Democracy is more of a problem than a solution. The entire these laws get passed in the first place is because of politicians looking for votes.
Heh. Talk about your all-time stretches. It would be so much better if our politicians just didn't have to get votes, at all... if they just had their position for life.. maybe pass their position on to their kids. That sounds alot better. Then maybe we can mix in some serfs, a couple of joust matches, and throw in a dark-ages or two, for fun. I'm starting to see the light....
Unfortunately you don't state WHY you disagree - which would be quite a bit more useful for a discussion rather than "you're wrong - commy!".
I find it curious that you would say that. Did I not just write three paragraphs after that sentence that you also replied to? What did you think those paragraphs were about?
I would not go so far as to say it's an analysis. It's a detail - I know, but important.
Actually, it's quite unimportant. It's semantics and uninteresting so I will move on...
Anyone can start a business and study loopholes and profit from it.
Then why do so many fail?
Transfer-pricing is an excellent example on how the private sector simply abuse loopholes regarding law
This is fallacious reasoning. Companies are a set A, some subset participate in act B which I dislike, therefore set A is bad. Providing examples of bad companies as evidence that companies are bad is terrible logical premise from which to proceed.
if you've learned anything from history
Me? How about you? In the history of mankind, weigh the damage done by bad governments versus the damage done by bad corporations. History isn't something you want to bring up if you are trying to convince me that corporations are a bigger threat than government. Does nike sweatshops compare to Nazi Germany? Does evil corn lobbies and their subsidized corn really compare with the Inquisition or Atilla the Hun or Stalin or Manchuria or the slave trade?
When things go bad - is when someone has something to gain on being a criminal. In my eyes we should watch over where private individuals have too much access over our information, not the government. The government can change because of us - we can elect and vote anytime. It's harder to do that with a company - especially if we don't know what's going on behind the curtains (metaphorically speaking...this could be the net..etc). In government we have a certain control - we can always get in on what it is and what's going down in toon-town, so if there's something we don't like - we either speak up, or get rid of the elements we think are sinister by voting and democracy.
First, let me say, if you want to rail against the private-sector, the correct term to get people's blood boilding "corporations". It conjures up way better images than "companies". In slashdot groupthink, corporations are "evil"... companies are who writes our paychecks...
Secondly, what you are saying, fundamentally, for lack of a better word, is very... communist. You are, essentially saying, that you can trust the government alot more than you can trust private companies. I disagree with that, in most cases. (It also goes pretty counter to some fundamental American principles.) You are incorrect in your analysis of our "control" of the government versus our control of the private sector. You do have a huge amount of control over corporations (in general), with your wallet. In that respect, where free markets apply, the people are a far better control on the private sector then they are on the government.
The standard Slashdot response will link "evil corporations" and "non-competitive" and "cronyism" and "profiteering" and all these other strawmen in regards to certain lobby-friendly markets like oil or telecommunications.. but in reality, the bulk of the US corporations operate in highly competitive markets, and it's very easy to vote with your dollars... Your dollars vote alot more often than your ballot does, in fact...
You do realize that slippery slope argument, as you are using it, is a textbook logical fallacy, right? Equating RFID cards and RFID implants because one "could lead" to the other is identical to the right-wing trying to put controls on the internet because if "could lead" to child porn. It's terrible logic.
Americans. Stand up. It is your freedom on the line next.
It is a never-ending amazement how shallow the line of reasoning of some people is. Some company is trying to sell RFID chips, proposes a possible use, and now it's time to take up arms against our cowboy president. The real danger to America is people who can't think 5 seconds beyond their blind political agenda.
I hope some big names kick up a fuss over this, because whatever insane big brother actions the USA takes, our useless govt here in the UK copies soon afterwards.
You guys came up with tracking every single car in your country through omnipresent mass surveillance and automatic license plate readers with data saved in a single central database all on your own. You guys are also leading the way on RFID license plate to aid in tracking drivers.. and America is looking to see how those experiments go before we subject our people to them. Need to give yourself some credit.
