Suppose that the article is correct and some high-power trader accidentally placed an order 1000X the size of the intended order.
The mere fact that there is ANYONE in this market with this sort of power is all the evidence I need to convince me that the stock market is a rigged game and the big financial firms have the deck stacked in their favor. If their advantage was merely a result of sophisticated research and analysis and they played the game according to the same rules as everyone else, more power to them. When they can game the market with high frequency trades and cause wild price swings with a single keystroke however, they're just preying on the small investors who can't pull the same stunts.
If someone can do this "accidentally", then they could also "deliberately" skim off profits from anyone with stop-losses in place. I cringe to think of what happened to some small traders who might have had margin purchases in their E-Trade accounts and were auto-liquidated to meet margin requirements. Seems like the big fish could also game the options market.
" . . . in a matter of minutes the market had recovered . .."
Yes, but think of the people in the following situations:
1. Had stop-losses in place 2. Got caught on the wrong side of "put" options at the wrong time 3. Had margin requirements and were automatically liquidated from their positions to meet those requirements
"A year ago or so there were students who wanted to hold a speech on how easily they hacked some transportation company's bus/subway tickets."
It was MIT students and the MA Transit Authority. They weren't exactly "buried" in legal threats. A judge just issued a court order telling them not to discuss the vulnerabilities they had discovered. Not sure what ultimately happened.
"... just say the magic words: child porn, terrorism, Muhammad, anorexia, extreme porn..."
Don't forget "OMG! RACISM!"
"Unfortunate schmucks like me who actually took these principles to heart in their formative years then get lumped with heaps of shit for daring to mention them out in the open"
I can appreciate that. Thanks for sticking to your values and standing up for what's right. It's the dilemma of principled civil liberties advocates to be in the position of defending what is often the most vile and revolting content. Nobody wants to ban innocuous speech that doesn't offend anyone. It's always "hate speech", anything pornographic, jihadist (I hadn't heard about attempts to ban discussion of anorexia. I'll check it out) etc. etc. that people want to ban. Defending the right of people to express things which should "obviously" be prohibited by any decent moral standard invariably makes one look like they're defending the content as opposed to the right of free expression. Tough position to be in, but I'm a true believer.
Interesting philosophical argument about market failures leading to sub-optimal outcomes. Unfortunately, with all of the fraud and corruption in Washington D.C. and their utter and complete disregard for the rule of law, it doesn't matter what laws we have on the books. I agree with a lot of what you say in principle. It's just unfortunate that our government is fundamentally corrupt and can't be trusted to create and enforce regulations on netwrok neutrality that are in the best interests of the citizens of the U.S.
A real regulator that was interested in serving the public "might" alleviate the market failure, but such a thing doesn't exist in our gangster government. Given the choice, I'd rather have a profit-driven Tyrannosaurus Rex of a corporation with whom I am free to do business, or not do business than a government who robs me at gunpoint and uses my wealth to enrich themselves and a few well connected elites.
Just like a certain law enforcement agency where middle management can't spare the time to look into a report from one of their field agents about guys with Arabic-sounding names that want to learn how to fly airplanes but aren't interested in "How to Land 101". BUT, we need the patriot act to keep us safe.
Yeah. Recall however that the it was over 2 years (72-74) from the time of the break-in at the Watergate hotel until Nixon was impeached. Then, it wasn't until 1975 and 1976 when the Church committee did a serious investigation of the history of abuses by the intelligence community. I remain hopeful that at some point the entire truth will be revealed. My hope has been diminished by the fact that the current president seems content to simply "move on" and forget the criminal activities of the prior administration, but it's not too late.
The FISA law was created in the wake of civil liberties abuses under the Johnson and Nixon administrations. It set up the secret FISA court so that the executive branch could not use "national security" as an excuse to bypass judicial oversight when conducting surveillance. The standards were very low to begin with, but the essential point is the "checks and balances" provision where at least SOMEONE (even if it's a secretive panel of judges) other than the executive branch knows what's going on.
