First things first, take back the name. It's not PIRATED software, it's duplicated, unlicensed software. Nothing was PIRATED, because NOTHING WAS STOLEN.
The claim that the business LOST $34 billion is flawed, since, in fact, business cannot LOSE what it never HAD: the $34 billion.
If we correct the grievance claim, and postulate that the business' suffered $34 billion of income deprivation, then that claim, too, is probably flawed. I suspect that most unlicensed, duplicated software is to the benefit of financially poor computer users, who might not otherwise have ANY access to the duplicated, unlicensed software.
Therefore, I postulate that the only real cost to the corporate world is the tax deductible charity receipt for helping the poorest of the poor with their computers.
If it were not for "piracy" laws, then they might be able to arrange for some kind of tax deductible charity receipt for unlicensed, duplicated software for low income computer users. But while such laws are in effect, it is unlikely that they will find low income users to be cooperative with any such effort.
"Open Source" means that the source code is visible to the public.
Even licen$ed $oftware could be open source.
It is really quite silly to base generalizations on software's reliability upon whether or not its source code is visible. It's tantamount to saying "green bikes are faster."
On the other hand, the reason open source software is desirable is that it fosters trust on the part of the user. When I say trust I mean that the user can look into the source code of the software, and verify that it: opens no backdoors, installs no rootkits, does not locally snoop, does not locally spy, spam or advertise, or leech system resources, or delete the user's files, or mess with security levels, or alter files that it doesn't own, or send out a flood of packets/ddos, or hack remote systems by means of worm or proxy, or open a local port, or port scan and relay, or be a blockscanner, or a wardialer, or do any of those other nasty things that we've seen and/or heard of.
in other words, open source software helps the user to verify that the executable software it compiles will not hack remote systems, and will not hack the local machine, either.
that's not to say i know anybody that sits down and reads the open source, any more than i know anybody that reads the full license agreement before clicking "i agree". but "trust", that's the theory.
there's also the creative commons aspect of it, as in "the software engineer you help train to day might be the one you hire tomorrow." if the guts of the software are visible then others can learn and share, and build upon each other, providing the best overall source code.
i've heard arguments that such a thing opens the door to piracy or software plagerism, risking profit loss. Well. Consider how many HUMAN hours went into writing and re-writing the same code based on some business man's notion of profit. Jesus Christ said that the love of money is the root of all evil.
>I don't think it should be illegal for a person to make use >of a helicopter and zoom lens simultaneously, even if they >happen to be a police officer.
Well I had considerably more in mind when I said that. I think you probably understand what I had in mind. I was talking about the ability to park a helicopter/ drone/ what-have-you outside peoples' windows with a zoom lense, finding gaps in their curtains, (or forcing them to USE curtains to defend their otherwise-safe privacy) and zooming into their private activity? Do you think that police should be able to ride on the (hypothetical) loophole in the constitution, and gather surveilance without a warrant? IT IS Clear that the police have constitutional restrictions placed on their behavior. Just as it is clear that their are authorized to make arrests, to incarcerate, to carry weapons, handcuffs, handguns, AND that it is a CRIME to resist their activity. Those are some GOOD REASONS to restrict their rights. And if a person cannot think of HOW to seperate the cop's private right to observe, and their public duty to respect the constitution, well I really don't think that should translate into a privacy nightmare for me.
I agree with you that keeping a watchful eye on the financial activities of public servants is a very good idea. But I don't think it is appropriate to turn their lives into living hell, depriving them of all manner of personal privacy. (For starters, do you WANT people who don't value their own privacy in office? Would you expect them to value your own?) Ultimately, I see NO reason to translate a need to keep a watchful eye on the "backroom agreements" and financial activities of public servants and elected officials into a justification for police state powers.
The two are very seperate things, and I don't think it's suitable to "muddy" the boundary between them.
Celeb's? I'm one of those people who thinks celeb's deserve privacy too.
>If an off-duty cop observes something, is s/he allowed >to act on that information when they're back on-duty?
The question is clear, but the courts are there for a reason, and I believe the specific details of the case are relevant to the answer, so I'm not gonna touch it.
>One of my main contentions is that I can't see any way >to effectively place restriction on police surveillance >in public areas which wouldn't also put unreasonable >restrictions on the sorts of observations private >citizens are allowed to engage in.