Says who? I suspect an honest poll of real-life ordinary Americans would reveal that they want affordable social security, the end of the war in Iraq, sensible energy policies and a range of other things first...
Feel free to browse here to see what Americans think the biggest problems are. War in Iraq, gas prices, immigration are all high on every poll...
You are absolutely correct. I meant child pornography. If they catch some child molester, subpeona his internet records, and find out he visted 100s of child pornographic websites.. it improves their case, alot. Child molestation is already a very difficult thing to prove. It generally comes down to word vs word, adult vs child... so typically circumstantial evidence is necessary for convinction.
Note: I am not advocating data retention.. I'm just explaining the rationale.
You need to read this. Right now. And this. It's not good when you are critizing other countries for doing things your country has already done...
The United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Sweden are attempting to persuade the European Union to introduce a directive which would make data retention mandatory throughout the EU....
I can see this data being useful retroactively for things like criminal profiling and possibly being valuable for targeted marketing analysis, but not for catching child molesters and terrorists.
That's not what it's being used for. It's being used to prove people are child molesters. As in, the think you are a child molestor, show a judge their evidence, get access to your web records. In that sense, it is "retroactive". They aren't, however, doing proactive searches through it to find child pornography.
UK does not have a centralised database of its cittisen information
You are right, not yet. Except the UK is the only place in the world trying to build one. 2008 for their national card registry? When is the system that will track all license plates going to be done? Project laser, I believe, it's called. While you are at it, go ahead and browse wikipedia on mass surveillance. A choice quote for you:
Amongst the western democracies, the United Kingdom is perhaps the country subject to the most surveillance.
You may think, but you'd be wrong. I work for a security company. I know what we sell, and I know who is buying it. I also know where it's being installed. I promise you that the US allows private companies to do what the UK would never allow them to do, and the UK government is allowed to do things that the US government is not. There are plans to store all kinds of information and do all kinds of analysis at central locations from commercial security systems throughout a local area... these plans exist in the UK, not the US.
Basically, the main problem of the database-war between the USA and the EU is, that the EU guarantee to its citizens certain rights concerning their data, like not having it transferred to third parties, the right to review the data about oneself and some limited rights to have the data erased. To prevent clever corporations to circumvent those regulations by shipping the data outside the EU, there's a directive that personal data can only be shipped to countries, that have similar data-protection rights (so called safe havens). As you can imagine, the USA isn't really too interested in giving its own citizens data protection rights from corporations and the gouvernement and even less on granting those rights to foreigners. Thus, no data transfer of personal data of EU-citizens to the USA.
You are touching on a fundamental difference in the way the EU and the US deal with data. The EU, by and large, trusts their governments to deal with privacy and controlling it. The US, by and large, trusts the private sector. Europe let's their government track their liscense plates, give them national id cards, etc, etc. In the US, we'd rather give our personal information to 1000 companies individually than give it once to the government.. because we don't trust our government.
As an American, it's incredible, to me, what the UK will not allow private companies to do, but will allow the government to do. There are certain types of data that stores are not allowed to record, but instead, it must be sent to the police station to be stored. That concept, as an American, is so offensive to me. That means all the stores are collecting information on their customers, and sending it to the police station to be kept in a central database... Unfortunately, this is slashdot, so the "US=bad" groupthink generally overlooks the fact that European governments (on average) keep and track their population FAR more than the US. Most of the Euros in this thread are so worried about America's prying eyes, but they'll happily travel to the UK or Spain... two of the worst nations in the free world as far as spying on their own people. However, sanctimous self-righteousness is a topic for a different discussion.
The moral of the story is you need to choose your poison. Either the evil corporations have access to your info, or the government does.
That'll help all those EU-citizens a lot, that had their data sent to the USA in the past two years to be stored for the rest of eternity is all kind of dubious databases in the USA.
So is that database they are building in the UK to track the time and location of every single liscense plater dubious or not?
Here's a newsflash: In most of Europe, you are far more "watched" than in the US. Therefore, Europeans lecturing the US on storing personal information is like worrying that you left the oven on when evacuating your house that's already on fire.
