"I've had one of those weird donations happen to me. Got $5 from a Muslim Charity in Switzerland. Why would they want to give me money? I'm an atheist for all the gods' sake..."
IMO, this kind of threat still continues today. For those of you who may have seen "The Sum of All Fears" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sum_of_all_fears/ or "By Dawn's Early Light" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003334-by_dawns_e arly_light/ , it doesn't take much to think of a moderately plausible scenario where we blow ourselves back into the stone age. Today we can look at a terrorist motivation for possible fissile material to enter via poor port security, for example, or porous borders in the US/Canada US/Mexico.
Actually, what really scares me are biological weapons (think Smallpox's Variola Major or other very nasty bugs) that can be transported with less readily available detection (Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is a good read, so is Stephen King's The Stand, and then there is the movie 12 Monkeys http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/12_monkeys/). My High school biology teacher (back in the mid 80's), who sevred as an officer in the Army a few years before, said biological weapons concerned her much more than nuclear for several reasons:
* easier to obtain the needed materials * less technology needed to deploy * time delay between deployment and noticable effects * ease and speed by which pathogens can spread
So yes, I can see why the risks are significant and recurrant. There's plenty of Fear, Hate, Ignorance and Mistrust going around for possibilities to crop up. I just hope there are enough people like Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov, in the right place, and at the right time, to help save us from ourselves.
Excluding the currently proposed revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA already provides for the oversight of Wiretapping via the FISA Courts and Congress.
Consider the following Facts:
1) The FISA Court has the authority to hear and issue decicions in a completely secret manner, so that if the court chooses, neither the case or its decision will be made public. The FISA court has, on very rare (and mostly recent occasions) occasions chosen to state its decisions publicly, but this is quite unusual.
2) From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligence _Surveillance_Act#FISA_court): "Proceedings before the FISA court are ex parte and non-adversarial. The court hears evidence presented solely by the Department of Justice. There is no provision for a release of information regarding such hearings, or for the record of information actually collected." This means that unless the FISA Court chooses to publicly release its findings, its decisions cannot be challenged by any other court (including SCOTUS) save the FISA appeals court, which only met once in US history, in 2002.
3) FISA already has provisions which allow for the President to temporarily bypass the 11 member court, in cases that he deems of sufficient need, as long as the case is brought before it soon after. The President (via U.S. AG Alberto Gonzales) has acknowledged this provision but essentially said that it is too much trouble to have to go back to the FISA court every time he wants to start a new round of spying programs or make changes to them.
Why then, is it neccessary to make any more changes to FISA?
I did read the SB2453: like most bills it is full of very specific verbage and definitions. From what I could digest of it it has a lot of room for a President to wiggle through (IANAL, but the ACLU which has plenty of them and found it "stunning"). I also read the wired article. SB2453 makes me nervous precisely for the reasons you cite, listed below:
"1) It's for people communicating the terrorists" Duh. And Who has the legal authority to define what terrorist is? While congress could define such security terms narrowly they usually do not, deferring to President, the DOJ or the Department of State. The DOJ and DOS heads are nominated by, guess who? the President, and rubber stamped by Congress. Judging by how many people in the US are subjeced to this domestic spying program, the current President has shown he thinks a lot of US citizens could be terrorists. That bothers me, but even more is the idea that FISA courts can be ignored completely here.
"2) It's being overseen by a court." See my above comments.
"3) it's ALSO being overseen by Congress." As I stated in the beginning, FISA is already under the jurisdiction of Congress but as a whole it has demontrated remarkably little oversight to the public with respect to the current domestic surveillance. Their "solution" to the President's illgal wiretapping of citizens has been to propose this bill, which purports to make it legal. So much for the concept that no one is above the law. I doubt the courts will allow it to stand. That is, if they even get the opportunity to review it; under the proposed bill normal citizens will no longer have the right to do challenge it, only the FISA court will, and it rarely lets us know what's going on.
I think our best hope is for SCOTUS to declare the current program unconstitutional, but because Judge Taylor was so left wing in her outspoken criticism of the program, I think the strength of her decision has been weakened by it; IMO there was plenty unconsitutional about the program without having to spout so much left leaning platitudes.
To sum it up: your argument is a Red Herring.
