No-one is even suggesting that. That's the point of the teachers! To lead the class.
Then when you said "just the internet", you didn't mean "just the internet", did you? What you wrote suggested that very thing. "Teachers and internet" is not the same as "just the internet", at least not in the language dejure.
Unfunded mandates from higher levels of government occur in almost all aspects of life, the government isn't expected to fund every mandate they make.
"It happens" and "it's a good thing" are two different concepts. And not expecting the government at the state level to fund something that they demand the local schools do is one of the "it happens" things, not one of the "it's a good things".
What's wrong with having high school students take classes in a form that is becoming ever more common in post-high school life?
Nothing is wrong with allowing them to take approved online courses. Did you miss the word "mandate"?
I do have to say that with the proliferation of online courses in college that this would give high school students the exposure to taking online courses and help prepare them for college.
That is the one valuable thing I see from having online courses available to high school students -- teaching them how to take an online course. I doubt that the mandate is based on that idea, and without the support available to college students who take online courses (TAs, help desks, etc) it is questionable whether many of the high school students will find the experience anything other than frustrating.
It's easy to blow off online courses and procrastinate when you don't have to go in to a class every day. Hopefully, they'll learn these lessons early.
It sounds like you think high school students need instruction on how to skip classes. Perhaps you meant to word that along the lines of "it will help them learn time management"?
So you evaluate and take your information from a reputable source, you know, like you do in all aspects of life.
You've just pushed the problem down one level on the stack. How do you teach students to identify reputable sources if you just throw them at the internet and let them figure it out for themselves?
You don't just trust what anyone tells you and that includes teachers, because they aren't always going to be correct.
No, they won't always be correct, and only a fool would think they would be -- or that I made any claim similar to that. At least there is a vetting process that takes place and someone is responsible, whether it is the local school board or superintendent or principle, or the state organization that vets textbooks. It's not just "hope" and "maybe" the students won't wander into a site with ridiculous "facts" that they have no way of vetting themselves.
My wife is the sys admin for the distance education department of a local college, so I'm getting a kick out of your replies.
Since you didn't bother to add any content to the discussion, I'll assume your "kick" is that you think I'm wrong.
If your wife's "distance education department" consists of nothing but pointing students to the Internet, then I pity the students. I suspect that the department consists of people who create and identify the content the students should be using, not simply saying "google for the answers to the following exam questions", and probably some number of live resources to answer questions, whether in person or electronically. That's significantly different than "just the internet". In fact, the distance learning department may use the Internet as a medium to disseminate the distance learning, but it need not be the only medium. There was "distance learning" prior to the Internet, you know.
Now, please rail on now about how worthless Chromebooks are and kids can't possibly get an decent education with just the Internet.
Well, ok. With "just the Internet", how does a child learn to identify and prioritize information he receives from the Internet?
You have to have some place to start. Throwing a kid onto the internet and saying "learn it for yourself" isn't a productive way to teach kids anything. How do you counteract the damage if the first website they come across teaches them that 2+2=6 or something equally wrong? How do they realize there is a foundation for all of the advanced topics they will come across, and better yet, which foundations are relevant?
The fact is this. We live in a world where there is an amazing ability to learn almost anything online.
No. There is an amazing ability to find information online, but learning requires evaluation and incorporation of correct information.
I.e., not all Internet information is factual, and not all of it is correct. Learning cannot truly take place in an environment where facts are not and opinions masquerade as such.
I'll also point out that "learning on the internet" is not the same as "must take two online learning courses to graduate". The latter is a mandate that is not appropriate for the Governor to push.
From: Using electronic devices to keep surveillance over a person may implicate the investigated individual's Fourth Amendment rights... Courts have held that this practice constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment, which protects an individual's privacy rights for situations in which the person has a legitimate expectation of privacy.
You are being dishonest by eliding the specific antecedant to the phrase "this practice" (which I highlighted) in the material you quoted. What is the example that "this practice" refers to? The sentence you removed: "One form of electronic surveillance is attaching a "bug" to a person's telephone line or to a phone booth and recording the phone conversation." There was no recording of any phone conversation involved, there was only the record of location of a vehicle while it was being operated on public streets and in public view. Any person seeing the vehicle could have made such a record. There is no expectation of privacy here, where there would be when someone is holding a conversation on a private telephone. You have taken a statement regarding a telephone conversation and the bugging thereof and tried to apply it to a very different action.
The 8th, 7th, and 9th Circuits have already ruled that attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle while it is parked in a public place does not require a warrant. Please do go read the report linked to in the original article. On page 14:
The Eighth Circuitâ(TM)s holding in Marquez is consistent with those
circuits that have addressed the issue. See United States v. Hernandez,
647 F.3d 216, 220 n.4 (5th Cir. 2011) (âoePlacing the GPS device under the
car was not a search because a carâ(TM)s undercarriage is thrust into the
public eye, and thus to examine it does not constitute a search.â
(citation omitted)); United States v. Cuevas-Perez, 640 F.3d 272, 273
(7th Cir. 2011) (holding the installation and use of a GPS tracker device
were not Fourth Amendment searches); United States v. McIver, 186 F.3d
1119, 1226-27 (9th Cir. 1999) (holding the installation of the GPS
tracker device was not a Fourth Amendment search because the defendant
did not intend to shield the undercarriage of his vehicle from inspection
by others and because the officers did not pry into a hidden or enclosed
area when installing the GPS tracker device).
