What proponents of the selling of organs for transplant call a 'choice,' I call the right to be cruelly exploited. Democratic societies have always limited our ability to harm ourselves, hence, workplace safety, child labor, or minimum wage laws that forbid a 5-year-old to 'choose' to take a dangerous, low-paying job. (Even when someone faces dire poverty, we do not permit him to sell himself into slavery.) Similarly, the laws barring organ sales are intended to protect those who, out of economic desperation, would be harmed by those with more money.
What's more, it is a highly dubious proposition that selling an organ offers even the very poor meaningful recourse. A few years after taking such a perilous step, the seller is apt to find himself in unchanged economic circumstances, albeit with one fewer kidney and the attendant health risks. There are better ways to respond to the problems of poverty than by expanding the opportunity for the rich to harvest the organs of the poor. And there are better ways to reduce the waiting list for kidney transplants: I particularly admired FL Delmonico's noting what preventive medicine can achieve.
It is true that we need to expand the pool of organs available for transplant, but there are ways to do that without endangering the most vulnerable members of society. One plan would make the use of cadaveric organs routine, switching from the current opt-in system to allowing those folks with, for example, religious objections, to opt out. It is curious that those who resist such an approach show more concern for the sentiments of the dead than the health of the living.
A Wikileaks post published on The Nation shows that the Obama Administration fought to keep Haitian wages at 31 cents an hour
Once again we see Wikileaks essentially in the role of, "If you don't know it, it's news to you". Geeks that wouldn't give a damn about anything in Haiti are finally reading about it in Wikileaks, take whatever information is there with no context, and assume the worst.
The debate has fuelled unrest across the impoverished Caribbean nation. Some critics argue that an increase would hurt plans to fight widespread unemployment by creating jobs in factories that produce clothing for export to the United States. . . .
Many in the international community who view garment factories as the way to boost Haiti's economic development oppose the wage increase.
With new trade advantages that allow for duty-free exports of clothing to the US, such factories could provide "several hundred thousand jobs to Haitians... over a period of just a few years," according to a report submitted to the UN in January.
But it said that plan requires that costs be kept down.
The report had been requested by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and prepared by Oxford University professor Paul Collier. It is now being promoted by former US President Bill Clinton, the new UN envoy for Haiti.
Why would the justice dept want to hide who it is asking records from.
If they are in the right.. well.. why hide it.
Because surveillance operations and investigations are usually most effective when they're secret so the subjects of the investigation / surveillance don't change their incriminating behavior, or try to destroy evidence?
Really, is this not obvious? Why don't football players call the play in the open when they line up so the other team can hear? "Left end run on three -- hut - hut - hut - Oh! That had to hurt!"
Revealing investigations and surveillance operations means effectively no more sting operations. That means, guys like this won't be buying their "explosives" from the FBI, but will find someone else who will provide the real thing... much to practically everyone's regret.
A Corvallis man, thinking he was going to ignite a bomb, drove a van to the corner of the square at Southwest Yamhill Street and Sixth Avenue and attempted to detonate it.
However, the supposed explosive was a dummy that FBI operatives supplied to him, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint signed Friday night by U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a Somali-born U.S. citizen, was arrested at 5:42 p.m., 18 minutes before the tree lighting was to occur, on an accusation of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Re:In b4 losers asking why he didn't kill himself
on
Jack Kevorkian Dead at 83
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· Score: 4, Informative
Did he promote euthenasia, or choice of euthenasia?
Both, and much more.....
Dr. Kevorkian’s views on euthanasia do not stop at “planned death,” but build to an ultimate conclusion. This is probably best expressed in the articles he has written over the years for the professional journal, Medicine and Law. In 1986 he wrote on human experimentation:
The so-called Nuremberg Code and all its derivatives completely ignore the extraordinary opportunities for terminal experimentation on humans facing imminent and inevitable death. . . . Intense emotionalism engendered by the concentration camp atrocities of World War II has unfairly stigmatized this honorable concept and cloaked it in silence. . ..
. . . Now that the benumbed sense of objective appraisal manifested by the Nuremberg judges has begun to wear off, at last it is conceded that they were wrong in concluding that nothing of value resulted from the illegal experiments. . . . The data are all the more valuable because similar human experiments can never again be done. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that a few of the medical criminals did the right thing (extraction of positive gain from inevitably total loss otherwise beyond their influence) but in the wrong way (without concern over consent or anesthesia) and in the wrong setting (created by the evil “laws” of a diabolical dictator.)[1]
At the end of his article, Kevorkian offers a bioethical “Code of Conduct” for “any professional or lay individual in any way participating in experimentation on human beings facing undeniably imminent and inevitable death.”
C.(1). Experiments may be of any kind or complexity. . . . C.(2). While a prospective subject is fully conscious, an experimenter may start any procedure which on thorough analysis portends no significant distress for the subject. . . . C.(3). Induction and irreversible maintenance of at least stage III general anesthesia is imperative before experimentation is begun on the following prospective subjects: (a) All brain-dead, comatose, mentally incompetent, or otherwise completely uncommunicative individuals. (b) All neonates, infants, and children less than (-) years old (age must be arbitrarily set by consensus). (c) All living intrauterine and aborted or delivered fetuses. C.(4). If the subject’s body is alive at the end of experimentation, final biologic death may be induced by means of: (a) Removal of organs for transplantation. (b) A lethal dose of a new or untested drug. . . . (c) A lethal intravenous bolus of thiopental solution. . ..[2]
Kevorkian’s research into human experimentation began while he was in the residency program at the University of Michigan, and eventually led to his removal from the program.
