infra-structure. Wanna bet who loses more, rural folks, or city folks when we cut services?
Is that not a valid way of dealing with the problem? If you know you can't control your drinking, this seems like an effective way of mitigating the damage it causes.
I think it's a good start. Perhaps learning how to have better influences in your life involves cutting off the bad ones and learning new habits. It's certainly possible that you'll find other bad habits that waste time (TV, drinking, etc.). But why not try it?
I think the best advice I could give someone is to build an offline library. An offline copy of wikipedia isn't a bad idea. But I'd also concentrate on actual paper books. Take the money you'd spend on an ISP and put it towards books, or magazine subscriptions. I'd also look towards what positive things you can do to replace "the internet". Removing one thing you think is bad isn't going to promote positive change in and of itself.
The people here chiming in about "oh noes, how will you live!" are deluding themselves. It won't be easy, but personally I think it'll be enlightening. Cutting off what you think might be a bad influence on your life can only tell you something about yourself. Maybe it'll tell you that the internet wasn't such a bad influence after all. Maybe it'll change you for the good. Maybe it'll tell you that "the internet" isn't your problem. Maybe you're absolutely right, and the internet was the bad influence in the first place. All of those are good things to learn, but you can't learn them until you do it. Good luck.
I'm saying none of that. I'm saying that sometimes it would be very useful to display a PDF inline in the same page, and not have it displayed in another window, or tab. Another poster pointed out this is already possible. I'm not familiar with how well this works, and the limitations of this method. I will say that being able to treat a PDF like any other object and have it be manipulated programatically would be a huge advantage for some people.
I actually didn't know you could already embed a PDF in a page. I'd guess you can't create your own controls to move to a different page, or manipulate the PDF in other ways, and are reliant upon the helper application.
The point being, viewing a PDF with programmatic controls would allow for a much richer environment than relying on helper applications.
Please enlighten me, a software developer of many years, what is this gold that is Pdf.js? I mean, apart from proof-of-concept being gold in itself.
Gold is just a bit of an overstatement. More like a valuable, but not precious metal like copper.
The value is that you can display a PDF inline with the website, rather than bringing up a clunky external application like adobe reader. "But you could do that with a plugin!" you say? Correct, but what you can't do with a plugin is actually get most people to install the thing. Since most people won't install it, the feature becomes useless. If you implement it in javascript though, those problems go away.
But it seems amazingly inferior to a platform native PDF reader, on any platform imaginable. It will be slower the native x86/ARM code by far, and won't integrate well with the desktop environment.
What's with this trend recently to build everything on fundamentally sucky technologies?
You're absolutely right. A platform native PDF reader is technically superior. But opening up a new window for each PDF you display really sucks as a user experience. To eliminate this sucky UI experience, browsers support PDF natively (I'm not sure why this hasn't happened), and not rely on Adobe reader, or some other helper application. Even if all the major browsers supported that TODAY, it would be literally years before a broad enough spectrum of people upgraded to use inline PDFs in a design.
What implementing a PDF reader in javascript accomplishes is across the board inline PDFs today. No upgrades required. I think that's worth some sucky technology and inefficient code.
The US is changing its HUMAN space exploration program, but the space exploration program is returning far more knowledge than it ever has. We've sent robots to almost every planet. We've been to Mars many many times. That may not be as inspirational as landing on the moon, but it's produced a hell of a lot more knowledge than did putting people on the moon.
Quibbling over exactly when max/min buttons came in is really missing the point. The point being it's so long that for 99% of users the max/min button has always existed. While an old design should never be considered unquestionable doctrine that cannot change, you equally shouldn't just change such a built in expectation without sufficient testing and input from real users.
This is such a drastic step of changing a UI paradign that's existed for the past 25+ years, and the only justifications I see for it are completely theoretical ones. Where's the usability testing by actual users to see if the theories hold any water?