These holdings are
consistent with Supreme Court precedent. See New York v. Class, 475 U.S.
106, 114 (1986) (âoeThe exterior of a car, of course, is thrust into the
public eye, and thus to examine it does not constitute a âsearch.â(TM)â);
United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 712 (1984) (holding the installation
of a beeper hidden in a can was not a search because the beeper itself,
while âoecreat[ing] the potential for an invasion of privacy,â actually
âoeconveyed no information that [the defendant] wished to keep private, for
it conveyed no information at allâ).
Here,
installation
of
the
GPS
tracker
device
onto
defendant
Robinsonâ(TM)s Cavalier was not a âoesearchâ because defendant Robinson did not
have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the exterior of his Cavalier.
The Circuit courts seem quite clear on the fact that it isn't a search. Your opinion and the interest of SCOTUS in the matter do not change that fact.
RTFA; the incident and court in question are both in Missouri, and while federal laws supersedes state, state laws are still applicable unless contradicted.
Do you have a cite for the law you claim prohibits police from following someone for more than a certain period of time? I can find no reference to it in the Mo. Revised Statutes. And something other than your claim that "following" and "monitoring" are synonymous in the eyes of the law to back up your claim that monitoring for more than a certain period of time violates Mo. state law?
1) Nowhere does the Fourth Amendment contain a caveat that implies our right to be free from search and seizure without warrant does not apply in public places;
This argument is irrelevant. Of course the fourth amendment applies in public places. The question is, is it either a search or a seizure to which the fourth amendment applies?
placing a GPS device on my vehicle without permission or warrant, for the purpose of conducting surveillance, is no different than searching the interior of said vehicle without permission or warrant.
Oh, but it is quite different. You even implicitely admit that by the terms you choose to use to refer to the actions. "Placing" vs. "searching". I can place a penny on the hood of your car without anyone beginning to think that by doing so I've conducted a search of any kind, other than the requisite search of my own pocket to locate a penny.
It is hard to call an act that involves nothing other than seeing what is plainly visible a "search", and in fact, "in plain sight" is a clear exception to the requirements to get a warrant. If you've left your bag of dope laying on the coffee table and you allow a cop to enter your house, when he sees that dope he can arrest you without having conducted a search or needing a warrant. If you stand in a public place and wave about what appears to be a bag of dope, the "plain sight" exception still applies, even though it is a public place.
And, I'll point out, your claim that placing the device is a search is a matter of opinion, and perhaps the crux of the SCOTUS case. The Circuit courts disagree with you.
...this practice would be in flagrant violation of Missouri statute.
MIssouri law is not federal law and applies nowhere except Missouri. In addition, one would have to consider what the actual law says, whether it says "illegal to follow a vehicle" or "illegal to monitor the actions of a vehicle", because attaching a GPS tracker is not "following". It is "monitoring". In other words, does the law prohibit an act of harassment or an act of tracking? How can you be harassed by something you don't know is taking place? A marked police vehicle following someone is clearly a visible act, and doing so for an extended period of time could reasonably be considered harassment. If I were to tape a penny to the underside of your vehicle and you didn't know it was there, am I harassing you?
I don't know about you, but I park my car in my private garage, which is an enclosed structure on private property; Meaning,
Meaning this is outside the scope of the case being discussed. And meaning that they would need a warrant to enter your premises to attach the device or remove it.
Would you argue that a parking ticket is unconstitutional, based on the hypothetical instance of you coming home and park at the end of the day, the police have effectively placed something on your vehicle that has arrived in a private place without your permission or warrant?
Basically, my stance on this and all related issues is thus: If law enforcement has such a hard time obeying the Constitution by obtaining a lawful warrant,
And the stance of the court is, quite properly, to decide if a warrant is indeed required for certain actions, not to pretend that the police need a warrant to do everything. Trying to argue that the cops need a warrant to do things that the constitition doesn't demand that they have a warrant to do is a losing battle.
Property ownership does not include the right to control what happens to that property. Is that what I am hearing this judge say?
We can't answer that. Only you can tell us what you "hear".
Can you elaborate on your first statment for us? In what way does attaching a GPS unit to a stationary vehicle parked on a public street control the property to which the tracker is attached? How does the existance of that tracker change in any way the use of the device to which it is attached (without the owner's knowledge?)
If you think that the Justices in SCOTUS see the Constitution as anything more than a tool to advance the agenda of the party whose President appointed them, then you are truly naive.
You do realize, don't you, that SCOTUS justices are appointed for life? They have no need to advance any agenda to keep their jobs. They don't have to worry what political parties think, they'll be A-list attendees at any party or event they go to.
What is more likely to be true is that the President who appointed them will appoint someone with a judicial temperment that matches his own desires, and the justice will continue that temperment into his appointment.
While you may see this as "no difference", it really is. The former requires an intent to act in a way to please others. The latter requires only an intent to continue acting in a way that the justice himself finds appropriate. The integrity and motives of the justice do count for something.
It's a state-owned car, same as a state- or company-owned computer.
Uhhhh, rtfm, please. The car was registered to Robinson. It wasn't a state-owned car, except in the left-field sense that the state owns us all and we are merely wage slaves supporting the current regiem.