Republicans are always so good at talking about how Government is intrusive and bad, but are almost always the first in line to vote our civil liberties away, one bill at a time. Then enough meek Democrats follow along for fear of being labled "soft on terrorism." The whole thing disgusts me.
"Well, i hope this is not the way the USA justice works."
It is.
The Defendant can (and should have if he was smart) filed a counterclaim for time and expenses if he's not guilty; that's how he can fight frivilous lawsuits (if it is one).
My sister has an old dell inspiron PIII which plays DVDs just fine.
I have an old dell inspiron PII (300Mhz) from 1998 with 256MB ram which runs Windows XP just fine and also plays DVDs (but it has a hardware decoder). It *can* play DVDs without the hardware decoder via PowerDVD, but the playback is a bit choppy.
So yes, I agree that even the slowest PIII will do the trick with 800x600 mpegII (I'm not sure about other formats like XviD) unless the CPU has its bandwidth being sucked up by other applications.
That depends on what you consider to be "the best of your ability."
It's surely unethical if it's illegal; that's what the courts are trying to sort out now; for me it's a no-brainer.
IIRC Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa) said on national television that the whole program was "probably illegal." Now a Federal Judge agrees with him, but maybe Judge Taylor's decision is flawed because she's liberal appointee whack-job.
"The true evil here is the NSA, while it is a common stratagy for the executive branch to pretend it has more power than it does, these guys took it way too far."
True evil? Imagine that! Really? Whoever could have told the NSA to do this in the first place? Must've been somebody with some serious clout...
"I think it has a lot to do with motivation. Many people feel that the Government/Bush is doing what it/he can (sometimes misdirected) to thwart terrorist attacks. Whether or not you agree with the wisdom of his decisions, it's hard to fault the motivation and gin up some "outrage".
Nixon's was clearly a case of playing unethical (and illegal) tricks on a political opponent.."
A FEW SUSTITUTIONS:
I think it has a lot to do with motivation. Many people feel that the Government/Bush is needlessly and illegally steamrolling civil liberties and privacy (often misdirected) to thwart terrroist attacks. Wether or not you agree with these assertions or the wisdom of his decisions, it's hard to fault the motivation of those who filed the suit in Federal Court and gin up some "outrage" at the loss of civil liberties and privacy.
GWB is clearly a case of playing unethical (and illegal) tricks on the Nation.
So far, at least one Federal Judge and the ACLU agrees with the illegal part.
"It's backfired on them big time and they are going to lose the basis of their suits and might even face long overdue copyright reform that will eliminate their obsolete business model."
What are you smoking? I'd love to think you're right, but I'd be in fantasy land. Do you you have any proof such reforms are underway or are being seriously discussed in circles that matter?
The point is this fellow was acting in a journalistic capacity and the laws for this kind of scenario (e.g. bloggers) haven't quite caught up with the times yet.
Acting as a journalist, if he says that no violent crime was recorded, then it should be his right to refuse to hand over the tapes. A salient issue is whether or not as a blogger he is entitled the same protections traditional journalists are, since anyone with a web page could fall back and use this as an excuse. The Judge disagreed with him (more specifically, with his attorney) so he may be spending quite a while behing bars until the matter is settled, one way or another.
Hopefully some middle ground can be found to afford serious bloggers some meaningful protection to minimize this kind of thing from happening in the future.
He's not MY congressman and is not A congressman; He's a Senator (not MY Senator). What he IS is the Peter Priciple in action, being president pro-tempore of the Senate. And yes, he's not known for being the sharpest tool in the shed; he IS known for his outbursts on the Senate floor.
And no, I don't trust him to unclog "teh internet tubes."
That's just as interesting a subject as their change of heart. Ideally there would be:
1) the option to purchase individual tracks cheap, like iTunes 2) with as little DRM as possible (preferably none) 3) the option to buy full albums that cost less than the physical version (say, Five Bucks) 4) the full albums would have the goodies like lyrics 5) there would be bonus materials not available in stores (just like with CDs that killed the LP) 6) Peer review of the tracks and/or albums would be permitted *by those who have bought them*, so we could know if the music was good or TeH sUcK.
That's because cell phone providers have realized that the cell network is not a truck that you just "dump" stuff on. It's a series of tubes. *Microwave* tubes to be exact. Competition has helped the service providers to collectively and concurrently realize this fact.