“While I was in my residency I was researching the idea of condemned men being allowed to submit to anesthesia rather than execution. While under anesthesia we could do experiments from which they wouldn’t recover, and then remove their organs. Now if you needed a liver or a heart, would you like to see a young healthy man or woman fried in the electric chair? No! But that Dark Age school told me I would have to drop the project I was working on or leave. So I left, and spent my last two years of residency at Pontiac.” While an associate pathologist at Pontiac General Hospital Kevorkian ran into more trouble. As part of an experiment he transfused cadaver blood directly into several patients. Kevorkian’s actions shocked the U.S. medical community, but no legal action was taken against him.
“All it involved was taking blood out of dead people who died suddenly and then transfusing it into living people just like regular blood. The Russians had been doing it for over half a century, but instead of transfusing it directly into a person, they would s
... “What is to guarantee that the doctors will make the correct ethical choices in running the death clinics?” Kevorkian responded angrily, “I can keep this controlled while I’m alive, but after I die you’ll get corruptible doctors running them. But that doesn’t scare me, that should scare society. That’s society’s problem.”
Dr. Kevorkian’s views on euthanasia do not stop at “planned death,” but build to an ultimate conclusion. This is probably best expressed in the articles he has written over the years for the professional journal, Medicine and Law. In 1986 he wrote on human experimentation:
The so-called Nuremberg Code and all its derivatives completely ignore the extraordinary opportunities for terminal experimentation on humans facing imminent and inevitable death. . . . Intense emotionalism engendered by the concentration camp atrocities of World War II has unfairly stigmatized this honorable concept and cloaked it in silence. . ..
. . . Now that the benumbed sense of objective appraisal manifested by the Nuremberg judges has begun to wear off, at last it is conceded that they were wrong in concluding that nothing of value resulted from the illegal experiments. . . . The data are all the more valuable because similar human experiments can never again be done. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that a few of the medical criminals did the right thing (extraction of positive gain from inevitably total loss otherwise beyond their influence) but in the wrong way (without concern over consent or anesthesia) and in the wrong setting (created by the evil “laws” of a diabolical dictator.)[1]
Kevorkian’s research into human experimentation began while he was in the residency program at the University of Michigan, and eventually led to his removal from the program.
“While I was in my residency I was researching the idea of condemned men being allowed to submit to anesthesia rather than execution. While under anesthesia we could do experiments from which they wouldn’t recover, and then remove their organs. Now if you needed a liver or a heart, would you like to see a young healthy man or woman fried in the electric chair? No! But that Dark Age school told me I would have to drop the project I was working on or leave. So I left, and spent my last two years of residency at Pontiac.” While an associate pathologist at Pontiac General Hospital Kevorkian ran into more trouble. As part of an experiment he transfused cadaver blood directly into several patients. Kevorkian’s actions shocked the U.S. medical community, but no legal action was taken against him....
In a 1988 Medicine and Law article Kevorkian builds on his previous ideas of human experimentation by combining it with his theories on planned death. In his article, “The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death,” Kevorkian explains how with the experimentation you move from “euthanasia” or “good death” to an area called “eutatosthanasia” or “best death.”
Planned death is the purposeful ending of human life by direct human action. The concept is broader than euthanasia or “mercy killing,” which are the ways it is usually interpreted. It includes capital punishment, both involuntary and voluntary; obligatory suicide mandated by rigid theistic or philosophical principles; quasi-optional suicide for the relief of suffering resulting from illness, disability, or old age; strictly optional suicide for reasons not known to others; justifiable infantic
Anti-euthanasia groups say, however, that the sharp increase is probably linked to the collapse of the palliative care system in the Netherlands. Euthanasia is usually carried out by administering a strong sedative to put the patient in a coma, followed by a drug to stop breathing and cause death. . .. Many Dutch people are growing uneasy about the way in which the law has been applied. Among them is Dr Els Borst, the former health minister and deputy prime minister who guided the law through the Dutch parliament. Last December said she regretted that euthanasia was effectively destroying palliative care. Amsterdam, a city with a population of 1.2 million people, is now served by two tiny hospices. The British campaign group Dignity in Dying - formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society - has acknowledged that euthanasia is open to abuse but insists that assisted suicide could still work in practice.
Euthanasia has also entered the pediatric wards, where eugenic infanticide has become common even though babies cannot ask to be killed. According to a 1997 study published in the British medical journal The Lancet, approximately 8 percent of all Dutch infant deaths result from lethal injections. The babies deemed killable are often disabled and thus are thought not to have a "livable life." The practice has become so common that 45 percent of neonatologists and 31 percent of pediatricians who responded to Lancet surveys had killed babies.
It gets worse: Repeated studies sponsored by the Dutch government have found that doctors kill approximately 1,000 patients each year who have not asked for euthanasia. This is not only a violation of every guideline, but an act that Dutch law considers murder. Nonvoluntary euthanasia has become so common that it even has a name: "Termination without request or consent."
Despite this carnage, Dutch doctors are very rarely prosecuted for such crimes, and the few that are brought to court are usually exonerated. Moreover, even if a doctor is found guilty, he or she is almost never punished in any meaningful way, nor does the murderer face discipline by the Dutch Medical Society. For example, in 2001, a doctor was convicted of murdering an 84-year-old patient who had not asked to be killed. Prosecutors demanded a nine-month suspended probation (!), yet even this brush — it can’t even be called a slap — on the wrist was rejected by the trial judge who refused to impose any punishment. Not to worry. The appellate court decided to get tough: It imposed a one-week suspended sentence on the doctor for murder.
Even such praising with faint damnation isn’t enough for the Dutch Medical Association. As a result of this and the handful of other non-punished murder convictions of doctors who engaged in termination without request or consent, the organization is lobbying to legalize non-voluntary euthanasia. Along these same lines — and demonstrating that the culture of death recognizes no limits — the day after the Dutch formally legalized euthanasia, the country’s minister of health advocated the provision of suicide pills to the elderly who do not qualify for killing under Dutch law.
Lest we think the Dutch experience is a fluke, let us now turn our attention to Belgium. Only one year ago the Belgians legalized Dutch-style euthanasia under "strict" guidelines. As with the Netherlands, once unfettered, the euthanasia culture quickly began to swallow Belgium whole. Moreover, the slide down the slope has occurred at a greatly accelerated pace. It took decades for the Dutch euthanasia to reach the current mo
Make sure it is reliable before you get people to rely on it. Make sure both the computer and storage are on UPS and have good surge protection. Ideally you want the server to shutdown before it loses power. Also, make sure you have some sort of backup scheme in place. Tape backup, DVD, whatever, just make sure you can backup the data and restore. It's a really good idea to test your backups from time to time to make sure they can be read. Ideally you will also save your backups either off-site, or at least in a fire safe. Also, check that the server area doesn't get too hot as that can cause problems as well. Make sure you apply current OS patches. Ideally you will also have anti-virus protection. If the office has access to the internet, make sure you have at least a cheap hardware firewall, or better if you can, to protect everyone. Consider physical security. Do you lock the room with the server? Use cables to secure it? Document things in case you need to rebuild it.
Consider information security: does everyone get access to everything?
Besides that, file servers tend to be very handy, even for small offices. Put any sort of shared resources you use on the file server instead of on individual PCs. Things like: document templates, form letters, contact lists, etc.
Beyond that, it really depends on your business doesn't it? I assume you bought Filemaker for a reason. Information sharing must be important somehow. You can use Filemaker as the heart of a lot of business applications. Would an internal web server be useful? Internal mail server? List server?
One more thing, teach people how things are intended to be used.
Help them out - make sure their PCs are properly patched, have anti-virus, and ideally aren't running as administrator.
"Act of War" except when such cyber warfare is directed at Iran by a join Israel/U.S. operation. Then it's just... uh. Definitely not war
So, your thinking is what? That poor, peaceful Iran is being picked on? That the mean old US and Israel started a war on blameless Iran? Apart from the fact that you are speculating about the source of Stuxnet, the outrage is purely imaginary. If anything, Iran is lucky things aren't worse for it given its reckless, murderous behavior.
In the 2006 war, Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel. Most were inaccurate, short-range models, but the attacks killed at least 39 civilians and had a profound psychological effect on Israelis....
Hezbollah now has about 27,000 rockets and missiles, more than double its supply before the 2006 war, Israeli officials say. Acquisitions include Iranian missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, they allege.
"We know without a doubt that the international embargo on the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah has been deliberately violated by the governments of Iran and Syria," said Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman.
The U.S. government, which has designated Hezbollah a terrorist group, accuses Iran of providing arms, training and millions of dollars. Syria also has emerged as an arms supplier, not just a conduit for Iranian arms, Israeli officials say.
August 4, 2006 06:05 EDT Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Many of the rockets Hezbollah is firing into Israel are made in Iran, demonstrating the Islamic republic's success in copying Chinese and Russian technology to build its own weapons industry.
The Shiite Muslim group's arsenal includes Iranian-built portable Katyusha rockets, Israeli Reserve Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser said. Hezbollah struck an Israeli ship on July 14 with an Iranian-made C802 Noor guided missile. The militia also has Iran's Zelzal rocket, with a range of 120 miles, enough to reach Tel Aviv from south Lebanon, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired major general who ran Israel's National Defense College.
28 February 2010 Iran could make European countries suffer by cutting off energy supplies and can target any adversary with its missiles, a senior Iranian military official said on Sunday....
“Iran is standing on 50 percent of the world’s energy and should it so decide Europe will have to spend the winter in cold,” Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, said in a meeting with war veterans and volunteers in Kerman, according to Fars news agency.
“Our missiles are now able to target any spot in which the conspirators are in, and the c
And remember kids, the places outside the prison camps are the "garden spots" of North Korea, with a much better night life, and day life, or any life at all, for that matter.
Defector says something host country wants to hear
Who would of thought such a thing would happen?.
You apparently. Only accurate information is useful. And, of course, I'm sure it would never occur to you that the information would be cross-checked? That's what I figured.....
I guess we'll find out if "Anonymous" is as anonymous as they think they are, if it is truly as chaotic as some people claim. I have my doubts on both fronts.
Sadly, while the poster is clearly trolling with his deliberately lopsided history, the US did put well over 100,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps. These camps, while offering better conditions in most respects, bore far too close a resemblance to concentration camps for anyone with a conscience. look it up is you need to know more.
Have you ever heard of the German American Bund? It was one of several organizations of German Americans in the 1930s-40s. It was a significant pro-Nazi force in the United States. If you watch this video, you will think your eyes are tricking you. But yes, that is the United States, and yes, the giant figure you can see in the back of some of the stages is George Washington. Was the Bund potentially dangerous? How could the government not believe it was a possibility? There were a large number of reports of "Fifth Columnists , such as the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps in Czechoslovakia, and the Selbstschutz in Poland that aided the German invaders. There were similar reports out of Norway, Denmark, and other places.
This is Time magazines description of how things looked in 1940 as the US watched country after country fall to Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy and be brutalized in a terrible fashion.
WAR & PEACE: Science of Treason - Monday, Aug. 26, 1940 > The German-American Bund,* with 71 units strategically located in industrial centres or near munitions works, with 25,000 drilled and disciplined members, is only the most widely publicized of Hitler's U. S. supporters. There are in addition 10,000 other Hitler-heiling Germans in the U. S.; 400,000 Germans who support Hitler but keep quiet about it. There are lecturers, writers, organizers, technical experts, economists, historians. A German professor of history at the University of Hawaii has contributed articles on the U. S. Navy to the Nazi magazine Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, to which professors of the University of California and of Miami University in Ohio also contributed.
> There are some 200,000 Italian fascists in the U. S.
> Not counting fellow travelers, there are 100,000 U. S. Communists who are now actively collaborating with Nazis and Italian fascists, and who are more strategically placed than either in U. S. industry and trade unions. **
> With native-born fascists included, the fifth column numbers more than a million. The main task of cleaning it out is a job for the FBI; laymen can take little direct action beyond reporting suspicious behavior to the Government. But every citizen can contribute to a change in the national atmosphere—"not of lethargy, not of fear, not of defeat, but invigorated by the defiant faith which we have known in the past as typically American."
I've heard a report that 60,000 Germans & German Americans were arrested, and apparently at least 10,000 were held in camps. There may have been more. This story doesn't seem to get much attention, and the documents seem to be harder to come by.
As to the Japanese, there were many of them that, like the Germans, also had patriotic organizations tying them to Japan.
Before the war many thousands of Japanese Americans and Japanese citizens living in the U.S. belonged to militant and patriotic organizations such as the Imperial Comradeship Society and the Japanese Military
In these discussions it is common to overlook Sigaba, the American encryption machine that was significantly more secure than Enigma.
SIGABA was similar to the Enigma in basic theory, in that it used a series of rotors to encipher every character of the plaintext into a different character of ciphertext. Unlike Enigma's three rotors however, the SIGABA included fifteen, and did not use a reflecting rotor.
The ECM Mark II based cryptographic system is not known to have ever been broken by an enemy and was secure throughout WW II. The system was retired by the U.S. Navy in 1959 because it was too slow to meet the demands of modern naval communications. Axis powers (primarily Germany) did however periodically break the lower grade systems used by Allied forces. Early in the war (notably during the convoy battle of the Atlantic and the North Africa campaign) the breaking of Allied systems contributed to Axis success.
While other rotor-based cryptosystems tended to rotate their rotors as an odometer (with the last rotor moving one position per letter, and each other rotor moving one position when the rotor after it completes a full cycle), the SIGABA introduces an innovative concept. The movement of its cipher rotors depend on the two other rotor banks, collectively known as the stepping maze. The output of the stepping maze is not seen directly, but rather controls the movements of the cipher rotors. Thus, the SIGABA uses a hidden cryptosystem within another cryptosystem.
The Germans that beat their heads against it referred to it as, "The big machine".
Lets pretend for a moment that you and your neighbor Bob are members of the local Linux / Fireworks / Model Rocketry club, and both share a passion for progressive politics. You are the treasurer of the club, and Bob is the secretary. Both you and Bob are opposed to the Patriot Act, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gitmo, all the usual causes. Then one day the FBI comes to you and servers you a subpoena and a gag order. The subpoena is for records of payments from, and supplies issued to, a certain Abu Ameer, a recent addition to the club who has a special interest and talent for certain types of... fireworks.... exploding shells, and seems to have a number of friends from somewhere... wherever Abu Ameer calls home. You decide that you need to talk to a lawyer before complying, and he tells you to provide the documents. You don't feel comfortable, so you try to fight it in court. The judge rules against you. So, you provide the documents to the FBI. A month later, you read in the papers that Abu Ameer and 3 other men were arrested for attempting to build a truck bomb that they intended to place at the local mall. Bob, your neighbor, was never contacted by the FBI.
Amazingly enough, you and Bob can speak and protest about exactly the same things! The Patriot Act, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, warrantless wiretaps, secret subpoenas, Gitmo, tax policy, even Abu Ameers arrest. You can write letters to the papers, get people together to protest, and even write your congressmen. You can seek redress in the courts or possibly administratively.
The one thing you can't mention, legally, is the secret investigation for which you were subpoenaed for information, but otherwise aren't a party to. You can't reveal the operation protecting national security.
So, how are your interests actually damaged? Are you claiming a right to expose any national security operation that you become aware of, and thus alerting the targets of the investigation? (Which might cause them to accelerate their plan - they wanted 5 tons of explosives, but will now attack with only 2 tons, or perhaps escape, or simply destroy evidence.) That would seem to me to damage the interests of pretty much all Americans.
Just because the SCOTUS claims that some law is not unconstitutional does not mean that it actually isn't
The SCOTUS doesn't "claim", it decides. If it says it says something is constitutional, it is. Period. That is its function - as the final arbitrator under American law. They might shape existing law in a new case, but that is a new case.
Even historically, SCOTUS overruled its own cases decided in the past (e.g. Plessy v. Ferguson) - and a law cannot be constitutional yesterday and then unconstitutional today, it's either that or the other - so when they rule differently from the past, they acknowledge that old understanding was a mistake.
The SCOTUS rarely directly over-rules itself, although it does happen from time to time. It is much more common for future decisions to shape an existing body of law rather than directly over-rule it. I wouldn't count on this part of the law changing much.
Note that this is not about the border itself. The Feds have extended a 100-mile area from the border inland, and now claims that this is the border, and all powers they were previously granted by the courts at the border (using a sane definition of one) still apply!
Well, actually they designate it as a border zone, and it does make sense even if the territory is rather expansive. I've seen quite a few countries that have the concept of a border zone with special enforcement in law. If I recall correctly, I've seen something like 5-50Km. Although 100 miles might seem excessive, it puts most major port cities (where much of the illegal border related activity occurs) in the US within a border zone, which might be reasonable for some purposes.
That argument might hold more weight if the US behaved as if it's laws stopped at it's borders
That really depends on the offense and circumstances, doesn't it?
By the way, are you similarly put off by various European judges (spain, Belgium, UK) weighing charges against Americans for things they did legally in the United States? That sort of thing happens with some regularity you know.
In 2007, the indictment says, Drake willfully retained top-secret defense documents that he had sworn an oath to protect, sneaking them out of the intelligence agency’s headquarters, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and taking them home, for the purpose of “unauthorized disclosure.”
He should have taken them to the Inspector General, or Congress.
Sorry, but warrantless wiretaps are OK for at least some national security purposes.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review has made public its decision, reached last August, that the federal government has the power to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order, even when Americans' private communications may be involved. The case arose from a challenge to this power brought by a telecommunications company whose identity has not been disclosed. The company had refused to turn over its relevant records, claiming that the president lacked constitutional authority to obtain them without a court order.
The "FISA court" issued a secret ruling that Congress acted within its authority when it passed the Protect America Act, which gave the executive branch broad power to eavesdrop on international communications. That ruling, it is now being reported, was upheld upon appellate review.
In his New York Times story on the case, Eric Lichtblau, who disclosed the existence of the warrantless surveillance program, sniffs that the court's ruling "may offer legal credence to the Bush administration's repeated assertions that the president has the power to act without specific court approval in ordering national security eavesdropping that may involve Americans." (emphasis added) I guess so. Rulings by appellate courts, by definition, give "legal credence" to the positions they embrace. And here we're talking about a court with special expertise in the subject matter that is ruling on an essentially novel issue.
This has been ruled upon by courts a number of times.
There is no right to private communications with terrorist groups making war on the United States.
DHS spokesman Jason Ciliberti says the ACLU's description of the zone as "Constitution-Free" couldn't be further from the truth and that the check points follow rules set by Supreme Court rulings.
"We don't have the abilitty to just set up checkpoints willy-nilly," Ciliberti said. "The Supreme Court has determined that brief investigative encontuers do not constitute a serach or seizure."
When citizens or visa holders encounter a checkpoint, most are waived on after showing identification, but if an agent suspects the person is not lawfully in the country, the agent can detain the person until the agent's investigation is satisfied.
The government has long had the power to set up such check points, but has recently expanded the number of permanent and 'tactical' check points and deployed them in areas they hadn't before -- such as near the Canadian border.
The courts, however, are not on the ACLU's side -- and have regularly ruled that the Fourth Amendment's protections don't extend to the border area, airport screening or even to laptops at the border.
I hope this is a lesson to everyone regarding temporary suspension of powers. There is NO SUCH THING AS TEMPORARY. Once you give them away they are gone until the next revolution and re-establishment of laws.
I don't think you quite have the hang of how things work in a democracy.
After the Civil War, black Americans were free, but then segregation laws were passed in some states, but they were ultimately struck down. The United States once had a constitutional amendment prohibiting alcohol, and then it was undone as very unpopular by another constitutional amendment. During World War 2, Americans had their spending controlled by ration books for things like food, gasoline, and clothing. That's over. During World War 2, American media and mail was censored by the government. That's over. Until recently, cities and states could place onerous restrictions or prohibitions on the ownership of firearms by law abiding citizens, but that has been struck down.
The Patriot Act was previously amended to address civil rights concerns:
Senate passes Patriot Act changes Posted 3/1/2006 11:11 AM Updated 3/1/2006 9:48 PM By John Diamond, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The Senate added civil liberties protections to the USA Patriot Act on Wednesday, clearing the way for renewal of the anti-terrorism law passed shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The 95-4 vote ended months of bipartisan debate centering on privacy rights. Subsequent procedural votes Wednesday showed enough Senate support to move the bill this week to the House for final passage and then to President Bush.
Most Americans are OK with spying on people in direct contact with terrorist organizations, or who are plotting an attack.
Because now that Osama is dead, this abomination is now to protect from mysterious random people....
Lets clarify this a bit, shall we?
Yes, it will help protect us from mysterious people - currently unknown people who are in contact with terrorist groups, as well that people plotting attacks. That is the point after all, isn't it?
Although most people on Slashdot seem to oppose spying on anyone, most Americans are OK with spying on people in direct contact with terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda (organizations trying to kill large numbers of people, not Dennis Kucinich/Ron Paul voters... unless they happen to be eco-terrorists engaged is actual terrorism).
As to Osama being dead... let's try a thought experiment.....
If Steve Jobs were to die tomorrow,... would Apple computer vanish? Would the board of directors and senior executives vanish? The tens of thousands of employees and contractors? The factories that make Apple products? The thousands and thousands of stores that sell their products? The tens or hundreds of millions of customers that own or are buying Apple products? Would the products vanish? Would any of it vanish anytime soon if Steve Jobs died tomorrow? The answer is: No. The Apple board of directors would name a new CEO and the company would continue. Apple might ultimately fail and vanish after some years due to lack of vision, or drive, or by losing its iconic chief visionary, but it wouldn't vanish immediately. It is also possible that they would benefit from Jobs exiting the scene... it would take time, probably years, to determine.
So, what about Al Qaeda? Now that Bin Laden is dead,... has it vanished? Has Al Qaeda's world-wide leadership vanished? Have the tens of thousands of varied terrorists and insurgents around the world swearing loyalty to Al Qaeda vanished? Have the caches of weapons and cash vanished? Have the tens or hundreds of thousands of people that they trained vanished? Have the hundreds of thousands or millions of active supporters around the world vanished? Have the tens of millions of Muslims that approve of them vanished? The answer is: No. Al Qaeda has named successors to Bin Laden, and they are carrying on in their various plots and campaigns of destruction, murder, and mayhem. In a sense they may even be more lethal now --- Al Qaeda's leadership has vetoed some planned attacks in the past since they projected that it wouldn't meet the Al Qaeda standard for body counts. The new leadership may take what they can get. Of course, if you have enough incidents killing dozens or hundreds at a time, you can still reach a total body count in the thousands. So, yes, Al Qaeda is still dangerous.
It has been understood by anyone interested that this is a problem that will almost certainly last decades - that was being discussed not long after 9/11. Here is something from 2007: Pace Says War on Terror Will Require Decades of Effort. What is the alternative? Give in the their demands? Bin Laden's demands are that the United States convert is Islam, throw away the Constitution, and govern by harsh Sharia law. In case you are wavering about which way to go, here are the top ten reasons this may not be a good thing from the previous link:
10. Islam commands that drinkers and gamblers should be whipped. 9. Islam allows husbands to hit their wives even if the husbands merely fear highhandedness in their wives.
The FBI has been doing this for decades. That notorious threat to public safety, Lucille Ball, had an extensive FBI file.
Maybe they had a reason for looking?
America may have loved Lucy but she made the FBI suspicious when she registered with the Communist Party in 1936 at the insistence of her grandfather. Although the House Committee on Un-American Activities began their investigation in 1953, no evidence was ever shown that she had supported the Communist Party and her registration appeared to be only for the sake of pleasing her grandfather. --- Lucille Ball
I'm reviewing Martin Redish's book, The Logic of Persecution, for the Northwestern Law Review. The book is an interesting look at the so-called "McCarthy era" (which both pre and post-dated McCarthy) from a First Amendment perspective. I'll post a link to the review soon.......
Here are some of the facts I learned from doing research for my review, some of which are just "fun facts," and others of which affected my view of the era in question (if you want footnotes, you will have to wait until I circulate the paper):
(1) The first chairman of the House committee that was the predecessor to HUAC, Samuel Dickstein, was probably a Soviet agent.
(2) Hollywood scriptwriters who were members of the Communist Party (CPUSA) were expected to use their positions to promote Communist doctrine and the Party's agenda, or, if that was not possible, at least to work to exclude anti-Soviet sentiment. (And I already knew, but you might not have, that each of the Hollywood Ten was a member of the CPUSA.)
(3) The first federal prosecution under the Smith Act (later used to prosecute CPUSA leaders) was the prosecution of eighteen leaders of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party 1941. The CPUSA not only applauded this action; Party leaders assisted in the prosecution.
(4) The Smith Act prosecutions of CPUSA leaders were largely a result of the fact that top government officials had recently learned from decoded "Venona cables" between the Soviet Union and its agents and affiliates abroad that the Soviet Union used American Communists to engage in wide scale espionage against the United States. The CPUSA leaders were not prosecuted for espionage and related charges (conspiracy) because that would have involved revealing that the U.S. had deciphered the Soviets' code, and also much of the additional evidence the government had was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Instead, the government resurrected the Smith Act, and proceeded with prosecutions of highly dubious constitutionality (though upheld by the Supreme Court, which implicitly recognized that these prosecutions were "special").
(5) Not only did the CPUSA recruit spies for the Soviet Union through its "secret apparatus," it was prepared to engage in violence on behalf of the Soviet Union.
(6) The Smith Act prosecutions and other government and private anti-Communist activity destroyed the usefulness of the CPUSA to the Soviet Union for espionage.
(7) Many of the questionable tactics used by the government against domestic Communists in the late 1940s and 1950s, including Smith Act prosecutions, were previously used by the government against domestic Nazis and fascists in the late 1930s and early 1940s by the Roosevelt Administration.
(8) Alger Hiss was not prosecuted for spying because the statute of limitations had expired.
(9) During the "Red Decade" of the 1930s, Hollywood Communists ran their own blacklist againist their polit
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The unreasonable part is that some moron can block my consent to such experiments. When did we redefine freedom as "what lawmakers decide".
I think there is overlap with the ethics of selling human organs:
Organ sales: Compromising ethics
The Hidden Cost of Organ Sale
I assume you see nothing wrong with this, nobody in need of help? Three men charged in 'dungeon' castration
Laws establish limits, its been that way since before recorded history.
Once upon a time, ...
"Once upon a time"? What a splendidly evasive way to say, under the Obama Administration.
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
Once again we see Wikileaks essentially in the role of, "If you don't know it, it's news to you". Geeks that wouldn't give a damn about anything in Haiti are finally reading about it in Wikileaks, take whatever information is there with no context, and assume the worst.
Haiti minimum wage protests escalate
Why would the justice dept want to hide who it is asking records from.
If they are in the right.. well.. why hide it.
Because surveillance operations and investigations are usually most effective when they're secret so the subjects of the investigation / surveillance don't change their incriminating behavior, or try to destroy evidence?
Really, is this not obvious? Why don't football players call the play in the open when they line up so the other team can hear? "Left end run on three -- hut - hut - hut - Oh! That had to hurt!"
Revealing investigations and surveillance operations means effectively no more sting operations. That means, guys like this won't be buying their "explosives" from the FBI, but will find someone else who will provide the real thing... much to practically everyone's regret.
FBI thwarts terrorist bombing attempt at Portland holiday tree lighting, authorities say - November 26, 2010
Did he promote euthenasia, or choice of euthenasia?
Both, and much more.....
Computer assisted suicide is still suicide.
Nobody would refer to Dr. Kervorkian as simplistic, although some other adjectives seem to apply.
Kervorkian: The Rube Goldberg of Death
I think you need recalibration.
Inquiry launched as Dutch euthanasia cases surge by 13% in ONE year
Continent Death - Euthanasia in Europe
Porn server, of course!
Because nothing makes an office more productive than large quantities of porn.
On the plus side, it makes evidence gathering easier to settle the sexual harassment lawsuits.
That's why you don't build critical facilities in the floodplain, and are wary of coast lines, volcanoes, and fault lines.
A little thought about truck bombs and other terrorist means would also be nice.
