Agreed that AN is more complex than just media influencing youngsters into thinking they need to lose weight.
Then perhaps granting the government sweeping new powers to censor advertisers based on a tenuous correlation between "skinny models" and "eating disorders" is not really much of a solution?
It just seemed absurd to make decisions based purely on the numbers affected.
Actually, it seems absurd not to. First, because any government spending must be prioritized, because we don't have the money to do everything we might ever possibly want to do, fully funded, today. Second, because we're talking about granting the government broad censorship powers because a small number of people who are mentally ill, when exposed to these images, MAY develop an eating disorder. It would be the same thing as banning all alcohol advertisement because a small number of people become alcoholics. In fact, I'd argue that you could make a better case for banning alcohol advertising based on the numbers of alcoholics than you could make for banning "skinny models" based on the number of anorexics.
Well those aren't guaranteed outcomes of obesity.
... really? Sorry, you just went right into nutter territory, and have lost any chance at establishing credibility in this discussion.
Well Anorexia is a disorder with issues of emotional regulation and self-image.
And you think obesity isn't? Ask anybody overweight whether it's "healthy" to be overweight. They'll tell you it's unhealthy. Ask them, "Then why are you overweight?" And watch the dance that ensues as they try to rationalize their behavior. Then compare it to someone who is anorexic, and tell me there's not just as strong an emotional and mental component to obesity as there is to anorexia. Doing something that you KNOW to be unhealthy for yourself is pretty much a textbook definition of self-destructive, nihilistic behavior - whether it's overeating or undereating.
Except, that most plus-sized models are normal weight to slighty overweight
Citation? Or did you mean "SOME" plus-sized models are normal to slightly overweight? Because I've seen quite a few plus-sized models, and very few of them look like "average" or "normal" weight. "Average" women's size is about size 14 in the US. And the "average" woman is overweight.
And there is no evidence than anyone is gaining any fat in order to look like models.
And how about the 184 out of 200 women who DON'T get an eating disorder as a result of looking at skinny models? If 200 women look at skinny models, and only 16 of them develop an eating disorder, it's quite likely that there is something way deeper than "skinny models cause it" - treat the mental illness that causes that small number of women who obsess over their body image.
Treatment for an eating disorder is also several orders of magnitude more expensive. Most overweight people can lose the excess weight by cutting out sugary stuff from their diet, while an eating disorder is treated with expensive therapy. I don't think many who are overweight see their habits as acceptable.
Again, care to offer a citation? Because last I checked, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and all of the other complications that come along with being overweight & obese are pretty damned expensive conditions to treat. If you want to oversimplify the cause & treatment of the obesity problem like that, why can't we do the same thing to anorexics: "anorexic people can just eat more food."
That's roughly 2-3% of Americans. (Note: binge eating, i.e., bulimia without the puking, is also an eating disorder. Which means there is some non-zero overlap between this 2-3% and this next statistic...)
It's estimated that roughly 75% of Americans (that's ~234 million) are overweight or obese.
So... treatment for eating disorders (and the complications related to them) would have to be roughly THIRTY TIMES more expensive than treatment for obesity & overweight (and complications related to...) in order to justify banning skinny models, but not banning overweight or obese models. It would have to be *30 times* more harmful to society to have skinny models making girls feel bad about themselves than having fat models making girls think it's okay to be obese.
Smoking in an enclosed public space has always been everyone's business
Ah, but a restaurant isn't a "public space." You, and the rest of the patrons, are guests of the owner on his property. If you don't like that he allows his patrons to smoke, you should either buy the property from him and change the rule, or find a new restaurant to patronize whose owners ask patrons not to smoke.
Smoking bans happened when a bunch of overly zealous people decided to use the government to trample all over the rights of bar and restaurant owners.
By the way: I'm not a smoker, and I detest second hand smoke, it makes me nauseous - but I believe it's the right of restaurant owners to set their smoking policy individually, not the government. The places which allow smoking wouldn't get my business, but I fully believe it's the right of each place of business to set that policy for themselves.
Any definition of treason that includes Bradley Manning also includes every newspaper in the country.
Except the newpapers have a constitutional protection from government interference in the form of prior restraint, and lawsuits involving the government's attempts to invoke prior restraint against news outlets have STILL gone all the way to the Supreme Court.
And, except that PFC Manning is subject to the UCMJ - specifically, article 106a, which covers espionage and its punishment. Espionage can most definitely be a "type" of treason under the definition you've provided (do you really think that leaking classified information can't be argued to be "giving aid to the enemy"?), and if the allegations against him are true, it's pretty clear that what he did falls under the definition of espionage.
And, except that the NEWSPAPERS didn't illegally access a classified system to take hundreds of thousands of records and publish them to the world.
Yeah, you're right, there's no difference whatsoever between the sad case of PFC Manning and the New York Times and other prior restraint cases.
You seem to be replying to someone else, or setting up a straw man.
