But at least they have the comfort of knowing they're paying more for the service than they need to. And since it's a tax- (or debt-) funded service, they get to keep paying too much for it, unless they can somehow find a politician who will vote to reduce a budget.
Why are people so excited to grant more power to the government when they get afraid of something? The US government is fixing poverty (poverty is up), they're fighting drugs (drug use is up), they're fixing the economy (inflation is up, real income is down, and debt is way up), and they're fighting terrorism (global terrorism is up). I think the planet is a little too important to trust to them. Even today in the US, the worst polluters are the government and their cronies (like the state-owned power companies with government-granted monopolies), and the most polluted lands are under government stewardship.
I also don't understand where this assumed relationship between industry and global warming comes from. Yes the average temperature last year was higher than the previous year, but why assume it's humans? There was global warming and cooling long before humans burned dead dinosaurs (remember the Ice Age?). The variations in solar output (it's been up recently--coincidence?) have far more effect on the Earth's climate than greenhouse gasses.
Even in the realm of gas production we are insignificant. In the late 90s (according to the Super Volcanos show on Discovery) a volcano went off that released so much ash, the average global temperature dropped 0.5C for that year. Quite frankly, humanity is not that significant.
I'm all for reducing pollution (but not under government control...where they grant special exemptions to friends and campaign contributors, and just generally screw things up). I don't want to live in a world where we remark that the sky is a lovely shade of brown today, and where city dwellers risk getting blacklung. But the theory that humans are responsible for global warming is bunk. It was put forth by people with an agenda (the anti-technologists) and based on bad data. How did they measure the average global temperature in 1820? They didn't! Yet they promote their guesses as scientific fact to "show" that the recent warming trend is related to the industrial revolution.
And a few side notes:
Some biofuels (like corn-based ethanol) pollute more than gasoline, because they consume large quantities of coal to make the electricity to create the ethanol.
Recycling paper & plastic consumes more energy (and therefore pollutes more) and creates more toxic byproducts than hauling it to the dump and creating new stuff. Of the main recycling types, only aluminum recycling reduces the cost and pollution of creating new items.
What do these two facts have in common? Both industries are run with heavy government subsidies, by companies that contribute significantly to politicians campaigns, and explained to the tax-payers as being pro-environment, when they're really just pro-croneyism.
Credit cards already have an excellent system in place to do that, and the big chains (Walmart, Kroger, Safeway, etc.) can negotiate a really low rate with Visa/MC.
For that to be done through a cell phone, the phone would have to somehow carry a pre-pay balance, or they'd have to extend credit, which requires a banking charter in the US. So really what you'd essentially be doing is tying a Visa account to your cell phone, rather than a plastic card. One less item to carry around.
PayPal will probably enter into the brick and mortar payments industry in the next several years, they just need to find a method that they can provide cheaper/better/faster than the traditional credit card industry, or nobody will use it.
What I'd like to see would be a smart card that can carry all your crap (driver's license, credit cards, insurance card, etc.) on one card, and be encrypted with a biometric key, in case it gets lost or stolen. Then you just look into the retinal scanner, wave your card past the reader, and pick which item in it to charge. It would need some way of ensuring that the reader only read the "card" you selected (e.g. so the grocery can't get your car insurance policy), but that shouldn't be too hard.
You can buy things today with your phone (like ring tones, wallpaper, etc). The problem is the phone carriers charge 20%-40%. Paypal charges a tenth of that, so the companies can either make more profit or lower their prices.
Also, PayPal will allow you to buy all sorts of products, and it will handle the ordering, payment, and shipping, all you have to do is read the confirmation emails.
The way you first stated it sounded like you thought the regulations were driving the security. From what I've read, it looks like the major LV casinos have security requirements that exceed Nevada's regulations.
some people will, some won't, and some do so anyway. Whaddya gonna do, arrest them?
I think talking to them and treating them like people would be a better plan, but I'm not qualified for government work (I am motivated, tell the truth frequently, and have a sense of ethics;).
No. Slot machines are not built to the regulators' specifications, they're built to the casinos'. Granted the casinos have to ask for certain things they might not without the regulations (like specific payout rates), but it's idiotic to think they wouldn't ask for security measures without a regulation requiring it.
You might as well suggest that all the world's people would immediately kill themselves, if the laws against suicide were overturned.
Self-interest does not require laws.
Uhh...so are airplanes. And so are cars. And both have gotten better much faster than trains.
