If there's probable cause, then there's enough material to get a court order.
The FISA court denied a total of 4 requests betwen 1979 and 2004, out of thousands. The could have gotten the wiretap order if the wiretap was done for legitimate reasons, or on a person they could reasonably suspect. If it was emergency, they could apply up to 72 hours after the beginning of the surveillance.
There's no valid reason to have done things like this. Orders were clearly legally required, and if they weren't obtainable for some reason, the Bush administration should have sought changes to the law, not ignored the law. That's not how the US works. And since you want to make this a Democat/Republican issue, when did the GOP become the party of violating the law whenever it wants to, without any expectation of punishment? Do you think because Bush is a Republican, he gets the power to just decide he doesn't need to follow a given law if it suits him? I know you'd be howling if Clinton had done the same thing (and don't say he did, because the single thing you can legitimately point to in that regard [the Ames case], was a physical intrusion that wasn't covered by FISA till 1995).
There's nothing substantative in the article. I didn't see benchmarks, I didn't see screenshots of the system in action. I saw he said/she said between some MS people and some guy from Novell.
Second, stop beating the shit out of that straw man. Nobody is saying that the government isn't or shouldn't be wiretapping. We have laws, however, that govern how it's done. Those weren't followed. That's against the law.
The rest of your post is just a bunch of crap to distract from what utter bullshit the premise is and how intellectually dishonest you are.
Subchapter 1 (Electronic Surveillance) has the relevant passages of the law.
Though perhaps you didn't want to give us the link to that, because if you had, someone would have gone and read the law and seen that you're full of shit.
Your point about "not conflating a US person with a US citizen" is non sequitir and meaningless. A US citizen is a US person under the statute, as is a resident alien (a person granted a green card), among others:
Section 1801
(i) "United States person" means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.
The section of the law you quote is only the definitions section. Specifically, you're quoting what the definition of Electronic Surveilance is. Nothing in what you quote actually discusses the LEGALITY of tapping activities in the US or the warrants required therefore. You missed section 1802 of FISA. This section is about "Electronic surveillance authorization without court order; certification by Attorney General; reports to Congressional committees; transmittal under seal; duties and compensation of communication common carrier; applications; jurisdiction of court." That section has the following to say about electronic surveilance and when warrants are needed:
from Section 1802
(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that--
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at--
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party;and
(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) of this title; and
if the Attorney General reports such minimization procedures and any changes thereto to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at least thirty days prior to their effective date, unless the Attorney General determines immediate action is required and notifies the committees immediately of such minimization procedures and the reason for their becoming effective immediately.
Unless the communications take place completely under means controlled by a foriegn power (i.e., not involving US communications carriers), they are potentially subject to FISA judicial oversight requirements. If any party involved in said communication is a US person in the statute, a court order is required. This does not just apply to communications
First, the executive order you cite, at the very bottom, says the following:
1-105. Section 2-203 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under
section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at
the end of that section: ''Any monitoring which constitutes
electronic surveillance as defined in the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be conducted in accordance with that
Act as well as this Order.''.
In accordance with that act (FISA) and this order. It does not intend to nor could it be able to override FISA. Please, read what you're quoting.
Second, Jamie Gorelick saying that the president can do whatever he wants don't make it so.
Third, U.S. v. Truong ruling that was cited in the sealed case was decided in 1978, the year the law was enacted. The actual events that caused the case happened in 1972, long before the matter was settled by the court:
Now, what's interesting about the case that's cited as the alleged justification for complete Presidential powers to conduct warrantless searches for foriegn intelligence purposes? Truong, the person who was spied upon, was a Vietnamese citizen, and furthermore, had not established residence in the US. Not a "US person" acording to FISA. Thus, the scope of the ruling EXACTLY COVERS THE SCOPE OF THE LAW.
No warrants are required to spy on FORIEGNERS. Warrants are most definitely required to spy on US citizens.
Please, stop repeating the tired talking points of Bush administration apologists. This is a very serious matter, it's a crime, and it must be stopped.
That multilanguage argument is invalid
on
Java Is So 90s
·
· Score: 1
Well, really, that argument is pure bullshit. If you look at VB.NET you'll see exactly how flexible the multiple language support really is. You can't compile any VB6 code for.NET without extensive overhaul, and any application much beyond HellowWorld isn't gracefully handled by the update wizard. What.NET did was to make a C# language with a VB skin on it.
The native language for the CLR is definitely C#. That's what it was designed to run. It doesn't gracefully handle anything outside that mold. You can use C++ if you don't use multiple inheritance.
