Correct me if I am wrong, but do they not get to deduct the cost of running the business from taxable income?
They also on average generate far more in taxes than the average working individual. Do you generate 100's of thousands in taxable income on an hourly wage job? They also foot the costs of both employer and employee. Do you pay the full costs of labor (both the employer portion and employee's portion)?
If you lose your job, you are likely to be eligible to collect unemployment benefits. The owner of a sole proprietorship does not receive unemployment benefits if the business fails.
As to your muslim example, if he operates a business selling hardware he will experience legal trouble if he refuses to deal with people who want to buy hardware for use in a non-halaal butchery.
Muslim cabbies have refused on religious freedom grounds to take fares who carried alcohol or were accompanied by guide dogs.
I've noticed that no Muslim businesses have been targeted in this manner. Why don't they attempt to force a Muslim business to participate in a gay wedding, for example? Note that in the Middle East, with the equally-notable exception of Israel, killing/stoning to death of gays is common practice.
The other side of the coin, however, is work-to-order. Should a muslim/xtian/jew photographer experience legal troubles in advertising "I choose what work I will take on"?
IMHO, no, they should not. However Christian photographers for hire have found themselves in legal trouble for refusing to take on photography jobs for gay weddings. Should a gay-owned/run photography business be forced to take on work from the Westboro Baptist Church?
It seems many here want the knife to only cut one way.
Then they shouldn't get the tax relaxations that businesses get.
Income to sole proprietorships is treated as individual income, no different than any working stiff, for tax purposes. They pay individual income tax rates.
The government classifies and treats them as private citizens. Why don't they have the same religious freedom to not participate in another private individual's religious ceremonies/activities/practices as a private citizen does?.
Should a Muslim who operates a shop be compelled against his religious beliefs to participate in another religion's religious ceremonies/activities/practices that conflict with and violate their own religious beliefs?
This road does not end in a good place. For anyone of any beliefs, or even of no beliefs.
House Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) caught up in gay sex scandal according to anonymous government sources.
Future Testimony, House of Representatives-Government Oversight Committee
"I don't know, maybe some rogue extremist US intelligence operatives were taking a Predator out for a stroll one night and decided to fire a couple Hellfires at some US Representatives they disagreed with!
But why? Because their corporate masters didn't want competition. ( and the voting public isn't paying enough attention ) Why do they have corporate masters? Because we allow corporations influence in the political arena, through campaign contributions. Why do we allow corporations to make campaign contributions? Because the camel's nose got under the tent with the "corporations are people", and the line keeps getting pushed a bit further over time.
"Corporations are people" has zero to do with it. That SCOTUS ruling did not exist in the 1930s (as your example started with H. Hoover). Government is corrupt because it's made up of corruptible humans. And guess what? The more power and control over more things you give them, the more corrupt they will become.
Government is a necessary evil, and is a dangerous and deadly entity that can easily spin out of control if not tightly reined-in and allowed only the very minimum amount of power and resources to do what we decide to have done.
"regulatory capture"
The mechanism is above.
Which I already debunked above. Regarding the "corporations are people" meme, that's hogwash as well. It tells me you have no clue what the case was actually about. People have a right to organize, pool their resources, and buy advertising, etc and promote their views. People do not give up their right to participate in elections by being part of an organization like a corporation or PAC.
"blind trust"
There should not be blind trust in government. Or in anything.
Except that your statements regarding your views reflects the opposite. The cognitive dissonance is startling.
"Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce."
Do you see that Conservatism generates just as much police state?
No. I see Progressives who claim to be conservatives/Republicans. Heck, even a so-called "conservative" like John McCain has proudly stated he was a "Progressive" Republican. RINOs.
Herbert Hoover ( FBI surveillance ).
Sorry, that was J. Edgar Hoover, who was initially put in place by President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat and vocal Progressive who also racially segregated the military which had not been officially segregated prior.
Immediately after getting his LL.M degree, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department to work in the War Emergency Division. He soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by President Wilson at the beginning of World War I to arrest and jail disloyal foreigners without trial.[12] He received additional authority from the 1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable.[18]
In August 1919 Hoover became head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Divisionâ"also known as the Radical Division because its goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals.
Nixon ( watergate )
Except the Watergate "Plumbers" were election campaign operatives, not members of the FBI or other TLA.
