Zimmerman was told to de-escalate the situation by the 911 operator by staying in his vehicle and instead he decided to escalate. That's murder.
No, no it is not. It isn't because that isn't what happened and a 911 operator's instructions carry no more weight than mine would. It is a request, nothing more. You're letting your desire for it to be murder cloud things.
I'm not sure I understand the desire on the part of some for this case to be something other than what it is.
He deliberately went out with a weapon to kill someone.
False. You're attributing intent where none has been proven. Carrying a gun does not equal intent to kill anymore than wearing your seat belt indicates an intention to get into a car wreck.
Why does that matter? All that matters is that I have a perfectly usable set of computers that do what I want. I don't care if dear old gran or my neighbor uses it. I hope they would for their own benefit, but I don't care if they don't.
If what you're doing with it only includes things that do not require broad support, congrats. If on the other hand you'd like to still play games on a PC and not have to reboot to Windows, this stance is in fact one of the things that relegate us Linux users to second or third class status.
It is a legitmate question as to why Nvidia doesn't open source the drivers or write new open source ones. The most logical thing is the chicken and egg problem of there being no money in it because there are no users, and no users because there isn't enough support.
We have awesome desktop environments, the same browsers (or better) as every other OS, and generally the same hardware support. This is the one last thing that always results in a "nope".
"Can I play games on it?"
"Only if you want to play ancient games over a decade old, or humble bundle games."
Do you really have to ask who at wikileaks made this decision? Is there anyone with any power to do that other than the obvious answer? Can it be any more clear how dedicated the site is to the promotion of one individual's ego over the stated mission?
Hush you. Wikileaks can do no wrong. Neither can He Who Shall Not Be Named.
You're ignoring real-life. It doesn't matter if I know how to merge properly if the person in front of me doesn't. It doesn't matter if all of us know how to merge properly, if (as is the case on I-95 around Boston) there isn't a merge lane. (No, really. On an number of entrances there simply isn't one. No right shoulder either).
Truth. Which reminds me, I hate driving around there.
A poorly designed merge section from one highway to another is what convinced me I needed a quick car.
It isn't safe merging into 60+ MPH traffic at 30 MPH. Top speed typically isn't a problem but acceleration on cars with wimpy engines is.
Exactly, people don't usually want more horsepower for greater top speed, they want the greater acceleration. Sure my car doesn't need 300 hp to get to 141 MPH (which I'll rarely get to) but being able to go 0-60 in under 6 seconds even with passengers is what's worth it. With all the highway driving I do that does indeed make me feel much safer.
I'm going to agree with this too. For me, I want all kinds of power not to go super fast (though that is nice) but to be able to get out of trouble quickly. Whether that is merging quickly, or jumping forward when a tractor-trailer decides I'm invisible. Those are some of the reasons I don't want a tin can econobox. If the only driving I was ever going to do was around the corner to the store and back it might be different.
I think it hinges on the question of how easy is it to accidentally send an SMS to everyone in a Blackberry address book?
I have never used a Blackberry. I use an HTC and wouldn't know how to do it intentionally, let alone by accident. Does anyone (who uses a Blackberry) know how plausible it is?
I'll grant that. However, the thing is that the plan makes no real sense. If the goal is to proposition the girls in question it would surely be far easier and leave far less evidence laying around to just ask them at class. If they say yes, I suppose he's happy. If they say no and complain to their parents, there's zero evidence laying around. I suppose we could just assume he's the worse person ever at thinking things through, but damn this is pretty obvious isn't it?
Yet he was found guilty meaning the jury obviously felt there was enough evidence to convict.
You can't suggest there is a more simple explanation when it suits you and ignore it where it doesn't.
The most simple explanation in this situation was that he was in fact trying to groom the kids and that the jury felt there was enough evidence to that fact to convict, hence why he was convicted for it.
So you're really suggesting that someone came up with the bizarre plan of texting every single person they know to attempt to "groom the kids" on a mere hope that it would work? Seriously? What's the best case (for him) scenario here? It works, the gets the girls but then has to explain the mistake over and over again to everyone he knows and likely hearing about it for years after?
