The government gets surveillance equipment, and you get no cost super encryption, for example.
The difference being that when the Government decides it doesn't like my encryption they can outlaw it. The difference being that the Government can compel me to turn over the decryption keys.
Look, I don't have a problem with surveillance equipment in my bank or gas station. I do have a problem when people start advocating that we put it on every street corner and every highway. The Government does not need it. Plain and simple. You still haven't made a compelling argument for why they need it. Your argument boils down to "don't be afraid".
Somebody is less likely to mug my sister walking down a street at night if he can see a camera mounted on every 3rd lamp post. It will not prevent all crime, but I do have faith in it as a deterrent.
Placing armed troops on the streets will also deter crime, should that be our next step?
But what harm is a DB full of transaction/flight/phone/video rental information doing you? Even if you're unlucky enough to have a profile that causes your name to appear when running their profiling/analysis queries on the data you still probably would never know it. But the chances are huge that you'd never even make that list.
So you support the NSA building a database of everybody I call? I'm not talking about the private sector (video rental information?) -- I'm talking about the fucking Government. They don't need to know who I'm calling! It's that friggen simple.
Look at Star Trek, which i think everyone can agree is a good example of a future that we'd like to see for our great great great grandchildren. The computer tracks the whereabouts of everybody. Every single conversation anyone ever has can be recorded by the ubiquitous computer. But nobody cries foul of that as a 'police state.'
Your using Star Trek to support your arguments? The Enterprise is a military setting. The military plays by a different set of rules. If you join the military then expect your commanding officers to know where you are at all times. Somehow I don't think Gene's vision was of the Federation keeping constant track of all it's civilian citizens and recording all of their conversations via a big brother computer system. You'd actually be ok with the Government building a database of your real time movements?
I agree that a distrust of government is healthy. But there's a difference between being skeptical and being paranoid. And judging by your comments, if Skeptic is 1 and Paranoid is 10, you're surely tipping past 5, on your way to 6 or 7.
I didn't used to be paranoid about them. Then we started locking people up without access to the judicial system (Americans at that!) and logging information on people who aren't suspects in any sort of criminal investigation. I'm not ok with the concept of using data mining to predict who might be a terrorist/rapist/etc/etc and neither should you be.
Why do you care if you walk past 20 cameras a day that screen you against a list of criminals? Why does that bother you?
I don't know how to explain it without sounding like a tinfoil hat wearing 1984 fearing extremist.
It's all well and good to say those cameras are there to screen for criminals. What happens when the Gov't starts using them to compile a list of where lawful citizens go and what they do? It makes it that much easier to create a police state. You don't think these things can be abused? Are you also ok with the NSA creating a database of all of our call detail information?
If cameras in public places prevent my sister or mother from being mugged or raped in some back alley somewhere, then that is worth it's weight in gold
At best the cameras will help the cops catch the guy after the fact. At worst they will encourage him to drag your sister or mom off the streets and into that dark alley outside the field of view.
I have no expectation of privacy when walking around in my city. I do have an expectation of anonymity but I also know that I don't have a _right_ to it.
It's not about an expectation of privacy. It's about not trusting the Government. I don't trust the Government not to abuse power. I used too -- then a long series of events completely disillusioned me. They are building databases of my phone calls, databases of my financial transactions and databases of my (air) travels. When will it end?
What rights are the police infringing by following a known repeat DUI offender's car for while when they spot that car at 11.30pm?
Have you ever been followed by the police whilst being profiled? Let me explain how it goes:
You leave a bar. Instead of being out patrolling for the guy swerving all over the road, the cops are sitting outside on the street waiting to pull over some poor bastard who is a cunt hair over 0.08.
You start driving home. The cops start following you.
The cops get ON YOUR ASS. Literally. If anybody else was following you this closely it would be considered tailgating and reckless driving -- but it's ok when they do it. They are typically less then half a car length behind you.
They call in your plates looking for any excuse to pull you. When they don't find one they CONTINUE TO RIDE YOUR ASS (sometimes with HIGH BEAMS) waiting for you to make the smallest mistake.
When you don't make a mistake or they run out of patience they decide to pull you over because your license plate bulb is "dirty" or your muffler is "loud".
Upon approaching the car the first words out of their mouth is "How much have you had to drink tonight?" When informed that you haven't been drinking or that you only had one or two they act intimidating and take your license and registration back.
Depending on their attitude you may or may not be forced to take a chemical test (whatever happened to that darn 5th amendment again?). Even if you blow a 0.02 you will still get a lecture on the dangers of "drunk driving".
Eventually they let you go. All the while they were harassing you, profiling you and generally acting like dicks. In that time they could have been patrolling and probably could have caught one or two actual drunks instead of sitting outside of the bar eating donuts/doing paperwork and pulling over every person who comes out regardless of how much (if anything) he has had to drink.
Oh and I don't have a DWI history. And they still pull this. They tailgate you hoping to force you to make a mistake and when that doesn't work they invent a reason to pull you over anyway.
This is tons of BS. There's always been this myth, by very defensive B5 fans for some reason, that Paramount had to steal everything from JMS because, apparently, no one had talent or creativity at Star Trek.
They didn't steal everything. Even JMS doesn't think that. He's on record as saying that he doesn't think Berman or any of those guys would have condoned that. But you can't deny that the Bab5 series bible was sitting in a file drawer at Paramount and that there are amazing "coincidences" between the two series.
Two characters named "Dukat" who were critical to the overall story.
Space station next-door to a portal to other parts of the galaxy.
Strong willed female first officers (not a bad thing)
Centauri and Cardassians both switch sides during the war and join the allies.
