Stories like this sort of pisses me off. There are a lot cool things we could be doing if, as a nation, America used it's wealth for good instead of evil. But we'd rather spend trillions enriching the very few via wars/police state crap to prevent fewer deaths than dog bites cause (*), or on bailouts for the very rich and unscrupulous. What a fucking waste.
One more point, not directed at you -- everything you said was right -- but at the jury nullification [fantasy] crowd.
This case never got to the trial phase. The case the SC decided was on a pre-trial procedural issue, i.e., do the parties who brought the suit have standing such that they are harmed parties who have the right to sue the government. The SC decided they do not have standing because they don't conclusively know they were spied upon, and that as a result: there will NOT be a trial. If there is no trial, there is no jury, and thus no chance for jury nullification.
At this point, the only way these abuses will ever be addressed, is if we get a whistleblower. Then harmed individuals would have standing at least, but before those conclusively harmed parties get to a jury, there's the State Secrets Doctrine (rooted in Air Force coverup of negligence) to get through, and the Federal Courts fall all over themselves trying to suck the DOJ's dick on that issue. Assuming the extraordinarily unlikely event that one is a conclusively harmed party, finds out about it, AND the State Secrets Doctrine isn't abused to trump your right to trial -- after that, maybe you'd get to present a case to a jury. More probable however, is that the Feds would just retroactively immunize whoever, like they did with AT&T.
The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague. In Three Felonies a Day, Harvey A. Silverglate reveals how federal criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected from the English common law tradition and how prosecutors can pin arguable federal crimes on any one of us, for even the most seemingly innocuous behavior....
Let me put it another way. By using only the INTERNET permission, any app can also gain at least the following:
ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION Allows an application to access coarse (e.g., Cell-ID, WiFi) location
ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION Allows an application to access fine (e.g., GPS) location
ACCESS_LOCATION_EXTRA_COMMANDS Allows an application to access extra location provider commands
ACCESS_WIFI_STATE Allows applications to access information about Wi-Fi networks
BATTERY_STATS Allows an application to collect battery statistics
DUMP Allows an application to retrieve state dump information from system services.
GET_ACCOUNTS Allows access to the list of accounts in the Accounts Service
GET_PACKAGE_SIZE Allows an application to find out the space used by any package.
GET_TASKS Allows an application to get information about the currently or recently running tasks: a thumbnail representation of the tasks, what activities are running in it, etc.
READ_LOGS Allows an application to read the low-level system log files.
READ_SYNC_SETTINGS Allows applications to read the sync settings
READ_SYNC_STATS Allows applications to read the sync stats
Yeah -- but there are other's you can't do anything about. Dropbox or Google+ for example: only options are "force stop" and "uninstall updates". How about a flat out "uninstall".
I don't really understand this comment. I also don't understand the "national security" language in the order. I would find it hard to believe that a government as ridiculously secretive as ours has become, would rely on a paywall like lexis/nexis as a way of keeping information secret. What's a few hundred bucks between spies for a subscription to access to all the latest secrets about black projects? Obviously nothing -- that research won't be showing up anywhere.
I would like to know exactly why these national security terms are being used in relation to material that is unclassified. If it's unclassified, hasn't it already been determined not to endanger homeland security, by definition of being unclassified? Perhaps it was just a bunch of words thrown in to obscure the phrase "economic security" -- referring most likely to the security of those who wish the papers remain locked up.
To the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law and policy; agency mission; resource constraints; U.S. national, homeland, and economic security; and the objectives listed below, digitally formatted scientific data resulting from unclassified research supported wholly or in part by Federal funding should be stored and publicly accessible to search, retrieve, and analyze.
MY guys are going to have the best weapons I can make for them because I do not want my sons and daughters having to fight off kings, popes, and power mongers the way that we had to.
What is the power that kings etc. abuse most? What did our founders, who had experience in such matters, write the constitution for?