The Circuit courts have issued rulings on this that are applicable until the SCOTUS rules otherwise. The fine document contains the legal arguments against the claims that such tracking is a search or a siezure and thus violates the fourth amendment, both of which are quite rational and sound. Nobody has an expectation of privacy regarding the location of their vehicle when it is on the public streets, and there is no seizure.
Over the weekend I looked at my latest Comcast bill. They are starting, 1 Jan, a $3 fee for the privilege of giving your payment to a live customer service rep. If you drive to the office so your payment won't be late, you'll pay more.
Yes, the things I listed as the stupid decisions didn't get much news coverage. Very little of what the FCC does makes the news, where other government operations get more. (Why would a TV station bite the hand that feeds them?) If you're basing your approval just on what you on the six oclock news, you're missing a lot of stuff.
Spoken like a big-city dweller, or cable/satellite only viewer.
If you live any distance from the station, you are subject to:
No signal at all where you used to get a viewable analog one.
Constant artifacts and loss of audio where you used to get a viewable analog signal.
Multipath that prevents any reception, even if you live near the station.
Example: my bedroom TV used to be able to get all the major networks and some independent stations when they were all analog. After the switch to DTV, it gets ONE STATION. The telly in my mother's kitchen used to get all the major networks and several independents when they were analog. Now it gets some of the network stations, and half of those are marginal enough they block up regularly. If the antenna isn't perfectly adjusted she gets nothing, and there is no visual feedback ('less snow there, leave it') to help her adjust it.
In addition, the complexity of having to switch back and forth between the digital and analog stations, since the government specified digital converter didn't make any allowance for analog at all. Instant obsolescence of VCRs.
HDTV was long overdue, as NTSC was severely obsolete
Really? That's an opinion, not a fact. I've found almost nothing worth the extra cost coming from HDTV. I used to go to NAB and stand in awe at the "convergence" displays with all the wonderful HDTV stuff and think "big effing deal". No increase in value, but a considerable increase in cost of viewing, and a large amount of trouble from the ways that some stations deal with letterboxing. Oh, let's go back to the list:
When the signal works, you get either black bands across the top and bottom of the picture, making the effective picture area smaller, or
An "expanded" picture that loses stuff off the left and right sides, or
A picture that switches back and forth between normal and zoom because the cable company is failing to detect which format the program is in and it is jumping back and forth. (Yes, a cable issue, but based on the HDTV problem.)
If you have an HDTV, you get a beautiful picture that has nothing of value on the left and right sides because the programmer knows the std def viewers won't see it.
Or a programmer that forgets that there are std def viewers so he moves important information (like the score of the football or soccer game you are trying to watch) into the HD areas and those get cut off -- so you can see the score for one team but not the other. Or for WSOP on ESPN, you get to see one of the hole cards for each player but not the other, and the flop but not the turn or river.
A compressed picture, where the idiot broadcaster has a normal def program but assumes that everyone has a high def TV operating in expanded mode, so he has to compress it because the people who have HDTVs in expanded mode are too stupid to be able to switch out of that mode to watch a normal program.
Need explanation of that last one? Ok, here's an example. KOAC-DT broadcasts "Sherlock Holmes" on Thursday night. It is a standard def (4:3) program. They squeeze the image horizontally so that if you have an HDTV in zoom mode (as some people do when watching standard def programs on HDTVs so they don't have to see those awful black bands on either side of the image, the poor sensitive dears), the image returns to 4:3. AND THE HDTV FOLKS STILL GET THE BLACK BANDS BECAUSE THE IDIOT BROADCASTER HAS ADDED THEM TO THE NORMAL PROGRAMMING. If you have ANY TV in non-zoom mode the image is squashed sideways, the black bands are bigger, and everyone looks really skinny unless they are lying down and then they look really short and fat.
TV used to be TV. You could watch the station 20 miles away and you might have some snow but you could watch it. The size of the image didn't keep popping around like a fucking jack russel terrier or the icons at the bottom o
Preignition != dieseling. Preignition is when the fuel/air charge ignites spontaneously inside the combustion chamber before it's supposed to;
"Ignites spontaneously" due to the pressure and heat created by the compression stroke of the piston. Kinda like how a diesel engine operates. Since the ignition doesn't have to wait for the spark, it can occur prior to, and thus 'pre', the normal timing.
The charge isn't supposed to detonate until the piston has reached the top of its stroke
It isn't supposed to detonate in a non-diesel engine until the spark triggers it. Since it is igniting without a spark, it's called "dieseling".
If it detonates too early, it'll cause a pressure wave directly counteracting the movement of the piston, causing mechanical damage.
Yes, that's right. And if it detonates at the correct time or after when there is no spark (like you'd have in a diesel engine) it's called "run on". The fact that it is bad doesn't change the fact that the ignition is caused by the diesel effect, not a spark. The addition of lead was intended to reduce the occurance of this effect. Removing lead meant you had to change the fuel in some other way to prevent it. It isn't as simple as "put in lead or leave it out".
Yes, you could argue that you could have 'preignition' from some other cause (bad timing/early spark, etc.) but since we're talking about the effect of lead in the fuel we're ignoring those non-fuel effects, and thus the cause is... dieseling, whether properly or improperly timed.
