"I'd rather see a robot get destroyed in an accident than a person killed."
That's one way of looking at it. Another perspective is to consider the 1000s of people struggling financially & working long hours at restaurants and Wal Mart with low pay & no benefits. Think of how much sickness, misery and death is caused by financial stress and poverty? Would you rather see that, or a bunch of well paid people with benefits working jobs with a higher risk of workplace accidents? There are tens of millions of people in the U.S. who would gladly trade their nice safe Starbucks job for a steel mill job.
Besides, automation didn't kill the U.S. steel industry. Idiotic "free trade" deals did. I wonder how the risks in Chinese steel mills compare to the dangerous steel mill jobs we used to have in the U.S.? It would be nice if U.S. based companies & workers at least had the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. i.e. with companies who had the same safety and environmental standards.
Does the free version generate a "Discover Weekly" playlist for you? If so, check out those songs, or next time they offer 3 months of premium for free, try it out and see what they pick. Every Monday you get a list of 30 songs that they've generated based on what you've been listening to. I am freakin' amazed at how well it has been picking songs for me. Acts I've never heard of. The only downer is that I'm finding all these good bands that have come and gone so there's no chance of ever seeing them on tour.
"supporting the idea of every nut job having a gun."
Nobody supports that idea. You are spouting anti-gun hyperbole.
If a person is adjudicated mentally defective by a court, or is involuntarily compelled to seek mental health treatment by a court, they are prohibited from buying firearms. The NRA and most gun rights activists support this. The important element being that the affected person has the right to argue their case before the court.
What gun rights activists oppose is depriving people of their firearms without due process, like allowing VA bureaucrats to ban veterans from gun ownership simply because they have a fiduciary helping them manage their benefits.
"Individual ownership of firearms has only been a constitutional right since 2008"
According to the SCOTUS, it has been an individual Constitutional Right since 1791. Nothing changed. The decision in DC v. Heller was merely the affirmation of a Right which was elaborated in The Second Amendment. The Supreme Court had never been asked to weigh in on the issue previously because it was close to 200 years before government tried to deprive The People of their individual Right. The court doesn't strike down laws which don't exist.
There's zero chance of a Constitutional Amendment to enact gun control. Now that Gorsuch is on the court, it will be decades before there's any chance of a case overturning Heller or McDonald. And hopefully the court agrees to hear Peruta v. California and strikes down another anti-gun law.
"Are we just looking for a set of information (true or not) that supports our preconceived ideas?"
Yes. Everybody is doing that. We all see the world through our own reality tunnel & are seeking information to validate our ideas while discounting anything that might contradict them. It's very easy to spot this in others, but extremely difficult to detect in ourselves. There's no real way to turn it off either. The best we can do is be aware that our minds are operating this way & from time to time, try to see the world through some other person's reality tunnel.
"I keep hearing people repeating the line that 'taxes are legalized theft' which is an absurd notion"
You're right. It's absurd. We should say "taxes are legalized extortion".
The word "theft" means taking something directly from a person without their consent. That's not how government works. In extortion, the rightful owner gives up their property under threat of violence. That's exactly how the government operates.
Government demands that you hand over a certain amount of your personal income. If you refuse, they will send men with guns to attempt to kidnap you and throw you in a cage. If you resist being kidnapped and thrown in a cage, they will use violence against you. That's "extortion" cloaked in a veil of legitimacy.
Note: this bill is about the UW system, not all schools.
How does this bill stop free speech? I don't understand the point about a "school" speaking it's mind. A "school" is an institution that has no "mind" and no fundamental rights. I see no issue with a policy requiring that the schools in the UW system take a neutral position on political issues.
If it's a government funded school, shouldn't everyone be guaranteed equal Rights to free expression on the campus? If a group of students shout down a speaker and/or engage in violent behavior to stop an event entirely, isn't the government complicit in interfering with free speech?
I totally disagree with the idea that a school can stifle the speech of its employees however. An employee of the school, such as a professor, who is a subject matter expert, should be completely free to speak, provided it's clear that he/she does not speak for the institution as a whole. If the bill requires professors to take neutral positions on issues, it's garbage. It would be absolutely ridiculous if professors couldn't write books and papers which touch on political issues.