Well I just said something about that above here. Cops have extra rights and protections, granted by law. That makes them a different type of citizen while they're wearing that badge. The badge means the cop is acting on behalf of the goverment, which is obligated to respect the constitutional rights of the citizens. Therefore, restricting some of the cop's rights is appropriate.
>However, it isn't ubiquitous awareness which is being proposed, but awareness of >areas visible from public areas. In effect, it's just like the awareness provided >by satellites, but with higher spatial and temporal resolution.... >If I understand the Florida v. Riley ruling correctly, the whole point is that >aerial observation doesn't constitute a search, just as watching somebody from the >top of a building doesn't constitute a search.
Well there must be a reasonable delineation, and the technological feasability/proposal of these aerial drones makes that clear. The drones are going to be equipped with ?high resolution? cameras, and able to fly/change direction and position of focus, and zoom in/out. For heaven's sake, if a cop were doing such a thing with a helecopter and a zoom lense it would be a crime. Doing it with a drone should not receive any more leniency than that. And the fact that drones are more available only exacerbates the impact of the first claim.
>However, I'm still not clear on what this hypothetical right you're referring >to is. The right to not be observed by people in public places?
The "hypothetical right" is that (unless warrants are issued) people have the right to live their lives free from "ubiquitous/heavy scrutiny". According to that hypothetical right, there is no agent who is/should be capable of pulling in EVERY DETAIL of someone's LIFE and (without warrant) making a complete documentary of it. Yet the drones could make such possibilities into reality. The drones could look into every car window, every apartment window, every house/back yard...Everything.
>I support the right of individuals to engage in such activity (particularly when >it's targetted towards politicians). Since police officers are also individuals, >it's difficult for me to think of a solid reason to deny them that right.
I agree that it is important to boost public accessibility to records which make available the behavior of public officials. In particular, conflicts of interest should be visible so that people can identify clear cases of abuse.
Anyhow, I suppose it is important to distinguish, between an "off duty cop" with his freedom-loving "civilian cap" on, and an "on duty" cop, who's job is to catch crooks, but is also sworn to uphold and respect the constitution of the United States of America.
Well I'm not an attorney, but I wanted to get the ball rolling in a direction of analysis of the topic the (un)constitutionality of blanket eavesdropping. They might have a precident allowing aerial photos of the country but that is by no means a precident in favor of ubiquitous police awareness.
I loosely observed 3 potential defenses against blanket eavesdropping: 1 defense from antistalking laws, and 2 defenses from the constitution. I believe each of the defenses provides SOME degree of coverage against sweeping aerial police eavesdropping.
The fourth amendment provides that the government needs to have probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. In this case what those drones could do would be to search EVERYTHING without a warrant. They could look into windows, back yards, cars, etc. I'm personally GLAD we have our fine police officers on patrol, but that doesn't mean I want them examining every aspect of my life and/or building databases on the populace. No thanks. And I don't see much difference between that and the drones.
The Eighth amendment specifies that some rights exist, and are protected by the constitution/bill of rights, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT SPELLED OUT. The eighth amendment is the sort of broad protection which could be used to explain why police state evesdropping powers are unconstitutional. I say that because the degree of abuse from ubiqutious surveilance c/would be staggaring. I believe that much eavesdropping is PRECISELY the sort of unforeseen "discretionary right" that the framers had in mind when they added the eighth amendment.
The law(s) against stalking ? I don't know much about them, but basically their existance means that it's not only unconstitutional (for a cop) to follow a person around and search them without warrants or probably cause, it's also illegal.
OK? I hope that helps. It's good to know about that supreme court case. Can you share any of the details?
PS IDK why they modded my first post down. It is a reasonable post.
The question in my mind is when is "blanket surveilance" of the public so universal that it is unconstitutional by default.
Relevant to finding the answer is:
From the Bill of Rights
Amendment 4 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, adn the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment 8 The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
LAW: There are ?federal?state? antistalking laws. I presume they must apply to police departments, too, if there is no warrant issued to follow a person, or use cameras/private eyes to follow them around in public areas.
Yea there's got to be more to it, but that's my layman's effort at constitionally examining evil 1984 Domesting Spy Drones.