That's simpler to believe than he accidentally sent it to everyone when meaning to send it to one person? Really?!
While admittedly not knowing if they do this in UK courts, a far simpler explanation is that the judge explained the law to the jury in such a manner that it invalidated the explanation of the accused (sending such a message to a sub-legal girl is illegal no matter what for instance) and they convicted on that alone.
Either that or this guy just came up with the most complicated method to attempt to contact young girls for sex ever. Since they were in his swimming class, wouldn't it be a million times easier to just talk to them in private sometime there? With no evidence laying around?
There are few things more disturbing than "maximum penalty is death, but only people who _really_ deserve it will be subjected to it". The rules should be more explicit, outlining what qualifies for which range of punishments. Nor is there a reason to have special treatment depending on who you send the information to. Is it worse to share state secrets with Wikileaks than with, say, New York Times reporter who publishes it? Wikileaks certainly hasn't done anything more than publishing the info.
The biggest difference between the New York Times and Wikileaks is that the Times is more likely to give a damn about the consequences of releasing the information whereas Wikileaks clearly doesn't as long as they get a chance to dig at and/or embarrass the US or US companies.
As to the death penalty, the rules are very explicit. Merely asking Assange about his time in the embassy isn't even technically eligible for the death penalty. That wouldn't be much different than saying that saying hello to him on the street could get you put to death. Despite what some may think, the military isn't as callous and random as that.:-)
There are few things more disturbing than "maximum penalty is death, but only people who _really_ deserve it will be subjected to it". The rules should be more explicit, outlining what qualifies for which range of punishments. Nor is there a reason to have special treatment depending on who you send the information to. Is it worse to share state secrets with Wikileaks than with, say, New York Times reporter who publishes it? Wikileaks certainly hasn't done anything more than publishing the info.
The Supreme court and other judicial bodies do have case law to help them determine the rules of when a specific punishment is in line with the constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishment. There is also legislation that determines when a specific punishment is considered just and fair. Finally, all members of the armed forces are held to the Uniform Code of Military Justice which goes into detail the various offenses and potential punishments.
There are two reasons that a leak to the New York Times would probably be treated differently than a leak to WikiLeaks. First of all, the editors of the NY Times know not to bite the hand that feeds them. They get all sorts of "leaks" from various politicians and perhaps even military sources. If they published an article that was considered treasonous, then they would lose those sources. Secondly, the customers of the NY Times are mostly US citizens who, on average, are quite patriotic people who would be deeply offended by a news source that caused the death of US citizens, or caused harm to the interests of the citizens. The NY Times would use judgement in publishing a leak. WikiLeaks would do no such thing. They published those diplomatic cables without hesitation or consideration of the effects it might have to the world. Their only concern was releasing the leaks in such a way as to generate donations, or to increase the prestige of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. He is also not a citizen, and there are usually enhancements for leaking materials to non-citizens as well.
Finally, when this WikiLeaks thing came to a head, I was doing contract work for the US government. All government employees, contractors, and contracting companies were notified at that time that looking at, or contributing to WikiLeaks was against the rules that the employees, contractors, and corporations agreed to when they received their security clearances. If you did not have a clearance, using WikiLeaks could disqualify you from receiving one. It was no secret. If you have or want a security clearance then you shouldn't be involved with the site. The US Military is just formalizing this point, and frankly I don't blame them. I think Julian seems to like the limelight a little too much for my tastes.
I am not seeing the "passing military secrets" anywhere. Unless the rules have been significantly rephrased, they refer to "communicating with". I.e. a member of the military asking Assange about his time in Ecuadorian embassy is technically eligible for death penalty too (yes, I don't expect that to be applied, but formal eligibility is disturbing enough).
QFT!
Let's be clear. They will not, and could not prosecute you for saying anything to Julian Assange, and there are clear and fast rules on when the death penalty is even applicable. You have to violate the law by disclosing information to him that you are required to protect. If you are military personnel and you let him stay at your house, you could be arrested for aiding the enemy, but I'd bet that unless some secret was disclosed, they would probably only court marshal the person involved.
