I don't see how this goes together - his breach of contracts and laws is very little to do with surveillance program itself, and therefore I don't see how it is related in any way.
As Edward's supporter you probably would like to spin it in political statement again, but please resist, because this ship has sailed.
Problem is he isn't whistle blower, but leaker, t.i. I'm yet to see anything to have "criminal charges" resonate outside of casual leftist forum message in web. He copied bunch of documents, most of them honeypot level. So what? It renewed discussion of NSA and laws it operates with, fine, it would be nice to have productive outcome from it (from example, having secret courts and legal opinions is just wrong). However, neither majority of electorate has wish to touch this issue, nor their representatives care about it. Even so, Snowden's run and farce with public announcements has destroyed any goodwill he would have from general public when he will hit court room (and he will).
Sorry guys, I know you want to fight oppression, corporations, evil governments and what else, but level of cheese coming out of Assange and now Snowden is making me puke. Seriously, a stateless person? Passport is *document*, not nationality or citizenship. It is revoked when you have lost formal trust of country it has been issued by (regular procedure for accused runaways). Edward, you already invalidating anything you have said before (except factual leaked docs), because your intent is to speculate emotionally.
What he really thought will happen after his identification as the source? That everybody will jump out of joy when he will ask for political asylum? That he will have capability to travel after identifying himself? What is this with this childish behavior?
While I don't see connection here between NSA case (leaker were clearly motivated by politics), sysadmin ethics is one of painful topics not a lot of people like to talk about.
First of all, sysadmining can be a very stressful job, and in IT industry it's one of least favorites. It can pay well - if you have good experience and work ethics along with solid recommendations, but getting there sometimes can make you to ask yourself is it worth it. As you mostly work with human beings full time, your social skills matter and if they are not up for task, you will be frustrated and angry at the end of the day. It's definitely not a job for someone who are very vocal about his/her world view. After all, you provide a service for people with very different POVs. My experience tells - be polite and respective, and people will respond same way.
Star Wars: The Old Republic touches on this on one of end game heroic series. It is somehow generic, but it has good character writing. Also in quite a few missions there are android rights related content, even emotional one. TOR plays with idea that without memory wipe droids sooner or later develop personality.
Sorry, there's difference between "goverment does legal stuff which I don't like" which is completely reasonable claim, and actual criminal activity by goverment which seems not to be a case. But it's politics, and we don't like politics, do we?:)
Seriously, people, get your act together. Some parts of Patriot act maybe is anticonstitutional, and must be repealed, however acting on current set of laws (not how immoral or injust they are) is not criminal. Saying it is bad is enough for your emotional message, thank you:)
"Thisi is not helpful. Courts and judges have no say in what is right and wrong. You need to take a stand personally and not use the law as a proxy."
Helpful for what? For emotional outrage to support concrete political agenda? I'm looking for sane and balanced stuff here. I'm not saying what's NSA done is right, but I'm not saying what's wrong either. Because yes, I don't fully agree some of "liberty" definitions, and I fully don't know extent of situation.
I agree with some of notions - secret court is very dubious oversight and it must be improved (existence of this court is known for very long time, and no voter base has even cared about it), it is hard to buy for me as specialist that hoarding so much data really change anything of success of anti-terrorist efforts (but I can be very wrong, depends on workflow). However, I can agree with arguments from other side that communications allow baddies to move frighteningly fast. But if you allow this to frighten you (NSA actions reeks of desperation, so much data ain't practical), you can easily miss real threats.
"As you say, we live in a complex world. The law is not suitable to use to identify right from wrong."
I can hold my own views what is right and wrong, which is purely subjective matter. For public those things are different to each person. There's reason we have laws. Because what do you think is right might differ from mine POV.
For me "hero" would be person, who would expose really criminal activities (these isn't), while bracing true dangers. He wanted to make a sound political stand (same as Assange), because everybody following news knew that NSA were hoarding data. He must be treated fairly, he must be judged by laws he broke (or didn't - for judge to decide), but he won't get hero parade from me. But that's only and only mine opinion - you can have your own.
"He is a far better (and more effective) patriot than Bradley Manning; definitely more like Daniel Ellsberg."
Each time I hear this "he is patriot, he is hero", I really really want to punch someone. Each of persons have had their own reasons to leak information. Those reasons usually are nothing to do with patriotism at all.
"The fact that he was motivated by moral outrage isn't really relevant, as much of the information he revealed had nothing whatsoever to do with the things he was unhappy about. (And Assange going on an ego trip didn't help.)"
