Remember, in the United States, crimes are almost always "the people vs. the defendant" or "the government vs. the defendant" which is just two ways of saying the same thing.
Whether pulling someone's pants down like this should be a crime or not, and if so what the criminal penalty should be, depends largely on society's attitude. Is the frequency of such activity or the harm done by it high enough that the general public wants to stop it so badly that they want to make it a criminal offense? Will making it a criminal offense decrease the frequency enough to make criminalizing it worthwhile? Are there other alternatives, such as public education, that may decrease the frequency? If so, would their impact be helped significantly by pairing them with criminalizing the behavior?
This logic is independent of the impact on this particular victim.
By the way, this sort of "OMG, we have to stop this because of one event" logic is exactly what is playing out with proposed and recently-passed gun regulations in Washington and in some state legislatures. Whether the issue is guns or pulling people's pants down, we need to take a long, sober look at the overall effect of having a law vs. not having a law, not react to a specific circumstance.
However, it must be wielded with - pardon the pun - discretion.
It's NOT okay to have strict liability crimes without almost universal knowledge of the crime and likely punishment.
It's NOT okay to use discretion to coerce plea agreements.
In general, the discretion should be based on published, preferably well-known guidelines that all prosecutors in a given geography and who are prosecuting given types of crimes agree on. In other words, there shouldn't be "good luck" and "bad luck" for the defendant when cases are handed out to prosecutors.
You do need proprietorial discretion so prosecutors can deal with things like local priorities, priorities that change over time, laws that have outlived their usefulness, etc. Prosecutors in a city with a high car-theft crime and a publicized crackdown would - and should - be less interested in offering mercy on new car thieves than prosecutors in a city without a high car-theft problem.
You also need to have proprietorial discretion to give leniency where the criminal act may warrant severe punishment but the criminal intent, while present, was not that of a hardened criminal or where "mother nature" has already meted out some punishment. For example, a person who steals a car to joy-ride and wrecks it causing himself severe injury should get a lot more mercy than someone who steals the car for profit. Why? The INTENT was to return the car intact, so the "criminal intent" is much less, and the person's injuries and medical bills will ensure he won't soon forget the experience.
In cases of civil disobedience, the prosecutors in an area should also have a "standard, well-known" response which may be to decline prosecution specifically to deny the citizen the public platform that he is seeking. Another "pre-planned response" may be to seek a very short jail sentence with a long probation period, with a prohibition of associating with other like-minded people during the probation period. Such a response will effectively separate those who are really willing to throw years of their life away for a cause from those who aren't, while appearing to the general public to be showing some leniency.
In the Swartz case, I wonder how differently things would have turned out if the prosecutor had said "Okay, here's our plea offer - 6 months in federal prison on reduced misdemeanor charges. If you don't take it, we'll ask the judge for a felony conviction and a sentence of 'A year and a day.' Talk it over with your lawyer and get back to us."
Newspapers used to put "advertorial" content in a box and label it "advertisement." Some still do, at least in the "non-advertising-only" sections of the printed paper.
It's about time TV, radio, and online media did the same.
Step 1: Outlaw high-capacity clips, grandfathering in those that already exist. Step 2: Realize it's very hard to tell if a gun clip was made shortly before or shortly after the law goes into effect. Step 3: Require gun designs to change, all but ensuring that any gun clip that fits new guns was made after the large-capacity ban went into effect.
You will still have old guns and people will still be able to make large-capacity clips for them and plausibly lie and claim they were made before the ban, but eventually those old guns will be lost, destroyed, wear out, or what not. Anyone caught with a large capacity clip that fits a new gun will have a very hard time claiming that he made his ammo clip before the ban went into effect.
Just because it's impossible to, by law, prevent me from sneaking up on you and clobbering you with a brick then bashing your skull in doesn't mean it shouldn't be illegal.
If we, as a people, decide we don't want new large-capacity gun clips being created, we can pass a law prohibiting them and treat anyone found with one the same as we treat people who possess other "generally illegal to posses, unless it's grandfathered" items like elephant tusks: If it's not obviously old enough to pre-date the law, the police can confiscate it until you can show that it's at least probably old enough to be legal.