Most of the report is about Russian "propaganda" efforts. Are we really going to consider public statements made by Russian government officials, stories published on the Russian news agencies RT & Sputnik News (and their spread on social media), television shows broadcast on RT America & other similar efforts as "interference"? If so, then yes, there is "proof" that Russia "interfered" in the U.S. election by publicly criticizing Clinton and indicating a preference for Trump.
There's no "proof" of any of the hacking stuff. Only vague references to methods they used & speculation that it was Russians.
Why bother bradley? If you say any of those things about multiculturalism, immigration or preserving Western culture, you're going to be called a "racist" anyway. And who gives a shit? It's just a word.
People crying "Racism!" are only trying to shut you up and divert the argument. Don't even waste your time with them. As soon as you start arguing about who is & isn't "racist" or why certain ideas might or might not be "racism", you're playing their game. Rather than discussing ideas, you're suddenly on the defensive trying to explain why those ideas are not "racist". Screw that. You have a right to your opinions, and if someone else wants to call it "Racism!" so be it. Just accept the label and it loses its power.
If you believe that the government in Washington DC is "The United States", I can understand why you see it that way. I tend to think that We, The People & The U.S. Constitution count for something.
Look up the oath of office for government employees:
"... I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."
These government employees in the intelligence agencies flagrantly violated their solemn oath to support & bear true allegiance to The Constitution (note, it's allegiance to "The Constitution" not to "The federal government"). Snowden blew the whistle and exposed these violations. Who committed treason and whom exactly did they betray?
It might be infeasible to get an "estimate" like 2,761,400, but how about he gives us an estimate rounded the nearest say, hundred million? Is it 200 million U.S. citizens or 300 million?
"potentially violate the privacy of those whose data had been collected by verifying their identities."
The U.S. Constitution prohibits "unreasonable searches or SEIZURES"(emphasis added). If they have "collected" the data, isn't that just another way of saying they have "seized" the data?
This 47 minute documentary will explain why the people doing all of the real work in the economy struggle under a perpetual burden of debt while bankers, who provide very little of actual value, rake in billions.
The yellow dots theory is interesting, but The Intercept shared a copy with the government, which I presume was a scan or a photocpy of the original. Maybe their scanners & copiers are much better than mine but those yellow dots are really tiny. Would they survive a scan or photcopy intact?
Check out this copy of the search warrant which discusses a different method of how they identified her:
"Government Agency conducted an internal audit to determine who had accessed the intelligence reporting since its publication... determined that six individuals had printed this reporting"
"A further audit of the six individuals' desk computers revealed that WINNER had e-mail contact with the news outlet."
Sounds like they saw a crease in the copy provided by TI which clued them in that it was a printer & identified her from there.
Another slew of misguided comments telling us how the government is going to save us from the evil corporations.
Nationalize the pharmaceutical industry! Invalidate all of their patents! Execute the CEO on national television! Or any other mindless, brute force government "solution".
How can an Epipen in the USA sell for 4X-5X as much as it does in Europe or Canada when it wouldn't cost more than a few dollars to ship one to the USA? In the age of online commerce and air freight, that price difference should not exist. But, thanks to the U.S. federal government, it's illegal to import or re-import an Epipen or any prescription drug. People in the USA are therefore forced, to pay ridiculously inflated prices, and in effect, subsidize prescriptions drugs for the entire rest of the world. Repeal the government ban and those price differences disappear. Other countries might end up paying more, but people in the USA would pay substantially less.
Don't argue that we need more government to address a problem that wouldn't exist if we had less government.
"more guns on the street, the result of which is that more people get killed"
Your link does not demonstrate "more people get killed" because it ignores every other cause of death. People get killed by bludgeoning, strangling, stabbing, poisoning, vehicular homicide, etc. Where's the data showing a causal relationship between firearms ownership and the overall homicide rate? i.e. "more people get[ting] killed"?
