One could argue that atheism was one's "religion", and provide a self-written document stating as such (I'd personally give it about a 50/50 shot depending on the immigration officer). Yes, I think it could be clearer, and if they do actually refuse citizenship to pacifist atheists for this reason, the ACLU should get involved.
Some things in your story don't pass my BS test as an immigrant from Canada preparing to Naturalize in a year or so...
naturalized, but not US citizens
Naturalization means to become a citizen of a country other than by means of birth. Hence, you can't naturalize and not be a citizen by definition. Did you mean they were / are lawful permanent residents?
becoming citizens would mean swearing an oath to defend the US, which they will not do as pacifists.
In certain circumstances there can be a modification or waiver of the Oath of Allegiance. These circumstances are as follows:
If you are unable or unwilling to promise to bear arms or perform noncombatant service because of religious training and belief, you may request to leave out those parts of the oath. USCIS may require you to provide documentation from your religious organization explaining its beliefs and stating that you are a member in good standing.
If you are unable or unwilling to take the oath with the words “on oath” and “so help me God” included, you must notify USCIS that you wish to take a modified Oath of Allegiance. Applicants are not required to provide any evidence or testimony to support a request for this type of modification. See 8 CFR 337.1(b).
USCIS can waive the Oath of Allegiance when it is shown that the person’s physical or developmental disability, or mental impairments, makes them unable to understand, or to communicate an understanding of, the meaning of the oath. See 8 USC 337.
Frankly, USCIS is remarkably accepting here, and if it was brought up to an immigration officer I'm certain they'd advise your parents of the possibility of a modified Oath. So either your parents don't know about this, are assuming it can't be modified, and haven't tried, or your whole story is fabricated.
Distribute, not sell. (Though you absolutely have the right to sell GPL code as well, as long as you abide by the rest of the license and release your source.)
In any case, I'm guessing that one of the following things will happen:
- Some sort of secrecy / national security provision is given as a reason source cannot be released (1% probability) - Changes to the GPL portions are released (0.01% probability) - Stone-cold silence (98.99% probability)
Remember, the US Government hasn't even acknowledged that they created these worms. We're still firmly in the "plausible deniability" phase.
Feel I should point out that Linux can often use Windows drivers, like in the case you Realtek Wi-fi card you mentioned (although I think that now has native drivers). In recent memory the only thing I couldn't completely get working with Linux was my laptop's fingerprint reader. YMMV.
So what if we set up a system to sync from THOMAS every X hours, and enabled transparent, publicly viewable voting on bills? Once they're actually voted upon in the houses of Congress, we can compare the popular internet vote to our legislators votes, and give each proposed bill a score based on how well the legislators actually represented the people. Thoughts?
It would be nice to see a git-tree of legislations (revision history, diffs, who wrote what line when). I'm not expecting governments to do that, but it might be insightful and interesting.
It's simple: Add rules to any position of public office restricting the revolving door of private industry. Make those in power commit to avoid working for those they are regulating or accepting "contributions" from them.
Of course, such rules would require those in power to sign off on them, which will never happen unless they're replaced.
And if anyone's surprised that almost every license will include a "no class actions" clause after such a clause was ruled legal, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is not something specific to Microsoft; legal teams would be foolish not to take advantage of this corporate rights giveaway.
The problem with police recordings are that the police have no responsibility to give the recording in full to the defense; they can limit what they introduce into evidence to just what would be beneficial to securing a conviction, and leave out anything that could help the accused.
I have literally seen ads placed on multiple channels of a cable system where sometimes you'll see either a split-second of the start or the end of another ad, after which the network ad starts in place of the channel's ad. This may only be happening in Canada.
Right now it is possible to create software that can dip into content and swap out product placements and replace them with competitors products ie replace all the cans of coke and coke advertisements in the actual content and replace them with cans of pepsi and pepsi advertisements.
Possible? Cable companies are doing this right now. Ever see an ad on multiple networks that don't seem to correlate? Network-wide advertising. They just broadcast their ad in place of the channel's ad.
The use case for power users on Chromebooks is pretty bad. "Here's a laptop, only with much less functionality!" Casual users might like it, but tend to be driven in the long run by the recommendations of power users.
Slashdot Mirror
One could argue that atheism was one's "religion", and provide a self-written document stating as such (I'd personally give it about a 50/50 shot depending on the immigration officer). Yes, I think it could be clearer, and if they do actually refuse citizenship to pacifist atheists for this reason, the ACLU should get involved.
Some things in your story don't pass my BS test as an immigrant from Canada preparing to Naturalize in a year or so...
naturalized, but not US citizens
Naturalization means to become a citizen of a country other than by means of birth. Hence, you can't naturalize and not be a citizen by definition. Did you mean they were / are lawful permanent residents?
becoming citizens would mean swearing an oath to defend the US, which they will not do as pacifists.
