Or maybe they release crazily scary ideas, and the general public thinks "Oh, gee, if they actually think they need to spy on my Internet traffic, this file sharing problem must be really serious."
You used to be able to say "I withdraw my petition to enter your country" and they'd just basically ship you back.Now, they don't really care.
This actually gives you a good reason to travel to the US through Canada. From the Preclearance Act (which is summarised on some signs in Canadian airport preclearance areas):
10. (1) Every traveller has the right, at any stage of the preclearance process, to leave a preclearance area without departing for the United States, unless a preclearance officer informs the traveller that the officer suspects on reasonable grounds that the traveller has committed an offence under section 33 or 34. [These sections say you can't lie to or obstruct a preclearance officer in the execution of the officer's duties.]
There are many other protections the act gives, including that if you're detained you must be transferred to a Canadian officer or released if asked, that the US government is not immune from liability, and protection of personal information, among other things. And once you're through customs, they still can't do anything more to you, until you arrive in US airspace (or, more likely, land), after which you, I would assume, have the protections of the US Constitution. IANAL.
But building a search engine is a little ambitious, even for the co-founder of Wikipedia. Maybe he should start off small, like searching one website. I even have the perfect one to start off with: its search feature is so bad that if your search is off by one letter, you have a good chance of not finding what you're looking for. Maybe you've heard of it.
Headline: "Auto Mileage Standards Raised to 35 mpg"
First sentence of summary: "The Senate just passed a bill that will increase auto mileage standards for the first time in three decades."
Of course, given the current state of affairs, it seems unlikely this bill won't become law (considering Democrats can force it through the House even if it doesn't get support from Republicans and Bush says he'll sign it). But it's still a bill, not law.
Then again, given the current state of affairs, it would seem unlikely that Slashdot editors would actually read the first sentence of a summary (let alone a story, or even the headline of a story).
I don't know about you, but I like short URLs (not that any pages except top-level ones have short URLs, as evidenced by those links). I also don't like how that page needs the "www" (as you can see, the same being true for Elections Canada). Then again, few people actually go to pages through the URL; they just go to Google, and as you can see, it doesn't take much work to find it (you don't even need "of Canada").
As you can see on the Order Paper for Tuesday, the Minister of Industry can still introduce such a bill (with some last minute changes that water down only the most objectionable content, or no changes at all), just like he could yesterday. It'll stay on the "waiting to be introduced list" until it's introduced, or removed. With 4 more days until the holiday break, it should be interesting to watch; I know where I'll be tomorrow morning at 10 a.m....
Oh, of course, as already mentioned, the title and summary of this story are wrong, since a bill that's never been introduced cannot be withdrawn. As usual with editors, YMMV.
You clearly have not seen hows laws are passed in many Commonwealth Realms, because it responds to pretty much all your concerns. (I'm going to use the Canadian system as an example, because I know it best, but there are similar examples in other countries.)
Each bill has a long title, which could be vague (e.g. C-8, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act (railway transportation)) or specific (e.g. C-15, An Act respecting the exploitation of the Donkin coal block and employment in or in connection with the operation of a mine that is wholly or partly at the Donkin coal block, and to make a consequential amendment to the Canada--Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act). It also has a summary (e.g., for C-257, "The purpose of this enactment is to prohibit employees under the Canada Labour Code from hiring replacement workers to perform the duties of employees who are on strike or locked out.").
These, as well as other parts of the bill, comprise its "scope". For a bill to pass, it must go through three "readings". The first happens automatically when it's introduced. The second is one where the House, after debate, votes on whether it agrees with the general intent of the bill. That's the bill's "scope". Once this happens, a bill cannot exceed the bounds of its scope. So when the bill goes to committee (if it passes second reading) or when it's returned from committee (at "report stage", right before debate on third reading) members can propose amendments, but they can't go outside the scope of the bill.
For the best recent example, earlier this year an amendment to an anti-scab bill (C-257 above) so that workers would still have to maintain essential services was ruled inadmissible because the amendment was not within the scope of the original bill. To wit:
When a bill is referred to a standing or legislative committee of the House, that committee is only empowered to adopt, amend or negative the clauses found in that piece of legislation and to report the bill to the House with or without amendments. The committee is restricted in its examination in a number of ways. It cannot infringe on the financial initiative of the Crown, it cannot go beyond the scope of the bill as passed at second reading, and it cannot reach back to the parent act to make further amendments not contemplated in the bill no matter how tempting that may be.