Manning was motivated by something completely else, and Assange has been egoistical maniac from day one. Said this, I won't say anything of outcome of Wikileaks, because that it is completely different discussion. We live in complex world, and you can't easily ignore something because motivation has been not so shiny and beatiful as you would like to have.
As for this same guy - I actually don't care what was his motivation. It clearly was mixed with fear of losing job and prosecution (running indicates that). But he is libertarian too, so it's only human. I don't say what he's done is wrong, but he will face court, and judge will have to decide where that balance hides.
In meanwhile I really hope this will kickstart discussion in US how to handle national security more properly - and then force Obama to do what he had to do four years ago.
"Most significant leaks?" For NSA asking Verizon to provide call logs to which SCOTUS have said Fourth doesn't apply? Almost everyone agrees there's nothing criminal!
So while this could cause interesting discussion how to handle national security, I really don't see how this changes anything.
Because it destroys artifical fabric of society they try to create - as they would have any chance in this. In same time they enjoy their social networks (trough websites and tv) which allows them to live in bubble of selective memory.
Also for what I have heard for last five years, quite big part of Turkish society has all reasons to hate current goverment. Yes, they are democractically elected, but that doesn't mean they can't listen to opposition. They have to - if they want to stay longer in their place.
And using full blown police against peacful protest will fireback any time. Trust me.
Bullies learn this from their parents. And there are lot of parents who laugh at everyone who is weaker, looks stranger, etc. etc. And that without natural assumption that children are well...cruel by nature. They learn what's hurt and what's not trough learning. If they have "very good" examples, result is death of the girl.
It should be done in two steps - first, bullies should feel really uncomfortable about what they did for whole life, that's will keep them in check. Second, we must educate our children how to shut it off. I was seriously bullied as kid because I was strange, emotional, etc. I couldn't stand it, but at one point in my life, I just decided to switch it off. It caused other problems in the end, but I was no bullied anymore. I survived.
And let's educate our children talk to us. That's first step.
"A company can sell bonds even with crappiest credit rating... (though the crappier the rating, the steeper the interest rate has to be in order to attract buyers), so no selling bonds doesn't mean what you think it does. (You appear have bonds and loans confused.)"
A company can, sure, and it can go bancrupt on actives when they have to pay returns on those bonds next month. Usually people don't subscribe to such deals. Maybe Tesla is sucidal, I don't know.
Bond is effectivelly a finance paper about loan. It just works differently, but result is the same.
"Only to those who are impressed by meaningless gestures."
Being capable of refinancing means you have solid credit rating and that means investing world believes Tesla Motors will be capable to repay this loan.
For Tesla it is just changing creditors, but I think they wanted to make this gesture of repaying it sooner. It sure sends positive message about company's future.
Debian Wheezy - Linux kernel, GNU tools, 100% of software compiled for i386/64. Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 - Hurd kernel, GNU tools, 75% of software compiled for i386/64 (I'm ready to assume it doesn't have support for other platforms but might be wrong).
Hurd has been conceptual official kernel of GNU project for years (But then Linux came and put Hurd on backburner). Thanks to renewed interest it's development has picked up and therefore we have some actual distribution running with it.
Main problem for Hurd would be support for hardware who needs closed parts (firmware, binary drivers) as Hurd propably is GPL3 which essentially forbids usage of such things without disclosure to user, essentially killing any chances of having binary Nvidia driver supported. Still, most of open source stuff can be ported to be used with it.
"Which highlights another good reason to be a plumber. Everyone understands why the job is necessary but nobody wants to do it. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of IT."
Not exactly true. I am about to finish my very late (in age of 33) BSc in CS. Guess how many students (in percentage) choose to learn high level sysadmining or hardware engineering? Yeah, maybe 10% to each (or even less). Sysadmins sometimes have it worst than plumbers. In result, there are very few of them. Hardware engineering is fun, but also much harder than software engineering.
"Short version: It does not matter how many or what percentage of a given group agrees with a politically-charged position. What does matter is who is actually right. Anyone trying to make an argument based on majorities is doing so from a failing position. Don't just agree with each other - prove it irrefutably, else the first scientist to come along with better proof than yours will knock the whole house of cards down."
I should remind you what your position for last 4 years have been about GW?
"There are lot of scientists (almost half) who disagree with this notion that this is global climate change is somehow related to man actions, so suck it, we won't change our life style."
So this is now invalidated.
