Except that the censorship will come in the form of the government regulating the "excesses of the free market".
Politician: "These evil corporations have been exploiting our children with their sexually perverted images, and their critism of our democratic institutions for far too long. In the interests of the people, and social democracy, we must regulate the internet to protect people from the 'wild west' 'laisse faire' attitude that has so long allowed our children to be victimized and exploited. No-one questions the governments responsibility to regulate industry, education, and health care, so only a Right-Wing Facist or Left Wing Anarchist would dare question the need for government control of internet content. They say, 'it takes a village to raise a child'... I say, 'it takes a nation'! We must track, licence, tax and control all internet traffic, for the sake of our children." APPLAUSE - APPLAUSE - APPLAUSE
The illicit free-market will then exploit and gouge for what would be free and ubiquitous if people where not so keen on having their governments "protect" them from free-markets and free-expression.
Your government has the power to revoke passports to people it arbitrarily determines to be "extremist". Your government is in the process (or already has), of revoking passports of those people who have duel citizenship (an unofficial form of discrimination against immigrants, minorities, refugees). Why don't you look up the laws regarding passports and travel... I cannot read dutch, but there are hundreds of pages of rules/laws. Now, if it were really as simple as "go wherever you want", why would you needs volumes of text describing that, as well as people who's career is specialized in that type of law?
And that doesn't even include unoffical froms of restriction. Try going to North Korea, then visiting Afganistan, then visiting Bolivia, all documented, and see if you don't have an aweful lot of questions to answer when you are entering your own country.
Your country has plenty of restrictions on travel. Not the same kind, and in the same form as the United States (after all, it is a different country with its own foriegn policy, legal and social issues, etc.)... but they exist nonetheless.
Re:before you react
on
Contrabandwidth
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Correction, ALL governments restrict the real world travel of their citizens.
However, a reasonable person is able to distingush the difference between a corrupt and restrictive western democracy and its misguided foriegn policy, and a brutal totalitarian dictatorship that doesn't let anyone leave unless they are diplomats, and doesn't let anyone who isn't a government official access the internet, and executes anyone who breaks those rules.
It is a shame that so many of the people who are rightly critical of the US government, are in love with genocidal totalitarian regimes and their brutal dictators.
OK, so I already have streaming video into my home through my cable box, but the problem is there is only about 2000 movies to choose from, and it is only the stuff they get the rights to cheap.
It is nice that the theaters are going to digital distribution, but most theaters have maybe 10, maybe 15 screens? Other than maybe a slightly better picture, my movie viewing experience won't be different. It is not like they are now going to be showing a bunch of obscure and hard to find movies.
I want to be able to stream any movie ever made to my TV. I want the digital technology to increase my range of choices, not just let me see a movie that looks a little nicer.
If I wanted to discourage Open Source software, this is a great way to do it. One of the reasons for using Free software and Open Source software is the sanity of the licence. I want to AVOID the software police looking over my shoulder.
If large companies are going to be harrased, or possibly sued because of mistakes they might make with open source, they are not going to use it. And if they don't use it, then that has a huge effect on what other people do.
No, the point is that you most likely supported trashing the constitution, and are only opposing it now because "Them Evil Republicans" are doing it.
I mean do you support gun control? (if you do, you are against the 2nd amendment of the constitution). Do you support hate-speech laws? (a violation of the 1st amendment). What about laws that ban pornography because it "demeans women". Do you support drug laws? (drugs are made legal or illegal based on a scheduling system from the FDA, thereby creating laws without being passed in congress) Do you support any big expensive social program? (Which then requires the IRS to keep constant financial tabs on you, and at any time can call an audit where you basicly have to prove to them that you are innocent).
The point is that 99.9% of all people out there support trashing the constitution. They don't want people with different ideology trashing the constitution, but that is an ideological conflict... those people aren't really concerned with the constitution, so much as they are using the constitution as rhetoric in their political bickering.
Our laws stop at our borders, but Canadian laws are worldwide?
A US newspaper, on its US website, with US writers, posted a story in the US, and was sued in a Canadian court, for actions that took place ONLY in the United States.
The reason that every media outlet in the world, and every sane person in the world is outraged, is that this ruling means that censorship can be placed on your speech in the U.S. by foriegn governments.