No, I'm responding very clearly to what you wrote: "most people are not even allowed to know those secrets exist." Most people DO know that there are secrets, so clearly your claim falls short that most people "aren't allowed to know" that they exist. Most people do not have security clearance enough to know what the secrets are, but anybody who claims that they "didn't even know" that there secrets being kept by the government is willfully ignorant.
Again, what are you talking about? Having boxes is fine, having rules about using keys is fine. But on rare occasions picking a lock is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
And who "picks the lock?" Any old schmoe who walks in off the street? "I totally forgot my key, but don't worry, I really need what's in that box." No, the people who are "allowed" to open are the owner, and - in extreme cases - the bank employees, acting on behalf of the bank.
To get back on topic, you've implied that there are always ways of changing "classification standards" without using espionage, which is a claim that you need to back up.
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that the powers granted the executive and legislative branches via the Constitution and 200 years of custom & tradition weren't sufficiently self-evident. The civilian leadership of the military - e.g., the government - has it in its power to set and enforce classification criteria and standards that the military operates under. There are ways of changing it, and if you think espionage does anything to change it other than to "make it even more difficult to get any information at all out of the military," then you don't live in the same world the rest of us do.
But vague demands aren't enough - if they were we could just put up signs that said "Do what's right" and be done with it.
Just because YOU are not currently privy to classified material doesn't mean nobody in the ELECTED CIVILIAN LEADERSHIP of the government (and thus, military) is. Run for office yourself, or vote for people who will make changes to the classification standards that the military uses. The civilian leadership is elected; the civilian leadership holds ultimate authority over the military, its policies, its procedures, and its rules of engagement.
Again, to use your bank analogy, what you are arguing is that breaking into the bank and rifling through all of their deposit boxes is justified because somebody who works for the bank *might* be doing something illegal, and YOU need to make certain that there is nothing untoward happening. Most people would say that a financial audit, or a police report, are the 'proper' ways to go about this, but you seem certain that the police and any auditor are already in collusion with the bank to cover up their illegal behavior.
because when he does, i don't have the authority to say no to him, I have too much invested in my career.
So don't say 'no' to him. Say, "Sure, I'll help you out if my manager will agree to me being assigned back to work with you for X hours to do this work. If your boss can talk to my boss and get that worked out, let's do this."
If you haven't learned how to say "no" nicely, it's time you learned. Don't say "No, go fuck yourself," say "I'd be happy to help, I just need to make sure my boss is okay with me spending my time on this." Your new boss will quickly realize something's wrong if you're constantly working for your old boss fixing stuff for the new guy. New boss is paying your salary now, he's going to want some value for that money, and he's going to be very much not okay with your old boss dominating your time because he hired someone who is incompetent.
This, and... if the replacement has a legit problem that will require a significant chunk of your time to help address and correct, make sure you tell him "Look, I'm happy to help, but you gotta get your boss to talk to mine. This is a 10hr/week x 8 week commitment you're asking of me, and there needs to be mgmt support of me spending this much time in this fashion."
This situation happened to me where I was reorg'ed to a new department. I was the last person at the company who had working knowledge of a system which was decommissioned shortly before I was reorg'ed, and then some legal snafu happened and my replacement was faced with the need to dig into offsite backups, pull data out of the archived system, and provide that data to some other team. The guy who took over my other projects was competent, but it still would have taken him months to understand & get everything working again. I was familiar with the system, but I told him that it would still take me a couple weeks to get everything operational and extract the data, and asked him & his manager to talk to my new boss to make sure I was cleared to spend my time doing that much work for them.
This way, I: 1) Was the "nice guy" who helped out a coworker in a bind; 2) Didn't get slagged by my own boss for suddenly wasting a ton of time doing something unrelated to my new role that he hadn't assigned me; 3) Didn't have to spend hours and hours working "free overtime" for the company; 4) Got extra credit on my next review for not being a prima donna who refuses to pitch in when his expertise needed;
I also received (and receive still) occasional calls from the person who inherited my projects when I was reorg'ed. When he has a question, he'll usually call me and say, "Hey, let me buy you a cup of coffee." I get a free cup of coffee, he gets pointed in the right direction, and then we spend 15 minutes chatting about life and work and family.
Espionage is pretty much illegal in any country you care to name. The US is well within their rights to request extradition of Mr. Assange to try him for espionage - IF, IFF, IFF - they can make a convincing argument that he actively sought out this material for purposes of disseminating it, rather than simply being handed a bunch of stolen information by the person who leaked it (allegedly, PFC Manning), and subsequently publishing it.
American laws are not worldwide, but when an criminal act is committed against the US government, and that crime is pretty much universally considered a "serious" crime by every government on the planet, your argument that "America doesn't have jurisdiction over him" has pretty much no basis - the US legal system has whatever jurisdiction over him they're granted under an extradition request.
