>> No, it is mean to annoy them into saying something. It is meant to confuse them into forgetting what they have said and slipping something useful in. It isn't mental cruelty or demeaning to anyone except the person who is being interrogated. After all, they aren't doing this stuff in front of others.
I repeat -- it is INTENDED to inflict severe mental pain and suffering. Yes, it is meant to be mental cruelty and demeaning for the one being interrogated.
> Outside the tied up, I don't think anyone has ever suggested the rest has happened. And that is my point. You go, and when I say you i mean all the biased people attempting to prove a point, and take something, blow it out of portion and then claim it is something it is not. You take isolated instances caused by unprofessional soldier with little training and oversight and act like it is happening everywhere with the permission of the government. This couldn't be further from the truth. But when has the truth ever stopped the opposition?
Well, I believe it is our Vice President that has actively condone "alternative interrogation techniques". That's pretty dam representative -- at least from most people's point of view.
And yes, when has the truth ever stopped anything. You know, like no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq-Al-Qaeda linkage, Iraq-9/11 linkage. Our "President" continued to spew this crap at America in the last two weeks. Facts never stopped his message.
I'm not saying these folks are innocent. I am saying that they should be given due process and if found guilty, the appropriate punishment. I am saying that we shouldn't torture people (period) and the fact that we even have to discuss if a particular act may or may not be torture says we're sliding down a slippery slope. It would be one thing if we could trust our leaders, but everything (and I mean everything) they have told us has pretty much been a lie or meant to scare us into submission.
> Well, since your case was "The Constitution wasn't written yet, therefore it could not grant citizenship, therefore they could not be citizens" the very existence of any document that could grant citizenship destroys your case outright.
Well, except that when the Articles of Confederation were signed, they basically said this applies to the people in these States. At some point, a document declared that "the people over here" apply to this document.
> By your logic and the logic of those arguing your case, the British soldiers who were setting fire to Washington, DC in the War of 1812 had the full rights and priviledges of United States citizens.
If the soldiers were in the US as legal immigrants, then yes. Mind you -- that just means things like due process are a key part of any prosecution.
> By your logic, if Osama bin Laden walked into a United States military base in a foreign country with 50 pounds of TNT strapped to his chest, military police would be required to mirandize him prior to taking him into custody.
Yes, that's different than detaining him. We do this all the time with criminals. They are detained and then mirandized as they are taken into custody.
> By your logic, US troops during WWII had no right to shoot any German soldier who was not an imminent threat to them, and United States police (or military police) should have been brought in to investigate the killing of every German soldier by a US soldier.
Umm, remember how we decided to lock up Japanese families because we thought they were a threat. These were Japanese families that were actually American citizens. I also believe that many Germans were also detained during the war. And if a US soldier is killing Germans on US soil, then yes -- there should be an investigation.
> If that makes any sense, I'm insane.
I guess you're insane then because as our police force works today. There are times when the police do use deadly force. We do not allow folks to just go around killing people and then say "oh -- he was the enemy". We are (thus far) based on the rule of law. Due process is one of the key ingredients. And if you can be held indefinitely with no cause, there is no hope of due process.
And NO.. I am not a fan of Osama bin Laden or of the Nazis or of Stalin. In fact, the very point is we should not be imitating their actions.
> While it would most certainly be an alternative integration technique, are you sure you don't mean interrogation?
Ooops. Going back to the fact we see words based on the first and last letter. I originally misspelled the word and was too quick to choose the speller suggestion!!
> but it never gets returned when the threat has passed
Since we've declare a war that can basically never be "won", these folks have no concern that the threat will EVER pass.
>I'm pretty sure most police states don't become that way overnight.
Agreed. One does not boil a frog by dropping him in boiling water (he will jump out). Rather one places him in cool water and brings up the temperature every slowly.
At some point, you have to define "citizen", particularly if you are asserting that rights only apply to them.
And check out Article IV of the Articles of Confederation. It basically makes my case, although apparently the poor weren't included, so I guess we can lock them up now too.
Torture according to international law: "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."