The increase in accidents (if any, do you have some evidence?) is probably due to the increase in the number of flights. But per person travelling, air travel has gotten safer every year.
The cash injections are because Congress loves to give out other people's money. It's also making the airlines fat & lazy, more like a government entity. It would be better to let them go out of business and the efficient airlines (like Southwest) would dominate.
The insurance industry and medical industry are broken, because of government interference. In the 1950s, very few people had or needed health insurance, they'd pay their doctors with a check. It wasn't until the advent of Medicare in 1965 that insurance became a requirement. Part of this might be because doctors began padding the bill now that a third party was paying (as they now do when we pay with our private insurance), but much of it is due to the increased costs associated with the government's control of the industry.
Some interesting facts:
In 1999, Medicare was $212Billion.
In 1999, Medicare fraud was $13.5Billion
That's over 6% lost, just to the fraud they know about, before taking into account the HHS buildings, the cost of paying thousands of HHS employees, the cost of collecting all the tax money, the costs employers have to bear to comply with medicare, the costs health care providers have to bear, etc., etc.
Hardly an efficient organization.
No. It's true. Amtrak sucks. And Amtrak is as private as the USPS. It is a government owned corporation.
The airports are controlled by a what? A public-private partnership, which means the private groups put up the money, and the government tells them what to do. The air traffic control system is also controlled by the FAA. The employees might not have been nationalized like the TSA, but they can't make a change without the FAA approval.
Few if any planes from 1971 are in the air today. If you ride on them, you need to get a new carrier. Most in the air today were built in the 90s, or built in the 80s and refitted since then.
Those numbers are what you get when you compare the funding in the federal budget for all social spending & related agencies to the amount of money going to the beneficiaries: most of it is lost on the way.
No, it's true. If you add up all the cost increases on services, materials, and medicines, a doctors office spends more dealing with the feds than on rent, electricity, or any other overhead expense.
Regulations over the past 20 years have skyrocketed. Under the Clinton administration, the federal registry (the big book of regulations) doubled! Under Reagan & both Bushes, it went up almost as much.
The insurance and medical companies (mostly the drug companies) like that though. It decreases competition and increases their profits at the cost of the consumers' choice. Big companies cozy up to government, because they see it as a tool to use to make money.
Communism is socialism. But yes, those are authoritarian socialism, perhaps some socialist states where the socialists are elected might be better examples:
France: Massive riots over the past decade due to price controls, wage controls, and unemployment. The riots this month were caused by economic factors, not racial ones.
The UK: Unemployment in the double digits over most of the past 20 years.
Sweden: Massive stagnation, due to the unfundable socialist system.
The USA: A stagnating economy, due to high taxes (about 47% per citizen); An impending crisis as the social security system ("funded" almost entirely by IOUs from Congress) budget begins to balloon and its revenue shrinks.
Canada: People pay high taxes to have a single provider medical system, then die waiting months for routine surgery.
Hong Kong: Oh wait...they're doing great...and they have the most laissez-fair economy in the world.
Modern China: Lower taxes than the USA, no government medical care, and limited government intervention in the economy...also the fastest growing economy in the world...and the USA's number two creditor (Congress owes them hundreds of billions of dollars).
When comparing private firms to government it's cheaper, better, faster - pick three.
The need to make a profit is what makes them cheaper, better, and faster. In the private sector there is competition, so there is a strong drive to produce a better product or service at a better price. There is also accountability: if you screw up you go broke.
In government there is no drive to improve, because there is no competition. Government is also completely lacking in accountability: if you screw up, you raise taxes.
How much have trains changed since amtrak (part of the government) started running them in 1971? How much have airplanes improved under private carriers in that time, even with the burden of FAA compliance and government run airports? Air travel is far better than in 1971, because the competing air carriers work to provide a better service at a better price, and the competing aerospace companies compete to provide a better plane at a better price. Even with the burdens of huge taxes (Amtrak is tax exempt), massive regulation (Amtrak is regulated by its owner), and government owned airports, private air travel is a far better product at a better price than train travel.
As to your outrageous & unfounded medicare fantasy. Medicare (as all social spending in the US) has an overhead of over 50% when you include the money that goes to pay bureaucrats in the HHS department, pork projects, and the huge amount of fraud. The biggest chunk of overhead for private providers is compliance with the federal government's millions of pages of regulations. The price of medical care in the USA has gone up proportionally with the increase in federal regulation: the more the government tells the medical industry what to do, the more it costs you.
And the quality difference between the two is immeasurable. Again, this is due to the lack of accountability on the part of the government.