I'd actually be surprised if they'd prosecuted for that. Even a NJP unless there has been some general order issued not to have contact with him. That said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it put any clearance a person had into serious jeopardy.
How does that post get +5 insightful? Are 90% of the members of this site trolls now?
Damn I'm sick of reading government fed rhetoric on this trollfest.
Is "troll" what you say when you mean "doesn't agree with me"? The amusing bit is that I'm the last bloody one to tout a government prospective. It's incompatible with my politics. That said, there was nothing factually incorrect in what I said. There are times to call out the government for stupidity and there are times to panic, as it were. This is neither and it would be wise for us to know the difference lest we are ignored when the wolf really is at the gate.
That's a extreme far cry from designating anyone anything.
reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.
The article claims (and that's TFA not the summary), that technically any military personnel communicating with Wikileaks/Assange may be charged with a crime that goes all the way to death as penalty. That does seem alarming.
The article does claim that. However, that too is alarmist. If you're a member of the military and you send an email to Wikileaks from home, it is likely nothing would ever happen. If you send one from your jrandomguy@army.mil address then can we really say it is shocking if that might get some attention at this point? The part that is alarmist though is that merely communicating with them isn't going to result in anyone getting even remotely close to the death penalty.
If such a person passed operational secrets that could reasonably lead to US or other forces being compromised then it should be no surprise at all if said person ended up making little rocks out of big rocks or worse.
Sometimes I think people get so caught up in the Wikileaks/Assange is awesome thing that they forget that actions have consequences. They get so caught up in the idea that "information wants to be free" and some variation of "the US is evil!" that they forget that sometimes releasing such information can do far far more harm than good. The people in the States may not be at war, but those guys over in Afghanistan sure as hell are. I hope that makes sense.
To directly address your point about it being alarming, passing military secrets to the enemy has always meant serious punishments. This is nothing new. Dressing it up as something else doesn't change what it is, no?
The problem is that the reporter that originally covered this (New York Times's Ashley Parker) has stated that Romney said it in the form of a joke and was not being serious. Seems like not being a moron is a fine line even for Linux creators.
Ashley’s response to the question:
The Los Angeles Times story that relayed Romney’s airplane remark to the world was based off a pool report written by the New York Times‘s Ashley Parker. When we asked Parker this morning whether it seemed as if Romney made the mark in jest, she left no doubt. “Romney was joking,” she e-mailed. Parker told us that while the pool report didn’t explicitly indicate that Romney was joking, it was self-evident that he was. ”The pool report provided the full transcript of his comments on Ann’s plane scare,” she said, “and it was clear from the context that he was not being serious.”
I'm no fan of Mitt's at all, even if I do tend to think he's marginally better to the opposition. That said, it is extremely annoying to have people of certain political bents jump all over the comment as if it were serious and then when it was forcefully pointed out that it was a joke more than half of them responded by dismissing that it was a joke and just saying the comment still proved he was an idiot.
Linus did at least mention that he was wrong, which gives him some serious points for admitting he was wrong. More than I can say for most of the people who responded to the G+ thread in question.
That's not their job, is it? Wouldn't this be up to Congress, the courts, the State Department?
I guess its official. We are being run by a military junta.
I'm going to go with "Alarmist and Misleading Title"
There was an investigation into a contractor who expressed support of Assange and Wikileaks and attended rallies supporting same. Given that said contractor had access to classified material, I can't say that it is entirely unreasonable to launch an investigation to determine whether or not this person decided to cross the line from mere expressions of support to leaking data. The suspected offense was "communicating with the enemy". Perhaps not the best choice but I'm not sure they have a better sounding title/rule to do the investigation under.
That's a extreme far cry from designating anyone anything. Of course, we can't have a story about Assange and/or Wikileaks without the requisite amount of drama and puffing up so you end up with "Enemy of State". On slashdot we're also not "allowed" to mention the massive amount of harm that Wikileaks has caused. Only the good. So, I'll just leave that part alone.
