Do you think Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton or Slash play "Linux Kernel Compilation Hero", "Perl Programmer Hero" or "Microsoft Service Pack Hero" in their spare time?
No.
And why?
Because they are ***NOT QUALIFIED*** to do all those wonderful things with operating systems that we Slashdotters are.
Are you insane, retarded, brain damaged, stupid, or do you just intentionally utter the most idiotic and wrong thing you can possibly think of?
The reason Eric Clapton doesn't play "Linux Kernel Compilation Hero" is because the game doesn't exist and if it did it would almost certainly suck. If you could actually make such a game that made Linux Kernel Compilation into a simple task that was also somehow also fun, then maybe Eric Clapton wouldn't play it, but some real guitar player somewhere would. Just like some of them play Guitar Hero because it's fun.
This should be a ***REAL BIG HINT*** to you.
Yeah, a hint that you're a delusional moron.
I'm PERFECTLY qualified to play Guitar Hero (not that I ever have, but that's not even the point). Why? Because just like your hypothetical "Perl Programmer Hero" isn't real Perl Programming, Guitar Hero isn't real guitar! It's a game!
I mean you're clearly suffering from one of two catastrophic mental deficiencies. Either: 1) You think that plastic guitar is actually comparable to a real guitar, with commensurate skill required. or 2) You think that you should not be able to play a simple game based on an activity unless you are actually an expert at the real activity, and thus would issue the same tard-rant against racing games, war strategy games, FPS games, sports games, and hell basically every game that isn't "Being a Douche on the Internet Hero", the only thing you are actually qualified to do the real version of.
So which is it?
So put down the plastic guitar, go back to your computer screen, earn some money and go buy a CD or a concert ticket.
So, you've never in your life played air guitar to your favorite CD? Never sang along at a concert, despite not having any business being a professional singer?
It's funny to me how venomous all of these comments are, especially after the phrase "I only watched the first 6 seconds of it."
Oh lordy, that's funny. Not only did I only watch six seconds, I watched them with the sound off. I know, I'm so unfair! And then I totally hated on him for not using classical instruments as controllers (whereas for all I know, maybe at 0:12 he whips out an electronic trombone). It totally wasn't a setup for a dumb joke about Oboe Hero, it was pure unadulterated venom. And now, thanks to your comments, I regret my ways.
I'm not sure what nonsense I'm seeing there (in the first six seconds of video before I stopped it; it started to feel too much like RTFA), but it's not what I imagined which was bringing classical music and the associated instruments to Guitar Hero. I could dig that. Think about it, instead of endless rehashes of the same Guitar Hero game, you could have new ones, like: Lyre Hero, Recorder Hero, Viola Hero, and the always impressive Oboe Hero.
Even the AI was crap. I found the tactics for the first game worked equally well in Doom 3. Imps for example could move across the ceiling, but they never took advantage of that ability. They would crawl across a wall, then jump down and start slowly shuffling towards you throwing fireballs.
As best exemplified by your first meeting with one. I recall the first time I saw that little cinematic, of the severely nasty looking imp (no more dog-man-thing of Doom1) crawling out of the duct work. "Oh this'll be nasty" I thought... Then the cinematic ends, and the imp is standing all of 3 feet from me. "Bang!" goes my shot gun, and splat goes the imp. Kinda anti-climactic for what seemed like it was supposed to be a dramatic introduction to a new foe.
At least the pinkie demon's introduction, and most importantly the Barons of Hell, made a suitable first impression.
But really I don't mind that all that much... to me the biggest problem was that there were so few monsters. The minimal AI of the original games worked great simply because they could swarm you. Doom 3 couldn't afford to have that many monsters on the screen (and the Doom 3 mod that tried to re-create that sense of battling a horde of beasts by throwing countless waves of demons at you was a frame-rate-raping disaster).
If the 10th amendment is "just a piece of paper" then so is the 4th.
And if the 10th Amendment means that the DoE is unconstitutional, then article 1 section 8 is "just a piece of paper". It would mean the Air Force is unconstitutional, as Congress only has power to govern land and naval forces. Or to make a law defining and punishing a crime that isn't committed on the high seas for that matter.
We can have a discussion on whether such a thing as the DoE is covered by the "general welfare" clause and thus doesn't fall afoul of the 10th Amendment. There is no discussion whatsoever to be had regarding searches without warrant or probable cause and whether that violates the 4th.