Why should slot machines meet a higher standard than voting machines?
Because the groups buying the slot machines (casinos) have a vested interest in having quality products so they can make money. Therefore, they won't risk anything but the best.
Politicians & bureaucrats don't care. They're nearly impossible to fire (no matter how badly they screw up), and when they do leave, they have lucrative retirement benefits, and offers from lobbyist firms or the firms they took bribes...er I mean...campaign contributions from while in office.
But voting machines are a different beast. If they don't work (and this is only more of a problem without a paper trail) it's very difficult to prove it. So the real question is this -- do we want people taking risks with the electoral process?
No they're not!
A voting machine is a machine. An airplane is a machine. We know they work or don't work by testing them.
Your comparison is flawed, because you allow testing on the airplane. Anybody who gets on your example airplane after it crashes in the desert is an idiot, as is anybody who gets on before the plane makes a few hundred safe trips. Anybody who bought those diebold machines before knowing anything about them was an idiot, anybody who bought them when the problems were coming out is an idiot, and anybody who buys them in the future is an idiot.
The problem in this case, is nobody has tested this product adequately. A smart consumer wouldn't buy an airplane held together with duct tape and powered by rubber bands, and that's essentially what the diebold machines are with their numerous security flaws, and lack of paper trail.
In this case, the problem is that there is no smart consumer. There is only the government.
How exactly is it common sense that important activities should be the domain of government? Private companies do it cheaper, better, & faster than any government entity, without exception. Socialism doesn't work. The USSR, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba, Kim's North Korea. Does any of that ring a bell?
So you'd rather trust the government to make the machines. Who do you think gave diebold their lucrative no-bid contracts? The same government goons that you want to give control over the machines (with the reduced public visibility that goes along with government projects). Private companies are accountable to the public. The federal government is accountable only to itself.
An ideal solution, and much more common sense, would be to have multiple vendors, rather than the government supported diebold monopoly. With multiple vendors, the fifty states could evaluate & compare the machines, to find the best ones...or since state governments aren't any more trustworthy or competent than the feds, private groups could test the machines and put PR pressure on the states to buy the good devices.
Re:"SBC is changing it's name"
on
Ma Bell is Back
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Are you claiming that a slashdot story has a spelling or grammar error?
Slashdot contibutors' spelling and grammar skills are almost as good as their unquestionable fact checking and duplicate checking abilities.
But netflix takes time. I sent my movies back yesterday, and I won't have my new ones until tomorrow. If you want the movie today (or don't want to subscribe to a service or sign a blockbuster rental agreement), the disposable disc is a good option.
I'll stick with netflix, but some people will be better served by this method.
Since when were more options a bad thing? Maybe the competition will lower our netflix fees.
Perhaps you should review your civics text book, and reread my post. I said " the crimes the US government is Constitutionally allowed to investigate". As far as I know the Secret Service (which was part of the Treasury Department, but has been part of DHS since 2003) is still part of the US government.
I did not say the Constitution authorized the FBI to investigate counterfeiting. The Constitution only authorizes Congress "To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States." How they use this power is up to Congress (and the presidential veto power).
So instead of just wailing that "all access is bad access," wouldn't it be better to be focused on rules around "when and how that access can be obtained?"
No. Without even getting into the fact that the FBI spends almost none of its time dealing with the three crimes the US government is Constitutionally allowed to investigate (counterfeiting, piracy, and treason), I would rather that they have to break encryption to listen in on phone calls. One of the "rules" they now have about wiretaps is that if they suspect somebody of "terrorism" (which is so loosely defined that it now applies to meth dealers and doctors who work in third world countries) they can get a tap on the authority of the US Attorney's office, without a judge's approval! No government agency has ever been accused of exercising restraint when given broad powers, so it is only a matter of time until terrorism includes doing something the government doesn't like.
I'm all for allowing access to encrypted communications IF there are enough regulations around how that access can be granted. I want someone out there trying hard to stop people looking to destroy my way of life.
I want someone out there too. The problem is the FBI is one of those organizations looking to destroy the American way of life. Since it's creation it has worked to increase its power over us and its ability to invade our lives.
Benjamin Franklin once said, "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
The FBI is asking you to give up your liberties (on their word that they won't violate them) for the illusion of security. They've been more successful recently, because they have the terrorism boogeyman to scare us with, even though more Americans die drowning in bathtubs than in terrorist acts every year (including 2001).