Centauri and Cardassians both devastated by the fallout of said war.
White Star and USS Defiant. Both unique ships, small and fast to counter extremely powerful enemy.
The whole Shadow War is a game between Vorlons and Shadows. The future of the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant comes down to the battle between the Prophets' and the Pa' Wraiths.
The Vorlons (and Shadows) appear as people the characters know. So do the Prophets.
There was no actual planned 'story arcs' (like JMS did with B5) as DS9 was more spontaneous. For example, the Klingon War came from nowhere in the 4th season. When TNG went off the air, the DS9 writers 'owned' the Federation and would come up with things no one was expecting (Section 17, the Changeling Virus, etc).
Really? Cuz the DS9 producers would have you think that they planned it out from day one.
The idea of story 'arcs' were nothing new. TNG was filled with several of them. Before B5 was on the air, DS9 was slowly building up story arcs starting with the Bajorans such as the Circle to subties of the Dominion in Season 2. Then, each season, the writers intentionally ramped the story arc higher and higher without fully knowing where it would go. The seeds for DS9 were already well planted in TNG in episodes like "Ensign Ro" or the episodes with the Cardassian War. But I suppose TNG miraculously stole those from B5 in the late eighties too.
As much as I love TNG and consider it one of the best shows ever I don't see how you can say it was filled with story arcs. The characters grew over time and it didn't suffer from the reset button ala Voyager, but what story arcs are you referring to? It was very much a stand alone show. The characters evolved and grew/suffered from past events (Picard after being captured by the Borg is the easiest example to make) but what story arcs?
Very unique to DS9 was how the secondary characters (Garak, Dukat, etc.) grew so three dimensionally that they rivaled the main characters. You never saw that in B5 (since that show was plot based).
Umm, you never saw that in B5 eh? How about this guy. Or maybe this guy? And define "main character"? Cuz I'd make the argument that a lot of the B5 story was based around Mollari and that he rivals any TV character I've seen before or since.
I will grant you that Garak was one of the best characters in Trek history. But Dukat? I stopped taking Dukat's character seriously after he became David Koresh^W^Wthe Emissary of the Pa' Wraiths. They should have killed him off after his nervous breakdown and left the character at that. He became a one-sided TV villain stereotype and it was painful to watch.
Babylon 5 was a good show. But there's a reason why it isn't aging so well.
Really? Cuz I'd make the argument that B5 is better on DVD. Watch 'In the Beginning'. Then watch the series in order. There's standalone episodes of DS9 that I'll watch on Spike but I
Have you given a thought to what discharging a firearm on an airplane at 30,000 feet might do if you puncture the hull of the plain and depressurize the cabin?
I'm pretty sure the Mythbusters concluded that it wouldn't be as bad as you might think.... and in any case I don't think me firing my gun and depressurizing the cabin would have caused the WTC towers to fall.....
I don't see how "dialog" exists in the Voyager or Enterprise world. DS9 had dialog but it also had a much heavier emphasis on action then TNG so it's a wash at best.
Actually, in fairness, DS9 lasted another five years after TNG, but started a year before TNG ended, so gets a pass.
I'm torn on DS9. It feels like Bab5 meets Star Trek. Obviously it has Star Trek themes (DS9 did some pretty cool stuff with the Klingons -- a nice build-out from the groundwork laid by TNG) and undertones but the overall story has quite a few similarities and one has to wonder how many of those you can write off to "coincidence".
Mark my words, when a new Star Trek series eventually comes back in a decade or three, they will pretend those two never happened (or at best, give a not to Voyager for opening up the Delta quadrant, but basically ignore most of the episode development).
The day I stopped taking Star Trek seriously was the day that Patrick Stewart had to utter the line: "Admiral Janeway". I like to pretend that nothing after "All Good Things..." happened.
Star Trek has always been, and always will be a drama first, and sci-fi second. (We don't talk about Enterprise)
I'm sorry but I don't feel like it's been that way since TNG. DS9 might make an honorable mention and it still holds a special place in my heart because it was the first Trek I ever saw. But the more I watch and start to like Babylon 5 the more it feels like DS9 ripped it off.
Classical Trek for me ended when TNG ended. And I'm glad TNG ended when it did -- because certain Season 7 episodes bear an amazing resemblance to Voyager and if TNG had stayed on the air it would have jumped the shark in Season 8. Look no further then the TNG movies if you doubt this.
Assuming they look at you as you pass by doing your normal business, and assuming that the picture they compare you to is one they have on file in their own system, there is *nothing* wrong with this.
(Sorry for two replies -- I hosed my other one)
I don't have a problem with the officer himself looking at me. Prohibiting that would be foolish and counterproductive. I do have a problem when it becomes acceptable to use facial recognition software to match me against a list of criminals. Why? Because it's only a matter of time until some dimwitted politician gets the bright idea of putting cameras on every street corner.
As I said in my other post I grow weary of granting new powers. Ideally Government should be as weak as possible while still being able to effectively Govern. How did Law Enforcement work without automatic plate scanning cameras, DNA databases, etc, etc? It seemed to do quite well. Therefore I automatically regard any attempt at giving them more power with suspicion.
I mean, you're entitled to your opinion (obviously) but my POV is that you're actually harming what you're trying to protect.
My problem is that it's way too easy to rationalize stuff. People will buy it hook, line and sinker every single time. Especially if you cloak it in the name of preventing terrorism/drugs/child molesters or whatever the favorite bogeyman of the week is. Make a compelling case for why the police need this technology. Not a compelling case for why it isn't an intrusion. You can make that case after you explain why they need it.