But normally getting a business licence requires paying $200 and filling out a 2 page form.
The thousands of people in Ohio who make a living on ebay are not going to be able to wait a year doing an auctioneering internship (of course, that is assuming that there is room for all those ebay sellers to do an internernship... most likely the demand will cause a waiting list for years). People will lose their homes, there cars, their life saving, for a law that does not protect consumers in any way.
NASA has completly blown the chances for any average person to go into space (Space Ship One can take people in space for 20 million... imagine what could have happened if NASA actually invested billions into low cost civilian access to space, instead of providing corporate welfare to large aerospace companies).
So a few elite government employees will not be able to make it into space? Well, welcome to the world of the rest of us!
You can mark this a Troll, but this is not. Why should we feel bad about the ambitions of government employees that are supposed to be serving us? Especially when they have taken so much of our money, and failed us so badly?
1. When the government runs the ISPs, it means that law enforcement can monitor what you browse online. No need for search warrants anymore!
2. It is not like wireless technology changes or evolves, so I am sure a wireless purchase now will be good for the next 40 years.
3. Poor people need low-cost wireless access. After all, brand new laptops configured for wireless access are cheap, but that $8 a month fee for internet access is just WAY too expensive.
4. There are way too many choices. Who actually wants to CHOOSE there ISP, when the government can make all the choices for them. After all, Oakland county does such a great job fixing the roads, lowering crime, and protecting the enviornment... how could they NOT do a better job.
5. The government can make sure that dangerous information is not accessible. We can make sure that p2p music file sharing is not possible, and since we already require certain websites not be available in public schools and libraries, obviously the ban will also apply to public wireless.
A new technology develops: Cheap and ubiquitous home computers and the internet.
This new technology makes major changes in society, government, and the economy. No longer is someone forced to rely on advertisments to find out if a product is good or bad, they have access to huge amounts of customer reviews on a product, and they can also instantly find the cheapest place to purchase a product. No longer are people dependent on government news sources, or large media outlets, because the internet has allowed asymetrical information transfer for pennies. And it is certainly a lot harder for governments to manipulate people, because it is so easy for people to find other like minded people on the internet and develop their own political community.
This, of course, makes people in the traditional seat of power upset. Elected officials, government beurocrats and regulators, Corporate CEOs, heads of the traditional political parties. They enjoyed their position of power, wealth, importance, and control, and they are not about to give it up without a fight.
However, they cannot just outright say why they want the internet and home computers controled and restricted. In order to ban things and control things, you still need the government to go along with it to enforce it, because they are the people with the prisons and the guns. And in the west, at least in theory, officials are still elected.
So in order to get people to rally around destroying this great global free-flow of information, you must convince people that it is to protect them. That is why we are now bombarded with stories about racists using peer to peer networks, child pornographers on the internet, people at every turn waiting to steal your identity. The power structure is setting things up so that when they start to heavily regulate, censor, and control information, that you and people like you will go along with it.
The sad thing is how easy people are to manipulate. The same people who claim to be anti-authoritarian, and anti-corporate, or whatever, are usually the quickest people to rally behind these laws. "We MUST protect people from racism and child porn, so everyone who opposes the government licencing web sites MUST either be racist or a child pornographer".
The trouble with laws like this is that by being enforced arbitrarily, they amount to extortion... and will be used to destroy small retailers.
Here is how it works: Every store makes mistakes. There is no doubt about it. No-one is perfect. At some time, someone is going to screw up and sell a game to a minor.
So given that ALL stores violate the law, this is what happens: Once the law is passed, the politicians need to crack down on someone to show they are tough. They could crack down on the electronics superstore mega-chain, except the mega-chain store has multi-million dollar legal teams ready to do battle in court on a moments notice, and they also probably donate generously to the people in office, and if they were only fined money, they can pay the $10,000 out of their billions of dollars with no problem.
However, the local neighborhood video game store, probably doesn't have a lawyer, and is probably just scraping by (and a $10,000 fine could put them out of buisness, even if they don't lose their licence). They are going to be the victims of the crackdown, and they will be driven out of buisness.