Both sides can argue about what THEY think the user will prefer. The arguments can sound extrodinarily convincing, but what actually matters is how it performs in the real world with actual users. The solution to this problem seems to be "just put it in the next release and see if people revolt enough" rather than conducting actual controlled tests. IMO this is an extrodinarily flawed approach. A controlled test gives you non-biased opinions rather than political ones. This approach only seems to create a rift between the two opposing sides rather than finding out what's the best UI experience for the user.
The reason that it's not used (at least, according to my text book) was that juries who were in the same line of work as the defendant tended to be unfairly harsher then your stock standard jury.
Judging by the reactions to his sentence around here, I'd say your textbook is spot on. One guy even explicitly stated it was a good thing he's not in IT anymore because it makes the profession look bad. In essence a group of people in your own profession is likely a conflict of interest.
We had the prototype circuit card in our hands, so would lack-of-a-schematic be Denial of Service? Or theft? Or none of the above?
I'd have a hard time believing that a schematic could ever be considered a service. Whether it's theft or not is hard to say. A schematic of circuit board is clearly intellectual property. Whether the guy taking it or not is theft would depend a lot on the work arrangement he had with the company.
All that aside, the fact that he was charged and convicted of DoS does not "throw my legal definition out the window". Unless you think Child's conviction somehow invalidates the portion of California's penal code that defines theft.
The fact that he was not charged with theft throws your definition our the window. If what he did could reasonably be considered theft, you can sure as hell bet he'd be charged with it. He was originally charged with several other crimes, which eventually were dropped. This goes to show the prosecutors were quite broad in defining what they thought he could be convicted of.
Sorry, that is not the definition of theft. Here is California's definition of theft.
That's nice. Except he wasn't charged with theft, he was charged and convicted of Denial of Service. I guess that throws your legal definition out the window, doesn't it?
Nobody was physically hurt, but the financial cost to the city was substantial. First there's the cost to effectively break into their own system, then since they know there's been a breach, there's the cost for repair and another round of security testing.
Baloney. The quoted figures are $900,000, which I highly doubt anyone actually spent but represents someone with an imagination and a calculator. Cases such as these often involve illusory costs like that. As an example, 20 years ago Craig Neidor of Phrack Magazine fame was facing 30 years in prison for publishing information on E911 that was claimed to be worth $79,000, but later turned out to be available for $13. So you'll excuse me if I take the $900,000 figure with a grain of salt.
If, for the moment we accept that $900,000 figure, why isn't it the cities fault for allowing such an idiotic system where $900,000 could be spent if one person forgot a set of passwords, or was hit by a bus, or simply acted like an asshat and didn't reveal them? This is not a risk that requires some specialized technological knowledge to understand. Everyone in the modern age knows what a password is, and the implications of only one person knowing it.
There's this weird disease that's prevalent in IT that involves a strong belief in "the rules". You can see it quite obviously spread throughout this thread. Very very few people are actually talking about the law, or justice, or anything along those lines. They talk about how Childs broke some illusory, unwritten set of rules of decorum or behaviour, and therefore deserves whatever crazy sentence handed down. (For those of you that think being a jackass, taking a "I own the computers" attitude, generally being a BOFH, or not obeying your employer involve the law.. well, you've got a lot to learn)
Personally I think you're right, and people have gone batshit insane in this story if they think 4 years is an appropriate sentence for this crime (if it is indeed a crime).
The sentence put into the context of people committing ACTUAL crimes where computer systems were broken into by unauthorized people, it becomes obvious that 4 years is a sentence only the lunatic fringe can support. In case you're too lazy to read it, the highlights are: Kevin Mitnick: 46 months, Kevin Poulsen: 51 months (both of which were quite notorious hackers who broken into multiple systems over a period of years).
Childs locked down systems without documenting the changes. He did not take any steps to ensure continuous service in his absence. He put extra effort towards implementing systems that others couldn't access. He broke the law. LOL! If those things are crimes, 30% of the system administrators in the US should be in jail right now. He refused to turn over passwords when leaving. When asked, he lied.