Wait, hold up, you think the police always charge people with the crime they actually committed?
Always? No. In this case, I'm going to go with the pictures which clearly show them sitting in the middle of the street. Likely it is the entry way to the Casino instead of a public street (which would also have gotten them arrested).
Ummm, in your protester example to be accurate they were arrested for trespassing not protesting. They were on the company property blocking the entrance to the business. Regardless of their motivation they were arrested for violating the law.
Do you honestly think they would explicitly state that the employees were arrested for forming a union? They were fired which made them trespassers and gave the police the authority to make the arrest. You probably believe the Chinese press would explicitly say the employees were arrested for forming a union. They would instead say that the arrests were made on similar grounds as the ones in the US.
If you're blocking access to a business on the business' property, you're a trespasser. It doesn't matter whether you're protesting for a union or just being a pain in the rear, you're breaking the law. Your message isn't the issue, but the delivery method is. They could have just as easily picketed on the side walk, but that doesn't get the "Union organizers arrested!!!" headlines they wanted so badly.
You only asked for one example, so here you go: 23 people arrested for protesting against being fired for trying to form a union. [sott.net] I could find more examples, but you only asked for one.
Those were 23 trespassers arrested for the crime of trespassing. They were not arrested for trying to form a union. That's like saying the OWS people got arrested for their message and beliefs and not for the pooping in public and camping where it isn't allowed.
There is a giant difference between getting arrested for how you deliver your message and getting arrested for the message itself.
How about for the way they look even though they have papers?
Arrested for lying on a document and saying they aren't a US citizen. I'm shocked, shocked I tells ya, that someone who said they weren't a citizen (even though they were) was treated like they aren't a citizen. To prove the case you need something more like: "A person who looked Mexican was minding their own business, was approached and arrested for not having their papers". Otherwise, you're reaching for corner cases where a person could prove nearly anything.
Here I am, buying cheap electronic components, and I know that by doing so I support a state where the police can arrest you if they don't like the way you look and your papers don't convince them that you are a good citizen. A place where any worker can just be fired and replaced without reason. A state, where workers have no right to organize and might even be arrested for trying.
-But on the other hand, I like the cheap stuff I get from Arizona.
Hey, know what's so insightful and awesome about this post? Nothing.
Do you have even a single example of someone being arrested for trying to form a Union? Oh, none? Awesome.
A single example of a US citizen being arrested for the way they look and not having papers?
If you really think the situation here is even remotely similar to there, then you are clearly very clueless. Go travel. See the world. Come back when you've acquired a clue.
Don't worry, I'm in the same boat too. All I've gathered is that it's The Next Big Thing (tm) and deals with The Cloud (tm). According to them anyway.
It's a Cloud Management system capable of using multiple back-ends to run the actual VMs. It manages virtual networks/disks and related resources and ties it all together.
I suppose you could look at it as the glue that takes KVM/Xen/XCP and turns it into a "cloud".
Most of Android marketshare comes from prepaid and free-after-subsidy low end phones with no margin. This is why every Android manufacturer combined times 4 doesn't equal only Apple's profit.
So.... you're bragging that Apple will charge you double the price for what is, in the end, a very similar product? This is a good thing?
The real question is, who cares? Everyone knows that a large number of core... devotees... are going to snap up the next iPhone no matter what else is on the market and whether it is the best phone/device or not. Because Apple.
What's more, even if the the pre-order sales for X beat Y who cares? Popularity has never assured quality, just look at Windows.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Zimmerman was told to de-escalate the situation by the 911 operator by staying in his vehicle and instead he decided to escalate. That's murder.
No, no it is not. It isn't because that isn't what happened and a 911 operator's instructions carry no more weight than mine would. It is a request, nothing more. You're letting your desire for it to be murder cloud things.
I'm not sure I understand the desire on the part of some for this case to be something other than what it is.
He shot and killed a man.
True.
He deliberately went out with a weapon to kill someone.
False. You're attributing intent where none has been proven. Carrying a gun does not equal intent to kill anymore than wearing your seat belt indicates an intention to get into a car wreck.