To prevent power from concentrating into the hands of one person. To make it hard for the government to start a war without a lot of public buy in. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily spy on you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily imprison you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily execute you. The structure of the US government and the Bill of Rights were designed to avoid the insanity of European monarchies.
Look at where we are now:
-- Libya: President can wage war even in the face of congressional disapproval. Result: unlimited power to make war, like a king.
-- FISA, AT&T immunity: Any American can have their privacy violated without so much as bogus warrant.
-- Due Process Free Detention: When the "world is a battlefield" and the enemy is an idea ("terrorism"), there is no limit to where this abuse of human rights can be practiced, and no possible victory conditions defining when the abuse may end.
-- Due process Free Execution: See due process free detention.
Seems to me we don't need to worry about fighting off kings and popes or power mongers abroad. The threat is right here at home -- one we pay for and vote for -- in essence, we are subsidizing our own subjugation.
damn -- that "socially conscious" should have come at the end, not the middle.
What exactly should we call people who are NOT neo-conservatives, war mongers, due process destroyers, privacy destroyers, mega-corp/bank tools but are socially conscious?
Like that.
Despite my typo, I still want a nice word I can use as shorthand.
OK then. If Democrats are going subsume the terms "progressive", "left", and "liberal" -- what exactly should we call people who are NOT neo-conservatives, war mongers, due process destroyers, privacy destroyers, and socially conscious, mega-corp/bank tools?
Please -- I want a word. You bastards don't get to have them all.
Congress makes laws, the executive enforces them (and that means ALL OF THEM not just the ones Obama likes, which is exactly what he does), and SCOTUS, oh fuck off I won't even bother to explain that one to you.
That's the framework from which we are gradually shifting to one in which the president makes the laws, enforces the laws, and in secret without recourse to contest the president's decisions, rules on whether you broke the laws and metes out arbitrary punishment. In a decade or two, the courts and congress will have completed the process of relinquishing all their powers and will be mere vestigal organs of the US goverment whose sole purpose is to rubber stamp presidential policy.
I agree with the idea that America can't survive another terrorist attack -- I don't mean of course, the political entity, I mean the ideals America is supposed to be built on -- things like privacy, the right to a fair trial before the government kills you or executes you, the right to travel... you know, freedom.
In fact, if you really think about it, it seems we didn't survive 9/11.
And of course, 80% of the populace likes it this way.
What will be interesting is whether after the next terrorist attack -- there will be one because it is completely impossible to prevent every such possible instance of terrorism -- is whether we will just overtly shift into police state mode. The unitary executive theory will sure prove handy to whoever is president at that time.
About the only part not gutted, is the GWB popularized phrase "make no mistake." Which makes sense given Obama's record -- why just embrace and extend GWB's policies when you can use his phrasification as well?
I don't know if it's BS. They need some way to explain that more doesn't mean better. It needs to be short, because a four sentence paragraph will get a TL;DR. The vast majority of people assume more pixels means a better picture.
I have a nexus 7 and was annoyed that it doesn't automatically show up as a USB drive when connected to my computer. Bugged me for a long time -- there are apps to transfer files over your network but they seem slow. I resorted to scp more than once. Till I finally stumbled across http://www.android.com/filetransfer/ . Now when I plug in the tablet, I get a file browser to move things around. It's great.
As an aside, Airdroid http://www.airdroid.com/ is an awesome over the network method. Still kind of slow, but the interactive user interface with your phone/tablet is way cool. I just don't ever need anything but file transfers, and plugging in the USB cable is faster/easier -- but in a way, I wish I did want to do other things because of the objective coolness of this app.
The bus works great if you have to go to a single place for work each day, work, and then go home.
The bus doesn't work at all for those who must often travel to random points at different times in the day for their job.
I'm one of the latter people. Now, I don't drive myself around in a massive empty bus because it isn't efficient. I use a small car instead. Somehow though, people think it is environmentally friendly to drive massive empty buses around, when small vans would do the trick. I'm just not really comprehending that logic. I certainly don't use it my own life.
