If they are not immediately interested in nor instructed to seize your bags or divert you to another checkpoint, then gently asking them to allow you space in light of their rejection of your attachment cords is not to much to ask of them.
But, i've around last August and this past February flown and at least two of the legs had intermediate stops and i did not face long lines and so had no cause to worry about separation of my backpack and carry-on bag. I somehow think they don't want to worsen line conditions by causing a re-check of what bag belongs to whom, if they can just add 10 seconds here and there (not everyone will actually ask for the space separation).
Besides, i have yet to run into rude, crude or unseemly TSA personnel, unlike some fliers. Treat people nicely, you usually get nice response (usually-- in my personal experience (well, except mostly when i attended Catholic school for 3 years and was beat up or had my homework balled up and so on... never really had those problems in public schools, except when a class mate in 3rd grade kick my groin for apparently no reason. I schemed and chafed for 2 or 3 days on how to get even; i decided to return the identical favor. We had no problems thereafter, and even ended up becoming friends)...
But, as for TSA screening, I think many delays are due to passenger unmindfulness about what things in their bags cause problems.
Well, HELL, just take a bunch of G.M. beans and fart you way across the galaxy. Gives a new meaning to our triumphant gas giants... Stellar gases... This could have quite a deep impact full of RAMifications... Just better having enough shielding/isolation tween the genny and the ass, or the crapper will turn into an APCTA -- Asstral Projection/Corporeal Teleportation Apparatus...
Yeh, because if they crash into a star, they will be MORE interesting than the New Plasmatics... And, crashing into a planet would me severely localized plastic deformation by plasma injection...
(When I first saw the header, I thought Plasma Disk Drives? WHoaaa, THAT'LL be some HOT data...)
You and Hurricane 8* touch on what I feel. I am one of those stalwarts hanging on to SmartSuite, and only touching OpenOffice.org grudgingly in limited cases.
Aside from the non-modal InfoBox/SmartTools feature of SmartSuite, there is the very sweet functionality of Word Pro's sections/divisions management of multiple documents assembled as one. Nicely, Word Pro allows for each original document's formatting to be retained. Last time I tried in OO.o, if forced on the document a standard for the WHOLE document, changing ALL the fonts, ALL the page orientation.
The OO.o interface is "jumboey", compared to SmartSuite. I think Symphony, as used as a name, is an insult to SmartSuite, and an insult to the original Lotus Symphony product which -- when it first hit the streets long ago -- was to be a spreadsheet killer. It would merge the best of spreadsheets and database front ends. But, as time went by, 1-2-3, Quattro Pro (Uno-Dos-Tres- Quattro... get it?), and hexed cell (excel, get it?) bested Symphony, and Symphony sang its last song.
Regrettably, neither OO.o NOR the current Symphony have a credible, end-user-friendly, non-DBA, ad hoc, WYSIWYG database front end like Lotus Approach.
Astonishingly, the Open Source community is paralyzed with a mind-bogglingly astounding NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome in that Lotus Approach's interface is NOT YET adopted. When you copy, copy from the BEST. Base, and others, are so-so. Only due to new technology-derived widgets do they beat Lotus Approach. But, as for charts, reports, forms, (but not necessarily in cross-tabs, as c/ts are Approaches weaker/est feature set), no Open Source would-be analog *i* know of is compelling.
Purportedly, IBM cannot track down all the joint patent holders previously involved with developing SmartSuite. To me, that's tragic, and disingenuous. IBM could has already known WHAT it doesn't hold patents on. They could strip out that code, then tell prospective developers, "Go get your own $6 to $50 copy of SmartSuite online or in surplus stores. Figure out in a few days (easy enough to do) what features are broken. Use new tools and links to restore the stripped functionality and report back to us. The quicker you return the cleanest possible code, the quicker we'll offer you a paying job to join a team similar to what OO.o does under Sun.
Or, IBM and Sun could merge the best of what they have in SS & OO.o, and take away from msoft a significant chunk of the market.
Just take the laptop out ahead of getting in line. I have a Targus backpack, but for my 17" laptop (Gateway). Just attach a lanyard to the bag and laptop to prevent separation on the conveyor.
