Not when it affects those in society. Ie, if you overdose and cannot afford health insurance, are rushed to the ER and tax payer money pays for your treatment and recovery, then it is our business.
No. You're placing the blame on the wrong party. The person who overdosed didn't cause you to pay for their care. The legislators who put the law in place that says you have to pay for their care are the ones who connected the action of the drug user to your wallet. Your blame, and your reaction, can only be correctly directed at the legislators.
If a law is made that says every time I eat a cheeseburger, you must pay fifteen dollars, this in no way indicts me as a bad person for eating cheesburgers, nor does my eating cheeseburgers affect you for any reason that you can legitimately lay upon me. The problem is the law; the making of it, the enforcement of it, the support of it, if any, that you have extended. In the meantime, I should continue to have the liberty to go on eating cheeseburgers as I choose. You, on the other hand, need to do something about your legislators.
Even if someone is woefully addicted, it's not like they take drugs by accident
Some addictions can, in fact, be the result of abuse; for instance, when a pregnant woman knowingly takes drugs recreationally that may very likely result in her addiction (which is fine, I have no problem with that) and that of her fetus (that, I define as "wrong" because it has the potential to abuse the fetus's liberties now and in its future.) Where I see you as in error here is in defining "woefully addicted" as a synonym for "wrong." If I choose to take a risk of becoming addicted, and in fact this comes to pass, that was my personal choice. It isn't "wrong." It may well be a poor choice by other people's standards, but what I get out of my actions as measured by myself against the costs to me isn't your balance to judge until, or unless, what I do directly affects you. If I walk up to you on the street and stab you with a hypodermic full of heroin, now we're talking about "abuse."
Would you suggest that we call what child molesters, who might not be able to help themselves, do as "illegal children touching" instead of "child abuse"?
A child abuser, in the sense that you're using the term, is someone who is violating the privacy and sexuality of an individual who (a) we think cannot make an informed decision and (b) is often subject to power (misuse of authority, or expression of control without authority) they cannot counter; that use of power is an abuse of the child's ability to make choices for itself. We don't subject children to the power of adults in order to expose them to any act an adult might choose; we do it to protect them. Consequently, when an adult abuses that power to act in ways that we consider not in the best interests of the child, we find that to be an extreme offense against the child.
The ideal of liberty is that my right to swing my fist stops where your face begins. If I take a potentially addicting drug, this is "swinging my fist at myself" and is none of your business, regardless of your opinion of how well reasoned my choice is. If I coerce or force someone else (child or otherwise) into taking a punch from me, or punching itself, this is the very definition of abuse. So I have no right to addict you; I have no right to force or coerce any person who cannot make an informed decision according to the dictates of their own conscience into any act, and that covers child abuse as well as it does any other kind of abuse.
Adding the concept of an abuser being "unable to control the act of abuse" in no way opens the door to acceptance of the fact that they have assaulted the liberties of another person. If they cannot control themselves in the "swinging of their fists", then society needs to control them. There is an inherent difference between what rights we have to do things to ourselves, and what rights we have to do to things to others. This difference is in no way ameliorated by one's ability to control one's self, as far as I'm concerned. If you can't control yourself with regard towards your actions as they directly affect others, you should not be excused for what you do: What you are able to do should be constrained, which is simply acting in the best interests of the other members of society.
The root problem with today's "child abuse" laws is the mismatch between the laws drawing a line in the sand based upon age. They use this line (wrongly) as if it provides an effective and reasonable match with every individual's attainment of the ability to make an informed choice according to the dictates of a rational and sufficiently mature conscience. This congruence is not valid and is unlikely to ever be valid, barring mandatory machine education and a lot more sophisticated social system than we have now. We could certainly do a lot better than ag
Laws are made when a majority who are elected, hold the same philosophical beliefs create and vote for them.
Well, ideally, yes. The problem comes when those "philosophical beliefs" consist of metrics evaluating which special interest group provided them with the most benefits, which of the other legislators will trade a vote their way now, for a vote you want for pork in your distract later, how actions now will affect standing within the political party (note not with the voters, which is something else entirely), what lucrative speaking engagements will be offered post-legislative career, and so forth.
Your approach would be spot on in a situation where legislators voted along the philosophical lines that they shared truthfully with the public during a fair election process; however, that in no way describes this country. And that's not an opinion — that's a fact.
It is when they are using taxpayer grants to fund their research.
Yes, that's certainly true. You would want research you pay for to be done at the fastest and most effective way possible, so as to maximize your ROI. So you make an excellent case for the use of cognitive enhancement.
...poll published in Nature showing unprecedented levels of cognitive performance-enhancing drug abuse by top academic scientists...
It is "drug abuse" when drugs are used without the informed consent of an individual; it is simply "illegal drug use" (and very likely legislative abuse of personal liberties at the same time) when an adult makes an informed choice about drug use that doesn't comply with the current law.
People need to move away from the mindset where media pompously and wrongly attributes polar positions such as "right and wrong" and "use and abuse" to be a 100% lexical replacement for "legal and illegal." Anyone with any sense at all knows better than that. A significant number of the laws on the books in the country I live in (the USA) are inherently wrong, outright un- or anti-constitutional, or something even worse. Using them to define what is "right" leads directly to behaviors that are despicable — or worse.
One can be cynical and simply say that this is because our legislators aren't very good at their jobs. Both from the standpoint of making good law in the first place, and also in the sense that they seem to be almost incapable of admitting they made a mistake and taking bad law off the books. Personally, I think it's because they're not very good at liberty — and very good indeed at lawmaking.
There's an old saw that goes, "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence", but I think in the case of bad law, we are indeed looking at malice aforethought. It seems to me that these people have agendas that can only be construed to be "for the people" if you slept through history class and have never read any of the founding documents with any interest. Like most Americans.:(
I haven't smoked since I was sixteen. Might if they legalized it... then again, might not. Depends on the occasion, I suppose. At this point, I'm desperately holding on to the brain cells I have left.;-)
I recall a few magazines from the '70s but not many. "Creative Computing", "Interface Age", and my fav "Byte" I recall but that's it.
Kilobaud was very good for its time, and there were quite a few others that only made a few issues. I collected the first issue of every computer magazine I could find from the day the first Byte came out (and Byte was quite a different magazine in those early days.) Kilobaud actually published my first computer article -- in 1977 -- so I've got a soft spot for them. But Dr. Dobbs was around pretty early, Circuit Cellar was a welcome addition when it debuted... and of course there were a host of CPU specific ones like 68 micro journal, machine specific ones like a magazine for the color computer... really, there were a bunch of interesting rags now that I think about it.
Yea that's why I think BSD style licenses are freer and I prefer them.
Yes, they're much better. But the GPL gets most of the press (and delivers the highest propaganda load.)
The way I look at it is the GPL's freedom is for users not programmers
Hmmm. Well, the way I look at it is anything that reduces the number of possible programs created starting from any particular piece of source code is, by definition, not designed to benefit the users, and generally speaking, not much of a model for "freedom." Unless we're talking about the "freedom to restrict", which is an authoring freedom, not a user freedom. Typically.
