The Constitution already provides protection to us. The real problem is, we have failed to protect the Constitution.
We've let our rights be whittled away over the centuries... a DMCA here, a 'Patriot' Act there... because we the people have failed to enforce our rights are under the Constitution, and our 'leaders' have chosen to ignore the Constitution altogether, except where it suits themselves.
Ironically, the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights in the first place BECAUSE they were afraid that future generations would forget the ideals the Constitution was based upon!
From the Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment 4, I quote...
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Note that it does not say 'UNLESS it would make more work for the police'.
It does not say 'UNLESS you are crossing the border'.
It does not say 'UNLESS you are gainfully employed'.
In fact, there is no UNLESS anywhere in there.
What DOES it say, people? All together now... 'SHALL NOT BE VIOLATED' .
Congress has NO power (under the Constitution) to create legislation which violates this right, short of a new Amendment. The President has no power (under the Constitution) to enforce any such (un Constitutional) law. However, they have DEFACTO powers to do so, because we the people have become a bunch of sissies and let them get away with it.
I totally agree. In my estimation there are no 'professional' journalists in the mass market. [footnote 1]
The 'mainstream' news media is driven by sensationalism and corporate greed. Any one who has half a brain and is willing to use it, need only experience a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh or Heraldo Rivera and their like to know that the media have been teetering on the precipice for a long time.
Lets face it. We live in an Orwellian time. What you see on TV may be true... and it might not be true. Remember when Gore made the statement that he played a role in the creation of the InterNet... and the media jumped on it, 'quoting' him as saying 'I created the Internet'.
That's called 'spin'. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Naders and Perots do it.
Sigh... all this spin has my head spinning... I think I will cast a write in vote for Jesus Christ come November... oh wait, I can't! This ^&*(% Diebold machine keeps changing it to Ralph Nader! Arghhh!
[Footnote 1} Actually, there are MANY serious, professional journalists with integrity... but you will never hear from them because their reports will be edited and twisted to fit the corporate line.
"It's time for reform in the overall e-mail system, the only problem is that there's a huge installed user base"...
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step. We just need the balls to take that step (er, sorry to all you female SlashDotters, maybe I should have said gonads, but the sentiment is the same).
Come on/. 'ers! If you can't do it, it can't be done!
We have the tools, we have the expertise, we have the motive, to create an email network to supplant SMTP.
Yes, there is a huge installed base... a huge installed base which is groping around in the dark, for some means of taming the SPAM monster.
They would eagerly embrace any system which could do any of the following, (and the more the better)...
A: Verify the sender of a message is who they claim to be
B: Categorize the message as personal, business, advertisement, etc.
C: Verify the recipient is willing to receive messages of that category,
I call this system, NewMail, just as a point of reference.
Envision the following. Everyone participating in the new email, registers a public key. PGP already provides the tools for nearly everything I am talking about here.
Every participant registers a public key, accessible via an LDAP server associated with their NewMail domain. When sending a message, the sender digitally signs it. We are all painfully familiar with this procedure. All this will be taken care of transparently by the NewMail client.
The NewMail server, upon receipt of a message, would look up the senders public key, using it to verify the signature.
The recipients NewMail client would then examine the message, and process it according to the users preferences.
The NewMail client would examine the message headers... is this sender in my address book? If not, have I recently sent a message to this sender (thus expecting a responce)?
If not, am I willing to accept a message of this type from a (previously) unknown sender?
If so, then the client will accept the message, else it will send a rejection back to the sender, listing the reason for rejection.
Of course, the spammers will try to slip one through. An advertisement for a porn site, for instance, might be mis-classified as a 'personal'message.
In such a case, the user would notify their NewMail provider, and the NewMail client should have a big, prominently displayed button, just for that.
The NewMail provider would examine the offending message, verify that it was indeed mis-classified, and send notice to the sender. If the sender does not respond to the notice, or they continue to abuse the system, all further messages with their signature would be blocked by the NewMail server.
----------
Now this is all well and good, and I have no doubt at all that SlashDotters will soon be picking this apart and putting it back together again better than it was... but that is beside the point. The point is the "huge installed base".
If you were charged with handling the mail operations of an ISP, would you not be willing to accept mail from such a system, perhaps via a 'trusted gateway'? Nobody would lose mail... its just that some mail will be marked as 'trusted'.
If you were the sender of important mail, would you not find it highly desireable for your message to be marked as 'trusted'?
If you ran an ISP, would you not be willing, as more and more NewMail systems came online, to start your own NewMail server, and encourage your customers to use it?
------------
Come on, SlashDotters! We have the tools, we have the expertise, we have the motive. Do what you do best... change the freakin world!
Just do it!