That's for the legal analysis. And now for the larger implications:
BUSH PUSHED FOR SECRET TRIALS SECRET DETENTION TORTURE UNIVERSAL RIGHT TO DECLARE WAR ROVING SURVEILANCE ROVING WIRETAPS SEARCHES WITHOUT WARRANTS SECRET GOVERNMENT OFFICES SECRET PRISONS SECRET PRISONER LISTS PRISONERS WITHOUT RIGHTS SHADOW GOVERNMENT EXPANDING THE MILITARY FOR A TRUMPED UP WAR AND THE BASTARD WAS NEVER EVEN PROPERLY ELECTED! WTF!!
I BELIEVE BUSH DID 911 ON HIS OWN, TO JUSTIFY BUILDING A POLICE STATE. THE BUILDUP TO THE WAR HAS ALL THE HALLMARKS OF 1937 GERMANY.
I DON'T WANT A POLICE STATE. THERE IS NO PUBLIC MANDATE FOR A POLICE STATE.
IT'S EITHER TIME TO STORM THE WHITE HOUSE! -OR- DRAFT G.W. BUSH INTO THE INFANTRY, TO THE FRONT LINES, TO IRAQ. AS A RIFLEMAN! -OR- IMPEACH
The real question in MY mind is how to verify the integrity of the election results as a whole.
It seems to me that the machine should only run open source code, compiled with an open source compiler, and a checksum (or better yet a 1-to-1 file comparison) run on the executable. The open source code would be made available for download, along with the executable, and anybody who wanted to check could compare the results of what they downloaded and home-compiled with the running executable on the voting machine.
What's more, the machine should send the election results to multiple "counter" servers (i.e. anybody/everybody who wants to "listen in", real time, would be able to do so they would simply register a listener server (open source, available for download, and with same compiler). As the election goes along, all the listener servers would receive a steady stream of voting results. In such a case, Any discrepancy would raise a red flag.
There would also have to be a means of REJECTING repeat voters, non-entity voters and hacker voters. At poll close, the votes could be COUNTED on the lan and phoned in. Comparing that number with the number of votes sent from that polling place would be a reasonable cross-check.
A good start, but perhaps more would be needed..?
PS Sry commandmer taco but that claim you made in the summary is false. It would be very difficult to hack a diebold as a basic voter, since it uses a touch screen and has no keyboard. If you think you can hack that through the touchscreen then give it a TRY. (but dont get thrown in jail!) =P
It would be an outrage if a corporation were allowed to cast a vote in elections, since a person could make a billion dummy corp's and steal the election.
Therefore, there must a clear distinction between corporate rights and human citizen's rights. The corporations should not have a full set of rights. Rather, they should have a more limited set of rights, suited to their roles as money making enterprises that are subject to LAW.
There is a domain of rights which the corporations DO NOT deserve, and human citizen's rights should not have to compete with sham corporate rights, as they have, for instance, in recent elections, vis-a-vis campaign finance from corporations, which has only "held" due to the corporations' so-called right to freedom of speech, which translates into "their right" to throw corporate money into public elections, effectively swaying an otherwise democratic government.
The framer's of the constitution would have blanched at such a thing.
Well both of those have their place. There could be lightweight suits to assist in working in a warehouse or moving company, lifting boxes and stuff, a larger one for lifting dumpsters (FULLY replacing those noisy pneumatic garbage truck lifters! =) , and then a full sized one for cargo containers like you see on 18 Wheelers.
Then there could be suits for athletics, bringing sports into a whole new dimension.
There could be *silent* airplanes that flap their own wings.
Sheesh. The invention is huge, depending on how efficient those muscles are. But I wouldn't narrow the repercussions down to small suits.
"WWII: Attach a bomb to a cat and drop it from a dive-bomber on to Nazi ships. The cat, hating water, will "wrangle" itself on to enemy ship's deck. In tests cats became unconscious in mid-air"
Then look at that smug feline in the photo next to the article. =)
Well you make a good point, and I think there is a distinction to be made between
(1) the data that the corporation has gathered about its customers and clients (for book keeping, marketing analysis, providing optimal service, etc.),
AND
(2) the information about the corporation's own internal affairs.
Personally, I'd be much more sympathetic to protecting the data about the corporations' clients than the data about the corporations' internal affairs. I believe the bill or rights was written to protect the rights of individual people. Corporations didn't even exist when it was written.