Consequently, less than a month later, a new bill, to include a provision for the maintenance of essential services, was introduced, and was first debated a week ago today.
But how do they deal with compromise, you ask? Simple: they just agree to vote for each other's bills, and then actually do it. I know it's hard to believe that people would actually do what they said they would, but it happens all the time up North, especially in today's minority government (3.5 years and counting). There are ways to make sure the bills are voted on consecutively, but at each vote each member has the opportunity to decide how he or she wants to vote. But if you say you'll support someone else's bill and then change your mind as
You think this bill won't pass, but aha, you missed a short line from the Speech from the Throne:
Our Government will improve the protection of cultural and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform.
See, now that Harper put it in the throne speech, he can do whatever he wants, and if the Liberals (and the other parties) oppose it, bang, election time, and the Liberals probably don't want to go to an election over copyright reform. See, the trick about Harper's throne speech gimmick is he can name every policy area in existence, then introduce whatever laws he wants, and say "Ah ah ah, it's in the throne speech; if you agreed with that, you agree with this." No matter that the quote says nothing about what he'd do, or taking consumer rights away, or anything like that. Immediate poison pill.
However, I do agree that there's no need to panic yet. Stephane Dion is allegedly supposed to grow a pair over the long Christmas break, and says he wants a pre-budget election (i.e. ~February). Considering Harper is unlikely to ram this through committee, or Parliament for that matter (as there are bills much more important to him--namely, ones that will embarrass the Liberals), this bill is likely going to die on the order paper. So I agree with your final opinion, just for different reasons.
This seems like a very interesting idea, but if it's not implemented on the spammer's email server, how will this stop spammers who bcc: all their recipients or use mail merge (i.e. most spammers)? I suppose if our email servers (or many reputable email servers) notice the same (well, "same") incoming message to many recipients it could deduce it was such a message, but then there's time-delay workarounds and other problems (welcome emails for signing up for a new service/site come to mind). And if bcc: or mail merge is used, I don't see how you can implement this client-side.
Idea: cool! Chance of success: IMH(layman)O, slim.
I read a story about this a month ago in my student newspaper. Good to know Slashdot is still setting the bar high for getting breaking news. Still, interesting topic.
Here's one way to fix the system (albeit only a small fix): make the statute of limitations similarly lengthed to libel claims. When you're libeled, you have to sue those libeling you within a statutory period, that's often at most a few years, and sometimes as little as three months, after you discover, or should reasonably have discovered, the libel.
So, if this were applied to patents, if a mom and pop shop in Nowhere, USA was using a patented production process to make bread for their community of 50, it's reasonable to assume that the company wouldn't find out about the process right away. Or if a company is using a patent internally and hiding it (like a trade secret) then no one could be expected to find out about it. But if the Internet developped a standard for, say, images, and publicized the encryption algorithm they used, then it would be reasonable to assume that the company holding the patent would discover the infringement soon. And, with a short statute of limitations, this would mean the company would have to sue for infringement within a reasonable period, or give up their patent claim.
And complaining about how you don't have the money to sue them is tough: if you don't have the money to sue someone for libel, or trademark infringement, for example, you'll lose your claim. Sure, there's an injustice in the justice system for those who don't have money, but that's not a problem that can be fixed with this. Nor, for that matter, can patent reform. And if you actually have a good chance of winning, and you're suing a big company (like, say, Google), I'm sure some enterprising lawyer will take you on contingency.
Until a week ago I thought that truth was an absolute defence to libel. Not always so. Although the law differs by jurisdiction, what you say may have to be in the public interest. If a politician sleeps around with married people and then tries to outlaw adultery, that's in the public interest to report; if your neighbour sleeps around with married people, that's not in the public interest (unless the married person or that person's spouse is a public figure). People are entitled to their privacy, and if the public would not care about Joe Blow and you defame his character, you're going to get in trouble.
Also, on the jurisdictional issue, this site lists a few places where truth is not an absolute defence (including "some US states"). And you should note that if you publish something online, then since people can read it in jurisdictions where truth is not an absolute defence, you may be able to be sued in those jurisdictions, even if you and the person you're talking about have never been to that jurisdiction. And lastly, the burden of truth (not just belief in truth of the statements, but actual truth) is on the person making the statements.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will implement a new WHOIS policy in March to comply with Canadian privacy laws (particularly PIPEDA).