If you need to, attach a proximity alarm to it and to your wrist to keep the the laptop from getting separated. If they make you remove the alarm from your wrist, tell them they better put distance between you, the pax ahead, and those behind you long enough for you to retrieve your items. That way, the alarm doesn't sound if you're separated by 6+ feet. Surely, they can comply with this.
Lots of people here are mis-reading the goddamn-misleading story line. It's abusive, sensationalistic, mis-written, and Slashdot should reign in these tags. As should newspapers, when it comes to security-related stories affecting people's wallets.
If Targus PAID to have the tags displayed that way, and if they influenced the TSA to word the regulations confusingly, then THEY TOO should be bitch-slapped for this. Besides, with one-piece carry-on for "free", these days of high fuel pricing means that if your other stuff is checked, and you carry your laptop, then put it in a Mac-like sleeve with Velcro flapping and remove it from the laptop backpack. Hell, put in a rubber cord (not one that can hang or restrain people, but just strong enough to keep your stuff in sight of both YOU and the screeners...) and lash your stuff together for the screening.
This damned tag gives readers the angering impression that they MUST go and buy a new bag. The case/bag is good for reducing damage to your laptop, but if yours is rugged or already scratched like hell, you don't need to care too much as long as it's NOT DROPPED or dropped upon by sharp & heavy carry-on items.
I can't help but think that all this grousing and insightful commentary is being read, analyzed and applied to CBP practices and planning.
From my cursory read of the previous story about businesses and entities that are non-individuals, it seems an individual person has to go the expensive route of forming an international company, headquartered outside the US. But, having a purported residence in the States, one is going to quickly get caught up in IRS and state and county and local ordinances and laws stating that ANY business activity or equipment IN that state being used in or for a business activity constitutes a business presence.
Thus, we who THOUGHT "Oh, I'll just form a business and... add "notification of confidentiality/business proprietary data/client private/privileged information/ etc..." " will end up paying a steep price of business formation, ongoing taxes and fees, and STILL face the prospect of being IRS-deemed a non-business, and STILL being looked up prior to flight and after return to the border and determined to be an individual trying to become shielded under exemptions grudgingly given to BUSINESSES and various political functionaries, doctors, lawyers, engineers/architects (all "professionals"), psychiatrists/psychologists/medical professionals, and so on.
This is very fucked up. The (modern, US) government is not supposed to be generating grief, resentment, revulsion, non-patriotic feelings, and feelings of "why don't you just fucking EXILE me, you contemptuous FUCKS". It's supposed to protect us AND respect our rights. As one previous comment and blogger pointed out, if CBP and other agency searching excludes application and data traffic over the Internet, then having a laptop is an intermediary device, not all that different from routers and switches and nodes NOT BEING SEARCHED.
But, you see, they probably fail to realize that those items ARE NOT NEEDING to be searched, given the AT&T & other telcos' net vacuum cleaner centers like the one that moved out of it's near-Folsom street location that was in the news. So, from the 3-letter agencies' perspective, your/my laptop constitutes an obstruction, an impediment, a NUISANCE to their will and desire to KNOW what they want to KNOW. It all sounds like that phrase "TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS; ANYWHERE, ANYTIME", and it's going to get a LOT of people burned.
So, they seize laptops, ostensibly because the target IS a valid, bonafide threat and OUGHT to be deprived of hardware and software, and then there are mistakes (genuine ones due to on-the-spot decisions in the lack of complete information or due to inter-agency information deprivation), and THEN there are reprisal snatches. LOTS of us here ranting and bitching about this are probably on a major SHIT LIST, probably racking up negative Karma in the eyes of those agencies. The negative Karma MIGHT even extend to ANY of loved ones.
Anybody remember "Serenity", when the assassin said something like, "When you quarry goes to ground, leave no ground for the quarry to go"? OTOH, they may have all these hearings and assertions and rules in place just to deter terrorists and data thieves and torrent abusers from being to cavalier. Maybe the agencies just want this card as an ace up the sleeve. Maybe they aren't really all that much USING the power they currently have. But, you can bet your ASS that every single ONE of use here, whatever firewalls and pseudonyms we think are protective and anonymizing, they know who MOST of us are by unique identifying information. If they SO CHOOSE, they can inconvenience ANY ONE of use, once or repeatedly. Well, until enough of us post that we've been relieved of our property and HONESTLY have no crime-related activities (is in-forum raging against the State a crime yet, worthy of State reprisal?) associated in our lives.
