The problem is that the patent office has pretty much stated that they don't really spend much time these days researching whether a given idea is patentable, and instead let the courts sort it all out.
An even bigger problem is that the courts have said that the patent office must know what it's talking about, and consider patents to be valid until proven otherwise.
You are wrong. I suggest you rent a wheelchair and try it out for yourself. Do the entire experience- parking, buying tickets, getting into the theater, concessions, restrooms, and actually watching the movie. I wager you'll give up and call it impossible.
I don't need to rent a wheelchair--we own two of them. My fiancee took her mother (the person said wheelchairs are for) to the movies last week, and had no problems.
Gah. The above was munged by slashdot because of a < Should read:
just try to get a person in a wheelchair into a movie theater. Regal are the biggest buttheads of all, they're getting sued all over the place and they still refuse to make any kind of accessibility
As I recall, the lawsuits you mention seem to largely revolve around the idea that the seats available are "substandard." This translates into "we want the best seats in the house reserved for the disabled, even though these seats will then only be used less than 5% of the time."
Another thing: I haven't been to a movie theater that was built or renovated in the last ten years that has not been wheelchair accessible. Indeed, all the theaters around here even allow people in wheelchairs (and one accompanying person) in for free! This includes Regal, who has half a dozen theaters within fifty miles.
just try to get a person in a wheelchair into a movie theater. Regal are the biggest buttheads of all, they're getting sued all over the place and they still refuse to make any kind of accessibility
As I recall, the lawsuits you mention seem to largely revolve around the idea that the seats available are "substandard." This translates into "we want the best seats in the house reserved for the disabled, even though these seats will then only be used not been wheelchair accessible. Indeed, all the theaters around here even allow people in wheelchairs (and one accompanying person) in for free! This includes Regal, who has half a dozen theaters within fifty miles.
EVERY freakin' thing in Wal-Mart that wasn't produce was made someplace other than America.
I do agree that the majority of the non-food items in Wal-Mart are made overseas, but certainly not all--my Winchester 1300 shotgun was made in New Haven, CT. My Remington 597 rifle was made in Mayfield, KY. Both of them were purchased at Wal-Mart in the last five years.
However, as to the rest of your post, it's worth noting that a few (ten?) years ago, Wal-Mart tried a "Buy American" campaign--they put the US made goods on the shelves next to the lower priced Chinese crap, and had signs marking which was which. It was a disaster--the Chinese stuff outsold the American stuff by a significant margin.
It's kind of hard to blame them for the US made products disappearing from the shelves when the customer doesn't want them.
I still don't think the Constitution allows these barriers to be created, though.
I agree with you in general that the commerce clause has been taken too far, but in this specific instance I have to raise a point: one of the most important sources of funding for the new government was... tarriffs. That being the case, it seems that the founders believed that the constitution permitted the creation of at least some barriers on foreign trade. Perhaps not as far as disallowing foreign investments, but barriers none the less.
Nice until they run into a mobster-botmaster with a gun. This is a task for the government, not for pimpled nerds.
Someone needs to be doing it, and the story indicates that government just isn't interested in this--and even if they are, they can't seem to successfully prosecute. The end of the article really jumped out at me:
"Our data can't be used to gather a warrant," Albright said. "Law enforcement has to view the traffic first hand, and they are limited on what and when they can view."
How can there be any legal barriers here? Is this supposed to be some twisted view of the 4th amendment?
I do know he purchased an M60 a while back. He had to have something like a class 4 collectors license or something like that (I forget the name, but it was basically the most difficult collectors license to get, and took him several years to get it) and had to go through tons of procedures, checks, and forms.
I'm going to assume you mean "M-60 machine gun" (there's also an M-60 tank, which would fit in with your comment about the Sherman... but I doubt your father's friend could "drop" that into the water) and note that what you're probably talking about is what people like to call a "Class III license." The truth of the matter is there's no such thing. "Class III" refers to a tax certificate that is required to be held by those (called "Special Occupational Tax" payers, or SOTs for short) who deal in weapons covered by Title II of the National Firearms Act. These consist of machine guns, short barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors (silencers), destructive devices, and AOWs (literally, "any other weapon.") One does not have to be a SOT in order to own these weapons, merely to be engaged in the business of buying and selling them.
