Is the person a goat herd? Picked up for a 'cash' or just making up the 'quota' by another friendly intelligence 'service'.
The conventions require a status review be conducted by a "competent tribunal". This was done for everybody in Gitmo, they released a few dozen prisoners during the process, the rest were deemed to be unlawful combatants, who are subject to the domestic laws of the United States, this according to the conventions.
None of this is really new stuff, today we call them terrorists, a few generations ago they were pirates, a long time ago they were barbarians. At the end of the day they're just people who conduct themselves in a manner contrary to the law of nations, and in so doing they forfeit many (not all) of the protections according to those who behave within the confines of the law of nations.
The only difference between today and yesteryear is we're too bogged down in bureaucratic inertia to actually get on with the process, which does everybody a disservice. You've got idiots on the left screaming it's illegal, idiots on the right screaming for summary execution, and idiots in between who are too indecisive to actually apply the law as written and move the process forward.
and US law and international treaty obligations are clear
Have you actually read what the Geneva Conventions have to say about those who fight without uniform, outside of the armed forces of belligerent nation-states? US law has also handled this situation in the recent past, though I'm guessing not in the manner that you'd wish to see.
Under the law at the time no charges would be needed, he would have been a PoW, just like the hundreds of thousands of German and Italian prisoners held in the US without trial.
Close, but not quite the precedent that Padilla was held under. Lawful combatants (the PoWs you alluded to) can be held for the duration of hostilities, but generally can't be charged for having engaged in hostilities prior to their capture. Padilla was an unlawful combatant, the closest analogy from WW2 would be these guys, two of whom were American citizens, yet whom were treated the same as the German nationals who were captured during that aborted sabotage operation.
In New York State his alleged action would be Rape in the 3rd Degree:
S 130.05 Sex offenses; lack of consent.
1. Whether or not specifically stated, it is an element of every offense defined in this article that the sexual act was committed without consent of the victim.
2. Lack of consent results from:
(a) Forcible compulsion; or
(b) Incapacity to consent; or
(c) Where the offense charged is sexual abuse or forcible touching, any circumstances, in addition to forcible compulsion or incapacity to consent, in which the victim does not expressly or impliedly acquiesce in the actor's conduct; or
(d) Where the offense charged is rape in the third degree as defined in subdivision three of section 130.25, or criminal sexual act in the third degree as defined in subdivision three of section 130.40, in addition to forcible compulsion, circumstances under which, at the time of the act of intercourse, oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct, the victim clearly expressed that he or she did not consent to engage in such act, and a reasonable person in the actor's situation would have understood such person's words and acts as an expression of lack of consent to such act under all the circumstances.
S 130.25 Rape in the third degree.
A person is guilty of rape in the third degree when:
1. He or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of some factor other than being less than seventeen years old;
2. Being twenty-one years old or more, he or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person less than seventeen years old; or
3. He or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person without such person`s consent where such lack of consent is by reason of some factor other than incapacity to consent.
Assange will get worse than Manning in the way of sentencing, and the precedent is already set for the charges.
False. Long standing precedent says that Assange is in the clear, provided that he didn't actively encourage Manning to break the law. Assange had no duty to maintain the confidentiality of classified information, he's essentially in the same legal position as the New York Times when it publishes classified information revealed to it by sources. This is the legal precedent going back at least as far as the Pentagon Papers, and to the best of my knowledge we've never seen a reporter charged (much less convicted) for the publication of classified material.
The only thing that would get him into trouble would be if he actively encouraged Manning to break the law, in that instance he could be facing conspiracy charges. Did he do that? Nobody other than Manning knows for sure. I find it unlikely, since there are folks in Washington who really wanted to get Assange, and it would have made sense for Manning to trade his eventual testimony against him for a reduced sentence, if he had such testimony to offer.
Don't bother, about 2 people on/. actually understand why the Federal Reserve is their and how it operates.
Ah, but do they know the difference between 'their' and 'there'?