While some of the torture may mimic a 21 year-olds partying life, it is INTENDED to inflict severe mental pain and suffering. The dropping of "a book" misses that you're dropping what to the person is a holy book. The INTENTION is to belittle, demean and humiliate the person and/or his belief system. I believe that many Christians might find dropping "the book" (aka Bible) in the toilet to be just as demeaning and degrading to them.
We have some folks that enjoy being tied up, gagged and whipped and others that actually like being pissed/deficated on. That does not mean we should be doing that because some folks "enjoy" that sort of thing.
See Article IV of the Articles of Confederation (the document defining the previous gov't)
Article IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.
So, "free inhabitants of each of these States" pretty much holds up my argument. At some point in creating a new gov't you have to say "these people here".
But the point is at some point we had to define the "people" as people within these particular bounds. That's the nature of creating a new governing body.
From the Articles of Confederation (the document that establish the prior gov't)
Article IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.
Here "citizens" were basically defined from the "free inhabitants of each of these States.." (it's interesting that paupers and vagabonds were excluded).
> And how on earth can the claim that persons who do not live under the law derived from the Constitutional government
My argument was meant to be silly. Because we are a nation derived from immigrants, we had to define anyone living within the borders of the states as "citizens". I don't recall every person being required to "pledge" themselves to the country.
> Some people qualify because they were born in the US. Some, because they have US citizens as their parents. And some qualify by pledging themselves to their new nation, giving up the rights of their past and claiming the gift offered by the greatest nation on earth. You do NOT qualify for hospitality by sneaking in the back door and stealing the food out of the fridge. You qualify by being born in the family, or getting adopted in.
Umm, your argument miss ONE HUGE GROUP. Those that are LEGAL alien residents. You basically have thrown ALL ALIENS into the illegal bin.
Mind you, we are fast working our way to your belief system (sad as it may be) where all people will be required to carry nation ID cards (I call them "papers") which will be required to determine your status in this nation. I promise you that it will not be long where you can be stopped and asked for those "papers". If this DOES NOT ring bells, then it is you who are forgetting history.
> And it pains me to realize how screwed up the education system must be in regards to teaching American government if this is the understanding that people have of how the Constitution actually works.
99% of the natural born citizens don't even know how this gov't works. The Constitution has had flexible meaning to the term "people". Before 1863, "people" did not include slaves.
> With regards to "people" in the United States, there is precedent (SCOTUS) that it does not.
Very true, "people" did not apply to black slaves for quite some time.
Of course if you do not have habeas corpus (a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, esp. to secure the person's release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention), then Due Process is a joke.
I think our leaders have sunk us down to the level of the extremists. The fact that we would even argue about whether we are breaking the Geneva Conventions is a sad, sad, state of affairs. The fact that we call them "enemy combatants" to try and circumvent the title "prisoner of war" speaks to what depth we will go to. We use double speak to avoid the reality: We don't "torture", we use "alternative integration techniques". We don't have "prisoners of war", we have "enemy combatants". Is this what our nation has become? I guess we have done away with taking the high moral ground.
I'm sorry -- you can say what you want, but this makes the United States no better than Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castor or anyone else.
> habeas corpus is NOT constitutionally guaranteed to non-citizens captured outside of the US as terrorist suspects
This is a catch-22. We capture someone, call them a non-citizen terrorist suspect and because there is no habeas corpus, we now can lock them up indefinitely with no charges. That's the reason habeas corpus exists. Way back when, the King would lock up people with no recourse, no charges were necessary. It's a great way to deal with "the enemy" except we've defined the enemy as some ideological entity that could be anyone. Therefore, anyone can be "the enemy".
We have sunk down to the very level of dictators and extremists we have overthrown or claim to be fighting. Sadly, this is likely the exact outcome that someone like Bin Laden was hoping for. We essentially are turning on ourselves.
We apparently learned absolutely NOTHING from the 1950s communist scare. Just dig up all the communist scare tactics and replace the word "communist" with "terrorist".
Yes, it says "persons". That does not mean that is applies to every person in the world -- but certainly within the borders of the United States. Believe it or not, we have lots of LEGAL immigrants called "resident aliens" that are PERSONS and are within the borders of the United States.