I hope I explained my position a little bit better this time around:)
When you have opinions like "no dirty copper has a right to look me in the kisser" it taints your other ideas without concern about their specific merits.
It's not about "no dirty copper". It's about asking the simple question of why should the state be allowed to do something? Law enforcement worked just fine for the last few decades without scanning every single license plate on the freeway. Ergo, why should we let them do this?
I grow weary of giving the state power that they don't already have. Some would say that they already have too much.
Re:"Why is it so hard to make a good Trek game"?
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Star Trek Legacy Review
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Because Trek is ultimately about dialogue and not action.
You haven't been watching Trek since TNG have you?
If you are worried about your cell phone company tracking your movememnts, then you'll just drive up your stress. My wife has the family cell. I call her from my office phone. The phone company and my work know exactly where I was when I made the call. With enhanced 911, the cell phone company can provide the nearests street address of my wife when I call her. Could this be abused? Yeap. I'd personally, rather be able to track my wife's running around town by her cell phone calls that could be a service that many would love to pay for.
The fact that the cell phone company knows where I am is a byproduct of the technology. I'm not stressing about it. I'm only stating the fact that there should probably be some new privacy laws to strictly limit what they can do with this information. Because if you don't pass those laws then history teaches us they will sell it to the highest bidder.
A simple law saying that they can't retain any data of where I've been longer then 48 hours and that they can't sell it to anybody nor use it for any purposes other then network quality control would be sufficient.
A cop LOOKING AT YOU is not an intrusion. You don't even realize it's happening. And the idea that you group your license plate number in the same category as your DNA and Fingerprints tells me that you're in the fringe here.
Look, I don't have a problem with them looking at me if they have probable cause. Case in point: I've often witnessed NYS troopers following people that drove by a speed trap (on the wrong side of the limit) and calling in plate numbers. They will call in the plate number of everybody that they witnessed speeding before they decide whom to pullover. If you are wanted for something, don't have insurance, or anything of that sort, guess who is getting pulled?
I do have a problem with them driving down the road scanning every plate in sight. It is an intrusion. You are just rationalizing it because "driving is a privilege". Why is scanning my license plate any different from scanning my facial features and comparing them to DMV ID photos to see if I'm wanted for anything? Cuz that'll be coming next as technology improves. Next you'll say that going out in public also a "privilege"?
It is exhausting. Here I am defending OJ for publishing his book or the Westboro Baptist Church for protesting at funerals.
The basic problem though is that if it's acceptable to silence them because we don't agree with what they stand for then it becomes acceptable to silence me when I criticize Gitmo. The problem with waiving constitutional rights for certain classes of criminals (drug dealers, terrorists, DWIs, child molesters all come to mind as the favorite bogeyman) is that it makes it ok to waive them for others.
"Free speech zones", the erosion of habeas corpus, the complete disregard for the 10th Amendment.... I think the Founding Fathers would be very disappointed in the direction that we've taken the United States in the last hundred years.
Well, I've had this fantasy of Active Census all during college. A census once every ten years was o.k. way back at the beginning of the country, but I think that we've got the tech to track everyone in realtime and collect the long form census information on everyone in realtime. Should we? Maybe not, but tracking DL, fingerprints, and DNA would be a part of my active census plan.
I'm sorry but it will be a cold day in hell before I turn over my fingerprints or DNA to any Government database.
I've seen this nifty little device that scans every license plate in four lanes of traffic and runs them all across NCIC or any other database you have for hits. I think that every cop car in the nation needs one of those. Only problem is that they are currently 25K-35K. If we can do something like that for lic. plates, why can't we do them for facial pictures? It would be much, much more difficult, but it would instantly identify those that are in the system already. Yeah, that tech can be abused, but what 1984 and others didn't think about is what happens when that tech becomes so cheap that I can afford it on my own car/person?
Indeed, what happens when it becomes that cheap? Then private companies get to start building databases of where I go and what I do? It already scares the hell out of me that my cellular company has the ability to build a database of my movements. I think there's need to strict privacy laws to limit what anybody (Govt or private) can do with this information.
I have a problem with that license plate system too because it seems to automatically assume that everybody on the road is guilty until proven innocent. What's wrong with making the cops wait until you do something to give them probable cause before they get to start profiling you and looking for wants/warrants/etc? If he catches me speeding then he can run my plate -- but if I'm obeying the law then I don't think he has the right to be looking at me.
Sure, sounds great to me. Common law goes back centuries when the police didn't have any tools other than eye witness accounts.
And the common law evolved because of abuses by those same authorities. What makes you think that DNA and fingerprints can't be abused? I don't think technology has changed the fact that we ought to regard the Government with suspicion.
Change one of those and it would be less than a decade before we have widespread fingerprinting and DNA tracking.
And why is that a good thing? You do realize that the overwhelming majority of criminals are caught because they screw up, right? It doesn't take magical CSI work to solve most crimes. Talk to any police officer. The cops aren't that much smarter then you or I. The criminals tend to be idiots. You have to ask yourself why the Government needs a database of fingerprints and DNA.
There is a part of me that wonders why public schools haven't added finger printing to their student ID process. If that single step was taken, within two generations it would become socially acceptable to fingerprint and id everyone.
And that's the day that my kids become home schooled. You aren't making a compelling argument for why we should stand for this.
All that needs to be changed is requiring a full set of prints for DL renewal or new DLs. We aren't quite there for DNA, but if we setup our system for fingerprints, how difficult would it be to add a string for your DNA? (Shouldn't be that hard.)
If I go to my bank and they don't recognize me they make me put a fingerprint on my check to cash/deposit it, that practice is becoming common too.