Actually the only reason the GPL exists is because copyrights exist, if copyrights didn't exist the GPL wouldn't either.
That may well be so, but there have been specific requirements in the GPL/LGPL that restrict usage of GPL/LGPL'd software that in no way relate to copyright; these requirements so broadly degrade the scope of the "freedom" that is the main talking point for the GPL that the license is of no interest to me except as an example of how not to distribute software.
After reading on and on in the GPL about what you have to do, what you can't do, what you have to accept, etc., I am left completely without any feeling that I've been given something "free", or, were I to adopt it for my own work, that I would be creating something "free." In light of the fact that I can (and do) create software for distribution without any need for similar restrictions at all, I fail to see any value in the GPL. It becomes just another force to slow down software development across multiple parties, and the question of who benefits from that slowdown seems to only have an answer in some kind of angst-ridden need for endless recognition by people who adopt it, or perhaps as a crusade against the (horror of horrors!) attempt to make money. The former I view as a personality defect, the latter I view as utterly ridiculous. Either way, I'm not interested, except in the abstract "gee, I'd like to see that whole GPL thing die" sense.
I'm 100% guilty of carrying forward the attitude I started with back in the 1960's, where software was a fabulously interesting thing that we shared with each other without any thought whatsoever for moderating that behavior because the other party might actually make use of it. That was the whole idea. It was really very cool to be have someone hand you, figuratively speaking, the solution to a problem. It was just as cool to hand them one. Maybe even cooler. On that basis, entire magazines existed that shared code, talked about various design issues, laid out hardware designs, etc.
This attitude still exists, but it is most commonly found in academia, in textbooks and so forth. I have a lot more respect for a professor that says "here's the problem, and here's a solution" which you can take away with you, having learned something you can use without restriction, than I do for some basement genius who says "here's the problem, but if you want to use it, you have to conform to my idea of how it may be used."
Working source code, especially well-working source code, can be a teaching tool at the same time it is an additional shoulder at the wheel of life we all get to push forward. I like that a lot. Anything that makes the wheel harder to push while pretending to be an assist I find annoying. The GPL is just that sort of thing; it is a mechanism that seems to have been designed primarily to benefit lawyers. Even if that wasn't the intent, that is the end result.
Wait, you're trying to say that you got something 100% free, source code and all, ZERO license restrictions, and you're going to bitch that the author isn't doing your work for you?
Actually, it's worse. He's bitching about bugs when he has failed to demonstrate either that a bug exists within the design goals and the specific limitations I chose to implement with this project, and he has no basis in fact to presume that I would not attempt to fix any such bug if I were to learn about it. The project does contain contact information specifically for bug reporting; all people have to do is keep that info with the project, or find my original post of it, to let me know if they find a bug or bugs. At that point, he can evaluate how well I maintain it -- because then he would have facts, as opposed to purest unfounded speculation.
Like most authors, I think, I maintain a sense of "it's my baby" as far as the quality of the work that went into it; that's the basis for my motivation to fix it, should it not perform as I said it would, or if someone hands me an idea I think would be reasonable to adapt the project to use. Will that be sufficient? Only the discovery and report of a bug will tell.
If I choose not to fix it and at the time of the report it still has significant relevance to the world (for instance, it isn't wrecked by a new version of python, or it's 50 years from now and python only exists on retro-enthusiast's computers), that's the time to point the finger and say "That BASTARD gave me a free program with the source code and in the end *I* had to fix it!" To which statement, if I learn of it, I will applaud loudly while sporting a toothy grin.:-)
Nonsense. Neither the commercial urge nor the recognition grabbing need have spread to cover 100% of those people producing software. Here is a database system in python that I wrote for my own reasons, and give away for free. No "GPL" or other pseudo-free restrictions, just free. PD. Take it. Do anything you like with it. Or not. Don't care. Not looking for money, not looking for recognition, not looking to promote free stuff over commercial stuff or vice versa, no requirements of any kind. Repost it anywhere, take my name off it, whatever you like. It's just... free. What do I get out of it? It works for me, that's all. Doesn't hurt me or compromise me in any way to give it away, so I do.
What Microsoft - and the GPL-fans, for that matter - have oh-so-conveniently forgotten is the mechanism of PD software. Write it, share it, go on with your life. The more people do that, the more useful things will get created. Personally, I find the GPL just as corrosive as software patents, and for very similar reasons. I try to stay away from both. But that's just me.
In these cases, free speech of an individual invited to pose a question, with said question delivered politely, has led to ejection and sometimes arrest. It has led to individuals wearing t-shirts or carrying signs from being able to attend public meetings on public land. This has nothing to do with soap boxes or microphones, and everything to do with open public discourse; something people who understand liberty as the authors of the constitution understood it know requires the utmost in protections.
I'm okay with this. [limits of free speech at funerals]
Thankfully, the acquiescence of specific individuals does not have the authority to make unconstitutional laws legitimate.
I'm also okay with felons not being legally allowed to own a gun, if that is who you are talking about.
No. That's not what I'm talking about at all. On the one hand, I'm talking about the creation and enforcement of ex post facto laws, which are absolutely prohibited, unusually for the constitution to both the feds and the states, and for excellent reasons. On the other, I'm talking about blanket laws like those in Washington DC (currently under review by the USSC) and the various "this weapon is ok, but that one is not" rules. With the exception that, in my opinion, we should amend in prohibition of weapons of mass destruction (replicating bio agents, nuclear weapons, things along these lines), the constitution specifies arms in general and there is zero legal basis for forbidding any citizen in good standing from owning a frigate full of extremely large caliber guns, a fighter jet, or a howitzer, to name just a few. As it stands, there isn't even a legal basis to forbid the private ownership of a fusion weapon. I'm of the mind there *should* be, but I also recognize that this requires amendment of the constitution.
Here's the problem: Either we require the government to obey it, or we don't. If we don't, we need to be asking ourselves what, exactly, limits what our government can do? The answer -- as seems clear from its current habit of ignoring the constitution wholesale -- is nothing controls it at all, and so we have become absolute subjects to a master class. Personally, I find that repugnant. Far better to adjust the document as we see fit using the mechanism specifically provided to do so, slowly and carefully. Sometimes (like forbidding private ownership of weapons of mass destruction) there is little likelihood that there would be any significant resistance to amendment. Other times (like abandoning the requirement of probable cause, oath and affirmation, specification of the things to be searched for and the domain to be searched) there is little chance that the people would deign to forfeit the rights already granted them, for there is little real advantage to doing so, and huge, huge disadvantage in going ahead with such a foolish notion. That's why there is a process, that's why we should follow it. That's why we should hold the government exactly to the very letter of the constitution. Otherwise -- again, as we see today -- it can get out of control and then we're just riding the wave and hoping it won't crash down on us personally, which is a suckass way to live.
When roads were just dirt paths on private land, they carried things only important to one's self. Consequently, they were maintained according to the perceived needs of the owner, by the owner. Passage was uncertain in every sense of the word. Areas with minimal populations had minimal (or no) access. Eventually, as it became clear that transport was a core requirement for the growing society, the roads became a state maintained operation.