Even if the criminals and suspects relieved of laptops and electronics came clean and torrented what they HAD in their possession during confiscation, the government agencies would either slap th
What the hell? What's next, psychedelic furs? Why not resurrect Marley, Hendrix, and Morrison and some Woodstockes and give them algea and foil and an audience in Stonehenge? Wait Wait, Don't tell me. the whirled will come stoned and UNhinged and unable to compute the motions to drink an conjugate swerves...
How about we launch 'accelotrons" to generate wormholes around the threatening asteroids and cometary matter. Just send them off... POOF! GONE. (Well, until beings from Klixator Prime and other places come knocking on our door with cease and desist orders due to all OUR life-extinguishing heavenly bodies create junk yards in other worlds...)
If this becomes reality, will it relieve the Customs & Border Protection/Patrol of something to ransack hard disks for? (Someone/some report somewhere alluded to the possibility that the movie/music industries wanted or arranged for the various G8/other nations' customs inspectors look for pirated music and intellectual property.)
Sometiems, a public announcement is made of the arrest. If the publicized court dockets/calendar are on the wall for all to see standing outside the courtroom, then what's to stop these things from getting into Google, Yahoo!, Lexis/Nexis-like databases (maybe you're a key officer of a company, dismissed for some false/improper charges, and make the news and the d/b rounds), and so on..
Even if the courts expunge/seal records, many people will still be screwed if the DHLS accusations make it to court, even if the court finds you innocent, that Customs/Border Patrol agents overstepped the bounds of the law, and so on.
What is really tragic is that we will never be told (public) the baseline parameters that DEFINITELY CAUSE a laptop/electronics confiscation, and how to avoid any anguish, and what are "questionable" so as to avoid being caught up.
It's almost as if to speed things up (not losing one's electronics) "the government" is trying to coerce the public to be prepared to accept and "escrow" type of agency that will work on behalf of travelers. It might work something like this:
-- Disclose your electronics to an entity that will create a fingerprint of the basic drive/media.
-- Any data you create or edit should be done on OTHER, smaller, easier-to-inspect/copy media
-- Make your fingerprinted media read-only while on travel if that is what it takes to help you speed through CBP
Now, the questions arising might be:
-- "How do we know they aren't recording the contents beyond just making a fingerprint file?"
-- "Doesn't that make us react as if we're guilty without even being charged?"
and so on.
Well, if that's what it takes to avoid having my laptop "stolen" by agents (I KNOW I am not doing illegal things rising to the level of any CBP/FBI/CIA/NSA/local PD/RIAA/ to actually TAKE my laptop especially if it's stuff I could be asked to delete (say, i stumble upon a site and download a national security file, or browse a site and 2 or 3 porn/smut images end up in my cache...) an offending file.
All i know is that i would not be annoyed one frackin' BIT if CBP is assailed by anyone innocent going ballistic on them. This is just PLAIN WRONG to allow any agency take things with no clear written rules, no advice on how to avoid being suspected, no way to know if our public commentary on this will make us targets of retaliation, and so on. I guess they're making many of us morph into "morbid curiosity bystanders" waiting to see someone (on our behalf/by non-contact extension) take them DOWN or take them TO TASK.
Finally, I have NOT had any negative issues with taking my laptop to Japan in 04, and I did not have Customs ask to search me when I arrived back to SFO. However, because I spent a lot of time at Funenokagakukan, and because I visited Mitsubishi and talked about my drawings (maybe 15-20 minutes), and probably triggered an undercover NCIS officer to visit the hostel (pretending to be a guess, even bunking in the hostel, when purportedly he was stationed at Yokohama...), the Customs officer DID, after asking for my passport, run his thumb the lamination and the paper quite a bit of time (15 seconds maybe?) and his facial expression made me think he was told in advance to make damned sure it was ME actually RETURNING to the US soil. Not that I had a fake passport, but that they wanted to be SURE I did indeed depart Japan (a courtesy request by Japan? a US check-up to make sure I am back "home"?) AND return to the US...