Do business with a local bank instead of some national company ala Chase/Citi/Bank of America.
The ladies at my local bank are on a first name basis with most of the customer base and they never ask for ID. Some of the national banks around here ask for ID with every transaction regardless of whether or not they know you.
I won't do business with them. Neither should you.
You can't do shit without a birth certificate, driver's license, and social security card
Sure you can on the SS card -- it's just harder. As for the other two? The only times in my entire life where I've needed my birth certificate is when I applied for my passport and drivers license. And the DL? What exactly do you need a license for besides driving? You can board a plane with any Gov't issued ID.
You are required to carry ID on you at all times (ostensibly for identification of your body if you die or something) even though you supposedly cannot be arrested for failing to provide ID - but they can haul you in if you don't have ID if you're even a passenger in a car.
Says who? Unless you go out of your way to piss the officer off (and get yourself a disorderly conduct charge) I find it very unlikely. "Officer, my name is John Q. Public and I do not have ID on me at this time."
In fact, AFAIK, in my state you don't even need your license on you to drive. All you need to be able to do is produce it within 24 hours. That said, I carry my license in my car but not on my person. I refuse to show it for business transactions. They can live without it or they can lose my business. And if I'm stopped on the street by law enforcement I can honestly say "I don't have it on my person at this time officer".
While I am 100% against fingerprinting CITIZENS of this country, I couldn't give a shit less if someone from outside of the US is fingerprinted.
That's extremely short-sighted. Did you miss the part about America giving the fingerprints back to the home country of the visitor? Presumably this is being done to evade whatever due-process rights exist in that country. What happens if that's reversed? I go to Canada and get fingerprinted -- Canada helpfully uploads my prints to the FBI database. My rights have been violated and I can't even complain because I "chose" to go to Canada.
This is the problem when people start rationalizing the erosion of our rights. Terrorism is just the latest excuse. Think of the War on Drugs (property forfeiture laws, expanded search powers). Think of DWIs (implied consent and compelled to give evidence against yourself). Think of the Japanese internment camps.
I'm sorry but the Constitution doesn't have a "national security" or "DWI" clause. You can't rationalize away the erosion of any rights. It's easy to support the fifth amendment until you see drunks using it to escape DWI convictions. It's easy to support the second amendment until you are held up at gunpoint. It's easy to support the first amendment until the KKK uses it.
The biggest defender of freedom stands up for the right of somebody he doesn't like to utilize those freedoms in a manner that he doesn't agree with. Anybody else is a hypocrite. And to them I say: You allowed this to happen.
FWIW, I don't really see fingerprints as "my privacy". You leave the damned things everywhere, your fingerprints are roughly equivalent to your face, its a personally identifiable image. So now we are asking guests of this country if we can take a different type of picture.
You leave DNA everywhere too. Every time you shed a hair, every time you blow your nose, every time you spit, sneeze, sweat or pick your nose. Your garbage bags waiting out by the curb are probably full of DNA that you have "discarded" and could in theory be taken by the police. Does this mean the Government should build a DNA database of all citizens -- even those who haven't been convicted of anything?
Are common law protections against unreasonable search and innocent until proven guilty going to become obsolete in the face of modern technology? I for one do not welcome our CSI overlords.....
I'm not saying they aren't researching, I'm saying it is similar to a car company making a car that never needs maitnence. It does not follow along what their purpose is. I don't think that the man is sticking it to us that badly, I think that pharmeceutical companies are a bit evil; watch the constant gardner. That movie is dead on balls accurate.
I don't think they are saints either but I don't buy your original posts that seemed to imply that they wouldn't allow a cure for cancer unless it was in the form of a lifetime therapy. By definition vaccines aren't lifetime therapy (typically a shot or a series -- repeated at most every decade or so) yet there's a huge market for them and research is ongoing.
AIDS is a better example then cancer. The drug companies make a fortune off the various AIDS cocktails. It's my understanding that the current cocktails can pretty much beat the disease into remission and that you can live for quite awhile on them (decades?). Yet research into an HIV vaccine is ongoing and the first company that comes up with one stands to make a fortune of their own and would have lots of incentive to bring it to market.
There's a lot of industries in America that seem to collude to set prices (the cellular industry, the energy industry, the record labels.....) but I don't know if you can fairly lump the pharmaceutical companies into that category (yet). Somebody is producing all those cheap generic drugs after the patents expire.
perhaps I was too general. Pharmaceutical companies (especially in this day and age) would be less apt to allow something eat into their profits like that.
I'm sorry but I find that way too cynical of an argument. Let's say that a company found a cure for cancer that was a single use injection (we should be that lucky). They'd make a friggen fortune off that cure -- even if it wasn't a lifetime therapy. Obviously there's incentive to do this type of research or people wouldn't be bothering.
The diseases you mention have long been vaccinated against. Name the last major disease that was "cured", and when it was. I assure you it was not only a couple years ago.
Recently an HPV vaccine was developed and brought to market. Total cost for the full series: $360.00.
What is your bottom line argument here? Do you really think that the pharmaceutical companies aren't researching/won't allow cures for diseases because it goes against their bottom line? Are you really that cynical? Do you really think that "the man" is sticking it to us that badly?
Certainly, there are privately owned hospitals, charitable hospitals, ties to religious communities, etc. But I still don't see how that's an argument that they are saving money. In my area, an overnight bed shared is $1,200 a day. I pay out of pocket; normal insurance pays more (out of pocketers get a 10% discount where I am).
I didn't say they were saving money because they were non-profit. That was never my argument. My argument was to rebut the GP's assumption that the health care industry wouldn't want to see a cure for cancer because they have a vested interest in long term treatments. I'm not going to go into a point by point debate about health care. I had one point to make and I think I made it very well.