From the USCIS Guide to Naturalization (PDF links in page, quote is from Chapter 5):
Waiver or Modification of the Oath of Allegiance.
In certain circumstances there can be a modification or waiver of the Oath of Allegiance. These circumstances are as follows:
If you are unable or unwilling to promise to bear arms or perform noncombatant service because of religious training and belief, you may request to leave out those parts of the oath. USCIS may require you to provide documentation from your religious organization explaining its beliefs and stating that you are a member in good standing.
If you are unable or unwilling to take the oath with the words “on oath” and “so help me God” included, you must notify USCIS that you wish to take a modified Oath of Allegiance. Applicants are not required to provide any evidence or testimony to support a request for this type of modification. See 8 CFR 337.1(b).
USCIS can waive the Oath of Allegiance when it is shown that the person’s physical or developmental disability, or mental impairments, makes them unable to understand, or to communicate an understanding of, the meaning of the oath. See 8 USC 337.
Frankly, USCIS is remarkably accepting here, and if it was brought up to an immigration officer I'm certain they'd advise your parents of the possibility of a modified Oath. So either your parents don't know about this, are assuming it can't be modified, and haven't tried, or your whole story is fabricated.
A closed Wal-Mart store?
The first car sucked. The first bicycle sucked. It's a goddamn proof of concept, people. Stop shit-talking it, this is how progress is made.
Distribute, not sell. (Though you absolutely have the right to sell GPL code as well, as long as you abide by the rest of the license and release your source.)
In any case, I'm guessing that one of the following things will happen:
- Some sort of secrecy / national security provision is given as a reason source cannot be released (1% probability)
- Changes to the GPL portions are released (0.01% probability)
- Stone-cold silence (98.99% probability)
Remember, the US Government hasn't even acknowledged that they created these worms. We're still firmly in the "plausible deniability" phase.
Feel I should point out that Linux can often use Windows drivers, like in the case you Realtek Wi-fi card you mentioned (although I think that now has native drivers). In recent memory the only thing I couldn't completely get working with Linux was my laptop's fingerprint reader. YMMV.
You know you can attach a USB hard drive to the Wii and load games from it, right? :^P
So what if we set up a system to sync from THOMAS every X hours, and enabled transparent, publicly viewable voting on bills? Once they're actually voted upon in the houses of Congress, we can compare the popular internet vote to our legislators votes, and give each proposed bill a score based on how well the legislators actually represented the people. Thoughts?
Also, whose idea was it to make HTML ordered lists in comments have list-style: none? WTF, Slashdot?
I'm a pretty skilled web developer, anyone want to help?
It would be nice to see a git-tree of legislations (revision history, diffs, who wrote what line when). I'm not expecting governments to do that, but it might be insightful and interesting.
https://github.com/divegeek/uscode
You think the rules that the US declares apply to other nations, apply to the US? How naive.
How exactly can they ensure our privacy, when even the Air Force can't?
Who said anything about privacy?
Once he's in the US he can be labelled an enemy and locked up forever. That's the point.
It's simple: Add rules to any position of public office restricting the revolving door of private industry. Make those in power commit to avoid working for those they are regulating or accepting "contributions" from them.
Of course, such rules would require those in power to sign off on them, which will never happen unless they're replaced.
And if anyone's surprised that almost every license will include a "no class actions" clause after such a clause was ruled legal, I have a bridge to sell you.
This is not something specific to Microsoft; legal teams would be foolish not to take advantage of this corporate rights giveaway.
The internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it.
Can we somehow get this as a big, all-caps warning whenever people try to censor the internet? It seems like they missed the memo.
The problem with police recordings are that the police have no responsibility to give the recording in full to the defense; they can limit what they introduce into evidence to just what would be beneficial to securing a conviction, and leave out anything that could help the accused.
I have literally seen ads placed on multiple channels of a cable system where sometimes you'll see either a split-second of the start or the end of another ad, after which the network ad starts in place of the channel's ad. This may only be happening in Canada.
No rest for the wicked. Some of us CANT turn it off, btw.
That just means you don't have self-control. In fact, I'd say it indicates you have a compulsion, which is a little bit unhealthy.
If we could, we wouldnt be geeks.
Speak for yourself.
Right now it is possible to create software that can dip into content and swap out product placements and replace them with competitors products ie replace all the cans of coke and coke advertisements in the actual content and replace them with cans of pepsi and pepsi advertisements.
Possible? Cable companies are doing this right now. Ever see an ad on multiple networks that don't seem to correlate? Network-wide advertising. They just broadcast their ad in place of the channel's ad.
I imagined this whole thing as part of an episode of Futurama.
He's going to hack into our div tags!
Which government agencies use Flash?
The use case for power users on Chromebooks is pretty bad. "Here's a laptop, only with much less functionality!" Casual users might like it, but tend to be driven in the long run by the recommendations of power users.