McCarthy ( I should not need to explain )
McCarthy was destroyed because he overreached, not because he was wrong. There were and are communists in the US government. Alger Hiss and others are examples.
Bush II ( Patriot act )
Another Progressive Republican. Progressives have completely subsumed the Democratic Party and have almost done the same to the Republican Party.
Why do you think that nothing much changes no matter if the (R)s or the (D)s are in power? Progressives in both Parties is why.
The FCC also heavily regulated the telecom industry. We had no innovation for decades
We also had no competition for decades. It had nothing to do with regulation, it was because Ma Bell was the only game in town (FSVO "town" approaching "manifest destiny").
Gee, how was Ma Bell able to maintain a monopoly and keep anyone else from competing?
Oh, that's right! The FUCKING GOVERNMENT prevented competition!
And yes, there *will* be regulatory capture. Shit, practically every federal regulatory agency/dept./bureau suffers from it!
I've got a morbid curiosity to see just how the government through it's short-sightedness and desire to monitor everyone/everything causes an internet 'Deep Horizon'-scale disaster.
"You like your internet anonymity, you can keep your internet anonymity!"
You know it's coming.
And you know what?
It's just this kind of blind trust that government will make everything better you display that will help complete the transformation of the US into a soft-fascism surveillance/police state.
This solution has been brought to you by the book, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. In the book it takes place on the moon, so water is even more difficult to get, but the solutions are essentially the same.
You mean we should drop multi-ton cannisters of (water? almonds?) on Sacramento at orbital speeds resulting in kinetic energy releases rivaling nuclear weapons?
Probably the best thing that could happen to California at this point.
Who are the same school of economists that didn't see the either the 1930s Depression or the current US economic crisis coming.
...do not agree on any such thing, unless you only follow a very specific school of economists and dismiss everyone else.
Yeah, the school of economics and economists that was correctly screaming warnings both times and were ignored and/or attacked/destroyed by those economically/politically/ideologically invested in the status quo and their economic/political/ideological fellow-travelers.
Call me crazy, but I'd much rather trust corporations than government. Corporations have to answer to shareholders, and to a lesser extent, their customers
If there were real competition in residential Internet service, those corporations would have to answer to their customers. With the local duopolies, they only have to answer to their shareholders.
So, yes, you are crazy.
And guess who created and who maintains those monopolies with their own monopoly on the use of deadly force and/or imprisonment?
Better have that sanity-checker of yours recalibrated.
Just mandate that any/all electronic devices capable of mining or transferring Bitcoins be licensed & registered, with regular inspections and tamper-evident seals on the case/housing of the devices, and California-approved software installed to monitor and report any Bitcoin mining or transfers.
As a bonus, California can also use the inspections and monitoring software to detect and prevent all manner of criminal acts.
Bullets. Guns aren't worth much if there isn't ammunition, and ammunition has been getting very expensive. Plus, most bullets don't last forever, intentionally. This way you can start shutting down suppliers and really make shooting impractical. You'll be stuck with muskets if you can still buy the gun powder. I'm just waiting for battery technology to reach the point that we can have usable homemade gauss rifles.
Oh goody!
Then we can have the government try to regulate "'weapons-grade' batteries and similar energy storage devices".
I can almost hear the sound-bites; You can't sell that #DEVICE (phone, tablet, whatever) with a battery that lasts more than X-hours, as it could be turned into a weapon! Every one of those #DEVICEs on the streets is a potential dead cop!
And so in 10 years, even though battery tech is certain to make large leaps, we would still need to charge our mobile devices daily.
I don't think many in government and the powerful will be satisfied until electricity and ferrous metals/alloys are heavily restricted and regulated and/or considered as contraband, and the masses are reduced to Bronze Age tech & weapons for the most part while the powerful elites enjoy modern tech in "gated communities" taken to extreme.
If the Stingray is a threat to you, then I hope you're convicted of the criminal activities that make it so.
'Criminal activities that make it so' like civil rights protests and political demonstrations and gatherings?
You must share the government's views on what it would like to consider 'criminal' (basically anything it doesn't like, makes it look bad, limits government power, or interferes with the ability to confiscate and redistribute wealth as it sees fit).
You keep insisting, not only in this article but also in other Stingray-related/. articles, that the NTIA allows the Feds to do whatever they want radio-spectrum-wise
I have said no such thing. In fact, whenever people like you try to twist what I've actually said into this lie, I've corrected you in public.