And then, that doesn't even account for political extortion. Mr. McCraken is looking for donations and endorsements for his relection. It would be a shame if some government investigators came into your store and shut you down. Perhaps you could help Mr. McCracken's campaign, and he could make sure that there is not any trouble with investigators... understand?
The law will help huge mega-corporations and crooked polititions... it won't stop kids from getting violent videogames (they will just have a clueless adult buy it for them)... and when all said and done the same "want-to-save-you-from-yourself" rightious liberals who supported the law will be complaining how the "evil corporations" drove the independent stores out of buisness (and ignoring the fact that their beloved government regulation is what did it)... and the rightious "we-must-protect-our-morality" conservatives will be complaining about oppressive government regulation (ignoring the fact that they LOVE government regulation, so long as it involves enforcing their "values" on others).
Yes, but why is the solution to all the problems you mentioned always increased government regulation, increased taxes, more state propoganda, etc., etc?
When you discuss things with enviornmentalists, it always comes down to an authoritarian state and extreme centralized government control being "the only solution". The right wing tries to scare people into totalitarianism to fight terrorism... the left wing tries to scare people into totalitarianism to save the enviornment.
When a group of politicians and political groups say "We need more money and more power over your lives, and need to control every single aspect of the economy, the food supply, and anything else you consume, or the world is going to end", shouldn't we be skeptical? Where are the enviornmentalists offering any solutions other than Big Brother?
And the move is being done to genuinly protect people, and not as a further attempt to limit guns, why don't the Police volunteer to be the first to use the Smart Gun technology? After all, if this is as cheap and reliable and safe as they claim, they should be happy to embrace the technology.
One should be suspect of the technology if the Police aren't willing to use it themselves!
I think this is a great program. Not because I am woried about terrorist blinding airplanes... I think that is highly unlikely. Nor am I worried about lasers in general.
But, freaking out about laser pointers zapping airplanes has no effect on ordinary people. Better to have the government freaking out about lasers, then cracking down on email or the internet because it could be used for terrorism, or hatching some new profiling scheme that results in innocent people being harrassed.
Better to have the government paranoid about something that is extremly obscure and almost no-one has any legit reason for doing (I mean, what is the legit reason for tagging aircraft with lasers?), than have the government paranoid about something that would actually harm our personal liberties.
There is a downside: I am sure that it is going to cost billions of dollars to build the "anti-laser-pointing-at-airplanes" government infrastructure. But it is not like they aren't going to waste the money on something useless anyway. At least this isn't useless AND destructive like so many other things.
And don't mod this +5 funny, mod it +5 insightful! It might be absurd, but it is the truth!
Damn straight!! Why just the other day I called Ford, and informed them that my Model-T did not meet the latest 2005 fuel and safety standards! So what that the car is 80 years old, the product was clearly flawed in many ways, and they needed to fix things.
And while I am at it, someone tell that watchmaker who made this antique watch, that just because he is dead, doesn't mean that he can't add quartz crystal timing! That Bastard!
OK, everyone loves to bash Microsoft because they are the huge multibillion dollar corporation... but expecting Microsoft to support all it's software indefinitly and forever is bad for the little guys.
Once there is some sort of precident that says that software companies have to support their software forever, that is going to make a lot of small companies not viable.
Microsoft will just keep tacking more money on the "Microsoft Tax" to hire more people to take care of it, or lawyers to protect them from the liability. Tiny companies who do not dominate the market will go out of buisness, because they will not have the money to support every product that ever existed (and the people who demand that products are supported for life will still not get any support).
How dare G. W. Bush and his Homeland Security cronies lock up a researcher, for just trying to help protect people from these terrible security flaws. When I hear stories like this, I think the U.S. is becoming more and more like Nazi Germany.
Oh, wait? It was in France? Oh, my bad, I guess it was a totally reasonable thing for the French government to do!
Banning solder with lead is about "protecting" people, but definitly not the way you think.
By forcing anyone who wants to work with electronics to use extremly expensive lead free alternative, that are difficult for hobbiest and non-professionals to use, they make sure that only large corporations and the government are going to be the ones building or modifying electronic equipment.
This makes it a lot harder for people who want to install mod chips to circumvent DRM, for people who want to recieve radio broadcasts on frequencies that the government might choose to ban from consumer recievers... etc, etc.