How is that not murder?
See above.
Now I have to admit that I have been playing Minecraft lately... but honestly, gaming is not a reason that I have a computer.
Sure, and I don't game that much either. That said, lots of people do who are more or less trapped on Windows.
Why does that matter? All that matters is that I have a perfectly usable set of computers that do what I want. I don't care if dear old gran or my neighbor uses it. I hope they would for their own benefit, but I don't care if they don't.
If what you're doing with it only includes things that do not require broad support, congrats. If on the other hand you'd like to still play games on a PC and not have to reboot to Windows, this stance is in fact one of the things that relegate us Linux users to second or third class status.
It is a legitmate question as to why Nvidia doesn't open source the drivers or write new open source ones. The most logical thing is the chicken and egg problem of there being no money in it because there are no users, and no users because there isn't enough support.
We have awesome desktop environments, the same browsers (or better) as every other OS, and generally the same hardware support. This is the one last thing that always results in a "nope".
"Can I play games on it?"
"Only if you want to play ancient games over a decade old, or humble bundle games."
"So, nothing made in the last 10 years?"
"Want to fiddle with WINE?"
"Nope."
End of discussion.
Do you really have to ask who at wikileaks made this decision? Is there anyone with any power to do that other than the obvious answer? Can it be any more clear how dedicated the site is to the promotion of one individual's ego over the stated mission?
Hush you. Wikileaks can do no wrong. Neither can He Who Shall Not Be Named.
That said, yeah, you're right.
As a European I can't help but wonder if this problem is at least partly down to American's obsession with automatic transmissions?
With a manual, if I need a quick burst of acceleration to, as you say "get me out of trouble", I downshift, goose the engine and shift back up.
That might be part of it. However, all the downshifting and goosing in the world isn't going to make a 75HP (or less) econobox go any faster. :-)
You're ignoring real-life. It doesn't matter if I know how to merge properly if the person in front of me doesn't. It doesn't matter if all of us know how to merge properly, if (as is the case on I-95 around Boston) there isn't a merge lane. (No, really. On an number of entrances there simply isn't one. No right shoulder either).
Truth. Which reminds me, I hate driving around there.
A poorly designed merge section from one highway to another is what convinced me I needed a quick car.
It isn't safe merging into 60+ MPH traffic at 30 MPH. Top speed typically isn't a problem but acceleration on cars with wimpy engines is.
Exactly, people don't usually want more horsepower for greater top speed, they want the greater acceleration. Sure my car doesn't need 300 hp to get to 141 MPH (which I'll rarely get to) but being able to go 0-60 in under 6 seconds even with passengers is what's worth it. With all the highway driving I do that does indeed make me feel much safer.
I'm going to agree with this too. For me, I want all kinds of power not to go super fast (though that is nice) but to be able to get out of trouble quickly. Whether that is merging quickly, or jumping forward when a tractor-trailer decides I'm invisible. Those are some of the reasons I don't want a tin can econobox. If the only driving I was ever going to do was around the corner to the store and back it might be different.
I think it hinges on the question of how easy is it to accidentally send an SMS to everyone in a Blackberry address book?
I have never used a Blackberry. I use an HTC and wouldn't know how to do it intentionally, let alone by accident. Does anyone (who uses a Blackberry) know how plausible it is?
I'll grant that. However, the thing is that the plan makes no real sense. If the goal is to proposition the girls in question it would surely be far easier and leave far less evidence laying around to just ask them at class. If they say yes, I suppose he's happy. If they say no and complain to their parents, there's zero evidence laying around. I suppose we could just assume he's the worse person ever at thinking things through, but damn this is pretty obvious isn't it?
Yet he was found guilty meaning the jury obviously felt there was enough evidence to convict.
You can't suggest there is a more simple explanation when it suits you and ignore it where it doesn't.
The most simple explanation in this situation was that he was in fact trying to groom the kids and that the jury felt there was enough evidence to that fact to convict, hence why he was convicted for it.