A critical element of the LAW that's being overlooked here is that it established civil AND criminal penalties for violations. If the judge has ruled that there are civil liabilities, then it's obvious that someone broke the law. We now need to see criminal investigations, arrests and prosecutions. What's the point of having a regulatory framework governing the behavior of Federal employees when there are no consequences for violating the regulations? From the intelligence community to the financial regulatory agencies to the legislature and president himself, this government has exhibited an utter and complete disregard for the rule of law. Nixon said "If the president does it, then it's not a crime". Now it seems like "If a government employee does it, it's not a crime".
I'm in the US, I pay income tax. From this tax, some of it goes to paying for bank bailouts, illegal and un-Constitutional wars, maintenance of a military empire encompassing 700+ bases in over 100 countries, agricultural subsidies, hundreds of thousands of Federal bureaucrats with salaries and benefits that I and most of my fellow citizens can only dream of . . . etc. etc.
All the money goes in to one big pot to help a few politically well connected elites. Even with all of the taxes, I gave 1% of my 2009 gross income to causes such as the Vermont Audobon society, Democracy Now, Center for Constitutional Rights, the local food shelf, state sheriff's association, my alma-mater, etc. I spent another 2% of my gross income on political activism to help try to fix the aforementioned.
Our Federal government is broken - it is highly inefficient and someone somewhere is profiting too much. Allowing them to accumulate even more power to "fix" some problem in our society is completely idiotic.
You're a young single person with no dependents, living in an apartment, working a crappy job for $12 an hour with no benefits, and getting screwed by every tax in the book. You earn too much (or have too much pride) to get Medicaid benefits, and if you do get sick, you pay the absolute highest cost for any particular procedure.
Great system of incentives the government has set up. I can't wait for the next bureaucratic fiasco.
"In a hilarious twist, most of the people who are saying that it's oppression and taking away our rights were also fully supportive of the Patriot Act. . .."
I'm skeptical of "Most", but I know exactly what you mean. However, I don't see anything hilarious about it. In fact, it totally SUCKS for people that are principled civil liberties activists. The obvious corollary to your statement is to consider the people who were opposed to the PA, military commissions, etc. during the Bush years, but now stand mute while the policy of indefinite detentions persists, the Patriot Act is renewed and the government tries to force private citizens to buy things from favored businesses.
I got all that S#!T about being un-PATRIOTic when our liberties were being trashed with the whole warrantless surveillance, PA, military commissions stuff. Now I have to listen to a load of garbage about how I don't care about the poor uninsured people while the latest Federal power grab is being forced down our throats.
The only bright spot is that a small number of the people you mentioned are now beginning to understand that unchecked executive power might not be such a good idea, and a few people who thought that we'd see a change in policy wrt civil liberties abuses under the new administration are realizing that both parties fully support the erosion of individual freedom and expansion of Federal power.
$10 million? LOL. Have you ever heard of the concept of "token resistance"? Do you honestly think that if there was a piece of legislation that actually threatened the tens of BILLIONS in profits in the insurance industry, it would draw such a relatively impotent response? If this bill was going to hurt the insurance industry, you would have seen a tsunami of opposition.
Consider the fact that the bill FORCES every single U.S. citizen to buy insurance from private insurance companies, yet does nothing to open up competition in the insurance industry. By what mechanism is forcing people to buy something in a market with no competition supposed to reduce the profits of the suppliers? This legislation also enshrines the whole concept of having a "health insurance" middle-man, making any attempt to actually bring about a genuine, paradigm-shifting "reform" basically impossible.
There's nothing wrong with me. I fear that you've allowed your good intentions to cloud your rationality, and that you're willing to accept a 2700 page monstrosity full of corporate welfare, further empowerment of the federal government, and further erosion of the civil liberties of the average American citizen, just because the title page reads "Health Care Reform".
If you think that the big insurance companies are against this bill, you are wrong. The high profile rate increases were just a big show to demonstrate how "urgent" it was that we pass "reform". They're rubbing their hands with glee this morning at the prospect of millions of new customers in a captive market. Watch their stock prices over the next few months.