The/. article summary is inflammitory in it's description. It could have been worded so much better instead of using sensationalist language to attract our attention; "unauthorized" P2P traffic is banned. How is this law any different from other copyright laws which go after copyright infringers? Let's take a look:
1) it allows the government to go after ISPs for facilitating unauthorized P2P downloading by making this a criminal offence. 2) it makes personal "unauthorized" P2P use a civil offence. 3) the definition of "unauthorized" isn't explained in the/. sumary or the article.
Since the devil is in the details, it would be interesting to know: A) *who* gets to define "unauthorized" B) *how* is the word "unauthorized" defined and C) How much of the P2P traffic in Spain is infringing on copyright as that counrty defines it (let alone "unauthorized") D) How will unauthorized traffic be distinguished from the "authorized" kind?
Copyright infringenmt has been a crime for centuries. With the advent for P2P networks, mass infringement has become easy and convenient. Although I have no statistics on it myself, the article reports "Spain's telco giant Telefonica reports 90% of usage on its broadband lines is Internet traffic, up from 15% five years ago. Of that 90%, a massive 71% is P2P traffic." How much of that P2P traffic is infringing in nature? I suspect it's a lot. Something needs to be done to curb the infringing traffic (and I know this speaks nothing to the ridiculous copyright laws out there now).
I worry this legislation will have a chilling effect on non-infringing P2P traffic and ISPs willingness to even allow it on their networks. What will spanish ISPs do about overseas P2P traffic that goes though their lines and may or may not be infringing in nature? If I was a spanish ISP owner I'd be looking at severly resticting P2P traffic of all types, if not banning it outright.
This of course would do nothing to stop infringing P2P traffic (though it may morph into another form or disguise itself) or illegal file sharing. I just hate to see another technology suffer in copyright battles.
I do think you understand the intent behind this policy.
However, Information (especially that which exposes "high shenanigans and malfeasence" under ANY administration) wants to be free, and where there's a will there's a way. It's just that the way will be a little harder now, which is the other part of what the Bush Administartion wants.
So let's recap what the two goals are here that you and I have looked at. Security (AKA Secrecy) by means of: A) Fear (via the threat of Retribution) and B) Control
These ideas are not new. But the levels they are going to are.
Very true. That's what Governments are for: Taking our Money. And spending it (usually not in very egalitarian ways).
Once that is understood, Governments of virtually any type become much easier to understand. What distinguishes one from another in this conext (human rights and standard of living aside) is the degree to which spending occurs for special interests at the expense of the general populace.
'What ever happened to "Live free or die", "Give me liberty or give me death", or "Those who are willing to sacrifice their basic liberties to assure their security deserve neither."?'
That's easy: "Remember 9/11."
That date is a *lot* easier for people to remember than what happens when you slowly strip away Civil Liberties and Constitutional Guarantees in the name of Fighting Terrorism.
and, while it can potentially be useful *if properly implemented* , it has been found to be of questionable use as well, in many cases because "profiling" is done with unsound methodology (i.e. people are associating the wrong sets of identifiers/characteristics with what they are trying to find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling#Co ntroversies .
Please note I am *not* trying to defend the idea of spying on Americans with what is most certainly data-mining. I'm just pointing out it looks like they're trying to create profiles in the hopes of finding terrorists, to which I say "Assalamu'alaikum." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assalamu_alaikum
'Haven't we heard enough of this "piracy is going to kill our economy" bullshit? Why are we focusing on this, when the our (America's) trade deficit with China is over $200,000,000,000/year (yes, that is 200 billion dollars a YEAR at the current rate). Seems to me that this piracy thing is small potatoes, in the end.'
It sure is.
However, the BSA is the face of a whole lot of software owners/developers and, collectively, as an organization, they carry a lot of weight, just like the RIAA and MPAA does for it's collective members.
The sqeaky wheel gets the grease. Money talks. He who has the gold makes the rules. Government is pwned by big business, Et-cetera.
Probably none of this is news to you, but since your statment was worth saying, I, being captain obvious, felt compelled to chime in.