Once again, I find myself wasting time responding to people who either cannot understand the difference between "not subject to FCC rules" and "not subject to any rules", or who deliberately ignore the difference so they can lie about what I've said.
There you go again, trying to sidetrack and obfuscate the central issue. Neither the NTIA nor any other federal law or regulation allows Stingrays to be legally used in the manner that law enforcement has used them. That's why Stingray use by LE has been so secretive in the first place.
The fact is that the US government has been taken over by fascist oligarchs who wipe their asses with the Constitution, Civil Rights, Due Process, and Rule of Law, thus it is no longer the legitimate government of the US and has exactly the same type of authority that the Crips and Bloods have in L.A.. The power of fear, guns, and violence.
The US Government has slowly over the decades morphed to an ongoing organized criminal enterprise.
The FBI's activities are specifically authorized by a host of laws. That you didn't bother to learn about them doesn't invalidate their existence.
There is nothing there or in the NTIA that allows law enforcement agencies to violate FCC rules, especially without a warrant. Please point out the specific law that, in your opinion, authorizes such activities by law enforcement.
And even if such interference was allowed, that still does not invalidate 4th Amendment protections both for the intended targeted individual(s) nor the innocent people in the area whose civil rights are violated in the course of Stingray use.
While I know it would never happen, I would love to see the FCC get involved in this. Spectrum is kinda their domain
But the FBI use of spectrum is not.
You keep insisting, not only in this article but also in other Stingray-related/. articles, that the NTIA allows the Feds to do whatever they want radio-spectrum-wise which simply and plainly is not the case.
I have to wonder if either you're that stubborn & obtuse, or do you get paid to shill?
Based on what we're seeing, Paypal's previous history aside, it sounds rather like Paypal got served a National Security Letter telling them to dump MEGA.
It's the result of a US DoJ operation called "Operation Chokepoint" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... which does an end-run around Constitutional limits on government power and the protections afforded by it to the people by putting pressure (Gee, we'd hate to have to come in and audit you to hell and back every 30 days for the next 10 years) on banks and other financial institutions and companies to stop doing business with those people & businesses the US government dislikes and/or finds inconvenient.
The US has become a 'Banana Republic', "democratic" and "representative" in name only, where corruption, greed, and lust for power pervades the entire system. The law no longer matters, it's who you know that matters.
All it will take is the right trigger for the US to go full fascist oligarchy.
Hey, I know! Let's put the government in charge of more stuff and give it more money and power! Problem solved!
We implement it as a chip that intercepts the serial bus to the VFO chip, and disallows certain frequencies. On FCC-certified equipment we might have to make that chip and the VFO chip physically difficult to get at by potting them or something. This first unit is test-equipment and does not have the limitation.
My main interest in this SDR project would be as part of a home-brew RF/digital test/research bench for a variety of mobile cell-based equipment and development of new types of devices for new uses.
How does a company like Harris Corp. get away with manufacturing/selling Stingrays for use in the US, and can this project possibly use the same technical exceptions used by Harris Corp. to negate the requirement to artificially cripple it?
The receiver has a block on certain cellular frequencies in the 800MHz band. This is the only restriction. The radio can tune to any frequency between 50MHz-1000MHz, otherwise.
Is this block implemented in software or hardware? Could it theoretically be bypassed/removed by someone technically oriented?
This is meant to be an entire FCC type-approved transceiver with spurious emissions low enough to amplify to the full legal limit for the band.
Does being FCC Type approved mean there are certain frequency bands that are verboten? In other words, is the coverage continuous from 50mHz - 1gHz or are there required gaps?
I know that communications receivers capable of covering the cellphone bands were made illegal to sell in the US a while back. Just wondering how SDR will deal with such legislation going forward.
This may be a real concern where a SDR may cover bands where things like cellphones and police/military/air communications live and are heavily regulated and some portions restricted from even reception by unauthorized persons. Aren't many trunked police/fire/EMS radio systems in the 800mHz band, or is that dated? It's been a long time since I held an amateur radio license.
Of course, we don't fully what the rules will do since they have been acting in secrecy!
They will be published when they are finalized.
We have to give the government the power to regulate the internet before we can know what they'll do to the internet.
Wait, this sounds sickeningly-familiar....
Oh well. I'm sure it'll be fine.