Purchasing a weapon covered by the National Firearms Act goes something like this: first, you locate the item to be purchased. Then you fill out the appropriate form(s) (depending on what you're buying, who has it, where it is, etc, the form can be different) and take it to your local chief law enforcement officer. This can be the chief of police in your city, your county sheriff, sometimes a judge, depending on how law enforcement where you live is structured. This step is probably what held your father's friend up--you MUST obtain signoff from the CLEO before you can proceed, but the CLEO is in no way required to sign for you. Some of them like to make people jump through hoops. After your obtain the signature, you get fingerprinted, then send the fingerprinters and forms, along with a check (for anywhere from $5 to $400, depending on what you're buying and how many times it has to be transferred) to the BATF. Then you wait, typically for six months, for an approval and the appropriate tax stamps to come back, the transaction happens, and you take possession of your new toy.
During these six months, the BATF doesn't really do much--the background check is the same as for anyone applying for a Federal Firearms License (required to engage in the business of buying and selling guns, though there is a collector's license which largely just lets you receive interstate shipments of "curios and relics" directly, without needing to go through a dealer) and is not really any different than a standard NICS check used to buy a regular firearm. It takes longer because of the bureaucracy... BATF really isn't in a hurry to issue, and it's not uncommon for your paperwork to literally just sit on someone's desk for months. It's not because of an invasive investigation into your fitness for owning such an item.
Anyway, my point is, not everything that the military has can be owned by a private citizen, at least an average citizen. This has been the case for a long time, and will probably continue long after I'm gone.
Everything you mentioned in your initial post--explosives, machine guns, tanks, artillery, fighters, bombers--are held in private hands. Other than nukes, biological, and chemical weapons, anybody with the bankroll can own pretty much anything they want. This might run afoul of your "average citizen" qualifier, but I think that's just splitting hairs... the "average citizen" couldn't afford to own a 747, either, but that doesn't mean they are forbidden items.
By the way, love your sig, I have to agree.
Thanks. Most people around here just like to get on my ass about how I left the other half out.:)
You mean like tanks? Fully-automatic weapons? Explosive devices? Artillery? Jets? Bombers? I don't think any of those can be legally possessed by any normal private citizen (with the possible exception of a collectors/dealers license, which are apparently not so easy to get)
Civillians in the United States may--and do--lawfully possess all of the above. No "collectors/dealers license" required, though you may have to have a tax stamp, and automatic weapons manufactured after May 1986 are generally not allowed.
In January 2000, a Crossair commuter jet crashed shortly after takeoff. The cause was never determined
The Swiss AAIB disagrees that the cause was never determined. Here's what they had to say:
Causes The accident is attributable to a collision with the ground, after the flight crew had lost control of the aircraft for the following reasons:
The flight crew reacted inappropriately to the change in departure clearance SID ZUE 1Y by ATC.
The co-pilot made an entry in the FMS, without being instructed to do so by the commander, which related to the change to the SID ZUE 1 standard instrument departure. In doing so, he omitted to select a turn direction.
The commander dispensed with use of the autopilot under instrument flight conditions and during the work-intensive climb phase of the flight.
The commander took the aircraft into a spiral dive to the right because, with a probability bordering on certainty, he had lost spatial orientation.
The first officer took only inadequate measures to prevent or recover from the spiral dive.
You are not free. Your nation is enslaved by its secrets.
While I'm not going to argue about whether or not the man on the street in the United States is "free" or not (while in general the US citizen enjoys a high level of personal freedom, by many measures we are not truly free--just try not paying your property taxes and see what happens to land you "own", or injesting or smoking certain naturally occuring substances in sight of the law) I do take issue with the idea that "secrets" imply a lack of freedom. It rather heavily depends on what is being kept secret! Are you any less free because Bill Clinton's (federally funded) bodyguards didn't reveal that he couldn't keep it in his pants?
Your one liners that state "secrets == slavery" aren't good enough--let's have some supporting ideas here. Why is this the case?
Not giving away your soc. sec., mommy's maiden name, nuke bomb plans etc. doesn't validate the primitive notion that national security is necessary.
Perhaps not... but then again, you don't need to talk about credit card data to validate that idea--history does a pretty good job of it, after all. I refer to "national security" in a general sense, of course, and not something along the lines of "national guardsmen with unloaded rifles standing around in airports."
They would NEVER threaten that ban - in fact, I'd say microsoft threatening to totally withdraw product sales and support from europe would be more a threat to european interests than microsofts.
I'm unsure how copyright law works in Europe, but I would imagine EU member nations could respond by passing laws that remove the copyright protection enjoyed by Microsoft's products in their countries.
And now I demonstrate that you don't know shit about what you're babbling about.