With regard to Medicare, the problem isn't "efficiency", it's "insolvency". I don't understand why so many people can't grasp the problems with Medicare and Social Security. Is a "feel good" emotional response so overpowering that it can delude the rational brain? These programs were solvent when you had a massive working age population supporting a small population of elderly people. Now that we are facing a dwindling population of working age people and stagnant real wages, with a growing population of elderly people, it's clear that the programs are not sustainable. The alleged "surpluses" that built up during the careers of the baby boom generation are vastly insufficient to covver the future liabilities. Without this population "bubble" it would have been clear many decades ago that you can't have a program where people take out more than they put in.
These programs have been touted for years as a "success story" for big government. I don't wish suffering on our country, but, like a child who sticks a hand into the fire, I hope that the inevitable pain of this lesson will make a multi-generational impression on the American psyche and remind us that big government is a failed institution which has never worked, and can never work.
". . . a gun in the home is 21 times more likely to injure a family member than protect the home from intruders."
BULL-$#1T!
If he spoke those words exactly as written in the article, it's a flat out lie. More than likely, Helmke quoted a real statistic and the writer sort of "accidentally" twisted it to achieve the desired effect.
A true statement is: "A gun in the home is much more likely to be used to KILL someone living in the home than to be used to KILL an intruder." The anti-gun crowd is more than willing to proliferate this stat and then let people like this writer blatantly mis-quote and misinterpret it to achieve the desired effect. I've seen/heard statements like the one made in this article at least 100 times from various sources. Such statements are clearly based on the aformentioned fact, but they're almost always inaccurate.
Even when quoted accurately, the statistic is totally misleading because the number of cases involving the death of a member of the household includes suicides, justifiable homicides (e.g. an abused spouse acting in self defense) and murders in addition to accidents.
Furthermore, in the vast majority of defensive firearms uses, in the home or otherwise, no shot is ever fired. When a shot IS fired, there are obviously plenty of "misses" and numerous incidents in which the criminal is merely wounded.
Let's be absolutely clear in our definition of rights:
"EU adopted an internet freedom provision, stating that any measures taken by member states that may affect citizen's access to or use of the internet "must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens"
Internet access = "a human right" meaning that the state cannot infringe upon the ability of citizens, through their own volition, to access information via the Internet? A fine idea.
Internet access = "a human right" implying that the state needs to buy hardware, software and bandwidth for everyone? Bu||$#!t
"And yet another person claiming prison is a deterant. It's NOT. No criminal thinks they are going to get caught. It doesn't deter anything."
If a criminal is in prison, they are effectively prevented from committing further crimes, except maybe against their fellow convincts. Keeping habitual offenders away from the civilian population is a pretty good deterrant.
"Nobody can do that UNLESSS there is a cour order. It is the same as with your browsing habbits, your phonenumbers you called, the books you take out of the library and the money you spend with your credit card."
Your post states that a COURT ORDER is needed to look at these things, but then you reference the Patriot Act in your sig? In addition to the gag order provision you refer to, one of the most hideous elements of the PA was the "National Security Letter".
"Through NSLs the FBI can... obtain sensitive information such as the web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website."
The link shows details about several specific cases in which the NSLs (which do NOT require judicial approval) were used to obtain exactly the sort of information you're describing. In 2001, our civil liberties took a 200 year leap backward and we returned to the days when cops could write their own search warrants with no judicial oversight.
Aside: Our fearless leaders recently found the noble spirit of bipartisanship in renewing several parts of the Patriot Act which were set to expire on Feb 28. The house version was buried in a bill related to Medicare reimbursement, the Senate approved it on a voice vote, and the President signed it. More hope and change.
"When I am aware of a crime happening, I have to stop it if it is in my power (without endangering me or anyone else) or call the police. Not doing either would make me an accomplice."