Majority of Liberals = smart and educated
Majority of Slashdot users = smart and educated
When is this stupid myth going to die. The actual "curve" is U shaped. The majority of high-school dropouts are liberal, the majority of phds are liberal. High school graduates have a slight liberal edge, and masters degrees have a slight republican edge, and 4-year degree holders have a slight republican edge. I don't have to time to dig up the numbers and provide a source, but it's reasonably easy to find, if I remember.
Furthermore, the average slashdot reader is definitely not smart (ha ha). More seriously, he doesn't have a phd. It has nothing to do with education. If you want to find a correlation between slashdot audience and political spectrum, you should try age. I realize you want to believe the reason you are liberal is because you are smart and educated, however the real correlation to be found has to do with youth.
Re:Summary: Creative says "Waaaaaaaah"
on
Apple Sues Creative
·
· Score: 5, Funny
When I read that Apple didn't discuss the patents Creative is infringing on, I thought why should they? Like any sane thing to do is show all the cards you're playing with.
Close, but wrong. Apple was afraid.... One the patents that came up early in the discussion was Creative's patent on 'a method of meeting and talking openly about patents in an attempt to extort money'.
I like the way you dodged the issue that you were, in fact, completely wrong. I guess now you will move your target and say "Let's not attribute to Western Europe what is only happening the UK". Who is being dishonest now? If you'd like, I can give you the details on the Spanish programs, too, then? You brought up England, not me. I can do Spain next, if you'd like. Then I'll do Italy. Germany isn't far behind, either.
It would largely be a waste of time since you clearly have no interest in the facts. And I have no interest in trying to ram facts down close-minded people's throats.
That entire screed was about a controversial system in one country, but not even that--just one CITY. So, instead of saying "that's reality in parts of Western Europe" just be honest and say "they're doing something sketchy in central London"
I would be happy to say that, if it was true. It's not. Automatic liscense plate optical tracking has been tested by at least 23 police forces in England. They are currently funding their central database to handle 50million reads PER DAY. Feel free to read about it yourself. The headline is "Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey". Please note the difference between "Britian" and "Central London".
You might want to consider rereading my post and hopefully realize you've created a strawman. I am not justifying American actions by saying "at least it's not as bad....". I am saying that Europe doesn't have the moral highground here. I specifically say it's OK to criticize... but don't be self-righteous about it.
.....and another survey found out that the majority of Europeans don't understand why Americans view them as elitist pricks with a smug sense of superiority
What I've always found curious in these discussions where Europeans start babbling on about the ignorance-filled American dystopia. America, despite the NSA wiretapping and call database, is still eons ahead of most of Europe in terms of government intrusion. The UK, for instance, does incredible stuff that would get people crucified here.
In my industry, we work with people from many countries... and I can see with absolute certainty that if you do not want the government snooping in your life, America is generally a far better place to be than Europe. Omnipresent video surveillance, automatic liscense plate recognition, and a central database of liscense plates, their locations, and the times. That's reality in parts of western Europe. They don't even lie and say it's for terrorism... it's for dealing with normal criminal activity. They are actively trying to acquire face detection/recognition software to start tracking individuals throughout the community, as well.
I have no problem with Europeons mocking America for not living up to their stated values. However, let's not get self-righteous... kettles and pots will reign supreme.
I'm sad to think that the government of California would be more likely to squander the cash on pet projects rather than bolstering their ability to help people unable to pay for health care.I'm sad to think that the government of California would be more likely to squander the cash on pet projects rather than bolstering their ability to help people unable to pay for health care.
Yes. I am interested in hearing more. I wonder if there is anything politically going on in Southern California that makes hospitals struggle to pay their bills... there has to be something.... It's almost like... alot of people there don't have health insurance... Must be evil corporations or something...
Slashdot Mirror
Democracy is more of a problem than a solution. The entire these laws get passed in the first place is because of politicians looking for votes.
Heh. Talk about your all-time stretches. It would be so much better if our politicians just didn't have to get votes, at all... if they just had their position for life.. maybe pass their position on to their kids. That sounds alot better. Then maybe we can mix in some serfs, a couple of joust matches, and throw in a dark-ages or two, for fun. I'm starting to see the light....