I agree that people are unnecessarily muddying the waters with talk of "treason," which is a spurious claim that cannot apply to him. But at the same time, it is entirely conceivable that Mr. Assange committed espionage, and *for that*, an extradition to the United States to face trial would not be outlandish or unjust. On the balance of facts I've seen so far, I don't believe he committed espionage, but if there is compelling evidence that he did... how can you claim that requesting extradition to face charges of espionage would be unjust?
"Well, sure, I murdered somebody, but he was a real asshole. Therefore, my murder charges should be dismissed," is not a coherent legal argument.
If most people are not even allowed to know those secrets exist
Demanding that "classification standards" be revised to provide more transparency doesn't require an intimate knowledge of classified material. The military ultimately reports to civilian leadership. People certainly know that the military secrets exist, even if they are not familiar with the nature of the secrets.
You seem to be arguing that banks shouldn't be allowed to lock any safe deposit boxes at all, and that anybody who wants to can walk in, rifle through the contents of the vault, and take whatever they want on a whim.
If you can't concede that operational secrets are *sometimes* necessary in military and government matters, then there's really no basis for any rational discussion of the issue. If you can acknowledge that fact, then it's a question of the degree of secrecy that's appropriate, and that is absolutely a decision that can (and should) be made by the military's civilian leadership.
You're right. Of course, the government *hasn't* made "everything classified" - these are specific operational reports detailing troop activities that were leaked.
If you want access to them, there are ways to get that, legally - join the military and become someone who "needs to know," so that you have appropriate security clearance to view it; stay a civilian and file a Freedom of Information request; become a politician, get yourself elected, and get yourself onto a legislative committee that oversees military operations, and press for change from the top.
There is a fundamental need for confidentiality and security in some areas of the government - the notion that everything should be transparent is just as fatuous as the notion that nothing is transparent. If you disagree with the level of detail made public, there are ways to lobby for a change to that policy without engaging in espionage.
The problem here is that you're comparing espionage to a fairly minor "crime" which would offend someone's sensibilities (the purchase of Nazi memorabilia). Governments take espionage quite seriously. Suggesting that it's somehow unjust or illegal to pursue extradition of someone who has engaged in espionage simply because he happens to live outside your country is rather silly - there is no binding international "law" enforced by some higher power, there is international convention, treaty, and custom.
You're right, and I was pretty sure as soon as I clicked submit that somebody would point that out.
However, espionage exists in the gray area between sovereign nations, where there is no overarching legal framework governing the behavior - it is a matter of international treaty, custom, and precedent. Most countries view espionage as a fairly major crime against the state, and act accordingly. Consequently, many countries also don't want to be on the receiving end of sanctions for harboring a spy, especially a spy who doesn't work for them, and there are plenty of countries would aggressively pursue people spying on them even if they happened to not be on their soil when the spying was conducted.
Any government who this happened to would certainly be tossing the "espionage" word around - if I found an exploitable hole in the German Defense Ministry's computer systems and used it (from the comfort of my home in the US) to access classified documents, and then published them to the world, you can bet that Germany would be using the word 'espionage' and requesting extradition as well.
If he's extradited, it would be for espionage. That is sort of a different category of crime than shoplifting or double parking, and most nations do take espionage fairly seriously. Again, I'm not saying I believe he conducted espionage, on the basis of the facts I've read, I do believe he was a passive recipient of the information. But suggesting that because he's not an American citizen, and didn't do things *in* America (but rather, *to* America) is a defense against an extradition for espionage is a bit of wishful thinking.
Whether or not what he's done meets the definition of spying would depend largely on whether he actively solicited these files (e.g., encouraged the leaker, allegedly PFC Manning, to breach security and release the classified information to him), or whether he was the passive recipient, and all of the responsibility for the release of classified information rests with the leaker. If you actively seek out classified information with the intent of passing it on to people who aren't cleared to possess it, that would be considered spying. If you are given information by a leaker, there are still some espionage concerns if you decide to publish, but the US Supreme Court has taken a fairly narrow view of what sort of things the government can forcibly prevent a newspaper from publishing once it has been leaked.
Your argument, however, is nonsensical. Being a US citizen doesn't mean you're allowed to go to Germany and break their laws, and then claim as a defense, "But I'm not German, and I don't live here - I'm not bound by German law!" If you commit a crime in Germany, you can bet that the German authorities will want to prosecute, regardless of what your nationality is.
NB: I'm not arguing that Mr. Assange *has* committed a crime against the US, I'm pointing out that your argument does nothing to exonerate him if he actually has done so. I could certainly agree that his organization handled the leaked documents irresponsibly (a much more thorough redaction to protect named informants would have been preferable), but I'd need to see far more concrete evidence that he actively solicited this information to believe he engaged in anything like espionage.
Frankly, it becomes meaningless if we enable it by default for all our users.
