Anyone against these wiretaps is suspect, and probably should be placed on the wiretap list? The language of the fourth amendment is clear and straight forward. The executive branch, the phone companies, and congress need to reread it a few times until they understand it. When they start arresting people for expressing concerns over the loss of our constitutional guaranteed rights, it will be too late. Forums like Slashdot etcetera will disappear. People will be afraid to post. Wiretaps without a warrant and fear of arrest will see to that.
Too often we get caught up in the whole winning and losing motif when discussing the candidates. At this stage of the game, I think we would be better served by weighing in on the side of defining the issues, not the personalities. Candidates with no chance of winning will still get my vote if they stand for the things I deem to be important. Social programs come and go, the economy is better some years than others. What we cannot afford to lose, however, is our constitutional rights that have been abridged since Sept. 11. Tell me you respect the constitution and the rights of the people, and I will vote for you whether you can win or not. If enough people do the same, the other candidates will be forced to consider this issue also. It's not about the candidates, really, it's about having a good worthy country that allows its citizens to live their lives as free men in control of their own destinies as much as is possible while still remaining civilized and respectful of the same rights of others.
The church is in the wrong here - like on so many other things.
"Wrong" is an ethical judgment. The church may be breaking copyright law as the NFL sees it, but it is really hard to see that it is doing anything unethical here. Just from a PR perspective, the NFL is making a big mistake. The NFL is wrong here - like on so many other things, such as continuing to allow criminal thugs to play the game. In any case, I won't be watching the game, church or otherwise.
Many people do not want their government to invade their lives here, but when you voice these concerns, you are in danger of being labeled a mindless kook, or worse yet, unpatriotic. You do not want to be labeled unpatriotic in America, as you are then just a hop from being a traitor. Your concerns can then be dismissed as the ravings of a traitorous fool. We have gutted the fourth amendment, and have thus rendered the first and fifth amendments meaningless. If we are forced to self-censor ourselves in our private speech because the fourth and fifth amendments no longer apply, meaningful discussion of complex issues becomes impossible and futile.
I don't even use supermarket loyalty cards. The thought of implanting an object inside my body to track my actions, or person is beyond the pall. We deserve more privacy not less. Give us back our private lives. We have the right to act legally without notice.
Nobody is forcing people to work there, if the company wants to require employees be branded with a red hot branding iron as proof of ownership, there shouldn't be a problem with that because the potential employee has a choice. Enough said.
Will the millions of illegals need one? What happened to the "If we lose our freedoms, then the terrorists have won"? Pastors are secretly being told by FEMA to preach on Romans 13 stressing obedience to the government.I am increasingly fearful that we will lose the constitutional rights that are still left.In our system, governmental power is supposed to flow from the consent of the governed. In our system, the government is subordinate to the citizens. The government, it seems, no longer believes this. If your representatives are unwilling to put the brakes on these sorts of abuses, it's time to elect ones that will.
I used to laugh at the tinfoil hat crowd, now I wear one myself.
Mosquito device annoying youths with its sound? Now you know how I feel every time your subwoofers rattle my windows more than a block away. There is a lesson here if you can see it.
What you say makes a lot of sense. I had not thought of the common carrier aspect of all this. All I was looking at was the shame it would be if the many sites filled with excellent content but operating on a shoestring were to be relegated to the dirt road of the net
So people who you know you are annoying to the max deserve to be annoyed again and again, simply because they don't know the magic hoop through which to jump? It is their own fault as far as you are concerned? I am not sure, but I think there is at least one level of hell populated totally with your kind right next to the part filled with lawyers.
I had not considered these implications. I am so disgusted with the way things are going. So now fight back against the abuse, and YOU suffer the bad consequences, including physical harm? One thing though, if such a thing did happen, the public would probably really want the authorities to put the spammer's heads on pikes.
I sometimes use my computer to earn money. Does the use of the computer mean sorry no privacy for you? If it does, who decided that? What gives them the "right" to decide that? How do we take that "right" from their hands? Because, the bottom line is, people need and deserve privacy. Notice that God has not given us the ability to read others' thoughts. If a measure of privacy is good enough for God, it should be good enough for corporate America and the government.
Someone pistol whips me to take my walet, I don't care if he is rehabilitated or not. I want him punished, and I want him off the street so he can't do it to someone else. By the way, if I see one more prisoner "working out" with weightlifting equipment in a taxpayer paid weight room, I'm going to puke.