Obviously more firearms means more suicides and homicides by people using firearms, but people find ways to commit murder and suicide with or without them. There is no causal relationship.
1.5) If #1 is true, does "Russians" equate to "Russian government"?
Why couldn't it simply be a few Russian citizens with nationalistic motives? This wasn't like Stuxnet where the sophistication of the attack clearly suggested that a nation state was responsible.
" So why the heck are we even having this discussion?"
I wish we were not having it. I agree with your reasoning, but the judge in this case sided with the prosecutors and ruled that the guy had given up his right to privacy via his verbal & written agreement with Best Buy.
A lot of the evidence in this case was suppressed for other reasons. On the specific question of the Geek Squad's search of the unallocated space on the hard drive, the judge ruled that it was a legal search and the information/images could be used as evidence.
I think it's a travesty that the government is allowed to violate the Fourth Amendment by using a 3rd party as a proxy. Unfortunately, there is legal precedent for this type of abuse. In Smith v Maryland the SCOTUS ruled that the individual has no expectation of privacy for data turned over to a 3rd party. Government asked the phone company to install a device to trace Smith's calls without seeking a warrant. The criminal court, appeals court & SCOTUS all ruled that this was legal & the evidence was therefore admissible. There was another terrible decision where the court ruled that government can get your bank records without a warrant, claiming that the records are the property of the bank & not your private papers.
This case seems to contain a new wrinkle because the FBI was paying people to go on fishing expeditions rather than targeting a specific person. I hope the courts will conclude this was an illegal search, but I think that's unlikely.
One of the great flaws in The U.S. Constitution is that government is allowed to be the arbiter of its own power.
"Manufacturing by itself doesn't boost the economy by much. Putting 10,000 people to work building stuff does boost an economy"
Why is the overall economic effect of manufacturing dependent on the number of laborers?
Manufacturing adds value by taking basic materials and turning them into finished products. If you build the same amount of stuff from the same amount of materials, the value-add is the same whether you use 2 workers or 10. The cost of the goods might drop with automation, but that would translate into lower prices for the consumer and/or higher profits for the business. If consumers pay lower prices, they have more wealth available for other things. Higher profits for the business translates into more investment or a payout to shareholders.
The number of laborers involved only determines the distribution of that wealth. You could argue that wage laborers are inclined to spend now while a company or its shareholders might opt to save, but that's just a matter of timing. It is the wealth creation resulting from manufacturing that boosts the overall economy.
When corporations can force people to hand over their wealth under threat of incarceration and/or violence, I'll take your perspective seriously. As much as you might hate Comcast, Monsanto or Koch Industries, they don't send men with guns to your house to kidnap you and throw you in a cage should you refuse to follow their orders.
You also neglect the fact that corporations exist in their current form only because they manipulate government and thus enjoy numerous government-backed special privileges. Eliminate all of the government bailouts, handouts, subsidies, barriers to competition, etc. and corporate power will begin to wane.
"can we please just have Medicare for All already...?"
No. It would cause the system to collapse.
Medicare appears to "work" because it dictates the prices it will pay for any particular service. It certainly works for the people using the program, but the rest of us end up getting screwed because of it. Medical service providers make up for the losses they take on Medicare patients by forcing everyone else to pay more. Insurance companies have some negotiating power however. The prices they pay are much higher than Medicare prices, but nowhere near as bad as what a working uninsured person pays. Those poor folks get billed 5X, 10X, 20X or more than what Medicare pays for the exact same service! I'm sure you're heard the term "Medicare|Medicaid cost shift". All of the privately insured and uninsured people are forced to subsidize Medicare & Medicaid patients. What a brilliant system the government has designed. Shift the heaviest costs onto the working poor and lower middle class, causing hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies. I wouldn't describe that as a system that "works". In any other industry, this practice of price discrimination would be illegal, but government allows it in healthcare because the cost shifting is the only way the system is able to survive. If everyone paid the Medicare/Medicaid dictated prices(what you're suggesting) the providers would go bankrupt. If everyone paid the prices that the working uninsured are charged, Medicare & Medicaid would consume the entire federal budget.