Not true. If you have absolutely no relationship with either the criminal or the victim, you have no legal responsibility to stop or report the crime. Some cases in which you can be held responsible for the criminal acts of a third party are:
1. When you're an accessory, helping to plan or cover up the crime, fence the stolen loot, pay the hitman, launder the money or whatever.
2. If you have an established relationship with the perpetrator e.g. If one of your employees is engaged in behavior to defraud your suppliers or customers.
3. You are responsible for the well being of the victim. i.e. you can't stand by and watch while someone commits a crime against one of your children.
People watch violent crimes happen all the time, and they don't get arrested for not reporting it. As far as computer crime is concerned, they have a hard enough time tracking down the actual perpetrators. It's absurd to think that you, as a private citizen are somehow responsible for shutting down or reporting a malware server, and even if some such ridiculous statute existed, it would be impossible to pursue any sort of civil or criminal remedies. Can you imagine being charged with "Failure to report a botnet server"? LOL
"Mariposa was disabled in December 2009 when a working group of volunteers, some of which were security software vendors, managed to take over the 'command and control' servers that co-ordinate the network."
What gives these bloody do-gooders the authority to "take over" other people's servers? Why couldn't this be an excuse for all sorts of network intrusions? "Oh, I thought this server was hosting malware or controlling a botnet, so I took it over with altruistic intentions". From the story a few days ago, MS went to court in order to get Waledac shut down. Seems like things could get tricky with jurisdictional issues as well. Maybe the U.S. government should issue some letters of marque so that private citizens could "attack" foreign malware servers?
Slashdot Mirror
Suppose that the article is correct and some high-power trader accidentally placed an order 1000X the size of the intended order.
The mere fact that there is ANYONE in this market with this sort of power is all the evidence I need to convince me that the stock market is a rigged game and the big financial firms have the deck stacked in their favor. If their advantage was merely a result of sophisticated research and analysis and they played the game according to the same rules as everyone else, more power to them. When they can game the market with high frequency trades and cause wild price swings with a single keystroke however, they're just preying on the small investors who can't pull the same stunts.
If someone can do this "accidentally", then they could also "deliberately" skim off profits from anyone with stop-losses in place. I cringe to think of what happened to some small traders who might have had margin purchases in their E-Trade accounts and were auto-liquidated to meet margin requirements. Seems like the big fish could also game the options market.
" . . . in a matter of minutes the market had recovered . . ."
Yes, but think of the people in the following situations:
1. Had stop-losses in place
2. Got caught on the wrong side of "put" options at the wrong time
3. Had margin requirements and were automatically liquidated from their positions to meet those requirements
This whole thing stinks.
)*(&^%#! cut and paste. Ignore the previous link about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sorry.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/vulnerabilities/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210002185
"A year ago or so there were students who wanted to hold a speech on how easily they hacked some transportation company's bus/subway tickets."
It was MIT students and the MA Transit Authority. They weren't exactly "buried" in legal threats. A judge just issued a court order telling them not to discuss the vulnerabilities they had discovered. Not sure what ultimately happened.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72ed83e0-58ac-11df-a0c9-00144feab49a.html
+1 Insightful
"... just say the magic words: child porn, terrorism, Muhammad, anorexia, extreme porn ..."
Don't forget "OMG! RACISM!"
"Unfortunate schmucks like me who actually took these principles to heart in their formative years then get lumped with heaps of shit for daring to mention them out in the open"
I can appreciate that. Thanks for sticking to your values and standing up for what's right. It's the dilemma of principled civil liberties advocates to be in the position of defending what is often the most vile and revolting content. Nobody wants to ban innocuous speech that doesn't offend anyone. It's always "hate speech", anything pornographic, jihadist (I hadn't heard about attempts to ban discussion of anorexia. I'll check it out) etc. etc. that people want to ban. Defending the right of people to express things which should "obviously" be prohibited by any decent moral standard invariably makes one look like they're defending the content as opposed to the right of free expression. Tough position to be in, but I'm a true believer.
"Nothing to see here folks. Move along."
Agreed. Call it the Alt-F9 conference.
Finish This!
Burn the heretic. Kill the mutant. Purge the unclean.
Interesting philosophical argument about market failures leading to sub-optimal outcomes. Unfortunately, with all of the fraud and corruption in Washington D.C. and their utter and complete disregard for the rule of law, it doesn't matter what laws we have on the books. I agree with a lot of what you say in principle. It's just unfortunate that our government is fundamentally corrupt and can't be trusted to create and enforce regulations on netwrok neutrality that are in the best interests of the citizens of the U.S.
A real regulator that was interested in serving the public "might" alleviate the market failure, but such a thing doesn't exist in our gangster government. Given the choice, I'd rather have a profit-driven Tyrannosaurus Rex of a corporation with whom I am free to do business, or not do business than a government who robs me at gunpoint and uses my wealth to enrich themselves and a few well connected elites.
Exactly.
Just like a certain law enforcement agency where middle management can't spare the time to look into a report from one of their field agents about guys with Arabic-sounding names that want to learn how to fly airplanes but aren't interested in "How to Land 101". BUT, we need the patriot act to keep us safe.
"A late victory is still a victory I guess."
Yeah. Recall however that the it was over 2 years (72-74) from the time of the break-in at the Watergate hotel until Nixon was impeached. Then, it wasn't until 1975 and 1976 when the Church committee did a serious investigation of the history of abuses by the intelligence community. I remain hopeful that at some point the entire truth will be revealed. My hope has been diminished by the fact that the current president seems content to simply "move on" and forget the criminal activities of the prior administration, but it's not too late.
The FISA law was created in the wake of civil liberties abuses under the Johnson and Nixon administrations. It set up the secret FISA court so that the executive branch could not use "national security" as an excuse to bypass judicial oversight when conducting surveillance. The standards were very low to begin with, but the essential point is the "checks and balances" provision where at least SOMEONE (even if it's a secretive panel of judges) other than the executive branch knows what's going on.
A critical element of the LAW that's being overlooked here is that it established civil AND criminal penalties for violations. If the judge has ruled that there are civil liabilities, then it's obvious that someone broke the law. We now need to see criminal investigations, arrests and prosecutions. What's the point of having a regulatory framework governing the behavior of Federal employees when there are no consequences for violating the regulations? From the intelligence community to the financial regulatory agencies to the legislature and president himself, this government has exhibited an utter and complete disregard for the rule of law. Nixon said "If the president does it, then it's not a crime". Now it seems like "If a government employee does it, it's not a crime".
I'm in the US, I pay income tax. From this tax, some of it goes to paying for bank bailouts, illegal and un-Constitutional wars, maintenance of a military empire encompassing 700+ bases in over 100 countries, agricultural subsidies, hundreds of thousands of Federal bureaucrats with salaries and benefits that I and most of my fellow citizens can only dream of . . . etc. etc.
All the money goes in to one big pot to help a few politically well connected elites. Even with all of the taxes, I gave 1% of my 2009 gross income to causes such as the Vermont Audobon society, Democracy Now, Center for Constitutional Rights, the local food shelf, state sheriff's association, my alma-mater, etc. I spent another 2% of my gross income on political activism to help try to fix the aforementioned.
Our Federal government is broken - it is highly inefficient and someone somewhere is profiting too much. Allowing them to accumulate even more power to "fix" some problem in our society is completely idiotic.
Preventative care.
> healthy diet
> regular exercise
> minimal usage of drugs, alcohol and tobacco
> brushing and flossing of teeth
So TRUE!
You're a young single person with no dependents, living in an apartment, working a crappy job for $12 an hour with no benefits, and getting screwed by every tax in the book. You earn too much (or have too much pride) to get Medicaid benefits, and if you do get sick, you pay the absolute highest cost for any particular procedure.
Great system of incentives the government has set up. I can't wait for the next bureaucratic fiasco.
"In a hilarious twist, most of the people who are saying that it's oppression and taking away our rights were also fully supportive of the Patriot Act. . . ."