Without all that much evidence to back it up, it is my belief & suspicion that corporations were not designed in a way to deserve full protection of the bill of rights.
A few reasons I have are the fact that (1) A corporation cannot be placed "under arrest", and doesn't fear it, (2) the fact that many fines are not prohibitive within the scope of corporate finance, and are therefore not prohibitive of the crimes which they were designed to penalize, (3) the fact that employees within the corporation can be held individually liable in order to spare the corporation from its full share of the liability, (4) the fact that corporations (some at least) have a reputation or history of influencing political campaigns, of purchasing laws and of pushing lawsuits with greater resources than the public interest would effectively muster in defense of the public preference, (5) the fact that a skilled accountant, attorney or bookkeeper can play "shell game" with facts and resources, and that corporations have armies of them (6) the fact that investors in the corporation need not fear "lifting the corporate veil" and can invest without criminal liability for potentially criminal gains, (7) the fact that a mere handful corporations have completely transformed huge sections of the American landscape from a nice country to a neon parking lot hell in just a few decades. To name just a FEW reasons.
Well, all that being said, I honestly DON'T know that much about it, but those are the reasons I believe corporations should have only partial representation under the bill of rights. I believe there needs to be a balance, and that limiting corporate protection under the bill of rights could be the right place to stem the corporate tide. But as I said, imo, the end-clients (the everyday U.S. citizens giving up their personal information away to corporate databases) still deserve bill of rights protection WITHIN the corporation.
That is because there are some corporations which have grown to an almost inevitable size, and if the government "grants itself" the right to pick through customer data without warrants then they've effectively bypassed an important part of the Bill of Rights; it is my belief that the Bill of Rights was written before that could have happened, or the Bill of Rights would have guarded against the intrusion. I believe that the majority of U.S. citizens WANT their privacy guarded, even if some of their private information is in the hands of an almost-inevitable corporate database.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
A FASCIST in power is a tyrant, right?
The administration's CLAIM is that they want to sort the data to find the child porn downloaders. But all that means is they would like to be able to search in a blanket way, without first meeting the requirements set forth in the bill of rights.
From Article 4 of the Bill of Rights: "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."
The article spells it out: blanket searches are unconstitutional b/c they do not spell out the particular place to be searched. Just saying "there's got to be SOMETHING on that server that's illegal just isn't good enough.
On those grounds, conducting blanket evesdropping on server(s) that THEY DON'T OWN is completely unconstitutional; furthermore, there is already a supreme court ruling which says they cannot perform ANY evesdropping on THEIR OWN servers. So they couldn't "work around it" by putting "snoopy routers" at various checkpoints.
Yea I agree that the Iraq war was unjustified, and that there was never a smoking gun pointing from Iraq. I believe that a heroic soldier would have walked away from military service in Iraq.
But it's not easy to walk away from military duty. AWOL carries considerable consequences...and most soldiers ?want? to return home to the USA? And how, then, would the AWOL return back home?
I cannot say what happened in their minds. I don't know how they reasoned it out, that it would be "ok" to fight an unjust war, but I imagine some of them probably have a notion of the war not being justified.
I believe it would be difficult to convince U.S. soldiers to use weapons against their own people. Soldiers that did such a thing would most likely be shunned.
Nobody is bribing the soldiers with political money. And there isn't enough money to corrupt them all. In particular, the grunts who would be ordered to do the shooting are the most common (?and least paid?) type of soldier in the armed forces. They are mostly good, normal people, and untainted by the things that ?could? motivate some of the "higher-ups."
I spoke with a Vietnam vet just yesterday, and he quoted me Psalm 23 from the Bible. I believe the majority of the U.S. soldiers didn't check their conscience at the door when they took up their rifles.
Slashdot Mirror
First things first, take back the name. It's not PIRATED software, it's duplicated, unlicensed software. Nothing was PIRATED, because NOTHING WAS STOLEN.
The claim that the business LOST $34 billion is flawed, since, in fact, business cannot LOSE what it never HAD: the $34 billion.
If we correct the grievance claim, and postulate that the business' suffered $34 billion of income deprivation, then that claim, too, is probably flawed. I suspect that most unlicensed, duplicated software is to the benefit of financially poor computer users, who might not otherwise have ANY access to the duplicated, unlicensed software.