Yup. The question comes in why that in itself is a crime. If one person not revealing a password is such a huge burden on the system.. why aren't the people responsible for allowing such an idiotic system just as responsible as Childs?
The problem with most of the posts in this whole story seems to be about Childs acting like a spoiled child (which he did), but nobody seems to talk about any actual damage that happened to anyone as a result of this. (Largely because there wasn't any). The law exists to protect people, not to "get bad guys". Childs is a jerk, and asshat, a control freak, and should be tarred and feathered by an angry mob of other control freaks upset about giving control freaks a bad name. But 4 years in prison? What's the US come to when there's a serious contingent that thinks this is a fair punishment for not revealing a password for 12 days that wound up hurting nobody?
4 years in prison for not giving out a password for 12 days? Insane.
Frankly, I'm not sure I agree what he did constitutes a crime. The city not knowing a password is hardly a "denial of service". Aren't the people who came up with this crazy scheme where ONE person knows the passwords equally at fault? Perhaps they should be charged with a DOS crime.
Assuming for the moment this constitutes a crime, a reasonable sentence for something like this would be 90 days in jail. To put this into perspective, in 1999 Kevin Mitnick got 46 months in prison for to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication. (He also got 22 additional months for violating the terms of his previous release for computer fraud).
There's one reason why this is a poor method of insurance. Suppose there's somebody out there with an even bigger axe to grind than Assange, who will stop at nothing to get the contents of this "insurance" file released. With over six billion people in the world, and a substantial number of them having a beef with the U.S., it's not beyond the realms of possibility.
That's certainly true, and a definite risk. However, for the ploy to be of value the threat of the U.S. govt merely has to be greater than that of the "unknown, theoretical bad guy".
Given that nobody but a few know what's in the file (it may even be a bluff.. who knows), I'd say the threats from the U.S. government far outweigh the threats from the unknown.
You think that came out of a vacuum? The reason the agreement was possible is because of the economy. Who wants to spend their life blowing things up and killing people when you can have a chance at a real life?
Judging our knowledge of the rest of the world by what we don't know is always going to make us look extraordinarily ignorant. That's because we essentially are when it comes to the fine details.
What I disagree with is the idea that we could somehow have known about everything that goes on in these tiny groups. Other countries have intelligence forces as well, and they've equally failed at stopping terrorist attacks. The UK had a period of 20+ years where the IRA lead a bombing campaign against British targets. Israel has had various bombing campaigns against it for years. But yet the intelligence and police forces of both countries were largely ineffective at stopping the bombers. The only thing that really stopped the IRA was the economy of Ireland improved, not the UK intelligence and police. Why should we be any different?
Your definition of activists is interesting, but you're using the wrong word. To 99% of the populace "activist" means those annoying people holding signs, or that judge who made some decision you don't like and therefore he's "legislating from the bench". I guarantee you very few people would identify someone writing a letter to an editor as an activist. I don't know there's a proper word for it, but activist isn't it.
Then why were we almost completely unaware of the various operations of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and others?
Which "the various operations" are you talking about? Can you be specific, or is your complaint that the U.S. government isn't omniscient? Why does being unaware of whatever these operations are make the U.S. ignorant of the rest of the world? This is just an astounding claim to hear from someone. The U.S. intelligence apparatus and knowledge of world events is not insignificant, so this idea that we're ignorant of the rest of the world is like saying Microsoft doesn't know anything about selling software and creating monopolies. When we cannot, we must be sure that the only liberties we sacrifice are ones that we really don't need, like the ability to walk up and have a friendly conversation with the pilot.
I don't think you could ever really expect to do that on an airplane, at least not in the last 40 years.
What pissed me off though is that we're giving up liberties, but not getting any security. How is stopping some software developer for 3 hours and taking his cell phones making us safer? How is stopping people from bringing a bottle of water on an airplane make anyone safer? It doesn't, but it sure looks like something is being done.