Color me surprised that it's happening in Austin, where the "metro train" is frequently empty... but hey, at least we have feel-good public transport options, right?
I live in a smallish city (about 80k -- biggest city in the county). We aren't big enough for a train, but we do have a constantly growing bus system (and a plastic bag ban). The buses, giant Gillig buses that guzzle diesel, drive around moving air from one part of the town to the other for the most part. Seriously, I see empty buses, or buses with less than five people on board driving around all the time. Our bus service would do just fine with a few big buses for rush hour, and a few passenger vans for the rest of the time. Instead, about the time our plastic bag ban went into effect, we expanded the bus service and increased the frequency of service. Though interesting things like runs from 2-3 am on Friday and Saturday night aren't even dreamed about. Just extra runs when nobody needs them. For the environment.
(I say all this as a liberal Jill Stein voter, in case you New GOP (aka Democrats) want to jump up my ass about it)
Not to mention the issues with clear cuts, dioxin, high water usage in manufacturing, much greater energy use in manufacturing, and much greater energy use to recycle.
With bundling, they ARE only accepting individual donations. In my example, they don't get one $150,000 check. They get 100 individually dontated $1500 checks. They do this right now to skirt similar finance laws.
No. 2 in your list is a perfect opening for bundling. The median income is something like $50k so 3% would be $1500. Not chump change but not all that juicy. However, you get together 100 of your like minded friends on an issue, have a fundraiser dinner and invite the candidate to speak. Now you're talking about a $150,000 donation, comprised of 100 $1500 checks, from the "Lobby to Fuck America for Our Personal Profit."
But that's just for that particular candidate. Next, the LFAOPP will have a fundraiser for the political party that supports that politician. Politician will point out he never took any money beyond the legal amount, and the contributors will honestly state that donating to the party is not the same as donating to the campaign. Honest for weasely senses of that word, but perfect for court.
And after that, the LFAOPP will fund a "think tank," i.e. a marketing organization that will independently support its candidate with additional monies donated by its members. Our humble honest politician will correctly point out that he only took the legal amount of contributions. Contributors will point out they only donated the legal amount to the campaign. This think tank is a separate organization free to buy whatever advertising it wants to because Politician's campaign has no say in what it does.
I don't know what the solution is. Something needs to happen, but just limiting the amount people can donate is not going to work. At least not in the way we hope it will.
Slashdot Mirror
Stories like this sort of pisses me off. There are a lot cool things we could be doing if, as a nation, America used it's wealth for good instead of evil. But we'd rather spend trillions enriching the very few via wars/police state crap to prevent fewer deaths than dog bites cause (*), or on bailouts for the very rich and unscrupulous. What a fucking waste.
* http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/25/304113/chart-only-15-americans-died-from-terrorism-last-year-less-than-from-dog-bites-or-lightning-strikes/?mobile=nc
One more point, not directed at you -- everything you said was right -- but at the jury nullification [fantasy] crowd.
This case never got to the trial phase. The case the SC decided was on a pre-trial procedural issue, i.e., do the parties who brought the suit have standing such that they are harmed parties who have the right to sue the government. The SC decided they do not have standing because they don't conclusively know they were spied upon, and that as a result: there will NOT be a trial. If there is no trial, there is no jury, and thus no chance for jury nullification.
At this point, the only way these abuses will ever be addressed, is if we get a whistleblower. Then harmed individuals would have standing at least, but before those conclusively harmed parties get to a jury, there's the State Secrets Doctrine (rooted in Air Force coverup of negligence) to get through, and the Federal Courts fall all over themselves trying to suck the DOJ's dick on that issue. Assuming the extraordinarily unlikely event that one is a conclusively harmed party, finds out about it, AND the State Secrets Doctrine isn't abused to trump your right to trial -- after that, maybe you'd get to present a case to a jury. More probable however, is that the Feds would just retroactively immunize whoever, like they did with AT&T.