After all, it's only the same FCC that has pursued a "wardrobe malfunction" for nearly 8 years, pushed for the Fairness Doctrine, and whose "Diversity Czar" Mark Lloyd was quoted as admiring the way Chavez seized control of radio/TV/media and placed them under State control.
I'm sure porn and less mainstream media outlets, political blogs, forums, etc that the government may dislike will have nothing at all to fear./s (for the clueless)
Your (and my, and any individual citizen's) personal interpretation of the Constitution is not the measure. It is the interpretation and implementation by our three branches of government.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Wrong.
Government's job is to secure and protect the rights of the people. The government can decide/declare anything it wants, but if the overwhelming majority of people refuse to comply there is actually very little it can do, and it risks being abolished and replaced/restored.
So how about you consider the alternative: one where you don't assume that everyone working at every/any level of government, e.g., NSA, doesn't have the worst motivations and is actually trying to do their best to honorably, legally, and Constitutionally, protect our nation and its people instead of the opposite. How about that?
Sorry, but that boat sailed with all the lawlessness and abuses that have been revealed regarding domestic data/comm interception/storage, the widespread use of parallel construction, and the mass compromise of encryption schemes.
History proves over and over that the biggest danger to life and liberty is and has always been one's own government. The kind of "trust" you advocate for in this context would be foolish.
Why is the federal government (and its agencies) so scared to allow state and local law enforcement agencies to reveal the use of these devices?
Well, you could find out by assembling your own "stingray" piecemeal using some of the test equipment in the links below, and use it to monitor/record police/DHS/NSA and wait to see what charges they decide to prosecute you for if you're arrested, and then take the government to court for the same charges.
Although your chances of getting the same 'justice' system that is complicit in these criminal acts by those in government to turn around and prosecute these same criminals are slim at best.
Hmm, what industries could profit from climate change true believers?
How about governments, those who run them, and those tied to and who profit from government? They gain ever more power & control over ever-wider-ranging areas of life and have another excuse to squeeze the marks for more of their wealth.
Alternate idea: an amendment that makes it a felony for government officials/reps/etc. to violate or aid/abet the violation of the constitutional rights of one or more people.
Warrantless mass surveillance already violates the 4th Amendment and multiple laws.
What effect will another law have when the existing laws are ignored? Existing laws against these ongoing abuses have already, and continue to be, flaunted by those in government.
The digital Panopticon, if it is going to exist, needs to be universal in that citizens may not be denied the right and ability to use it to keep tabs on those in government.
How quaint. The Feds haven't taken the Constitution seriously for generations.
Maybe it's time for a "Digital Second Amendment".
Whatever technological means the government may use to monitor/surveil/track/datamine individuals without a warrant may also be used to monitor/surveill/track/datamine those in government both while on and off the government clock by otherwise law-abiding people.
Slashdot Mirror
Correct me if I am wrong, but do they not get to deduct the cost of running the business from taxable income?
They also on average generate far more in taxes than the average working individual. Do you generate 100's of thousands in taxable income on an hourly wage job? They also foot the costs of both employer and employee. Do you pay the full costs of labor (both the employer portion and employee's portion)?
If you lose your job, you are likely to be eligible to collect unemployment benefits. The owner of a sole proprietorship does not receive unemployment benefits if the business fails.
As to your muslim example, if he operates a business selling hardware he will experience legal trouble if he refuses to deal with people who want to buy hardware for use in a non-halaal butchery.
Muslim cabbies have refused on religious freedom grounds to take fares who carried alcohol or were accompanied by guide dogs.
I've noticed that no Muslim businesses have been targeted in this manner. Why don't they attempt to force a Muslim business to participate in a gay wedding, for example? Note that in the Middle East, with the equally-notable exception of Israel, killing/stoning to death of gays is common practice.
The other side of the coin, however, is work-to-order. Should a muslim/xtian/jew photographer experience legal troubles in advertising "I choose what work I will take on"?
IMHO, no, they should not. However Christian photographers for hire have found themselves in legal trouble for refusing to take on photography jobs for gay weddings. Should a gay-owned/run photography business be forced to take on work from the Westboro Baptist Church?
It seems many here want the knife to only cut one way.
Strat
Income to sole proprietorships is treated as individual income, no different than any working stiff, for tax purposes. They pay individual income tax rates.