You also have this strange sense of "the activists". Who are these "the activists", and why are these people the only ones that can look out for our liberties?
There's nothing to be gain from talking to ANY officer. Name, drivers license, and that's it. When I was pulled over by the Homeland Gestapo while traveling across the country, they tried to get me to talk but I refused.
In 2009 I was pulled over 4 or 5 times by Homeland Gestapo while vacationing in Arizona. They setup these large roadblocks, stop everyone and ask if you're a citizen. I'm a pretty average looking white guy, so they just flagged me through each time. In contrast it sounds like in your case it cost you an hour in the afternoon sun. So while you say there's nothing ever to be gained by playing the game (in this case just saying you're a citizen), I personally value not spending an hour in the sun. (Though I wouldn't have let them search my trunk if they asked either).
I'm actually still quite pissed off that this kind of crap is still happening. I don't agree with it in the least, and hate the fact that the Federal Govt. thinks they can just stop people driving around in their own country for no other reason than to ask us if we're citizens.
I largely disagree with your drastic oversimplifications of very complicated world events and turning them into neat little bullet points while ignoring hundreds of other trends and events. I could go on, but there's something more disturbing. This is the statement I don't understand at all: We had temporary safety from about 1985 until 2001. We obtained it by being the strongest (and most stable) military power in the world. Now that guerilla/terrorist warfare is recognized to be stronger, we have lost all security.
What's the threat that YOU PERSONALLY face from "guerilla/terrorists" warfare? Are you really and truly afraid of Al-Queda? Why is safety supposed to be the big goal we're all trying to obtain? What really makes you think we've lost it? How is this such a large threat to the country as a whole?
Frankly I'm far more threatened by the economies dependence on cheap oil imports, the increasing gap between the rich and poor, the increasing polarity of political parties, our ever increasing "fear culture", and pissing away billions of dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan than I am of those Al-Queda fuckheads.
The plain and simple fact is that every time the government does something just to "appease the general public", that means they're doing (mostly) what the general public wants.
A completely false way to frame the situation. A few problems with how you've framed this:
The general public does not want one thing, it wants a multitude of different, conflicting things. Even when the general public wants the same thing, they want it in vastly different ways. The general public can be convinced of a LOT given enough nonsense. (Most people somehow got convinced to attack Iraq as a result of 9/11 and many are still somehow convinced the two are linked). There is no "general public". There's just what you can get away with. September 11th of 2001 was the day we realized how little we knew about the rest of the world. Since then, our investigative agencies have been scrambling to figure out a good answer to the question of "what's going on?" since our previous methods were so obviously incomplete.
Who the fuck is this "we" you speak of? Do you perhaps mean you?
The U.S. government is many things, but ignorant of the rest of the world is NOT one of them. It's a good thing, overall. Yes, there are some innocent folks getting detained, deported, and denied entry, but in time those will work out.
This is nothing but unbridled optimism and blind faith. Why will this eventually be worked out, and not the far more likely case, completely forgotten about? There is a balance we must strike between absolute security and absolute liberty, and we will not reach that point within the span of one presidential term.
Why are security and liberty things that are necessarily at odds as if less liberty means more security and vice versa? Isn't it just possible that many of the things we do for "added security" (like say for instance this bullshit about bringing liquids on an airplane) only serve to destroy our liberties and give us zero security? Isn't it possible that some security measures like re-enforcing the cockpit doors on airplanes added a lot of security, but cost us zero in liberties?
Your dichotomy is utterly false, and it's not too hard to see that.
Slashdot Mirror
I might agree with you, if it weren't for the fact that the people living in rural areas by and large are the same people calling for "low low taxes". Fine. You want low low taxes? Then be prepared for less services. Rural areas receive more tax dollars than they generate. I'm for ending that disparity. Let's see how the people that want those "low low taxes" do when there's no federal and state government donating more money to them to build infra-structure. Wanna bet who loses more, rural folks, or city folks when we cut services?