> did you notice they didn't make a distinction between criminals and free citizens?
Yes, I did notice that. And, personally, I think that if you area citizen who has paid your debt to society, you should be returned to full citizen status. You seem to believe that any felony (which is the basis of denying future voting rights) should allow the gov't to strip away your right to vote indefinitely -- even after you've served your time. Again, you use hyperbole because a real argument is not to be had.
> I suppose a cynic might say that the context of the Bill of Rights matters
Yes, context DOES matter. Technically, "We the People of the United States" was not for citizens only. For better or worse, the context at the time claimed that blacks were not people, but property. Likewise, the country was being created, thus there were technically no "citizens" yet because they were working on the compact between the people and gov't to create the country.
facism - an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922-43), and the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.
Hmm, I'm glad we don't have leadership like that.. oh wait..
For the record, those that voted for the Constitution were not "citizens" since the Constitution didn't exist when they voted for it.
While the Constitution "may" not apply to every citizen of the world -- it should at least apply to the "people" in the United States. The notion that we, as a nation, might condone holding anyone without charges ultimately makes us no better than the tyrants we overthrow. Habeas Corpus has been around for much longer than our United States and for good reason. Only tyrants feel it is their right to arrest someone for no reason, throw them in jail and provide no recourse for a check and balance of that power.
And *even if* the MCA claimed not to apply to citizens today, if the arresting officer claims you are not a citizen and you have no way to going before a judge, how are you to prove that you are?
While we are pushing "democracy" at the barrel of a gun, we fail to be a good example. Instead, we are well along the path to fascism.
At least you can skip the movies. I've got some DVDs that mark their trailers as "can't skip". That "feature" is meant to be used for the FBI warning, but studios use it now to place ads.
And ain't it grand that 2-3 years later, I'm STILL forced to see trailers from lame movies that came and went at the box office because I can't fast forward past it.
these guys are just looking for a new income stream.
Are they taking responsibility for the fact they give you sensitive information which might compromise your identity? No. Instead, they say for $10 per transaction (freeze/unfreeze), you can do it.
Welcome to the new corrupt America where we are all treated like some kind of cash machine, be it from corporations or gov't agencies.
I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't tied to some upcoming DRM handling. Remember, Apple has to play the DRM game to keep the RIAA, MPAA, Networks (sans NBC) happy.
I find it ironic that we are so adamant to forcibly spread our democracy to other nations when we don't have a good grasp on it ourselves.
The article didn't mention WHY paper trails don't lead to more accurate voting totals. What was more frightening, that the solution seemed to be super-secret cryptography with no paper trail. Yeah, that's the way we can guarantee accurate voting and have I got a bridge I can sell you.
My guess is that this group is somehow funded by the Diebolds of the industry (they have to be getting their money from somewhere).
I know that paper trails cannot guarantee that elections won't be corrupted, but I'm quite sure that without paper trails, any corruption will be undetectable. In this day and age where we see corruption rampant among those that would claim to lead us, we need every little bit of help we can get.
welcome to the world of consumer electronics.The same thing happens with next-gen DVD players, CPUs, the works.
While it would have been great to get the iPhone for $399 instead of $599, the price drop does not bother me much. It's like complaining that the steak you bought and ate last week was a raw deal because it's cheaper today.
Early adopters already know this. If price is your major consideration, you'd be waiting until next year, when you'll likely get more features for same/less money.
Slashdot Mirror
>> No, it is mean to annoy them into saying something. It is meant to confuse them into forgetting what they have said and slipping something useful in. It isn't mental cruelty or demeaning to anyone except the person who is being interrogated. After all, they aren't doing this stuff in front of others.
I repeat -- it is INTENDED to inflict severe mental pain and suffering. Yes, it is meant to be mental cruelty and demeaning for the one being interrogated.
> Outside the tied up, I don't think anyone has ever suggested the rest has happened. And that is my point. You go, and when I say you i mean all the biased people attempting to prove a point, and take something, blow it out of portion and then claim it is something it is not. You take isolated instances caused by unprofessional soldier with little training and oversight and act like it is happening everywhere with the permission of the government. This couldn't be further from the truth. But when has the truth ever stopped the opposition?