What have you been smoking? Show me the last time in the last 50 years that any major telco or cable company did anything truly innovative or worthwhile with that much "free" money (i.e. money that was not earned, such as government grants, write-offs, tax breaks, customer rate hikes and the like) like investing in infrastructure (which is THEIR responsilbility not ours) or designing vastly quicker transmssion methods.
Virtually all major innovation in the telco arena has come from competition and startups who were willing to take risks. Gov't subsidies, like old style welfare, does not encourage innovation or effort at improvement; it does the opposite.
Given past performance on the part of major telcos and cable providers (and that's pretty much all that is left), how can customers paying more for the same services now, with the promise of *much* better services later, be anything but laughable?
when I went to middele schoool we were held accountable for illegal activities which occurred off school grounds. Usually this was fighting, where all involved parties were suspended unless there was adequate proof that someone was definatley not a willing participant. These reprisals came as a surprise to no one.
I dont have a problem per se with schools going after student who do illegal things with their blogs (I now duck my head in anticipation of typical/. backlash.) In principle (no pun intended).
Unfortunately, I can see this being abused by administrators claiming libel, slander and the like. These kinds of charges are easy to make and hard to prove. And there is where the problem is. I can see school districts leveling discipline vs. students blogging on incessently (sp?) about some school or BOE employee who pissed them off for whatever reason, justified or not, and doing so without a criminal convition or civil suit in favor of the plaintiff. If and when BOEs do this then the student is essentially guilty until proven innocent. It is often done under the lame and legally tenuous pretense of "In Loco Parentis" (unless the student was dumb enough to do it on school grounds or signed a prior agreement with the school that the parents co-signed)
Rich and upper middle class parents may get lawyers or in severe cases get the media on board to pressure the district to back off, but as usual working class and poor students will get stepped on.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, I suppose.
Slashdot Mirror
"I've had one of those weird donations happen to me. Got $5 from a Muslim Charity in Switzerland. Why would they want to give me money? I'm an atheist for all the gods' sake..."
Are you ironic as well?
IMO, this kind of threat still continues today. For those of you who may have seen "The Sum of All Fears" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/sum_of_all_fears/ or "By Dawn's Early Light" http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003334-by_dawns_e arly_light/ , it doesn't take much to think of a moderately plausible scenario where we blow ourselves back into the stone age. Today we can look at a terrorist motivation for possible fissile material to enter via poor port security, for example, or porous borders in the US/Canada US/Mexico.
:)
Actually, what really scares me are biological weapons (think Smallpox's Variola Major or other very nasty bugs) that can be transported with less readily available detection (Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is a good read, so is Stephen King's The Stand, and then there is the movie 12 Monkeys http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/12_monkeys/). My High school biology teacher (back in the mid 80's), who sevred as an officer in the Army a few years before, said biological weapons concerned her much more than nuclear for several reasons:
* easier to obtain the needed materials
* less technology needed to deploy
* time delay between deployment and noticable effects
* ease and speed by which pathogens can spread
So yes, I can see why the risks are significant and recurrant. There's plenty of Fear, Hate, Ignorance and Mistrust going around for possibilities to crop up. I just hope there are enough people like Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov, in the right place, and at the right time, to help save us from ourselves.
Thanks, Stan
Excluding the currently proposed revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA already provides for the oversight of Wiretapping via the FISA Courts and Congress.
e _Surveillance_Act#FISA_court): "Proceedings before the FISA court are ex parte and non-adversarial. The court hears evidence presented solely by the Department of Justice. There is no provision for a release of information regarding such hearings, or for the record of information actually collected." This means that unless the FISA Court chooses to publicly release its findings, its decisions cannot be challenged by any other court (including SCOTUS) save the FISA appeals court, which only met once in US history, in 2002.
Consider the following Facts:
1) The FISA Court has the authority to hear and issue decicions in a completely secret manner, so that if the court chooses, neither the case or its decision will be made public. The FISA court has, on very rare (and mostly recent occasions) occasions chosen to state its decisions publicly, but this is quite unusual.
2) From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Intelligenc
3) FISA already has provisions which allow for the President to temporarily bypass the 11 member court, in cases that he deems of sufficient need, as long as the case is brought before it soon after. The President (via U.S. AG Alberto Gonzales) has acknowledged this provision but essentially said that it is too much trouble to have to go back to the FISA court every time he wants to start a new round of spying programs or make changes to them.