Is that not a valid way of dealing with the problem? If you know you can't control your drinking, this seems like an effective way of mitigating the damage it causes.
I think it's a good start. Perhaps learning how to have better influences in your life involves cutting off the bad ones and learning new habits. It's certainly possible that you'll find other bad habits that waste time (TV, drinking, etc.). But why not try it?
I think the best advice I could give someone is to build an offline library. An offline copy of wikipedia isn't a bad idea. But I'd also concentrate on actual paper books. Take the money you'd spend on an ISP and put it towards books, or magazine subscriptions. I'd also look towards what positive things you can do to replace "the internet". Removing one thing you think is bad isn't going to promote positive change in and of itself.
The people here chiming in about "oh noes, how will you live!" are deluding themselves. It won't be easy, but personally I think it'll be enlightening. Cutting off what you think might be a bad influence on your life can only tell you something about yourself. Maybe it'll tell you that the internet wasn't such a bad influence after all. Maybe it'll change you for the good. Maybe it'll tell you that "the internet" isn't your problem. Maybe you're absolutely right, and the internet was the bad influence in the first place. All of those are good things to learn, but you can't learn them until you do it. Good luck.
I'm saying none of that. I'm saying that sometimes it would be very useful to display a PDF inline in the same page, and not have it displayed in another window, or tab. Another poster pointed out this is already possible. I'm not familiar with how well this works, and the limitations of this method. I will say that being able to treat a PDF like any other object and have it be manipulated programatically would be a huge advantage for some people.
I actually didn't know you could already embed a PDF in a page. I'd guess you can't create your own controls to move to a different page, or manipulate the PDF in other ways, and are reliant upon the helper application.
The point being, viewing a PDF with programmatic controls would allow for a much richer environment than relying on helper applications.
Please enlighten me, a software developer of many years, what is this gold that is Pdf.js? I mean, apart from proof-of-concept being gold in itself.
Gold is just a bit of an overstatement. More like a valuable, but not precious metal like copper.
The value is that you can display a PDF inline with the website, rather than bringing up a clunky external application like adobe reader. "But you could do that with a plugin!" you say? Correct, but what you can't do with a plugin is actually get most people to install the thing. Since most people won't install it, the feature becomes useless. If you implement it in javascript though, those problems go away.
But it seems amazingly inferior to a platform native PDF reader, on any platform imaginable. It will be slower the native x86/ARM code by far, and won't integrate well with the desktop environment.
What's with this trend recently to build everything on fundamentally sucky technologies?
You're absolutely right. A platform native PDF reader is technically superior. But opening up a new window for each PDF you display really sucks as a user experience. To eliminate this sucky UI experience, browsers support PDF natively (I'm not sure why this hasn't happened), and not rely on Adobe reader, or some other helper application. Even if all the major browsers supported that TODAY, it would be literally years before a broad enough spectrum of people upgraded to use inline PDFs in a design.
What implementing a PDF reader in javascript accomplishes is across the board inline PDFs today. No upgrades required. I think that's worth some sucky technology and inefficient code.
The US is changing its HUMAN space exploration program, but the space exploration program is returning far more knowledge than it ever has. We've sent robots to almost every planet. We've been to Mars many many times. That may not be as inspirational as landing on the moon, but it's produced a hell of a lot more knowledge than did putting people on the moon.
Quibbling over exactly when max/min buttons came in is really missing the point. The point being it's so long that for 99% of users the max/min button has always existed. While an old design should never be considered unquestionable doctrine that cannot change, you equally shouldn't just change such a built in expectation without sufficient testing and input from real users.
This is such a drastic step of changing a UI paradign that's existed for the past 25+ years, and the only justifications I see for it are completely theoretical ones. Where's the usability testing by actual users to see if the theories hold any water?