Clearly, something must be done. This bill is not the answer, but at least they
are looking at the problem. I would be surprised if the congess folk are not
getting messages from irrate constituents complaining about spyware.
From the Yahoo article:
"People are increasingly finding their home pages have been changed or their
computers are sluggish," she said. "Their computers are no longer their own, and
they can't figure out why."
Yes, whatever became of the idea that it is my machine, not some marketing cash
cow. The EULA should enumerate and describe in no uncertain terms what will be
installled, what it will do, and how it will do it. The end user should
need to okey each program, not the whole shooting match. If
something is going to run on startup in the background, this should
be stated and explained. There should be an easy way to stop the
process. There should be a simple way to uninstall the evil program
and all of its minions in the registry etcetera. Browser hijacking?
Just plain illegal. If caught, death is too good for you. This is for starters.
Now explain this:
H.R.2929:
Makes it unlawful for any person who is not the owner or authorized user (user)
of a protected computer (a computer exclusively for the use of a financial
institution or the U.S. Government, or a computer used in interstate or foreign
commerce or communication).........
It is home computers that need the most help in the fight against spyware, not
corpoate, bank, and government computers, and unless I am reading this wrongly,
home computers are given no protection under the bill. Why is that?
Then there was this quote which I just found amusing:
The chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton,
R-Texas, said Goodlatte's anti-spyware bill was preferable because of its
criminal sanctions, and Barton said he will work to combine both proposals for a
final vote by year's end.Barton acknowledged that experts had recently found
more than 60 varieties of spyware installed on the panel's own computers. He
said all the spyware programs had been installed without the permission of
computer users.
These companies with doubious patents that they have either purchased or never used that may give them some short term money through litigation, while making it increasingly harder for new inovation are another nail in the coffin of the internet, and computing in general. Where are the javas etc. going to come from in the future. Develop software, give it away, and then have someone tell you that you owe them a billion dollars for a patent they BOUGHT and have never used for anything. Who would want a part of that kind of risk? Once the internet was a shiny new thing promising a golden era of information sharing on a massive scale available to almost everyone. Now it is becoming a festering boil of malware, extortion, spyware, viruses, and parasites like Kodak, SCO, etc. of every ilk, to whom short term gain of money is more important than the harm they may do to the necessary infrastucture, computer languages, and programs that are the underpinnings of it all.
Yes, and that is why I am angered at computer equipment "rebates". They know they can sell an item for forty bucks, change fifty, and then offer a rebate for ten bucks. You don't get the rebate return for many weeks. Meanwhile the seller collects interest on your money. In the end seller gets the needed forty bucks, plus a nifty bonus of the interest from your cash. You get screwed, but usually feel as if you got a bargain because you got a "rebate". Basically it is a legal scam.
On what kind of Bizarro world were you a junior high school teacher. Everyone I knew tried to avoid any contact with kids who were known bullies. Indeed, many kids took a lot of ridicule from same bullies, simply because they knew if they said anything back, they would get pounded, and it wasn't worth it. You are implying that the kid who got beat must have done something to have deserved it. In my experience, this is simply not true. I am glad you are a former teacher, as anyone who sees the school yard bully as the victim doesn't have a clue. I was so glad when I got to college and realized that anyone who was now "fast with their fists" were now 18 and likely to be arrested for continuing the crap they pulled in jr. high. I need never bite my lip and take any crap again. Life was now good. Perhaps there was a little of the school yard bully in you, and now as an adult, you would like to justify it. As an adult, I can finally reply, "Bite Me".
A twelve year old acting in an anti-social manner needs to be told that his behavior is unacceptable. Allowing bad behavior to continue only sends a message that it's okey. Warning the kid sends the correct message, pull the lion's tail, and you'll get bit.
well said. I posted before I read your post, and had I read yours first, I probably would not have posted. I did not mention the loss of freedom that is so inherent with the loss of privacy, but rather I was mostly concerned with corporate abuse. At the end of the day, the danger of loss of freedom is much more inportant as you state. I was impressed with the idea that so many of our freedoms would become meaningless without privacy, again, as you stated.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone against these wiretaps is suspect, and probably should be placed on the wiretap list? The language of the fourth amendment is clear and straight forward. The executive branch, the phone companies, and congress need to reread it a few times until they understand it. When they start arresting people for expressing concerns over the loss of our constitutional guaranteed rights, it will be too late. Forums like Slashdot etcetera will disappear. People will be afraid to post. Wiretaps without a warrant and fear of arrest will see to that.