I guess it is a sinister act of facism if the U.S. bans shining high powered lasers into the cockpits of airplanes. But if Europe tries to stop everyone but the government and big corporations from being able to construct and modify electronic devices, they are just "helping the people".
How easy it is to break the law has a lot to do with should a law be passed. What happens if the government decided to ban oral sex? It wouldn't be very effective, unless the government decided to put cameras in everyones bedroom, and that would cost billions.
Same thing with p2p. If anyone can whip up a peer to peer in 5 minutes, then it does little good to ban peer to peer. Sure, the government could monitor all bandwidth, have encrypted packets decrypted by supercomputer, have a log of every packet of information going across the internet. But the expense would be more than whatever the percieved economic damage of file sharing is.
No ones personal freedoms are being taken away. You don't have the right to intentionally shine a laser into the eyes of a commercial airline pilot while he is flying a plane, any more than you have the right to drop bowling balls from a freeway overpass on moving cars, or pour sulferic acid on your neighbors dog.
Also, the same morons who are screaming about "Nazis" because they aren't free to blind passenger aircraft, are the very same people who demand gun control, demand that the federal government control what everyone learns in school and that everyone should be forced into public education, demand that the federal government ban fast food and cola, ban beauty pagents for "exploiting women", force people to wear seatbelts and helmets, that parents who spank their children should be sent to prison, and the federal government should jail spammers while they are at it.
The people who want the government to control every aspect of our lives, economy, education, health care, media & communication, marrage and family, are now suddenly all upset because they can't act like idiots with high power lasers. Boohoo! Those evil jackboot nazi thugs!
Slashdot Mirror
Except that the censorship will come in the form of the government regulating the "excesses of the free market".
Politician: "These evil corporations have been exploiting our children with their sexually perverted images, and their critism of our democratic institutions for far too long. In the interests of the people, and social democracy, we must regulate the internet to protect people from the 'wild west' 'laisse faire' attitude that has so long allowed our children to be victimized and exploited. No-one questions the governments responsibility to regulate industry, education, and health care, so only a Right-Wing Facist or Left Wing Anarchist would dare question the need for government control of internet content. They say, 'it takes a village to raise a child'... I say, 'it takes a nation'! We must track, licence, tax and control all internet traffic, for the sake of our children." APPLAUSE - APPLAUSE - APPLAUSE
The illicit free-market will then exploit and gouge for what would be free and ubiquitous if people where not so keen on having their governments "protect" them from free-markets and free-expression.
Your government has the power to revoke passports to people it arbitrarily determines to be "extremist". Your government is in the process (or already has), of revoking passports of those people who have duel citizenship (an unofficial form of discrimination against immigrants, minorities, refugees). Why don't you look up the laws regarding passports and travel... I cannot read dutch, but there are hundreds of pages of rules/laws. Now, if it were really as simple as "go wherever you want", why would you needs volumes of text describing that, as well as people who's career is specialized in that type of law?
And that doesn't even include unoffical froms of restriction. Try going to North Korea, then visiting Afganistan, then visiting Bolivia, all documented, and see if you don't have an aweful lot of questions to answer when you are entering your own country.
Your country has plenty of restrictions on travel. Not the same kind, and in the same form as the United States (after all, it is a different country with its own foriegn policy, legal and social issues, etc.)... but they exist nonetheless.
Correction, ALL governments restrict the real world travel of their citizens.
However, a reasonable person is able to distingush the difference between a corrupt and restrictive western democracy and its misguided foriegn policy, and a brutal totalitarian dictatorship that doesn't let anyone leave unless they are diplomats, and doesn't let anyone who isn't a government official access the internet, and executes anyone who breaks those rules.
It is a shame that so many of the people who are rightly critical of the US government, are in love with genocidal totalitarian regimes and their brutal dictators.
OK, so I already have streaming video into my home through my cable box, but the problem is there is only about 2000 movies to choose from, and it is only the stuff they get the rights to cheap.
It is nice that the theaters are going to digital distribution, but most theaters have maybe 10, maybe 15 screens? Other than maybe a slightly better picture, my movie viewing experience won't be different. It is not like they are now going to be showing a bunch of obscure and hard to find movies.