I can assure you that pharmaceutical companies make exponentially more money off something that you have to take for a long time (if not the rest of your life) than a one-time use treatment.
By your logic I suppose there's no company out there that would bother to create a Smallpox vaccine is there? Or a Chicken Pox vaccine. How about Hepatitis B, Polio, Tetanus, or Measles? Cuz, obviously there's more money to be made in prolonging treatment, so no company is going to bother to make one time use vaccines are they?
Give me a break. Companies are still investing money in short term treatments. Are longer term treatments more profitable? Maybe. But to say that the medical community won't let a cure for cancer "fly" because chemo is more profitable is extremely cynical at best -- flamebait at worst.
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The government gets surveillance equipment, and you get no cost super encryption, for example.
The difference being that when the Government decides it doesn't like my encryption they can outlaw it. The difference being that the Government can compel me to turn over the decryption keys.
Look, I don't have a problem with surveillance equipment in my bank or gas station. I do have a problem when people start advocating that we put it on every street corner and every highway. The Government does not need it. Plain and simple. You still haven't made a compelling argument for why they need it. Your argument boils down to "don't be afraid".
Somebody is less likely to mug my sister walking down a street at night if he can see a camera mounted on every 3rd lamp post. It will not prevent all crime, but I do have faith in it as a deterrent.
Placing armed troops on the streets will also deter crime, should that be our next step?
But what harm is a DB full of transaction/flight/phone/video rental information doing you? Even if you're unlucky enough to have a profile that causes your name to appear when running their profiling/analysis queries on the data you still probably would never know it. But the chances are huge that you'd never even make that list.
So you support the NSA building a database of everybody I call? I'm not talking about the private sector (video rental information?) -- I'm talking about the fucking Government. They don't need to know who I'm calling! It's that friggen simple.
Look at Star Trek, which i think everyone can agree is a good example of a future that we'd like to see for our great great great grandchildren. The computer tracks the whereabouts of everybody. Every single conversation anyone ever has can be recorded by the ubiquitous computer. But nobody cries foul of that as a 'police state.'
Your using Star Trek to support your arguments? The Enterprise is a military setting. The military plays by a different set of rules. If you join the military then expect your commanding officers to know where you are at all times. Somehow I don't think Gene's vision was of the Federation keeping constant track of all it's civilian citizens and recording all of their conversations via a big brother computer system. You'd actually be ok with the Government building a database of your real time movements?
I agree that a distrust of government is healthy. But there's a difference between being skeptical and being paranoid. And judging by your comments, if Skeptic is 1 and Paranoid is 10, you're surely tipping past 5, on your way to 6 or 7.
I didn't used to be paranoid about them. Then we started locking people up without access to the judicial system (Americans at that!) and logging information on people who aren't suspects in any sort of criminal investigation. I'm not ok with the concept of using data mining to predict who might be a terrorist/rapist/etc/etc and neither should you be.
Why do you care if you walk past 20 cameras a day that screen you against a list of criminals? Why does that bother you?
I don't know how to explain it without sounding like a tinfoil hat wearing 1984 fearing extremist.
It's all well and good to say those cameras are there to screen for criminals. What happens when the Gov't starts using them to compile a list of where lawful citizens go and what they do? It makes it that much easier to create a police state. You don't think these things can be abused? Are you also ok with the NSA creating a database of all of our call detail information?
If cameras in public places prevent my sister or mother from being mugged or raped in some back alley somewhere, then that is worth it's weight in gold
At best the cameras will help the cops catch the guy after the fact. At worst they will encourage him to drag your sister or mom off the streets and into that dark alley outside the field of view.
I have no expectation of privacy when walking around in my city. I do have an expectation of anonymity but I also know that I don't have a _right_ to it.
It's not about an expectation of privacy. It's about not trusting the Government. I don't trust the Government not to abuse power. I used too -- then a long series of events completely disillusioned me. They are building databases of my phone calls, databases of my financial transactions and databases of my (air) travels. When will it end?
What rights are the police infringing by following a known repeat DUI offender's car for while when they spot that car at 11.30pm?
Have you ever been followed by the police whilst being profiled? Let me explain how it goes:
Eventually they let you go. All the while they were harassing you, profiling you and generally acting like dicks. In that time they could have been patrolling and probably could have caught one or two actual drunks instead of sitting outside of the bar eating donuts/doing paperwork and pulling over every person who comes out regardless of how much (if anything) he has had to drink.
Oh and I don't have a DWI history. And they still pull this. They tailgate you hoping to force you to make a mistake and when that doesn't work they invent a reason to pull you over anyway.
This is tons of BS. There's always been this myth, by very defensive B5 fans for some reason, that Paramount had to steal everything from JMS because, apparently, no one had talent or creativity at Star Trek.
They didn't steal everything. Even JMS doesn't think that. He's on record as saying that he doesn't think Berman or any of those guys would have condoned that. But you can't deny that the Bab5 series bible was sitting in a file drawer at Paramount and that there are amazing "coincidences" between the two series.
There was no actual planned 'story arcs' (like JMS did with B5) as DS9 was more spontaneous. For example, the Klingon War came from nowhere in the 4th season. When TNG went off the air, the DS9 writers 'owned' the Federation and would come up with things no one was expecting (Section 17, the Changeling Virus, etc).
Really? Cuz the DS9 producers would have you think that they planned it out from day one.