The network of roads is now far more dependable than it was, or could ever have been, under the ownership of diverse private entities. Well maintained roads now reach almost everywhere people live and do business.
The information roads are reaching the same point. The things carried on them have become critically important to society. The private lines, with their uncertain passage, varying tolls, and charge-as-you-will structures are pathological impediments to the further development of the system. There are places with deeply substandard access because such access is not profitable on a per-installation basis. Uniform access to the Internet is, in my opinion, of similar importance with equal access to the roads. Information access is well along the way to becoming one of the core empowerments of our current society.
Finally, there is no guarantee that a business will be able to sustain a position in any one venue; things change and sometimes that doesn't bode well for entrenched interests. That's just the way it goes. Walmart comes in, Joe's Lamp Emporium goes out. Amazon sets up, the Martial Arts Bookstore becomes untenable. The government decides to maintain the Internet infrastructure, and Fred's ISP becomes a non-entity. Unless, of course, Fred manages to convince the gummint that he can maintain his region to the specifications they set. Then - like road construction companies - they've re-carved a niche and have corresponding new opportunities.
But don't worry. My opinion on this will have no effect. Congress is in the pocket of companies which would rather continue to ignore any edge cases that don't fit into their economic models, and they're quite pleased to continue to censor and otherwise modify content and traffic as it suits them. Your corporate utopia will continue to develop. Have a Coke, slip on your Nikes, and continue to look at the world through your rose-colored Ray Bans. Our slide is well down the slope, and there's no scrambling back.
Now, you still want them in charge of the internet?
Yes. Also, building roads and bridges, despite the fact that some roads and bridges have failed. Also public schools; despite the fact that they could be better. Also (especially!) pooling health risks. Also protecting our borders. Despite the fact that our borders could be better protected. Also providing standards for currency and weights. Despite the fact that recently, they've done very poorly at it.
Large jobs where favoritism is pathological argue for the whole community developing a minimum set of biases and putting the community shoulder to the wheel. I don't have any problem at all with this in theory, and although I am *severely* annoyed with various levels of government failure, I am under no illusions that private interests would do better with such huge amounts of money and power at stake.
The government cannot step on your free speech
No, you mean, they are forbidden to do so. They do it anyway. Like most of the things they are forbidden to do. There's a constant seeking for power that ignores the constitutional bounds placed on the government, and there's a constant back pressure to fix that from other sectors -- the citizens, the judiciary, ridicule and criticism in the press, etc.
The difference, again, is that with the government, we have a fairly narrow place to focus our attention, and so it is practical that we do so. In the case of your local hosting provider, assuming you're not in my local area (rural Montana), I have no input, no matter how harshly they might decide to censor your opinions about the free market. If the issue is a national one, based on the liberties our founders so presciently laid out, I have something to say and I can shove my sharp little pin right into my representative's ass right where it will do the most good - directly through his wallet, during his run for election, and through my re-election vote, or lack thereof, on the day of the election.
Its how the free market works. Let it work.
I call your attention to the insurance industry. That is how "the free market works", by adding completely artificial costs to services, excluding the needy, marginalizing the powerless, and reneging on promises whenever it suits them. That is why I don't want private companies to be allowed to be the gatekeepers of our basic liberties. I think it the only sensible way we can guard our liberties, that is, to keep them in one place where we can monitor them and react as required. To declare speech "free", and then to delegate control over that speech to private organizations is more than foolish, it is depraved.
I agree completely. Censorship of source opinion, fact or original art is a disease. Anyone is entitled to decide what they will peruse; that is one end of the scales of liberty. No one is entitled to censor source material that consists of opinion, fact or original art. That is the other end of the scales. If either end fails, the people suffer.
Not all people have the technical means and/or knowledge to serve a site themselves. Does this mean they are of necessity subject to their ideas being filtered by the ideas of others? You say, "find another provider", but what if no such other provider exists for the materials or ideas at hand?
The Internet is made of roads for data. Censorship is like having a bridge out. The only bridge repair we can count on is in the constitution. Your idea is "find another bridge" but that presumes there is one, it is accessible and affordable and practical, but these presumptions are radically over the top and begin to fail miserably at the extremes of human discourse, which is precisely where we need bridges the most. I don't support the idea of private companies managing or gate-keeping a resource like the net.
Nationalizing the Internet is the LAST thing you want.
No, it isn't. It is exactly what I want. It puts us in a situation where we have exactly one battle to fight, instead of many thousands, and where the preconditions for that battle have been set by the first amendment instead of prurient self-interest.
You have heard what China does with their piece of it on a fairly regular basis, right?
What China does is irrelevant to what our government is required to do by its constituting authority, and what our representatives are required to do by virtue of their oaths of office. Again, I'd rather see us fight one national battle than many thousands of local battles, and this is the quite practical reason I think that infrastructure construction, maintainance, and protection should be a government responsibility. The Internet is a road for information just as the highways are roads for cars. It is too big for any one company to manage, and like the post, it is critical that areas that are less economical to reach are reached anyway -- and one cannot count on corporate goals to support such regions.
Sure. "Free Speech" zones away from public political events. Suppression of peaceful, placard-holding individuals at such events. The forbidding of display of opinion within certain distance of funerals. The physical repression of individuals who speak out at political events. Shall I go on, or were you just trolling?
We have yet to lose this right. [to keep and bear arms]
Many people have lost this right. Just because you have not does not make the situation acceptable.
I'm never going to shed tears
Fine. You're entitled to your opinion. That doesn't change the facts.
This is the only one you got right. [prohibition against being deprived of property without due process ]
No, I got them all right.
However, I was not speaking of land; I was speaking of actual confiscation of currency without warrant, probable cause, criminal charges, etc. Though I agree the public taking of land for the ostensible purpose of increasing tax revenue is despicable.
I wasn't aware of any ex post facto laws turning up
Addition to any criminal sentence of the prohibition of owning firearms -- after the sentencing. In other words, there was no such prohibition in place, the sentence was passed and served, then later, the same person was forbidden to own firearms as a consequence of having been previously punished (convicted or not, for instance, adjudication withheld) for [a very broad class of] crimes, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. (Fails [3] below)
Addition to a criminal's sentence by publicly listing personal details about them as a sexual and/or violent offender when no such law was in place at the time of their sentencing, no such listing was ordered as part of their sentencing, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. In some states and in certain situation such as transfer of probation such additional penalties are applied to those who have had adjudication withheld. Also, federal legislation following this practice is either in place or being worked on for a national registry. (Fails [3] below)
Addition to a criminal's sentence by forcing them to report their place of residence to authorities (such as the local sheriff's department) under threat of further punishment when no such law was in place at the time of their sentencing, no such reporting was ordered as part of their sentencing, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. In some states and in certain situations such as transfer of probation such additional penalties are applied to those who have had adjudication withheld. (Fails [3] below)
Addition to a criminal's sentence of being punished by forbidding them to live in certain areas, such as near schools or parks, when no such law was in place at the time of their sentencing, and no such restriction was ordered as part of their sentencing, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. (Fails [3] below)
"Three strikes laws" in every case where any of the preceding "strikes" occurred prior to the instantiation of the three strikes laws. (Fails [3] below)
The currently pending attempt to pardon the telecommunications companies for breaking the law with regards to wiretapping. (Versions have failed [4] below, keep watching as this effort continues to mutate)
Constitutionally speaking, the following is the definitive case law, Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]), via Justice Chase:
Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action.
Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed.
Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.
Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender.
In the case of sexual and violent offender's registries, these laws have at least once gone to the supreme court and have been upheld by the court with the preposterous excuse that such listing "is not punishment" but rather simply and exclusively represents "an interest of the state." In the case of gun laws, I am unaware of any challenge having made it to the supreme court.
Well, Jimmy, yes, I know you stabbed little Sally in the face, but John Smith, your classmate down the street, hacked the legs off little Mary and made soup out of her feet, so we're just going to accept face-stabbings as perfectly ok. You run along now.
Long ago. Where were you, in a cave? In the nation with the world's most advanced concepts and legal frameworks relating to liberty, in order to Save The [insert fear-inspiring potential Victims here], free speech is not free; freedom of religion is not freedom; the explicit right to keep and bear arms is no right; the commerce clause is the inverse commerce clause; the orderly and specific requirements of probable cause, oath or affirmation, warrant, and then search have become search, followed, perhaps, by warrant; the freedom from incriminating one's self has become the freedom to be tortured until you speak the desired confession; the absolute dictate against ex post facto laws spawns them instead of stopping them; enforcement of the prohibition against being deprived of property without due process is only a dim memory; and the government wages a violent war against personal and consensual adult choices in such a way as to create black markets of equal violence and danger.
Certainly, more remains to be lost. So enjoy what you have now. It's only going to get worse. Save The [fitb]!
This demonstrates the problem with allowing private organizations to serve as the gateway to the network. The nets, like the roads, should be a public resource; otherwise, they're going to be filtered by the views and fears of those entities providing access.
This is a perfect example: Network Solutions is in no way the author of, or the sponsor of, this content, but they will filter it because they don't want to be another target of violent factions of Islam or hordes of politically correct, censorship-minded people / investors. So the site is censored. Today it is someone speaking out against superstition and violent social coercion; tomorrow it may be a site against the drug war, or one against the war in Iraq. Or one that speaks out against your local school board. Or one that promotes Catholicism over Protestantism.
Personally, I think access-provider censorship is the kind of behavior the FCC really ought to be watching for, if they were really looking out for us. But of course, they aren't. They're watching out for corporate interests. And of course, Network Solutions is a corporation.
A driver's license is a certificate that says you can drive. It doesn't even need your name on it. You just need to have one in case someone questions if you have passed a test to drive. Having done so, of course, does not permit you to run a red light or drive over someone's baby in a stroller. Nor does not having a license prevent you from starting a car and driving off. As it turns out, the thing that really matters to society is how well you drive -- not the certificate at all.
A passport is a certificate that says you can cross the country's borders. I still have -- framed -- my grandfather's certificate from the US state department that allowed him, his wife, his minor dependents and a servant to do this. It did in fact have their names on it, but inasmuch as there was no way to assure that the people in the group were the people named therein, the fact remains that the certificate itself was the key issue. It is an over-sized paper, beautifully executed, has a wax seal and a ribbon. No pictures, very basic description of him, none of the others in his party. Nothing you couldn't forge. Yet he and his could travel. Amazing, isn't it? The question arises, why can't we travel this way today? What new thing has arisen that says "oh no, that's just unacceptable!" The answer to this lies only in the authorities claims that they can stop terrorists and threats of that nature, but we know that is not true and will never be true. They can certainly increase the inconvenience to us, though.
A dollar bill is a certificate that says you can have a cheeseburger. The important thing is not that it has your name on it, but that you have the certificate.
All plain paper or otherwise easily carried off certificates can be stolen under various sets of circumstances. The objective of linking a certificate to an individual's personal characteristics is to make that more difficult or (ideally) impossible.
As the value of a particular type of certificate goes up, the value of obtaining one goes up as well. For instance, people will steal $1 bills, but they won't counterfeit them. However, people will counterfeit $100 bills, even when the effort required is extreme, because the ROI is very high. Just ask the North Koreans, who are merrily producing our current $100 bils.
When this happens, the value of the certificate ceases to be that "it is what it is" but instead becomes "it does what it does." This is not a subtle difference. In the case of a passport, your legitimate passport will probably get you across the border both ways (assuming you're not on one of our secret police's lists) but what it will *not* do is prevent others from getting across the border or prevent others from using ID's derived from yours with different data. One requirement here is breach of the data, but we know from repeated experience that no database is secure in the face of sufficient corruption, and so that is the least of the obstacles at hand.
In the end, the certificates -- passport, license -- serve as standard locks. That is, if you're a legal, compliant citizen, you'll have nice, valid copies and you won't attempt to get around them. Criminals, government agents (but I repeat myself), and corporate spies (department of redundancy department) all will also have these certificates as well, but they'll be illegitimate in the sense that the ID actually identifies who it says it does. Reasons will range from the apparently good intentioned (witness protection program) to the clearly malign (gonna fly that plane into that building, praise [diety.])
In the end, the certificate is required to transact normal life. Because it will be the standard required by those in power. Even though the protective ability is illusory.
Now let me turn to what happens if your certificate is lost. In the case of money, you can get more at some rate you are well aware of; the trick is not to carry too much of it or allow any one credit or debit card to carry enough to wound you fatally in the financial
What you are describing here as privacy is actually what the blurb more correctly labels as anonymity.
No. You fundamentally misunderstand privacy. Privacy is not "being alone."
Privacy is the existence of social boundaries that we (generally) agree not to cross.
Examples: I invade a lady's privacy when I look up her skirts without her permission. I invade your privacy if I open your mail without your permission. I invade your privacy if I read your medical records without your permission. All of this can happen with you, me and the issue in question all out in the public space.
These are things we can do, but we agree not to do, because we recognize the fundamental right to privacy as existing in open society, not just in the home or when we are alone. Private means that you retain control by social convention over information which relates to your existence, and in turn, were I to obtain access by any means without your permission, I would have crossed the social boundary for that issue. That is the very core of "violating someone's privacy."
Anonymity is another social boundary. We have -- in the past -- recognized that others have the right to proceed about their day without having to inform others who they are and what they are doing. This boundary, like any other social boundary, can be crossed (violated, more like) by simple, easy actions on the part of invaders of privacy. But anonymity is not a thing unto itself, it is simply another facet of privacy.
The following should help you develop a better understanding of what privacy actually is: More on privacy.
The premise of the article - or at least the blurb - is wrong. It makes the claim we "have no expectation of privacy in the public space." But we do. Ever want to take a road trip to some town where no one knows you, just to get away, do some shopping, have dinner, watch a show, without having to deal with people who know you? Ever enjoy the feeling of being out, alone, in an unfamiliar city?
How's that going to sit when the desk clerk looks you in the eye as you walk up and says, "How you doing, Mr. LeParanoid, and how's that appendectomy scar healing up? Wife happy about that diamond necklace you bought last week?"