Allowing government to "benignly" violate the law, desensitizes us to future violations of the law, some of which might not be so benign.
Yeah, like the very law under discussion. Lets roll back the "not so benign" violation of the law, before we start worrying about whether or not to roll back the "benign" violation that may enable future not so benign violations, k?
We take off, he sets the gps up then leans back in the seat and says "wake me up if I fall asleep". Slightly disconcerting for your first time in the air.
Nice.
I want to hear a commuter jet pilot say that over the intercom on a red eye flight some light. "*kkrsh* Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. I've pulled a double shift today, so if the plane starts to list, please knock loudly on the cockpit door."
Dude it's like Peter Pan and believing in magic we all have to close our eyes and imagine how awesome it would be if John Carmack were here and then post with him in mind.
"How do you get to iD land?"
"Take the third star from the left, and on till morning."
It's not necessarily unethical to merely take what is the lawyer's opinion a sub-optimal course of action. Unethical isn't the same thing as dumb. And they are pretty much owned by their corporate masters; if they don't want to pursue the legal strategy they are told to, then their only option is to quit, because otherwise they'll be fired and another lawyer hired.
Okay, you know how sometimes you'd hear a demonic voice and the area would turn all red and then a some evil lightning would flash and a demon would appear? Well when there's a room with a demon with no opposable thumbs already in it, how do you think the demon got there? Right, it was portaled in earlier. And what do you think happens if the forces of hell miscalculate the vector? That's right, monster stuck in a closet.
Hey, you try ripping open the fabric of space-time and boundary between life and death and see if you don't occasionally miss your target!
Oh, and the reason why your space marine wouldn't duct tape the flashlight to his gun is because he didn't want to have to clean off the glue residue before his next inspection.
Then, they pursue this case when complying with the terms of the GPL would cost them nothing, which is the mark of a lawyer who isn't considering his client's best interest.
An alternative explanation, which is fresh in my mind from the recent Reiser judgment, is a client who refuses to listen to the lawyer's advice as to what is in their best interest. At the end of the day, the client is the one who is in charge. In particular a corporate lawyer is going to take the legal strategy they are told to take.
Not that I doubt you, but why would planets not twinkle? Isn't twinkling caused by atmospheric moisture? Is it something to do with planets appearing as teeny tiny dots rather than points?
Basically, but it's atmospheric turbulence that causes twinkling. Planets don't twinkle because to even be able to see one means it is large enough in the sky to present a stable image by averaging out the changes caused by turbulence. Stars, as you surmise, are so far away that all of its light is coming in at what is practically speaking the same exact angle.
You can definitely trust me that they don't twinkle.;) I suppose it is theoretically possible if the air was turbulent enough, but I've star gazed with skies turbulent enough that the edge of Jupiter appeared to ripple in the telescope, yet it still appeared as a solid dot to the naked eye.
Because, I wonder what will happen... will more people die, will it be as many as the U.S. and its allies have killed already... will there be further ethnic cleansing and displacement of people beyond the millions who've been "invited" to leave their homes, etc.
Yes. Regardless of when and how we pull out.
The government there is a sham. Established under occupation, it will never be seen as legitimate. It is weak, and will remain so. The people support the idea of an Iraqi nation, but they want it to be run by their team. This means that the recent conflicts between militias (don't fool yourself, the core of the Iraqi Army is the militia formerly known as the Badr Brigade, and the rest are loyal to their local militias which is why they didn't fight) will reappear and escalate. Sunni militias will also be involved. The influence of Iran (which has significant ties to all the most powerful Shiite political parties/militias) will become more overt. Civil war, without the interference of the occupying force.
About the only thing we can do to stop this is to preemptively choose a winner by crushing everyone else for them. Otherwise we have to accept what was inevitable from the moment we removed Saddam from power.
I think the plan is simple. Drawn down as rapidly as possible, transferring as many duties still held by us to Iraqis as possible, without concern to whether the Iraqi Army is capable of policing the entire country. All training, and any remaining coalition forces, should be solely focused on combating foreign fighters. Let the Iraqis figure out the rest for themselves, ending the ludicrous pretense that we know better and should decide for them.
And just as importantly, end the pretense that their is a "good" way for us to get out of Iraq. There isn't. It's going to suck no matter what, and that's a function of the path we took to get to here.