So you're really suggesting that someone came up with the bizarre plan of texting every single person they know to attempt to "groom the kids" on a mere hope that it would work? Seriously? What's the best case (for him) scenario here? It works, the gets the girls but then has to explain the mistake over and over again to everyone he knows and likely hearing about it for years after?
That's simpler to believe than he accidentally sent it to everyone when meaning to send it to one person? Really?!
While admittedly not knowing if they do this in UK courts, a far simpler explanation is that the judge explained the law to the jury in such a manner that it invalidated the explanation of the accused (sending such a message to a sub-legal girl is illegal no matter what for instance) and they convicted on that alone.
Either that or this guy just came up with the most complicated method to attempt to contact young girls for sex ever. Since they were in his swimming class, wouldn't it be a million times easier to just talk to them in private sometime there? With no evidence laying around?
There are few things more disturbing than "maximum penalty is death, but only people who _really_ deserve it will be subjected to it". The rules should be more explicit, outlining what qualifies for which range of punishments. Nor is there a reason to have special treatment depending on who you send the information to. Is it worse to share state secrets with Wikileaks than with, say, New York Times reporter who publishes it? Wikileaks certainly hasn't done anything more than publishing the info.
The biggest difference between the New York Times and Wikileaks is that the Times is more likely to give a damn about the consequences of releasing the information whereas Wikileaks clearly doesn't as long as they get a chance to dig at and/or embarrass the US or US companies.
As to the death penalty, the rules are very explicit. Merely asking Assange about his time in the embassy isn't even technically eligible for the death penalty. That wouldn't be much different than saying that saying hello to him on the street could get you put to death. Despite what some may think, the military isn't as callous and random as that. :-)
There are few things more disturbing than "maximum penalty is death, but only people who _really_ deserve it will be subjected to it". The rules should be more explicit, outlining what qualifies for which range of punishments. Nor is there a reason to have special treatment depending on who you send the information to. Is it worse to share state secrets with Wikileaks than with, say, New York Times reporter who publishes it? Wikileaks certainly hasn't done anything more than publishing the info.
The Supreme court and other judicial bodies do have case law to help them determine the rules of when a specific punishment is in line with the constitutional bar against cruel and unusual punishment. There is also legislation that determines when a specific punishment is considered just and fair. Finally, all members of the armed forces are held to the Uniform Code of Military Justice which goes into detail the various offenses and potential punishments.
There are two reasons that a leak to the New York Times would probably be treated differently than a leak to WikiLeaks. First of all, the editors of the NY Times know not to bite the hand that feeds them. They get all sorts of "leaks" from various politicians and perhaps even military sources. If they published an article that was considered treasonous, then they would lose those sources. Secondly, the customers of the NY Times are mostly US citizens who, on average, are quite patriotic people who would be deeply offended by a news source that caused the death of US citizens, or caused harm to the interests of the citizens. The NY Times would use judgement in publishing a leak. WikiLeaks would do no such thing. They published those diplomatic cables without hesitation or consideration of the effects it might have to the world. Their only concern was releasing the leaks in such a way as to generate donations, or to increase the prestige of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. He is also not a citizen, and there are usually enhancements for leaking materials to non-citizens as well.
Finally, when this WikiLeaks thing came to a head, I was doing contract work for the US government. All government employees, contractors, and contracting companies were notified at that time that looking at, or contributing to WikiLeaks was against the rules that the employees, contractors, and corporations agreed to when they received their security clearances. If you did not have a clearance, using WikiLeaks could disqualify you from receiving one. It was no secret. If you have or want a security clearance then you shouldn't be involved with the site. The US Military is just formalizing this point, and frankly I don't blame them. I think Julian seems to like the limelight a little too much for my tastes.
I am not seeing the "passing military secrets" anywhere. Unless the rules have been significantly rephrased, they refer to "communicating with". I.e. a member of the military asking Assange about his time in Ecuadorian embassy is technically eligible for death penalty too (yes, I don't expect that to be applied, but formal eligibility is disturbing enough).
QFT!