An overlapping issue went to the Canadian Supreme Court in Aubry v. Éditions Vice-Versa inc. The Court ruled that publishing a photo of someone without the person's permission is a violation of the person's privacy, unless the person is in the public interest or at such an event, meaning anyone that was incidental to a photograph (e.g. as part of a crowd) cannot claim these rights. This is based on the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and so only applies in Quebec, and according to the Wikipedia article, doesn't apply anywhere else in North America, although people's comments about a model release seem to contradict this. Also, according to Amnesty International (via the Wikipedia article on Bill of rights), "Australia is the only western country without a constitutional or legislative bill of rights." IANAL.
the Supreme Court of Canada has just issued a new online contracting decision
I just came back from vacation and thought my lack of sleep was making me see doubles. A similar case in the US was reported on Slashdot with a comment about this case. This may not count as a dupe, but 18 days is awfully slow, even for Slashdot.
Similarly, in Quebec (the jurisdiction in question), a store must discount $10 off an item's actual price (or give it free if it's less than $10) if the price on the shelf is different from the price scanned at the cash. See details (in French).
The overly-litigious society can also cause burdens on individuals. Just over a year ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Childs v. Desormeaux that a host who serves alcohol at a party at their house is not responsible if someone drinks too much before coming to the party, doesn't drink at the party, and drives home and injures someone or destroys something. (A lot of people were saying the woman suing the family who held the party only did so because the guy who paralysed her had no money.)
Contributory infringement really goes too far in some cases, and a major problem is that unlike this case, when the average person could see that allowing the suing to go forward could personally affect them, when it's against a company, especially an "evil" company, people tend to feel it's just fine because the company deserves it, or is "faceless", or can afford it anyway.
As I've said before, feel free to steal any of our PIPEDA when drafting new privacy laws. I'll let Wikipedia do the talking for me:
The law gives individuals the right to
know why an organization collects, uses or discloses your personal information
expect an organization to collect, use or disclose your personal information reasonably and appropriately, and not use the information for any purpose other than that to which you have consented
know who in the organization is responsible for protecting your personal information
expect an organization to protect your personal information by taking appropriate security measures
expect the personal information an organization holds about you to be accurate, complete and up-to-date
obtain access to your personal information and ask for corrections if necessary
and complain about how an organization handles your personal information if you feel your privacy rights have not been respected.
The law requires organizations to
obtain consent when they collect, use or disclose your personal information
supply an individual with a product or a service even if you refuse consent for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information unless that information is essential to the transaction
collect information by fair and lawful means
and have personal information policies that are clear, understandable and readily available.
And since there are so many multinationals who do some business in the US, it'd be really nice if you guys got on this. Like, this century. Thanks, from your friends up north.
Link to bill. However, since it hasn't been put on the order paper and it's a minority parliament, this bill will likely die on the order paper (meaning Parliament will be dissolved before the bill passes).
WWII was already in full blown force by July 1941: the Battle of Britain had already finished 8 months earlier (2 months if you talk to German historians), Germany had just invaded the Soviet Union, with occupied territories spanning France to Greece, North Africa to Norway, and the Holocaust was already moving along frighteningly quickly, with ten of thousands already killed and hundreds of thousands already rounded up into camps. Japan had already invaded much of eastern China, some of French Indo-China and had Korea for years.
Can we please get rid of the attitude that WWII started on 7 December 1941. I always find it interesting that the British (and even the occupied Dutch) declared war on Japan the same day the Americans did, but not only did the Americans take two years to declare war on Germany, they didn't even declare war on Germany first--Germany declared war on the US! Looming indeed!
Let's change the analogy slightly then: someone is standing on a street with a sign that has the address of a shop that sells porn. No worse than the people who have those signs that say "Sale inside" or "Larouche 4 Prez!!!!11!1!" If the name of the shop has obscene words in it, just as if the name of the website has obscene words in it, that's different (assuming you believe in obscenity laws), but because I should be allowed to write a civic address on a sign and walk around with it, there's no reason I can't link to some IP address (i.e. xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx).
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe they release crazily scary ideas, and the general public thinks "Oh, gee, if they actually think they need to spy on my Internet traffic, this file sharing problem must be really serious."
But building a search engine is a little ambitious, even for the co-founder of Wikipedia. Maybe he should start off small, like searching one website. I even have the perfect one to start off with: its search feature is so bad that if your search is off by one letter, you have a good chance of not finding what you're looking for. Maybe you've heard of it.