Or gives you a steely look because you're on The Sex Offender List (because you had the temerity to have sex with someone 3 days over some arbitrary line, or perhaps you pissed in a bush somewhere) and proceeds to treat you like a criminal as soon as your RF-enabled ID gets in range of his LittleDictatorsConsole(tm)? Sure, you can add biometrics to it so he's sure you're a sex offender or other malcontent antisocial. That'd all be real good, wouldn't it? After all, in this society, onece you're a criminal, you're permanently low class, you can't make up for it.
This whole ID mania needs to go away. It is a sign of a pervasive sickness among the rulers of this society. It is not a solution, or a potential solution, to terrorism, or any other problem we face.
Slashdot Mirror
No. You're placing the blame on the wrong party. The person who overdosed didn't cause you to pay for their care. The legislators who put the law in place that says you have to pay for their care are the ones who connected the action of the drug user to your wallet. Your blame, and your reaction, can only be correctly directed at the legislators.
If a law is made that says every time I eat a cheeseburger, you must pay fifteen dollars, this in no way indicts me as a bad person for eating cheesburgers, nor does my eating cheeseburgers affect you for any reason that you can legitimately lay upon me. The problem is the law; the making of it, the enforcement of it, the support of it, if any, that you have extended. In the meantime, I should continue to have the liberty to go on eating cheeseburgers as I choose. You, on the other hand, need to do something about your legislators.
Well, lets see.
Some addictions can, in fact, be the result of abuse; for instance, when a pregnant woman knowingly takes drugs recreationally that may very likely result in her addiction (which is fine, I have no problem with that) and that of her fetus (that, I define as "wrong" because it has the potential to abuse the fetus's liberties now and in its future.) Where I see you as in error here is in defining "woefully addicted" as a synonym for "wrong." If I choose to take a risk of becoming addicted, and in fact this comes to pass, that was my personal choice. It isn't "wrong." It may well be a poor choice by other people's standards, but what I get out of my actions as measured by myself against the costs to me isn't your balance to judge until, or unless, what I do directly affects you. If I walk up to you on the street and stab you with a hypodermic full of heroin, now we're talking about "abuse."
A child abuser, in the sense that you're using the term, is someone who is violating the privacy and sexuality of an individual who (a) we think cannot make an informed decision and (b) is often subject to power (misuse of authority, or expression of control without authority) they cannot counter; that use of power is an abuse of the child's ability to make choices for itself. We don't subject children to the power of adults in order to expose them to any act an adult might choose; we do it to protect them. Consequently, when an adult abuses that power to act in ways that we consider not in the best interests of the child, we find that to be an extreme offense against the child.
The ideal of liberty is that my right to swing my fist stops where your face begins. If I take a potentially addicting drug, this is "swinging my fist at myself" and is none of your business, regardless of your opinion of how well reasoned my choice is. If I coerce or force someone else (child or otherwise) into taking a punch from me, or punching itself, this is the very definition of abuse. So I have no right to addict you; I have no right to force or coerce any person who cannot make an informed decision according to the dictates of their own conscience into any act, and that covers child abuse as well as it does any other kind of abuse.
Adding the concept of an abuser being "unable to control the act of abuse" in no way opens the door to acceptance of the fact that they have assaulted the liberties of another person. If they cannot control themselves in the "swinging of their fists", then society needs to control them. There is an inherent difference between what rights we have to do things to ourselves, and what rights we have to do to things to others. This difference is in no way ameliorated by one's ability to control one's self, as far as I'm concerned. If you can't control yourself with regard towards your actions as they directly affect others, you should not be excused for what you do: What you are able to do should be constrained, which is simply acting in the best interests of the other members of society.
The root problem with today's "child abuse" laws is the mismatch between the laws drawing a line in the sand based upon age. They use this line (wrongly) as if it provides an effective and reasonable match with every individual's attainment of the ability to make an informed choice according to the dictates of a rational and sufficiently mature conscience. This congruence is not valid and is unlikely to ever be valid, barring mandatory machine education and a lot more sophisticated social system than we have now. We could certainly do a lot better than ag
Well, ideally, yes. The problem comes when those "philosophical beliefs" consist of metrics evaluating which special interest group provided them with the most benefits, which of the other legislators will trade a vote their way now, for a vote you want for pork in your distract later, how actions now will affect standing within the political party (note not with the voters, which is something else entirely), what lucrative speaking engagements will be offered post-legislative career, and so forth.
Your approach would be spot on in a situation where legislators voted along the philosophical lines that they shared truthfully with the public during a fair election process; however, that in no way describes this country. And that's not an opinion — that's a fact.
Yes, that's certainly true. You would want research you pay for to be done at the fastest and most effective way possible, so as to maximize your ROI. So you make an excellent case for the use of cognitive enhancement.
It is "drug abuse" when drugs are used without the informed consent of an individual; it is simply "illegal drug use" (and very likely legislative abuse of personal liberties at the same time) when an adult makes an informed choice about drug use that doesn't comply with the current law.
People need to move away from the mindset where media pompously and wrongly attributes polar positions such as "right and wrong" and "use and abuse" to be a 100% lexical replacement for "legal and illegal." Anyone with any sense at all knows better than that. A significant number of the laws on the books in the country I live in (the USA) are inherently wrong, outright un- or anti-constitutional, or something even worse. Using them to define what is "right" leads directly to behaviors that are despicable — or worse.
One can be cynical and simply say that this is because our legislators aren't very good at their jobs. Both from the standpoint of making good law in the first place, and also in the sense that they seem to be almost incapable of admitting they made a mistake and taking bad law off the books. Personally, I think it's because they're not very good at liberty — and very good indeed at lawmaking.
There's an old saw that goes, "never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence", but I think in the case of bad law, we are indeed looking at malice aforethought. It seems to me that these people have agendas that can only be construed to be "for the people" if you slept through history class and have never read any of the founding documents with any interest. Like most Americans. :(
I haven't smoked since I was sixteen. Might if they legalized it... then again, might not. Depends on the occasion, I suppose. At this point, I'm desperately holding on to the brain cells I have left. ;-)
Kilobaud was very good for its time, and there were quite a few others that only made a few issues. I collected the first issue of every computer magazine I could find from the day the first Byte came out (and Byte was quite a different magazine in those early days.) Kilobaud actually published my first computer article -- in 1977 -- so I've got a soft spot for them. But Dr. Dobbs was around pretty early, Circuit Cellar was a welcome addition when it debuted... and of course there were a host of CPU specific ones like 68 micro journal, machine specific ones like a magazine for the color computer... really, there were a bunch of interesting rags now that I think about it.
Yes, they're much better. But the GPL gets most of the press (and delivers the highest propaganda load.)
Hmmm. Well, the way I look at it is anything that reduces the number of possible programs created starting from any particular piece of source code is, by definition, not designed to benefit the users, and generally speaking, not much of a model for "freedom." Unless we're talking about the "freedom to restrict", which is an authoring freedom, not a user freedom. Typically.
That may well be so, but there have been specific requirements in the GPL/LGPL that restrict usage of GPL/LGPL'd software that in no way relate to copyright; these requirements so broadly degrade the scope of the "freedom" that is the main talking point for the GPL that the license is of no interest to me except as an example of how not to distribute software.