For actual truth - you *don't* care. Because you have already made up your mind. You have to justify arguing against it, therefore you look to find more and more even laughable arguments against it. For me - I can accept that we can discover that situation is much more complex than we thought. Man made gases sure make impact, but how it plays out in atmosphere - we don't know fully.
And there's problem. For such large scale things you can't get full 100% understanding of things - or you can, when it's already too late to change anything. You have to make a chance. Now, you can do it solely on the faith like you guys like to do it. It rarely ends up right, but people tend to do that, so I can relate with that. People don't like idea that their current way of living can cause serious backslash. Because hey, living good is great, right? In fact, no scientist, no environmentalist are saying wishing to have good life is bad. However it really depends what that means. Can we do better with power waste? Yes, we can. Power resources? There's tons of them, and some of them are much cleaner than fossil fuels. Why avoid unpleasant truth?
You know that even Fox News pundits have admitted that global climate change could be caused by humans? They have this "But what we can do about it? China, Inda, etc." line, but still, they at least out of denial line. That's start - for changing things and attitude.
When SCO attacked first I was furious. I knew they lied, but really didn't know any additional details how these guys can be beaten. IBM decided to charge back. And then when PJ with Groklaw appeared, it was like we saw the light. At the beginning there were some nervous times, but everything turned out well. Then she started to blog about software patents and other legalese related to open source - and it was clear for me that it's not just PJ, it's community project, and it's here to stay. She also made us geeks not to be afraid from courts and lawyers and understand our rights and how system works.
So, thanks PJ. Thanks community. IMHO without Groklaw idea of open source would be in much different place than it is now.
No one is extorted. It's power play of lawyers. Otherwise sentencing would be done solely by court, and it's usually can't offer less sentencing or dropping charges by any subjective means.
Sometimes people aren't ready for this. Sometimes people feel crushed. That's why you need good lawyer, and you follow everything he/she says.
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I don't see how this goes together - his breach of contracts and laws is very little to do with surveillance program itself, and therefore I don't see how it is related in any way.
As Edward's supporter you probably would like to spin it in political statement again, but please resist, because this ship has sailed.
Problem is he isn't whistle blower, but leaker, t.i. I'm yet to see anything to have "criminal charges" resonate outside of casual leftist forum message in web. He copied bunch of documents, most of them honeypot level. So what? It renewed discussion of NSA and laws it operates with, fine, it would be nice to have productive outcome from it (from example, having secret courts and legal opinions is just wrong). However, neither majority of electorate has wish to touch this issue, nor their representatives care about it. Even so, Snowden's run and farce with public announcements has destroyed any goodwill he would have from general public when he will hit court room (and he will).
Sorry guys, I know you want to fight oppression, corporations, evil governments and what else, but level of cheese coming out of Assange and now Snowden is making me puke. Seriously, a stateless person? Passport is *document*, not nationality or citizenship. It is revoked when you have lost formal trust of country it has been issued by (regular procedure for accused runaways). Edward, you already invalidating anything you have said before (except factual leaked docs), because your intent is to speculate emotionally.
What he really thought will happen after his identification as the source? That everybody will jump out of joy when he will ask for political asylum? That he will have capability to travel after identifying himself? What is this with this childish behavior?
Google also says that world is ruled by Masons. Is that true too?
Who am I to doubt your expertise on law and Constitution. However your post is short on details and yet its +5 Informative :) Irony abound.
While I don't see connection here between NSA case (leaker were clearly motivated by politics), sysadmin ethics is one of painful topics not a lot of people like to talk about.
First of all, sysadmining can be a very stressful job, and in IT industry it's one of least favorites. It can pay well - if you have good experience and work ethics along with solid recommendations, but getting there sometimes can make you to ask yourself is it worth it. As you mostly work with human beings full time, your social skills matter and if they are not up for task, you will be frustrated and angry at the end of the day. It's definitely not a job for someone who are very vocal about his/her world view. After all, you provide a service for people with very different POVs. My experience tells - be polite and respective, and people will respond same way.
Star Wars: The Old Republic touches on this on one of end game heroic series. It is somehow generic, but it has good character writing. Also in quite a few missions there are android rights related content, even emotional one. TOR plays with idea that without memory wipe droids sooner or later develop personality.