One of the problems with the measured dosage also is, it's 10urem in a very discrete beam. It then scans your whole body. This is in a fashion similar to the electron gun scanning on a CRT. It's the cumulative effect of these scans which is in question. So from the time you step in, to the time you step out, is that 10 urem, 100 mrem, or 1 rem?
The REM is a measure of the dose, not the rate. If the information is correct, then it will be 10 microrem per scan. "From time you step in to time you step out", 10 microrem, if there is only one scan. Two scans, 20 urem. Fifty scans, 500 microrem.
I've been considering picking up a geiger counter, and carrying it through. Sure, they'll get pissed when they find out, but if I can say "Hey, you just exposed me to 10 rem!" then I'd have something.
A Geiger counter meaures rate, not dose. You need to carry a dosimeter if you want to measure your dose. Those can be as simple as a film badge. You could even hide that badge under your clothing so the TSA droid wouldn't be ordering you to "put that electronic doohickey through the x-ray machine" and keeping you out of the scanner. You'd have to deal with the aftermath of having the dosimeter on you when it was discovered after the fact, but I doubt they'd confiscate it (if they even knew what it was. I've had TSA baggage searchers who looked quizically at something most people would immediately recognize as "a book".)
In the 80's as a kid I used to wonder why leaded gas was cheaper than unleaded, when leaded gas was the stuff that had extra processing done to it.
The difference is more than just whether tetraethyl lead was added or not. Leading reduced preignition (aka dieseling) so higher compression ratios could be used in engines. Unleaded gas needed either a different additive to reduce this, or a different mix so it had a lower octane rating. If you simply removed lead from the gas you used and kept the rest the same, your engine was likely to run rough or not stop when you turned it off.
In addition, the economy of scale applied. If everyone is using leaded gas and only some unleaded is required, the added cost of running a second truck and all the other fixed costs had to be amortized over less volume sold.
Of course not. I haven't been a Verizon slave for more than a decade. That's why I said "I bet" instead of "I have read the contract and know".
I don't see anything in it that says they can make me pay for any non-governmental related surcharge:
You just quoted it. Here:
You agree to pay all access, usage and other charges that you or the user of your wireless device incurred...
We set these charges; they aren't taxes, they aren't required by law, they are not necessarily related to anything the government does, they are kept by us in whole or in part, and the amounts and what they pay for may change.
You agree to pay all... other charges... not necessarily related to anything the government does... kept by us in whole or in part... the amount... may change. So, yes, it seems I was quite correct in saying that your contract not only does NOT specify how much you pay each month, it explicitely allows for changes to the amount you pay each month with appropriate notice. Just like I said.
And while they can change the terms of the contract and the prices I pay, if they do, I can cancel my contract without an ETF if it affects me an a material way,
That is a significantly different concept than "breach of contract". You are now saying that the contract explicitly allows these charges and allows you a means of exiting from the contract. A "breach" would be if they didn't tell you they had the authority to charge you and did it anyway, or if they didn't let you out when they notified you of a change.
There is nothing in what you quoted that says that they cannot change the fees they charge you. Your claim that charging you more than the $80 your contract says you owe is a breach of contract is wrong. Can you quote a section of the contract that does specify how much you owe each month?
No, it seems that Verizon is acting within the explicit language of the contract: adding a charge and telling you about it. The only way left for them to breach the contract is if they didn't allow you to terminate without a fee, and you apparently haven't tried that yet. Have you?
Under Comcast where I live, it isn't part of "basic". It is part of the lowest tier of digital service, but if you want no-frills cable, you don't get ESPN. You get must-carrys and shopping channels. And, for some reason I cannot fathom, Discovery. And one of the two Spanish channels (but not the other).
As I recall, ESPN is part of the ABC family of channels, and you aren't going to push ESPN to become a pay service. It's going to be a "if you want any of X you take all of X" offer to the cable company forever.
This would put people back in control of their own infrastructure and take away the phone companies ability to over charge for service.
And allow the governments to overcharge for service.
You mention water and sewage as an example. Where I live, add on a "runoff fee" to deal with that stuff called "rain" that falls from the sky and isn't absorbed by the ground under your house. And a fee to fix the roads. And a fee to trim trees. And a fee to fix sidewalks. And a fee for the bus system.
Phone bills? The local paper has a story today about a proposal to add a fee to the phone bill to pay for improving passenger rail service. Even if you never ride a train in your life, you are expected to pay for it.
Yes, government has found a way to tax the water you drink to pay for just about anything else it wants to do. Why would you expect phone service to be anything different?
If my contract says I have to pay them $80/month for service, if they make it cost $81/month, they are breaching that contract.
I'll bet that if you actually read the contract, it won't say how much you are going to pay, and that it is has clauses that allow changes to the contract with notice.
They wouldn't be breaching the contract (unless they wrote it very stupidly, and I bet their lawyers won't let them do that) any more than if you called up and said "I want to add this extra service, and I won't pay any more than the contractually agreed to price of $80."
It seems like the FCC is the only government agency making any decisions/taking any actions that i actually agree with these days =P
No, they make as many stupid ones as every other part of government.
Recently? Allowing Recon Robotics to use part of the 440MHz ham band for their remote controlled robots. Allowing low power medical devices in the same band. Allowing LightSquared to get a foothold and threaten every GPS application on the planet. The entire digital TV fiasco. BPL. Safe Harbor. Narrowband LMR.