Therefore, I postulate that the only real cost to the corporate world is the tax deductible charity receipt for helping the poorest of the poor with their computers.
If it were not for "piracy" laws, then they might be able to arrange for some kind of tax deductible charity receipt for unlicensed, duplicated software for low income computer users. But while such laws are in effect, it is unlikely that they will find low income users to be cooperative with any such effort.
Well, I didnt say the website had committed a sin. =)
By no means is this the messiah, but it's possible that a website would convey enough to save a person:
http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=display&uid=670
So I don't know why a website would be devoted to doing it.
"Open Source" means that the source code is visible to the public.
/ddos,
Even licen$ed $oftware could be open source.
It is really quite silly to base generalizations on software's reliability upon whether or not its source code is visible. It's tantamount to saying "green bikes are faster."
On the other hand, the reason open source software is desirable is that it fosters trust on the part of the user. When I say trust I mean that the user can look into the source code of the software, and verify that it:
opens no backdoors,
installs no rootkits,
does not locally snoop,
does not locally spy, spam or advertise,
or leech system resources,
or delete the user's files,
or mess with security levels,
or alter files that it doesn't own,
or send out a flood of packets
or hack remote systems by means of worm or proxy,
or open a local port,
or port scan and relay,
or be a blockscanner,
or a wardialer,
or do any of those other nasty things that we've seen and/or heard of.
in other words, open source software helps the user to verify that the executable software it compiles will not hack remote systems, and will not hack the local machine, either.
that's not to say i know anybody that sits down and reads the open source, any more than i know anybody that reads the full license agreement before clicking "i agree". but "trust", that's the theory.
there's also the creative commons aspect of it, as in "the software engineer you help train to day might be the one you hire tomorrow." if the guts of the software are visible then others can learn and share, and build upon each other, providing the best overall source code.
i've heard arguments that such a thing opens the door to piracy or software plagerism, risking profit loss. Well. Consider how many HUMAN hours went into writing and re-writing the same code based on some business man's notion of profit. Jesus Christ said that the love of money is the root of all evil.
Honey I shrunk the kids or something?
"We tried washing the glue off," Brun said. "It didn't work."
if they make the probe with 2 tons of ice =)
http://www.sunspiritgallery.com/images/venus.jpg
www.slashdot.org
http://www.2001halslegacy.com/
In the prophetic words of starcraft, Evolution Complete!
=\
Today, even my Journal is Pink!!
>I don't think it should be illegal for a person to make use
>of a helicopter and zoom lens simultaneously, even if they
>happen to be a police officer.
Well I had considerably more in mind when I said that. I think you probably understand what I had in mind. I was talking about the ability to park a helicopter/ drone/ what-have-you outside peoples' windows with a zoom lense, finding gaps in their curtains, (or forcing them to USE curtains to defend their otherwise-safe privacy) and zooming into their private activity? Do you think that police should be able to ride on the (hypothetical) loophole in the constitution, and gather surveilance without a warrant? IT IS Clear that the police have constitutional restrictions placed on their behavior. Just as it is clear that their are authorized to make arrests, to incarcerate, to carry weapons, handcuffs, handguns, AND that it is a CRIME to resist their activity. Those are some GOOD REASONS to restrict their rights. And if a person cannot think of HOW to seperate the cop's private right to observe, and their public duty to respect the constitution, well I really don't think that should translate into a privacy nightmare for me.
I agree with you that keeping a watchful eye on the financial activities of public servants is a very good idea. But I don't think it is appropriate to turn their lives into living hell, depriving them of all manner of personal privacy. (For starters, do you WANT people who don't value their own privacy in office? Would you expect them to value your own?) Ultimately, I see NO reason to translate a need to keep a watchful eye on the "backroom agreements" and financial activities of public servants and elected officials into a justification for police state powers.
The two are very seperate things, and I don't think it's suitable to "muddy" the boundary between them.
Celeb's? I'm one of those people who thinks celeb's deserve privacy too.
>If an off-duty cop observes something, is s/he allowed
>to act on that information when they're back on-duty?
The question is clear, but the courts are there for a reason, and I believe the specific details of the case are relevant to the answer, so I'm not gonna touch it.