Socialized medicine does not mean "Everything stays the same, except it's free". Keeping the providers in business without breaking the budget can only be done with higher reimbursement rates & strict rationing of services. "Medicare for All" is a pipe dream.
"An unreasonable search is one that is not supported by a warrant."
A warrant "...particularly describing the place to be searched..."
The Fourth Amendment is written in such a way as to preclude a court from issuing any sort of "general" warrant. Searching the records of millions of people or collecting vast amounts of internet traffic is not a "particular" place to be searched.
"It does not matter whether that warrant is valid, only that it exists."
You could argue that an invalid warrant means the NSA personnel were acting in good faith and should thus not be subject to disciplinary action or criminal charge, but it doesn't make their activity legal. Yes, any warrant allegedly permitting this sweeping surveillance activity would be central to the case.
We need to bring these important claims to court because the courts have never issued a ruling on the Constitutionality of the NSA surveillance programs. Thus far, the government has successfully argued that the programs cannot be challenged in court because the plaintiffs don't have legal standing. Sounds like that argument didn't work this time.
Are the banks & CC companies sharing all of their transaction data with Google?
"youâ(TM)re leaving tracks out in the physical world â" not only the location history of your phone, but also the trail of payments you leave behind you if you pay with a credit card, debit card..."
Yes, but how does Google acquire the data from the credit & debit cards to match up with the data you give them by using your smart phone? The article isn't clear on that point. Google might know you saw the ad & might know that you went to a particular location. If the store shares sales data, Google might also know that *someone* bought a particular product at a particular place & time. Where does the card data come into the picture? The article mentions store "loyalty programs" which of course could be tied to a particular person. Do those programs make you provide your cell phone # as well? If not, how can those purchases be tied to your phone?
Slashdot Mirror
"I'd rather see a robot get destroyed in an accident than a person killed."
That's one way of looking at it. Another perspective is to consider the 1000s of people struggling financially & working long hours at restaurants and Wal Mart with low pay & no benefits. Think of how much sickness, misery and death is caused by financial stress and poverty? Would you rather see that, or a bunch of well paid people with benefits working jobs with a higher risk of workplace accidents? There are tens of millions of people in the U.S. who would gladly trade their nice safe Starbucks job for a steel mill job.
Besides, automation didn't kill the U.S. steel industry. Idiotic "free trade" deals did. I wonder how the risks in Chinese steel mills compare to the dangerous steel mill jobs we used to have in the U.S.? It would be nice if U.S. based companies & workers at least had the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. i.e. with companies who had the same safety and environmental standards.
Does the free version generate a "Discover Weekly" playlist for you? If so, check out those songs, or next time they offer 3 months of premium for free, try it out and see what they pick.
Every Monday you get a list of 30 songs that they've generated based on what you've been listening to. I am freakin' amazed at how well it has been picking songs for me. Acts I've never heard of. The only downer is that I'm finding all these good bands that have come and gone so there's no chance of ever seeing them on tour.
The crew of Discovery would have survived if HAL had been capable of lying without remorse.
"supporting the idea of every nut job having a gun."
Nobody supports that idea. You are spouting anti-gun hyperbole.
If a person is adjudicated mentally defective by a court, or is involuntarily compelled to seek mental health treatment by a court, they are prohibited from buying firearms. The NRA and most gun rights activists support this. The important element being that the affected person has the right to argue their case before the court.
What gun rights activists oppose is depriving people of their firearms without due process, like allowing VA bureaucrats to ban veterans from gun ownership simply because they have a fiduciary helping them manage their benefits.
"Individual ownership of firearms has only been a constitutional right since 2008"
According to the SCOTUS, it has been an individual Constitutional Right since 1791. Nothing changed. The decision in DC v. Heller was merely the affirmation of a Right which was elaborated in The Second Amendment. The Supreme Court had never been asked to weigh in on the issue previously because it was close to 200 years before government tried to deprive The People of their individual Right. The court doesn't strike down laws which don't exist.