Both sides can argue about what THEY think the user will prefer. The arguments can sound extrodinarily convincing, but what actually matters is how it performs in the real world with actual users. The solution to this problem seems to be "just put it in the next release and see if people revolt enough" rather than conducting actual controlled tests. IMO this is an extrodinarily flawed approach. A controlled test gives you non-biased opinions rather than political ones. This approach only seems to create a rift between the two opposing sides rather than finding out what's the best UI experience for the user.
The reason that it's not used (at least, according to my text book) was that juries who were in the same line of work as the defendant tended to be unfairly harsher then your stock standard jury.
Judging by the reactions to his sentence around here, I'd say your textbook is spot on. One guy even explicitly stated it was a good thing he's not in IT anymore because it makes the profession look bad. In essence a group of people in your own profession is likely a conflict of interest.
We had the prototype circuit card in our hands, so would lack-of-a-schematic be Denial of Service? Or theft? Or none of the above?
I'd have a hard time believing that a schematic could ever be considered a service. Whether it's theft or not is hard to say. A schematic of circuit board is clearly intellectual property. Whether the guy taking it or not is theft would depend a lot on the work arrangement he had with the company.
All that aside, the fact that he was charged and convicted of DoS does not "throw my legal definition out the window". Unless you think Child's conviction somehow invalidates the portion of California's penal code that defines theft.
The fact that he was not charged with theft throws your definition our the window. If what he did could reasonably be considered theft, you can sure as hell bet he'd be charged with it. He was originally charged with several other crimes, which eventually were dropped. This goes to show the prosecutors were quite broad in defining what they thought he could be convicted of.
Sorry, that is not the definition of theft. Here is California's definition of theft.
That's nice. Except he wasn't charged with theft, he was charged and convicted of Denial of Service. I guess that throws your legal definition out the window, doesn't it?
Nobody was physically hurt, but the financial cost to the city was substantial. First there's the cost to effectively break into their own system, then since they know there's been a breach, there's the cost for repair and another round of security testing.
Baloney. The quoted figures are $900,000, which I highly doubt anyone actually spent but represents someone with an imagination and a calculator. Cases such as these often involve illusory costs like that. As an example, 20 years ago Craig Neidor of Phrack Magazine fame was facing 30 years in prison for publishing information on E911 that was claimed to be worth $79,000, but later turned out to be available for $13. So you'll excuse me if I take the $900,000 figure with a grain of salt.
If, for the moment we accept that $900,000 figure, why isn't it the cities fault for allowing such an idiotic system where $900,000 could be spent if one person forgot a set of passwords, or was hit by a bus, or simply acted like an asshat and didn't reveal them? This is not a risk that requires some specialized technological knowledge to understand. Everyone in the modern age knows what a password is, and the implications of only one person knowing it.
There's this weird disease that's prevalent in IT that involves a strong belief in "the rules". You can see it quite obviously spread throughout this thread. Very very few people are actually talking about the law, or justice, or anything along those lines. They talk about how Childs broke some illusory, unwritten set of rules of decorum or behaviour, and therefore deserves whatever crazy sentence handed down. (For those of you that think being a jackass, taking a "I own the computers" attitude, generally being a BOFH, or not obeying your employer involve the law.. well, you've got a lot to learn)
Personally I think you're right, and people have gone batshit insane in this story if they think 4 years is an appropriate sentence for this crime (if it is indeed a crime).
The sentence put into the context of people committing ACTUAL crimes where computer systems were broken into by unauthorized people, it becomes obvious that 4 years is a sentence only the lunatic fringe can support. In case you're too lazy to read it, the highlights are: Kevin Mitnick: 46 months, Kevin Poulsen: 51 months (both of which were quite notorious hackers who broken into multiple systems over a period of years).
Childs locked down systems without documenting the changes. He did not take any steps to ensure continuous service in his absence. He put extra effort towards implementing systems that others couldn't access. He broke the law.
LOL! If those things are crimes, 30% of the system administrators in the US should be in jail right now.
He refused to turn over passwords when leaving. When asked, he lied.