After reading on and on in the GPL about what you have to do, what you can't do, what you have to accept, etc., I am left completely without any feeling that I've been given something "free", or, were I to adopt it for my own work, that I would be creating something "free." In light of the fact that I can (and do) create software for distribution without any need for similar restrictions at all, I fail to see any value in the GPL. It becomes just another force to slow down software development across multiple parties, and the question of who benefits from that slowdown seems to only have an answer in some kind of angst-ridden need for endless recognition by people who adopt it, or perhaps as a crusade against the (horror of horrors!) attempt to make money. The former I view as a personality defect, the latter I view as utterly ridiculous. Either way, I'm not interested, except in the abstract "gee, I'd like to see that whole GPL thing die" sense.
I'm 100% guilty of carrying forward the attitude I started with back in the 1960's, where software was a fabulously interesting thing that we shared with each other without any thought whatsoever for moderating that behavior because the other party might actually make use of it. That was the whole idea. It was really very cool to be have someone hand you, figuratively speaking, the solution to a problem. It was just as cool to hand them one. Maybe even cooler. On that basis, entire magazines existed that shared code, talked about various design issues, laid out hardware designs, etc.
This attitude still exists, but it is most commonly found in academia, in textbooks and so forth. I have a lot more respect for a professor that says "here's the problem, and here's a solution" which you can take away with you, having learned something you can use without restriction, than I do for some basement genius who says "here's the problem, but if you want to use it, you have to conform to my idea of how it may be used."
Working source code, especially well-working source code, can be a teaching tool at the same time it is an additional shoulder at the wheel of life we all get to push forward. I like that a lot. Anything that makes the wheel harder to push while pretending to be an assist I find annoying. The GPL is just that sort of thing; it is a mechanism that seems to have been designed primarily to benefit lawyers. Even if that wasn't the intent, that is the end result.
Yeah, I'm an old hippie. :-)
Actually, it's worse. He's bitching about bugs when he has failed to demonstrate either that a bug exists within the design goals and the specific limitations I chose to implement with this project, and he has no basis in fact to presume that I would not attempt to fix any such bug if I were to learn about it. The project does contain contact information specifically for bug reporting; all people have to do is keep that info with the project, or find my original post of it, to let me know if they find a bug or bugs. At that point, he can evaluate how well I maintain it -- because then he would have facts, as opposed to purest unfounded speculation.
Like most authors, I think, I maintain a sense of "it's my baby" as far as the quality of the work that went into it; that's the basis for my motivation to fix it, should it not perform as I said it would, or if someone hands me an idea I think would be reasonable to adapt the project to use. Will that be sufficient? Only the discovery and report of a bug will tell.
If I choose not to fix it and at the time of the report it still has significant relevance to the world (for instance, it isn't wrecked by a new version of python, or it's 50 years from now and python only exists on retro-enthusiast's computers), that's the time to point the finger and say "That BASTARD gave me a free program with the source code and in the end *I* had to fix it!" To which statement, if I learn of it, I will applaud loudly while sporting a toothy grin. :-)
[Runs off into the night, snickering]
MS Says:
Nonsense. Neither the commercial urge nor the recognition grabbing need have spread to cover 100% of those people producing software. Here is a database system in python that I wrote for my own reasons, and give away for free. No "GPL" or other pseudo-free restrictions, just free. PD. Take it. Do anything you like with it. Or not. Don't care. Not looking for money, not looking for recognition, not looking to promote free stuff over commercial stuff or vice versa, no requirements of any kind. Repost it anywhere, take my name off it, whatever you like. It's just... free. What do I get out of it? It works for me, that's all. Doesn't hurt me or compromise me in any way to give it away, so I do.
What Microsoft - and the GPL-fans, for that matter - have oh-so-conveniently forgotten is the mechanism of PD software. Write it, share it, go on with your life. The more people do that, the more useful things will get created. Personally, I find the GPL just as corrosive as software patents, and for very similar reasons. I try to stay away from both. But that's just me.
In these cases, free speech of an individual invited to pose a question, with said question delivered politely, has led to ejection and sometimes arrest. It has led to individuals wearing t-shirts or carrying signs from being able to attend public meetings on public land. This has nothing to do with soap boxes or microphones, and everything to do with open public discourse; something people who understand liberty as the authors of the constitution understood it know requires the utmost in protections.
Thankfully, the acquiescence of specific individuals does not have the authority to make unconstitutional laws legitimate.
No. That's not what I'm talking about at all. On the one hand, I'm talking about the creation and enforcement of ex post facto laws, which are absolutely prohibited, unusually for the constitution to both the feds and the states, and for excellent reasons. On the other, I'm talking about blanket laws like those in Washington DC (currently under review by the USSC) and the various "this weapon is ok, but that one is not" rules. With the exception that, in my opinion, we should amend in prohibition of weapons of mass destruction (replicating bio agents, nuclear weapons, things along these lines), the constitution specifies arms in general and there is zero legal basis for forbidding any citizen in good standing from owning a frigate full of extremely large caliber guns, a fighter jet, or a howitzer, to name just a few. As it stands, there isn't even a legal basis to forbid the private ownership of a fusion weapon. I'm of the mind there *should* be, but I also recognize that this requires amendment of the constitution.
Here's the problem: Either we require the government to obey it, or we don't. If we don't, we need to be asking ourselves what, exactly, limits what our government can do? The answer -- as seems clear from its current habit of ignoring the constitution wholesale -- is nothing controls it at all, and so we have become absolute subjects to a master class. Personally, I find that repugnant. Far better to adjust the document as we see fit using the mechanism specifically provided to do so, slowly and carefully. Sometimes (like forbidding private ownership of weapons of mass destruction) there is little likelihood that there would be any significant resistance to amendment. Other times (like abandoning the requirement of probable cause, oath and affirmation, specification of the things to be searched for and the domain to be searched) there is little chance that the people would deign to forfeit the rights already granted them, for there is little real advantage to doing so, and huge, huge disadvantage in going ahead with such a foolish notion. That's why there is a process, that's why we should follow it. That's why we should hold the government exactly to the very letter of the constitution. Otherwise -- again, as we see today -- it can get out of control and then we're just riding the wave and hoping it won't crash down on us personally, which is a suckass way to live.
When roads were just dirt paths on private land, they carried things only important to one's self. Consequently, they were maintained according to the perceived needs of the owner, by the owner. Passage was uncertain in every sense of the word. Areas with minimal populations had minimal (or no) access. Eventually, as it became clear that transport was a core requirement for the growing society, the roads became a state maintained operation.
The network of roads is now far more dependable than it was, or could ever have been, under the ownership of diverse private entities. Well maintained roads now reach almost everywhere people live and do business.
The information roads are reaching the same point. The things carried on them have become critically important to society. The private lines, with their uncertain passage, varying tolls, and charge-as-you-will structures are pathological impediments to the further development of the system. There are places with deeply substandard access because such access is not profitable on a per-installation basis. Uniform access to the Internet is, in my opinion, of similar importance with equal access to the roads. Information access is well along the way to becoming one of the core empowerments of our current society.