I'm serious. I'm not trying to rake up shit. The multiplicity of options is a waste of time and energy, and it makes compatability a pain in the ass.
Of course, on Slashdot, if you question the mob mentality then you're clearly just a troll posting flamebait, right?
Let's just have one Linux desktop
on
KDE 3.5 Released
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Competition and choice is great. It's also a barrier to entry for commercial software. And given that it's unrealistic to have all software be free, let's make it easier for linux adoption to take place. Let's have one desktop/widgetset/toolkit be the standard for X on Linux. One that's always deployed with X on Linux, so people have something to code to.
All the whining about how choice is good and it makes better products distracts from a more important factor. All the competing options make incompatability and confusion unavoidable.
Missle defense is a waste of money. Apart from the fact that the progress on the systems hasn't gone well after this many billions of dollars, the usefulness of a boost phase missle defense system is questionable at best. It won't stop attacks from what is now the most likely vector - terrorist attack via smuggled weapons.
Many people bring up Iran or North Korea as possible threats. Perhaps, but apart from the fact that they're years away from having missles that can hit the US, the more sensible tack would be to build a launch phase system that could be parked near a threat country. The system would be easier to construct given the shorter range for the interceptors to travel to target, the targets are moving more slowly, and there are fewer targets since any MIRVs haven't reached the point where they independently target. It'd be smaller and cheaper, and much more practical to do that.
Of course, then, we wouldn't be able to pay out so much money in corporate welfare to defense contractors.
Cause, like AC, I don't know who this guy is, and I don't give a fuck what he thinks. Give me a reason to think that what he's saying is worth anything, or find some actual news to post.
I can't decide if Slashdot sucks more than it used to, or if I always sucked and I'm just forgetful about how much.
That's an excellent point; the community that a blog attracts in some way reflects aspects of the ideas written about that might otherwise be less obvious.
Yeah, until the company gets dismantled completely. Because unless the company has the capacity to defend itself physically, nothing will stop people from kneecapping it when it gets too big for everyone's good.
Yeah, that's great. Now for us people that need to run large numbers of devices on networks that we want protected (like automated utility meter reading, home security monitoring, hell, even vending machine stock checking), publically accessable networks are a gigantic, risky pain in the balls.
As it happens, people actually want to use the cellular networks for business. You wouldn't put every desktop, network printer, and server in your company in public IP space, would you? The occasional server that needs to be public is a very rare situation. And if you consider that the bulk of their IP usage is client devices, not server - blackberries and the like, the network setup is a stupid thing.
You don't have the right to not be offended
on
Jack Thompson vs Amazon?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Short of slander, whatever nasty stuff someone says about you in a situation like that is fair game. If he doesn't like the attention, maybe he should shut the fuck up and stop making an ass out of himself publically.
They can still lease out tower space; Sprint and ATTWS actually have (had?) and agreemen to codevelop towers to reduce capital expenditures.
And, FWIW, VZW is CDMA, Sprint is CDMA (but a variation that doesn't allow for interoperation with VZW), Nextel is iDEN, and Cingular and T-Mobile are GSM.
I bet the reason why VZW doesn't lease out tower space is either greed or the fact that they're a phenomenally stupid organizatoin in a lot of ways (like, for example, they assign public IP addresses to phones that are using the wireless internet. first, what a waste of IP space, second, unless you specifically arrange for it, you're not firewalled at all - anyone can ping your device and thus eat your bandwidth allotment)
Actual geeks will find the title misleading. It's not wireless, it's cellular. There's a difference that your audience is going to make; wireless means 802.11, not cellular. I used to work for a company that specialized cellular data applications, and I immediately though wi-fi
Nextel HASN'T leased anything to anyone. From TFA: Nextel serves as the coordinator, planning, paying for and overseeing the work. Other carriers have the right to buy in and to strike agreements to reimburse Nextel and pay annual fees to BART. There's a big difference therebecause: at present, the only carrier is Nextel, and there's no mention that they've done any integration with another carrier yet. (Presumably it'll just be a tower sharing kind of arrangement).
As an aside, I wonder what kind of restrictions were placed in the contract in terms of sharing with other carriers. From what I hear, VZW has the cell towers in the DC metro, and doesn't allow other carriers to use them (maybe selfishness; maybe gross institutional incompetence on VZW's part - it's hard to tell with them). If it's a public place like a subway, the people who build the network should be required to lease out to other people; it's in the public interest that everyone get to play, not just the people with service from the carrier that gets the contract. Of course, if we'd just used a single wireless standard like in Europe, then the point would be moot.