Man, we're talking about explicit violations of the prohibitions of the 4th Amendment and you're going to bitch about programs not explicitly established by the Constitution which yet don't explicitly go against its prohibitions? Department of Education is the target of your ire when the Department of Homeland Security is what is under scrutiny?
Get a grip, man.
Did you notice that the horror story Mr. Madison was telling about the Federal Government appointing teachers at all levels hasn't actually happened? But unwarranted mass surveillance has occured? Bitch about the No Child Left Behind Act all you want, and I'm with you. My cousin is a teacher and knows damn well the damage that law has done to public schooling. Act like that's the greater Constitutional crisis than the existance of Gitmo -- act like the existence of public education itself is the bigger problem than Gitmo -- and sorry I think you're barking up an empty tree.
Naw, a comet is a comet wherever it is. That distinction is clear regardless of how the term asteroid, planetoid, dwarf planet, etc have been redefined. Kuiper Belt contains both comets and other objects.
The author seems to be implying that you just ought to give up on developing standard testing procedures altogether.
Yes, absolutely, because they are statistically useless.
The glaring problem with his logic is that if you repeat the test your accuracy will tend to go up,
That applies to some tests, but not terrorist profiling. If they match it once, they will match it the second time. It's not like you're measuring an object on a scale and repeated measurements average out the imprecision of the device.
and if you apply complimentary tests, you get even better accuracy.
Again that's true in some hypothetical situations, but in the reality of this case if we had multiple easy to perform tests, they would be combined into a single test.
I mentioned Guantanamo Bay because it's a fine example of a willful failure to be rigorous. Shrub, Inc.'s only concern was to generate perceived results and delay further testing as long as possible.
Yes it's certainly true that they were never even trying to be accurate. It's a hole for political prisoners, as you say.
But I'm not sure I get the part where he wanted to delay further testing. If they could actually prove any of these people were terrorists with some hypothetical test, they would have done it immediately and trumpeted the matches while being very quiet about the failures -- it's not like they'd be forced to release any of the prisoners and admit they were wrong if the test cleared the suspect, since neither judge nor lawyer would ever hear the fact.
Had we applied more rigorous testing there never would have been a Guantanamo Bay prison.
What "rigorous testing" are you imagining here that doesn't involve a place like Gitmo? The only more "rigorous" test I personally can think of is lengthy interrogation. Which still means imprisoning thousands and thousands of almost certainly innocent people while you get around to "testing" each of them.
except, what cory doesn't get is that you've now limited your set from 1 mil to 10,000. What may not be efficient to test on 1mil, may be efficient to test on 10,000.
Its like NP complete problem. You have an algorithm that works, but it doesn't scale. If you can make an approximation solution that trims the set to a reasonable size where the scaling problems of algorithm don't hurt you as much, you have a win.
And what test/algorithm exactly is it that "works" if only it scaled? Harsh interrogation?
Do you realize that if you applied a test with this level of accuracy at JFK International Airport, you'd be generating over 1,000 "terrorist suspects" every day?
What test are you going to perform on them that is both able to distinguish the people who are 99.99% likely to not be terrorists yet still tripped your first test, and which is quick enough that you can perform it 1000 times a day? Oh, and still has to detect the real terrorist too, can't forget that.
Do you automatically assume they are bad, or do you say we put them through a tougher form of screening.
What's the difference? If you lock somebody up and interrogate them long enough to be truly certain (ha!), haven't you already decided they are bad?
Many of the detainees at Gitmo were brought in with less evidence than meeting some terrorist profile; that "tougher form of screening" seems to take years with no definitive answer. You going to send 1,000 people every day to Gitmo?
They also dramatically expand the power of the government to monitor the citizenry in ways that the Constitution never intended to allow and, indeed, which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the funding fathers at all.
They didn't have to, any more than they had to foresee telephone or e-mail tapping, because the wording of the 4th Amendment is technology agnostic. That's the way it should be. That's why when a case of warrantless e-mail reading came before the court, the judge ruled that this was illegal. Without having to have a whole Constitutional amendment just for email (and one for text messaging, and one for IM, etc etc etc).