Headline: "Auto Mileage Standards Raised to 35 mpg"
First sentence of summary: "The Senate just passed a bill that will increase auto mileage standards for the first time in three decades."
Of course, given the current state of affairs, it seems unlikely this bill won't become law (considering Democrats can force it through the House even if it doesn't get support from Republicans and Bush says he'll sign it). But it's still a bill, not law.
Then again, given the current state of affairs, it would seem unlikely that Slashdot editors would actually read the first sentence of a summary (let alone a story, or even the headline of a story).
I don't know about you, but I like short URLs (not that any pages except top-level ones have short URLs, as evidenced by those links). I also don't like how that page needs the "www" (as you can see, the same being true for Elections Canada). Then again, few people actually go to pages through the URL; they just go to Google, and as you can see, it doesn't take much work to find it (you don't even need "of Canada").
As you can see on the Order Paper for Tuesday, the Minister of Industry can still introduce such a bill (with some last minute changes that water down only the most objectionable content, or no changes at all), just like he could yesterday. It'll stay on the "waiting to be introduced list" until it's introduced, or removed. With 4 more days until the holiday break, it should be interesting to watch; I know where I'll be tomorrow morning at 10 a.m....
Oh, of course, as already mentioned, the title and summary of this story are wrong, since a bill that's never been introduced cannot be withdrawn. As usual with editors, YMMV.
Each bill has a long title, which could be vague (e.g. C-8, An Act to amend the Canada Transportation Act (railway transportation)) or specific (e.g. C-15, An Act respecting the exploitation of the Donkin coal block and employment in or in connection with the operation of a mine that is wholly or partly at the Donkin coal block, and to make a consequential amendment to the Canada--Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act). It also has a summary (e.g., for C-257, "The purpose of this enactment is to prohibit employees under the Canada Labour Code from hiring replacement workers to perform the duties of employees who are on strike or locked out.").
These, as well as other parts of the bill, comprise its "scope". For a bill to pass, it must go through three "readings". The first happens automatically when it's introduced. The second is one where the House, after debate, votes on whether it agrees with the general intent of the bill. That's the bill's "scope". Once this happens, a bill cannot exceed the bounds of its scope. So when the bill goes to committee (if it passes second reading) or when it's returned from committee (at "report stage", right before debate on third reading) members can propose amendments, but they can't go outside the scope of the bill.
For the best recent example, earlier this year an amendment to an anti-scab bill (C-257 above) so that workers would still have to maintain essential services was ruled inadmissible because the amendment was not within the scope of the original bill. To wit:
Consequently, less than a month later, a new bill, to include a provision for the maintenance of essential services, was introduced, and was first debated a week ago today.
But how do they deal with compromise, you ask? Simple: they just agree to vote for each other's bills, and then actually do it. I know it's hard to believe that people would actually do what they said they would, but it happens all the time up North, especially in today's minority government (3.5 years and counting). There are ways to make sure the bills are voted on consecutively, but at each vote each member has the opportunity to decide how he or she wants to vote. But if you say you'll support someone else's bill and then change your mind as
However, I do agree that there's no need to panic yet. Stephane Dion is allegedly supposed to grow a pair over the long Christmas break, and says he wants a pre-budget election (i.e. ~February). Considering Harper is unlikely to ram this through committee, or Parliament for that matter (as there are bills much more important to him--namely, ones that will embarrass the Liberals), this bill is likely going to die on the order paper. So I agree with your final opinion, just for different reasons.
This seems like a very interesting idea, but if it's not implemented on the spammer's email server, how will this stop spammers who bcc: all their recipients or use mail merge (i.e. most spammers)? I suppose if our email servers (or many reputable email servers) notice the same (well, "same") incoming message to many recipients it could deduce it was such a message, but then there's time-delay workarounds and other problems (welcome emails for signing up for a new service/site come to mind). And if bcc: or mail merge is used, I don't see how you can implement this client-side.
Idea: cool! Chance of success: IMH(layman)O, slim.
I read a story about this a month ago in my student newspaper. Good to know Slashdot is still setting the bar high for getting breaking news. Still, interesting topic.
Here's one way to fix the system (albeit only a small fix): make the statute of limitations similarly lengthed to libel claims. When you're libeled, you have to sue those libeling you within a statutory period, that's often at most a few years, and sometimes as little as three months, after you discover, or should reasonably have discovered, the libel.