This poster doesn't claim to fully understand the black magick of modern economics, but I do understand these two numbers:
APR on my savings account: 0.05%
APR on my car loan: 0.9%
The current policy is discouraging the accumulation of savings while encouraging the assumption of ever increasing debt loads at all levels of society: individual, corporate, and governmental. You don't have to hate the Federal Reserve to realize that's not going to end well for us in the long run.
Profits? Did you look at the link? Some of the items (stamps) are sold at cost, others are sold at prices below anything I can match at the grocery store (generic Advil, 24 count, $1.65), while a few seem marked up a small amount ($2.05 for a single AA battery). Frankly I'm surprised they can meet costs at these prices, since there's a non-zero cost associated with trucking these items into the prison for sale.
Commissary isn't where they screw inmates and their families. That would be done via the collect phone calls required to communicate with the incarcerated, as anyone who has ever had a friend or relative in prison can attest to. There's a reason why cellular phones are one of the hottest ticket contraband items on the inside. Not sure if the Federal system operates like this or not, but I have had the privilege of communicating with family members on the inside in New York (>$0.50/min back in the 1990s) and North Carolina (>$0.75/min), and they absolutely hose you on those calling rates.
The vast majority of those 8,583 were killed with handguns, not rifles, which was the GPs point. I'm not sure if the actual number of rifle deaths is less than 496, but I do know that rifles typically account for a single digit percentage of all firearm murders.
Hitmen with mad skills are largely a creation of Hollywood. The lone wolf who is willing to die is what keeps the USSS up at night, not the fictional professional assassin.
The last few chumps who took shots at US Presidents all lived to talk about it. The Secret Service is a law enforcement organization, not an execution squad, they're under the same obligation as any other LEO to apprehend a suspect alive when possible. Of course, Bitcoin probably doesn't go very far at the Terre Haute prison commissary.....
A civil case filed under State Law is generally not something you can appeal past the highest court in that State, unless the case raises a question of Federal law, in which case it would have been easier to just file it in Federal Court to begin with. The courts of last resort in Texas are the Texas Supreme Court for civil matters and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for criminal ones.
Not mentioned was which encryption schemes Yahoo is considering. Maybe it's simply HTTPS, but is that good enough
HTTPS isn't an encryption scheme, it's a mechanism to establish a (theoretically) secure channel of communications. The actual ciphers to be used are negotiated between server and client, and can range from "You're kidding, right?" (RC4) to "The Federal Government claims it's good enough for Top Secret data." (AES-256)
As with everything, there's a level of third party trust (the certificate authorities) or shoe-leather (exchanging keys in person) that's required regardless of the ciphers you end up using. That's a whole different discussion though.
Uh, I hate to be the one to point out the fucking obvious here, but a "passing familiarity" with the law would be called the Constitution, and more specifically, the Fourth Amendment within that protects every citizen from such bullshit.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Which part of that Amendment specifically mentions the "bullshit" that we're talking about in this discussion?
The framers of the Constitution knew that they could not encompass every conceivable possibility into the document, or into those amendments that were later added. That's why we have courts, who interpret the document, and decide as best they can how to apply it to the issue before them.
So, you have the right to be secure in your "papers", and said right is protected by the 4th Amendment. The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not your papers include metadata stored on Verizon's system? That's a question for the courts, since it's obviously beyond the scope of the Constitution, and when that question has been asked in the past (the relevant precedent involves pen registers) the Courts have been fairly consistent in saying that you forfeited the expectation of privacy when you shared information with a third party, i.e., the phone company.
Now, one may argue that precedent was decided incorrectly and should be reversed. What one can't do (well you can, it's just unproductive) is scream about the 4th Amendment without any in-depth discussion of how that Amendment is interpreted by the courts, how we apply it to modern times with technologies that were unheard of when it was written, and how the case law as evolved over the years as those technologies have been developed.
Citizens United made it easier to buy important political offices in the United States.