They may make some you agree with, but they make a lot more that are stupid.
This is as bad as when the phone company charged $4 a month for "touch tone service" when it actually costs them less to provide it than to deal with pulse dialing.
Back when this was a regular charge, it did cost more to provide touch tone dialing. They had to add the DTMF-to-pulse decoders to existing systems. About the time that the old step-by-step hardware was replaced by something more modern (crossbar) and the pulse decoding became the more expensive part, the special charge for DTMF was removed.
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No-one is even suggesting that. That's the point of the teachers! To lead the class.
Then when you said "just the internet", you didn't mean "just the internet", did you? What you wrote suggested that very thing. "Teachers and internet" is not the same as "just the internet", at least not in the language dejure.
Unfunded mandates from higher levels of government occur in almost all aspects of life, the government isn't expected to fund every mandate they make.
"It happens" and "it's a good thing" are two different concepts. And not expecting the government at the state level to fund something that they demand the local schools do is one of the "it happens" things, not one of the "it's a good things".
What's wrong with having high school students take classes in a form that is becoming ever more common in post-high school life?
Nothing is wrong with allowing them to take approved online courses. Did you miss the word "mandate"?
I do have to say that with the proliferation of online courses in college that this would give high school students the exposure to taking online courses and help prepare them for college.
That is the one valuable thing I see from having online courses available to high school students -- teaching them how to take an online course. I doubt that the mandate is based on that idea, and without the support available to college students who take online courses (TAs, help desks, etc) it is questionable whether many of the high school students will find the experience anything other than frustrating.
It's easy to blow off online courses and procrastinate when you don't have to go in to a class every day. Hopefully, they'll learn these lessons early.
It sounds like you think high school students need instruction on how to skip classes. Perhaps you meant to word that along the lines of "it will help them learn time management"?
So you evaluate and take your information from a reputable source, you know, like you do in all aspects of life.
You've just pushed the problem down one level on the stack. How do you teach students to identify reputable sources if you just throw them at the internet and let them figure it out for themselves?
You don't just trust what anyone tells you and that includes teachers, because they aren't always going to be correct.
No, they won't always be correct, and only a fool would think they would be -- or that I made any claim similar to that. At least there is a vetting process that takes place and someone is responsible, whether it is the local school board or superintendent or principle, or the state organization that vets textbooks. It's not just "hope" and "maybe" the students won't wander into a site with ridiculous "facts" that they have no way of vetting themselves.
My wife is the sys admin for the distance education department of a local college, so I'm getting a kick out of your replies.
Since you didn't bother to add any content to the discussion, I'll assume your "kick" is that you think I'm wrong.
If your wife's "distance education department" consists of nothing but pointing students to the Internet, then I pity the students. I suspect that the department consists of people who create and identify the content the students should be using, not simply saying "google for the answers to the following exam questions", and probably some number of live resources to answer questions, whether in person or electronically. That's significantly different than "just the internet". In fact, the distance learning department may use the Internet as a medium to disseminate the distance learning, but it need not be the only medium. There was "distance learning" prior to the Internet, you know.
What is it specifically you're opposed to?
1. Unfunded mandates from higher levels of government.
2. Mandated online classes as a high school graduation requirement.
Now, please rail on now about how worthless Chromebooks are and kids can't possibly get an decent education with just the Internet.
Well, ok. With "just the Internet", how does a child learn to identify and prioritize information he receives from the Internet?
You have to have some place to start. Throwing a kid onto the internet and saying "learn it for yourself" isn't a productive way to teach kids anything. How do you counteract the damage if the first website they come across teaches them that 2+2=6 or something equally wrong? How do they realize there is a foundation for all of the advanced topics they will come across, and better yet, which foundations are relevant?
The fact is this. We live in a world where there is an amazing ability to learn almost anything online.
No. There is an amazing ability to find information online, but learning requires evaluation and incorporation of correct information.
I.e., not all Internet information is factual, and not all of it is correct. Learning cannot truly take place in an environment where facts are not and opinions masquerade as such.
I'll also point out that "learning on the internet" is not the same as "must take two online learning courses to graduate". The latter is a mandate that is not appropriate for the Governor to push.
From: Using electronic devices to keep surveillance over a person may implicate the investigated individual's Fourth Amendment rights... Courts have held that this practice constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment, which protects an individual's privacy rights for situations in which the person has a legitimate expectation of privacy.
You are being dishonest by eliding the specific antecedant to the phrase "this practice" (which I highlighted) in the material you quoted. What is the example that "this practice" refers to? The sentence you removed: "One form of electronic surveillance is attaching a "bug" to a person's telephone line or to a phone booth and recording the phone conversation." There was no recording of any phone conversation involved, there was only the record of location of a vehicle while it was being operated on public streets and in public view. Any person seeing the vehicle could have made such a record. There is no expectation of privacy here, where there would be when someone is holding a conversation on a private telephone. You have taken a statement regarding a telephone conversation and the bugging thereof and tried to apply it to a very different action.