If we, the people want to, we can follow up by asking Congress to require gun-makers to change their gun designs in at least subtle ways so existing home-made ammo clips won't fit them, thereby making it all but certain that a large-capacity ammo clip that does fit a newer gun was made after the law that prohibited the manufacture of such clips went into effect.
The key words in all of the above are "if we, the people, want to." NOT if lobbyists for one side or the other strong-arm Congress into doing their bidding, but if WE, the PEOPLE, demand such action from our lawmakers.
By the way, I'm assuming that such an action would not be unconstitutional. The fact that such laws were on the books for over 10 years and either went unchallenged or survived court challenge before Congress let them lapse supports this assumption. If Congress passes such gun- and ammo-control laws and I am wrong on the Constitutional issue, I hope it hits a judge's desk quickly.
I think they will draw the line at "recording is allowed in any place where being there holding a camera without recording taking place is allowed."
Here's a silly example of why "no matter what" can be abused by an photographer:
Officer is leading a suspect to his police car. Four citizens stand in front of police cars' doors, blocking access. All 4 are arrested, charged, and convicted with obstructing justice, interfering with an arrest, or some similar charge.
Inspired, 4 different people do the same thing, but this time holding cameras. They claim "we were photographing police, you can't arrest us."
Surely they are no less guilty of interfering with a lawful arrest than the first group who were not wielding cameras.
The law needs to protect "passive" "citizen-photography" of public officials who are doing their jobs while in public places. The fact that someone is photographing something not be used as a license to do what would otherwise be illegal.
By the way, the term "citizen-photography" should not be limited to citizens. When it comes to photographing public servants, I think the "right to passively photograph public servants in public" should extend at a minimum to all legally competent adults who are not foreign diplomats or agents of a foreign government.
Don't ban minting of high-denomination bullion coins "per se." Instead, ban minting of bullion coins with a per-coin face value more than, say, 200% of the metal value or $1 + the metal value, whichever is higher.
Even without the "trillion dollar coin" the Mint could issue 10 billion $100 teeny-tiny gold coins, each with a bullion content of $1, and put them on deposit with the treasury. It's a little more work but it's the same principle. If the mint were restricted to the higher of a 100%- or $1- markup, they'd have to actually FIND half a trillion dollars worth of gold to pull this off, or make a trillion $1.01 coins that contained a penny's worth of gold. The first option would require a LOT of precious metal. The 2nd option would probably still cost $0.10-$0.15 per coin, or $15B to "create" $1T money to deposit with the treasury. Neither one could be done quietly or cheaply.
I figured if a laser's very tight-column beam was so close to "perfect" that if it could destroy something at 10 meters, it could destroy or at least severely damage it at 1,000 meters, at least in a vacuum.
Perhaps I should be impressed that 1 km of atmosphere didn't disrupt the laser enough to disable its destructive power. Next time, try 1km of fog or 1km of Beijing smog.
If you have a good source code management system, you should get this ability for free.
If you don't and it's not a throwaway project, get one.
If it is a throwaway project, then there probably aren't any rules.
Once you know you can un-undelete it, the same rules apply as to adding or changing code: * Make sure your edit improves the code. * Don't introduce any bugs. * If you can't avoid the previous rule, don't introduce any important or subtle bugs. Especially don't introduce any important, subtle bugs.
I've had bad spots develop on both floppies and CD-Rs that I've stored indoors for 10+ years under "normal household" storage conditions. I'm not talking museum-quality archival conditions, but I'm not talking baking-hot-attic conditions either.
Physical copies of pictures from 50 years ago stored in common household conditions are barely legible.
Let's say you are right.
Digital copies of pictures stored on cheap CD-R or floppy disks from 1990 will be barely readable in 2040, even if you have a working drive and software to interpret the half-century-old data format. Why? The consumer-grade media that existed at the time wasn't archival quality.