I want to be able to stream any movie ever made to my TV. I want the digital technology to increase my range of choices, not just let me see a movie that looks a little nicer.
If I wanted to discourage Open Source software, this is a great way to do it. One of the reasons for using Free software and Open Source software is the sanity of the licence. I want to AVOID the software police looking over my shoulder.
If large companies are going to be harrased, or possibly sued because of mistakes they might make with open source, they are not going to use it. And if they don't use it, then that has a huge effect on what other people do.
No, the point is that you most likely supported trashing the constitution, and are only opposing it now because "Them Evil Republicans" are doing it.
I mean do you support gun control? (if you do, you are against the 2nd amendment of the constitution). Do you support hate-speech laws? (a violation of the 1st amendment). What about laws that ban pornography because it "demeans women". Do you support drug laws? (drugs are made legal or illegal based on a scheduling system from the FDA, thereby creating laws without being passed in congress) Do you support any big expensive social program? (Which then requires the IRS to keep constant financial tabs on you, and at any time can call an audit where you basicly have to prove to them that you are innocent).
The point is that 99.9% of all people out there support trashing the constitution. They don't want people with different ideology trashing the constitution, but that is an ideological conflict... those people aren't really concerned with the constitution, so much as they are using the constitution as rhetoric in their political bickering.
Our laws stop at our borders, but Canadian laws are worldwide?
A US newspaper, on its US website, with US writers, posted a story in the US, and was sued in a Canadian court, for actions that took place ONLY in the United States.
The reason that every media outlet in the world, and every sane person in the world is outraged, is that this ruling means that censorship can be placed on your speech in the U.S. by foriegn governments.
But normally getting a business licence requires paying $200 and filling out a 2 page form.
The thousands of people in Ohio who make a living on ebay are not going to be able to wait a year doing an auctioneering internship (of course, that is assuming that there is room for all those ebay sellers to do an internernship... most likely the demand will cause a waiting list for years). People will lose their homes, there cars, their life saving, for a law that does not protect consumers in any way.
NASA has completly blown the chances for any average person to go into space (Space Ship One can take people in space for 20 million... imagine what could have happened if NASA actually invested billions into low cost civilian access to space, instead of providing corporate welfare to large aerospace companies).
So a few elite government employees will not be able to make it into space? Well, welcome to the world of the rest of us!
You can mark this a Troll, but this is not. Why should we feel bad about the ambitions of government employees that are supposed to be serving us? Especially when they have taken so much of our money, and failed us so badly?
People think that they are "sticking it to the evil corporations" with all their frivolous lawsuits.
They sue big "evil" company for millions of dollars.
Big "evil" company considers this a cost of doing buisness, and passes the cost down in the price of the goods they sell.
We, the people, then pay for it in higher cost of goods and services.
Perhaps you don't buy from Ebay, but no part of the economy is exempt from the lawyer tax.
A: "This person seems to be downloading gigs of stuff! He MUST be downloading child porn or illegal movies"
B: "Um sir, it looks like he is just downloading Linux ISOs"
A: "Linux what? Look, we can't take a chance and get fined. Report him, and let the police worry about it."
This is great for many reasons:
1. When the government runs the ISPs, it means that law enforcement can monitor what you browse online. No need for search warrants anymore!
2. It is not like wireless technology changes or evolves, so I am sure a wireless purchase now will be good for the next 40 years.
3. Poor people need low-cost wireless access. After all, brand new laptops configured for wireless access are cheap, but that $8 a month fee for internet access is just WAY too expensive.
4. There are way too many choices. Who actually wants to CHOOSE there ISP, when the government can make all the choices for them. After all, Oakland county does such a great job fixing the roads, lowering crime, and protecting the enviornment... how could they NOT do a better job.
5. The government can make sure that dangerous information is not accessible. We can make sure that p2p music file sharing is not possible, and since we already require certain websites not be available in public schools and libraries, obviously the ban will also apply to public wireless.
A new technology develops: Cheap and ubiquitous home computers and the internet.
This new technology makes major changes in society, government, and the economy. No longer is someone forced to rely on advertisments to find out if a product is good or bad, they have access to huge amounts of customer reviews on a product, and they can also instantly find the cheapest place to purchase a product. No longer are people dependent on government news sources, or large media outlets, because the internet has allowed asymetrical information transfer for pennies. And it is certainly a lot harder for governments to manipulate people, because it is so easy for people to find other like minded people on the internet and develop their own political community.