In some places, Cingular is at capacity on their towers already. The core function of their network - placing phone calls - is sometimes impossible owing to the circuit congestion at peak times. Why add another useless service?
If they're going to HSDPA - completely - then the issue is less importand, but that change years off. Thankfully, nobody will use this service, so the effect isn't all that great. But I wish they'd concentrate on the core functions of the network before adding stupid features.
Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
So the question is, if patents are now starting to impede the progress of science and technology (and I'm willing to bet plenty of people on slashdot could think of instances in which this is the case), there is a good case to be made that as it stands now, the law governing patents is no longer constitutional.
Just a thought. Feel free to flame.
Re:Would gaming companies target this platform?
on
Cedega 5.0 Released
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· Score: 1
Again, work as well as it does on Windows. The statement is accurate, and is not intended as commentary on the suitability of the product as a mail client or for any other purpose.
Would gaming companies target this platform?
on
Cedega 5.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Funny
From what I understand, IBM already tests the Notes client to ensure that it functions properly under Wine (or at least as well as it does under Windows). how long before game producers start to target these kinds of compatibility libraries? I understand that the linux gaming market is small compared to the whole, so direct support is unlikely.
Any game programmers care to comment if/whether their company would deliberately code a product so that it would run well under something like this? Would you code with the compatability library in mind?
Use libraries to implement common business logic across multiple applications; an application serves is also a possibility. This might also be a place to use an SOA-type service for more complex logic that needs centralization. Don't shove crap in the database.
I do understand that it helps to centralize things, and it keeps idiots from writing mostrously fat clients that treat the database as little more than flat storage. I have recurring nightmares about a VB6 app that weighed in at >100MB with some of the most pessimized database access strategies ever. But sticking all that crap into stored procedures is just moving the mess elsewhere.
Stored procedures are one of those things that are like antibiotics or LSD - they're wonderful and valuable when handled carefully and responsibly, and cause big problems when they're not.
The limited stored proc language that SQL server had before was actually a good thing; you could do some limited stuff in the DB. Thus, you weren't often able to give in to the tendency to stick application logic in the database tier.
And this quote pretty much says it all:
Raichura said the support for Microsoft's Common Language Runtime technology via Visual Studio will let him avoid having to go to multiple developers with different specialties. "I can natively write stored procedures straight into software," he said. "This increases my resource pool because it reduces the distinction between software developers and architects."
Read: Now, I can pay people less to create a complete fucking pigsty that will perform well enough that the app will appear largely stable.
Slashdot Mirror
The FISA court denied a total of 4 requests betwen 1979 and 2004, out of thousands. The could have gotten the wiretap order if the wiretap was done for legitimate reasons, or on a person they could reasonably suspect. If it was emergency, they could apply up to 72 hours after the beginning of the surveillance.
There's no valid reason to have done things like this. Orders were clearly legally required, and if they weren't obtainable for some reason, the Bush administration should have sought changes to the law, not ignored the law. That's not how the US works. And since you want to make this a Democat/Republican issue, when did the GOP become the party of violating the law whenever it wants to, without any expectation of punishment? Do you think because Bush is a Republican, he gets the power to just decide he doesn't need to follow a given law if it suits him? I know you'd be howling if Clinton had done the same thing (and don't say he did, because the single thing you can legitimately point to in that regard [the Ames case], was a physical intrusion that wasn't covered by FISA till 1995).
There's nothing substantative in the article. I didn't see benchmarks, I didn't see screenshots of the system in action. I saw he said/she said between some MS people and some guy from Novell.
It's below a non-story.
Second, stop beating the shit out of that straw man. Nobody is saying that the government isn't or shouldn't be wiretapping. We have laws, however, that govern how it's done. Those weren't followed. That's against the law.
The rest of your post is just a bunch of crap to distract from what utter bullshit the premise is and how intellectually dishonest you are.
from FISA
Subchapter 1 (Electronic Surveillance) has the relevant passages of the law.
Though perhaps you didn't want to give us the link to that, because if you had, someone would have gone and read the law and seen that you're full of shit.