Three Felonies a Day:
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
To be clear, this is what the vulnerability did:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/10/01/massive-security-vulnerability-in-htc-android-devices-evo-3d-4g-thunderbolt-others-exposes-phone-numbers-gps-sms-emails-addresses-much-more/
Note the date of that article. (!)
Yeah -- but there are other's you can't do anything about. Dropbox or Google+ for example: only options are "force stop" and "uninstall updates". How about a flat out "uninstall".
I don't really understand this comment. I also don't understand the "national security" language in the order. I would find it hard to believe that a government as ridiculously secretive as ours has become, would rely on a paywall like lexis/nexis as a way of keeping information secret. What's a few hundred bucks between spies for a subscription to access to all the latest secrets about black projects? Obviously nothing -- that research won't be showing up anywhere.
I would like to know exactly why these national security terms are being used in relation to material that is unclassified. If it's unclassified, hasn't it already been determined not to endanger homeland security, by definition of being unclassified? Perhaps it was just a bunch of words thrown in to obscure the phrase "economic security" -- referring most likely to the security of those who wish the papers remain locked up.
What is the power that kings etc. abuse most? What did our founders, who had experience in such matters, write the constitution for?
To prevent power from concentrating into the hands of one person. To make it hard for the government to start a war without a lot of public buy in. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily spy on you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily imprison you. To make it hard for the government to arbitrarily execute you. The structure of the US government and the Bill of Rights were designed to avoid the insanity of European monarchies.
Look at where we are now:
-- Libya: President can wage war even in the face of congressional disapproval. Result: unlimited power to make war, like a king.
-- FISA, AT&T immunity: Any American can have their privacy violated without so much as bogus warrant.
-- Due Process Free Detention: When the "world is a battlefield" and the enemy is an idea ("terrorism"), there is no limit to where this abuse of human rights can be practiced, and no possible victory conditions defining when the abuse may end.
-- Due process Free Execution: See due process free detention.
Seems to me we don't need to worry about fighting off kings and popes or power mongers abroad. The threat is right here at home -- one we pay for and vote for -- in essence, we are subsidizing our own subjugation.
Why do you say "wrong" -- it sounds like you two agree. At least, I agree with you both.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Cut 'em all, and let god sort it out.
damn -- that "socially conscious" should have come at the end, not the middle.
What exactly should we call people who are NOT neo-conservatives, war mongers, due process destroyers, privacy destroyers, mega-corp/bank tools but are socially conscious?
Like that.
Despite my typo, I still want a nice word I can use as shorthand.
OK then. If Democrats are going subsume the terms "progressive", "left", and "liberal" -- what exactly should we call people who are NOT neo-conservatives, war mongers, due process destroyers, privacy destroyers, and socially conscious, mega-corp/bank tools?
Please -- I want a word. You bastards don't get to have them all.
Thank you. I'm so sick of people conflating leftists and liberals with Democrats. Doing so is like calling GWB a fiscal conservative.
This has nothing to do with some lame ass Boy Scouts. It's about cool old motorcycles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BSA_motorcycles
That's the framework from which we are gradually shifting to one in which the president makes the laws, enforces the laws, and in secret without recourse to contest the president's decisions, rules on whether you broke the laws and metes out arbitrary punishment. In a decade or two, the courts and congress will have completed the process of relinquishing all their powers and will be mere vestigal organs of the US goverment whose sole purpose is to rubber stamp presidential policy.
I agree with the idea that America can't survive another terrorist attack -- I don't mean of course, the political entity, I mean the ideals America is supposed to be built on -- things like privacy, the right to a fair trial before the government kills you or executes you, the right to travel ... you know, freedom.
In fact, if you really think about it, it seems we didn't survive 9/11.
And of course, 80% of the populace likes it this way.