The idea of story 'arcs' were nothing new. TNG was filled with several of them. Before B5 was on the air, DS9 was slowly building up story arcs starting with the Bajorans such as the Circle to subties of the Dominion in Season 2. Then, each season, the writers intentionally ramped the story arc higher and higher without fully knowing where it would go. The seeds for DS9 were already well planted in TNG in episodes like "Ensign Ro" or the episodes with the Cardassian War. But I suppose TNG miraculously stole those from B5 in the late eighties too.
As much as I love TNG and consider it one of the best shows ever I don't see how you can say it was filled with story arcs. The characters grew over time and it didn't suffer from the reset button ala Voyager, but what story arcs are you referring to? It was very much a stand alone show. The characters evolved and grew/suffered from past events (Picard after being captured by the Borg is the easiest example to make) but what story arcs?
Very unique to DS9 was how the secondary characters (Garak, Dukat, etc.) grew so three dimensionally that they rivaled the main characters. You never saw that in B5 (since that show was plot based).
Umm, you never saw that in B5 eh? How about this guy. Or maybe this guy? And define "main character"? Cuz I'd make the argument that a lot of the B5 story was based around Mollari and that he rivals any TV character I've seen before or since.
I will grant you that Garak was one of the best characters in Trek history. But Dukat? I stopped taking Dukat's character seriously after he became David Koresh^W^Wthe Emissary of the Pa' Wraiths. They should have killed him off after his nervous breakdown and left the character at that. He became a one-sided TV villain stereotype and it was painful to watch.
Babylon 5 was a good show. But there's a reason why it isn't aging so well.
Really? Cuz I'd make the argument that B5 is better on DVD. Watch 'In the Beginning'. Then watch the series in order. There's standalone episodes of DS9 that I'll watch on Spike but I
Have you given a thought to what discharging a firearm on an airplane at 30,000 feet might do if you puncture the hull of the plain and depressurize the cabin?
I'm pretty sure the Mythbusters concluded that it wouldn't be as bad as you might think.... and in any case I don't think me firing my gun and depressurizing the cabin would have caused the WTC towers to fall.....
But everything related to Dominion IMO sucked.
Including quite possibly the biggest anti-climatic letdown of a story in television history.
"The Prophets made them disappear"
*sigh*
Eh,
I don't see how "dialog" exists in the Voyager or Enterprise world. DS9 had dialog but it also had a much heavier emphasis on action then TNG so it's a wash at best.
Actually, in fairness, DS9 lasted another five years after TNG, but started a year before TNG ended, so gets a pass.
I'm torn on DS9. It feels like Bab5 meets Star Trek. Obviously it has Star Trek themes (DS9 did some pretty cool stuff with the Klingons -- a nice build-out from the groundwork laid by TNG) and undertones but the overall story has quite a few similarities and one has to wonder how many of those you can write off to "coincidence".
Mark my words, when a new Star Trek series eventually comes back in a decade or three, they will pretend those two never happened (or at best, give a not to Voyager for opening up the Delta quadrant, but basically ignore most of the episode development).
The day I stopped taking Star Trek seriously was the day that Patrick Stewart had to utter the line: "Admiral Janeway". I like to pretend that nothing after "All Good Things..." happened.
Star Trek has always been, and always will be a drama first, and sci-fi second. (We don't talk about Enterprise)
I'm sorry but I don't feel like it's been that way since TNG. DS9 might make an honorable mention and it still holds a special place in my heart because it was the first Trek I ever saw. But the more I watch and start to like Babylon 5 the more it feels like DS9 ripped it off.
Classical Trek for me ended when TNG ended. And I'm glad TNG ended when it did -- because certain Season 7 episodes bear an amazing resemblance to Voyager and if TNG had stayed on the air it would have jumped the shark in Season 8. Look no further then the TNG movies if you doubt this.
Assuming they look at you as you pass by doing your normal business, and assuming that the picture they compare you to is one they have on file in their own system, there is *nothing* wrong with this.
(Sorry for two replies -- I hosed my other one)
I don't have a problem with the officer himself looking at me. Prohibiting that would be foolish and counterproductive. I do have a problem when it becomes acceptable to use facial recognition software to match me against a list of criminals. Why? Because it's only a matter of time until some dimwitted politician gets the bright idea of putting cameras on every street corner.
As I said in my other post I grow weary of granting new powers. Ideally Government should be as weak as possible while still being able to effectively Govern. How did Law Enforcement work without automatic plate scanning cameras, DNA databases, etc, etc? It seemed to do quite well. Therefore I automatically regard any attempt at giving them more power with suspicion.
I mean, you're entitled to your opinion (obviously) but my POV is that you're actually harming what you're trying to protect.
My problem is that it's way too easy to rationalize stuff. People will buy it hook, line and sinker every single time. Especially if you cloak it in the name of preventing terrorism/drugs/child molesters or whatever the favorite bogeyman of the week is. Make a compelling case for why the police need this technology. Not a compelling case for why it isn't an intrusion. You can make that case after you explain why they need it.
I hope I explained my position a little bit better this time around :)
When you have opinions like "no dirty copper has a right to look me in the kisser" it taints your other ideas without concern about their specific merits.
It's not about "no dirty copper". It's about asking the simple question of why should the state be allowed to do something? Law enforcement worked just fine for the last few decades without scanning every single license plate on the freeway. Ergo, why should we let them do this?
I grow weary of giving the state power that they don't already have. Some would say that they already have too much.
Because Trek is ultimately about dialogue and not action.
You haven't been watching Trek since TNG have you?
If you are worried about your cell phone company tracking your movememnts, then you'll just drive up your stress. My wife has the family cell. I call her from my office phone. The phone company and my work know exactly where I was when I made the call. With enhanced 911, the cell phone company can provide the nearests street address of my wife when I call her. Could this be abused? Yeap. I'd personally, rather be able to track my wife's running around town by her cell phone calls that could be a service that many would love to pay for.