Slashdot Mirror
But at least they have the comfort of knowing they're paying more for the service than they need to. And since it's a tax- (or debt-) funded service, they get to keep paying too much for it, unless they can somehow find a politician who will vote to reduce a budget.
If /. will post this story, why won't they post my story about how when I flip the switch, my lamp turns on?
I also don't understand where this assumed relationship between industry and global warming comes from. Yes the average temperature last year was higher than the previous year, but why assume it's humans? There was global warming and cooling long before humans burned dead dinosaurs (remember the Ice Age?). The variations in solar output (it's been up recently--coincidence?) have far more effect on the Earth's climate than greenhouse gasses.
Even in the realm of gas production we are insignificant. In the late 90s (according to the Super Volcanos show on Discovery) a volcano went off that released so much ash, the average global temperature dropped 0.5C for that year. Quite frankly, humanity is not that significant.
I'm all for reducing pollution (but not under government control...where they grant special exemptions to friends and campaign contributors, and just generally screw things up). I don't want to live in a world where we remark that the sky is a lovely shade of brown today, and where city dwellers risk getting blacklung. But the theory that humans are responsible for global warming is bunk. It was put forth by people with an agenda (the anti-technologists) and based on bad data. How did they measure the average global temperature in 1820? They didn't! Yet they promote their guesses as scientific fact to "show" that the recent warming trend is related to the industrial revolution.
And a few side notes:
- Recycling paper & plastic consumes more energy (and therefore pollutes more) and creates more toxic byproducts than hauling it to the dump and creating new stuff. Of the main recycling types, only aluminum recycling reduces the cost and pollution of creating new items.
What do these two facts have in common? Both industries are run with heavy government subsidies, by companies that contribute significantly to politicians campaigns, and explained to the tax-payers as being pro-environment, when they're really just pro-croneyism.Credit cards already have an excellent system in place to do that, and the big chains (Walmart, Kroger, Safeway, etc.) can negotiate a really low rate with Visa/MC.
For that to be done through a cell phone, the phone would have to somehow carry a pre-pay balance, or they'd have to extend credit, which requires a banking charter in the US. So really what you'd essentially be doing is tying a Visa account to your cell phone, rather than a plastic card. One less item to carry around.
PayPal will probably enter into the brick and mortar payments industry in the next several years, they just need to find a method that they can provide cheaper/better/faster than the traditional credit card industry, or nobody will use it.
What I'd like to see would be a smart card that can carry all your crap (driver's license, credit cards, insurance card, etc.) on one card, and be encrypted with a biometric key, in case it gets lost or stolen. Then you just look into the retinal scanner, wave your card past the reader, and pick which item in it to charge. It would need some way of ensuring that the reader only read the "card" you selected (e.g. so the grocery can't get your car insurance policy), but that shouldn't be too hard.
You can buy things today with your phone (like ring tones, wallpaper, etc). The problem is the phone carriers charge 20%-40%. Paypal charges a tenth of that, so the companies can either make more profit or lower their prices.
Also, PayPal will allow you to buy all sorts of products, and it will handle the ordering, payment, and shipping, all you have to do is read the confirmation emails.
The way you first stated it sounded like you thought the regulations were driving the security. From what I've read, it looks like the major LV casinos have security requirements that exceed Nevada's regulations.
;).
some people will, some won't, and some do so anyway. Whaddya gonna do, arrest them?
I think talking to them and treating them like people would be a better plan, but I'm not qualified for government work (I am motivated, tell the truth frequently, and have a sense of ethics
No. Slot machines are not built to the regulators' specifications, they're built to the casinos'. Granted the casinos have to ask for certain things they might not without the regulations (like specific payout rates), but it's idiotic to think they wouldn't ask for security measures without a regulation requiring it.
You might as well suggest that all the world's people would immediately kill themselves, if the laws against suicide were overturned.
Self-interest does not require laws.
Uhh...so are airplanes. And so are cars. And both have gotten better much faster than trains.
The increase in accidents (if any, do you have some evidence?) is probably due to the increase in the number of flights. But per person travelling, air travel has gotten safer every year.
The cash injections are because Congress loves to give out other people's money. It's also making the airlines fat & lazy, more like a government entity. It would be better to let them go out of business and the efficient airlines (like Southwest) would dominate.
The insurance industry and medical industry are broken, because of government interference. In the 1950s, very few people had or needed health insurance, they'd pay their doctors with a check. It wasn't until the advent of Medicare in 1965 that insurance became a requirement. Part of this might be because doctors began padding the bill now that a third party was paying (as they now do when we pay with our private insurance), but much of it is due to the increased costs associated with the government's control of the industry.