Let's be clear. They will not, and could not prosecute you for saying anything to Julian Assange, and there are clear and fast rules on when the death penalty is even applicable. You have to violate the law by disclosing information to him that you are required to protect. If you are military personnel and you let him stay at your house, you could be arrested for aiding the enemy, but I'd bet that unless some secret was disclosed, they would probably only court marshal the person involved.
I'd actually be surprised if they'd prosecuted for that. Even a NJP unless there has been some general order issued not to have contact with him. That said, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it put any clearance a person had into serious jeopardy.
Of course you're "allowed" to mention it. At most you'll suffer a negative moderation. Even that you can combat by showing evidence.
Ah true. Sometimes it isn't worth getting into a shouting match with a fence post though. :-)
How does that post get +5 insightful? Are 90% of the members of this site trolls now?
Damn I'm sick of reading government fed rhetoric on this trollfest.
Is "troll" what you say when you mean "doesn't agree with me"? The amusing bit is that I'm the last bloody one to tout a government prospective. It's incompatible with my politics. That said, there was nothing factually incorrect in what I said. There are times to call out the government for stupidity and there are times to panic, as it were. This is neither and it would be wise for us to know the difference lest we are ignored when the wolf really is at the gate.
That's a extreme far cry from designating anyone anything.
reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.
The article claims (and that's TFA not the summary), that technically any military personnel communicating with Wikileaks/Assange may be charged with a crime that goes all the way to death as penalty. That does seem alarming.
The article does claim that. However, that too is alarmist. If you're a member of the military and you send an email to Wikileaks from home, it is likely nothing would ever happen. If you send one from your jrandomguy@army.mil address then can we really say it is shocking if that might get some attention at this point? The part that is alarmist though is that merely communicating with them isn't going to result in anyone getting even remotely close to the death penalty.
If such a person passed operational secrets that could reasonably lead to US or other forces being compromised then it should be no surprise at all if said person ended up making little rocks out of big rocks or worse.
Sometimes I think people get so caught up in the Wikileaks/Assange is awesome thing that they forget that actions have consequences. They get so caught up in the idea that "information wants to be free" and some variation of "the US is evil!" that they forget that sometimes releasing such information can do far far more harm than good. The people in the States may not be at war, but those guys over in Afghanistan sure as hell are. I hope that makes sense.
To directly address your point about it being alarming, passing military secrets to the enemy has always meant serious punishments. This is nothing new. Dressing it up as something else doesn't change what it is, no?
The problem is that the reporter that originally covered this (New York Times's Ashley Parker) has stated that Romney said it in the form of a joke and was not being serious. Seems like not being a moron is a fine line even for Linux creators.
Ashley’s response to the question:
The Los Angeles Times story that relayed Romney’s airplane remark to the world was based off a pool report written by the New York Times‘s Ashley Parker. When we asked Parker this morning whether it seemed as if Romney made the mark in jest, she left no doubt. “Romney was joking,” she e-mailed. Parker told us that while the pool report didn’t explicitly indicate that Romney was joking, it was self-evident that he was. ”The pool report provided the full transcript of his comments on Ann’s plane scare,” she said, “and it was clear from the context that he was not being serious.”
I'm no fan of Mitt's at all, even if I do tend to think he's marginally better to the opposition. That said, it is extremely annoying to have people of certain political bents jump all over the comment as if it were serious and then when it was forcefully pointed out that it was a joke more than half of them responded by dismissing that it was a joke and just saying the comment still proved he was an idiot.
Linus did at least mention that he was wrong, which gives him some serious points for admitting he was wrong. More than I can say for most of the people who responded to the G+ thread in question.
That's not their job, is it? Wouldn't this be up to Congress, the courts, the State Department?
I guess its official. We are being run by a military junta.
I'm going to go with "Alarmist and Misleading Title"
There was an investigation into a contractor who expressed support of Assange and Wikileaks and attended rallies supporting same. Given that said contractor had access to classified material, I can't say that it is entirely unreasonable to launch an investigation to determine whether or not this person decided to cross the line from mere expressions of support to leaking data. The suspected offense was "communicating with the enemy". Perhaps not the best choice but I'm not sure they have a better sounding title/rule to do the investigation under.