Finally, there is no guarantee that a business will be able to sustain a position in any one venue; things change and sometimes that doesn't bode well for entrenched interests. That's just the way it goes. Walmart comes in, Joe's Lamp Emporium goes out. Amazon sets up, the Martial Arts Bookstore becomes untenable. The government decides to maintain the Internet infrastructure, and Fred's ISP becomes a non-entity. Unless, of course, Fred manages to convince the gummint that he can maintain his region to the specifications they set. Then - like road construction companies - they've re-carved a niche and have corresponding new opportunities.
But don't worry. My opinion on this will have no effect. Congress is in the pocket of companies which would rather continue to ignore any edge cases that don't fit into their economic models, and they're quite pleased to continue to censor and otherwise modify content and traffic as it suits them. Your corporate utopia will continue to develop. Have a Coke, slip on your Nikes, and continue to look at the world through your rose-colored Ray Bans. Our slide is well down the slope, and there's no scrambling back.
Yes. Also, building roads and bridges, despite the fact that some roads and bridges have failed. Also public schools; despite the fact that they could be better. Also (especially!) pooling health risks. Also protecting our borders. Despite the fact that our borders could be better protected. Also providing standards for currency and weights. Despite the fact that recently, they've done very poorly at it.
Large jobs where favoritism is pathological argue for the whole community developing a minimum set of biases and putting the community shoulder to the wheel. I don't have any problem at all with this in theory, and although I am *severely* annoyed with various levels of government failure, I am under no illusions that private interests would do better with such huge amounts of money and power at stake.
No, you mean, they are forbidden to do so. They do it anyway. Like most of the things they are forbidden to do. There's a constant seeking for power that ignores the constitutional bounds placed on the government, and there's a constant back pressure to fix that from other sectors -- the citizens, the judiciary, ridicule and criticism in the press, etc.
The difference, again, is that with the government, we have a fairly narrow place to focus our attention, and so it is practical that we do so. In the case of your local hosting provider, assuming you're not in my local area (rural Montana), I have no input, no matter how harshly they might decide to censor your opinions about the free market. If the issue is a national one, based on the liberties our founders so presciently laid out, I have something to say and I can shove my sharp little pin right into my representative's ass right where it will do the most good - directly through his wallet, during his run for election, and through my re-election vote, or lack thereof, on the day of the election.
I call your attention to the insurance industry. That is how "the free market works", by adding completely artificial costs to services, excluding the needy, marginalizing the powerless, and reneging on promises whenever it suits them. That is why I don't want private companies to be allowed to be the gatekeepers of our basic liberties. I think it the only sensible way we can guard our liberties, that is, to keep them in one place where we can monitor them and react as required. To declare speech "free", and then to delegate control over that speech to private organizations is more than foolish, it is depraved.
I agree completely. Censorship of source opinion, fact or original art is a disease. Anyone is entitled to decide what they will peruse; that is one end of the scales of liberty. No one is entitled to censor source material that consists of opinion, fact or original art. That is the other end of the scales. If either end fails, the people suffer.
Not all people have the technical means and/or knowledge to serve a site themselves. Does this mean they are of necessity subject to their ideas being filtered by the ideas of others? You say, "find another provider", but what if no such other provider exists for the materials or ideas at hand?
The Internet is made of roads for data. Censorship is like having a bridge out. The only bridge repair we can count on is in the constitution. Your idea is "find another bridge" but that presumes there is one, it is accessible and affordable and practical, but these presumptions are radically over the top and begin to fail miserably at the extremes of human discourse, which is precisely where we need bridges the most. I don't support the idea of private companies managing or gate-keeping a resource like the net.
No, it isn't. It is exactly what I want. It puts us in a situation where we have exactly one battle to fight, instead of many thousands, and where the preconditions for that battle have been set by the first amendment instead of prurient self-interest.
What China does is irrelevant to what our government is required to do by its constituting authority, and what our representatives are required to do by virtue of their oaths of office. Again, I'd rather see us fight one national battle than many thousands of local battles, and this is the quite practical reason I think that infrastructure construction, maintainance, and protection should be a government responsibility. The Internet is a road for information just as the highways are roads for cars. It is too big for any one company to manage, and like the post, it is critical that areas that are less economical to reach are reached anyway -- and one cannot count on corporate goals to support such regions.
This part: "Oh yeah, like Iran, and China, and all the other governments that filter their net connections."
Comparison is irrelevant; it has no bearing on the issue at hand. Your response, also, is irrelevant.
Sure. "Free Speech" zones away from public political events. Suppression of peaceful, placard-holding individuals at such events. The forbidding of display of opinion within certain distance of funerals. The physical repression of individuals who speak out at political events. Shall I go on, or were you just trolling?
Many people have lost this right. Just because you have not does not make the situation acceptable.
Fine. You're entitled to your opinion. That doesn't change the facts.
No, I got them all right.
However, I was not speaking of land; I was speaking of actual confiscation of currency without warrant, probable cause, criminal charges, etc. Though I agree the public taking of land for the ostensible purpose of increasing tax revenue is despicable.
Addition to any criminal sentence of the prohibition of owning firearms -- after the sentencing. In other words, there was no such prohibition in place, the sentence was passed and served, then later, the same person was forbidden to own firearms as a consequence of having been previously punished (convicted or not, for instance, adjudication withheld) for [a very broad class of] crimes, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. (Fails [3] below)
Addition to a criminal's sentence by publicly listing personal details about them as a sexual and/or violent offender when no such law was in place at the time of their sentencing, no such listing was ordered as part of their sentencing, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. In some states and in certain situation such as transfer of probation such additional penalties are applied to those who have had adjudication withheld. Also, federal legislation following this practice is either in place or being worked on for a national registry. (Fails [3] below)
Addition to a criminal's sentence by forcing them to report their place of residence to authorities (such as the local sheriff's department) under threat of further punishment when no such law was in place at the time of their sentencing, no such reporting was ordered as part of their sentencing, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. In some states and in certain situations such as transfer of probation such additional penalties are applied to those who have had adjudication withheld. (Fails [3] below)
Addition to a criminal's sentence of being punished by forbidding them to live in certain areas, such as near schools or parks, when no such law was in place at the time of their sentencing, and no such restriction was ordered as part of their sentencing, and no subsequent offense and related conviction exists to directly add such punishment. (Fails [3] below)
"Three strikes laws" in every case where any of the preceding "strikes" occurred prior to the instantiation of the three strikes laws. (Fails [3] below)
The currently pending attempt to pardon the telecommunications companies for breaking the law with regards to wiretapping. (Versions have failed [4] below, keep watching as this effort continues to mutate)
Constitutionally speaking, the following is the definitive case law, Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]), via Justice Chase:
In the case of sexual and violent offender's registries, these laws have at least once gone to the supreme court and have been upheld by the court with the preposterous excuse that such listing "is not punishment" but rather simply and exclusively represents "an interest of the state." In the case of gun laws, I am unaware of any challenge having made it to the supreme court.
So, your reasoning goes:
Well, Jimmy, yes, I know you stabbed little Sally in the face, but John Smith, your classmate down the street, hacked the legs off little Mary and made soup out of her feet, so we're just going to accept face-stabbings as perfectly ok. You run along now.