Well, I believe it is our Vice President that has actively condone "alternative interrogation techniques". That's pretty dam representative -- at least from most people's point of view.
And yes, when has the truth ever stopped anything. You know, like no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq-Al-Qaeda linkage, Iraq-9/11 linkage. Our "President" continued to spew this crap at America in the last two weeks. Facts never stopped his message.
I'm not saying these folks are innocent. I am saying that they should be given due process and if found guilty, the appropriate punishment. I am saying that we shouldn't torture people (period) and the fact that we even have to discuss if a particular act may or may not be torture says we're sliding down a slippery slope. It would be one thing if we could trust our leaders, but everything (and I mean everything) they have told us has pretty much been a lie or meant to scare us into submission.
> Well, since your case was "The Constitution wasn't written yet, therefore it could not grant citizenship, therefore they could not be citizens" the very existence of any document that could grant citizenship destroys your case outright.
Well, except that when the Articles of Confederation were signed, they basically said this applies to the people in these States. At some point, a document declared that "the people over here" apply to this document.
> By your logic and the logic of those arguing your case, the British soldiers who were setting fire to Washington, DC in the War of 1812 had the full rights and priviledges of United States citizens.
If the soldiers were in the US as legal immigrants, then yes. Mind you -- that just means things like due process are a key part of any prosecution.
> By your logic, if Osama bin Laden walked into a United States military base in a foreign country with 50 pounds of TNT strapped to his chest, military police would be required to mirandize him prior to taking him into custody.
Yes, that's different than detaining him. We do this all the time with criminals. They are detained and then mirandized as they are taken into custody.
> By your logic, US troops during WWII had no right to shoot any German soldier who was not an imminent threat to them, and United States police (or military police) should have been brought in to investigate the killing of every German soldier by a US soldier.
Umm, remember how we decided to lock up Japanese families because we thought they were a threat. These were Japanese families that were actually American citizens. I also believe that many Germans were also detained during the war. And if a US soldier is killing Germans on US soil, then yes -- there should be an investigation.
> If that makes any sense, I'm insane.
I guess you're insane then because as our police force works today. There are times when the police do use deadly force. We do not allow folks to just go around killing people and then say "oh -- he was the enemy". We are (thus far) based on the rule of law. Due process is one of the key ingredients. And if you can be held indefinitely with no cause, there is no hope of due process.
And NO.. I am not a fan of Osama bin Laden or of the Nazis or of Stalin. In fact, the very point is we should not be imitating their actions.
> While it would most certainly be an alternative integration technique, are you sure you don't mean interrogation?
Ooops. Going back to the fact we see words based on the first and last letter.
I originally misspelled the word and was too quick to choose the speller suggestion!!
Ugh!
> but it never gets returned when the threat has passed
Since we've declare a war that can basically never be "won", these folks have no concern that the threat will EVER pass.
>I'm pretty sure most police states don't become that way overnight.
Agreed. One does not boil a frog by dropping him in boiling water (he will jump out). Rather one places him in cool water and brings up the temperature every slowly.
At some point, you have to define "citizen", particularly if you are asserting that rights only apply to them.
And check out Article IV of the Articles of Confederation. It basically makes my case, although apparently the poor weren't included, so I guess we can lock them up now too.
The terrorists have already won. Look at the police state we have today (all in the name of "security"). We've already lost.
Torture according to international law: "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."
While some of the torture may mimic a 21 year-olds partying life, it is INTENDED to inflict severe mental pain and suffering. The dropping of "a book" misses that you're dropping what to the person is a holy book. The INTENTION is to belittle, demean and humiliate the person and/or his belief system. I believe that many Christians might find dropping "the book" (aka Bible) in the toilet to be just as demeaning and degrading to them.
We have some folks that enjoy being tied up, gagged and whipped and others that actually like being pissed/deficated on. That does not mean we should be doing that because some folks "enjoy" that sort of thing.