We don't need any change to the Constitution whatsoever to stop these abuses. We just need for the Constitution as written to be enforced. That is the problem, and making it easier to modify the Constitution would not make it more likely to be enforced. We already have an amendment that covers these situations; if you think the problem is stacked courts, why do you think they would enforce some new amendment that covers the exact same thing?
The only thing it would make more likely is that when another "ZOMG teh terrists are attacking! I can has ur liberties?" moment occurs, the people will not only allow it, they will enshrine it in the highest law of our land. At least USAPATRIOT expires, and parts of it have already had rulings against it as constitutional. You can't rule an amendment unconstitutional; and amendment is constitutional by definition.
Our system isn't perfect, but our Constitution is damn good and one of its strengths is that it can't be changed easily.
Even with that said, it is important that some profiling take place. We have limited resources and must try to make the most of them.
Profiling is a waste of resources. Did you read the math? It's not even some realistic practical delta away from "absolute security". It's a small delta away from absolutely worthless!
They need to stop wasting their time with profiling nonsense, and spend those resources training TSA workers how to identify weapons in luggage better (the current training is pathetic), or hey maybe doing the real police work that is how real terrorists get caught... for real!
So it does not work perfectly, I believe your math. What should we do? Stick our heads in the sand and ignore the threat? Rationalize that you are more likely to die in a car accident, so take no action?
"I know doing this doesn't work, but the only other thing I can think of is ignoring the problem, but I'm too scared to do that so I'm going to do the thing I know doesn't work."
That doesn't sound like a rationalization to you?
There are things that can be done to find and stop terrorists, things that are actually effective. DHS (or rather, the organizations that existed prior to DHS and were subsumed by it) is doing a number of them. Screening everyone coming into JFK Intl. Airport with a "terrorist detector" is not one of them.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you think Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton or Slash play "Linux Kernel Compilation Hero", "Perl Programmer Hero" or "Microsoft Service Pack Hero" in their spare time?
No.
And why?
Because they are ***NOT QUALIFIED*** to do all those wonderful things with operating systems that we Slashdotters are.
Are you insane, retarded, brain damaged, stupid, or do you just intentionally utter the most idiotic and wrong thing you can possibly think of?
The reason Eric Clapton doesn't play "Linux Kernel Compilation Hero" is because the game doesn't exist and if it did it would almost certainly suck. If you could actually make such a game that made Linux Kernel Compilation into a simple task that was also somehow also fun, then maybe Eric Clapton wouldn't play it, but some real guitar player somewhere would. Just like some of them play Guitar Hero because it's fun.
This should be a ***REAL BIG HINT*** to you.
Yeah, a hint that you're a delusional moron.
I'm PERFECTLY qualified to play Guitar Hero (not that I ever have, but that's not even the point). Why? Because just like your hypothetical "Perl Programmer Hero" isn't real Perl Programming, Guitar Hero isn't real guitar! It's a game!
I mean you're clearly suffering from one of two catastrophic mental deficiencies. Either:
1) You think that plastic guitar is actually comparable to a real guitar, with commensurate skill required.
or
2) You think that you should not be able to play a simple game based on an activity unless you are actually an expert at the real activity, and thus would issue the same tard-rant against racing games, war strategy games, FPS games, sports games, and hell basically every game that isn't "Being a Douche on the Internet Hero", the only thing you are actually qualified to do the real version of.
So which is it?
So put down the plastic guitar, go back to your computer screen, earn some money and go buy a CD or a concert ticket.
So, you've never in your life played air guitar to your favorite CD? Never sang along at a concert, despite not having any business being a professional singer?
Soulless, and stupid. You're quite the prize.
Followed by Skin Flute Hero.
It's funny to me how venomous all of these comments are, especially after the phrase "I only watched the first 6 seconds of it."
Oh lordy, that's funny. Not only did I only watch six seconds, I watched them with the sound off. I know, I'm so unfair! And then I totally hated on him for not using classical instruments as controllers (whereas for all I know, maybe at 0:12 he whips out an electronic trombone). It totally wasn't a setup for a dumb joke about Oboe Hero, it was pure unadulterated venom. And now, thanks to your comments, I regret my ways.
Outdone by the Onion. As usual.
I'm not sure what nonsense I'm seeing there (in the first six seconds of video before I stopped it; it started to feel too much like RTFA), but it's not what I imagined which was bringing classical music and the associated instruments to Guitar Hero. I could dig that. Think about it, instead of endless rehashes of the same Guitar Hero game, you could have new ones, like: Lyre Hero, Recorder Hero, Viola Hero, and the always impressive Oboe Hero.