Long ago. Where were you, in a cave? In the nation with the world's most advanced concepts and legal frameworks relating to liberty, in order to Save The [insert fear-inspiring potential Victims here], free speech is not free; freedom of religion is not freedom; the explicit right to keep and bear arms is no right; the commerce clause is the inverse commerce clause; the orderly and specific requirements of probable cause, oath or affirmation, warrant, and then search have become search, followed, perhaps, by warrant; the freedom from incriminating one's self has become the freedom to be tortured until you speak the desired confession; the absolute dictate against ex post facto laws spawns them instead of stopping them; enforcement of the prohibition against being deprived of property without due process is only a dim memory; and the government wages a violent war against personal and consensual adult choices in such a way as to create black markets of equal violence and danger.
Certainly, more remains to be lost. So enjoy what you have now. It's only going to get worse. Save The [fitb]!
This demonstrates the problem with allowing private organizations to serve as the gateway to the network. The nets, like the roads, should be a public resource; otherwise, they're going to be filtered by the views and fears of those entities providing access.
This is a perfect example: Network Solutions is in no way the author of, or the sponsor of, this content, but they will filter it because they don't want to be another target of violent factions of Islam or hordes of politically correct, censorship-minded people / investors. So the site is censored. Today it is someone speaking out against superstition and violent social coercion; tomorrow it may be a site against the drug war, or one against the war in Iraq. Or one that speaks out against your local school board. Or one that promotes Catholicism over Protestantism.
Personally, I think access-provider censorship is the kind of behavior the FCC really ought to be watching for, if they were really looking out for us. But of course, they aren't. They're watching out for corporate interests. And of course, Network Solutions is a corporation.
Vista? Didn't you get the memo? People in general prefer to run XP. Computer manufacturers are selling machines with XP. Often, software companies aren't even testing with Vista. Vista was oversold into an underpowered (for Vista) PC market.
A driver's license is a certificate that says you can drive. It doesn't even need your name on it. You just need to have one in case someone questions if you have passed a test to drive. Having done so, of course, does not permit you to run a red light or drive over someone's baby in a stroller. Nor does not having a license prevent you from starting a car and driving off. As it turns out, the thing that really matters to society is how well you drive -- not the certificate at all.
A passport is a certificate that says you can cross the country's borders. I still have -- framed -- my grandfather's certificate from the US state department that allowed him, his wife, his minor dependents and a servant to do this. It did in fact have their names on it, but inasmuch as there was no way to assure that the people in the group were the people named therein, the fact remains that the certificate itself was the key issue. It is an over-sized paper, beautifully executed, has a wax seal and a ribbon. No pictures, very basic description of him, none of the others in his party. Nothing you couldn't forge. Yet he and his could travel. Amazing, isn't it? The question arises, why can't we travel this way today? What new thing has arisen that says "oh no, that's just unacceptable!" The answer to this lies only in the authorities claims that they can stop terrorists and threats of that nature, but we know that is not true and will never be true. They can certainly increase the inconvenience to us, though.
A dollar bill is a certificate that says you can have a cheeseburger. The important thing is not that it has your name on it, but that you have the certificate.
All plain paper or otherwise easily carried off certificates can be stolen under various sets of circumstances. The objective of linking a certificate to an individual's personal characteristics is to make that more difficult or (ideally) impossible.
As the value of a particular type of certificate goes up, the value of obtaining one goes up as well. For instance, people will steal $1 bills, but they won't counterfeit them. However, people will counterfeit $100 bills, even when the effort required is extreme, because the ROI is very high. Just ask the North Koreans, who are merrily producing our current $100 bils.
When this happens, the value of the certificate ceases to be that "it is what it is" but instead becomes "it does what it does." This is not a subtle difference. In the case of a passport, your legitimate passport will probably get you across the border both ways (assuming you're not on one of our secret police's lists) but what it will *not* do is prevent others from getting across the border or prevent others from using ID's derived from yours with different data. One requirement here is breach of the data, but we know from repeated experience that no database is secure in the face of sufficient corruption, and so that is the least of the obstacles at hand.
In the end, the certificates -- passport, license -- serve as standard locks. That is, if you're a legal, compliant citizen, you'll have nice, valid copies and you won't attempt to get around them. Criminals, government agents (but I repeat myself), and corporate spies (department of redundancy department) all will also have these certificates as well, but they'll be illegitimate in the sense that the ID actually identifies who it says it does. Reasons will range from the apparently good intentioned (witness protection program) to the clearly malign (gonna fly that plane into that building, praise [diety.])
In the end, the certificate is required to transact normal life. Because it will be the standard required by those in power. Even though the protective ability is illusory.
Now let me turn to what happens if your certificate is lost. In the case of money, you can get more at some rate you are well aware of; the trick is not to carry too much of it or allow any one credit or debit card to carry enough to wound you fatally in the financial
No. You fundamentally misunderstand privacy. Privacy is not "being alone."
Privacy is the existence of social boundaries that we (generally) agree not to cross.
Examples: I invade a lady's privacy when I look up her skirts without her permission. I invade your privacy if I open your mail without your permission. I invade your privacy if I read your medical records without your permission. All of this can happen with you, me and the issue in question all out in the public space.
These are things we can do, but we agree not to do, because we recognize the fundamental right to privacy as existing in open society, not just in the home or when we are alone. Private means that you retain control by social convention over information which relates to your existence, and in turn, were I to obtain access by any means without your permission, I would have crossed the social boundary for that issue. That is the very core of "violating someone's privacy."
Anonymity is another social boundary. We have -- in the past -- recognized that others have the right to proceed about their day without having to inform others who they are and what they are doing. This boundary, like any other social boundary, can be crossed (violated, more like) by simple, easy actions on the part of invaders of privacy. But anonymity is not a thing unto itself, it is simply another facet of privacy.
The following should help you develop a better understanding of what privacy actually is: More on privacy.
The premise of the article - or at least the blurb - is wrong. It makes the claim we "have no expectation of privacy in the public space." But we do. Ever want to take a road trip to some town where no one knows you, just to get away, do some shopping, have dinner, watch a show, without having to deal with people who know you? Ever enjoy the feeling of being out, alone, in an unfamiliar city?
How's that going to sit when the desk clerk looks you in the eye as you walk up and says, "How you doing, Mr. LeParanoid, and how's that appendectomy scar healing up? Wife happy about that diamond necklace you bought last week?"
Or gives you a steely look because you're on The Sex Offender List (because you had the temerity to have sex with someone 3 days over some arbitrary line, or perhaps you pissed in a bush somewhere) and proceeds to treat you like a criminal as soon as your RF-enabled ID gets in range of his LittleDictatorsConsole(tm)? Sure, you can add biometrics to it so he's sure you're a sex offender or other malcontent antisocial. That'd all be real good, wouldn't it? After all, in this society, onece you're a criminal, you're permanently low class, you can't make up for it.
This whole ID mania needs to go away. It is a sign of a pervasive sickness among the rulers of this society. It is not a solution, or a potential solution, to terrorism, or any other problem we face.