See Article IV of the Articles of Confederation (the document defining the previous gov't)
Article IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.
So, "free inhabitants of each of these States" pretty much holds up my argument. At some point in creating a new gov't you have to say "these people here".
it was meant as a silly argument.
But the point is at some point we had to define the "people" as people within these particular bounds. That's the nature of creating a new governing body.
From the Articles of Confederation (the document that establish the prior gov't)
Article IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them.
Here "citizens" were basically defined from the "free inhabitants of each of these States.." (it's interesting that paupers and vagabonds were excluded).
> And how on earth can the claim that persons who do not live under the law derived from the Constitutional government
My argument was meant to be silly. Because we are a nation derived from immigrants, we had to define anyone living within the borders of the states as "citizens". I don't recall every person being required to "pledge" themselves to the country.
> Some people qualify because they were born in the US. Some, because they have US citizens as their parents. And some qualify by pledging themselves to their new nation, giving up the rights of their past and claiming the gift offered by the greatest nation on earth. You do NOT qualify for hospitality by sneaking in the back door and stealing the food out of the fridge. You qualify by being born in the family, or getting adopted in.
Umm, your argument miss ONE HUGE GROUP. Those that are LEGAL alien residents. You basically have thrown ALL ALIENS into the illegal bin.
Mind you, we are fast working our way to your belief system (sad as it may be) where all people will be required to carry nation ID cards (I call them "papers") which will be required to determine your status in this nation. I promise you that it will not be long where you can be stopped and asked for those "papers". If this DOES NOT ring bells, then it is you who are forgetting history.
> And it pains me to realize how screwed up the education system must be in regards to teaching American government if this is the understanding that people have of how the Constitution actually works.
99% of the natural born citizens don't even know how this gov't works. The Constitution has had flexible meaning to the term "people". Before 1863, "people" did not include slaves.
> With regards to "people" in the United States, there is precedent (SCOTUS) that it does not.
Very true, "people" did not apply to black slaves for quite some time.
Of course if you do not have habeas corpus (a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, esp. to secure the person's release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention), then Due Process is a joke.
I think our leaders have sunk us down to the level of the extremists. The fact that we would even argue about whether we are breaking the Geneva Conventions is a sad, sad, state of affairs. The fact that we call them "enemy combatants" to try and circumvent the title "prisoner of war" speaks to what depth we will go to. We use double speak to avoid the reality: We don't "torture", we use "alternative integration techniques". We don't have "prisoners of war", we have "enemy combatants". Is this what our nation has become? I guess we have done away with taking the high moral ground.
I'm sorry -- you can say what you want, but this makes the United States no better than Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castor or anyone else.
> habeas corpus is NOT constitutionally guaranteed to non-citizens captured outside of the US as terrorist suspects
This is a catch-22. We capture someone, call them a non-citizen terrorist suspect and because there is no habeas corpus, we now can lock them up indefinitely with no charges. That's the reason habeas corpus exists. Way back when, the King would lock up people with no recourse, no charges were necessary. It's a great way to deal with "the enemy" except we've defined the enemy as some ideological entity that could be anyone. Therefore, anyone can be "the enemy".
We have sunk down to the very level of dictators and extremists we have overthrown or claim to be fighting. Sadly, this is likely the exact outcome that someone like Bin Laden was hoping for. We essentially are turning on ourselves.
We apparently learned absolutely NOTHING from the 1950s communist scare. Just dig up all the communist scare tactics and replace the word "communist" with "terrorist".
Typical BS hyperbole!!
Yes, it says "persons". That does not mean that is applies to every person in the world -- but certainly within the borders of the United States. Believe it or not, we have lots of LEGAL immigrants called "resident aliens" that are PERSONS and are within the borders of the United States.
> did you notice they didn't make a distinction between criminals and free citizens?
Yes, I did notice that. And, personally, I think that if you area citizen who has paid your debt to society, you should be returned to full citizen status. You seem to believe that any felony (which is the basis of denying future voting rights) should allow the gov't to strip away your right to vote indefinitely -- even after you've served your time. Again, you use hyperbole because a real argument is not to be had.