Why then, is it neccessary to make any more changes to FISA?
I did read the SB2453: like most bills it is full of very specific verbage and definitions. From what I could digest of it it has a lot of room for a President to wiggle through (IANAL, but the ACLU which has plenty of them and found it "stunning"). I also read the wired article. SB2453 makes me nervous precisely for the reasons you cite, listed below:
"1) It's for people communicating the terrorists"
Duh. And Who has the legal authority to define what terrorist is? While congress could define such security terms narrowly they usually do not, deferring to President, the DOJ or the Department of State. The DOJ and DOS heads are nominated by, guess who? the President, and rubber stamped by Congress. Judging by how many people in the US are subjeced to this domestic spying program, the current President has shown he thinks a lot of US citizens could be terrorists. That bothers me, but even more is the idea that FISA courts can be ignored completely here.
"2) It's being overseen by a court."
See my above comments.
"3) it's ALSO being overseen by Congress."
As I stated in the beginning, FISA is already under the jurisdiction of Congress but as a whole it has demontrated remarkably little oversight to the public with respect to the current domestic surveillance. Their "solution" to the President's illgal wiretapping of citizens has been to propose this bill, which purports to make it legal. So much for the concept that no one is above the law. I doubt the courts will allow it to stand. That is, if they even get the opportunity to review it; under the proposed bill normal citizens will no longer have the right to do challenge it, only the FISA court will, and it rarely lets us know what's going on.
I think our best hope is for SCOTUS to declare the current program unconstitutional, but because Judge Taylor was so left wing in her outspoken criticism of the program, I think the strength of her decision has been weakened by it; IMO there was plenty unconsitutional about the program without having to spout so much left leaning platitudes.
To sum it up: your argument is a Red Herring.
Republicans are always so good at talking about how Government is intrusive and bad, but are almost always the first in line to vote our civil liberties away, one bill at a time. Then enough meek Democrats follow along for fear of being labled "soft on terrorism." The whole thing disgusts me.
I know who I'll be voting for in November.
"Well, i hope this is not the way the USA justice works."
It is.
The Defendant can (and should have if he was smart) filed a counterclaim for time and expenses if he's not guilty; that's how he can fight frivilous lawsuits (if it is one).
My sister has an old dell inspiron PIII which plays DVDs just fine.
x ?c=us&l=en&cs=19&oc=W3007
I have an old dell inspiron PII (300Mhz) from 1998 with 256MB ram which runs Windows XP just fine and also plays DVDs (but it has a hardware decoder). It *can* play DVDs without the hardware decoder via PowerDVD, but the playback is a bit choppy.
So yes, I agree that even the slowest PIII will do the trick with 800x600 mpegII (I'm not sure about other formats like XviD) unless the CPU has its bandwidth being sucked up by other applications.
Personally, I think a new computer every 5-6 years is sufficient for Windows slaves like myself (longer for penguins), but some people love to push the envelope so they can have the latest goodies, like this baby: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.asp
That depends on what you consider to be "the best of your ability."
It's surely unethical if it's illegal; that's what the courts are trying to sort out now; for me it's a no-brainer.
IIRC Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa) said on national television that the whole program was "probably illegal." Now a Federal Judge agrees with him, but maybe Judge Taylor's decision is flawed because she's liberal appointee whack-job.
"The true evil here is the NSA, while it is a common stratagy for the executive branch to pretend it has more power than it does, these guys took it way too far."
True evil? Imagine that! Really? Whoever could have told the NSA to do this in the first place? Must've been somebody with some serious clout...
THE ORIGINAL STATEMENT
"I think it has a lot to do with motivation. Many people feel that the Government/Bush is doing what it/he can (sometimes misdirected) to thwart terrorist attacks. Whether or not you agree with the wisdom of his decisions, it's hard to fault the motivation and gin up some "outrage".
Nixon's was clearly a case of playing unethical (and illegal) tricks on a political opponent.."
A FEW SUSTITUTIONS:
I think it has a lot to do with motivation. Many people feel that the Government/Bush is needlessly and illegally steamrolling civil liberties and privacy (often misdirected) to thwart terrroist attacks. Wether or not you agree with these assertions or the wisdom of his decisions, it's hard to fault the motivation of those who filed the suit in Federal Court and gin up some "outrage" at the loss of civil liberties and privacy.