What will be interesting is whether after the next terrorist attack -- there will be one because it is completely impossible to prevent every such possible instance of terrorism -- is whether we will just overtly shift into police state mode. The unitary executive theory will sure prove handy to whoever is president at that time.
About the only part not gutted, is the GWB popularized phrase "make no mistake." Which makes sense given Obama's record -- why just embrace and extend GWB's policies when you can use his phrasification as well?
I don't know if it's BS. They need some way to explain that more doesn't mean better. It needs to be short, because a four sentence paragraph will get a TL;DR. The vast majority of people assume more pixels means a better picture.
Example: http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3475983&cid=42947325
I have a nexus 7 and was annoyed that it doesn't automatically show up as a USB drive when connected to my computer. Bugged me for a long time -- there are apps to transfer files over your network but they seem slow. I resorted to scp more than once. Till I finally stumbled across http://www.android.com/filetransfer/ . Now when I plug in the tablet, I get a file browser to move things around. It's great.
As an aside, Airdroid http://www.airdroid.com/ is an awesome over the network method. Still kind of slow, but the interactive user interface with your phone/tablet is way cool. I just don't ever need anything but file transfers, and plugging in the USB cable is faster/easier -- but in a way, I wish I did want to do other things because of the objective coolness of this app.
The bus works great if you have to go to a single place for work each day, work, and then go home.
The bus doesn't work at all for those who must often travel to random points at different times in the day for their job.
I'm one of the latter people. Now, I don't drive myself around in a massive empty bus because it isn't efficient. I use a small car instead. Somehow though, people think it is environmentally friendly to drive massive empty buses around, when small vans would do the trick. I'm just not really comprehending that logic. I certainly don't use it my own life.
I live in a smallish city (about 80k -- biggest city in the county). We aren't big enough for a train, but we do have a constantly growing bus system (and a plastic bag ban). The buses, giant Gillig buses that guzzle diesel, drive around moving air from one part of the town to the other for the most part. Seriously, I see empty buses, or buses with less than five people on board driving around all the time. Our bus service would do just fine with a few big buses for rush hour, and a few passenger vans for the rest of the time. Instead, about the time our plastic bag ban went into effect, we expanded the bus service and increased the frequency of service. Though interesting things like runs from 2-3 am on Friday and Saturday night aren't even dreamed about. Just extra runs when nobody needs them. For the environment.
(I say all this as a liberal Jill Stein voter, in case you New GOP (aka Democrats) want to jump up my ass about it)
Not to mention the issues with clear cuts, dioxin, high water usage in manufacturing, much greater energy use in manufacturing, and much greater energy use to recycle.
FYI, akin to bathtub girl. Click only if you wish to be grossed out.
With bundling, they ARE only accepting individual donations. In my example, they don't get one $150,000 check. They get 100 individually dontated $1500 checks. They do this right now to skirt similar finance laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States#Bundling
No. 2 in your list is a perfect opening for bundling. The median income is something like $50k so 3% would be $1500. Not chump change but not all that juicy. However, you get together 100 of your like minded friends on an issue, have a fundraiser dinner and invite the candidate to speak. Now you're talking about a $150,000 donation, comprised of 100 $1500 checks, from the "Lobby to Fuck America for Our Personal Profit."
But that's just for that particular candidate. Next, the LFAOPP will have a fundraiser for the political party that supports that politician. Politician will point out he never took any money beyond the legal amount, and the contributors will honestly state that donating to the party is not the same as donating to the campaign. Honest for weasely senses of that word, but perfect for court.
And after that, the LFAOPP will fund a "think tank," i.e. a marketing organization that will independently support its candidate with additional monies donated by its members. Our humble honest politician will correctly point out that he only took the legal amount of contributions. Contributors will point out they only donated the legal amount to the campaign. This think tank is a separate organization free to buy whatever advertising it wants to because Politician's campaign has no say in what it does.
I don't know what the solution is. Something needs to happen, but just limiting the amount people can donate is not going to work. At least not in the way we hope it will.