What's that you say, you migrate your data every decade or more to avoid that? How many people do that? About as many as who re-photograph their family albums every 20-30 years to prevent photo decay.
By the way, I disagree with old photos being "barely legible" when stored under common household conditions. As long as they are in "living room cabinet" conditions and not in the attic or basement where they might get too hot/cold/damp/dry or out on display where they might get too much light exposure, most black-and-white prints, slides, and negatives, most color prints made since the 1970s, Kodachrome slides, and some more recent E6 slides will last decades with only minor degradation. Note: Many color prints from before the 1970s turn pink with age. Other than Kodachrome, I wouldn't bet that color slide or negative films would be in good condition if stored in "living room cabinet" conditions after 50 years. They might be viewable but I would expect at least some noticeable degradation.
If you do archive your work digitally, make sure you truly archive it. This means using materials and formats that will still be available when you do your next "refresh" AND doing that refresh on schedule, OR if you prefer, using truly archival materials and making sure you keep a device around to read it, along with a backup archive and a backup reading device in an offsite location. Very-long-life mineral-based DVDs (no organic dyes) are available for under $3 each. Not all DVD-burners can write to these DVDs.
First, present her with one of those small personal-sized chalkboard tablets 1st graders use (with a piece of chalk for a stylus). Demonstrate how to use it as a word-processor, reader, and calculator. This shouldn't cost you more than $10, assuming you don't get the "Monster Cable" brand piece of chalk.
Once the laughs are over, present her with a real tablet.
Post the video of her using the "old school" tablet to YouTube.
Have the ads "do something" when they are viewed, such as load additional content from somewhere else.
It will be difficult - not impossible, just difficult - to block ads in a way that the ad-provider can't detect.
Then, if the ads are being blocked, either refuse to deliver the content or take some other action, such as delivering lower-quality content, e.g. not including the latest headlines or only showing the first half of articles if you are a news site.
On its face, he sold web-gambling software to foreign customers for use outside the United States.
Putting on my "If I was the juror" hat, the key to conviction would be how aware was he that his customers were taking bets from people in New York State, and if he was aware, was his not firing that customer gross negligence or actual co-conspiracy?
Unless there is a specific law that I am unaware of, it's perfectly legal for Americans to write computer code for foreign companies, even the use of that code by the customer for its intended purpose would be illegal if the company or its customers were in the United States. As a trivial example, I can create software for use in automobile engines that specifically allows pollution levels that are illegal in the United States then sell that software to car companies abroad for use in cars that will not be imported to America.
However, if I knowingly and actively help one of my customers fool EPA testing by detecting that the car is being used in what looks like an EPA test, it goes into "America mode" so it passes the test (with perhaps a loss in performance), then I'm a co-conspirator and I should expect to be arrested, charged, and convicted as soon as the feds wise up to what's going on.
A couple of commenters have the point of view that if something can drive and is street-legal then it's primary purpose in life is to be a car.
I disagree.
Had the designers of the Cadillac Ranch used running cars (the Wikipedia article isn't clear if they did or not) AND they added custom tailfins and paint-jobs, I think it would be clear to everyone that even if the individual cars' primary function was to be a car, it no longer is, even if the cars could be easily made to run again by removing them from the ground, undoing any damage caused by them being nearly upright and half-buried, and putting in fresh fluids.
Slashdot Mirror
I should be "made whole" in civil court.
Remember, in the United States, crimes are almost always "the people vs. the defendant" or "the government vs. the defendant" which is just two ways of saying the same thing.
Whether pulling someone's pants down like this should be a crime or not, and if so what the criminal penalty should be, depends largely on society's attitude. Is the frequency of such activity or the harm done by it high enough that the general public wants to stop it so badly that they want to make it a criminal offense? Will making it a criminal offense decrease the frequency enough to make criminalizing it worthwhile? Are there other alternatives, such as public education, that may decrease the frequency? If so, would their impact be helped significantly by pairing them with criminalizing the behavior?
This logic is independent of the impact on this particular victim.