So, if this were applied to patents, if a mom and pop shop in Nowhere, USA was using a patented production process to make bread for their community of 50, it's reasonable to assume that the company wouldn't find out about the process right away. Or if a company is using a patent internally and hiding it (like a trade secret) then no one could be expected to find out about it. But if the Internet developped a standard for, say, images, and publicized the encryption algorithm they used, then it would be reasonable to assume that the company holding the patent would discover the infringement soon. And, with a short statute of limitations, this would mean the company would have to sue for infringement within a reasonable period, or give up their patent claim.
And complaining about how you don't have the money to sue them is tough: if you don't have the money to sue someone for libel, or trademark infringement, for example, you'll lose your claim. Sure, there's an injustice in the justice system for those who don't have money, but that's not a problem that can be fixed with this. Nor, for that matter, can patent reform. And if you actually have a good chance of winning, and you're suing a big company (like, say, Google), I'm sure some enterprising lawyer will take you on contingency.
Until a week ago I thought that truth was an absolute defence to libel. Not always so. Although the law differs by jurisdiction, what you say may have to be in the public interest. If a politician sleeps around with married people and then tries to outlaw adultery, that's in the public interest to report; if your neighbour sleeps around with married people, that's not in the public interest (unless the married person or that person's spouse is a public figure). People are entitled to their privacy, and if the public would not care about Joe Blow and you defame his character, you're going to get in trouble.
Also, on the jurisdictional issue, this site lists a few places where truth is not an absolute defence (including "some US states"). And you should note that if you publish something online, then since people can read it in jurisdictions where truth is not an absolute defence, you may be able to be sued in those jurisdictions, even if you and the person you're talking about have never been to that jurisdiction. And lastly, the burden of truth (not just belief in truth of the statements, but actual truth) is on the person making the statements.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will implement a new WHOIS policy in March to comply with Canadian privacy laws (particularly PIPEDA).
Here's the relevant legislation.
An overlapping issue went to the Canadian Supreme Court in Aubry v. Éditions Vice-Versa inc. The Court ruled that publishing a photo of someone without the person's permission is a violation of the person's privacy, unless the person is in the public interest or at such an event, meaning anyone that was incidental to a photograph (e.g. as part of a crowd) cannot claim these rights. This is based on the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and so only applies in Quebec, and according to the Wikipedia article, doesn't apply anywhere else in North America, although people's comments about a model release seem to contradict this. Also, according to Amnesty International (via the Wikipedia article on Bill of rights), "Australia is the only western country without a constitutional or legislative bill of rights." IANAL.
Similarly, in Quebec (the jurisdiction in question), a store must discount $10 off an item's actual price (or give it free if it's less than $10) if the price on the shelf is different from the price scanned at the cash. See details (in French).
The overly-litigious society can also cause burdens on individuals. Just over a year ago, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in Childs v. Desormeaux that a host who serves alcohol at a party at their house is not responsible if someone drinks too much before coming to the party, doesn't drink at the party, and drives home and injures someone or destroys something. (A lot of people were saying the woman suing the family who held the party only did so because the guy who paralysed her had no money.)
Contributory infringement really goes too far in some cases, and a major problem is that unlike this case, when the average person could see that allowing the suing to go forward could personally affect them, when it's against a company, especially an "evil" company, people tend to feel it's just fine because the company deserves it, or is "faceless", or can afford it anyway.
Link to bill. However, since it hasn't been put on the order paper and it's a minority parliament, this bill will likely die on the order paper (meaning Parliament will be dissolved before the bill passes).
If you don't want to lose CPU cycles (and therefore battery power) from using your browser, why are you on Slashdot?
He said he would only use open-source programs. BSOD is closed source. (That's why you only see it on Windows.)
Can we please get rid of the attitude that WWII started on 7 December 1941. I always find it interesting that the British (and even the occupied Dutch) declared war on Japan the same day the Americans did, but not only did the Americans take two years to declare war on Germany, they didn't even declare war on Germany first--Germany declared war on the US! Looming indeed!
You're right: objects in nature are so amusing.
Let's change the analogy slightly then: someone is standing on a street with a sign that has the address of a shop that sells porn. No worse than the people who have those signs that say "Sale inside" or "Larouche 4 Prez!!!!11!1!" If the name of the shop has obscene words in it, just as if the name of the website has obscene words in it, that's different (assuming you believe in obscenity laws), but because I should be allowed to write a civic address on a sign and walk around with it, there's no reason I can't link to some IP address (i.e. xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx).