People responsible for crafting laws should be penalized for poor and vague wording. Even if it was unintentionally vague (I suspect it is frequently intentional, too).
Employers are afraid to commit and invest in their employees any more.
You make it sound almost reasonable
I don't think "afraid" is the right word. Employees are no longer interested in investing in their employees by training them. Of course there is a good chance that well-trained and secure employees would be better for the company... but that's a long-run talk which does not generate a bonus in the current quarter.
I don't think this is about "picking the best" from the temp employees. I think it's about reducing costs.
I am pretty sure that the fear of "terrorists" turning off the lights at a stadium is a good reason to throw away my personal freedoms!
I am absolutely certain that if they actually stopped anything (even someone who was going to sabotage janitor's broom), that would be all over the news. Who would pass on such great publicity?
Just like if TSA ever accidentally catches a terrorist, they would be trumpeting it for years (and requesting to double their funding).
The funny thing about prevention is that you get to take credit for everything that doesn't happen.... Stores prevent millions of thefts every day by having doors that they can lock when the store is closed.
In truth, extraordinary claims without an explanation of how such information was obtained is a warning sign. How would a low level employee dealing with email surveillance know anything about stuxnet?
I think that falls into the same category as: How would a low-level employee bring on a world-wide hunt on himself? How did he get the president of Bolivia forcefully grounded and searched on a mere suspicion (which turned out to be incorrect) that Snowden may be hiding aboard?
Generally, all it takes is a little sleuthing, and all that "anonymous" data becomes anything but.
Not to worry, they probably sell it in bulk and not cheap. So only large and wealthy organizations that are above the law anyway would have your private information.
[sarcasm]Also, maybe AT&T will reduce their customer's bills now that they make extra money on selling their private info?[/sarcasm]
I'm pretty sure some of the tiny letter stuff on your contract says that by signing the contract you give them full permission to do whatever they want with all the data they collect from you.
It gets better!
Somewhere in that contract you also sign away your right to sue them (particularly AT&T, I believe it was a lawsuit against them that legalized mandatory arbitration clause). So... what you can do is to complain to an arbitrator employed by AT&T and see whether he/she rules for you or not.
A system put in place to spy on terrorists will only be legal to spy on the people it was supposed to protect.
This was never about spying on terrorists, "terrorists" are just an excuse
I can tell, because apparently the 50 (100? 1000?) terrorists plots it disrupted are all too classified to talk about. If they haven't publicized at least a few (yes, some may be actually classified, but not 100%), that means they got NOTHING. They collect the data but whatever they use/plan to use for, isn't about terrorism.
Maybe they did realize that during this tough economic time... it might be a bad thing to force businesses to offer health insurance that is rapidly rising
I am not necessarily arguing which one is better, but are you saying that keeping individual employees responsible for health insurance expenses during tough economic time is fine and dandy?
It's not like Obamacare is a new expense that did not exist before -- someone is paying the health insurance cost (or is living without health insurance) at all times. Some of the costs may not have a $ sign attached to them (people waiting for health to deteriorate to emergency room status), but these costs are still there.
In other countries, occationally orwellian laws are blocked by elected officials.
In the US, they all shrug and try to explain away our rights.
Not at all. When the outrage gets too loud (think SOPA and the ilk), laws will be temporarily stopped and shelved, only to be re-introduced piece-by-piece in "Think of Rainbows And Puppies Act"
I assume this is what is happening there -- a full law could not be passed openly, so it will be re-built quietly piece-by-piece later.
Well, if you are including yourself/your family in the list of possible false-positives, then I probably misjudged you -- my apologies. Still, you would agree that for every single person like you, many others will make such statements with an explicit assumption that no "good" (undeserving) person will ever be hit with a false positive.
As opposed to paralysis by analysis and do nothing about child sexual abuse because ZOMG I might be wrong.
They should be reporting/investigating the image hosters, not image possessors. Doesn't sound like that's what they are doing. In some cases, people have been flagged for hand-drawn or photoshopped CP images. As disturbing as it is, no actual children were involved then. If you include every such case, the number of false positives will no longer be negligible.
As opposed to lives that are not hypothetically ruined, but actually ruined in real life as the result of real child sexual abuse.
Talk about straw-man. By all means, let's do what we can to prevent child abuse, I am all for it. I'd just prefer to focus on, you know, actual people who abuse children and I am not convinced that monitoring and blocking image searches will help that goal.
Turned out to be a false positive? I won't sleep much over it, unless someone genuinely innocent gets destroyed by this. But probabilistically, the chance of such occurrence is so low, not impossible, but so extremely low (truly innocent person in possession of child porn), I'm willing to live with the consequences.
You, sir, are a grade-A asshole
Are you considering the possibility that you might be the target of the false positive (however unlikely)? Because it is mighty kind of you to be willing to live with the consequences of someone else's life being ruined due to false positive.
All of this would be a less horrible idea if the law enforcement found a less damaging way to investigate (i.e. keep the accusation completely private until it is proven in court). Otherwise lives are utterly ruined well before the investigation is concluded.
If they did they'd be tipping off terrorists on how they caught on to them, so the terrorists would revise their communication methods. As they reportedly are doing now, in response to Snowden's revelations.
Brilliant, brilliant plan.
So what you are saying that, in response to Snowden's revelations, terrorists will cease to use all communications (seeing how everything is monitored)? Maybe even move on to other countries that still respect privacy?
It is genius, why didn't anyone think of this before?
The government isn't efficient enough to stop 20 plots by checking only 300 numbers.
These are the same 300 undercover people using NSA-issued phones in all 20 cases. You don't think they stopped any actual terrorist plots??
If they had, they'd be advertising it like there is no tomorrow. Just like if TSA ever catches or stops an actual terrorist accidentally, I assume it will be in the news for months.
USA Politician: Oh, here's a list of personnel and here are the strategies we're using. Foreign Politician: OK, good to know... we'll work on messing with these people and/or bribing them, and our counter-Intel guys will try to avoid your strategies.
Haha, yeah, I can see it now
USA Politician: We trawl ALL data from EVERYONE Foreign Politician: OK, good to know... we will only spy in countries that respect privacy and avoid USA from now on
I am sure that's the brilliant strategy developed by NSA, actually.
How would an alien decode the.jpeg,.bmp, or whatever else we send them.
Let's just send out BluRay streams. Everyone in the galaxy knows that these have to be licensed + players constantly updated, so the aliens will know what to do.
If it's genuinely gotten so bad that it takes an expert to understand the plain words of the constitution, we're screwed anyway.
It doesn't! Many laws are not that hard to read.
Our brave officials have gotten to redefining very plain words in the constitutions/laws in general.
"Spying" is not really "spying"
"Meta-data" is not "data"
"Imminent" danger means "there might or might not be a danger in the future"
"Militant" means "anyone we killed by drone"
"Terrorist" means "someone we don't like"
"Whistle-blower" means "traitor"
Oh, and many of those re-definitions are classified, so it takes years (and a whistle-blower) to even find out that they already happened.
Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies.
That statement might have more credibility if it were not for the well documented use of RIPA powers for things unconnected to terrorism and serious crime.
It is all in the definition, my friend.
Only terrorists/criminals/spies should fear secret activities of the intelligence agencies, because once you are target by such an agency, you are a terrorist (and possibly a spy or a criminal too).
Just like drone attacks have no collateral damage because anyone they actually kill is effectively redefined to have been a terrorist all along.
Slashdot Mirror
Forget TV shows, it is incredibly hard to find a downloadable high-def movie trailer, all websites seem to insist on streaming even that.
People responsible for crafting laws should be penalized for poor and vague wording.
Even if it was unintentionally vague (I suspect it is frequently intentional, too).
Sometimes, but given who "in house" would be in this case, they might be better off with a group of enthusiastic 13-year-olds.
Yes, but that only works if the lowest bid is sufficiently high to buy enthusiastic effort from 13-year-olds.
Employers are afraid to commit and invest in their employees any more.
You make it sound almost reasonable
I don't think "afraid" is the right word. Employees are no longer interested in investing in their employees by training them. Of course there is a good chance that well-trained and secure employees would be better for the company... but that's a long-run talk which does not generate a bonus in the current quarter.