By the way, this sort of "OMG, we have to stop this because of one event" logic is exactly what is playing out with proposed and recently-passed gun regulations in Washington and in some state legislatures. Whether the issue is guns or pulling people's pants down, we need to take a long, sober look at the overall effect of having a law vs. not having a law, not react to a specific circumstance.
It's rapidly becoming apparent that many Slashdotters don't understand the difference between grammar and spelling.
Gram are in gram crackers.
Spelling your drink makes a mess.
Spelling your gram crackers makes a mess two but it's not as messie.
Deceptive trade practices is the problem.
However, it must be wielded with - pardon the pun - discretion.
It's NOT okay to have strict liability crimes without almost universal knowledge of the crime and likely punishment.
It's NOT okay to use discretion to coerce plea agreements.
In general, the discretion should be based on published, preferably well-known guidelines that all prosecutors in a given geography and who are prosecuting given types of crimes agree on. In other words, there shouldn't be "good luck" and "bad luck" for the defendant when cases are handed out to prosecutors.
You do need proprietorial discretion so prosecutors can deal with things like local priorities, priorities that change over time, laws that have outlived their usefulness, etc. Prosecutors in a city with a high car-theft crime and a publicized crackdown would - and should - be less interested in offering mercy on new car thieves than prosecutors in a city without a high car-theft problem.
You also need to have proprietorial discretion to give leniency where the criminal act may warrant severe punishment but the criminal intent, while present, was not that of a hardened criminal or where "mother nature" has already meted out some punishment. For example, a person who steals a car to joy-ride and wrecks it causing himself severe injury should get a lot more mercy than someone who steals the car for profit. Why? The INTENT was to return the car intact, so the "criminal intent" is much less, and the person's injuries and medical bills will ensure he won't soon forget the experience.
In cases of civil disobedience, the prosecutors in an area should also have a "standard, well-known" response which may be to decline prosecution specifically to deny the citizen the public platform that he is seeking. Another "pre-planned response" may be to seek a very short jail sentence with a long probation period, with a prohibition of associating with other like-minded people during the probation period. Such a response will effectively separate those who are really willing to throw years of their life away for a cause from those who aren't, while appearing to the general public to be showing some leniency.
In the Swartz case, I wonder how differently things would have turned out if the prosecutor had said "Okay, here's our plea offer - 6 months in federal prison on reduced misdemeanor charges. If you don't take it, we'll ask the judge for a felony conviction and a sentence of 'A year and a day.' Talk it over with your lawyer and get back to us."
This entry was posted on January 15, 2013 at 9:00 am and is filed under In Pop Culture.
Should be refiled under Imperial Politics, Interstellar News, Diplomacy, or something similar.
Newspapers used to put "advertorial" content in a box and label it "advertisement." Some still do, at least in the "non-advertising-only" sections of the printed paper.
It's about time TV, radio, and online media did the same.
Step 1: Outlaw high-capacity clips, grandfathering in those that already exist.
Step 2: Realize it's very hard to tell if a gun clip was made shortly before or shortly after the law goes into effect.
Step 3: Require gun designs to change, all but ensuring that any gun clip that fits new guns was made after the large-capacity ban went into effect.
You will still have old guns and people will still be able to make large-capacity clips for them and plausibly lie and claim they were made before the ban, but eventually those old guns will be lost, destroyed, wear out, or what not. Anyone caught with a large capacity clip that fits a new gun will have a very hard time claiming that he made his ammo clip before the ban went into effect.
Just because it's impossible to, by law, prevent me from sneaking up on you and clobbering you with a brick then bashing your skull in doesn't mean it shouldn't be illegal.
If we, as a people, decide we don't want new large-capacity gun clips being created, we can pass a law prohibiting them and treat anyone found with one the same as we treat people who possess other "generally illegal to posses, unless it's grandfathered" items like elephant tusks: If it's not obviously old enough to pre-date the law, the police can confiscate it until you can show that it's at least probably old enough to be legal.