Too often we get caught up in the whole winning and losing motif when discussing the candidates. At this stage of the game, I think we would be better served by weighing in on the side of defining the issues, not the personalities. Candidates with no chance of winning will still get my vote if they stand for the things I deem to be important. Social programs come and go, the economy is better some years than others. What we cannot afford to lose, however, is our constitutional rights that have been abridged since Sept. 11. Tell me you respect the constitution and the rights of the people, and I will vote for you whether you can win or not. If enough people do the same, the other candidates will be forced to consider this issue also. It's not about the candidates, really, it's about having a good worthy country that allows its citizens to live their lives as free men in control of their own destinies as much as is possible while still remaining civilized and respectful of the same rights of others.
The church is in the wrong here - like on so many other things. "Wrong" is an ethical judgment. The church may be breaking copyright law as the NFL sees it, but it is really hard to see that it is doing anything unethical here. Just from a PR perspective, the NFL is making a big mistake. The NFL is wrong here - like on so many other things, such as continuing to allow criminal thugs to play the game. In any case, I won't be watching the game, church or otherwise.
Many people do not want their government to invade their lives here, but when you voice these concerns, you are in danger of being labeled a mindless kook, or worse yet, unpatriotic. You do not want to be labeled unpatriotic in America, as you are then just a hop from being a traitor. Your concerns can then be dismissed as the ravings of a traitorous fool. We have gutted the fourth amendment, and have thus rendered the first and fifth amendments meaningless. If we are forced to self-censor ourselves in our private speech because the fourth and fifth amendments no longer apply, meaningful discussion of complex issues becomes impossible and futile.
Gosh, and here I thought the 5th and 4th amendments were for everyone. Guess I am mistaken.
Amen, brother.
I don't even use supermarket loyalty cards. The thought of implanting an object inside my body to track my actions, or person is beyond the pall. We deserve more privacy not less. Give us back our private lives. We have the right to act legally without notice.
Nobody is forcing people to work there, if the company wants to require employees be branded with a red hot branding iron as proof of ownership, there shouldn't be a problem with that because the potential employee has a choice. Enough said.
Will the millions of illegals need one? What happened to the "If we lose our freedoms, then the terrorists have won"? Pastors are secretly being told by FEMA to preach on Romans 13 stressing obedience to the government.I am increasingly fearful that we will lose the constitutional rights that are still left.In our system, governmental power is supposed to flow from the consent of the governed. In our system, the government is subordinate to the citizens. The government, it seems, no longer believes this. If your representatives are unwilling to put the brakes on these sorts of abuses, it's time to elect ones that will. I used to laugh at the tinfoil hat crowd, now I wear one myself.
Mosquito device annoying youths with its sound? Now you know how I feel every time your subwoofers rattle my windows more than a block away. There is a lesson here if you can see it.
What you say makes a lot of sense. I had not thought of the common carrier aspect of all this. All I was looking at was the shame it would be if the many sites filled with excellent content but operating on a shoestring were to be relegated to the dirt road of the net
So people who you know you are annoying to the max deserve to be annoyed again and again, simply because they don't know the magic hoop through which to jump? It is their own fault as far as you are concerned? I am not sure, but I think there is at least one level of hell populated totally with your kind right next to the part filled with lawyers.
I had not considered these implications. I am so disgusted with the way things are going. So now fight back against the abuse, and YOU suffer the bad consequences, including physical harm? One thing though, if such a thing did happen, the public would probably really want the authorities to put the spammer's heads on pikes.
I sometimes use my computer to earn money. Does the use of the computer mean sorry no privacy for you? If it does, who decided that? What gives them the "right" to decide that? How do we take that "right" from their hands? Because, the bottom line is, people need and deserve privacy. Notice that God has not given us the ability to read others' thoughts. If a measure of privacy is good enough for God, it should be good enough for corporate America and the government.
Someone pistol whips me to take my walet, I don't care if he is rehabilitated or not. I want him punished, and I want him off the street so he can't do it to someone else. By the way, if I see one more prisoner "working out" with weightlifting equipment in a taxpayer paid weight room, I'm going to puke.