Yup. The question comes in why that in itself is a crime. If one person not revealing a password is such a huge burden on the system.. why aren't the people responsible for allowing such an idiotic system just as responsible as Childs?
The problem with most of the posts in this whole story seems to be about Childs acting like a spoiled child (which he did), but nobody seems to talk about any actual damage that happened to anyone as a result of this. (Largely because there wasn't any). The law exists to protect people, not to "get bad guys". Childs is a jerk, and asshat, a control freak, and should be tarred and feathered by an angry mob of other control freaks upset about giving control freaks a bad name. But 4 years in prison? What's the US come to when there's a serious contingent that thinks this is a fair punishment for not revealing a password for 12 days that wound up hurting nobody?
4 years in prison for not giving out a password for 12 days? Insane.
Frankly, I'm not sure I agree what he did constitutes a crime. The city not knowing a password is hardly a "denial of service". Aren't the people who came up with this crazy scheme where ONE person knows the passwords equally at fault? Perhaps they should be charged with a DOS crime.
Assuming for the moment this constitutes a crime, a reasonable sentence for something like this would be 90 days in jail. To put this into perspective, in 1999 Kevin Mitnick got 46 months in prison for to four counts of wire fraud, two counts of computer fraud and one count of illegally intercepting a wire communication. (He also got 22 additional months for violating the terms of his previous release for computer fraud).
So yah, a 4 year sentence is batshit insane.
There's one reason why this is a poor method of insurance. Suppose there's somebody out there with an even bigger axe to grind than Assange, who will stop at nothing to get the contents of this "insurance" file released. With over six billion people in the world, and a substantial number of them having a beef with the U.S., it's not beyond the realms of possibility.
That's certainly true, and a definite risk. However, for the ploy to be of value the threat of the U.S. govt merely has to be greater than that of the "unknown, theoretical bad guy".
Given that nobody but a few know what's in the file (it may even be a bluff.. who knows), I'd say the threats from the U.S. government far outweigh the threats from the unknown.
The fact that it's associated primarily with militants is an unfortunate consequence of the popular media.
In may be unfortunate, but it's a fact. Words are defined by usage, not by dictionaries. People who write dictionaries actually look towards usage.
The fact remains that words are used to communicate with others. How you personally believe people should use a word is irrelevant.
You think that came out of a vacuum? The reason the agreement was possible is because of the economy. Who wants to spend their life blowing things up and killing people when you can have a chance at a real life?
Judging our knowledge of the rest of the world by what we don't know is always going to make us look extraordinarily ignorant. That's because we essentially are when it comes to the fine details.
What I disagree with is the idea that we could somehow have known about everything that goes on in these tiny groups. Other countries have intelligence forces as well, and they've equally failed at stopping terrorist attacks. The UK had a period of 20+ years where the IRA lead a bombing campaign against British targets. Israel has had various bombing campaigns against it for years. But yet the intelligence and police forces of both countries were largely ineffective at stopping the bombers. The only thing that really stopped the IRA was the economy of Ireland improved, not the UK intelligence and police. Why should we be any different?
Your definition of activists is interesting, but you're using the wrong word. To 99% of the populace "activist" means those annoying people holding signs, or that judge who made some decision you don't like and therefore he's "legislating from the bench". I guarantee you very few people would identify someone writing a letter to an editor as an activist. I don't know there's a proper word for it, but activist isn't it.
Then why were we almost completely unaware of the various operations of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and others?
Which "the various operations" are you talking about? Can you be specific, or is your complaint that the U.S. government isn't omniscient? Why does being unaware of whatever these operations are make the U.S. ignorant of the rest of the world? This is just an astounding claim to hear from someone. The U.S. intelligence apparatus and knowledge of world events is not insignificant, so this idea that we're ignorant of the rest of the world is like saying Microsoft doesn't know anything about selling software and creating monopolies.
When we cannot, we must be sure that the only liberties we sacrifice are ones that we really don't need, like the ability to walk up and have a friendly conversation with the pilot.