If we, the people want to, we can follow up by asking Congress to require gun-makers to change their gun designs in at least subtle ways so existing home-made ammo clips won't fit them, thereby making it all but certain that a large-capacity ammo clip that does fit a newer gun was made after the law that prohibited the manufacture of such clips went into effect.
The key words in all of the above are "if we, the people, want to." NOT if lobbyists for one side or the other strong-arm Congress into doing their bidding, but if WE, the PEOPLE, demand such action from our lawmakers.
By the way, I'm assuming that such an action would not be unconstitutional. The fact that such laws were on the books for over 10 years and either went unchallenged or survived court challenge before Congress let them lapse supports this assumption. If Congress passes such gun- and ammo-control laws and I am wrong on the Constitutional issue, I hope it hits a judge's desk quickly.
Imagine the possible chaos if I'd made that typo entering patient data in an electronic health record.....
Slow pace of adoption, he added, has further delayed the productivity gains from e-records
Perhaps it should read:
Slow pace of adoption ... has further delayed the massive lawsuits that fly when things go bad and patient date leaks on a massive scale.
I think they will draw the line at "recording is allowed in any place where being there holding a camera without recording taking place is allowed."
Here's a silly example of why "no matter what" can be abused by an photographer:
Officer is leading a suspect to his police car.
Four citizens stand in front of police cars' doors, blocking access.
All 4 are arrested, charged, and convicted with obstructing justice, interfering with an arrest, or some similar charge.
Inspired, 4 different people do the same thing, but this time holding cameras.
They claim "we were photographing police, you can't arrest us."
Surely they are no less guilty of interfering with a lawful arrest than the first group who were not wielding cameras.
The law needs to protect "passive" "citizen-photography" of public officials who are doing their jobs while in public places. The fact that someone is photographing something not be used as a license to do what would otherwise be illegal.
By the way, the term "citizen-photography" should not be limited to citizens. When it comes to photographing public servants, I think the "right to passively photograph public servants in public" should extend at a minimum to all legally competent adults who are not foreign diplomats or agents of a foreign government.
I was misinformed about which precious metals hand Congressionally-imposed limitations on their minting.
Substitute "platinum" for "bullion coins" in the first paragraph and "platinum" for "gold" and "bullion" in the second.
Don't ban minting of high-denomination bullion coins "per se." Instead, ban minting of bullion coins with a per-coin face value more than, say, 200% of the metal value or $1 + the metal value, whichever is higher.
Even without the "trillion dollar coin" the Mint could issue 10 billion $100 teeny-tiny gold coins, each with a bullion content of $1, and put them on deposit with the treasury. It's a little more work but it's the same principle. If the mint were restricted to the higher of a 100%- or $1- markup, they'd have to actually FIND half a trillion dollars worth of gold to pull this off, or make a trillion $1.01 coins that contained a penny's worth of gold. The first option would require a LOT of precious metal. The 2nd option would probably still cost $0.10-$0.15 per coin, or $15B to "create" $1T money to deposit with the treasury. Neither one could be done quietly or cheaply.
I figured if a laser's very tight-column beam was so close to "perfect" that if it could destroy something at 10 meters, it could destroy or at least severely damage it at 1,000 meters, at least in a vacuum.
Perhaps I should be impressed that 1 km of atmosphere didn't disrupt the laser enough to disable its destructive power. Next time, try 1km of fog or 1km of Beijing smog.
If you have a good source code management system, you should get this ability for free.
If you don't and it's not a throwaway project, get one.
If it is a throwaway project, then there probably aren't any rules.
Once you know you can un-undelete it, the same rules apply as to adding or changing code:
* Make sure your edit improves the code.
* Don't introduce any bugs.
* If you can't avoid the previous rule, don't introduce any important or subtle bugs. Especially don't introduce any important, subtle bugs.
I've had bad spots develop on both floppies and CD-Rs that I've stored indoors for 10+ years under "normal household" storage conditions. I'm not talking museum-quality archival conditions, but I'm not talking baking-hot-attic conditions either.
Um... I think the camera people already dominate that market. After all, porn without cameras is just called sex.
I think it's called "strip club."