Trust me, all problems will be fixed if you just give me the power to decide what is permissible and what isn't.
All problems that prevent me from ruling the world and crushing you puny mortals under my boot, that is! Mwa ha ha ha ha!
Wait, did I type that or just think it?
Even the AI was crap. I found the tactics for the first game worked equally well in Doom 3. Imps for example could move across the ceiling, but they never took advantage of that ability. They would crawl across a wall, then jump down and start slowly shuffling towards you throwing fireballs.
As best exemplified by your first meeting with one. I recall the first time I saw that little cinematic, of the severely nasty looking imp (no more dog-man-thing of Doom1) crawling out of the duct work. "Oh this'll be nasty" I thought... Then the cinematic ends, and the imp is standing all of 3 feet from me. "Bang!" goes my shot gun, and splat goes the imp. Kinda anti-climactic for what seemed like it was supposed to be a dramatic introduction to a new foe.
At least the pinkie demon's introduction, and most importantly the Barons of Hell, made a suitable first impression.
But really I don't mind that all that much... to me the biggest problem was that there were so few monsters. The minimal AI of the original games worked great simply because they could swarm you. Doom 3 couldn't afford to have that many monsters on the screen (and the Doom 3 mod that tried to re-create that sense of battling a horde of beasts by throwing countless waves of demons at you was a frame-rate-raping disaster).
If the 10th amendment is "just a piece of paper" then so is the 4th.
And if the 10th Amendment means that the DoE is unconstitutional, then article 1 section 8 is "just a piece of paper". It would mean the Air Force is unconstitutional, as Congress only has power to govern land and naval forces. Or to make a law defining and punishing a crime that isn't committed on the high seas for that matter.
We can have a discussion on whether such a thing as the DoE is covered by the "general welfare" clause and thus doesn't fall afoul of the 10th Amendment. There is no discussion whatsoever to be had regarding searches without warrant or probable cause and whether that violates the 4th.
Allowing government to "benignly" violate the law, desensitizes us to future violations of the law, some of which might not be so benign.
Yeah, like the very law under discussion. Lets roll back the "not so benign" violation of the law, before we start worrying about whether or not to roll back the "benign" violation that may enable future not so benign violations, k?
We take off, he sets the gps up then leans back in the seat and says "wake me up if I fall asleep". Slightly disconcerting for your first time in the air.
Nice.
I want to hear a commuter jet pilot say that over the intercom on a red eye flight some light. "*kkrsh* Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. I've pulled a double shift today, so if the plane starts to list, please knock loudly on the cockpit door."
Dude it's like Peter Pan and believing in magic we all have to close our eyes and imagine how awesome it would be if John Carmack were here and then post with him in mind.
:)
"How do you get to iD land?"
"Take the third star from the left, and on till morning."
"What stars? It's pitch black in here!"
cheap one, i know.
It's not necessarily unethical to merely take what is the lawyer's opinion a sub-optimal course of action. Unethical isn't the same thing as dumb. And they are pretty much owned by their corporate masters; if they don't want to pursue the legal strategy they are told to, then their only option is to quit, because otherwise they'll be fired and another lawyer hired.
That and monster closets.
Monster closets make perfect sense!
Okay, you know how sometimes you'd hear a demonic voice and the area would turn all red and then a some evil lightning would flash and a demon would appear? Well when there's a room with a demon with no opposable thumbs already in it, how do you think the demon got there? Right, it was portaled in earlier. And what do you think happens if the forces of hell miscalculate the vector? That's right, monster stuck in a closet.
Hey, you try ripping open the fabric of space-time and boundary between life and death and see if you don't occasionally miss your target!
Oh, and the reason why your space marine wouldn't duct tape the flashlight to his gun is because he didn't want to have to clean off the glue residue before his next inspection.
It all holds together.
Then, they pursue this case when complying with the terms of the GPL would cost them nothing, which is the mark of a lawyer who isn't considering his client's best interest.
An alternative explanation, which is fresh in my mind from the recent Reiser judgment, is a client who refuses to listen to the lawyer's advice as to what is in their best interest. At the end of the day, the client is the one who is in charge. In particular a corporate lawyer is going to take the legal strategy they are told to take.
Not that I doubt you, but why would planets not twinkle? Isn't twinkling caused by atmospheric moisture? Is it something to do with planets appearing as teeny tiny dots rather than points?
;) I suppose it is theoretically possible if the air was turbulent enough, but I've star gazed with skies turbulent enough that the edge of Jupiter appeared to ripple in the telescope, yet it still appeared as a solid dot to the naked eye.
Basically, but it's atmospheric turbulence that causes twinkling. Planets don't twinkle because to even be able to see one means it is large enough in the sky to present a stable image by averaging out the changes caused by turbulence. Stars, as you surmise, are so far away that all of its light is coming in at what is practically speaking the same exact angle.
You can definitely trust me that they don't twinkle.
Okay, well how about "Hey, Stop With the Treading on Me Already"
Because, I wonder what will happen... will more people die, will it be as many as the U.S. and its allies have killed already ... will there be further ethnic cleansing and displacement of people beyond the millions who've been "invited" to leave their homes, etc.
Yes. Regardless of when and how we pull out.
The government there is a sham. Established under occupation, it will never be seen as legitimate. It is weak, and will remain so. The people support the idea of an Iraqi nation, but they want it to be run by their team. This means that the recent conflicts between militias (don't fool yourself, the core of the Iraqi Army is the militia formerly known as the Badr Brigade, and the rest are loyal to their local militias which is why they didn't fight) will reappear and escalate. Sunni militias will also be involved. The influence of Iran (which has significant ties to all the most powerful Shiite political parties/militias) will become more overt. Civil war, without the interference of the occupying force.
About the only thing we can do to stop this is to preemptively choose a winner by crushing everyone else for them. Otherwise we have to accept what was inevitable from the moment we removed Saddam from power.
I think the plan is simple. Drawn down as rapidly as possible, transferring as many duties still held by us to Iraqis as possible, without concern to whether the Iraqi Army is capable of policing the entire country. All training, and any remaining coalition forces, should be solely focused on combating foreign fighters. Let the Iraqis figure out the rest for themselves, ending the ludicrous pretense that we know better and should decide for them.
And just as importantly, end the pretense that their is a "good" way for us to get out of Iraq. There isn't. It's going to suck no matter what, and that's a function of the path we took to get to here.
Man, we're talking about explicit violations of the prohibitions of the 4th Amendment and you're going to bitch about programs not explicitly established by the Constitution which yet don't explicitly go against its prohibitions? Department of Education is the target of your ire when the Department of Homeland Security is what is under scrutiny?
Get a grip, man.
Did you notice that the horror story Mr. Madison was telling about the Federal Government appointing teachers at all levels hasn't actually happened? But unwarranted mass surveillance has occured? Bitch about the No Child Left Behind Act all you want, and I'm with you. My cousin is a teacher and knows damn well the damage that law has done to public schooling. Act like that's the greater Constitutional crisis than the existance of Gitmo -- act like the existence of public education itself is the bigger problem than Gitmo -- and sorry I think you're barking up an empty tree.
Naw, a comet is a comet wherever it is. That distinction is clear regardless of how the term asteroid, planetoid, dwarf planet, etc have been redefined. Kuiper Belt contains both comets and other objects.
The author seems to be implying that you just ought to give up on developing standard testing procedures altogether.
Yes, absolutely, because they are statistically useless.
The glaring problem with his logic is that if you repeat the test your accuracy will tend to go up,
That applies to some tests, but not terrorist profiling. If they match it once, they will match it the second time. It's not like you're measuring an object on a scale and repeated measurements average out the imprecision of the device.
and if you apply complimentary tests, you get even better accuracy.
Again that's true in some hypothetical situations, but in the reality of this case if we had multiple easy to perform tests, they would be combined into a single test.
I mentioned Guantanamo Bay because it's a fine example of a willful failure to be rigorous. Shrub, Inc.'s only concern was to generate perceived results and delay further testing as long as possible.
Yes it's certainly true that they were never even trying to be accurate. It's a hole for political prisoners, as you say.
But I'm not sure I get the part where he wanted to delay further testing. If they could actually prove any of these people were terrorists with some hypothetical test, they would have done it immediately and trumpeted the matches while being very quiet about the failures -- it's not like they'd be forced to release any of the prisoners and admit they were wrong if the test cleared the suspect, since neither judge nor lawyer would ever hear the fact.