It is the policy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that its employees, including patent examiners, will not appear as witnesses or give testimony in legal proceedings, except under the conditions specified in 37 CFR Part 104, Subpart C
You're not interesting, you're ignorant.
Okay, I'll bite on this one: exactly what does the USPTO's official policy on hows its employees must go about responding to subpoenas (as codified into the CFR) have to do with anything? The link you reference doesn't say that the examiners cannot, or are somehow immune from, giving testimony only that there is a specific procedure that has to be followed before they can. It's also questionable if the policy would apply to a congressional subpoena, because it wouldn't be a legal proceeding.
More to the point, exactly why did you feel the need to flame the guy who posted the original comment? Suggesting that congress should force the USPTO (and specifically the examiners in question) to explain their actions is "ignorant" in your opinion, and anyone who dares suggest such is a "fucktard?" Did someone piss in your Cheerios this morning?
Uh, maybe YOU don't care about the President violating the 4th amendment and blatantly ignoring a law specifically designed to implement the safeguards it describes. But, I guess you Bushheads don't care about living in a police state as long as the police are Republicans.
You're talking about FISA, of course, and I completely agree with you on that subject. However, the article that we are obstensibly discussing (CIA secretly reclassifying documents) notes that this began in 1999 while Clinton was still in office, and only "accelerated" under Bush after the 9/11 attacks. I would argue then that using this thread to attack Bush ignores the reality that it isn't just Republicans who are turning our nation into a police state and further, not complaining about it. The Democrats are doing their part to lead us down that slippery slope, too.
So when it comes to throwing around words like "police state" leave the partisan rhetoric at home--it just obscures the real issues.
Of course you are correct in your point that they didnt take off, or they have not yet. Although I doubt they will take off soon (SACD), I believe they *will* in the near future as they have better sound quality than CDs and consequently than any kind of MP3. If you believe you can not distinguish between a normal CD sound and a SACD sound you just have to wait until you listen to one of those.
That's just the thing, though--moving from audio tape to CD was a no brainer... sure, the quality was better, but the CD also brought more to the table than that: random access. It was far more convenient to use a CD which let you skip to the next song, or easily replay a track, instead of having to rewind and fast forward. People later took a step BACK from CD quality audio, to listen to lower quality MP3s because they're "good enough" and far more convenient than CDs are, in the sense that you can bring ALOT more music with you in ALOT less space.
Aside from audiophiles, few people really care about the technical quality of the playback medium--hell, most people don't even seem to care about the quality of the music! Listening to $BOYBAND at a thousand times the resolution is like putting lipstick on a pig.
Driver, chipset differences, as well as possible BIOS differences.
It's an intel chipset. It doesn't have a BIOS, since it's EFI based--a technology designed and promoted by intel. The other hardware is all commodity stuff, so there aren't any additional drivers required. In a year or two, most of the major intel OEMs will be using an almost identical design.
Windows XP won't run on the imac, because it doesn't support EFI--but Vista will, because that's where the x86 market is going. Microsoft doesn't have to do anything special to support Apple's hardware.
I think it would be very interesting to know if Microsoft is working on a Vista port to the Intel/iMac.
This is like asking if Exxon is working on some kind of fuel additive that will let you run 87 octane gasoline in your chevy cavalier. It's an intel x86 box--there's no "porting" required.
GPS was also expensive, but it made the investment back several times over in benefits to US industry.
Sure--but are the benefits of Galileo over and above the already existing GPS system going to provide a similar payback? My guess is: probably not. Still, I'm a firm believer in redundancy, and it's not like the EU is going to be spending my money on this, so you won't hear me complaining.
And no, there's not a damned thing the "little people" can do about it. You can protest it all you want. It won't change a thing, because those in power know that they don't need to listen to the people anymore.
If the entirety of mankind isn't reduced to frightened, bleating sheep (as in 1984) I daresay that something can indeed be done about it. See this historical example, among others, as an idea.
It can't be "incriminated" at all. There is no crime of "driving on the same road as a criminals vehicle". It's simply a lead to be used on investigations. It may pan out, or it may not.
Which is why I brought up the constitutional right of the government to search and seizure.
The government does not have rights, it has powers. Its power to search and sieze property is narrowly defined, requiring that it be "reasonable" and requiring a warrant issued based on "probable cause." It does not give the government the right to willy nilly walk a drug dog up to your car
Nowhere does it say that citizens have a right to privacy
You're reading the constitution backward--it isn't a listing of the rights citizens have, it is a listing of the powers that government has. Indeed, many of our founding fathers were against having a "bill of rights" for this very reason: that eventually it would be seen as an inclusive list of rights held by the people, instead of a representative list of rights that could absolutely not be infringed upon.
note for clarity: the below is my sig, not a part of this message.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that the patent office has pretty much stated that they don't really spend much time these days researching whether a given idea is patentable, and instead let the courts sort it all out.