That said, I suppose if MY laptop is ever taken, it will be a great source of unbound rage and resentment. It would seen as a hostile act. And, even if I DO back up everything and have to buy a new laptop, it would be QUITE a major irritant, ESPECIALLY if my stuff (which has income-making potential for me) is taken and ends up on the street in someone else's name before *i* produce & sell in my name. I say they better QUICKLY devise an escrow/fast-pass type of system for private, non-business, non-diplomatic travelers. Prevention is better than a ham-fisted "cure".
was from Northern California who was in SoCAL, had been filming the cops beat the autistic/mentally handicapped guy and slamming him on the hood of the car at the gas station, who then then gave the footage to the news, but the news, cozy with or afraid of LA, didn't want the hot potato, which got aired by an out-of-area studio, and then led to the filming guy being chased halfway back UP Kalifornia because the seething, hissing LAPD (whichever station chief, whatever) suddenly reactivated/prioritized an outstanding (and not really pursuded) bench warrant on the filmer.
There, that is a reason for people to start embedding cameras IN and AROUND their cars. Either it will help the police track down hit-and-run and other incidents/crimes, or it will help the public prosecute ill-behaving public employees and private citizens, or both. Or, if the Law makes it illegal for non journalist-types to film uniformed and unknown non-uniformed officers and/or their vehicles (imagine all those unmarked police vehicles entering and exiting garages, and parked under freeways, their license plates visible for ANY person to see and record, one by one, or en mass (sp?))...
So, I suppose that in the future, after the take-down lights come on and a motorist pulls over forthwith, s/he will be first greeted:
"Hello, sir/ma'am. Do you have any surveillance or recording or audio/video recording and transmissions devices encompassing the surrounding periphery of this vehicle, active or not?"
And if the motorist replies, "Yes/Maybe/I refuse to answer that illegal question due to the risk it poses to my safety should you turn out to a rogue or uncouth person issued a badge, gun, and powers of arrest, accompanied with nearly-guaranteed judge protection..."
The next response will be: "Step OUT UV the VEE-HICK-cul"... followed by, "Dispatch, 4 Adam 7, requesting tow vehicle, Figueroa and..."
Maybe I'm taking literary license here, but let's see how long existing unenforced statutes/laws/provisions remain unenforced...
and become "Rocketeer..."? The most seriously introverted (having no warm-blooded or cold-blooded biped/quadraped companion) can become "cockateers"...
"windoze mobile: Where would you like to crash today?"
I certainly hope like hell that Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Daewoo and other imports i like don't go brain-dead and in stall ANY version of windows in a car. They don't HAVE to have Linux, either, as far as I am concerned. But, next time i am in the market for a car, i'll be sure to ask if windoze is onboard, and try to get in writing that it's NOT, and if i later find out it is, have the dealership take it back for a full refund. But, i suppose ms will make the auto manufacturers of the world keep secret the OS (if any from ms get onboard a car's computer) existence...
Does the FBI get involved with stolen laptops? i don't know, but i would like to suggest that they do, even if the laptop (or desktop) never is black-market sold across state lines. If the laptop can be fingerprinted and is identified as stolen, and the user (thief/misappropriating person) uses it to purchase or even browse items across state lines, then it should be regarded as interstate crime, so the FBI can become involved -- when they can.
But, so long as they don't have an involvement, local police have the ball, and in most cases, once (if) it's retrieved, it'll be kept as evidence, meaning even if your data (i'm thinking non-corporate users) is NOT compromised, the police WILL investigate the contents for various reason, ownership verification being one of them, and to find out if the possessor committed any crimes with it. It could be QUITE a long time to get back your computer unless you happen to be lucky and see and chase the thief with the cops as your witness and they accept your proof of ownership on the scene.
Slashdot Mirror
Police: I'll ask you once more, "Are you a citizen, Sir?"
Guy: Am I...
(off camera) A TRUNCHEON, from behind arcs furiously toward the skull of the ticket holder
(sound/visual f/x) CRUNCH
(off camera) MACE hisses into the face of the ticket holder
(sound/visual f/x) PSSSSS
Ticket holder: harumphhh/AHHHHHH
There, fixed that for ya!
If they are not immediately interested in nor instructed to seize your bags or divert you to another checkpoint, then gently asking them to allow you space in light of their rejection of your attachment cords is not to much to ask of them.