>One of my main contentions is that I can't see any way
>to effectively place restriction on police surveillance
>in public areas which wouldn't also put unreasonable
>restrictions on the sorts of observations private
>citizens are allowed to engage in.
Well I just said something about that above here. Cops have extra rights and protections, granted by law. That makes them a different type of citizen while they're wearing that badge. The badge means the cop is acting on behalf of the goverment, which is obligated to respect the constitutional rights of the citizens. Therefore, restricting some of the cop's rights is appropriate.
=)
>However, it isn't ubiquitous awareness which is being proposed, but awareness of ...
>areas visible from public areas. In effect, it's just like the awareness provided
>by satellites, but with higher spatial and temporal resolution.
>If I understand the Florida v. Riley ruling correctly, the whole point is that
>aerial observation doesn't constitute a search, just as watching somebody from the
>top of a building doesn't constitute a search.
Well there must be a reasonable delineation, and the technological feasability/proposal of these aerial drones makes that clear. The drones are going to be equipped with ?high resolution? cameras, and able to fly/change direction and position of focus, and zoom in/out. For heaven's sake, if a cop were doing such a thing with a helecopter and a zoom lense it would be a crime. Doing it with a drone should not receive any more leniency than that. And the fact that drones are more available only exacerbates the impact of the first claim.
>However, I'm still not clear on what this hypothetical right you're referring
>to is. The right to not be observed by people in public places?
The "hypothetical right" is that (unless warrants are issued) people have the right to live their lives free from "ubiquitous/heavy scrutiny". According to that hypothetical right, there is no agent who is/should be capable of pulling in EVERY DETAIL of someone's LIFE and (without warrant) making a complete documentary of it. Yet the drones could make such possibilities into reality. The drones could look into every car window, every apartment window, every house/back yard...Everything.
>I support the right of individuals to engage in such activity (particularly when
>it's targetted towards politicians). Since police officers are also individuals,
>it's difficult for me to think of a solid reason to deny them that right.
I agree that it is important to boost public accessibility to records which make available the behavior of public officials. In particular, conflicts of interest should be visible so that people can identify clear cases of abuse.
Anyhow, I suppose it is important to distinguish, between an "off duty cop" with his freedom-loving "civilian cap" on, and an "on duty" cop, who's job is to catch crooks, but is also sworn to uphold and respect the constitution of the United States of America.
Well I'm not an attorney, but I wanted to get the ball rolling in a direction of analysis of the topic the (un)constitutionality of blanket eavesdropping. They might have a precident allowing aerial photos of the country but that is by no means a precident in favor of ubiquitous police awareness.
I loosely observed 3 potential defenses against blanket eavesdropping: 1 defense from antistalking laws, and 2 defenses from the constitution. I believe each of the defenses provides SOME degree of coverage against sweeping aerial police eavesdropping.
The fourth amendment provides that the government needs to have probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. In this case what those drones could do would be to search EVERYTHING without a warrant. They could look into windows, back yards, cars, etc. I'm personally GLAD we have our fine police officers on patrol, but that doesn't mean I want them examining every aspect of my life and/or building databases on the populace. No thanks. And I don't see much difference between that and the drones.
The Eighth amendment specifies that some rights exist, and are protected by the constitution/bill of rights, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT SPELLED OUT. The eighth amendment is the sort of broad protection which could be used to explain why police state evesdropping powers are unconstitutional. I say that because the degree of abuse from ubiqutious surveilance c/would be staggaring. I believe that much eavesdropping is PRECISELY the sort of unforeseen "discretionary right" that the framers had in mind when they added the eighth amendment.
The law(s) against stalking ? I don't know much about them, but basically their existance means that it's not only unconstitutional (for a cop) to follow a person around and search them without warrants or probably cause, it's also illegal.
OK? I hope that helps. It's good to know about that supreme court case. Can you share any of the details?
PS
IDK why they modded my first post down. It is a reasonable post.
The question in my mind is when is "blanket surveilance" of the public so universal that it is unconstitutional by default.
Relevant to finding the answer is:
From the Bill of Rights
Amendment 4
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, adn the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment 8
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
LAW:
There are ?federal?state? antistalking laws. I presume they must apply to police departments, too, if there is no warrant issued to follow a person, or use cameras/private eyes to follow them around in public areas.