The government classifies and treats them as private citizens. Why don't they have the same religious freedom to not participate in another private individual's religious ceremonies/activities/practices as a private citizen does?.
Should a Muslim who operates a shop be compelled against his religious beliefs to participate in another religion's religious ceremonies/activities/practices that conflict with and violate their own religious beliefs?
This road does not end in a good place. For anyone of any beliefs, or even of no beliefs.
Strat
House Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) caught up in gay sex scandal according to anonymous government sources.
Future Testimony, House of Representatives-Government Oversight Committee
"I don't know, maybe some rogue extremist US intelligence operatives were taking a Predator out for a stroll one night and decided to fire a couple Hellfires at some US Representatives they disagreed with!
What, at this point, does it matter?"
Strat
"Corporations are people" has zero to do with it. That SCOTUS ruling did not exist in the 1930s (as your example started with H. Hoover). Government is corrupt because it's made up of corruptible humans. And guess what? The more power and control over more things you give them, the more corrupt they will become.
Government is a necessary evil, and is a dangerous and deadly entity that can easily spin out of control if not tightly reined-in and allowed only the very minimum amount of power and resources to do what we decide to have done.
Which I already debunked above. Regarding the "corporations are people" meme, that's hogwash as well. It tells me you have no clue what the case was actually about. People have a right to organize, pool their resources, and buy advertising, etc and promote their views. People do not give up their right to participate in elections by being part of an organization like a corporation or PAC.
Except that your statements regarding your views reflects the opposite. The cognitive dissonance is startling.
No. I see Progressives who claim to be conservatives/Republicans. Heck, even a so-called "conservative" like John McCain has proudly stated he was a "Progressive" Republican. RINOs.
Herbert Hoover ( FBI surveillance ).
Sorry, that was J. Edgar Hoover, who was initially put in place by President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat and vocal Progressive who also racially segregated the military which had not been officially segregated prior.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...
Immediately after getting his LL.M degree, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department to work in the War Emergency Division. He soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by President Wilson at the beginning of World War I to arrest and jail disloyal foreigners without trial.[12] He received additional authority from the 1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable.[18]
In August 1919 Hoover became head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Divisionâ"also known as the Radical Division because its goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals.
Nixon ( watergate )
Except the Watergate "Plumbers" were election campaign operatives, not members of the FBI or other TLA.
McCarthy ( I should not need to explain )
McCarthy was destroyed because he overreached, not because he was wrong. There were and are communists in the US government. Alger Hiss and others are examples.
Bush II ( Patriot act )
Another Progressive Republican. Progressives have completely subsumed the Democratic Party and have almost done the same to the Republican Party.
Why do you think that nothing much changes no matter if the (R)s or the (D)s are in power? Progressives in both Parties is why.
Strat
Gee, how was Ma Bell able to maintain a monopoly and keep anyone else from competing?
Oh, that's right! The FUCKING GOVERNMENT prevented competition!
And yes, there *will* be regulatory capture. Shit, practically every federal regulatory agency/dept./bureau suffers from it!
I've got a morbid curiosity to see just how the government through it's short-sightedness and desire to monitor everyone/everything causes an internet 'Deep Horizon'-scale disaster.
"You like your internet anonymity, you can keep your internet anonymity!"
You know it's coming.
And you know what?
It's just this kind of blind trust that government will make everything better you display that will help complete the transformation of the US into a soft-fascism surveillance/police state.
Strat
Your hgh school English teacher called, he wants your passing grade in 'Vocabulary' back.
Strat
This solution has been brought to you by the book, "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. In the book it takes place on the moon, so water is even more difficult to get, but the solutions are essentially the same.
You mean we should drop multi-ton cannisters of (water? almonds?) on Sacramento at orbital speeds resulting in kinetic energy releases rivaling nuclear weapons?
Probably the best thing that could happen to California at this point.
Strat
Present day economists...
Who are the same school of economists that didn't see the either the 1930s Depression or the current US economic crisis coming.
...do not agree on any such thing, unless you only follow a very specific school of economists and dismiss everyone else.
Yeah, the school of economics and economists that was correctly screaming warnings both times and were ignored and/or attacked/destroyed by those economically/politically/ideologically invested in the status quo and their economic/political/ideological fellow-travelers.
Strat
And guess who created and who maintains those monopolies with their own monopoly on the use of deadly force and/or imprisonment?
Better have that sanity-checker of yours recalibrated.