But, i've around last August and this past February flown and at least two of the legs had intermediate stops and i did not face long lines and so had no cause to worry about separation of my backpack and carry-on bag. I somehow think they don't want to worsen line conditions by causing a re-check of what bag belongs to whom, if they can just add 10 seconds here and there (not everyone will actually ask for the space separation).
Besides, i have yet to run into rude, crude or unseemly TSA personnel, unlike some fliers. Treat people nicely, you usually get nice response (usually-- in my personal experience (well, except mostly when i attended Catholic school for 3 years and was beat up or had my homework balled up and so on... never really had those problems in public schools, except when a class mate in 3rd grade kick my groin for apparently no reason. I schemed and chafed for 2 or 3 days on how to get even; i decided to return the identical favor. We had no problems thereafter, and even ended up becoming friends)...
But, as for TSA screening, I think many delays are due to passenger unmindfulness about what things in their bags cause problems.
Well, HELL, just take a bunch of G.M. beans and fart you way across the galaxy. Gives a new meaning to our triumphant gas giants... Stellar gases ... This could have quite a deep impact full of RAMifications... Just better having enough shielding/isolation tween the genny and the ass, or the crapper will turn into an APCTA -- Asstral Projection/Corporeal Teleportation Apparatus...
Yeh, because if they crash into a star, they will be MORE interesting than the New Plasmatics... And, crashing into a planet would me severely localized plastic deformation by plasma injection...
(When I first saw the header, I thought Plasma Disk Drives? WHoaaa, THAT'LL be some HOT data...)
"Deftly Incessant Digital Gnomes?"
You and Hurricane 8* touch on what I feel. I am one of those stalwarts hanging on to SmartSuite, and only touching OpenOffice.org grudgingly in limited cases.
Aside from the non-modal InfoBox/SmartTools feature of SmartSuite, there is the very sweet functionality of Word Pro's sections/divisions management of multiple documents assembled as one. Nicely, Word Pro allows for each original document's formatting to be retained. Last time I tried in OO.o, if forced on the document a standard for the WHOLE document, changing ALL the fonts, ALL the page orientation.
The OO.o interface is "jumboey", compared to SmartSuite. I think Symphony, as used as a name, is an insult to SmartSuite, and an insult to the original Lotus Symphony product which -- when it first hit the streets long ago -- was to be a spreadsheet killer. It would merge the best of spreadsheets and database front ends. But, as time went by, 1-2-3, Quattro Pro (Uno-Dos-Tres- Quattro... get it?), and hexed cell (excel, get it?) bested Symphony, and Symphony sang its last song.
Regrettably, neither OO.o NOR the current Symphony have a credible, end-user-friendly, non-DBA, ad hoc, WYSIWYG database front end like Lotus Approach.
Astonishingly, the Open Source community is paralyzed with a mind-bogglingly astounding NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome in that Lotus Approach's interface is NOT YET adopted. When you copy, copy from the BEST. Base, and others, are so-so. Only due to new technology-derived widgets do they beat Lotus Approach. But, as for charts, reports, forms, (but not necessarily in cross-tabs, as c/ts are Approaches weaker/est feature set), no Open Source would-be analog *i* know of is compelling.
Purportedly, IBM cannot track down all the joint patent holders previously involved with developing SmartSuite. To me, that's tragic, and disingenuous. IBM could has already known WHAT it doesn't hold patents on. They could strip out that code, then tell prospective developers, "Go get your own $6 to $50 copy of SmartSuite online or in surplus stores. Figure out in a few days (easy enough to do) what features are broken. Use new tools and links to restore the stripped functionality and report back to us. The quicker you return the cleanest possible code, the quicker we'll offer you a paying job to join a team similar to what OO.o does under Sun.
Or, IBM and Sun could merge the best of what they have in SS & OO.o, and take away from msoft a significant chunk of the market.
(Reaches for sedative...)
Just take the laptop out ahead of getting in line. I have a Targus backpack, but for my 17" laptop (Gateway). Just attach a lanyard to the bag and laptop to prevent separation on the conveyor.
If you need to, attach a proximity alarm to it and to your wrist to keep the the laptop from getting separated. If they make you remove the alarm from your wrist, tell them they better put distance between you, the pax ahead, and those behind you long enough for you to retrieve your items. That way, the alarm doesn't sound if you're separated by 6+ feet. Surely, they can comply with this.