An even bigger problem is that the courts have said that the patent office must know what it's talking about, and consider patents to be valid until proven otherwise.
You are wrong. I suggest you rent a wheelchair and try it out for yourself. Do the entire experience- parking, buying tickets, getting into the theater, concessions, restrooms, and actually watching the movie. I wager you'll give up and call it impossible.
I don't need to rent a wheelchair--we own two of them. My fiancee took her mother (the person said wheelchairs are for) to the movies last week, and had no problems.
Gah. The above was munged by slashdot because of a < Should read:
just try to get a person in a wheelchair into a movie theater. Regal are the biggest buttheads of all, they're getting sued all over the place and they still refuse to make any kind of accessibility
As I recall, the lawsuits you mention seem to largely revolve around the idea that the seats available are "substandard." This translates into "we want the best seats in the house reserved for the disabled, even though these seats will then only be used less than 5% of the time."
Another thing: I haven't been to a movie theater that was built or renovated in the last ten years that has not been wheelchair accessible. Indeed, all the theaters around here even allow people in wheelchairs (and one accompanying person) in for free! This includes Regal, who has half a dozen theaters within fifty miles.
just try to get a person in a wheelchair into a movie theater. Regal are the biggest buttheads of all, they're getting sued all over the place and they still refuse to make any kind of accessibility
As I recall, the lawsuits you mention seem to largely revolve around the idea that the seats available are "substandard." This translates into "we want the best seats in the house reserved for the disabled, even though these seats will then only be used not been wheelchair accessible. Indeed, all the theaters around here even allow people in wheelchairs (and one accompanying person) in for free! This includes Regal, who has half a dozen theaters within fifty miles.
EVERY freakin' thing in Wal-Mart that wasn't produce was made someplace other than America.
I do agree that the majority of the non-food items in Wal-Mart are made overseas, but certainly not all--my Winchester 1300 shotgun was made in New Haven, CT. My Remington 597 rifle was made in Mayfield, KY. Both of them were purchased at Wal-Mart in the last five years.
He must be rolling over in his grave.
Quite probably.
However, as to the rest of your post, it's worth noting that a few (ten?) years ago, Wal-Mart tried a "Buy American" campaign--they put the US made goods on the shelves next to the lower priced Chinese crap, and had signs marking which was which. It was a disaster--the Chinese stuff outsold the American stuff by a significant margin.
It's kind of hard to blame them for the US made products disappearing from the shelves when the customer doesn't want them.
I still don't think the Constitution allows these barriers to be created, though.
I agree with you in general that the commerce clause has been taken too far, but in this specific instance I have to raise a point: one of the most important sources of funding for the new government was... tarriffs. That being the case, it seems that the founders believed that the constitution permitted the creation of at least some barriers on foreign trade. Perhaps not as far as disallowing foreign investments, but barriers none the less.
This is a task for the government, not for pimpled nerds.
Someone needs to be doing it, and the story indicates that government just isn't interested in this--and even if they are, they can't seem to successfully prosecute. The end of the article really jumped out at me:
How can there be any legal barriers here? Is this supposed to be some twisted view of the 4th amendment?
I might be mistaken here, but I don't think that The Incredibles used the term "Superheroes" in the movie, in favor of the more generic "Supers."
I do know he purchased an M60 a while back. He had to have something like a class 4 collectors license or something like that (I forget the name, but it was basically the most difficult collectors license to get, and took him several years to get it) and had to go through tons of procedures, checks, and forms.
:)
I'm going to assume you mean "M-60 machine gun" (there's also an M-60 tank, which would fit in with your comment about the Sherman... but I doubt your father's friend could "drop" that into the water) and note that what you're probably talking about is what people like to call a "Class III license." The truth of the matter is there's no such thing. "Class III" refers to a tax certificate that is required to be held by those (called "Special Occupational Tax" payers, or SOTs for short) who deal in weapons covered by Title II of the National Firearms Act. These consist of machine guns, short barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors (silencers), destructive devices, and AOWs (literally, "any other weapon.") One does not have to be a SOT in order to own these weapons, merely to be engaged in the business of buying and selling them.