Strat
Just mandate that any/all electronic devices capable of mining or transferring Bitcoins be licensed & registered, with regular inspections and tamper-evident seals on the case/housing of the devices, and California-approved software installed to monitor and report any Bitcoin mining or transfers.
As a bonus, California can also use the inspections and monitoring software to detect and prevent all manner of criminal acts.
See? Easy! /s
Strat
Bullets. Guns aren't worth much if there isn't ammunition, and ammunition has been getting very expensive. Plus, most bullets don't last forever, intentionally. This way you can start shutting down suppliers and really make shooting impractical. You'll be stuck with muskets if you can still buy the gun powder. I'm just waiting for battery technology to reach the point that we can have usable homemade gauss rifles.
Oh goody!
Then we can have the government try to regulate "'weapons-grade' batteries and similar energy storage devices".
I can almost hear the sound-bites; You can't sell that #DEVICE (phone, tablet, whatever) with a battery that lasts more than X-hours, as it could be turned into a weapon! Every one of those #DEVICEs on the streets is a potential dead cop!
And so in 10 years, even though battery tech is certain to make large leaps, we would still need to charge our mobile devices daily.
I don't think many in government and the powerful will be satisfied until electricity and ferrous metals/alloys are heavily restricted and regulated and/or considered as contraband, and the masses are reduced to Bronze Age tech & weapons for the most part while the powerful elites enjoy modern tech in "gated communities" taken to extreme.
Strat
If the Stingray is a threat to you, then I hope you're convicted of the criminal activities that make it so.
'Criminal activities that make it so' like civil rights protests and political demonstrations and gatherings?
You must share the government's views on what it would like to consider 'criminal' (basically anything it doesn't like, makes it look bad, limits government power, or interferes with the ability to confiscate and redistribute wealth as it sees fit).
Strat
There you go again, trying to sidetrack and obfuscate the central issue. Neither the NTIA nor any other federal law or regulation allows Stingrays to be legally used in the manner that law enforcement has used them. That's why Stingray use by LE has been so secretive in the first place.
The fact is that the US government has been taken over by fascist oligarchs who wipe their asses with the Constitution, Civil Rights, Due Process, and Rule of Law, thus it is no longer the legitimate government of the US and has exactly the same type of authority that the Crips and Bloods have in L.A.. The power of fear, guns, and violence.
The US Government has slowly over the decades morphed to an ongoing organized criminal enterprise.
Strat
The FBI's activities are specifically authorized by a host of laws. That you didn't bother to learn about them doesn't invalidate their existence.
There is nothing there or in the NTIA that allows law enforcement agencies to violate FCC rules, especially without a warrant. Please point out the specific law that, in your opinion, authorizes such activities by law enforcement.
And even if such interference was allowed, that still does not invalidate 4th Amendment protections both for the intended targeted individual(s) nor the innocent people in the area whose civil rights are violated in the course of Stingray use.
Strat
You keep insisting, not only in this article but also in other Stingray-related /. articles, that the NTIA allows the Feds to do whatever they want radio-spectrum-wise which simply and plainly is not the case.
I have to wonder if either you're that stubborn & obtuse, or do you get paid to shill?
Strat
Based on what we're seeing, Paypal's previous history aside, it sounds rather like Paypal got served a National Security Letter telling them to dump MEGA.
It's the result of a US DoJ operation called "Operation Chokepoint" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... which does an end-run around Constitutional limits on government power and the protections afforded by it to the people by putting pressure (Gee, we'd hate to have to come in and audit you to hell and back every 30 days for the next 10 years) on banks and other financial institutions and companies to stop doing business with those people & businesses the US government dislikes and/or finds inconvenient.
The US has become a 'Banana Republic', "democratic" and "representative" in name only, where corruption, greed, and lust for power pervades the entire system. The law no longer matters, it's who you know that matters.
All it will take is the right trigger for the US to go full fascist oligarchy.
Hey, I know! Let's put the government in charge of more stuff and give it more money and power! Problem solved!
Strat
We implement it as a chip that intercepts the serial bus to the VFO chip, and disallows certain frequencies. On FCC-certified equipment we might have to make that chip and the VFO chip physically difficult to get at by potting them or something. This first unit is test-equipment and does not have the limitation.
My main interest in this SDR project would be as part of a home-brew RF/digital test/research bench for a variety of mobile cell-based equipment and development of new types of devices for new uses.