The fact that the cell phone company knows where I am is a byproduct of the technology. I'm not stressing about it. I'm only stating the fact that there should probably be some new privacy laws to strictly limit what they can do with this information. Because if you don't pass those laws then history teaches us they will sell it to the highest bidder.
A simple law saying that they can't retain any data of where I've been longer then 48 hours and that they can't sell it to anybody nor use it for any purposes other then network quality control would be sufficient.
A cop LOOKING AT YOU is not an intrusion. You don't even realize it's happening. And the idea that you group your license plate number in the same category as your DNA and Fingerprints tells me that you're in the fringe here.
Look, I don't have a problem with them looking at me if they have probable cause. Case in point: I've often witnessed NYS troopers following people that drove by a speed trap (on the wrong side of the limit) and calling in plate numbers. They will call in the plate number of everybody that they witnessed speeding before they decide whom to pullover. If you are wanted for something, don't have insurance, or anything of that sort, guess who is getting pulled?
I do have a problem with them driving down the road scanning every plate in sight. It is an intrusion. You are just rationalizing it because "driving is a privilege". Why is scanning my license plate any different from scanning my facial features and comparing them to DMV ID photos to see if I'm wanted for anything? Cuz that'll be coming next as technology improves. Next you'll say that going out in public also a "privilege"?
I cannot tell you how exhausting that is.
It is exhausting. Here I am defending OJ for publishing his book or the Westboro Baptist Church for protesting at funerals.
The basic problem though is that if it's acceptable to silence them because we don't agree with what they stand for then it becomes acceptable to silence me when I criticize Gitmo. The problem with waiving constitutional rights for certain classes of criminals (drug dealers, terrorists, DWIs, child molesters all come to mind as the favorite bogeyman) is that it makes it ok to waive them for others.
"Free speech zones", the erosion of habeas corpus, the complete disregard for the 10th Amendment.... I think the Founding Fathers would be very disappointed in the direction that we've taken the United States in the last hundred years.
Well, I've had this fantasy of Active Census all during college. A census once every ten years was o.k. way back at the beginning of the country, but I think that we've got the tech to track everyone in realtime and collect the long form census information on everyone in realtime. Should we? Maybe not, but tracking DL, fingerprints, and DNA would be a part of my active census plan.
I'm sorry but it will be a cold day in hell before I turn over my fingerprints or DNA to any Government database.
I've seen this nifty little device that scans every license plate in four lanes of traffic and runs them all across NCIC or any other database you have for hits. I think that every cop car in the nation needs one of those. Only problem is that they are currently 25K-35K. If we can do something like that for lic. plates, why can't we do them for facial pictures? It would be much, much more difficult, but it would instantly identify those that are in the system already. Yeah, that tech can be abused, but what 1984 and others didn't think about is what happens when that tech becomes so cheap that I can afford it on my own car/person?
Indeed, what happens when it becomes that cheap? Then private companies get to start building databases of where I go and what I do? It already scares the hell out of me that my cellular company has the ability to build a database of my movements. I think there's need to strict privacy laws to limit what anybody (Govt or private) can do with this information.
I have a problem with that license plate system too because it seems to automatically assume that everybody on the road is guilty until proven innocent. What's wrong with making the cops wait until you do something to give them probable cause before they get to start profiling you and looking for wants/warrants/etc? If he catches me speeding then he can run my plate -- but if I'm obeying the law then I don't think he has the right to be looking at me.
Sure, sounds great to me. Common law goes back centuries when the police didn't have any tools other than eye witness accounts.
And the common law evolved because of abuses by those same authorities. What makes you think that DNA and fingerprints can't be abused? I don't think technology has changed the fact that we ought to regard the Government with suspicion.
Change one of those and it would be less than a decade before we have widespread fingerprinting and DNA tracking.
And why is that a good thing? You do realize that the overwhelming majority of criminals are caught because they screw up, right? It doesn't take magical CSI work to solve most crimes. Talk to any police officer. The cops aren't that much smarter then you or I. The criminals tend to be idiots. You have to ask yourself why the Government needs a database of fingerprints and DNA.
There is a part of me that wonders why public schools haven't added finger printing to their student ID process. If that single step was taken, within two generations it would become socially acceptable to fingerprint and id everyone.
And that's the day that my kids become home schooled. You aren't making a compelling argument for why we should stand for this.
All that needs to be changed is requiring a full set of prints for DL renewal or new DLs. We aren't quite there for DNA, but if we setup our system for fingerprints, how difficult would it be to add a string for your DNA? (Shouldn't be that hard.)
And again, why should we do this exactly?
If I go to my bank and they don't recognize me they make me put a fingerprint on my check to cash/deposit it, that practice is becoming common too.
Do business with a local bank instead of some national company ala Chase/Citi/Bank of America.
The ladies at my local bank are on a first name basis with most of the customer base and they never ask for ID. Some of the national banks around here ask for ID with every transaction regardless of whether or not they know you.
I won't do business with them. Neither should you.
You can't do shit without a birth certificate, driver's license, and social security card
Sure you can on the SS card -- it's just harder. As for the other two? The only times in my entire life where I've needed my birth certificate is when I applied for my passport and drivers license. And the DL? What exactly do you need a license for besides driving? You can board a plane with any Gov't issued ID.
You are required to carry ID on you at all times (ostensibly for identification of your body if you die or something) even though you supposedly cannot be arrested for failing to provide ID - but they can haul you in if you don't have ID if you're even a passenger in a car.