Clearly, something must be done. This bill is not the answer, but at least they are looking at the problem. I would be surprised if the congess folk are not getting messages from irrate constituents complaining about spyware.
From the Yahoo article:
"People are increasingly finding their home pages have been changed or their computers are sluggish," she said. "Their computers are no longer their own, and they can't figure out why."
Yes, whatever became of the idea that it is my machine, not some marketing cash cow. The EULA should enumerate and describe in no uncertain terms what will be installled, what it will do, and how it will do it. The end user should need to okey each program, not the whole shooting match. If something is going to run on startup in the background, this should be stated and explained. There should be an easy way to stop the process. There should be a simple way to uninstall the evil program and all of its minions in the registry etcetera. Browser hijacking? Just plain illegal. If caught, death is too good for you. This is for starters.
Now explain this:
H.R.2929:
Makes it unlawful for any person who is not the owner or authorized user (user) of a protected computer (a computer exclusively for the use of a financial institution or the U.S. Government, or a computer used in interstate or foreign commerce or communication).........
It is home computers that need the most help in the fight against spyware, not corpoate, bank, and government computers, and unless I am reading this wrongly, home computers are given no protection under the bill. Why is that?
Then there was this quote which I just found amusing:
The chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said Goodlatte's anti-spyware bill was preferable because of its criminal sanctions, and Barton said he will work to combine both proposals for a final vote by year's end.Barton acknowledged that experts had recently found more than 60 varieties of spyware installed on the panel's own computers. He said all the spyware programs had been installed without the permission of computer users.
These companies with doubious patents that they have either purchased or never used that may give them some short term money through litigation, while making it increasingly harder for new inovation are another nail in the coffin of the internet, and computing in general. Where are the javas etc. going to come from in the future. Develop software, give it away, and then have someone tell you that you owe them a billion dollars for a patent they BOUGHT and have never used for anything. Who would want a part of that kind of risk? Once the internet was a shiny new thing promising a golden era of information sharing on a massive scale available to almost everyone. Now it is becoming a festering boil of malware, extortion, spyware, viruses, and parasites like Kodak, SCO, etc. of every ilk, to whom short term gain of money is more important than the harm they may do to the necessary infrastucture, computer languages, and programs that are the underpinnings of it all.
Don't want your data mined? Don't go to the supermarket. Noone's forcing you to eat.
Yes, and that is why I am angered at computer equipment "rebates". They know they can sell an item for forty bucks, change fifty, and then offer a rebate for ten bucks. You don't get the rebate return for many weeks. Meanwhile the seller collects interest on your money. In the end seller gets the needed forty bucks, plus a nifty bonus of the interest from your cash. You get screwed, but usually feel as if you got a bargain because you got a "rebate". Basically it is a legal scam.
On what kind of Bizarro world were you a junior high school teacher. Everyone I knew tried to avoid any contact with kids who were known bullies. Indeed, many kids took a lot of ridicule from same bullies, simply because they knew if they said anything back, they would get pounded, and it wasn't worth it. You are implying that the kid who got beat must have done something to have deserved it. In my experience, this is simply not true. I am glad you are a former teacher, as anyone who sees the school yard bully as the victim doesn't have a clue. I was so glad when I got to college and realized that anyone who was now "fast with their fists" were now 18 and likely to be arrested for continuing the crap they pulled in jr. high. I need never bite my lip and take any crap again. Life was now good. Perhaps there was a little of the school yard bully in you, and now as an adult, you would like to justify it. As an adult, I can finally reply, "Bite Me".
Actually, the way my life has been going recently, I would like to spend my last 15 minutes racing toward ground zero.
I was doing satire and parody when your diapers were still growing in a forest, Monkey boy.
I can identify. I've actually done this with a car that looked like mine.
A twelve year old acting in an anti-social manner needs to be told that his behavior is unacceptable. Allowing bad behavior to continue only sends a message that it's okey. Warning the kid sends the correct message, pull the lion's tail, and you'll get bit.
well said. I posted before I read your post, and had I read yours first, I probably would not have posted. I did not mention the loss of freedom that is so inherent with the loss of privacy, but rather I was mostly concerned with corporate abuse. At the end of the day, the danger of loss of freedom is much more inportant as you state. I was impressed with the idea that so many of our freedoms would become meaningless without privacy, again, as you stated.