It becomes meaningless to whom? What Mozilla and Google and all these other ad-based/free-lunch services know, but hope users don't, is that this tracking data is the goose that lays their golden eggs. Turning on the "do not track" by default would kill that goose - because virtually nobody in their right mind would ever go in and say, "Wait, no, I WANT to be tracked by Google! That's awesome having a billion dollar conglomerate watching my every move online!" Most people are creeped out by this behavior when they think about it, and the only reason they don't think about it is that nobody's pushing that choice in their face and asking them what to do.
Mozilla - funded in large part by Google - and Google themselves, have NO interest in seeing their business models disappear overnight. Turning on Do Not Track by default would force them to change their model entirely - to one of serving customers, rather than advertisers. All this doublespeak is just intended to hide that very simple fact.
"How am I supposed to provide televisions to legitimate customers if tv shops lock up their inventory and don't allow me to take what I need?"
"How am I supposed to provide organs to legitimate organ recipients if people don't allow me to knock them out and steal their kidneys?"
Final time: Do you really want the standard of behavior for corporations set so low that "whatever they can get away with" is the only limit on their behavior?
Google could build a better browser that isn't limited like IE, and convince people to use it; they could educate their users and score points against MSFT for being backwards and out of date, and convince those users to change the settings willingly, but honor them if they haven't been changed; Instead, they opted to simply disregard users' preferences, and do whatever they damn well pleased. And that's a problem, no matter how blindly devoted you are to Google.
If I have a crowbar, do I have the right to just walk into your house and use the restroom and help myself to a snack from the fridge because your lock couldn't stop me? How about me presenting falsified credentials from the electric or cable company and lying my way inside, only to leave a floater and eat some of your tasty snacks?
*Respecting* users and their wishes would seem to be part of "doing no evil," and yet you're defending Google's deliberate circumvention of user preferences. It's certainly possible for Google to display a "Hey, we can't set this cookie that's required, unless you open up your browser settings for us. Here's how to do it, and why we think you should" type of page. Instead, they opted to say, "since you signed up to use my service, I'll assume for you that you want it everywhere you go, despite your default browser settings."
Respecting other people's stuff is kind of a big part of what's known as 'polite society.' I've asked this repeatedly of the Google defenders here: Do you really want the standard of behavior for corporations set so low that "whatever they can get away with" is the only limit on their behavior? So far, all I've seen is a willful refusal to accept the facts of the matter: that if any other corporation did this, you would be going apeshit and calling it "hacking" and demanding blood.
"Google's just doing the same thing everybody else does."
"The system's broken; Google can't be blamed for exploiting a known bug to make their lives easier while circumventing something users though would protect their privacy."
"If it's not explicitly prevented by Microsoft's software, then there's no problem with Google doing it, even if it goes against the expressed of the users!"
Again: this is the road you want corporations to go down? Seriously? This is the standard you wish them to behave to?
If Google sent nothing, and simply said "We refuse to support P3P," then the P3P system would have stopped them setting the tracking cookie. So Google had to expend the effort to:
1) Find a loophole that would allow them to track users even if this P3P system was in place; 2) Implement & test their workaround;
So yes, they had to deliberately develop and implement a workaround to allow them to plant the tracking cookie on IE users. Because not planting that cookie would be ever-so-inconvenient and unprofitable for them otherwise.
What blows my mind is that people are trying to frame this as a "Google vs. Microsoft" issue, when it is very clearly a "Google vs. User" issue. Google should respect the wishes of the users, as expressed by the P3P settings, or work to convince users that it is trustworthy & that they should change their settings (or use a different browser) that would allow google to track them. Hard claiming you're trustworthy when you're caught making an end-run around user preferences because they happen to be at odds with your business model.
User: "I don't wish to be tracked. I've opted out using this P3P setting." Google: "Haha there's a loophole that we're gonna use to track you anyway. Blame Microsoft if you don't like it, sucker!"
Yep, Google has done nothing wrong here whatsoever. They're completely right to exploit a known loophole which allows them to disregard the wishes of the users accessing their services, if those wishes would make Google's services less profitable.
If this is "Do no evil," I shudder to think about the damage Google could do if they decided one day to deliberately engage in evil.
I find it amusing that you are twisting and squirming to rationalize how Google explicitly disregarding the wishes of the user and exploiting a well-known loophole in the P3P spec in order to do something against that user's wishes is "not evil."
Even in the best "Microsoft should have prevented this" light, it makes them no better than the used car dealer who tries to convince you that the rust on that El Camino is a special limited-edition two-tone finish that the manufacturer tested out, and the noise from that busted exhaust system is just evidence that the car has a special glasspack muffler. It's bottom-feeding behavior of the worst sort, and blatant hypocrisy from a company that carries on about its "do no evil" policy.
Google is under no legal requirement, but remember, they're the "Do No Evil!" crowd. Deliberately circumventing a system which allows browser USERS to say "I don't want to allow cookies from sites which will do X, Y, or Z with my data," would seem to fly in the face of that policy, wouldn't it?