Lots of people here are mis-reading the goddamn-misleading story line. It's abusive, sensationalistic, mis-written, and Slashdot should reign in these tags. As should newspapers, when it comes to security-related stories affecting people's wallets.
If Targus PAID to have the tags displayed that way, and if they influenced the TSA to word the regulations confusingly, then THEY TOO should be bitch-slapped for this. Besides, with one-piece carry-on for "free", these days of high fuel pricing means that if your other stuff is checked, and you carry your laptop, then put it in a Mac-like sleeve with Velcro flapping and remove it from the laptop backpack. Hell, put in a rubber cord (not one that can hang or restrain people, but just strong enough to keep your stuff in sight of both YOU and the screeners...) and lash your stuff together for the screening.
This damned tag gives readers the angering impression that they MUST go and buy a new bag. The case/bag is good for reducing damage to your laptop, but if yours is rugged or already scratched like hell, you don't need to care too much as long as it's NOT DROPPED or dropped upon by sharp & heavy carry-on items.
Jeez.
I can't help but think that all this grousing and insightful commentary is being read, analyzed and applied to CBP practices and planning.
From my cursory read of the previous story about businesses and entities that are non-individuals, it seems an individual person has to go the expensive route of forming an international company, headquartered outside the US. But, having a purported residence in the States, one is going to quickly get caught up in IRS and state and county and local ordinances and laws stating that ANY business activity or equipment IN that state being used in or for a business activity constitutes a business presence.
Thus, we who THOUGHT "Oh, I'll just form a business and... add "notification of confidentiality/business proprietary data/client private/privileged information/ etc..." " will end up paying a steep price of business formation, ongoing taxes and fees, and STILL face the prospect of being IRS-deemed a non-business, and STILL being looked up prior to flight and after return to the border and determined to be an individual trying to become shielded under exemptions grudgingly given to BUSINESSES and various political functionaries, doctors, lawyers, engineers/architects (all "professionals"), psychiatrists/psychologists/medical professionals, and so on.
This is very fucked up. The (modern, US) government is not supposed to be generating grief, resentment, revulsion, non-patriotic feelings, and feelings of "why don't you just fucking EXILE me, you contemptuous FUCKS". It's supposed to protect us AND respect our rights. As one previous comment and blogger pointed out, if CBP and other agency searching excludes application and data traffic over the Internet, then having a laptop is an intermediary device, not all that different from routers and switches and nodes NOT BEING SEARCHED.
But, you see, they probably fail to realize that those items ARE NOT NEEDING to be searched, given the AT&T & other telcos' net vacuum cleaner centers like the one that moved out of it's near-Folsom street location that was in the news. So, from the 3-letter agencies' perspective, your/my laptop constitutes an obstruction, an impediment, a NUISANCE to their will and desire to KNOW what they want to KNOW. It all sounds like that phrase "TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS; ANYWHERE, ANYTIME", and it's going to get a LOT of people burned.
So, they seize laptops, ostensibly because the target IS a valid, bonafide threat and OUGHT to be deprived of hardware and software, and then there are mistakes (genuine ones due to on-the-spot decisions in the lack of complete information or due to inter-agency information deprivation), and THEN there are reprisal snatches. LOTS of us here ranting and bitching about this are probably on a major SHIT LIST, probably racking up negative Karma in the eyes of those agencies. The negative Karma MIGHT even extend to ANY of loved ones.
Anybody remember "Serenity", when the assassin said something like, "When you quarry goes to ground, leave no ground for the quarry to go"? OTOH, they may have all these hearings and assertions and rules in place just to deter terrorists and data thieves and torrent abusers from being to cavalier. Maybe the agencies just want this card as an ace up the sleeve. Maybe they aren't really all that much USING the power they currently have. But, you can bet your ASS that every single ONE of use here, whatever firewalls and pseudonyms we think are protective and anonymizing, they know who MOST of us are by unique identifying information. If they SO CHOOSE, they can inconvenience ANY ONE of use, once or repeatedly. Well, until enough of us post that we've been relieved of our property and HONESTLY have no crime-related activities (is in-forum raging against the State a crime yet, worthy of State reprisal?) associated in our lives.