Unfortunately you don't state WHY you disagree - which would be quite a bit more useful for a discussion rather than "you're wrong - commy!".
I find it curious that you would say that. Did I not just write three paragraphs after that sentence that you also replied to? What did you think those paragraphs were about?
I would not go so far as to say it's an analysis. It's a detail - I know, but important.
Actually, it's quite unimportant. It's semantics and uninteresting so I will move on...
Anyone can start a business and study loopholes and profit from it.
Then why do so many fail?
Transfer-pricing is an excellent example on how the private sector simply abuse loopholes regarding law
This is fallacious reasoning. Companies are a set A, some subset participate in act B which I dislike, therefore set A is bad. Providing examples of bad companies as evidence that companies are bad is terrible logical premise from which to proceed.
if you've learned anything from history
Me? How about you? In the history of mankind, weigh the damage done by bad governments versus the damage done by bad corporations. History isn't something you want to bring up if you are trying to convince me that corporations are a bigger threat than government. Does nike sweatshops compare to Nazi Germany? Does evil corn lobbies and their subsidized corn really compare with the Inquisition or Atilla the Hun or Stalin or Manchuria or the slave trade?
The only reason anyone thought there was actually WMDs in Iraq was because the Bush administration and Tony Blair lied about the intelligence.
Don't forget the Russians, French, and Israelis... oh, and the fact he used em before.
When things go bad - is when someone has something to gain on being a criminal. In my eyes we should watch over where private individuals have too much access over our information, not the government. The government can change because of us - we can elect and vote anytime. It's harder to do that with a company - especially if we don't know what's going on behind the curtains (metaphorically speaking...this could be the net..etc). In government we have a certain control - we can always get in on what it is and what's going down in toon-town, so if there's something we don't like - we either speak up, or get rid of the elements we think are sinister by voting and democracy.
First, let me say, if you want to rail against the private-sector, the correct term to get people's blood boilding "corporations". It conjures up way better images than "companies". In slashdot groupthink, corporations are "evil"... companies are who writes our paychecks...
Secondly, what you are saying, fundamentally, for lack of a better word, is very... communist. You are, essentially saying, that you can trust the government alot more than you can trust private companies. I disagree with that, in most cases. (It also goes pretty counter to some fundamental American principles.) You are incorrect in your analysis of our "control" of the government versus our control of the private sector. You do have a huge amount of control over corporations (in general), with your wallet. In that respect, where free markets apply, the people are a far better control on the private sector then they are on the government.
The standard Slashdot response will link "evil corporations" and "non-competitive" and "cronyism" and "profiteering" and all these other strawmen in regards to certain lobby-friendly markets like oil or telecommunications.. but in reality, the bulk of the US corporations operate in highly competitive markets, and it's very easy to vote with your dollars... Your dollars vote alot more often than your ballot does, in fact...
You do realize that slippery slope argument, as you are using it, is a textbook logical fallacy, right? Equating RFID cards and RFID implants because one "could lead" to the other is identical to the right-wing trying to put controls on the internet because if "could lead" to child porn. It's terrible logic.
Americans. Stand up. It is your freedom on the line next.
It is a never-ending amazement how shallow the line of reasoning of some people is. Some company is trying to sell RFID chips, proposes a possible use, and now it's time to take up arms against our cowboy president. The real danger to America is people who can't think 5 seconds beyond their blind political agenda.
Oh, and please if you are from the USA do not get offended, it is nothing personal against citizens, its about the government :).
None taken. No matter how much you think our government sucks, we think yours is worse. And we're right.
I hope some big names kick up a fuss over this, because whatever insane big brother actions the USA takes, our useless govt here in the UK copies soon afterwards.
You guys came up with tracking every single car in your country through omnipresent mass surveillance and automatic license plate readers with data saved in a single central database all on your own. You guys are also leading the way on RFID license plate to aid in tracking drivers.. and America is looking to see how those experiments go before we subject our people to them. Need to give yourself some credit.