Slashdot Mirror
The Constitution already provides protection to us. The real problem is, we have failed to protect the Constitution.
We've let our rights be whittled away over the centuries... a DMCA here, a 'Patriot' Act there... because we the people have failed to enforce our rights are under the Constitution, and our 'leaders' have chosen to ignore the Constitution altogether, except where it suits themselves.
Ironically, the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights in the first place BECAUSE they were afraid that future generations would forget the ideals the Constitution was based upon!
From the Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment 4, I quote...
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Note that it does not say 'UNLESS it would make more work for the police'.
It does not say 'UNLESS you are crossing the border'.
It does not say 'UNLESS you are gainfully employed'.
In fact, there is no UNLESS anywhere in there.
What DOES it say, people? All together now... 'SHALL NOT BE VIOLATED' .
Congress has NO power (under the Constitution) to create legislation which violates this right, short of a new Amendment.
The President has no power (under the Constitution) to enforce any such (un Constitutional) law.
However, they have DEFACTO powers to do so, because we the people have become a bunch of sissies and let them get away with it.
I totally agree. In my estimation there are no 'professional' journalists in the mass market. [footnote 1]
The 'mainstream' news media is driven by sensationalism and corporate greed. Any one who has half a brain and is willing to use it, need only experience a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh or Heraldo Rivera and their like to know that the media have been teetering on the precipice for a long time.
Lets face it. We live in an Orwellian time. What you see on TV may be true... and it might not be true. Remember when Gore made the statement that he played a role in the creation of the InterNet... and the media jumped on it, 'quoting' him as saying 'I created the Internet'.
That's called 'spin'. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Naders and Perots do it.
Sigh... all this spin has my head spinning... I think I will cast a write in vote for Jesus Christ come November... oh wait, I can't! This ^&*(% Diebold machine keeps changing it to Ralph Nader! Arghhh!
[Footnote 1} Actually, there are MANY serious, professional journalists with integrity... but you will never hear from them because their reports will be edited and twisted to fit the corporate line.
cool rendering of pi!
"It's time for reform in the overall e-mail system, the only problem is that there's a huge installed user base"... The journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step. We just need the balls to take that step (er, sorry to all you female SlashDotters, maybe I should have said gonads, but the sentiment is the same). Come on /. 'ers! If you can't do it, it can't be done!
We have the tools, we have the expertise, we have the motive, to create an email network to supplant SMTP.
Yes, there is a huge installed base... a huge installed base which is groping around in the dark, for some means of taming the SPAM monster.
They would eagerly embrace any system which could do any of the following, (and the more the better)...
A: Verify the sender of a message is who they claim to be
B: Categorize the message as personal, business, advertisement, etc.
C: Verify the recipient is willing to receive messages of that category,
I call this system, NewMail, just as a point of reference.
Envision the following. Everyone participating in the new email, registers a public key. PGP already provides the tools for nearly everything I am talking about here.
Every participant registers a public key, accessible via an LDAP server associated with their NewMail domain. When sending a message, the sender digitally signs it. We are all painfully familiar with this procedure. All this will be taken care of transparently by the NewMail client.
The NewMail server, upon receipt of a message, would look up the senders public key, using it to verify the signature.
The recipients NewMail client would then examine the message, and process it according to the users preferences.
The NewMail client would examine the message headers... is this sender in my address book? If not, have I recently sent a message to this sender (thus expecting a responce)?
If not, am I willing to accept a message of this type from a (previously) unknown sender?
If so, then the client will accept the message, else it will send a rejection back to the sender, listing the reason for rejection.
Of course, the spammers will try to slip one through. An advertisement for a porn site, for instance, might be mis-classified as a 'personal'message.
In such a case, the user would notify their NewMail provider, and the NewMail client should have a big, prominently displayed button, just for that.
The NewMail provider would examine the offending message, verify that it was indeed mis-classified, and send notice to the sender. If the sender does not respond to the notice, or they continue to abuse the system, all further messages with their signature would be blocked by the NewMail server.
----------
Now this is all well and good, and I have no doubt at all that SlashDotters will soon be picking this apart and putting it back together again better than it was... but that is beside the point. The point is the "huge installed base".
If you were charged with handling the mail operations of an ISP, would you not be willing to accept mail from such a system, perhaps via a 'trusted gateway'? Nobody would lose mail... its just that some mail will be marked as 'trusted'.
If you were the sender of important mail, would you not find it highly desireable for your message to be marked as 'trusted'?
If you ran an ISP, would you not be willing, as more and more NewMail systems came online, to start your own NewMail server, and encourage your customers to use it?
------------
Come on, SlashDotters! We have the tools, we have the expertise, we have the motive. Do what you do best... change the freakin world!
Just do it!