Make sure it is reliable before you get people to rely on it. Make sure both the computer and storage are on UPS and have good surge protection. Ideally you want the server to shutdown before it loses power. Also, make sure you have some sort of backup scheme in place. Tape backup, DVD, whatever, just make sure you can backup the data and restore. It's a really good idea to test your backups from time to time to make sure they can be read. Ideally you will also save your backups either off-site, or at least in a fire safe. Also, check that the server area doesn't get too hot as that can cause problems as well. Make sure you apply current OS patches. Ideally you will also have anti-virus protection. If the office has access to the internet, make sure you have at least a cheap hardware firewall, or better if you can, to protect everyone. Consider physical security. Do you lock the room with the server? Use cables to secure it? Document things in case you need to rebuild it.
Consider information security: does everyone get access to everything?
Besides that, file servers tend to be very handy, even for small offices. Put any sort of shared resources you use on the file server instead of on individual PCs. Things like: document templates, form letters, contact lists, etc.
Beyond that, it really depends on your business doesn't it? I assume you bought Filemaker for a reason. Information sharing must be important somehow. You can use Filemaker as the heart of a lot of business applications. Would an internal web server be useful? Internal mail server? List server?
One more thing, teach people how things are intended to be used.
Help them out - make sure their PCs are properly patched, have anti-virus, and ideally aren't running as administrator.
"Act of War" except when such cyber warfare is directed at Iran by a join Israel/U.S. operation. Then it's just ... uh. Definitely not war
So, your thinking is what? That poor, peaceful Iran is being picked on? That the mean old US and Israel started a war on blameless Iran? Apart from the fact that you are speculating about the source of Stuxnet, the outrage is purely imaginary. If anything, Iran is lucky things aren't worse for it given its reckless, murderous behavior.
Israel Seizes Cargo Ship Carrying Tons of Iranian Weapons Bound For Hamas in Gaza
Hezbollah's stockpile bigger, deadlier
Iran Builds Rockets to Arm Hezbollah, Deter Sanctions (Update2)
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2011
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2010
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2009
List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2008
Iran says can cut energy to Europe, hit enemies (Reuters)
And remember kids, the places outside the prison camps are the "garden spots" of North Korea, with a much better night life, and day life, or any life at all, for that matter.
Defector says something host country wants to hear
Who would of thought such a thing would happen?.
You apparently. Only accurate information is useful. And, of course, I'm sure it would never occur to you that the information would be cross-checked? That's what I figured.....
Persecuting? You’ve got that wrong. Prosecuting is spelled P R O S E C U T I N G.
I guess we'll find out if "Anonymous" is as anonymous as they think they are, if it is truly as chaotic as some people claim. I have my doubts on both fronts.
"Every organization rests upon a mountain of secrets" - Julian Assange
Including Wikileaks, and Assange.
Sadly, while the poster is clearly trolling with his deliberately lopsided history, the US did put well over 100,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps. These camps, while offering better conditions in most respects, bore far too close a resemblance to concentration camps for anyone with a conscience. look it up is you need to know more.
Have you ever heard of the German American Bund? It was one of several organizations of German Americans in the 1930s-40s. It was a significant pro-Nazi force in the United States. If you watch this video, you will think your eyes are tricking you. But yes, that is the United States, and yes, the giant figure you can see in the back of some of the stages is George Washington. Was the Bund potentially dangerous? How could the government not believe it was a possibility? There were a large number of reports of "Fifth Columnists , such as the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps in Czechoslovakia, and the Selbstschutz in Poland that aided the German invaders. There were similar reports out of Norway, Denmark, and other places.
This is Time magazines description of how things looked in 1940 as the US watched country after country fall to Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy and be brutalized in a terrible fashion.
I've heard a report that 60,000 Germans & German Americans were arrested, and apparently at least 10,000 were held in camps. There may have been more. This story doesn't seem to get much attention, and the documents seem to be harder to come by.
As to the Japanese, there were many of them that, like the Germans, also had patriotic organizations tying them to Japan.
From: Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial Ignores Wartime Realities
In these discussions it is common to overlook Sigaba, the American encryption machine that was significantly more secure than Enigma.
Electronic Cipher Machine (ECM) Mark II
Cryptanalysis of the SIGABA --- 3.4 Stepping Maze
The Germans that beat their heads against it referred to it as, "The big machine".
Lets pretend for a moment that you and your neighbor Bob are members of the local Linux / Fireworks / Model Rocketry club, and both share a passion for progressive politics. You are the treasurer of the club, and Bob is the secretary. Both you and Bob are opposed to the Patriot Act, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gitmo, all the usual causes. Then one day the FBI comes to you and servers you a subpoena and a gag order. The subpoena is for records of payments from, and supplies issued to, a certain Abu Ameer, a recent addition to the club who has a special interest and talent for certain types of ... fireworks.... exploding shells, and seems to have a number of friends from somewhere... wherever Abu Ameer calls home. You decide that you need to talk to a lawyer before complying, and he tells you to provide the documents. You don't feel comfortable, so you try to fight it in court. The judge rules against you. So, you provide the documents to the FBI. A month later, you read in the papers that Abu Ameer and 3 other men were arrested for attempting to build a truck bomb that they intended to place at the local mall. Bob, your neighbor, was never contacted by the FBI.
Amazingly enough, you and Bob can speak and protest about exactly the same things! The Patriot Act, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, warrantless wiretaps, secret subpoenas, Gitmo, tax policy, even Abu Ameers arrest. You can write letters to the papers, get people together to protest, and even write your congressmen. You can seek redress in the courts or possibly administratively.
The one thing you can't mention, legally, is the secret investigation for which you were subpoenaed for information, but otherwise aren't a party to. You can't reveal the operation protecting national security.
So, how are your interests actually damaged? Are you claiming a right to expose any national security operation that you become aware of, and thus alerting the targets of the investigation? (Which might cause them to accelerate their plan - they wanted 5 tons of explosives, but will now attack with only 2 tons, or perhaps escape, or simply destroy evidence.) That would seem to me to damage the interests of pretty much all Americans.