What you're saying is, "Since Microsoft didn't create a hermetically sealed box that's unable to be bypassed, it's okay for Google to simply disrespect the wishes of the user - as expressed by the web browser settings - and do whatever they want."
Is this REALLY a road you think any company should be going down, where "whatever's not bolted down" is fair game for anybody smart enough to take it?
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In fairness, pumping gas *is* moderately more pleasant than shoveling horse manure.
Then perhaps granting the government sweeping new powers to censor advertisers based on a tenuous correlation between "skinny models" and "eating disorders" is not really much of a solution?
Actually, it seems absurd not to. First, because any government spending must be prioritized, because we don't have the money to do everything we might ever possibly want to do, fully funded, today. Second, because we're talking about granting the government broad censorship powers because a small number of people who are mentally ill, when exposed to these images, MAY develop an eating disorder. It would be the same thing as banning all alcohol advertisement because a small number of people become alcoholics. In fact, I'd argue that you could make a better case for banning alcohol advertising based on the numbers of alcoholics than you could make for banning "skinny models" based on the number of anorexics.
And you think obesity isn't? Ask anybody overweight whether it's "healthy" to be overweight. They'll tell you it's unhealthy. Ask them, "Then why are you overweight?" And watch the dance that ensues as they try to rationalize their behavior. Then compare it to someone who is anorexic, and tell me there's not just as strong an emotional and mental component to obesity as there is to anorexia. Doing something that you KNOW to be unhealthy for yourself is pretty much a textbook definition of self-destructive, nihilistic behavior - whether it's overeating or undereating.
Citation? Or did you mean "SOME" plus-sized models are normal to slightly overweight? Because I've seen quite a few plus-sized models, and very few of them look like "average" or "normal" weight. "Average" women's size is about size 14 in the US. And the "average" woman is overweight.
And how about the 184 out of 200 women who DON'T get an eating disorder as a result of looking at skinny models? If 200 women look at skinny models, and only 16 of them develop an eating disorder, it's quite likely that there is something way deeper than "skinny models cause it" - treat the mental illness that causes that small number of women who obsess over their body image.
Again, care to offer a citation? Because last I checked, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, and all of the other complications that come along with being overweight & obese are pretty damned expensive conditions to treat. If you want to oversimplify the cause & treatment of the obesity problem like that, why can't we do the same thing to anorexics: "anorexic people can just eat more food."
Okay, it's estimated that 8 million Americans have an eating disorder.
That's roughly 2-3% of Americans. (Note: binge eating, i.e., bulimia without the puking, is also an eating disorder. Which means there is some non-zero overlap between this 2-3% and this next statistic...)
It's estimated that roughly 75% of Americans (that's ~234 million) are overweight or obese.
So... treatment for eating disorders (and the complications related to them) would have to be roughly THIRTY TIMES more expensive than treatment for obesity & overweight (and complications related to...) in order to justify banning skinny models, but not banning overweight or obese models. It would have to be *30 times* more harmful to society to have skinny models making girls feel bad about themselves than having fat models making girls think it's okay to be obese.
Now do you get it?
Ah, but a restaurant isn't a "public space." You, and the rest of the patrons, are guests of the owner on his property. If you don't like that he allows his patrons to smoke, you should either buy the property from him and change the rule, or find a new restaurant to patronize whose owners ask patrons not to smoke.
Smoking bans happened when a bunch of overly zealous people decided to use the government to trample all over the rights of bar and restaurant owners.
By the way: I'm not a smoker, and I detest second hand smoke, it makes me nauseous - but I believe it's the right of restaurant owners to set their smoking policy individually, not the government. The places which allow smoking wouldn't get my business, but I fully believe it's the right of each place of business to set that policy for themselves.
Except the newpapers have a constitutional protection from government interference in the form of prior restraint, and lawsuits involving the government's attempts to invoke prior restraint against news outlets have STILL gone all the way to the Supreme Court.
And, except that PFC Manning is subject to the UCMJ - specifically, article 106a, which covers espionage and its punishment. Espionage can most definitely be a "type" of treason under the definition you've provided (do you really think that leaking classified information can't be argued to be "giving aid to the enemy"?), and if the allegations against him are true, it's pretty clear that what he did falls under the definition of espionage.
And, except that the NEWSPAPERS didn't illegally access a classified system to take hundreds of thousands of records and publish them to the world.
Yeah, you're right, there's no difference whatsoever between the sad case of PFC Manning and the New York Times and other prior restraint cases.
No, I'm responding very clearly to what you wrote: "most people are not even allowed to know those secrets exist." Most people DO know that there are secrets, so clearly your claim falls short that most people "aren't allowed to know" that they exist. Most people do not have security clearance enough to know what the secrets are, but anybody who claims that they "didn't even know" that there secrets being kept by the government is willfully ignorant.