Some interesting facts:
In 1999, Medicare was $212Billion.
In 1999, Medicare fraud was $13.5Billion
That's over 6% lost, just to the fraud they know about, before taking into account the HHS buildings, the cost of paying thousands of HHS employees, the cost of collecting all the tax money, the costs employers have to bear to comply with medicare, the costs health care providers have to bear, etc., etc.
Hardly an efficient organization.
Again, the buyer (the casino) wants the best product. A dollar lost is a dollar lost. And private companies don't want to lose money.
No. It's true. Amtrak sucks. And Amtrak is as private as the USPS. It is a government owned corporation.
The airports are controlled by a what? A public-private partnership, which means the private groups put up the money, and the government tells them what to do. The air traffic control system is also controlled by the FAA. The employees might not have been nationalized like the TSA, but they can't make a change without the FAA approval.
Few if any planes from 1971 are in the air today. If you ride on them, you need to get a new carrier. Most in the air today were built in the 90s, or built in the 80s and refitted since then.
Those numbers are what you get when you compare the funding in the federal budget for all social spending & related agencies to the amount of money going to the beneficiaries: most of it is lost on the way.
No, it's true. If you add up all the cost increases on services, materials, and medicines, a doctors office spends more dealing with the feds than on rent, electricity, or any other overhead expense.
Regulations over the past 20 years have skyrocketed. Under the Clinton administration, the federal registry (the big book of regulations) doubled! Under Reagan & both Bushes, it went up almost as much.
The insurance and medical companies (mostly the drug companies) like that though. It decreases competition and increases their profits at the cost of the consumers' choice. Big companies cozy up to government, because they see it as a tool to use to make money.
Communism is socialism. But yes, those are authoritarian socialism, perhaps some socialist states where the socialists are elected might be better examples:
France: Massive riots over the past decade due to price controls, wage controls, and unemployment. The riots this month were caused by economic factors, not racial ones.
The UK: Unemployment in the double digits over most of the past 20 years.
Sweden: Massive stagnation, due to the unfundable socialist system.
The USA: A stagnating economy, due to high taxes (about 47% per citizen); An impending crisis as the social security system ("funded" almost entirely by IOUs from Congress) budget begins to balloon and its revenue shrinks.
Canada: People pay high taxes to have a single provider medical system, then die waiting months for routine surgery.
Hong Kong: Oh wait...they're doing great...and they have the most laissez-fair economy in the world.
Modern China: Lower taxes than the USA, no government medical care, and limited government intervention in the economy...also the fastest growing economy in the world...and the USA's number two creditor (Congress owes them hundreds of billions of dollars).
I was including code review in the testing, sorry I didn't mention it explicitly.
When comparing private firms to government it's cheaper, better, faster - pick three .
The need to make a profit is what makes them cheaper, better, and faster. In the private sector there is competition, so there is a strong drive to produce a better product or service at a better price. There is also accountability: if you screw up you go broke.
In government there is no drive to improve, because there is no competition. Government is also completely lacking in accountability: if you screw up, you raise taxes.
How much have trains changed since amtrak (part of the government) started running them in 1971? How much have airplanes improved under private carriers in that time, even with the burden of FAA compliance and government run airports? Air travel is far better than in 1971, because the competing air carriers work to provide a better service at a better price, and the competing aerospace companies compete to provide a better plane at a better price. Even with the burdens of huge taxes (Amtrak is tax exempt), massive regulation (Amtrak is regulated by its owner), and government owned airports, private air travel is a far better product at a better price than train travel.
As to your outrageous & unfounded medicare fantasy. Medicare (as all social spending in the US) has an overhead of over 50% when you include the money that goes to pay bureaucrats in the HHS department, pork projects, and the huge amount of fraud. The biggest chunk of overhead for private providers is compliance with the federal government's millions of pages of regulations. The price of medical care in the USA has gone up proportionally with the increase in federal regulation: the more the government tells the medical industry what to do, the more it costs you.
And the quality difference between the two is immeasurable. Again, this is due to the lack of accountability on the part of the government.
Because the groups buying the slot machines (casinos) have a vested interest in having quality products so they can make money. Therefore, they won't risk anything but the best.
Politicians & bureaucrats don't care. They're nearly impossible to fire (no matter how badly they screw up), and when they do leave, they have lucrative retirement benefits, and offers from lobbyist firms or the firms they took bribes...er I mean...campaign contributions from while in office.