I don't think this is about "picking the best" from the temp employees. I think it's about reducing costs.
I am pretty sure that the fear of "terrorists" turning off the lights at a stadium is a good reason to throw away my personal freedoms!
I am absolutely certain that if they actually stopped anything (even someone who was going to sabotage janitor's broom), that would be all over the news. Who would pass on such great publicity?
Just like if TSA ever accidentally catches a terrorist, they would be trumpeting it for years (and requesting to double their funding).
The funny thing about prevention is that you get to take credit for everything that doesn't happen. ... Stores prevent millions of thefts every day by having doors that they can lock when the store is closed.
Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
(and your doors w/locks).
In truth, extraordinary claims without an explanation of how such information was obtained is a warning sign. How would a low level employee dealing with email surveillance know anything about stuxnet?
I think that falls into the same category as: How would a low-level employee bring on a world-wide hunt on himself? How did he get the president of Bolivia forcefully grounded and searched on a mere suspicion (which turned out to be incorrect) that Snowden may be hiding aboard?
Generally, all it takes is a little sleuthing, and all that "anonymous" data becomes anything but.
Not to worry, they probably sell it in bulk and not cheap. So only large and wealthy organizations that are above the law anyway would have your private information.
[sarcasm]Also, maybe AT&T will reduce their customer's bills now that they make extra money on selling their private info?[/sarcasm]
I'm pretty sure some of the tiny letter stuff on your contract says that by signing the contract you give them full permission to do whatever they want with all the data they collect from you.
It gets better!
Somewhere in that contract you also sign away your right to sue them (particularly AT&T, I believe it was a lawsuit against them that legalized mandatory arbitration clause).
So... what you can do is to complain to an arbitrator employed by AT&T and see whether he/she rules for you or not.
I would have expected to have to wait at least a fortnight for the initial report to show up here. Followed by a week of dupes.
It was an accident. The editors responsible were already sacked
We will still see the traditional dupes in days to come.
A system put in place to spy on terrorists will only be legal to spy on the people it was supposed to protect.
This was never about spying on terrorists, "terrorists" are just an excuse
I can tell, because apparently the 50 (100? 1000?) terrorists plots it disrupted are all too classified to talk about. If they haven't publicized at least a few (yes, some may be actually classified, but not 100%), that means they got NOTHING. They collect the data but whatever they use/plan to use for, isn't about terrorism.
Maybe they did realize that during this tough economic time ... it might be a bad thing to force businesses to offer health insurance that is rapidly rising
I am not necessarily arguing which one is better, but are you saying that keeping individual employees responsible for health insurance expenses during tough economic time is fine and dandy?
It's not like Obamacare is a new expense that did not exist before -- someone is paying the health insurance cost (or is living without health insurance) at all times. Some of the costs may not have a $ sign attached to them (people waiting for health to deteriorate to emergency room status), but these costs are still there.
In other countries, occationally orwellian laws are blocked by elected officials.
In the US, they all shrug and try to explain away our rights.
Not at all. When the outrage gets too loud (think SOPA and the ilk), laws will be temporarily stopped and shelved, only to be re-introduced piece-by-piece in "Think of Rainbows And Puppies Act"
I assume this is what is happening there -- a full law could not be passed openly, so it will be re-built quietly piece-by-piece later.
Amazon's position may be principled, but it won't do any good to fight the subpoena.
You are assuming that they actually intend to fight the requests. Just because a company comes forward and claims something...
They'll probably only fight the non-secret, regular requests (i.e. the ones from the 90s).
Nah, we'll just have to start speaking Klingon
jatlh, chonayta' wIghaj!
No. The article explains that the person in question had NOT been arrested
The lesson could not be clearer
If you are not under arrest, get the hell out of the police station instead of doing anything else (being silent, answering questions, etc).
You, sir, are a grade-A asshole
Since you say so, it must be so.
Well, if you are including yourself/your family in the list of possible false-positives, then I probably misjudged you -- my apologies. Still, you would agree that for every single person like you, many others will make such statements with an explicit assumption that no "good" (undeserving) person will ever be hit with a false positive.