Yea there's got to be more to it, but that's my layman's effort at constitionally examining evil 1984 Domesting Spy Drones.
That's for the legal analysis. And now for the larger implications:
BUSH PUSHED FOR
SECRET TRIALS
SECRET DETENTION
TORTURE
UNIVERSAL RIGHT TO DECLARE WAR
ROVING SURVEILANCE
ROVING WIRETAPS
SEARCHES WITHOUT WARRANTS
SECRET GOVERNMENT OFFICES
SECRET PRISONS
SECRET PRISONER LISTS
PRISONERS WITHOUT RIGHTS
SHADOW GOVERNMENT
EXPANDING THE MILITARY FOR A TRUMPED UP WAR
AND THE BASTARD WAS NEVER EVEN PROPERLY ELECTED!
WTF!!
I BELIEVE BUSH DID 911 ON HIS OWN,
TO JUSTIFY BUILDING A POLICE STATE.
THE BUILDUP TO THE WAR HAS ALL THE HALLMARKS OF 1937 GERMANY.
I DON'T WANT A POLICE STATE.
THERE IS NO PUBLIC MANDATE FOR A POLICE STATE.
IT'S EITHER TIME TO STORM THE WHITE HOUSE!
-OR-
DRAFT G.W. BUSH INTO THE INFANTRY, TO THE FRONT LINES, TO IRAQ. AS A RIFLEMAN!
-OR-
IMPEACH
IT IS TIME!!!
The real question in MY mind is how to verify the integrity of the election results as a whole.
p g
It seems to me that the machine should only run open source code, compiled with an open source compiler, and a checksum (or better yet a 1-to-1 file comparison) run on the executable. The open source code would be made available for download, along with the executable, and anybody who wanted to check could compare the results of what they downloaded and home-compiled with the running executable on the voting machine.
What's more, the machine should send the election results to multiple "counter" servers (i.e. anybody/everybody who wants to "listen in", real time, would be able to do so they would simply register a listener server (open source, available for download, and with same compiler). As the election goes along, all the listener servers would receive a steady stream of voting results. In such a case, Any discrepancy would raise a red flag.
There would also have to be a means of REJECTING repeat voters, non-entity voters and hacker voters. At poll close, the votes could be COUNTED on the lan and phoned in. Comparing that number with the number of votes sent from that polling place would be a reasonable cross-check.
A good start, but perhaps more would be needed..?
PS
Sry commandmer taco but that claim you made in the summary is false. It would be very difficult to hack a diebold as a basic voter, since it uses a touch screen and has no keyboard. If you think you can hack that through the touchscreen then give it a TRY. (but dont get thrown in jail!) =P
http://scdc.sccs.swarthmore.edu/diebold/machine.j
It would be an outrage if a corporation were allowed to cast a vote in elections, since a person could make a billion dummy corp's and steal the election.
Therefore, there must a clear distinction between corporate rights and human citizen's rights. The corporations should not have a full set of rights. Rather, they should have a more limited set of rights, suited to their roles as money making enterprises that are subject to LAW.
There is a domain of rights which the corporations DO NOT deserve, and human citizen's rights should not have to compete with sham corporate rights, as they have, for instance, in recent elections, vis-a-vis campaign finance from corporations, which has only "held" due to the corporations' so-called right to freedom of speech, which translates into "their right" to throw corporate money into public elections, effectively swaying an otherwise democratic government.
The framer's of the constitution would have blanched at such a thing.
Half the articles seem to be trolls in and of themselves.
Well both of those have their place. There could be lightweight suits to assist in working in a warehouse or moving company, lifting boxes and stuff, a larger one for lifting dumpsters (FULLY replacing those noisy pneumatic garbage truck lifters! =) , and then a full sized one for cargo containers like you see on 18 Wheelers.
Then there could be suits for athletics, bringing sports into a whole new dimension.
There could be *silent* airplanes that flap their own wings.
Sheesh. The invention is huge, depending on how efficient those muscles are. But I wouldn't narrow the repercussions down to small suits.