Just because the SCOTUS claims that some law is not unconstitutional does not mean that it actually isn't
The SCOTUS doesn't "claim", it decides. If it says it says something is constitutional, it is. Period. That is its function - as the final arbitrator under American law. They might shape existing law in a new case, but that is a new case.
Even historically, SCOTUS overruled its own cases decided in the past (e.g. Plessy v. Ferguson) - and a law cannot be constitutional yesterday and then unconstitutional today, it's either that or the other - so when they rule differently from the past, they acknowledge that old understanding was a mistake.
The SCOTUS rarely directly over-rules itself, although it does happen from time to time. It is much more common for future decisions to shape an existing body of law rather than directly over-rule it. I wouldn't count on this part of the law changing much.
Note that this is not about the border itself. The Feds have extended a 100-mile area from the border inland, and now claims that this is the border, and all powers they were previously granted by the courts at the border (using a sane definition of one) still apply!
Well, actually they designate it as a border zone, and it does make sense even if the territory is rather expansive. I've seen quite a few countries that have the concept of a border zone with special enforcement in law. If I recall correctly, I've seen something like 5-50Km. Although 100 miles might seem excessive, it puts most major port cities (where much of the illegal border related activity occurs) in the US within a border zone, which might be reasonable for some purposes.
That argument might hold more weight if the US behaved as if it's laws stopped at it's borders
That really depends on the offense and circumstances, doesn't it?
By the way, are you similarly put off by various European judges (spain, Belgium, UK) weighing charges against Americans for things they did legally in the United States? That sort of thing happens with some regularity you know.
I don't know.. The whole warrant-less spying of American citizens?
From the article:
He should have taken them to the Inspector General, or Congress.
Sorry, but warrantless wiretaps are OK for at least some national security purposes.
Intelligence Court Upholds Government's Warrantless Surveillance Intercept Power
This has been ruled upon by courts a number of times.
There is no right to private communications with terrorist groups making war on the United States.
The 4th Amendment, for example.
The article contradicts you.
Free the Nuremberg 24!
A presidential pledge broken, thank goodness
The Fourth Amendment is in fine shape, but many people here have mistaken notions about its application..
I hope this is a lesson to everyone regarding temporary suspension of powers. There is NO SUCH THING AS TEMPORARY. Once you give them away they are gone until the next revolution and re-establishment of laws.
I don't think you quite have the hang of how things work in a democracy.
After the Civil War, black Americans were free, but then segregation laws were passed in some states, but they were ultimately struck down. The United States once had a constitutional amendment prohibiting alcohol, and then it was undone as very unpopular by another constitutional amendment. During World War 2, Americans had their spending controlled by ration books for things like food, gasoline, and clothing. That's over. During World War 2, American media and mail was censored by the government. That's over. Until recently, cities and states could place onerous restrictions or prohibitions on the ownership of firearms by law abiding citizens, but that has been struck down.
The Patriot Act was previously amended to address civil rights concerns:
Most Americans are OK with spying on people in direct contact with terrorist organizations, or who are plotting an attack.
Because now that Osama is dead, this abomination is now to protect from mysterious random people....
Lets clarify this a bit, shall we?
Yes, it will help protect us from mysterious people - currently unknown people who are in contact with terrorist groups, as well that people plotting attacks. That is the point after all, isn't it?
Although most people on Slashdot seem to oppose spying on anyone, most Americans are OK with spying on people in direct contact with terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda (organizations trying to kill large numbers of people, not Dennis Kucinich/Ron Paul voters ... unless they happen to be eco-terrorists engaged is actual terrorism).
And maybe you've forgotten, the Patriot Act has been amended in the past to address civil rights concerns.
As to Osama being dead... let's try a thought experiment.....
If Steve Jobs were to die tomorrow,... would Apple computer vanish? Would the board of directors and senior executives vanish? The tens of thousands of employees and contractors? The factories that make Apple products? The thousands and thousands of stores that sell their products? The tens or hundreds of millions of customers that own or are buying Apple products? Would the products vanish? Would any of it vanish anytime soon if Steve Jobs died tomorrow? The answer is: No. The Apple board of directors would name a new CEO and the company would continue. Apple might ultimately fail and vanish after some years due to lack of vision, or drive, or by losing its iconic chief visionary, but it wouldn't vanish immediately. It is also possible that they would benefit from Jobs exiting the scene... it would take time, probably years, to determine.
So, what about Al Qaeda? Now that Bin Laden is dead,... has it vanished? Has Al Qaeda's world-wide leadership vanished? Have the tens of thousands of varied terrorists and insurgents around the world swearing loyalty to Al Qaeda vanished? Have the caches of weapons and cash vanished? Have the tens or hundreds of thousands of people that they trained vanished? Have the hundreds of thousands or millions of active supporters around the world vanished? Have the tens of millions of Muslims that approve of them vanished? The answer is: No. Al Qaeda has named successors to Bin Laden, and they are carrying on in their various plots and campaigns of destruction, murder, and mayhem. In a sense they may even be more lethal now --- Al Qaeda's leadership has vetoed some planned attacks in the past since they projected that it wouldn't meet the Al Qaeda standard for body counts. The new leadership may take what they can get. Of course, if you have enough incidents killing dozens or hundreds at a time, you can still reach a total body count in the thousands. So, yes, Al Qaeda is still dangerous.
It has been understood by anyone interested that this is a problem that will almost certainly last decades - that was being discussed not long after 9/11. Here is something from 2007: Pace Says War on Terror Will Require Decades of Effort. What is the alternative? Give in the their demands? Bin Laden's demands are that the United States convert is Islam, throw away the Constitution, and govern by harsh Sharia law. In case you are wavering about which way to go, here are the top ten reasons this may not be a good thing from the previous link:
The FBI has been doing this for decades. That notorious threat to public safety, Lucille Ball, had an extensive FBI file.
Maybe they had a reason for looking?
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