I'm skeptical of "Most", but I know exactly what you mean. However, I don't see anything hilarious about it. In fact, it totally SUCKS for people that are principled civil liberties activists. The obvious corollary to your statement is to consider the people who were opposed to the PA, military commissions, etc. during the Bush years, but now stand mute while the policy of indefinite detentions persists, the Patriot Act is renewed and the government tries to force private citizens to buy things from favored businesses.
I got all that S#!T about being un-PATRIOTic when our liberties were being trashed with the whole warrantless surveillance, PA, military commissions stuff. Now I have to listen to a load of garbage about how I don't care about the poor uninsured people while the latest Federal power grab is being forced down our throats.
The only bright spot is that a small number of the people you mentioned are now beginning to understand that unchecked executive power might not be such a good idea, and a few people who thought that we'd see a change in policy wrt civil liberties abuses under the new administration are realizing that both parties fully support the erosion of individual freedom and expansion of Federal power.
"certain groups are screaming that this new health care plan is 'oppression' and taking away from all of our rights."
No, the Feds never try to take away ALL of our rights . . . they just take a few at a time with every single piece of legislation that they pass.
$10 million? LOL. Have you ever heard of the concept of "token resistance"? Do you honestly think that if there was a piece of legislation that actually threatened the tens of BILLIONS in profits in the insurance industry, it would draw such a relatively impotent response? If this bill was going to hurt the insurance industry, you would have seen a tsunami of opposition.
Consider the fact that the bill FORCES every single U.S. citizen to buy insurance from private insurance companies, yet does nothing to open up competition in the insurance industry. By what mechanism is forcing people to buy something in a market with no competition supposed to reduce the profits of the suppliers? This legislation also enshrines the whole concept of having a "health insurance" middle-man, making any attempt to actually bring about a genuine, paradigm-shifting "reform" basically impossible.
There's nothing wrong with me. I fear that you've allowed your good intentions to cloud your rationality, and that you're willing to accept a 2700 page monstrosity full of corporate welfare, further empowerment of the federal government, and further erosion of the civil liberties of the average American citizen, just because the title page reads "Health Care Reform".
If you think that the big insurance companies are against this bill, you are wrong. The high profile rate increases were just a big show to demonstrate how "urgent" it was that we pass "reform". They're rubbing their hands with glee this morning at the prospect of millions of new customers in a captive market. Watch their stock prices over the next few months.
With regard to Medicare, the problem isn't "efficiency", it's "insolvency". I don't understand why so many people can't grasp the problems with Medicare and Social Security. Is a "feel good" emotional response so overpowering that it can delude the rational brain? These programs were solvent when you had a massive working age population supporting a small population of elderly people. Now that we are facing a dwindling population of working age people and stagnant real wages, with a growing population of elderly people, it's clear that the programs are not sustainable. The alleged "surpluses" that built up during the careers of the baby boom generation are vastly insufficient to covver the future liabilities. Without this population "bubble" it would have been clear many decades ago that you can't have a program where people take out more than they put in.
These programs have been touted for years as a "success story" for big government. I don't wish suffering on our country, but, like a child who sticks a hand into the fire, I hope that the inevitable pain of this lesson will make a multi-generational impression on the American psyche and remind us that big government is a failed institution which has never worked, and can never work.
". . . a gun in the home is 21 times more likely to injure a family member than protect the home from intruders."
BULL-$#1T!
If he spoke those words exactly as written in the article, it's a flat out lie. More than likely, Helmke quoted a real statistic and the writer sort of "accidentally" twisted it to achieve the desired effect.
A true statement is: "A gun in the home is much more likely to be used to KILL someone living in the home than to be used to KILL an intruder." The anti-gun crowd is more than willing to proliferate this stat and then let people like this writer blatantly mis-quote and misinterpret it to achieve the desired effect. I've seen/heard statements like the one made in this article at least 100 times from various sources. Such statements are clearly based on the aformentioned fact, but they're almost always inaccurate.