This, of course, makes people in the traditional seat of power upset. Elected officials, government beurocrats and regulators, Corporate CEOs, heads of the traditional political parties. They enjoyed their position of power, wealth, importance, and control, and they are not about to give it up without a fight.
However, they cannot just outright say why they want the internet and home computers controled and restricted. In order to ban things and control things, you still need the government to go along with it to enforce it, because they are the people with the prisons and the guns. And in the west, at least in theory, officials are still elected.
So in order to get people to rally around destroying this great global free-flow of information, you must convince people that it is to protect them. That is why we are now bombarded with stories about racists using peer to peer networks, child pornographers on the internet, people at every turn waiting to steal your identity. The power structure is setting things up so that when they start to heavily regulate, censor, and control information, that you and people like you will go along with it.
The sad thing is how easy people are to manipulate. The same people who claim to be anti-authoritarian, and anti-corporate, or whatever, are usually the quickest people to rally behind these laws. "We MUST protect people from racism and child porn, so everyone who opposes the government licencing web sites MUST either be racist or a child pornographer".
The trouble with laws like this is that by being enforced arbitrarily, they amount to extortion... and will be used to destroy small retailers.
Here is how it works: Every store makes mistakes. There is no doubt about it. No-one is perfect. At some time, someone is going to screw up and sell a game to a minor.
So given that ALL stores violate the law, this is what happens: Once the law is passed, the politicians need to crack down on someone to show they are tough. They could crack down on the electronics superstore mega-chain, except the mega-chain store has multi-million dollar legal teams ready to do battle in court on a moments notice, and they also probably donate generously to the people in office, and if they were only fined money, they can pay the $10,000 out of their billions of dollars with no problem.
However, the local neighborhood video game store, probably doesn't have a lawyer, and is probably just scraping by (and a $10,000 fine could put them out of buisness, even if they don't lose their licence). They are going to be the victims of the crackdown, and they will be driven out of buisness.
And then, that doesn't even account for political extortion. Mr. McCraken is looking for donations and endorsements for his relection. It would be a shame if some government investigators came into your store and shut you down. Perhaps you could help Mr. McCracken's campaign, and he could make sure that there is not any trouble with investigators... understand?
The law will help huge mega-corporations and crooked polititions... it won't stop kids from getting violent videogames (they will just have a clueless adult buy it for them)... and when all said and done the same "want-to-save-you-from-yourself" rightious liberals who supported the law will be complaining how the "evil corporations" drove the independent stores out of buisness (and ignoring the fact that their beloved government regulation is what did it)... and the rightious "we-must-protect-our-morality" conservatives will be complaining about oppressive government regulation (ignoring the fact that they LOVE government regulation, so long as it involves enforcing their "values" on others).
Both Mars, and the spacecraft are orbiting the Sun. You are accellerating so that your orbit intersects and matches with Mars orbit.
Yes, but why is the solution to all the problems you mentioned always increased government regulation, increased taxes, more state propoganda, etc., etc?
When you discuss things with enviornmentalists, it always comes down to an authoritarian state and extreme centralized government control being "the only solution". The right wing tries to scare people into totalitarianism to fight terrorism... the left wing tries to scare people into totalitarianism to save the enviornment.
When a group of politicians and political groups say "We need more money and more power over your lives, and need to control every single aspect of the economy, the food supply, and anything else you consume, or the world is going to end", shouldn't we be skeptical? Where are the enviornmentalists offering any solutions other than Big Brother?
You are calling people "retards" and making fun of them in a public forum. Perhaps we should bust you?
Why is it OK for you to make fun of people in public, but not OK for them to make fun of people in public?
Just because you might love the government and the law, doesn't mean that other people aren't entitled to question it.
And the move is being done to genuinly protect people, and not as a further attempt to limit guns, why don't the Police volunteer to be the first to use the Smart Gun technology? After all, if this is as cheap and reliable and safe as they claim, they should be happy to embrace the technology.
One should be suspect of the technology if the Police aren't willing to use it themselves!