As opposed to paralysis by analysis and do nothing about child sexual abuse because ZOMG I might be wrong.
They should be reporting/investigating the image hosters, not image possessors. Doesn't sound like that's what they are doing. In some cases, people have been flagged for hand-drawn or photoshopped CP images. As disturbing as it is, no actual children were involved then. If you include every such case, the number of false positives will no longer be negligible.
As opposed to lives that are not hypothetically ruined, but actually ruined in real life as the result of real child sexual abuse.
Talk about straw-man. By all means, let's do what we can to prevent child abuse, I am all for it. I'd just prefer to focus on, you know, actual people who abuse children and I am not convinced that monitoring and blocking image searches will help that goal.
Turned out to be a false positive? I won't sleep much over it, unless someone genuinely innocent gets destroyed by this. But probabilistically, the chance of such occurrence is so low, not impossible, but so extremely low (truly innocent person in possession of child porn), I'm willing to live with the consequences.
You, sir, are a grade-A asshole
Are you considering the possibility that you might be the target of the false positive (however unlikely)? Because it is mighty kind of you to be willing to live with the consequences of someone else's life being ruined due to false positive.
All of this would be a less horrible idea if the law enforcement found a less damaging way to investigate (i.e. keep the accusation completely private until it is proven in court). Otherwise lives are utterly ruined well before the investigation is concluded.
If they did they'd be tipping off terrorists on how they caught on to them, so the terrorists would revise their communication methods. As they reportedly are doing now, in response to Snowden's revelations.
Brilliant, brilliant plan.
So what you are saying that, in response to Snowden's revelations, terrorists will cease to use all communications (seeing how everything is monitored)? Maybe even move on to other countries that still respect privacy?
It is genius, why didn't anyone think of this before?
The government isn't efficient enough to stop 20 plots by checking only 300 numbers.
These are the same 300 undercover people using NSA-issued phones in all 20 cases. You don't think they stopped any actual terrorist plots??
If they had, they'd be advertising it like there is no tomorrow. Just like if TSA ever catches or stops an actual terrorist accidentally, I assume it will be in the news for months.
USA Politician: Oh, here's a list of personnel and here are the strategies we're using.
Foreign Politician: OK, good to know... we'll work on messing with these people and/or bribing them, and our counter-Intel guys will try to avoid your strategies.
Haha, yeah, I can see it now
USA Politician: We trawl ALL data from EVERYONE
Foreign Politician: OK, good to know... we will only spy in countries that respect privacy and avoid USA from now on
I am sure that's the brilliant strategy developed by NSA, actually.
I wonder how the whole thing will be able to move if there's a tsunami?
"During the last earthquake, Bob's zipcode changed six times"
How would an alien decode the .jpeg, .bmp, or whatever else we send them.
Let's just send out BluRay streams. Everyone in the galaxy knows that these have to be licensed + players constantly updated, so the aliens will know what to do.
If it's genuinely gotten so bad that it takes an expert to understand the plain words of the constitution, we're screwed anyway.
It doesn't! Many laws are not that hard to read.
Our brave officials have gotten to redefining very plain words in the constitutions/laws in general.
"Spying" is not really "spying"
"Meta-data" is not "data"
"Imminent" danger means "there might or might not be a danger in the future"
"Militant" means "anyone we killed by drone"
"Terrorist" means "someone we don't like"
"Whistle-blower" means "traitor"
Oh, and many of those re-definitions are classified, so it takes years (and a whistle-blower) to even find out that they already happened.
Only terrorists, criminals and spies should fear secret activities of the British and US intelligence agencies.
That statement might have more credibility if it were not for the well documented use of RIPA powers for things unconnected to terrorism and serious crime.
It is all in the definition, my friend.
Only terrorists/criminals/spies should fear secret activities of the intelligence agencies, because once you are target by such an agency, you are a terrorist (and possibly a spy or a criminal too).
Just like drone attacks have no collateral damage because anyone they actually kill is effectively redefined to have been a terrorist all along.