Section 1801
(i) "United States person" means a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence (as defined in section 1101 (a)(20) of title 8), an unincorporated association a substantial number of members of which are citizens of the United States or aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence, or a corporation which is incorporated in the United States, but does not include a corporation or an association which is a foreign power, as defined in subsection (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.
from Section 1802
(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that--
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely directed at--
(i) the acquisition of the contents of communications transmitted by means of communications used exclusively between or among foreign powers, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical intelligence, other than the spoken communications of individuals, from property or premises under the open and exclusive control of a foreign power, as defined in section 1801 (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party;and
(C) the proposed minimization procedures with respect to such surveillance meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801 (h) of this title; and
if the Attorney General reports such minimization procedures and any changes thereto to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at least thirty days prior to their effective date, unless the Attorney General determines immediate action is required and notifies the committees immediately of such minimization procedures and the reason for their becoming effective immediately.
Unless the communications take place completely under means controlled by a foriegn power (i.e., not involving US communications carriers), they are potentially subject to FISA judicial oversight requirements. If any party involved in said communication is a US person in the statute, a court order is required. This does not just apply to communications
First, the executive order you cite, at the very bottom, says the following:
c ourt=us&vol=439&invol=1326
1-105. Section 2-203 of Executive Order No. 12036 (set out under
section 401 of this title) is amended by inserting the following at
the end of that section: ''Any monitoring which constitutes
electronic surveillance as defined in the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be conducted in accordance with that
Act as well as this Order.''.
In accordance with that act (FISA) and this order. It does not intend to nor could it be able to override FISA. Please, read what you're quoting.
Second, Jamie Gorelick saying that the president can do whatever he wants don't make it so.
Third, U.S. v. Truong ruling that was cited in the sealed case was decided in 1978, the year the law was enacted. The actual events that caused the case happened in 1972, long before the matter was settled by the court:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?
Now, what's interesting about the case that's cited as the alleged justification for complete Presidential powers to conduct warrantless searches for foriegn intelligence purposes? Truong, the person who was spied upon, was a Vietnamese citizen, and furthermore, had not established residence in the US. Not a "US person" acording to FISA. Thus, the scope of the ruling EXACTLY COVERS THE SCOPE OF THE LAW.
No warrants are required to spy on FORIEGNERS. Warrants are most definitely required to spy on US citizens.
Please, stop repeating the tired talking points of Bush administration apologists. This is a very serious matter, it's a crime, and it must be stopped.
Well, really, that argument is pure bullshit. If you look at VB.NET you'll see exactly how flexible the multiple language support really is. You can't compile any VB6 code for .NET without extensive overhaul, and any application much beyond HellowWorld isn't gracefully handled by the update wizard. What .NET did was to make a C# language with a VB skin on it.
The native language for the CLR is definitely C#. That's what it was designed to run. It doesn't gracefully handle anything outside that mold. You can use C++ if you don't use multiple inheritance.
I'm serious. I'm not trying to rake up shit. The multiplicity of options is a waste of time and energy, and it makes compatability a pain in the ass.
Of course, on Slashdot, if you question the mob mentality then you're clearly just a troll posting flamebait, right?
Competition and choice is great. It's also a barrier to entry for commercial software. And given that it's unrealistic to have all software be free, let's make it easier for linux adoption to take place. Let's have one desktop/widgetset/toolkit be the standard for X on Linux. One that's always deployed with X on Linux, so people have something to code to.
All the whining about how choice is good and it makes better products distracts from a more important factor. All the competing options make incompatability and confusion unavoidable.
Can we stop fighting the Cold War?
Missle defense is a waste of money. Apart from the fact that the progress on the systems hasn't gone well after this many billions of dollars, the usefulness of a boost phase missle defense system is questionable at best. It won't stop attacks from what is now the most likely vector - terrorist attack via smuggled weapons.
Many people bring up Iran or North Korea as possible threats. Perhaps, but apart from the fact that they're years away from having missles that can hit the US, the more sensible tack would be to build a launch phase system that could be parked near a threat country. The system would be easier to construct given the shorter range for the interceptors to travel to target, the targets are moving more slowly, and there are fewer targets since any MIRVs haven't reached the point where they independently target. It'd be smaller and cheaper, and much more practical to do that.
Of course, then, we wouldn't be able to pay out so much money in corporate welfare to defense contractors.
Cause, like AC, I don't know who this guy is, and I don't give a fuck what he thinks. Give me a reason to think that what he's saying is worth anything, or find some actual news to post.
I can't decide if Slashdot sucks more than it used to, or if I always sucked and I'm just forgetful about how much.
That's an excellent point; the community that a blog attracts in some way reflects aspects of the ideas written about that might otherwise be less obvious.