Even when quoted accurately, the statistic is totally misleading because the number of cases involving the death of a member of the household includes suicides, justifiable homicides (e.g. an abused spouse acting in self defense) and murders in addition to accidents.
Furthermore, in the vast majority of defensive firearms uses, in the home or otherwise, no shot is ever fired. When a shot IS fired, there are obviously plenty of "misses" and numerous incidents in which the criminal is merely wounded.
Let's be absolutely clear in our definition of rights:
"EU adopted an internet freedom provision, stating that any measures taken by member states that may affect citizen's access to or use of the internet "must respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens"
Internet access = "a human right" meaning that the state cannot infringe upon the ability of citizens, through their own volition, to access information via the Internet? A fine idea.
Internet access = "a human right" implying that the state needs to buy hardware, software and bandwidth for everyone? Bu||$#!t
"Well, it I DID steal the precious"
Curse you! We hates you!
"And yet another person claiming prison is a deterant. It's NOT. No criminal thinks they are going to get caught. It doesn't deter anything."
If a criminal is in prison, they are effectively prevented from committing further crimes, except maybe against their fellow convincts. Keeping habitual offenders away from the civilian population is a pretty good deterrant.
"Nobody can do that UNLESSS there is a cour order. It is the same as with your browsing habbits, your phonenumbers you called, the books you take out of the library and the money you spend with your credit card."
Your post states that a COURT ORDER is needed to look at these things, but then you reference the Patriot Act in your sig? In addition to the gag order provision you refer to, one of the most hideous elements of the PA was the "National Security Letter".
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/national-security-letters
"Through NSLs the FBI can ... obtain sensitive information such as the web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website."
The link shows details about several specific cases in which the NSLs (which do NOT require judicial approval) were used to obtain exactly the sort of information you're describing. In 2001, our civil liberties took a 200 year leap backward and we returned to the days when cops could write their own search warrants with no judicial oversight.
Aside: Our fearless leaders recently found the noble spirit of bipartisanship in renewing several parts of the Patriot Act which were set to expire on Feb 28. The house version was buried in a bill related to Medicare reimbursement, the Senate approved it on a voice vote, and the President signed it. More hope and change.
"When I am aware of a crime happening, I have to stop it if it is in my power (without endangering me or anyone else) or call the police. Not doing either would make me an accomplice."
Not true. If you have absolutely no relationship with either the criminal or the victim, you have no legal responsibility to stop or report the crime. Some cases in which you can be held responsible for the criminal acts of a third party are:
1. When you're an accessory, helping to plan or cover up the crime, fence the stolen loot, pay the hitman, launder the money or whatever.
2. If you have an established relationship with the perpetrator e.g. If one of your employees is engaged in behavior to defraud your suppliers or customers.
3. You are responsible for the well being of the victim. i.e. you can't stand by and watch while someone commits a crime against one of your children.
People watch violent crimes happen all the time, and they don't get arrested for not reporting it. As far as computer crime is concerned, they have a hard enough time tracking down the actual perpetrators. It's absurd to think that you, as a private citizen are somehow responsible for shutting down or reporting a malware server, and even if some such ridiculous statute existed, it would be impossible to pursue any sort of civil or criminal remedies. Can you imagine being charged with "Failure to report a botnet server"? LOL
http://www.information-age.com/channels/security-and-continuity/news/1203193/three-arrested-in-connection-to-worlds-largest-botnet.thtml
"Mariposa was disabled in December 2009 when a working group of volunteers, some of which were security software vendors, managed to take over the 'command and control' servers that co-ordinate the network."
What gives these bloody do-gooders the authority to "take over" other people's servers? Why couldn't this be an excuse for all sorts of network intrusions? "Oh, I thought this server was hosting malware or controlling a botnet, so I took it over with altruistic intentions". From the story a few days ago, MS went to court in order to get Waledac shut down. Seems like things could get tricky with jurisdictional issues as well. Maybe the U.S. government should issue some letters of marque so that private citizens could "attack" foreign malware servers?