There's zero chance of a Constitutional Amendment to enact gun control. Now that Gorsuch is on the court, it will be decades before there's any chance of a case overturning Heller or McDonald. And hopefully the court agrees to hear Peruta v. California and strikes down another anti-gun law.
"Are we just looking for a set of information (true or not) that supports our preconceived ideas?"
Yes. Everybody is doing that. We all see the world through our own reality tunnel & are seeking information to validate our ideas while discounting anything that might contradict them. It's very easy to spot this in others, but extremely difficult to detect in ourselves. There's no real way to turn it off either. The best we can do is be aware that our minds are operating this way & from time to time, try to see the world through some other person's reality tunnel.
"I keep hearing people repeating the line that 'taxes are legalized theft' which is an absurd notion"
You're right. It's absurd. We should say "taxes are legalized extortion".
The word "theft" means taking something directly from a person without their consent. That's not how government works. In extortion, the rightful owner gives up their property under threat of violence. That's exactly how the government operates.
Government demands that you hand over a certain amount of your personal income. If you refuse, they will send men with guns to attempt to kidnap you and throw you in a cage. If you resist being kidnapped and thrown in a cage, they will use violence against you. That's "extortion" cloaked in a veil of legitimacy.
Note: this bill is about the UW system, not all schools.
How does this bill stop free speech? I don't understand the point about a "school" speaking it's mind. A "school" is an institution that has no "mind" and no fundamental rights. I see no issue with a policy requiring that the schools in the UW system take a neutral position on political issues.
If it's a government funded school, shouldn't everyone be guaranteed equal Rights to free expression on the campus? If a group of students shout down a speaker and/or engage in violent behavior to stop an event entirely, isn't the government complicit in interfering with free speech?
I totally disagree with the idea that a school can stifle the speech of its employees however. An employee of the school, such as a professor, who is a subject matter expert, should be completely free to speak, provided it's clear that he/she does not speak for the institution as a whole. If the bill requires professors to take neutral positions on issues, it's garbage. It would be absolutely ridiculous if professors couldn't write books and papers which touch on political issues.
Most of the report is about Russian "propaganda" efforts. Are we really going to consider public statements made by Russian government officials, stories published on the Russian news agencies RT & Sputnik News (and their spread on social media), television shows broadcast on RT America & other similar efforts as "interference"? If so, then yes, there is "proof" that Russia "interfered" in the U.S. election by publicly criticizing Clinton and indicating a preference for Trump.
There's no "proof" of any of the hacking stuff. Only vague references to methods they used & speculation that it was Russians.
Why bother bradley? If you say any of those things about multiculturalism, immigration or preserving Western culture, you're going to be called a "racist" anyway. And who gives a shit? It's just a word.
People crying "Racism!" are only trying to shut you up and divert the argument. Don't even waste your time with them. As soon as you start arguing about who is & isn't "racist" or why certain ideas might or might not be "racism", you're playing their game. Rather than discussing ideas, you're suddenly on the defensive trying to explain why those ideas are not "racist". Screw that. You have a right to your opinions, and if someone else wants to call it "Racism!" so be it. Just accept the label and it loses its power.
If you believe that the government in Washington DC is "The United States", I can understand why you see it that way. I tend to think that We, The People & The U.S. Constitution count for something.
Look up the oath of office for government employees:
"... I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."
These government employees in the intelligence agencies flagrantly violated their solemn oath to support & bear true allegiance to The Constitution (note, it's allegiance to "The Constitution" not to "The federal government"). Snowden blew the whistle and exposed these violations. Who committed treason and whom exactly did they betray?
Edward Snowden is our greatest living patriot.
It might be infeasible to get an "estimate" like 2,761,400, but how about he gives us an estimate rounded the nearest say, hundred million? Is it 200 million U.S. citizens or 300 million?
"potentially violate the privacy of those whose data had been collected by verifying their identities."
The U.S. Constitution prohibits "unreasonable searches or SEIZURES"(emphasis added). If they have "collected" the data, isn't that just another way of saying they have "seized" the data?
Damn, I meant to include the link to the full video. Money as Debt"
This 47 minute documentary will explain why the people doing all of the real work in the economy struggle under a perpetual burden of debt while bankers, who provide very little of actual value, rake in billions.
The yellow dots theory is interesting, but The Intercept shared a copy with the government, which I presume was a scan or a photocpy of the original. Maybe their scanners & copiers are much better than mine but those yellow dots are really tiny. Would they survive a scan or photcopy intact?
Check out this copy of the search warrant which discusses a different method of how they identified her:
https://d3vv6lp55qjaqc.cloudfr...
Starting on page 11, they describe:
"Government Agency conducted an internal audit to determine who had accessed the intelligence reporting since its publication ... determined that six individuals had printed this reporting"
"A further audit of the six individuals' desk computers revealed that WINNER had e-mail contact with the news outlet."
Sounds like they saw a crease in the copy provided by TI which clued them in that it was a printer & identified her from there.
Another slew of misguided comments telling us how the government is going to save us from the evil corporations.
Nationalize the pharmaceutical industry!
Invalidate all of their patents!
Execute the CEO on national television!
Or any other mindless, brute force government "solution".
How can an Epipen in the USA sell for 4X-5X as much as it does in Europe or Canada when it wouldn't cost more than a few dollars to ship one to the USA? In the age of online commerce and air freight, that price difference should not exist. But, thanks to the U.S. federal government, it's illegal to import or re-import an Epipen or any prescription drug. People in the USA are therefore forced, to pay ridiculously inflated prices, and in effect, subsidize prescriptions drugs for the entire rest of the world. Repeal the government ban and those price differences disappear. Other countries might end up paying more, but people in the USA would pay substantially less.
Don't argue that we need more government to address a problem that wouldn't exist if we had less government.
"more guns on the street, the result of which is that more people get killed"
Your link does not demonstrate "more people get killed" because it ignores every other cause of death. People get killed by bludgeoning, strangling, stabbing, poisoning, vehicular homicide, etc. Where's the data showing a causal relationship between firearms ownership and the overall homicide rate? i.e. "more people get[ting] killed"?
Roughly 2/3 of those deaths in the USA are suicides. If firearms ownership results in more deaths, why is the USA #48 in a list of countries by suicide rate?
Obviously more firearms means more suicides and homicides by people using firearms, but people find ways to commit murder and suicide with or without them. There is no causal relationship.
Actually 3 questions.
1.5) If #1 is true, does "Russians" equate to "Russian government"?
Why couldn't it simply be a few Russian citizens with nationalistic motives? This wasn't like Stuxnet where the sophistication of the attack clearly suggested that a nation state was responsible.
" So why the heck are we even having this discussion?"
I wish we were not having it. I agree with your reasoning, but the judge in this case sided with the prosecutors and ruled that the guy had given up his right to privacy via his verbal & written agreement with Best Buy.
A lot of the evidence in this case was suppressed for other reasons. On the specific question of the Geek Squad's search of the unallocated space on the hard drive, the judge ruled that it was a legal search and the information/images could be used as evidence.
I think it's a travesty that the government is allowed to violate the Fourth Amendment by using a 3rd party as a proxy. Unfortunately, there is legal precedent for this type of abuse. In Smith v Maryland the SCOTUS ruled that the individual has no expectation of privacy for data turned over to a 3rd party. Government asked the phone company to install a device to trace Smith's calls without seeking a warrant. The criminal court, appeals court & SCOTUS all ruled that this was legal & the evidence was therefore admissible. There was another terrible decision where the court ruled that government can get your bank records without a warrant, claiming that the records are the property of the bank & not your private papers.
This case seems to contain a new wrinkle because the FBI was paying people to go on fishing expeditions rather than targeting a specific person. I hope the courts will conclude this was an illegal search, but I think that's unlikely.
One of the great flaws in The U.S. Constitution is that government is allowed to be the arbiter of its own power.
"Manufacturing by itself doesn't boost the economy by much. Putting 10,000 people to work building stuff does boost an economy"
Why is the overall economic effect of manufacturing dependent on the number of laborers?