Yeah, until the company gets dismantled completely. Because unless the company has the capacity to defend itself physically, nothing will stop people from kneecapping it when it gets too big for everyone's good.
Yeah, that's great. Now for us people that need to run large numbers of devices on networks that we want protected (like automated utility meter reading, home security monitoring, hell, even vending machine stock checking), publically accessable networks are a gigantic, risky pain in the balls.
As it happens, people actually want to use the cellular networks for business. You wouldn't put every desktop, network printer, and server in your company in public IP space, would you? The occasional server that needs to be public is a very rare situation. And if you consider that the bulk of their IP usage is client devices, not server - blackberries and the like, the network setup is a stupid thing.
Short of slander, whatever nasty stuff someone says about you in a situation like that is fair game. If he doesn't like the attention, maybe he should shut the fuck up and stop making an ass out of himself publically.
They do both, actually, TDMA and GSM (they're cingular now).
And they're doing away with the TDMA.
They can still lease out tower space; Sprint and ATTWS actually have (had?) and agreemen to codevelop towers to reduce capital expenditures.
And, FWIW, VZW is CDMA, Sprint is CDMA (but a variation that doesn't allow for interoperation with VZW), Nextel is iDEN, and Cingular and T-Mobile are GSM.
I bet the reason why VZW doesn't lease out tower space is either greed or the fact that they're a phenomenally stupid organizatoin in a lot of ways (like, for example, they assign public IP addresses to phones that are using the wireless internet. first, what a waste of IP space, second, unless you specifically arrange for it, you're not firewalled at all - anyone can ping your device and thus eat your bandwidth allotment)
As an aside, I wonder what kind of restrictions were placed in the contract in terms of sharing with other carriers. From what I hear, VZW has the cell towers in the DC metro, and doesn't allow other carriers to use them (maybe selfishness; maybe gross institutional incompetence on VZW's part - it's hard to tell with them). If it's a public place like a subway, the people who build the network should be required to lease out to other people; it's in the public interest that everyone get to play, not just the people with service from the carrier that gets the contract. Of course, if we'd just used a single wireless standard like in Europe, then the point would be moot.
Are you saying that Cingular is providing service using Verizon wireless?
Curious, is all.
I think more people are sick of dishonest pro-Microsoft trolls who are such pussies that they can't express their opinions as logged in users.
Even the GNAA trolls have logins.
In some places, Cingular is at capacity on their towers already. The core function of their network - placing phone calls - is sometimes impossible owing to the circuit congestion at peak times. Why add another useless service?
If they're going to HSDPA - completely - then the issue is less importand, but that change years off. Thankfully, nobody will use this service, so the effect isn't all that great. But I wish they'd concentrate on the core functions of the network before adding stupid features.
Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
So the question is, if patents are now starting to impede the progress of science and technology (and I'm willing to bet plenty of people on slashdot could think of instances in which this is the case), there is a good case to be made that as it stands now, the law governing patents is no longer constitutional.
Just a thought. Feel free to flame.
Again, work as well as it does on Windows. The statement is accurate, and is not intended as commentary on the suitability of the product as a mail client or for any other purpose.
From what I understand, IBM already tests the Notes client to ensure that it functions properly under Wine (or at least as well as it does under Windows). how long before game producers start to target these kinds of compatibility libraries? I understand that the linux gaming market is small compared to the whole, so direct support is unlikely.
Any game programmers care to comment if/whether their company would deliberately code a product so that it would run well under something like this? Would you code with the compatability library in mind?
Use libraries to implement common business logic across multiple applications; an application serves is also a possibility. This might also be a place to use an SOA-type service for more complex logic that needs centralization. Don't shove crap in the database.
I do understand that it helps to centralize things, and it keeps idiots from writing mostrously fat clients that treat the database as little more than flat storage. I have recurring nightmares about a VB6 app that weighed in at >100MB with some of the most pessimized database access strategies ever. But sticking all that crap into stored procedures is just moving the mess elsewhere.
The limited stored proc language that SQL server had before was actually a good thing; you could do some limited stuff in the DB. Thus, you weren't often able to give in to the tendency to stick application logic in the database tier.
And this quote pretty much says it all: Raichura said the support for Microsoft's Common Language Runtime technology via Visual Studio will let him avoid having to go to multiple developers with different specialties. "I can natively write stored procedures straight into software," he said. "This increases my resource pool because it reduces the distinction between software developers and architects."
Read: Now, I can pay people less to create a complete fucking pigsty that will perform well enough that the app will appear largely stable.