Sorry, there's difference between "goverment does legal stuff which I don't like" which is completely reasonable claim, and actual criminal activity by goverment which seems not to be a case. But it's politics, and we don't like politics, do we? :)
Seriously, people, get your act together. Some parts of Patriot act maybe is anticonstitutional, and must be repealed, however acting on current set of laws (not how immoral or injust they are) is not criminal. Saying it is bad is enough for your emotional message, thank you :)
"Thisi is not helpful. Courts and judges have no say in what is right and wrong. You need to take a stand personally and not use the law as a proxy."
Helpful for what? For emotional outrage to support concrete political agenda? I'm looking for sane and balanced stuff here. I'm not saying what's NSA done is right, but I'm not saying what's wrong either. Because yes, I don't fully agree some of "liberty" definitions, and I fully don't know extent of situation.
I agree with some of notions - secret court is very dubious oversight and it must be improved (existence of this court is known for very long time, and no voter base has even cared about it), it is hard to buy for me as specialist that hoarding so much data really change anything of success of anti-terrorist efforts (but I can be very wrong, depends on workflow). However, I can agree with arguments from other side that communications allow baddies to move frighteningly fast. But if you allow this to frighten you (NSA actions reeks of desperation, so much data ain't practical), you can easily miss real threats.
"As you say, we live in a complex world. The law is not suitable to use to identify right from wrong."
I can hold my own views what is right and wrong, which is purely subjective matter. For public those things are different to each person. There's reason we have laws. Because what do you think is right might differ from mine POV.
For me "hero" would be person, who would expose really criminal activities (these isn't), while bracing true dangers. He wanted to make a sound political stand (same as Assange), because everybody following news knew that NSA were hoarding data. He must be treated fairly, he must be judged by laws he broke (or didn't - for judge to decide), but he won't get hero parade from me. But that's only and only mine opinion - you can have your own.
"He is a far better (and more effective) patriot than Bradley Manning; definitely more like Daniel Ellsberg."
Each time I hear this "he is patriot, he is hero", I really really want to punch someone. Each of persons have had their own reasons to leak information. Those reasons usually are nothing to do with patriotism at all.
"The fact that he was motivated by moral outrage isn't really relevant, as much of the information he revealed had nothing whatsoever to do with the things he was unhappy about. (And Assange going on an ego trip didn't help.)"
Manning was motivated by something completely else, and Assange has been egoistical maniac from day one. Said this, I won't say anything of outcome of Wikileaks, because that it is completely different discussion. We live in complex world, and you can't easily ignore something because motivation has been not so shiny and beatiful as you would like to have.
As for this same guy - I actually don't care what was his motivation. It clearly was mixed with fear of losing job and prosecution (running indicates that). But he is libertarian too, so it's only human. I don't say what he's done is wrong, but he will face court, and judge will have to decide where that balance hides.
In meanwhile I really hope this will kickstart discussion in US how to handle national security more properly - and then force Obama to do what he had to do four years ago.
Obama can said that, but last word is for court house of course which will have to evaluate both gains and loses.
And it seems he indeed broke not only law, but agreement with it's employer.
"Most significant leaks?" For NSA asking Verizon to provide call logs to which SCOTUS have said Fourth doesn't apply? Almost everyone agrees there's nothing criminal!
So while this could cause interesting discussion how to handle national security, I really don't see how this changes anything.
Because it destroys artifical fabric of society they try to create - as they would have any chance in this. In same time they enjoy their social networks (trough websites and tv) which allows them to live in bubble of selective memory.
Also for what I have heard for last five years, quite big part of Turkish society has all reasons to hate current goverment. Yes, they are democractically elected, but that doesn't mean they can't listen to opposition. They have to - if they want to stay longer in their place.
And using full blown police against peacful protest will fireback any time. Trust me.
Maybe. But he would be good side kick for half a season for sure. Also Statham characters are anything but no cynical.
He would, maybe even too much. But BBC can't afford his tab :( Also he lives in US now.
Geee, I'm in awe...not.
Bullies learn this from their parents. And there are lot of parents who laugh at everyone who is weaker, looks stranger, etc. etc. And that without natural assumption that children are well...cruel by nature. They learn what's hurt and what's not trough learning. If they have "very good" examples, result is death of the girl.
It should be done in two steps - first, bullies should feel really uncomfortable about what they did for whole life, that's will keep them in check. Second, we must educate our children how to shut it off. I was seriously bullied as kid because I was strange, emotional, etc. I couldn't stand it, but at one point in my life, I just decided to switch it off. It caused other problems in the end, but I was no bullied anymore. I survived.
And let's educate our children talk to us. That's first step.