GWB is clearly a case of playing unethical (and illegal) tricks on the Nation.
So far, at least one Federal Judge and the ACLU agrees with the illegal part.
"It's backfired on them big time and they are going to lose the basis of their suits and might even face long overdue copyright reform that will eliminate their obsolete business model."
What are you smoking? I'd love to think you're right, but I'd be in fantasy land. Do you you have any proof such reforms are underway or are being seriously discussed in circles that matter?
It's a good thing you're not a judge, then.
The point is this fellow was acting in a journalistic capacity and the laws for this kind of scenario (e.g. bloggers) haven't quite caught up with the times yet.
Acting as a journalist, if he says that no violent crime was recorded, then it should be his right to refuse to hand over the tapes. A salient issue is whether or not as a blogger he is entitled the same protections traditional journalists are, since anyone with a web page could fall back and use this as an excuse. The Judge disagreed with him (more specifically, with his attorney) so he may be spending quite a while behing bars until the matter is settled, one way or another.
Hopefully some middle ground can be found to afford serious bloggers some meaningful protection to minimize this kind of thing from happening in the future.
That was very well thought out and articulated post. Please mod it up.
He's not MY congressman and is not A congressman; He's a Senator (not MY Senator). What he IS is the Peter Priciple in action, being president pro-tempore of the Senate. And yes, he's not known for being the sharpest tool in the shed; he IS known for his outbursts on the Senate floor.
And no, I don't trust him to unclog "teh internet tubes."
That's just as interesting a subject as their change of heart. Ideally there would be:
1) the option to purchase individual tracks cheap, like iTunes
2) with as little DRM as possible (preferably none)
3) the option to buy full albums that cost less than the physical version (say, Five Bucks)
4) the full albums would have the goodies like lyrics
5) there would be bonus materials not available in stores (just like with CDs that killed the LP)
6) Peer review of the tracks and/or albums would be permitted *by those who have bought them*, so we could know if the music was good or TeH sUcK.
Anyway, just some thoughts.
That's because cell phone providers have realized that the cell network is not a truck that you just "dump" stuff on. It's a series of tubes. *Microwave* tubes to be exact. Competition has helped the service providers to collectively and concurrently realize this fact.
The /. article summary is inflammitory in it's description. It could have been worded so much better instead of using sensationalist language to attract our attention; "unauthorized" P2P traffic is banned. How is this law any different from other copyright laws which go after copyright infringers? Let's take a look:
/. sumary or the article.
1) it allows the government to go after ISPs for facilitating unauthorized P2P downloading by making this a criminal offence.
2) it makes personal "unauthorized" P2P use a civil offence.
3) the definition of "unauthorized" isn't explained in the
Since the devil is in the details, it would be interesting to know:
A) *who* gets to define "unauthorized"
B) *how* is the word "unauthorized" defined and
C) How much of the P2P traffic in Spain is infringing on copyright as that counrty defines it (let alone "unauthorized")
D) How will unauthorized traffic be distinguished from the "authorized" kind?
Copyright infringenmt has been a crime for centuries. With the advent for P2P networks, mass infringement has become easy and convenient. Although I have no statistics on it myself, the article reports "Spain's telco giant Telefonica reports 90% of usage on its broadband lines is Internet traffic, up from 15% five years ago. Of that 90%, a massive 71% is P2P traffic." How much of that P2P traffic is infringing in nature? I suspect it's a lot. Something needs to be done to curb the infringing traffic (and I know this speaks nothing to the ridiculous copyright laws out there now).
I worry this legislation will have a chilling effect on non-infringing P2P traffic and ISPs willingness to even allow it on their networks. What will spanish ISPs do about overseas P2P traffic that goes though their lines and may or may not be infringing in nature? If I was a spanish ISP owner I'd be looking at severly resticting P2P traffic of all types, if not banning it outright.
This of course would do nothing to stop infringing P2P traffic (though it may morph into another form or disguise itself) or illegal file sharing. I just hate to see another technology suffer in copyright battles.
I do think you understand the intent behind this policy.
However, Information (especially that which exposes "high shenanigans and malfeasence" under ANY administration) wants to be free, and where there's a will there's a way. It's just that the way will be a little harder now, which is the other part of what the Bush Administartion wants.