Physical copies of pictures from 50 years ago stored in common household conditions are barely legible.
Let's say you are right.
Digital copies of pictures stored on cheap CD-R or floppy disks from 1990 will be barely readable in 2040, even if you have a working drive and software to interpret the half-century-old data format. Why? The consumer-grade media that existed at the time wasn't archival quality.
What's that you say, you migrate your data every decade or more to avoid that? How many people do that? About as many as who re-photograph their family albums every 20-30 years to prevent photo decay.
By the way, I disagree with old photos being "barely legible" when stored under common household conditions. As long as they are in "living room cabinet" conditions and not in the attic or basement where they might get too hot/cold/damp/dry or out on display where they might get too much light exposure, most black-and-white prints, slides, and negatives, most color prints made since the 1970s, Kodachrome slides, and some more recent E6 slides will last decades with only minor degradation. Note: Many color prints from before the 1970s turn pink with age. Other than Kodachrome, I wouldn't bet that color slide or negative films would be in good condition if stored in "living room cabinet" conditions after 50 years. They might be viewable but I would expect at least some noticeable degradation.
If you do archive your work digitally, make sure you truly archive it. This means using materials and formats that will still be available when you do your next "refresh" AND doing that refresh on schedule, OR if you prefer, using truly archival materials and making sure you keep a device around to read it, along with a backup archive and a backup reading device in an offsite location. Very-long-life mineral-based DVDs (no organic dyes) are available for under $3 each. Not all DVD-burners can write to these DVDs.
Woah, this intelligent guppy posts on slashdot with an ID. The ones I bred only post AC
Them sure are smart fish you have there. Ask them how they post AC, I want to learn me that there trick.
Get her two tablets, gift-wrapped.
First, present her with one of those small personal-sized chalkboard tablets 1st graders use (with a piece of chalk for a stylus). Demonstrate how to use it as a word-processor, reader, and calculator. This shouldn't cost you more than $10, assuming you don't get the "Monster Cable" brand piece of chalk.
Once the laughs are over, present her with a real tablet.
Post the video of her using the "old school" tablet to YouTube.
Have the ads "do something" when they are viewed, such as load additional content from somewhere else.
It will be difficult - not impossible, just difficult - to block ads in a way that the ad-provider can't detect.
Then, if the ads are being blocked, either refuse to deliver the content or take some other action, such as delivering lower-quality content, e.g. not including the latest headlines or only showing the first half of articles if you are a news site.
No wonder the fictional President in 1600 Penn is so involved in his daughter's choice of boyfriends.
On its face, he sold web-gambling software to foreign customers for use outside the United States.
Putting on my "If I was the juror" hat, the key to conviction would be how aware was he that his customers were taking bets from people in New York State, and if he was aware, was his not firing that customer gross negligence or actual co-conspiracy?
Unless there is a specific law that I am unaware of, it's perfectly legal for Americans to write computer code for foreign companies, even the use of that code by the customer for its intended purpose would be illegal if the company or its customers were in the United States. As a trivial example, I can create software for use in automobile engines that specifically allows pollution levels that are illegal in the United States then sell that software to car companies abroad for use in cars that will not be imported to America.
However, if I knowingly and actively help one of my customers fool EPA testing by detecting that the car is being used in what looks like an EPA test, it goes into "America mode" so it passes the test (with perhaps a loss in performance), then I'm a co-conspirator and I should expect to be arrested, charged, and convicted as soon as the feds wise up to what's going on.
Replying to my own post:
A couple of commenters have the point of view that if something can drive and is street-legal then it's primary purpose in life is to be a car.
I disagree.
Had the designers of the Cadillac Ranch used running cars (the Wikipedia article isn't clear if they did or not) AND they added custom tailfins and paint-jobs, I think it would be clear to everyone that even if the individual cars' primary function was to be a car, it no longer is, even if the cars could be easily made to run again by removing them from the ground, undoing any damage caused by them being nearly upright and half-buried, and putting in fresh fluids.
I just assumed it was so they could digitally replace them with different product-placement ads each time the show is re-run.