> I suppose a cynic might say that the context of the Bill of Rights matters
Yes, context DOES matter. Technically, "We the People of the United States" was not for citizens only. For better or worse, the context at the time claimed that blacks were not people, but property. Likewise, the country was being created, thus there were technically no "citizens" yet because they were working on the compact between the people and gov't to create the country.
facism - an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
The term Fascism was first used of the totalitarian right-wing nationalist regime of Mussolini in Italy (1922-43), and the regimes of the Nazis in Germany and Franco in Spain were also fascist. Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach.
Hmm, I'm glad we don't have leadership like that.. oh wait..
For the record, those that voted for the Constitution were not "citizens" since the Constitution didn't exist when they voted for it.
While the Constitution "may" not apply to every citizen of the world -- it should at least apply to the "people" in the United States. The notion that we, as a nation, might condone holding anyone without charges ultimately makes us no better than the tyrants we overthrow. Habeas Corpus has been around for much longer than our United States and for good reason. Only tyrants feel it is their right to arrest someone for no reason, throw them in jail and provide no recourse for a check and balance of that power.
And *even if* the MCA claimed not to apply to citizens today, if the arresting officer claims you are not a citizen and you have no way to going before a judge, how are you to prove that you are?
While we are pushing "democracy" at the barrel of a gun, we fail to be a good example. Instead, we are well along the path to fascism.
At least you can skip the movies. I've got some DVDs that mark their trailers as "can't skip". That "feature" is meant to be used for the FBI warning, but studios use it now to place ads.
And ain't it grand that 2-3 years later, I'm STILL forced to see trailers from lame movies that came and went at the box office because I can't fast forward past it.
I think if he got 10,000 emails saying basically "thanks for the new scam" and it might just raise a few eyebrows at TransUnion.
Be sure to tell Mr. Katz how much you enjoy getting bent over by TransUnion.
CONTACT: Steve Katz of TransUnion, +1-312-985-2373,
skatz@transunion.com
these guys are just looking for a new income stream.
Are they taking responsibility for the fact they give you sensitive information which might compromise your identity? No. Instead, they say for $10 per transaction (freeze/unfreeze), you can do it.
Welcome to the new corrupt America where we are all treated like some kind of cash machine, be it from corporations or gov't agencies.
Well, that will make the Zune, ummmm, just plain worthless.
Oh wait..
Yes, cut out the millions of iPod users. That's how I would make something successful!!
Let's see how great this thing really is in 6-12 months with ads, DRM and limiting the product to not work on the #1 portable players.
I predict yet another failure in the pipeline. This product is about catering to the recording industry with the customer as an afterthought.
Same story, different URL.
I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't tied to some upcoming DRM handling. Remember, Apple has to play the DRM game to keep the RIAA, MPAA, Networks (sans NBC) happy.
My guess.. movie rentals, maybe subscriptions
I find it ironic that we are so adamant to forcibly spread our democracy to other nations when we don't have a good grasp on it ourselves.
The article didn't mention WHY paper trails don't lead to more accurate voting totals. What was more frightening, that the solution seemed to be super-secret cryptography with no paper trail. Yeah, that's the way we can guarantee accurate voting and have I got a bridge I can sell you.
My guess is that this group is somehow funded by the Diebolds of the industry (they have to be getting their money from somewhere).
I know that paper trails cannot guarantee that elections won't be corrupted, but I'm quite sure that without paper trails, any corruption will be undetectable. In this day and age where we see corruption rampant among those that would claim to lead us, we need every little bit of help we can get.
welcome to the world of consumer electronics.The same thing happens with next-gen DVD players, CPUs, the works.
While it would have been great to get the iPhone for $399 instead of $599, the price drop does not bother me much. It's like complaining that the steak you bought and ate last week was a raw deal because it's cheaper today.
Early adopters already know this. If price is your major consideration, you'd be waiting until next year, when you'll likely get more features for same/less money.
Actually, the :31 attempt was specifically designed to force the 8:00 show to overlap (and thus NOT record) an 8:30 show on another channel.