I think this is a great program. Not because I am woried about terrorist blinding airplanes... I think that is highly unlikely. Nor am I worried about lasers in general.
But, freaking out about laser pointers zapping airplanes has no effect on ordinary people. Better to have the government freaking out about lasers, then cracking down on email or the internet because it could be used for terrorism, or hatching some new profiling scheme that results in innocent people being harrassed.
Better to have the government paranoid about something that is extremly obscure and almost no-one has any legit reason for doing (I mean, what is the legit reason for tagging aircraft with lasers?), than have the government paranoid about something that would actually harm our personal liberties.
There is a downside: I am sure that it is going to cost billions of dollars to build the "anti-laser-pointing-at-airplanes" government infrastructure. But it is not like they aren't going to waste the money on something useless anyway. At least this isn't useless AND destructive like so many other things.
And don't mod this +5 funny, mod it +5 insightful! It might be absurd, but it is the truth!
Damn straight!! Why just the other day I called Ford, and informed them that my Model-T did not meet the latest 2005 fuel and safety standards! So what that the car is 80 years old, the product was clearly flawed in many ways, and they needed to fix things.
And while I am at it, someone tell that watchmaker who made this antique watch, that just because he is dead, doesn't mean that he can't add quartz crystal timing! That Bastard!
OK, everyone loves to bash Microsoft because they are the huge multibillion dollar corporation... but expecting Microsoft to support all it's software indefinitly and forever is bad for the little guys.
Once there is some sort of precident that says that software companies have to support their software forever, that is going to make a lot of small companies not viable.
Microsoft will just keep tacking more money on the "Microsoft Tax" to hire more people to take care of it, or lawyers to protect them from the liability. Tiny companies who do not dominate the market will go out of buisness, because they will not have the money to support every product that ever existed (and the people who demand that products are supported for life will still not get any support).
How dare G. W. Bush and his Homeland Security cronies lock up a researcher, for just trying to help protect people from these terrible security flaws. When I hear stories like this, I think the U.S. is becoming more and more like Nazi Germany.
Oh, wait? It was in France? Oh, my bad, I guess it was a totally reasonable thing for the French government to do!
Banning solder with lead is about "protecting" people, but definitly not the way you think.
By forcing anyone who wants to work with electronics to use extremly expensive lead free alternative, that are difficult for hobbiest and non-professionals to use, they make sure that only large corporations and the government are going to be the ones building or modifying electronic equipment.
This makes it a lot harder for people who want to install mod chips to circumvent DRM, for people who want to recieve radio broadcasts on frequencies that the government might choose to ban from consumer recievers... etc, etc.
I guess it is a sinister act of facism if the U.S. bans shining high powered lasers into the cockpits of airplanes. But if Europe tries to stop everyone but the government and big corporations from being able to construct and modify electronic devices, they are just "helping the people".
How easy it is to break the law has a lot to do with should a law be passed. What happens if the government decided to ban oral sex? It wouldn't be very effective, unless the government decided to put cameras in everyones bedroom, and that would cost billions.
Same thing with p2p. If anyone can whip up a peer to peer in 5 minutes, then it does little good to ban peer to peer. Sure, the government could monitor all bandwidth, have encrypted packets decrypted by supercomputer, have a log of every packet of information going across the internet. But the expense would be more than whatever the percieved economic damage of file sharing is.
How does this idiotic stuff get modded +5?
No ones personal freedoms are being taken away. You don't have the right to intentionally shine a laser into the eyes of a commercial airline pilot while he is flying a plane, any more than you have the right to drop bowling balls from a freeway overpass on moving cars, or pour sulferic acid on your neighbors dog.
Also, the same morons who are screaming about "Nazis" because they aren't free to blind passenger aircraft, are the very same people who demand gun control, demand that the federal government control what everyone learns in school and that everyone should be forced into public education, demand that the federal government ban fast food and cola, ban beauty pagents for "exploiting women", force people to wear seatbelts and helmets, that parents who spank their children should be sent to prison, and the federal government should jail spammers while they are at it.
The people who want the government to control every aspect of our lives, economy, education, health care, media & communication, marrage and family, are now suddenly all upset because they can't act like idiots with high power lasers. Boohoo! Those evil jackboot nazi thugs!