Had we applied more rigorous testing there never would have been a Guantanamo Bay prison.
What "rigorous testing" are you imagining here that doesn't involve a place like Gitmo? The only more "rigorous" test I personally can think of is lengthy interrogation. Which still means imprisoning thousands and thousands of almost certainly innocent people while you get around to "testing" each of them.
except, what cory doesn't get is that you've now limited your set from 1 mil to 10,000. What may not be efficient to test on 1mil, may be efficient to test on 10,000.
Its like NP complete problem. You have an algorithm that works, but it doesn't scale. If you can make an approximation solution that trims the set to a reasonable size where the scaling problems of algorithm don't hurt you as much, you have a win.
And what test/algorithm exactly is it that "works" if only it scaled? Harsh interrogation?
Do you realize that if you applied a test with this level of accuracy at JFK International Airport, you'd be generating over 1,000 "terrorist suspects" every day?
What test are you going to perform on them that is both able to distinguish the people who are 99.99% likely to not be terrorists yet still tripped your first test, and which is quick enough that you can perform it 1000 times a day? Oh, and still has to detect the real terrorist too, can't forget that.
Do you automatically assume they are bad, or do you say we put them through a tougher form of screening.
What's the difference? If you lock somebody up and interrogate them long enough to be truly certain (ha!), haven't you already decided they are bad?
Many of the detainees at Gitmo were brought in with less evidence than meeting some terrorist profile; that "tougher form of screening" seems to take years with no definitive answer. You going to send 1,000 people every day to Gitmo?
Unconstitutional or not, the whole NSL / PATRIOT stuff screams "abuse me" at 130dB.
Well it did, but then it received an NSL gag order.
Is the Zune the Vista of music players, or is Vista the Zune of operating systems?
Uh, technologically, there may be a comparison. In terms of market acceptance, Zune is the Unixware of music players.
cumulatively, 19/12 out of the last 28 years.
*thinks a moment* So... 44 1/3rd years? Hehe, jk.
They also dramatically expand the power of the government to monitor the citizenry in ways that the Constitution never intended to allow and, indeed, which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the funding fathers at all.
They didn't have to, any more than they had to foresee telephone or e-mail tapping, because the wording of the 4th Amendment is technology agnostic. That's the way it should be. That's why when a case of warrantless e-mail reading came before the court, the judge ruled that this was illegal. Without having to have a whole Constitutional amendment just for email (and one for text messaging, and one for IM, etc etc etc).
We don't need any change to the Constitution whatsoever to stop these abuses. We just need for the Constitution as written to be enforced. That is the problem, and making it easier to modify the Constitution would not make it more likely to be enforced. We already have an amendment that covers these situations; if you think the problem is stacked courts, why do you think they would enforce some new amendment that covers the exact same thing?
The only thing it would make more likely is that when another "ZOMG teh terrists are attacking! I can has ur liberties?" moment occurs, the people will not only allow it, they will enshrine it in the highest law of our land. At least USAPATRIOT expires, and parts of it have already had rulings against it as constitutional. You can't rule an amendment unconstitutional; and amendment is constitutional by definition.
Our system isn't perfect, but our Constitution is damn good and one of its strengths is that it can't be changed easily.
Even with that said, it is important that some profiling take place. We have limited resources and must try to make the most of them.
Profiling is a waste of resources. Did you read the math? It's not even some realistic practical delta away from "absolute security". It's a small delta away from absolutely worthless!
They need to stop wasting their time with profiling nonsense, and spend those resources training TSA workers how to identify weapons in luggage better (the current training is pathetic), or hey maybe doing the real police work that is how real terrorists get caught... for real!
So it does not work perfectly, I believe your math. What should we do? Stick our heads in the sand and ignore the threat? Rationalize that you are more likely to die in a car accident, so take no action?
"I know doing this doesn't work, but the only other thing I can think of is ignoring the problem, but I'm too scared to do that so I'm going to do the thing I know doesn't work."
That doesn't sound like a rationalization to you?
There are things that can be done to find and stop terrorists, things that are actually effective. DHS (or rather, the organizations that existed prior to DHS and were subsumed by it) is doing a number of them. Screening everyone coming into JFK Intl. Airport with a "terrorist detector" is not one of them.