"WWII: Attach a bomb to a cat and drop it from a dive-bomber on to Nazi ships. The cat, hating water, will "wrangle" itself on to enemy ship's deck. In tests cats became unconscious in mid-air"
Then look at that smug feline in the photo next to the article. =)
Well you make a good point, and I think there is a distinction to be made between
(1)
the data that the corporation has gathered about its customers and clients (for book keeping, marketing analysis, providing optimal service, etc.),
AND
(2)
the information about the corporation's own internal affairs.
Personally, I'd be much more sympathetic to protecting the data about the corporations' clients than the data about the corporations' internal affairs. I believe the bill or rights was written to protect the rights of individual people. Corporations didn't even exist when it was written.
Without all that much evidence to back it up, it is my belief & suspicion that corporations were not designed in a way to deserve full protection of the bill of rights.
A few reasons I have are the fact that (1) A corporation cannot be placed "under arrest", and doesn't fear it, (2) the fact that many fines are not prohibitive within the scope of corporate finance, and are therefore not prohibitive of the crimes which they were designed to penalize, (3) the fact that employees within the corporation can be held individually liable in order to spare the corporation from its full share of the liability, (4) the fact that corporations (some at least) have a reputation or history of influencing political campaigns, of purchasing laws and of pushing lawsuits with greater resources than the public interest would effectively muster in defense of the public preference, (5) the fact that a skilled accountant, attorney or bookkeeper can play "shell game" with facts and resources, and that corporations have armies of them (6) the fact that investors in the corporation need not fear "lifting the corporate veil" and can invest without criminal liability for potentially criminal gains, (7) the fact that a mere handful corporations have completely transformed huge sections of the American landscape from a nice country to a neon parking lot hell in just a few decades. To name just a FEW reasons.
Well, all that being said, I honestly DON'T know that much about it, but those are the reasons I believe corporations should have only partial representation under the bill of rights. I believe there needs to be a balance, and that limiting corporate protection under the bill of rights could be the right place to stem the corporate tide. But as I said, imo, the end-clients (the everyday U.S. citizens giving up their personal information away to corporate databases) still deserve bill of rights protection WITHIN the corporation.
That is because there are some corporations which have grown to an almost inevitable size, and if the government "grants itself" the right to pick through customer data without warrants then they've effectively bypassed an important part of the Bill of Rights; it is my belief that the Bill of Rights was written before that could have happened, or the Bill of Rights would have guarded against the intrusion. I believe that the majority of U.S. citizens WANT their privacy guarded, even if some of their private information is in the hands of an almost-inevitable corporate database.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
A FASCIST in power is a tyrant, right?
The administration's CLAIM is that they want to sort the data to find the child porn downloaders. But all that means is they would like to be able to search in a blanket way, without first meeting the requirements set forth in the bill of rights.
From Article 4 of the Bill of Rights:
"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."
The article spells it out: blanket searches are unconstitutional b/c they do not spell out the particular place to be searched. Just saying "there's got to be SOMETHING on that server that's illegal just isn't good enough.
On those grounds, conducting blanket evesdropping on server(s) that THEY DON'T OWN is completely unconstitutional; furthermore, there is already a supreme court ruling which says they cannot perform ANY evesdropping on THEIR OWN servers. So they couldn't "work around it" by putting "snoopy routers" at various checkpoints.
Yea I agree that the Iraq war was unjustified, and that there was never a smoking gun pointing from Iraq. I believe that a heroic soldier would have walked away from military service in Iraq.
But it's not easy to walk away from military duty. AWOL carries considerable consequences...and most soldiers ?want? to return home to the USA? And how, then, would the AWOL return back home?
I cannot say what happened in their minds. I don't know how they reasoned it out, that it would be "ok" to fight an unjust war, but I imagine some of them probably have a notion of the war not being justified.
I believe it would be difficult to convince U.S. soldiers to use weapons against their own people. Soldiers that did such a thing would most likely be shunned.
And then who would welcome them back home?
Nobody is bribing the soldiers with political money. And there isn't enough money to corrupt them all. In particular, the grunts who would be ordered to do the shooting are the most common (?and least paid?) type of soldier in the armed forces. They are mostly good, normal people, and untainted by the things that ?could? motivate some of the "higher-ups."
I spoke with a Vietnam vet just yesterday, and he quoted me Psalm 23 from the Bible. I believe the majority of the U.S. soldiers didn't check their conscience at the door when they took up their rifles.