Purchasing a weapon covered by the National Firearms Act goes something like this: first, you locate the item to be purchased. Then you fill out the appropriate form(s) (depending on what you're buying, who has it, where it is, etc, the form can be different) and take it to your local chief law enforcement officer. This can be the chief of police in your city, your county sheriff, sometimes a judge, depending on how law enforcement where you live is structured. This step is probably what held your father's friend up--you MUST obtain signoff from the CLEO before you can proceed, but the CLEO is in no way required to sign for you. Some of them like to make people jump through hoops. After your obtain the signature, you get fingerprinted, then send the fingerprinters and forms, along with a check (for anywhere from $5 to $400, depending on what you're buying and how many times it has to be transferred) to the BATF. Then you wait, typically for six months, for an approval and the appropriate tax stamps to come back, the transaction happens, and you take possession of your new toy.
During these six months, the BATF doesn't really do much--the background check is the same as for anyone applying for a Federal Firearms License (required to engage in the business of buying and selling guns, though there is a collector's license which largely just lets you receive interstate shipments of "curios and relics" directly, without needing to go through a dealer) and is not really any different than a standard NICS check used to buy a regular firearm. It takes longer because of the bureaucracy... BATF really isn't in a hurry to issue, and it's not uncommon for your paperwork to literally just sit on someone's desk for months. It's not because of an invasive investigation into your fitness for owning such an item.
Anyway, my point is, not everything that the military has can be owned by a private citizen, at least an average citizen. This has been the case for a long time, and will probably continue long after I'm gone.
Everything you mentioned in your initial post--explosives, machine guns, tanks, artillery, fighters, bombers--are held in private hands. Other than nukes, biological, and chemical weapons, anybody with the bankroll can own pretty much anything they want. This might run afoul of your "average citizen" qualifier, but I think that's just splitting hairs... the "average citizen" couldn't afford to own a 747, either, but that doesn't mean they are forbidden items.
By the way, love your sig, I have to agree.
Thanks. Most people around here just like to get on my ass about how I left the other half out.
You mean like tanks? Fully-automatic weapons? Explosive devices? Artillery? Jets? Bombers? I don't think any of those can be legally possessed by any normal private citizen (with the possible exception of a collectors/dealers license, which are apparently not so easy to get)
Civillians in the United States may--and do--lawfully possess all of the above. No "collectors/dealers license" required, though you may have to have a tax stamp, and automatic weapons manufactured after May 1986 are generally not allowed.
The Swiss AAIB disagrees that the cause was never determined. Here's what they had to say:
Read the full report for yourself.
You are not free. Your nation is enslaved by its secrets.
While I'm not going to argue about whether or not the man on the street in the United States is "free" or not (while in general the US citizen enjoys a high level of personal freedom, by many measures we are not truly free--just try not paying your property taxes and see what happens to land you "own", or injesting or smoking certain naturally occuring substances in sight of the law) I do take issue with the idea that "secrets" imply a lack of freedom. It rather heavily depends on what is being kept secret! Are you any less free because Bill Clinton's (federally funded) bodyguards didn't reveal that he couldn't keep it in his pants?
Your one liners that state "secrets == slavery" aren't good enough--let's have some supporting ideas here. Why is this the case?
Not giving away your soc. sec., mommy's maiden name, nuke bomb plans etc. doesn't validate the primitive notion that national security is necessary.
Perhaps not... but then again, you don't need to talk about credit card data to validate that idea--history does a pretty good job of it, after all. I refer to "national security" in a general sense, of course, and not something along the lines of "national guardsmen with unloaded rifles standing around in airports."
They would NEVER threaten that ban - in fact, I'd say microsoft threatening to totally withdraw product sales and support from europe would be more a threat to european interests than microsofts.
I'm unsure how copyright law works in Europe, but I would imagine EU member nations could respond by passing laws that remove the copyright protection enjoyed by Microsoft's products in their countries.
Two can play the scorched earth game.
And now I demonstrate that you don't know shit about what you're babbling about.
It is the policy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that its employees, including patent examiners, will not appear as witnesses or give testimony in legal proceedings, except under the conditions specified in 37 CFR Part 104, Subpart C
You're not interesting, you're ignorant.
Okay, I'll bite on this one: exactly what does the USPTO's official policy on hows its employees must go about responding to subpoenas (as codified into the CFR) have to do with anything? The link you reference doesn't say that the examiners cannot, or are somehow immune from, giving testimony only that there is a specific procedure that has to be followed before they can. It's also questionable if the policy would apply to a congressional subpoena, because it wouldn't be a legal proceeding.