So let's recap what the two goals are here that you and I have looked at. Security (AKA Secrecy) by means of:
A) Fear (via the threat of Retribution) and
B) Control
These ideas are not new. But the levels they are going to are.
Very true. That's what Governments are for: Taking our Money. And spending it (usually not in very egalitarian ways).
Once that is understood, Governments of virtually any type become much easier to understand. What distinguishes one from another in this conext (human rights and standard of living aside) is the degree to which spending occurs for special interests at the expense of the general populace.
Such as this legislation, for example.
I don't see what your problem is: they bought those laws fair and square.
and here is the link:
h tml
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/opinion/28sun3.
IMO, the New York Times says it better, but, hey, that's just me.
'What ever happened to "Live free or die", "Give me liberty or give me death", or "Those who are willing to sacrifice their basic liberties to assure their security deserve neither."?'
That's easy: "Remember 9/11."
That date is a *lot* easier for people to remember than what happens when you slowly strip away Civil Liberties and Constitutional Guarantees in the name of Fighting Terrorism.
and, while it can potentially be useful *if properly implemented* , it has been found to be of questionable use as well, in many cases because "profiling" is done with unsound methodology (i.e. people are associating the wrong sets of identifiers/characteristics with what they are trying to find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offender_profiling#Co ntroversies .
Please note I am *not* trying to defend the idea of spying on Americans with what is most certainly data-mining. I'm just pointing out it looks like they're trying to create profiles in the hopes of finding terrorists, to which I say "Assalamu'alaikum."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assalamu_alaikum
'Haven't we heard enough of this "piracy is going to kill our economy" bullshit? Why are we focusing on this, when the our (America's) trade deficit with China is over $200,000,000,000/year (yes, that is 200 billion dollars a YEAR at the current rate). Seems to me that this piracy thing is small potatoes, in the end.'
It sure is.
However, the BSA is the face of a whole lot of software owners/developers and, collectively, as an organization, they carry a lot of weight, just like the RIAA and MPAA does for it's collective members.
The sqeaky wheel gets the grease. Money talks. He who has the gold makes the rules. Government is pwned by big business, Et-cetera.
Probably none of this is news to you, but since your statment was worth saying, I, being captain obvious, felt compelled to chime in.
What have you been smoking? Show me the last time in the last 50 years that any major telco or cable company did anything truly innovative or worthwhile with that much "free" money (i.e. money that was not earned, such as government grants, write-offs, tax breaks, customer rate hikes and the like) like investing in infrastructure (which is THEIR responsilbility not ours) or designing vastly quicker transmssion methods.
Virtually all major innovation in the telco arena has come from competition and startups who were willing to take risks. Gov't subsidies, like old style welfare, does not encourage innovation or effort at improvement; it does the opposite.
Given past performance on the part of major telcos and cable providers (and that's pretty much all that is left), how can customers paying more for the same services now, with the promise of *much* better services later, be anything but laughable?
when I went to middele schoool we were held accountable for illegal activities which occurred off school grounds. Usually this was fighting, where all involved parties were suspended unless there was adequate proof that someone was definatley not a willing participant. These reprisals came as a surprise to no one.
/. backlash.) In principle (no pun intended).
I dont have a problem per se with schools going after student who do illegal things with their blogs (I now duck my head in anticipation of typical
Unfortunately, I can see this being abused by administrators claiming libel, slander and the like. These kinds of charges are easy to make and hard to prove. And there is where the problem is. I can see school districts leveling discipline vs. students blogging on incessently (sp?) about some school or BOE employee who pissed them off for whatever reason, justified or not, and doing so without a criminal convition or civil suit in favor of the plaintiff. If and when BOEs do this then the student is essentially guilty until proven innocent. It is often done under the lame and legally tenuous pretense of "In Loco Parentis" (unless the student was dumb enough to do it on school grounds or signed a prior agreement with the school that the parents co-signed)
Rich and upper middle class parents may get lawyers or in severe cases get the media on board to pressure the district to back off, but as usual working class and poor students will get stepped on.
Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, I suppose.
It is a rare and fine thing to see such well prepared, carefully constructed and downright funny sarcasm.
;-)
My hat (virtual hat) is off to you