I hate to break it to you, but Political Action Committees (PACs) were already allowed to accept limitless donations and to air their opinions whenever and wherever they wanted. All Citizens United did was remove the restraints on other corporations, which encompasses everything from Citizens United (the corporation that brought the suit) to the Sierra Club. Incumbent legislators hate this, because they were the ones who usually ran the PACs, and now they have to contend with speech they have no control over whatsoever.
Under the law that was struck down, it was prohibited for the Sierra Club to print fliers within 60 days of General Election that advocated for or against any of the candidates within that race. Do you seriously think such a prohibition is compatible with the concept of free speech? Grandma has free speech if she's printing the fliers at home but forfeits it when she teams up with like minded people under the guise of a corporation?
While you've got your thinking cap on, also consider the fact that the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, NBC News, New York Post, et. all, all have one thing in common: They're corporations.
"Nuh uh" isn't an insightful or interesting rebuttal.
It is when the Supreme Court of the United States does it. Only takes four Justices to grant a writ of certiorari. They couldn't even meet that threshold, which should tell you all you need to know about their chances if they had managed to get the case heard. It was either declined for procedural reasons (improper venue most likely, SCOTUS doesn't have original jurisdiction here, lack of standing is also possible) or because the Justices are mostly in agreement about the issue at hand. If the latter you should be glad they handled it the way they did, I don't think anyone wants to see a 6-3, 7-2, 8-1, or 9-0 ruling affirming these behaviors.
Unless they're doing something to benefit the powerful corporations [wikipedia.org]
You do realize that Citizens United is a corporation that was created for the specific purpose of advancing political speech, right? It's no different than MoveOn.org, it was just a bunch of like-minded people that got together to advance something they believe in. The easiest way to band together in our political-legal system is to create a corporation. The NRA is a corporation. So is the Sierra Club. Labor Unions too, they're almost always incorporated. And let's not forget the press, the majority of which are for-profit corporations, like the Washington Post or New York Times.
People don't forfeit their free speech rights when they decide to band together for a common cause under the guise of a corporation. Citizens United v. FEC was a direct response to the FECs attempt to squelch the free speech of a group of citizens who wished to air opinions that were critical of someone standing for elective office. The freedom to air such opinions is the textbook definition of free speech and I can't fathom a reason why anyone would wish to silence such speech.
Exactly. They declined to grant a writ of certiorari. This is not the same thing as an endorsement of FISA. SCOTUS hears less than 2% of all cases that come before it. EPIC will have to go through the Circuit Courts first, and even then isn't assured of going before SCOTUS, unless the Circuits commit reversible error (rare) or issue contradictory rulings (usually ensures SCOTUS review).
Nuclear reprocessing. Perfectly feasible, routinely performed in other countries, disallowed in the United States for purely political reasons.
Another great legacy of Jimmy Carter, one that's particularly ironic given his qualification in nuclear submarines, and the fact that he regarded Hyman Rickover as one of the people that most shaped his life.
I have no formal legal training whatsoever, and I'm able to understand all of the Federal and State statues I've cared enough to parse. They're written in plain English, in spite of claims to the contrary, the biggest PITA with reading the law is jumping all over the place trying to track down the various definitions. Law A defines what X means, then Laws B, C, D, E, and F all cite X and refer you back to Law A for the actual definition.
Legal statutes are certainly easier to understand without training than the various computer languages we discuss here every day. How many people do you think can sit down and decipher something written in C?
Slashdot Mirror
Way to go, anonymous coward with mod points.
New York Times Co. v. United States
That's the authoritative case and it still stands today. Look it up before acting in such haste with the downmod.
Is the person a goat herd? Picked up for a 'cash' or just making up the 'quota' by another friendly intelligence 'service'.
The conventions require a status review be conducted by a "competent tribunal". This was done for everybody in Gitmo, they released a few dozen prisoners during the process, the rest were deemed to be unlawful combatants, who are subject to the domestic laws of the United States, this according to the conventions.