The 8th, 7th, and 9th Circuits have already ruled that attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle while it is parked in a public place does not require a warrant. Please do go read the report linked to in the original article. On page 14:
The Eighth Circuitâ(TM)s holding in Marquez is consistent with those circuits that have addressed the issue. See United States v. Hernandez, 647 F.3d 216, 220 n.4 (5th Cir. 2011) (âoePlacing the GPS device under the car was not a search because a carâ(TM)s undercarriage is thrust into the public eye, and thus to examine it does not constitute a search.â (citation omitted)); United States v. Cuevas-Perez, 640 F.3d 272, 273 (7th Cir. 2011) (holding the installation and use of a GPS tracker device were not Fourth Amendment searches); United States v. McIver, 186 F.3d 1119, 1226-27 (9th Cir. 1999) (holding the installation of the GPS tracker device was not a Fourth Amendment search because the defendant did not intend to shield the undercarriage of his vehicle from inspection by others and because the officers did not pry into a hidden or enclosed area when installing the GPS tracker device). These holdings are consistent with Supreme Court precedent. See New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 114 (1986) (âoeThe exterior of a car, of course, is thrust into the public eye, and thus to examine it does not constitute a âsearch.â(TM)â); United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 712 (1984) (holding the installation of a beeper hidden in a can was not a search because the beeper itself, while âoecreat[ing] the potential for an invasion of privacy,â actually âoeconveyed no information that [the defendant] wished to keep private, for it conveyed no information at allâ).
Here, installation of the GPS tracker device onto defendant Robinsonâ(TM)s Cavalier was not a âoesearchâ because defendant Robinson did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the exterior of his Cavalier.
The Circuit courts seem quite clear on the fact that it isn't a search. Your opinion and the interest of SCOTUS in the matter do not change that fact.
RTFA; the incident and court in question are both in Missouri, and while federal laws supersedes state, state laws are still applicable unless contradicted.
Do you have a cite for the law you claim prohibits police from following someone for more than a certain period of time? I can find no reference to it in the Mo. Revised Statutes. And something other than your claim that "following" and "monitoring" are synonymous in the eyes of the law to back up your claim that monitoring for more than a certain period of time violates Mo. state law?
I refuse to get into a
1) Nowhere does the Fourth Amendment contain a caveat that implies our right to be free from search and seizure without warrant does not apply in public places;
This argument is irrelevant. Of course the fourth amendment applies in public places. The question is, is it either a search or a seizure to which the fourth amendment applies?
placing a GPS device on my vehicle without permission or warrant, for the purpose of conducting surveillance, is no different than searching the interior of said vehicle without permission or warrant.
Oh, but it is quite different. You even implicitely admit that by the terms you choose to use to refer to the actions. "Placing" vs. "searching". I can place a penny on the hood of your car without anyone beginning to think that by doing so I've conducted a search of any kind, other than the requisite search of my own pocket to locate a penny.
It is hard to call an act that involves nothing other than seeing what is plainly visible a "search", and in fact, "in plain sight" is a clear exception to the requirements to get a warrant. If you've left your bag of dope laying on the coffee table and you allow a cop to enter your house, when he sees that dope he can arrest you without having conducted a search or needing a warrant. If you stand in a public place and wave about what appears to be a bag of dope, the "plain sight" exception still applies, even though it is a public place.
And, I'll point out, your claim that placing the device is a search is a matter of opinion, and perhaps the crux of the SCOTUS case. The Circuit courts disagree with you.
...this practice would be in flagrant violation of Missouri statute.
MIssouri law is not federal law and applies nowhere except Missouri. In addition, one would have to consider what the actual law says, whether it says "illegal to follow a vehicle" or "illegal to monitor the actions of a vehicle", because attaching a GPS tracker is not "following". It is "monitoring". In other words, does the law prohibit an act of harassment or an act of tracking? How can you be harassed by something you don't know is taking place? A marked police vehicle following someone is clearly a visible act, and doing so for an extended period of time could reasonably be considered harassment. If I were to tape a penny to the underside of your vehicle and you didn't know it was there, am I harassing you?
I don't know about you, but I park my car in my private garage, which is an enclosed structure on private property; Meaning,
Meaning this is outside the scope of the case being discussed. And meaning that they would need a warrant to enter your premises to attach the device or remove it.
Would you argue that a parking ticket is unconstitutional, based on the hypothetical instance of you coming home and park at the end of the day, the police have effectively placed something on your vehicle that has arrived in a private place without your permission or warrant?
Basically, my stance on this and all related issues is thus: If law enforcement has such a hard time obeying the Constitution by obtaining a lawful warrant,
And the stance of the court is, quite properly, to decide if a warrant is indeed required for certain actions, not to pretend that the police need a warrant to do everything. Trying to argue that the cops need a warrant to do things that the constitition doesn't demand that they have a warrant to do is a losing battle.
Property ownership does not include the right to control what happens to that property. Is that what I am hearing this judge say?
We can't answer that. Only you can tell us what you "hear".
Can you elaborate on your first statment for us? In what way does attaching a GPS unit to a stationary vehicle parked on a public street control the property to which the tracker is attached? How does the existance of that tracker change in any way the use of the device to which it is attached (without the owner's knowledge?)
If you think that the Justices in SCOTUS see the Constitution as anything more than a tool to advance the agenda of the party whose President appointed them, then you are truly naive.
You do realize, don't you, that SCOTUS justices are appointed for life? They have no need to advance any agenda to keep their jobs. They don't have to worry what political parties think, they'll be A-list attendees at any party or event they go to.