And who "picks the lock?" Any old schmoe who walks in off the street? "I totally forgot my key, but don't worry, I really need what's in that box." No, the people who are "allowed" to open are the owner, and - in extreme cases - the bank employees, acting on behalf of the bank.
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that the powers granted the executive and legislative branches via the Constitution and 200 years of custom & tradition weren't sufficiently self-evident. The civilian leadership of the military - e.g., the government - has it in its power to set and enforce classification criteria and standards that the military operates under. There are ways of changing it, and if you think espionage does anything to change it other than to "make it even more difficult to get any information at all out of the military," then you don't live in the same world the rest of us do.
Just because YOU are not currently privy to classified material doesn't mean nobody in the ELECTED CIVILIAN LEADERSHIP of the government (and thus, military) is. Run for office yourself, or vote for people who will make changes to the classification standards that the military uses. The civilian leadership is elected; the civilian leadership holds ultimate authority over the military, its policies, its procedures, and its rules of engagement.
Again, to use your bank analogy, what you are arguing is that breaking into the bank and rifling through all of their deposit boxes is justified because somebody who works for the bank *might* be doing something illegal, and YOU need to make certain that there is nothing untoward happening. Most people would say that a financial audit, or a police report, are the 'proper' ways to go about this, but you seem certain that the police and any auditor are already in collusion with the bank to cover up their illegal behavior.
So don't say 'no' to him. Say, "Sure, I'll help you out if my manager will agree to me being assigned back to work with you for X hours to do this work. If your boss can talk to my boss and get that worked out, let's do this."
If you haven't learned how to say "no" nicely, it's time you learned. Don't say "No, go fuck yourself," say "I'd be happy to help, I just need to make sure my boss is okay with me spending my time on this." Your new boss will quickly realize something's wrong if you're constantly working for your old boss fixing stuff for the new guy. New boss is paying your salary now, he's going to want some value for that money, and he's going to be very much not okay with your old boss dominating your time because he hired someone who is incompetent.
This, and... if the replacement has a legit problem that will require a significant chunk of your time to help address and correct, make sure you tell him "Look, I'm happy to help, but you gotta get your boss to talk to mine. This is a 10hr/week x 8 week commitment you're asking of me, and there needs to be mgmt support of me spending this much time in this fashion."
This situation happened to me where I was reorg'ed to a new department. I was the last person at the company who had working knowledge of a system which was decommissioned shortly before I was reorg'ed, and then some legal snafu happened and my replacement was faced with the need to dig into offsite backups, pull data out of the archived system, and provide that data to some other team. The guy who took over my other projects was competent, but it still would have taken him months to understand & get everything working again. I was familiar with the system, but I told him that it would still take me a couple weeks to get everything operational and extract the data, and asked him & his manager to talk to my new boss to make sure I was cleared to spend my time doing that much work for them.
This way, I:
1) Was the "nice guy" who helped out a coworker in a bind;
2) Didn't get slagged by my own boss for suddenly wasting a ton of time doing something unrelated to my new role that he hadn't assigned me;
3) Didn't have to spend hours and hours working "free overtime" for the company;
4) Got extra credit on my next review for not being a prima donna who refuses to pitch in when his expertise needed;
I also received (and receive still) occasional calls from the person who inherited my projects when I was reorg'ed. When he has a question, he'll usually call me and say, "Hey, let me buy you a cup of coffee." I get a free cup of coffee, he gets pointed in the right direction, and then we spend 15 minutes chatting about life and work and family.
Espionage is pretty much illegal in any country you care to name. The US is well within their rights to request extradition of Mr. Assange to try him for espionage - IF, IFF, IFF - they can make a convincing argument that he actively sought out this material for purposes of disseminating it, rather than simply being handed a bunch of stolen information by the person who leaked it (allegedly, PFC Manning), and subsequently publishing it.
American laws are not worldwide, but when an criminal act is committed against the US government, and that crime is pretty much universally considered a "serious" crime by every government on the planet, your argument that "America doesn't have jurisdiction over him" has pretty much no basis - the US legal system has whatever jurisdiction over him they're granted under an extradition request.
I agree that people are unnecessarily muddying the waters with talk of "treason," which is a spurious claim that cannot apply to him. But at the same time, it is entirely conceivable that Mr. Assange committed espionage, and *for that*, an extradition to the United States to face trial would not be outlandish or unjust. On the balance of facts I've seen so far, I don't believe he committed espionage, but if there is compelling evidence that he did... how can you claim that requesting extradition to face charges of espionage would be unjust?
"Well, sure, I murdered somebody, but he was a real asshole. Therefore, my murder charges should be dismissed," is not a coherent legal argument.
Demanding that "classification standards" be revised to provide more transparency doesn't require an intimate knowledge of classified material. The military ultimately reports to civilian leadership. People certainly know that the military secrets exist, even if they are not familiar with the nature of the secrets.
You seem to be arguing that banks shouldn't be allowed to lock any safe deposit boxes at all, and that anybody who wants to can walk in, rifle through the contents of the vault, and take whatever they want on a whim.
If you can't concede that operational secrets are *sometimes* necessary in military and government matters, then there's really no basis for any rational discussion of the issue. If you can acknowledge that fact, then it's a question of the degree of secrecy that's appropriate, and that is absolutely a decision that can (and should) be made by the military's civilian leadership.
You're right. Of course, the government *hasn't* made "everything classified" - these are specific operational reports detailing troop activities that were leaked.
If you want access to them, there are ways to get that, legally - join the military and become someone who "needs to know," so that you have appropriate security clearance to view it; stay a civilian and file a Freedom of Information request; become a politician, get yourself elected, and get yourself onto a legislative committee that oversees military operations, and press for change from the top.
There is a fundamental need for confidentiality and security in some areas of the government - the notion that everything should be transparent is just as fatuous as the notion that nothing is transparent. If you disagree with the level of detail made public, there are ways to lobby for a change to that policy without engaging in espionage.
The problem here is that you're comparing espionage to a fairly minor "crime" which would offend someone's sensibilities (the purchase of Nazi memorabilia). Governments take espionage quite seriously. Suggesting that it's somehow unjust or illegal to pursue extradition of someone who has engaged in espionage simply because he happens to live outside your country is rather silly - there is no binding international "law" enforced by some higher power, there is international convention, treaty, and custom.
You're right, and I was pretty sure as soon as I clicked submit that somebody would point that out.
However, espionage exists in the gray area between sovereign nations, where there is no overarching legal framework governing the behavior - it is a matter of international treaty, custom, and precedent. Most countries view espionage as a fairly major crime against the state, and act accordingly. Consequently, many countries also don't want to be on the receiving end of sanctions for harboring a spy, especially a spy who doesn't work for them, and there are plenty of countries would aggressively pursue people spying on them even if they happened to not be on their soil when the spying was conducted.
Any government who this happened to would certainly be tossing the "espionage" word around - if I found an exploitable hole in the German Defense Ministry's computer systems and used it (from the comfort of my home in the US) to access classified documents, and then published them to the world, you can bet that Germany would be using the word 'espionage' and requesting extradition as well.
If he's extradited, it would be for espionage. That is sort of a different category of crime than shoplifting or double parking, and most nations do take espionage fairly seriously. Again, I'm not saying I believe he conducted espionage, on the basis of the facts I've read, I do believe he was a passive recipient of the information. But suggesting that because he's not an American citizen, and didn't do things *in* America (but rather, *to* America) is a defense against an extradition for espionage is a bit of wishful thinking.
The term is 'espionage' - e.g., 'spying.'
Whether or not what he's done meets the definition of spying would depend largely on whether he actively solicited these files (e.g., encouraged the leaker, allegedly PFC Manning, to breach security and release the classified information to him), or whether he was the passive recipient, and all of the responsibility for the release of classified information rests with the leaker. If you actively seek out classified information with the intent of passing it on to people who aren't cleared to possess it, that would be considered spying. If you are given information by a leaker, there are still some espionage concerns if you decide to publish, but the US Supreme Court has taken a fairly narrow view of what sort of things the government can forcibly prevent a newspaper from publishing once it has been leaked.
Your argument, however, is nonsensical. Being a US citizen doesn't mean you're allowed to go to Germany and break their laws, and then claim as a defense, "But I'm not German, and I don't live here - I'm not bound by German law!" If you commit a crime in Germany, you can bet that the German authorities will want to prosecute, regardless of what your nationality is.
NB: I'm not arguing that Mr. Assange *has* committed a crime against the US, I'm pointing out that your argument does nothing to exonerate him if he actually has done so. I could certainly agree that his organization handled the leaked documents irresponsibly (a much more thorough redaction to protect named informants would have been preferable), but I'd need to see far more concrete evidence that he actively solicited this information to believe he engaged in anything like espionage.
It becomes meaningless to whom? What Mozilla and Google and all these other ad-based/free-lunch services know, but hope users don't, is that this tracking data is the goose that lays their golden eggs. Turning on the "do not track" by default would kill that goose - because virtually nobody in their right mind would ever go in and say, "Wait, no, I WANT to be tracked by Google! That's awesome having a billion dollar conglomerate watching my every move online!" Most people are creeped out by this behavior when they think about it, and the only reason they don't think about it is that nobody's pushing that choice in their face and asking them what to do.
Mozilla - funded in large part by Google - and Google themselves, have NO interest in seeing their business models disappear overnight. Turning on Do Not Track by default would force them to change their model entirely - to one of serving customers, rather than advertisers. All this doublespeak is just intended to hide that very simple fact.
"How am I supposed to provide televisions to legitimate customers if tv shops lock up their inventory and don't allow me to take what I need?"
"How am I supposed to provide organs to legitimate organ recipients if people don't allow me to knock them out and steal their kidneys?"
Final time: Do you really want the standard of behavior for corporations set so low that "whatever they can get away with" is the only limit on their behavior?
Google could build a better browser that isn't limited like IE, and convince people to use it; they could educate their users and score points against MSFT for being backwards and out of date, and convince those users to change the settings willingly, but honor them if they haven't been changed; Instead, they opted to simply disregard users' preferences, and do whatever they damn well pleased. And that's a problem, no matter how blindly devoted you are to Google.
If I have a crowbar, do I have the right to just walk into your house and use the restroom and help myself to a snack from the fridge because your lock couldn't stop me? How about me presenting falsified credentials from the electric or cable company and lying my way inside, only to leave a floater and eat some of your tasty snacks?
*Respecting* users and their wishes would seem to be part of "doing no evil," and yet you're defending Google's deliberate circumvention of user preferences. It's certainly possible for Google to display a "Hey, we can't set this cookie that's required, unless you open up your browser settings for us. Here's how to do it, and why we think you should" type of page. Instead, they opted to say, "since you signed up to use my service, I'll assume for you that you want it everywhere you go, despite your default browser settings."
Respecting other people's stuff is kind of a big part of what's known as 'polite society.' I've asked this repeatedly of the Google defenders here: Do you really want the standard of behavior for corporations set so low that "whatever they can get away with" is the only limit on their behavior? So far, all I've seen is a willful refusal to accept the facts of the matter: that if any other corporation did this, you would be going apeshit and calling it "hacking" and demanding blood.
Keep spinning it, people might start to believe that Google did nothing wrong!
"Google's just doing the same thing everybody else does."
"The system's broken; Google can't be blamed for exploiting a known bug to make their lives easier while circumventing something users though would protect their privacy."
"If it's not explicitly prevented by Microsoft's software, then there's no problem with Google doing it, even if it goes against the expressed of the users!"
Again: this is the road you want corporations to go down? Seriously? This is the standard you wish them to behave to?
Incorrect. This is NOT a "Google vs. Microsoft" issue no matter how much the google-can-do-no-wrong crew shouts that it is.
What you are suggesting is that corporations begin behaving according to this standard: "If it's not impossible for us to do, then it's okay."
I'll ask you again: is this the standard you want corporations to behave to? Is this a standard you will *defend* corporations for behaving to?
If Google sent nothing, and simply said "We refuse to support P3P," then the P3P system would have stopped them setting the tracking cookie. So Google had to expend the effort to:
1) Find a loophole that would allow them to track users even if this P3P system was in place;
2) Implement & test their workaround;
So yes, they had to deliberately develop and implement a workaround to allow them to plant the tracking cookie on IE users. Because not planting that cookie would be ever-so-inconvenient and unprofitable for them otherwise.
What blows my mind is that people are trying to frame this as a "Google vs. Microsoft" issue, when it is very clearly a "Google vs. User" issue. Google should respect the wishes of the users, as expressed by the P3P settings, or work to convince users that it is trustworthy & that they should change their settings (or use a different browser) that would allow google to track them. Hard claiming you're trustworthy when you're caught making an end-run around user preferences because they happen to be at odds with your business model.
User: "I don't wish to be tracked. I've opted out using this P3P setting."
Google: "Haha there's a loophole that we're gonna use to track you anyway. Blame Microsoft if you don't like it, sucker!"
Yep, Google has done nothing wrong here whatsoever. They're completely right to exploit a known loophole which allows them to disregard the wishes of the users accessing their services, if those wishes would make Google's services less profitable.
If this is "Do no evil," I shudder to think about the damage Google could do if they decided one day to deliberately engage in evil.
I find it amusing that you are twisting and squirming to rationalize how Google explicitly disregarding the wishes of the user and exploiting a well-known loophole in the P3P spec in order to do something against that user's wishes is "not evil."
Even in the best "Microsoft should have prevented this" light, it makes them no better than the used car dealer who tries to convince you that the rust on that El Camino is a special limited-edition two-tone finish that the manufacturer tested out, and the noise from that busted exhaust system is just evidence that the car has a special glasspack muffler. It's bottom-feeding behavior of the worst sort, and blatant hypocrisy from a company that carries on about its "do no evil" policy.
Google is under no legal requirement, but remember, they're the "Do No Evil!" crowd. Deliberately circumventing a system which allows browser USERS to say "I don't want to allow cookies from sites which will do X, Y, or Z with my data," would seem to fly in the face of that policy, wouldn't it?
What you're saying is, "Since Microsoft didn't create a hermetically sealed box that's unable to be bypassed, it's okay for Google to simply disrespect the wishes of the user - as expressed by the web browser settings - and do whatever they want."
Is this REALLY a road you think any company should be going down, where "whatever's not bolted down" is fair game for anybody smart enough to take it?