I don't think you could ever really expect to do that on an airplane, at least not in the last 40 years.
What pissed me off though is that we're giving up liberties, but not getting any security. How is stopping some software developer for 3 hours and taking his cell phones making us safer? How is stopping people from bringing a bottle of water on an airplane make anyone safer? It doesn't, but it sure looks like something is being done.
You also have this strange sense of "the activists". Who are these "the activists", and why are these people the only ones that can look out for our liberties?
There's nothing to be gain from talking to ANY officer. Name, drivers license, and that's it.
When I was pulled over by the Homeland Gestapo while traveling across the country, they tried to get me to talk but I refused.
In 2009 I was pulled over 4 or 5 times by Homeland Gestapo while vacationing in Arizona. They setup these large roadblocks, stop everyone and ask if you're a citizen. I'm a pretty average looking white guy, so they just flagged me through each time. In contrast it sounds like in your case it cost you an hour in the afternoon sun. So while you say there's nothing ever to be gained by playing the game (in this case just saying you're a citizen), I personally value not spending an hour in the sun. (Though I wouldn't have let them search my trunk if they asked either).
I'm actually still quite pissed off that this kind of crap is still happening. I don't agree with it in the least, and hate the fact that the Federal Govt. thinks they can just stop people driving around in their own country for no other reason than to ask us if we're citizens.
I largely disagree with your drastic oversimplifications of very complicated world events and turning them into neat little bullet points while ignoring hundreds of other trends and events. I could go on, but there's something more disturbing. This is the statement I don't understand at all:
We had temporary safety from about 1985 until 2001. We obtained it by being the strongest (and most stable) military power in the world. Now that guerilla/terrorist warfare is recognized to be stronger, we have lost all security.
What's the threat that YOU PERSONALLY face from "guerilla/terrorists" warfare? Are you really and truly afraid of Al-Queda? Why is safety supposed to be the big goal we're all trying to obtain? What really makes you think we've lost it? How is this such a large threat to the country as a whole?
Frankly I'm far more threatened by the economies dependence on cheap oil imports, the increasing gap between the rich and poor, the increasing polarity of political parties, our ever increasing "fear culture", and pissing away billions of dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan than I am of those Al-Queda fuckheads.
The plain and simple fact is that every time the government does something just to "appease the general public", that means they're doing (mostly) what the general public wants.
A completely false way to frame the situation. A few problems with how you've framed this:
The general public does not want one thing, it wants a multitude of different, conflicting things.
Even when the general public wants the same thing, they want it in vastly different ways.
The general public can be convinced of a LOT given enough nonsense. (Most people somehow got convinced to attack Iraq as a result of 9/11 and many are still somehow convinced the two are linked).
There is no "general public". There's just what you can get away with.
September 11th of 2001 was the day we realized how little we knew about the rest of the world. Since then, our investigative agencies have been scrambling to figure out a good answer to the question of "what's going on?" since our previous methods were so obviously incomplete.
Who the fuck is this "we" you speak of? Do you perhaps mean you?
The U.S. government is many things, but ignorant of the rest of the world is NOT one of them.
It's a good thing, overall. Yes, there are some innocent folks getting detained, deported, and denied entry, but in time those will work out.
This is nothing but unbridled optimism and blind faith. Why will this eventually be worked out, and not the far more likely case, completely forgotten about?
There is a balance we must strike between absolute security and absolute liberty, and we will not reach that point within the span of one presidential term.
Why are security and liberty things that are necessarily at odds as if less liberty means more security and vice versa? Isn't it just possible that many of the things we do for "added security" (like say for instance this bullshit about bringing liquids on an airplane) only serve to destroy our liberties and give us zero security? Isn't it possible that some security measures like re-enforcing the cockpit doors on airplanes added a lot of security, but cost us zero in liberties?
Your dichotomy is utterly false, and it's not too hard to see that.