How does a company like Harris Corp. get away with manufacturing/selling Stingrays for use in the US, and can this project possibly use the same technical exceptions used by Harris Corp. to negate the requirement to artificially cripple it?
Strat
The receiver has a block on certain cellular frequencies in the 800MHz band. This is the only restriction. The radio can tune to any frequency between 50MHz-1000MHz, otherwise.
Is this block implemented in software or hardware? Could it theoretically be bypassed/removed by someone technically oriented?
Strat
This is meant to be an entire FCC type-approved transceiver with spurious emissions low enough to amplify to the full legal limit for the band.
Does being FCC Type approved mean there are certain frequency bands that are verboten? In other words, is the coverage continuous from 50mHz - 1gHz or are there required gaps?
I know that communications receivers capable of covering the cellphone bands were made illegal to sell in the US a while back. Just wondering how SDR will deal with such legislation going forward.
This may be a real concern where a SDR may cover bands where things like cellphones and police/military/air communications live and are heavily regulated and some portions restricted from even reception by unauthorized persons. Aren't many trunked police/fire/EMS radio systems in the 800mHz band, or is that dated? It's been a long time since I held an amateur radio license.
Strat
We have to give the government the power to regulate the internet before we can know what they'll do to the internet.
Wait, this sounds sickeningly-familiar....
Oh well. I'm sure it'll be fine.
After all, it's only the same FCC that has pursued a "wardrobe malfunction" for nearly 8 years, pushed for the Fairness Doctrine, and whose "Diversity Czar" Mark Lloyd was quoted as admiring the way Chavez seized control of radio/TV/media and placed them under State control.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm sure porn and less mainstream media outlets, political blogs, forums, etc that the government may dislike will have nothing at all to fear. /s (for the clueless)
Strat
Your (and my, and any individual citizen's) personal interpretation of the Constitution is not the measure. It is the interpretation and implementation by our three branches of government.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Wrong.
Government's job is to secure and protect the rights of the people. The government can decide/declare anything it wants, but if the overwhelming majority of people refuse to comply there is actually very little it can do, and it risks being abolished and replaced/restored.
So how about you consider the alternative: one where you don't assume that everyone working at every/any level of government, e.g., NSA, doesn't have the worst motivations and is actually trying to do their best to honorably, legally, and Constitutionally, protect our nation and its people instead of the opposite. How about that?
Sorry, but that boat sailed with all the lawlessness and abuses that have been revealed regarding domestic data/comm interception/storage, the widespread use of parallel construction, and the mass compromise of encryption schemes.
History proves over and over that the biggest danger to life and liberty is and has always been one's own government. The kind of "trust" you advocate for in this context would be foolish.
Strat
Why is the federal government (and its agencies) so scared to allow state and local law enforcement agencies to reveal the use of these devices?
Well, you could find out by assembling your own "stingray" piecemeal using some of the test equipment in the links below, and use it to monitor/record police/DHS/NSA and wait to see what charges they decide to prosecute you for if you're arrested, and then take the government to court for the same charges.
http://www.testequipmentdepot....
http://www.testequipmentdepot....
Although your chances of getting the same 'justice' system that is complicit in these criminal acts by those in government to turn around and prosecute these same criminals are slim at best.
Strat
Hmm, what industries could profit from climate change true believers?
How about governments, those who run them, and those tied to and who profit from government? They gain ever more power & control over ever-wider-ranging areas of life and have another excuse to squeeze the marks for more of their wealth.
Strat
Alternate idea: an amendment that makes it a felony for government officials/reps/etc. to violate or aid/abet the violation of the constitutional rights of one or more people.
Warrantless mass surveillance already violates the 4th Amendment and multiple laws.
What effect will another law have when the existing laws are ignored? Existing laws against these ongoing abuses have already, and continue to be, flaunted by those in government.
The digital Panopticon, if it is going to exist, needs to be universal in that citizens may not be denied the right and ability to use it to keep tabs on those in government.
Strat
How quaint. The Feds haven't taken the Constitution seriously for generations.
Maybe it's time for a "Digital Second Amendment".
Whatever technological means the government may use to monitor/surveil/track/datamine individuals without a warrant may also be used to monitor/surveill/track/datamine those in government both while on and off the government clock by otherwise law-abiding people.
Strat