Says who? I suspect an honest poll of real-life ordinary Americans would reveal that they want affordable social security, the end of the war in Iraq, sensible energy policies and a range of other things first...
Feel free to browse here to see what Americans think the biggest problems are. War in Iraq, gas prices, immigration are all high on every poll...
Child molestation occurs offline.
You are absolutely correct. I meant child pornography. If they catch some child molester, subpeona his internet records, and find out he visted 100s of child pornographic websites.. it improves their case, alot. Child molestation is already a very difficult thing to prove. It generally comes down to word vs word, adult vs child... so typically circumstantial evidence is necessary for convinction.
Note: I am not advocating data retention.. I'm just explaining the rationale.
it makes me glad to live in Ireland
You need to read this. Right now. And this. It's not good when you are critizing other countries for doing things your country has already done...
The United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Sweden are attempting to persuade the European Union to introduce a directive which would make data retention mandatory throughout the EU....
It passed.
Man what a repressive crap-hole! Sure glad I don't live there.
Hope you don't live in Europe. We stole the idea from them.
I can see this data being useful retroactively for things like criminal profiling and possibly being valuable for targeted marketing analysis, but not for catching child molesters and terrorists.
That's not what it's being used for. It's being used to prove people are child molesters. As in, the think you are a child molestor, show a judge their evidence, get access to your web records. In that sense, it is "retroactive". They aren't, however, doing proactive searches through it to find child pornography.
Can the ISP lobiests motivate the democratic party to put an end to this big brother like behavior?
Good luck with that.
UK does not have a centralised database of its cittisen information
You are right, not yet. Except the UK is the only place in the world trying to build one. 2008 for their national card registry? When is the system that will track all license plates going to be done? Project laser, I believe, it's called. While you are at it, go ahead and browse wikipedia on mass surveillance. A choice quote for you:
Amongst the western democracies, the United Kingdom is perhaps the country subject to the most surveillance.
I think you're very badly misinformed here.
You may think, but you'd be wrong. I work for a security company. I know what we sell, and I know who is buying it. I also know where it's being installed. I promise you that the US allows private companies to do what the UK would never allow them to do, and the UK government is allowed to do things that the US government is not. There are plans to store all kinds of information and do all kinds of analysis at central locations from commercial security systems throughout a local area... these plans exist in the UK, not the US.
Basically, the main problem of the database-war between the USA and the EU is, that the EU guarantee to its citizens certain rights concerning their data, like not having it transferred to third parties, the right to review the data about oneself and some limited rights to have the data erased. To prevent clever corporations to circumvent those regulations by shipping the data outside the EU, there's a directive that personal data can only be shipped to countries, that have similar data-protection rights (so called safe havens). As you can imagine, the USA isn't really too interested in giving its own citizens data protection rights from corporations and the gouvernement and even less on granting those rights to foreigners. Thus, no data transfer of personal data of EU-citizens to the USA.
You are touching on a fundamental difference in the way the EU and the US deal with data. The EU, by and large, trusts their governments to deal with privacy and controlling it. The US, by and large, trusts the private sector. Europe let's their government track their liscense plates, give them national id cards, etc, etc. In the US, we'd rather give our personal information to 1000 companies individually than give it once to the government.. because we don't trust our government.
As an American, it's incredible, to me, what the UK will not allow private companies to do, but will allow the government to do. There are certain types of data that stores are not allowed to record, but instead, it must be sent to the police station to be stored. That concept, as an American, is so offensive to me. That means all the stores are collecting information on their customers, and sending it to the police station to be kept in a central database... Unfortunately, this is slashdot, so the "US=bad" groupthink generally overlooks the fact that European governments (on average) keep and track their population FAR more than the US. Most of the Euros in this thread are so worried about America's prying eyes, but they'll happily travel to the UK or Spain... two of the worst nations in the free world as far as spying on their own people. However, sanctimous self-righteousness is a topic for a different discussion.
The moral of the story is you need to choose your poison. Either the evil corporations have access to your info, or the government does.