Says who? Unless you go out of your way to piss the officer off (and get yourself a disorderly conduct charge) I find it very unlikely. "Officer, my name is John Q. Public and I do not have ID on me at this time."
In fact, AFAIK, in my state you don't even need your license on you to drive. All you need to be able to do is produce it within 24 hours. That said, I carry my license in my car but not on my person. I refuse to show it for business transactions. They can live without it or they can lose my business. And if I'm stopped on the street by law enforcement I can honestly say "I don't have it on my person at this time officer".
While I am 100% against fingerprinting CITIZENS of this country, I couldn't give a shit less if someone from outside of the US is fingerprinted.
That's extremely short-sighted. Did you miss the part about America giving the fingerprints back to the home country of the visitor? Presumably this is being done to evade whatever due-process rights exist in that country. What happens if that's reversed? I go to Canada and get fingerprinted -- Canada helpfully uploads my prints to the FBI database. My rights have been violated and I can't even complain because I "chose" to go to Canada.
This is the problem when people start rationalizing the erosion of our rights. Terrorism is just the latest excuse. Think of the War on Drugs (property forfeiture laws, expanded search powers). Think of DWIs (implied consent and compelled to give evidence against yourself). Think of the Japanese internment camps.
I'm sorry but the Constitution doesn't have a "national security" or "DWI" clause. You can't rationalize away the erosion of any rights. It's easy to support the fifth amendment until you see drunks using it to escape DWI convictions. It's easy to support the second amendment until you are held up at gunpoint. It's easy to support the first amendment until the KKK uses it.
The biggest defender of freedom stands up for the right of somebody he doesn't like to utilize those freedoms in a manner that he doesn't agree with. Anybody else is a hypocrite. And to them I say: You allowed this to happen.
FWIW, I don't really see fingerprints as "my privacy". You leave the damned things everywhere, your fingerprints are roughly equivalent to your face, its a personally identifiable image. So now we are asking guests of this country if we can take a different type of picture.
You leave DNA everywhere too. Every time you shed a hair, every time you blow your nose, every time you spit, sneeze, sweat or pick your nose. Your garbage bags waiting out by the curb are probably full of DNA that you have "discarded" and could in theory be taken by the police. Does this mean the Government should build a DNA database of all citizens -- even those who haven't been convicted of anything?
Are common law protections against unreasonable search and innocent until proven guilty going to become obsolete in the face of modern technology? I for one do not welcome our CSI overlords.....
I'm not saying they aren't researching, I'm saying it is similar to a car company making a car that never needs maitnence. It does not follow along what their purpose is. I don't think that the man is sticking it to us that badly, I think that pharmeceutical companies are a bit evil; watch the constant gardner. That movie is dead on balls accurate.
I don't think they are saints either but I don't buy your original posts that seemed to imply that they wouldn't allow a cure for cancer unless it was in the form of a lifetime therapy. By definition vaccines aren't lifetime therapy (typically a shot or a series -- repeated at most every decade or so) yet there's a huge market for them and research is ongoing.
AIDS is a better example then cancer. The drug companies make a fortune off the various AIDS cocktails. It's my understanding that the current cocktails can pretty much beat the disease into remission and that you can live for quite awhile on them (decades?). Yet research into an HIV vaccine is ongoing and the first company that comes up with one stands to make a fortune of their own and would have lots of incentive to bring it to market.
There's a lot of industries in America that seem to collude to set prices (the cellular industry, the energy industry, the record labels.....) but I don't know if you can fairly lump the pharmaceutical companies into that category (yet). Somebody is producing all those cheap generic drugs after the patents expire.
perhaps I was too general. Pharmaceutical companies (especially in this day and age) would be less apt to allow something eat into their profits like that.
I'm sorry but I find that way too cynical of an argument. Let's say that a company found a cure for cancer that was a single use injection (we should be that lucky). They'd make a friggen fortune off that cure -- even if it wasn't a lifetime therapy. Obviously there's incentive to do this type of research or people wouldn't be bothering.
The diseases you mention have long been vaccinated against. Name the last major disease that was "cured", and when it was. I assure you it was not only a couple years ago.
Recently an HPV vaccine was developed and brought to market. Total cost for the full series: $360.00.
What is your bottom line argument here? Do you really think that the pharmaceutical companies aren't researching/won't allow cures for diseases because it goes against their bottom line? Are you really that cynical? Do you really think that "the man" is sticking it to us that badly?
Certainly, there are privately owned hospitals, charitable hospitals, ties to religious communities, etc. But I still don't see how that's an argument that they are saving money. In my area, an overnight bed shared is $1,200 a day. I pay out of pocket; normal insurance pays more (out of pocketers get a 10% discount where I am).
I didn't say they were saving money because they were non-profit. That was never my argument. My argument was to rebut the GP's assumption that the health care industry wouldn't want to see a cure for cancer because they have a vested interest in long term treatments. I'm not going to go into a point by point debate about health care. I had one point to make and I think I made it very well.
I can assure you that pharmaceutical companies make exponentially more money off something that you have to take for a long time (if not the rest of your life) than a one-time use treatment.
By your logic I suppose there's no company out there that would bother to create a Smallpox vaccine is there? Or a Chicken Pox vaccine. How about Hepatitis B, Polio, Tetanus, or Measles? Cuz, obviously there's more money to be made in prolonging treatment, so no company is going to bother to make one time use vaccines are they?
Give me a break. Companies are still investing money in short term treatments. Are longer term treatments more profitable? Maybe. But to say that the medical community won't let a cure for cancer "fly" because chemo is more profitable is extremely cynical at best -- flamebait at worst.