Even if the criminals and suspects relieved of laptops and electronics came clean and torrented what they HAD in their possession during confiscation, the government agencies would either slap th
What the hell? What's next, psychedelic furs? Why not resurrect Marley, Hendrix, and Morrison and some Woodstockes and give them algea and foil and an audience in Stonehenge? Wait Wait, Don't tell me. the whirled will come stoned and UNhinged and unable to compute the motions to drink an conjugate swerves...
How diffuse will the experience be?
How about we launch 'accelotrons" to generate wormholes around the threatening asteroids and cometary matter. Just send them off... POOF! GONE. (Well, until beings from Klixator Prime and other places come knocking on our door with cease and desist orders due to all OUR life-extinguishing heavenly bodies create junk yards in other worlds...)
If this becomes reality, will it relieve the Customs & Border Protection/Patrol of something to ransack hard disks for? (Someone/some report somewhere alluded to the possibility that the movie/music industries wanted or arranged for the various G8/other nations' customs inspectors look for pirated music and intellectual property.)
"QUEASY Bake"?
Sometiems, a public announcement is made of the arrest. If the publicized court dockets/calendar are on the wall for all to see standing outside the courtroom, then what's to stop these things from getting into Google, Yahoo!, Lexis/Nexis-like databases (maybe you're a key officer of a company, dismissed for some false/improper charges, and make the news and the d/b rounds), and so on..
Even if the courts expunge/seal records, many people will still be screwed if the DHLS accusations make it to court, even if the court finds you innocent, that Customs/Border Patrol agents overstepped the bounds of the law, and so on.
What is really tragic is that we will never be told (public) the baseline parameters that DEFINITELY CAUSE a laptop/electronics confiscation, and how to avoid any anguish, and what are "questionable" so as to avoid being caught up.
It's almost as if to speed things up (not losing one's electronics) "the government" is trying to coerce the public to be prepared to accept and "escrow" type of agency that will work on behalf of travelers. It might work something like this:
-- Disclose your electronics to an entity that will create a fingerprint of the basic drive/media.
-- Any data you create or edit should be done on OTHER, smaller, easier-to-inspect/copy media
-- Make your fingerprinted media read-only while on travel if that is what it takes to help you speed through CBP
Now, the questions arising might be:
-- "How do we know they aren't recording the contents beyond just making a fingerprint file?"
-- "Doesn't that make us react as if we're guilty without even being charged?"
and so on.
Well, if that's what it takes to avoid having my laptop "stolen" by agents (I KNOW I am not doing illegal things rising to the level of any CBP/FBI/CIA/NSA/local PD/RIAA/ to actually TAKE my laptop especially if it's stuff I could be asked to delete (say, i stumble upon a site and download a national security file, or browse a site and 2 or 3 porn/smut images end up in my cache...) an offending file.
All i know is that i would not be annoyed one frackin' BIT if CBP is assailed by anyone innocent going ballistic on them. This is just PLAIN WRONG to allow any agency take things with no clear written rules, no advice on how to avoid being suspected, no way to know if our public commentary on this will make us targets of retaliation, and so on. I guess they're making many of us morph into "morbid curiosity bystanders" waiting to see someone (on our behalf/by non-contact extension) take them DOWN or take them TO TASK.
Finally, I have NOT had any negative issues with taking my laptop to Japan in 04, and I did not have Customs ask to search me when I arrived back to SFO. However, because I spent a lot of time at Funenokagakukan, and because I visited Mitsubishi and talked about my drawings (maybe 15-20 minutes), and probably triggered an undercover NCIS officer to visit the hostel (pretending to be a guess, even bunking in the hostel, when purportedly he was stationed at Yokohama...), the Customs officer DID, after asking for my passport, run his thumb the lamination and the paper quite a bit of time (15 seconds maybe?) and his facial expression made me think he was told in advance to make damned sure it was ME actually RETURNING to the US soil. Not that I had a fake passport, but that they wanted to be SURE I did indeed depart Japan (a courtesy request by Japan? a US check-up to make sure I am back "home"?) AND return to the US...