More to the point, exactly why did you feel the need to flame the guy who posted the original comment? Suggesting that congress should force the USPTO (and specifically the examiners in question) to explain their actions is "ignorant" in your opinion, and anyone who dares suggest such is a "fucktard?" Did someone piss in your Cheerios this morning?
Uh, maybe YOU don't care about the President violating the 4th amendment and blatantly ignoring a law specifically designed to implement the safeguards it describes. But, I guess you Bushheads don't care about living in a police state as long as the police are Republicans.
You're talking about FISA, of course, and I completely agree with you on that subject. However, the article that we are obstensibly discussing (CIA secretly reclassifying documents) notes that this began in 1999 while Clinton was still in office, and only "accelerated" under Bush after the 9/11 attacks. I would argue then that using this thread to attack Bush ignores the reality that it isn't just Republicans who are turning our nation into a police state and further, not complaining about it. The Democrats are doing their part to lead us down that slippery slope, too.
So when it comes to throwing around words like "police state" leave the partisan rhetoric at home--it just obscures the real issues.
Of course you are correct in your point that they didnt take off, or they have not yet. Although I doubt they will take off soon (SACD), I believe they *will* in the near future as they have better sound quality than CDs and consequently than any kind of MP3. If you believe you can not distinguish between a normal CD sound and a SACD sound you just have to wait until you listen to one of those.
That's just the thing, though--moving from audio tape to CD was a no brainer... sure, the quality was better, but the CD also brought more to the table than that: random access. It was far more convenient to use a CD which let you skip to the next song, or easily replay a track, instead of having to rewind and fast forward. People later took a step BACK from CD quality audio, to listen to lower quality MP3s because they're "good enough" and far more convenient than CDs are, in the sense that you can bring ALOT more music with you in ALOT less space.
Aside from audiophiles, few people really care about the technical quality of the playback medium--hell, most people don't even seem to care about the quality of the music! Listening to $BOYBAND at a thousand times the resolution is like putting lipstick on a pig.
...that he's arrived - he has a 64-bit fortune.
:(
I have a 64-bit fortune, too. Unfortunately, the first 63 bits are zeros.
Driver, chipset differences, as well as possible BIOS differences.
It's an intel chipset. It doesn't have a BIOS, since it's EFI based--a technology designed and promoted by intel. The other hardware is all commodity stuff, so there aren't any additional drivers required. In a year or two, most of the major intel OEMs will be using an almost identical design.
Windows XP won't run on the imac, because it doesn't support EFI--but Vista will, because that's where the x86 market is going. Microsoft doesn't have to do anything special to support Apple's hardware.
I think it would be very interesting to know if Microsoft is working on a Vista port to the Intel/iMac.
This is like asking if Exxon is working on some kind of fuel additive that will let you run 87 octane gasoline in your chevy cavalier. It's an intel x86 box--there's no "porting" required.
GPS was also expensive, but it made the investment back several times over in benefits to US industry.
Sure--but are the benefits of Galileo over and above the already existing GPS system going to provide a similar payback? My guess is: probably not. Still, I'm a firm believer in redundancy, and it's not like the EU is going to be spending my money on this, so you won't hear me complaining.
And no, there's not a damned thing the "little people" can do about it. You can protest it all you want. It won't change a thing, because those in power know that they don't need to listen to the people anymore.
If the entirety of mankind isn't reduced to frightened, bleating sheep (as in 1984) I daresay that something can indeed be done about it. See this historical example, among others, as an idea.
It can't be "incriminated" at all. There is no crime of "driving on the same road as a criminals vehicle". It's simply a lead to be used on investigations. It may pan out, or it may not.
Or it might result in a case of mistaken identify that causes the police to classify you as a threat and unload seven shots into your head.
Which is why I brought up the constitutional right of the government to search and seizure.
The government does not have rights, it has powers. Its power to search and sieze property is narrowly defined, requiring that it be "reasonable" and requiring a warrant issued based on "probable cause." It does not give the government the right to willy nilly walk a drug dog up to your car
Nowhere does it say that citizens have a right to privacy
You're reading the constitution backward--it isn't a listing of the rights citizens have, it is a listing of the powers that government has. Indeed, many of our founding fathers were against having a "bill of rights" for this very reason: that eventually it would be seen as an inclusive list of rights held by the people, instead of a representative list of rights that could absolutely not be infringed upon.
note for clarity: the below is my sig, not a part of this message.