What is more likely to be true is that the President who appointed them will appoint someone with a judicial temperment that matches his own desires, and the justice will continue that temperment into his appointment.
While you may see this as "no difference", it really is. The former requires an intent to act in a way to please others. The latter requires only an intent to continue acting in a way that the justice himself finds appropriate. The integrity and motives of the justice do count for something.
It's a state-owned car, same as a state- or company-owned computer.
Uhhhh, rtfm, please. The car was registered to Robinson. It wasn't a state-owned car, except in the left-field sense that the state owns us all and we are merely wage slaves supporting the current regiem.
The Circuit courts have issued rulings on this that are applicable until the SCOTUS rules otherwise. The fine document contains the legal arguments against the claims that such tracking is a search or a siezure and thus violates the fourth amendment, both of which are quite rational and sound. Nobody has an expectation of privacy regarding the location of their vehicle when it is on the public streets, and there is no seizure.
Over the weekend I looked at my latest Comcast bill. They are starting, 1 Jan, a $3 fee for the privilege of giving your payment to a live customer service rep. If you drive to the office so your payment won't be late, you'll pay more.
At least as far as gets on the news anyways.
Yes, the things I listed as the stupid decisions didn't get much news coverage. Very little of what the FCC does makes the news, where other government operations get more. (Why would a TV station bite the hand that feeds them?) If you're basing your approval just on what you on the six oclock news, you're missing a lot of stuff.
What's wrong with digital TV?
Spoken like a big-city dweller, or cable/satellite only viewer.
If you live any distance from the station, you are subject to:
Example: my bedroom TV used to be able to get all the major networks and some independent stations when they were all analog. After the switch to DTV, it gets ONE STATION. The telly in my mother's kitchen used to get all the major networks and several independents when they were analog. Now it gets some of the network stations, and half of those are marginal enough they block up regularly. If the antenna isn't perfectly adjusted she gets nothing, and there is no visual feedback ('less snow there, leave it') to help her adjust it.
In addition, the complexity of having to switch back and forth between the digital and analog stations, since the government specified digital converter didn't make any allowance for analog at all. Instant obsolescence of VCRs.
HDTV was long overdue, as NTSC was severely obsolete
Really? That's an opinion, not a fact. I've found almost nothing worth the extra cost coming from HDTV. I used to go to NAB and stand in awe at the "convergence" displays with all the wonderful HDTV stuff and think "big effing deal". No increase in value, but a considerable increase in cost of viewing, and a large amount of trouble from the ways that some stations deal with letterboxing. Oh, let's go back to the list:
Need explanation of that last one? Ok, here's an example. KOAC-DT broadcasts "Sherlock Holmes" on Thursday night. It is a standard def (4:3) program. They squeeze the image horizontally so that if you have an HDTV in zoom mode (as some people do when watching standard def programs on HDTVs so they don't have to see those awful black bands on either side of the image, the poor sensitive dears), the image returns to 4:3. AND THE HDTV FOLKS STILL GET THE BLACK BANDS BECAUSE THE IDIOT BROADCASTER HAS ADDED THEM TO THE NORMAL PROGRAMMING. If you have ANY TV in non-zoom mode the image is squashed sideways, the black bands are bigger, and everyone looks really skinny unless they are lying down and then they look really short and fat.
TV used to be TV. You could watch the station 20 miles away and you might have some snow but you could watch it. The size of the image didn't keep popping around like a fucking jack russel terrier or the icons at the bottom o
Preignition != dieseling. Preignition is when the fuel/air charge ignites spontaneously inside the combustion chamber before it's supposed to;
"Ignites spontaneously" due to the pressure and heat created by the compression stroke of the piston. Kinda like how a diesel engine operates. Since the ignition doesn't have to wait for the spark, it can occur prior to, and thus 'pre', the normal timing.
The charge isn't supposed to detonate until the piston has reached the top of its stroke
It isn't supposed to detonate in a non-diesel engine until the spark triggers it. Since it is igniting without a spark, it's called "dieseling".
If it detonates too early, it'll cause a pressure wave directly counteracting the movement of the piston, causing mechanical damage.
Yes, that's right. And if it detonates at the correct time or after when there is no spark (like you'd have in a diesel engine) it's called "run on". The fact that it is bad doesn't change the fact that the ignition is caused by the diesel effect, not a spark. The addition of lead was intended to reduce the occurance of this effect. Removing lead meant you had to change the fuel in some other way to prevent it. It isn't as simple as "put in lead or leave it out".
Yes, you could argue that you could have 'preignition' from some other cause (bad timing/early spark, etc.) but since we're talking about the effect of lead in the fuel we're ignoring those non-fuel effects, and thus the cause is ... dieseling, whether properly or improperly timed.
One of the problems with the measured dosage also is, it's 10urem in a very discrete beam. It then scans your whole body. This is in a fashion similar to the electron gun scanning on a CRT. It's the cumulative effect of these scans which is in question. So from the time you step in, to the time you step out, is that 10 urem, 100 mrem, or 1 rem?
The REM is a measure of the dose, not the rate. If the information is correct, then it will be 10 microrem per scan. "From time you step in to time you step out", 10 microrem, if there is only one scan. Two scans, 20 urem. Fifty scans, 500 microrem.
I've been considering picking up a geiger counter, and carrying it through. Sure, they'll get pissed when they find out, but if I can say "Hey, you just exposed me to 10 rem!" then I'd have something.