That'll help all those EU-citizens a lot, that had their data sent to the USA in the past two years to be stored for the rest of eternity is all kind of dubious databases in the USA.
So is that database they are building in the UK to track the time and location of every single liscense plater dubious or not?
Here's a newsflash: In most of Europe, you are far more "watched" than in the US. Therefore, Europeans lecturing the US on storing personal information is like worrying that you left the oven on when evacuating your house that's already on fire.
Majority of Liberals = smart and educated
Majority of Slashdot users = smart and educated
When is this stupid myth going to die. The actual "curve" is U shaped. The majority of high-school dropouts are liberal, the majority of phds are liberal. High school graduates have a slight liberal edge, and masters degrees have a slight republican edge, and 4-year degree holders have a slight republican edge. I don't have to time to dig up the numbers and provide a source, but it's reasonably easy to find, if I remember.
Furthermore, the average slashdot reader is definitely not smart (ha ha). More seriously, he doesn't have a phd. It has nothing to do with education. If you want to find a correlation between slashdot audience and political spectrum, you should try age. I realize you want to believe the reason you are liberal is because you are smart and educated, however the real correlation to be found has to do with youth.
When I read that Apple didn't discuss the patents Creative is infringing on, I thought why should they? Like any sane thing to do is show all the cards you're playing with.
Close, but wrong. Apple was afraid.... One the patents that came up early in the discussion was Creative's patent on 'a method of meeting and talking openly about patents in an attempt to extort money'.
I like the way you dodged the issue that you were, in fact, completely wrong. I guess now you will move your target and say "Let's not attribute to Western Europe what is only happening the UK". Who is being dishonest now? If you'd like, I can give you the details on the Spanish programs, too, then? You brought up England, not me. I can do Spain next, if you'd like. Then I'll do Italy. Germany isn't far behind, either.
It would largely be a waste of time since you clearly have no interest in the facts. And I have no interest in trying to ram facts down close-minded people's throats.
That entire screed was about a controversial system in one country, but not even that--just one CITY. So, instead of saying "that's reality in parts of Western Europe" just be honest and say "they're doing something sketchy in central London"
I would be happy to say that, if it was true. It's not. Automatic liscense plate optical tracking has been tested by at least 23 police forces in England. They are currently funding their central database to handle 50million reads PER DAY. Feel free to read about it yourself. The headline is "Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey". Please note the difference between "Britian" and "Central London".
You might want to consider rereading my post and hopefully realize you've created a strawman. I am not justifying American actions by saying "at least it's not as bad....". I am saying that Europe doesn't have the moral highground here. I specifically say it's OK to criticize... but don't be self-righteous about it.
.....and another survey found out that the majority of Europeans don't understand why Americans view them as elitist pricks with a smug sense of superiority
What I've always found curious in these discussions where Europeans start babbling on about the ignorance-filled American dystopia. America, despite the NSA wiretapping and call database, is still eons ahead of most of Europe in terms of government intrusion. The UK, for instance, does incredible stuff that would get people crucified here.
In my industry, we work with people from many countries... and I can see with absolute certainty that if you do not want the government snooping in your life, America is generally a far better place to be than Europe. Omnipresent video surveillance, automatic liscense plate recognition, and a central database of liscense plates, their locations, and the times. That's reality in parts of western Europe. They don't even lie and say it's for terrorism... it's for dealing with normal criminal activity. They are actively trying to acquire face detection/recognition software to start tracking individuals throughout the community, as well.
I have no problem with Europeons mocking America for not living up to their stated values. However, let's not get self-righteous... kettles and pots will reign supreme.
I'm sad to think that the government of California would be more likely to squander the cash on pet projects rather than bolstering their ability to help people unable to pay for health care.I'm sad to think that the government of California would be more likely to squander the cash on pet projects rather than bolstering their ability to help people unable to pay for health care.
/tongue-in-cheek
Yes. I am interested in hearing more. I wonder if there is anything politically going on in Southern California that makes hospitals struggle to pay their bills... there has to be something.... It's almost like... alot of people there don't have health insurance... Must be evil corporations or something...