Manufacturing adds value by taking basic materials and turning them into finished products. If you build the same amount of stuff from the same amount of materials, the value-add is the same whether you use 2 workers or 10. The cost of the goods might drop with automation, but that would translate into lower prices for the consumer and/or higher profits for the business. If consumers pay lower prices, they have more wealth available for other things. Higher profits for the business translates into more investment or a payout to shareholders.
The number of laborers involved only determines the distribution of that wealth. You could argue that wage laborers are inclined to spend now while a company or its shareholders might opt to save, but that's just a matter of timing. It is the wealth creation resulting from manufacturing that boosts the overall economy.
When corporations can force people to hand over their wealth under threat of incarceration and/or violence, I'll take your perspective seriously. As much as you might hate Comcast, Monsanto or Koch Industries, they don't send men with guns to your house to kidnap you and throw you in a cage should you refuse to follow their orders.
You also neglect the fact that corporations exist in their current form only because they manipulate government and thus enjoy numerous government-backed special privileges. Eliminate all of the government bailouts, handouts, subsidies, barriers to competition, etc. and corporate power will begin to wane.
"can we please just have Medicare for All already ...?"
No. It would cause the system to collapse.
Medicare appears to "work" because it dictates the prices it will pay for any particular service. It certainly works for the people using the program, but the rest of us end up getting screwed because of it. Medical service providers make up for the losses they take on Medicare patients by forcing everyone else to pay more. Insurance companies have some negotiating power however. The prices they pay are much higher than Medicare prices, but nowhere near as bad as what a working uninsured person pays. Those poor folks get billed 5X, 10X, 20X or more than what Medicare pays for the exact same service! I'm sure you're heard the term "Medicare|Medicaid cost shift". All of the privately insured and uninsured people are forced to subsidize Medicare & Medicaid patients. What a brilliant system the government has designed. Shift the heaviest costs onto the working poor and lower middle class, causing hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies. I wouldn't describe that as a system that "works". In any other industry, this practice of price discrimination would be illegal, but government allows it in healthcare because the cost shifting is the only way the system is able to survive. If everyone paid the Medicare/Medicaid dictated prices(what you're suggesting) the providers would go bankrupt. If everyone paid the prices that the working uninsured are charged, Medicare & Medicaid would consume the entire federal budget.
Socialized medicine does not mean "Everything stays the same, except it's free". Keeping the providers in business without breaking the budget can only be done with higher reimbursement rates & strict rationing of services. "Medicare for All" is a pipe dream.
"An unreasonable search is one that is not supported by a warrant."
A warrant "...particularly describing the place to be searched..."
The Fourth Amendment is written in such a way as to preclude a court from issuing any sort of "general" warrant. Searching the records of millions of people or collecting vast amounts of internet traffic is not a "particular" place to be searched.
"It does not matter whether that warrant is valid, only that it exists."
You could argue that an invalid warrant means the NSA personnel were acting in good faith and should thus not be subject to disciplinary action or criminal charge, but it doesn't make their activity legal. Yes, any warrant allegedly permitting this sweeping surveillance activity would be central to the case.
We need to bring these important claims to court because the courts have never issued a ruling on the Constitutionality of the NSA surveillance programs. Thus far, the government has successfully argued that the programs cannot be challenged in court because the plaintiffs don't have legal standing. Sounds like that argument didn't work this time.
Are the banks & CC companies sharing all of their transaction data with Google?
"youâ(TM)re leaving tracks out in the physical world â" not only the location history of your phone, but also the trail of payments you leave behind you if you pay with a credit card, debit card..."
Yes, but how does Google acquire the data from the credit & debit cards to match up with the data you give them by using your smart phone? The article isn't clear on that point. Google might know you saw the ad & might know that you went to a particular location. If the store shares sales data, Google might also know that *someone* bought a particular product at a particular place & time. Where does the card data come into the picture?
The article mentions store "loyalty programs" which of course could be tied to a particular person. Do those programs make you provide your cell phone # as well? If not, how can those purchases be tied to your phone?