A Geiger counter meaures rate, not dose. You need to carry a dosimeter if you want to measure your dose. Those can be as simple as a film badge. You could even hide that badge under your clothing so the TSA droid wouldn't be ordering you to "put that electronic doohickey through the x-ray machine" and keeping you out of the scanner. You'd have to deal with the aftermath of having the dosimeter on you when it was discovered after the fact, but I doubt they'd confiscate it (if they even knew what it was. I've had TSA baggage searchers who looked quizically at something most people would immediately recognize as "a book".)
In the 80's as a kid I used to wonder why leaded gas was cheaper than unleaded, when leaded gas was the stuff that had extra processing done to it.
The difference is more than just whether tetraethyl lead was added or not. Leading reduced preignition (aka dieseling) so higher compression ratios could be used in engines. Unleaded gas needed either a different additive to reduce this, or a different mix so it had a lower octane rating. If you simply removed lead from the gas you used and kept the rest the same, your engine was likely to run rough or not stop when you turned it off.
In addition, the economy of scale applied. If everyone is using leaded gas and only some unleaded is required, the added cost of running a second truck and all the other fixed costs had to be amortized over less volume sold.
I have read the contract, have you?
Of course not. I haven't been a Verizon slave for more than a decade. That's why I said "I bet" instead of "I have read the contract and know".
I don't see anything in it that says they can make me pay for any non-governmental related surcharge:
You just quoted it. Here:
You agree to pay all access, usage and other charges that you or the user of your wireless device incurred...
We set these charges; they aren't taxes, they aren't required by law, they are not necessarily related to anything the government does, they are kept by us in whole or in part, and the amounts and what they pay for may change.
You agree to pay all ... other charges ... not necessarily related to anything the government does ... kept by us in whole or in part ... the amount ... may change. So, yes, it seems I was quite correct in saying that your contract not only does NOT specify how much you pay each month, it explicitely allows for changes to the amount you pay each month with appropriate notice. Just like I said.
And while they can change the terms of the contract and the prices I pay, if they do, I can cancel my contract without an ETF if it affects me an a material way,
That is a significantly different concept than "breach of contract". You are now saying that the contract explicitly allows these charges and allows you a means of exiting from the contract. A "breach" would be if they didn't tell you they had the authority to charge you and did it anyway, or if they didn't let you out when they notified you of a change.
There is nothing in what you quoted that says that they cannot change the fees they charge you. Your claim that charging you more than the $80 your contract says you owe is a breach of contract is wrong. Can you quote a section of the contract that does specify how much you owe each month?
No, it seems that Verizon is acting within the explicit language of the contract: adding a charge and telling you about it. The only way left for them to breach the contract is if they didn't allow you to terminate without a fee, and you apparently haven't tried that yet. Have you?
Be forced as part of basic?
Under Comcast where I live, it isn't part of "basic". It is part of the lowest tier of digital service, but if you want no-frills cable, you don't get ESPN. You get must-carrys and shopping channels. And, for some reason I cannot fathom, Discovery. And one of the two Spanish channels (but not the other).
As I recall, ESPN is part of the ABC family of channels, and you aren't going to push ESPN to become a pay service. It's going to be a "if you want any of X you take all of X" offer to the cable company forever.
This would put people back in control of their own infrastructure and take away the phone companies ability to over charge for service.
And allow the governments to overcharge for service.
You mention water and sewage as an example. Where I live, add on a "runoff fee" to deal with that stuff called "rain" that falls from the sky and isn't absorbed by the ground under your house. And a fee to fix the roads. And a fee to trim trees. And a fee to fix sidewalks. And a fee for the bus system.
Phone bills? The local paper has a story today about a proposal to add a fee to the phone bill to pay for improving passenger rail service. Even if you never ride a train in your life, you are expected to pay for it.
Yes, government has found a way to tax the water you drink to pay for just about anything else it wants to do. Why would you expect phone service to be anything different?
If my contract says I have to pay them $80/month for service, if they make it cost $81/month, they are breaching that contract.
I'll bet that if you actually read the contract, it won't say how much you are going to pay, and that it is has clauses that allow changes to the contract with notice.
They wouldn't be breaching the contract (unless they wrote it very stupidly, and I bet their lawyers won't let them do that) any more than if you called up and said "I want to add this extra service, and I won't pay any more than the contractually agreed to price of $80."
It seems like the FCC is the only government agency making any decisions/taking any actions that i actually agree with these days =P
No, they make as many stupid ones as every other part of government.
Recently? Allowing Recon Robotics to use part of the 440MHz ham band for their remote controlled robots. Allowing low power medical devices in the same band. Allowing LightSquared to get a foothold and threaten every GPS application on the planet. The entire digital TV fiasco. BPL. Safe Harbor. Narrowband LMR.
They may make some you agree with, but they make a lot more that are stupid.
This is as bad as when the phone company charged $4 a month for "touch tone service" when it actually costs them less to provide it than to deal with pulse dialing.
Back when this was a regular charge, it did cost more to provide touch tone dialing. They had to add the DTMF-to-pulse decoders to existing systems. About the time that the old step-by-step hardware was replaced by something more modern (crossbar) and the pulse decoding became the more expensive part, the special charge for DTMF was removed.