That said, I suppose if MY laptop is ever taken, it will be a great source of unbound rage and resentment. It would seen as a hostile act. And, even if I DO back up everything and have to buy a new laptop, it would be QUITE a major irritant, ESPECIALLY if my stuff (which has income-making potential for me) is taken and ends up on the street in someone else's name before *i* produce & sell in my name. I say they better QUICKLY devise an escrow/fast-pass type of system for private, non-business, non-diplomatic travelers. Prevention is better than a ham-fisted "cure".
was from Northern California who was in SoCAL, had been filming the cops beat the autistic/mentally handicapped guy and slamming him on the hood of the car at the gas station, who then then gave the footage to the news, but the news, cozy with or afraid of LA, didn't want the hot potato, which got aired by an out-of-area studio, and then led to the filming guy being chased halfway back UP Kalifornia because the seething, hissing LAPD (whichever station chief, whatever) suddenly reactivated/prioritized an outstanding (and not really pursuded) bench warrant on the filmer.
There, that is a reason for people to start embedding cameras IN and AROUND their cars. Either it will help the police track down hit-and-run and other incidents/crimes, or it will help the public prosecute ill-behaving public employees and private citizens, or both. Or, if the Law makes it illegal for non journalist-types to film uniformed and unknown non-uniformed officers and/or their vehicles (imagine all those unmarked police vehicles entering and exiting garages, and parked under freeways, their license plates visible for ANY person to see and record, one by one, or en mass (sp?))...
So, I suppose that in the future, after the take-down lights come on and a motorist pulls over forthwith, s/he will be first greeted:
"Hello, sir/ma'am. Do you have any surveillance or recording or audio/video recording and transmissions devices encompassing the surrounding periphery of this vehicle, active or not?"
And if the motorist replies, "Yes/Maybe/I refuse to answer that illegal question due to the risk it poses to my safety should you turn out to a rogue or uncouth person issued a badge, gun, and powers of arrest, accompanied with nearly-guaranteed judge protection..."
The next response will be: "Step OUT UV the VEE-HICK-cul"... followed by, "Dispatch, 4 Adam 7, requesting tow vehicle, Figueroa and..."
Maybe I'm taking literary license here, but let's see how long existing unenforced statutes/laws/provisions remain unenforced...
create a SCRABE, umm, SCRAPP and SCRAPE of Scrabble...
SOUR. I suspect/expect theirs will be even SOURER...
have a "crawl forward against apathy system opacity" .... or, even "crawl forward for apathy system opacity"
When you can use a jet-pack:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/29/1929201
and become "Rocketeer..."? The most seriously introverted (having no warm-blooded or cold-blooded biped/quadraped companion) can become "cockateers"...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0135216/
Subtitles, supposedly, at:
http://www.mysubtitles.com/movie/cockateer-the_79672.html
(No, i have not seen it... yet or otherwise..)
$urreal, and totally tubular, and if on YouTube, then it'll be $irReel...
You're stating the other side i didn't cover.... Thanks... It IS a sad state of affairs, isn't it?
Hasbro should SCRAPPLE Scrabble online?
I was thinking:
"windoze mobile: Where would you like to crash today?"
I certainly hope like hell that Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Daewoo and other imports i like don't go brain-dead and in stall ANY version of windows in a car. They don't HAVE to have Linux, either, as far as I am concerned. But, next time i am in the market for a car, i'll be sure to ask if windoze is onboard, and try to get in writing that it's NOT, and if i later find out it is, have the dealership take it back for a full refund. But, i suppose ms will make the auto manufacturers of the world keep secret the OS (if any from ms get onboard a car's computer) existence...
Does the FBI get involved with stolen laptops? i don't know, but i would like to suggest that they do, even if the laptop (or desktop) never is black-market sold across state lines. If the laptop can be fingerprinted and is identified as stolen, and the user (thief/misappropriating person) uses it to purchase or even browse items across state lines, then it should be regarded as interstate crime, so the FBI can become involved -- when they can.
But, so long as they don't have an involvement, local police have the ball, and in most cases, once (if) it's retrieved, it'll be kept as evidence, meaning even if your data (i'm thinking non-corporate users) is NOT compromised, the police WILL investigate the contents for various reason, ownership verification being one of them, and to find out if the possessor committed any crimes with it. It could be QUITE a long time to get back your computer unless you happen to be lucky and see and chase the thief with the cops as your witness and they accept your proof of ownership on the scene.
be CORED???
Cobblered?
Clobbered?