None of this is really new stuff, today we call them terrorists, a few generations ago they were pirates, a long time ago they were barbarians. At the end of the day they're just people who conduct themselves in a manner contrary to the law of nations, and in so doing they forfeit many (not all) of the protections according to those who behave within the confines of the law of nations.
The only difference between today and yesteryear is we're too bogged down in bureaucratic inertia to actually get on with the process, which does everybody a disservice. You've got idiots on the left screaming it's illegal, idiots on the right screaming for summary execution, and idiots in between who are too indecisive to actually apply the law as written and move the process forward.
and US law and international treaty obligations are clear
Have you actually read what the Geneva Conventions have to say about those who fight without uniform, outside of the armed forces of belligerent nation-states? US law has also handled this situation in the recent past, though I'm guessing not in the manner that you'd wish to see.
Under the law at the time no charges would be needed, he would have been a PoW, just like the hundreds of thousands of German and Italian prisoners held in the US without trial.
Close, but not quite the precedent that Padilla was held under. Lawful combatants (the PoWs you alluded to) can be held for the duration of hostilities, but generally can't be charged for having engaged in hostilities prior to their capture. Padilla was an unlawful combatant, the closest analogy from WW2 would be these guys, two of whom were American citizens, yet whom were treated the same as the German nationals who were captured during that aborted sabotage operation.
In New York State his alleged action would be Rape in the 3rd Degree:
S 130.05 Sex offenses; lack of consent.
1. Whether or not specifically stated, it is an element of every offense defined in this article that the sexual act was committed without consent of the victim.
2. Lack of consent results from:
(a) Forcible compulsion; or
(b) Incapacity to consent; or
(c) Where the offense charged is sexual abuse or forcible touching, any circumstances, in addition to forcible compulsion or incapacity to consent, in which the victim does not expressly or impliedly acquiesce in the actor's conduct; or
(d) Where the offense charged is rape in the third degree as defined in subdivision three of section 130.25, or criminal sexual act in the third degree as defined in subdivision three of section 130.40, in addition to forcible compulsion, circumstances under which, at the time of the act of intercourse, oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct, the victim clearly expressed that he or she did not consent to engage in such act, and a reasonable person in the actor's situation would have understood such person's words and acts as an expression of lack of consent to such act under all the circumstances.
S 130.25 Rape in the third degree.
A person is guilty of rape in the third degree when:
1. He or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of some factor other than being less than seventeen years old;
2. Being twenty-one years old or more, he or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person less than seventeen years old; or
3. He or she engages in sexual intercourse with another person without such person`s consent where such lack of consent is by reason of some factor other than incapacity to consent.
Assange will get worse than Manning in the way of sentencing, and the precedent is already set for the charges.
False. Long standing precedent says that Assange is in the clear, provided that he didn't actively encourage Manning to break the law. Assange had no duty to maintain the confidentiality of classified information, he's essentially in the same legal position as the New York Times when it publishes classified information revealed to it by sources. This is the legal precedent going back at least as far as the Pentagon Papers, and to the best of my knowledge we've never seen a reporter charged (much less convicted) for the publication of classified material.
The only thing that would get him into trouble would be if he actively encouraged Manning to break the law, in that instance he could be facing conspiracy charges. Did he do that? Nobody other than Manning knows for sure. I find it unlikely, since there are folks in Washington who really wanted to get Assange, and it would have made sense for Manning to trade his eventual testimony against him for a reduced sentence, if he had such testimony to offer.
Don't bother, about 2 people on /. actually understand why the Federal Reserve is their and how it operates.
Ah, but do they know the difference between 'their' and 'there'?
This poster doesn't claim to fully understand the black magick of modern economics, but I do understand these two numbers:
APR on my savings account: 0.05%
APR on my car loan: 0.9%
The current policy is discouraging the accumulation of savings while encouraging the assumption of ever increasing debt loads at all levels of society: individual, corporate, and governmental. You don't have to hate the Federal Reserve to realize that's not going to end well for us in the long run.
Profits? Did you look at the link? Some of the items (stamps) are sold at cost, others are sold at prices below anything I can match at the grocery store (generic Advil, 24 count, $1.65), while a few seem marked up a small amount ($2.05 for a single AA battery). Frankly I'm surprised they can meet costs at these prices, since there's a non-zero cost associated with trucking these items into the prison for sale.
Commissary isn't where they screw inmates and their families. That would be done via the collect phone calls required to communicate with the incarcerated, as anyone who has ever had a friend or relative in prison can attest to. There's a reason why cellular phones are one of the hottest ticket contraband items on the inside. Not sure if the Federal system operates like this or not, but I have had the privilege of communicating with family members on the inside in New York (>$0.50/min back in the 1990s) and North Carolina (>$0.75/min), and they absolutely hose you on those calling rates.
You really think so? Because it's effectively the same argument that was used to justify Jim Crow.
The Feds should fuck off and communities should make their own rules regarding guns
There are just two problems with that notion: The 2nd and 14th Amendments.
The vast majority of those 8,583 were killed with handguns, not rifles, which was the GPs point. I'm not sure if the actual number of rifle deaths is less than 496, but I do know that rifles typically account for a single digit percentage of all firearm murders.
Hitmen with mad skills are largely a creation of Hollywood. The lone wolf who is willing to die is what keeps the USSS up at night, not the fictional professional assassin.
Can it be any Government official? I always knew I'd find a way to get back at that small town meter maid.....
You can find anything on the internet, should have waited a bit longer for my post. ;)
The last few chumps who took shots at US Presidents all lived to talk about it. The Secret Service is a law enforcement organization, not an execution squad, they're under the same obligation as any other LEO to apprehend a suspect alive when possible. Of course, Bitcoin probably doesn't go very far at the Terre Haute prison commissary.....
A civil case filed under State Law is generally not something you can appeal past the highest court in that State, unless the case raises a question of Federal law, in which case it would have been easier to just file it in Federal Court to begin with. The courts of last resort in Texas are the Texas Supreme Court for civil matters and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for criminal ones.
Not mentioned was which encryption schemes Yahoo is considering. Maybe it's simply HTTPS, but is that good enough
HTTPS isn't an encryption scheme, it's a mechanism to establish a (theoretically) secure channel of communications. The actual ciphers to be used are negotiated between server and client, and can range from "You're kidding, right?" (RC4) to "The Federal Government claims it's good enough for Top Secret data." (AES-256)
As with everything, there's a level of third party trust (the certificate authorities) or shoe-leather (exchanging keys in person) that's required regardless of the ciphers you end up using. That's a whole different discussion though.
Uh, I hate to be the one to point out the fucking obvious here, but a "passing familiarity" with the law would be called the Constitution, and more specifically, the Fourth Amendment within that protects every citizen from such bullshit.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Which part of that Amendment specifically mentions the "bullshit" that we're talking about in this discussion?
The framers of the Constitution knew that they could not encompass every conceivable possibility into the document, or into those amendments that were later added. That's why we have courts, who interpret the document, and decide as best they can how to apply it to the issue before them.
So, you have the right to be secure in your "papers", and said right is protected by the 4th Amendment. The question you have to ask yourself is whether or not your papers include metadata stored on Verizon's system? That's a question for the courts, since it's obviously beyond the scope of the Constitution, and when that question has been asked in the past (the relevant precedent involves pen registers) the Courts have been fairly consistent in saying that you forfeited the expectation of privacy when you shared information with a third party, i.e., the phone company.
Now, one may argue that precedent was decided incorrectly and should be reversed. What one can't do (well you can, it's just unproductive) is scream about the 4th Amendment without any in-depth discussion of how that Amendment is interpreted by the courts, how we apply it to modern times with technologies that were unheard of when it was written, and how the case law as evolved over the years as those technologies have been developed.
Citizens United made it easier to buy important political offices in the United States.
I hate to break it to you, but Political Action Committees (PACs) were already allowed to accept limitless donations and to air their opinions whenever and wherever they wanted. All Citizens United did was remove the restraints on other corporations, which encompasses everything from Citizens United (the corporation that brought the suit) to the Sierra Club. Incumbent legislators hate this, because they were the ones who usually ran the PACs, and now they have to contend with speech they have no control over whatsoever.
Under the law that was struck down, it was prohibited for the Sierra Club to print fliers within 60 days of General Election that advocated for or against any of the candidates within that race. Do you seriously think such a prohibition is compatible with the concept of free speech? Grandma has free speech if she's printing the fliers at home but forfeits it when she teams up with like minded people under the guise of a corporation?
While you've got your thinking cap on, also consider the fact that the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, NBC News, New York Post, et. all, all have one thing in common: They're corporations.
"Nuh uh" isn't an insightful or interesting rebuttal.
It is when the Supreme Court of the United States does it. Only takes four Justices to grant a writ of certiorari. They couldn't even meet that threshold, which should tell you all you need to know about their chances if they had managed to get the case heard. It was either declined for procedural reasons (improper venue most likely, SCOTUS doesn't have original jurisdiction here, lack of standing is also possible) or because the Justices are mostly in agreement about the issue at hand. If the latter you should be glad they handled it the way they did, I don't think anyone wants to see a 6-3, 7-2, 8-1, or 9-0 ruling affirming these behaviors.
Unless they're doing something to benefit the powerful corporations [wikipedia.org]
You do realize that Citizens United is a corporation that was created for the specific purpose of advancing political speech, right? It's no different than MoveOn.org, it was just a bunch of like-minded people that got together to advance something they believe in. The easiest way to band together in our political-legal system is to create a corporation. The NRA is a corporation. So is the Sierra Club. Labor Unions too, they're almost always incorporated. And let's not forget the press, the majority of which are for-profit corporations, like the Washington Post or New York Times.
People don't forfeit their free speech rights when they decide to band together for a common cause under the guise of a corporation. Citizens United v. FEC was a direct response to the FECs attempt to squelch the free speech of a group of citizens who wished to air opinions that were critical of someone standing for elective office. The freedom to air such opinions is the textbook definition of free speech and I can't fathom a reason why anyone would wish to silence such speech.
Exactly. They declined to grant a writ of certiorari. This is not the same thing as an endorsement of FISA. SCOTUS hears less than 2% of all cases that come before it. EPIC will have to go through the Circuit Courts first, and even then isn't assured of going before SCOTUS, unless the Circuits commit reversible error (rare) or issue contradictory rulings (usually ensures SCOTUS review).
Nuclear reprocessing. Perfectly feasible, routinely performed in other countries, disallowed in the United States for purely political reasons.
Another great legacy of Jimmy Carter, one that's particularly ironic given his qualification in nuclear submarines, and the fact that he regarded Hyman Rickover as one of the people that most shaped his life.
I have no formal legal training whatsoever, and I'm able to understand all of the Federal and State statues I've cared enough to parse. They're written in plain English, in spite of claims to the contrary, the biggest PITA with reading the law is jumping all over the place trying to track down the various definitions. Law A defines what X means, then Laws B, C, D, E, and F all cite X and refer you back to Law A for the actual definition.
Legal statutes are certainly easier to understand without training than the various computer languages we discuss here every day. How many people do you think can sit down and decipher something written in C?
and one can cultivate a layer of adipose tissue to help conceal any oddities
Yeah, but where are you going to find Americans willing to be suicide bombers? ;)
So you want to take away the right of the people to vote for whomever they like?
Try voting for a US Senate candidate under age 30, a Presidential candidate under age 35 or who wasn't born here, or a House candidate under age 25.
There are already qualifications for Federal office. Extending term limits to Congress would simply be another one.