That's a extreme far cry from designating anyone anything. Of course, we can't have a story about Assange and/or Wikileaks without the requisite amount of drama and puffing up so you end up with "Enemy of State". On slashdot we're also not "allowed" to mention the massive amount of harm that Wikileaks has caused. Only the good. So, I'll just leave that part alone.
Wait, hold up, you think the police always charge people with the crime they actually committed?
Always? No. In this case, I'm going to go with the pictures which clearly show them sitting in the middle of the street. Likely it is the entry way to the Casino instead of a public street (which would also have gotten them arrested).
Do you honestly think they would explicitly state that the employees were arrested for forming a union? They were fired which made them trespassers and gave the police the authority to make the arrest. You probably believe the Chinese press would explicitly say the employees were arrested for forming a union. They would instead say that the arrests were made on similar grounds as the ones in the US.
If you're blocking access to a business on the business' property, you're a trespasser. It doesn't matter whether you're protesting for a union or just being a pain in the rear, you're breaking the law. Your message isn't the issue, but the delivery method is. They could have just as easily picketed on the side walk, but that doesn't get the "Union organizers arrested!!!" headlines they wanted so badly.
You only asked for one example, so here you go: 23 people arrested for protesting against being fired for trying to form a union. [sott.net] I could find more examples, but you only asked for one.
Those were 23 trespassers arrested for the crime of trespassing. They were not arrested for trying to form a union. That's like saying the OWS people got arrested for their message and beliefs and not for the pooping in public and camping where it isn't allowed.
There is a giant difference between getting arrested for how you deliver your message and getting arrested for the message itself.
How about for the way they look even though they have papers?
Arrested for lying on a document and saying they aren't a US citizen. I'm shocked, shocked I tells ya, that someone who said they weren't a citizen (even though they were) was treated like they aren't a citizen. To prove the case you need something more like: "A person who looked Mexican was minding their own business, was approached and arrested for not having their papers". Otherwise, you're reaching for corner cases where a person could prove nearly anything.
I have. It's amazing people still think we're #1.
Where? If the US isn't "#1", who is?
At the risk of repeating something that may have already been said here...
Pakistan's PM can get bent.
I know dude!
Here I am, buying cheap electronic components, and I know that by doing so I support a state
where the police can arrest you if they don't like the way you look and your papers don't convince them that you are a good citizen.
A place where any worker can just be fired and replaced without reason.
A state, where workers have no right to organize and might even be arrested for trying.
-But on the other hand, I like the cheap stuff I get from Arizona.
Hey, know what's so insightful and awesome about this post? Nothing.
Do you have even a single example of someone being arrested for trying to form a Union? Oh, none? Awesome.
A single example of a US citizen being arrested for the way they look and not having papers?
If you really think the situation here is even remotely similar to there, then you are clearly very clueless. Go travel. See the world. Come back when you've acquired a clue.
Don't worry, I'm in the same boat too. All I've gathered is that it's The Next Big Thing (tm) and deals with The Cloud (tm). According to them anyway.
It's a Cloud Management system capable of using multiple back-ends to run the actual VMs. It manages virtual networks/disks and related resources and ties it all together.
I suppose you could look at it as the glue that takes KVM/Xen/XCP and turns it into a "cloud".
Probably because 31% of North Americans are likely to purchase the iPhone 5.
http://www.marketnews.ca/content/index/page?pid=11889
Most of Android marketshare comes from prepaid and free-after-subsidy low end phones with no margin. This is why every Android manufacturer combined times 4 doesn't equal only Apple's profit.
So.... you're bragging that Apple will charge you double the price for what is, in the end, a very similar product? This is a good thing?
The real question is, who cares? Everyone knows that a large number of core... devotees... are going to snap up the next iPhone no matter what else is on the market and whether it is the best phone/device or not. Because Apple.
What's more, even if the the pre-order sales for X beat Y who cares? Popularity has never assured quality, just look at Windows. :)