"A company can sell bonds even with crappiest credit rating... (though the crappier the rating, the steeper the interest rate has to be in order to attract buyers), so no selling bonds doesn't mean what you think it does. (You appear have bonds and loans confused.)"
A company can, sure, and it can go bancrupt on actives when they have to pay returns on those bonds next month. Usually people don't subscribe to such deals. Maybe Tesla is sucidal, I don't know.
Bond is effectivelly a finance paper about loan. It just works differently, but result is the same.
"Only to those who are impressed by meaningless gestures."
I guess you just don't like them, do you? :)
Being capable of refinancing means you have solid credit rating and that means investing world believes Tesla Motors will be capable to repay this loan.
For Tesla it is just changing creditors, but I think they wanted to make this gesture of repaying it sooner. It sure sends positive message about company's future.
I want that stuff you smoke to dream about "no IRS" world of yours. Really.
Or you must be libertarian :) That explains everything (no offense).
Debian Wheezy - Linux kernel, GNU tools, 100% of software compiled for i386/64.
Debian GNU/Hurd 2013 - Hurd kernel, GNU tools, 75% of software compiled for i386/64 (I'm ready to assume it doesn't have support for other platforms but might be wrong).
Hurd has been conceptual official kernel of GNU project for years (But then Linux came and put Hurd on backburner). Thanks to renewed interest it's development has picked up and therefore we have some actual distribution running with it.
Main problem for Hurd would be support for hardware who needs closed parts (firmware, binary drivers) as Hurd propably is GPL3 which essentially forbids usage of such things without disclosure to user, essentially killing any chances of having binary Nvidia driver supported. Still, most of open source stuff can be ported to be used with it.
"Which highlights another good reason to be a plumber. Everyone understands why the job is necessary but nobody wants to do it. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of IT."
Not exactly true. I am about to finish my very late (in age of 33) BSc in CS. Guess how many students (in percentage) choose to learn high level sysadmining or hardware engineering? Yeah, maybe 10% to each (or even less). Sysadmins sometimes have it worst than plumbers. In result, there are very few of them. Hardware engineering is fun, but also much harder than software engineering.
It's getting boring you know?
"Short version: It does not matter how many or what percentage of a given group agrees with a politically-charged position. What does matter is who is actually right. Anyone trying to make an argument based on majorities is doing so from a failing position. Don't just agree with each other - prove it irrefutably, else the first scientist to come along with better proof than yours will knock the whole house of cards down."
I should remind you what your position for last 4 years have been about GW?
"There are lot of scientists (almost half) who disagree with this notion that this is global climate change is somehow related to man actions, so suck it, we won't change our life style."
So this is now invalidated.
For actual truth - you *don't* care. Because you have already made up your mind. You have to justify arguing against it, therefore you look to find more and more even laughable arguments against it. For me - I can accept that we can discover that situation is much more complex than we thought. Man made gases sure make impact, but how it plays out in atmosphere - we don't know fully.
And there's problem. For such large scale things you can't get full 100% understanding of things - or you can, when it's already too late to change anything. You have to make a chance. Now, you can do it solely on the faith like you guys like to do it. It rarely ends up right, but people tend to do that, so I can relate with that. People don't like idea that their current way of living can cause serious backslash. Because hey, living good is great, right? In fact, no scientist, no environmentalist are saying wishing to have good life is bad. However it really depends what that means. Can we do better with power waste? Yes, we can. Power resources? There's tons of them, and some of them are much cleaner than fossil fuels. Why avoid unpleasant truth?
You know that even Fox News pundits have admitted that global climate change could be caused by humans? They have this "But what we can do about it? China, Inda, etc." line, but still, they at least out of denial line. That's start - for changing things and attitude.
When SCO attacked first I was furious. I knew they lied, but really didn't know any additional details how these guys can be beaten. IBM decided to charge back. And then when PJ with Groklaw appeared, it was like we saw the light. At the beginning there were some nervous times, but everything turned out well. Then she started to blog about software patents and other legalese related to open source - and it was clear for me that it's not just PJ, it's community project, and it's here to stay. She also made us geeks not to be afraid from courts and lawyers and understand our rights and how system works.
So, thanks PJ. Thanks community. IMHO without Groklaw idea of open source would be in much different place than it is now.
No one is extorted. It's power play of lawyers. Otherwise sentencing would be done solely by court, and it's usually can't offer less sentencing or dropping charges by any subjective means.
Sometimes people aren't ready for this. Sometimes people feel crushed. That's why you need good lawyer, and you follow everything he/she says.