But voting machines are a different beast. If they don't work (and this is only more of a problem without a paper trail) it's very difficult to prove it. So the real question is this -- do we want people taking risks with the electoral process?
No they're not!
A voting machine is a machine. An airplane is a machine. We know they work or don't work by testing them.
Your comparison is flawed, because you allow testing on the airplane. Anybody who gets on your example airplane after it crashes in the desert is an idiot, as is anybody who gets on before the plane makes a few hundred safe trips. Anybody who bought those diebold machines before knowing anything about them was an idiot, anybody who bought them when the problems were coming out is an idiot, and anybody who buys them in the future is an idiot.
The problem in this case, is nobody has tested this product adequately. A smart consumer wouldn't buy an airplane held together with duct tape and powered by rubber bands, and that's essentially what the diebold machines are with their numerous security flaws, and lack of paper trail.
In this case, the problem is that there is no smart consumer. There is only the government.
How exactly is it common sense that important activities should be the domain of government? Private companies do it cheaper, better, & faster than any government entity, without exception. Socialism doesn't work. The USSR, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba, Kim's North Korea. Does any of that ring a bell?
So you'd rather trust the government to make the machines. Who do you think gave diebold their lucrative no-bid contracts? The same government goons that you want to give control over the machines (with the reduced public visibility that goes along with government projects). Private companies are accountable to the public. The federal government is accountable only to itself.
An ideal solution, and much more common sense, would be to have multiple vendors, rather than the government supported diebold monopoly. With multiple vendors, the fifty states could evaluate & compare the machines, to find the best ones...or since state governments aren't any more trustworthy or competent than the feds, private groups could test the machines and put PR pressure on the states to buy the good devices.
Are you claiming that a slashdot story has a spelling or grammar error?
Slashdot contibutors' spelling and grammar skills are almost as good as their unquestionable fact checking and duplicate checking abilities.
But netflix takes time. I sent my movies back yesterday, and I won't have my new ones until tomorrow. If you want the movie today (or don't want to subscribe to a service or sign a blockbuster rental agreement), the disposable disc is a good option.
I'll stick with netflix, but some people will be better served by this method.
Since when were more options a bad thing? Maybe the competition will lower our netflix fees.
Perhaps you should review your civics text book, and reread my post. I said " the crimes the US government is Constitutionally allowed to investigate". As far as I know the Secret Service (which was part of the Treasury Department, but has been part of DHS since 2003) is still part of the US government.
I did not say the Constitution authorized the FBI to investigate counterfeiting. The Constitution only authorizes Congress "To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States." How they use this power is up to Congress (and the presidential veto power).
So instead of just wailing that "all access is bad access," wouldn't it be better to be focused on rules around "when and how that access can be obtained?"
No. Without even getting into the fact that the FBI spends almost none of its time dealing with the three crimes the US government is Constitutionally allowed to investigate (counterfeiting, piracy, and treason), I would rather that they have to break encryption to listen in on phone calls. One of the "rules" they now have about wiretaps is that if they suspect somebody of "terrorism" (which is so loosely defined that it now applies to meth dealers and doctors who work in third world countries) they can get a tap on the authority of the US Attorney's office, without a judge's approval! No government agency has ever been accused of exercising restraint when given broad powers, so it is only a matter of time until terrorism includes doing something the government doesn't like.
I'm all for allowing access to encrypted communications IF there are enough regulations around how that access can be granted. I want someone out there trying hard to stop people looking to destroy my way of life.
I want someone out there too. The problem is the FBI is one of those organizations looking to destroy the American way of life. Since it's creation it has worked to increase its power over us and its ability to invade our lives.
Benjamin Franklin once said, "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
The FBI is asking you to give up your liberties (on their word that they won't violate them) for the illusion of security. They've been more successful recently, because they have the terrorism boogeyman to scare us with, even though more Americans die drowning in bathtubs than in terrorist acts every year (including 2001).
If the FBI can't spy on every single US resident 24/7, how can they be sure we're not all terrorists?
:o
Did they have the FBI PR guy give the "if you haven't done anything wrong, then you should have nothing to hide" defense yet?
The earlier story had a Nasa logo, this one has a Google logo. That makes them completely different stories.
We had to program in the snow, up hill both ways!
Come on it's a fun game, but if you need to get it intravenously, maybe you should seek help.
So that would be "Yes, they don't count unconfirmed bugs."