The problem here is that's still a presumption of guilt without proof. "No, I don't want to be searched" is not an indicator of "nefarious" thinking (at least, it's not a good or "legal" one). The assumption that "anyone there is aware of that policy" is a faulty one. Who honestly walks into a store and watches the exit carefully as they walk in to see whether they "inspect receipts" or not? Whether a store "hides" that they do it or not is irrelevant; they don't get to detain everyone that refuses to hand over a receipt.
How about this as a suitable compromise. At stores that use LCD customer-operated credit card readers, have the reader display a message to the tune of, "By signing you give Circuit City permission to inspect this receipt as you exit the store. If you do not wish to give said permission, please notify your cashier and he or she will kindly restock your merchandise and cancel the purchase." For those paying in cash, have a sign with the same message at each checkout station. That way nobody can claim ignorance. If you can't be bothered to give up 10s to assist the store in elmininating theft, then you're free to abort the purchase and exit the store unmolested. If you make the purchase, though, then refuse to show the receipt...you can't say you weren't warned.
Sorry, wrong answer. It has been clearly held that, even for cops (which Circuit City employees are not even close to), the refusal to authorize a search is NOT reasonable cause to force a search.
You make the assumption that what is necessary for a store employee to detain someone is equivalent (or greater than) what is required for a cop to search someone. I'm not sure why you make that assumption.
pick 100 guys off the street and a majority of them will...elect Georce Bush?
Irrelevant. We're not trying to determine whether the crowd always makes the right choice. We're trying to define "reasonable". Frequently this is defined by an appeal to what a "random person" would do, or think, in a situation.
It does most certainly follow. If there is no crime, there can be no evidence of a crime. "Circumstancial" evidence is just that- "evidence" of a crime that consists of the circumstances about the crime and criminal.
Okay. I'll cede that if no crime has been committed, then there cannot possibly be evidence of that crime. However, there can exist circumstances which suggest that a crime has occurred, and which constitute probable cause to investigate whether, in fact, a crime has occurred.
You don't consider it "vigilante justice" to chase someone out into a parking lot and block their car from driving away?
No. I consider it detaining a suspected shoplifter until police arrive.
Why didn't Circuit City contact the police, if they really thought he was a shoplifter?
We don't know that they wouldn't have. Remember, the guy was physically blocking the car from leaving. If he walks away to call police, he frees the detainee to drive off if he so chooses.
CC didn't demonstrate ANY cause that the guy in question stole anything.
He entered a store with a well-publicized policy of checking receipts, then refused to oblige the store's policy. If I were a judge, I'd consider that probable cause. We're not talking about police search and seizure here.
The guy was out in the parking lot, well outside the store.
Often you have to wait until someone actually exits the building before accusing him of shoplifting. Ideally they should have blocked him just outside the door, before he was able to get into the vehicle.
For it to be 'reasonable suspicion', they would need evidence that would lead them to think he shoplifted.
There is: he refused to show a receipt. You may not like it, but pick 100 guys off the street and a majority of them will consider it "reasonable" for the merchant in that situation to suspect shoplifting.
Put in simpler terms: he did not shoplift, therefore they had no evidence that he shopifted
This does not follow. The other reply addressed why.
Well, considering I just walked 20 feet in a straight line from the CASH REGISTER to the door, I think that's a pretty good indication the items in my bag fall under the catagory of 'purchased'.
Many of these stores have registers at different points throughout the store. Fry's, at least, is like that. There's also the matter that someone else raised, namely that this policy is only partially aimed at shoplifters; it's also designed to catch collusion between customers and employees working the registers. It's also clearly stated store policy. I'm inclined to say that if the author didn't like the imposition of showing his receipt, then he shouldn't have shopped there in the first place.
So, um, do you have a receipt for EVERY single item in your house? If not, but your own logic, a the store you bought you, oh, letts say 'Microwave'- the store you bought your microwave could bust in your door and take it back because you don't have a receipt for it.
For one, they would be enacting vigilante justice by entering my property to retrieve what they allege is their property. So that's out. They could contact the police and have them come into my house to retrieve my microwave, but then they would have to demonstrate not only probable cause that I stole it, but evidence that it was ever theirs in the first place. While not explicitly stated, I suspect any judge would recognize some limits (time and distance) on a merchant's ability to personally restrain someone he suspects of theft. For instance, once the supposed thief leaves the establishment, any special allowances vanish.
If someone touches you to try to stop you, they're breaking the law. They can simply ask you to wait for the police.
When I asked for "basis", I was envisioning a link to a state statue, not an a priori claim that it's against the law. Most of what I've found online suggests that in most states, merchants with probable cause to suspect theft can detain shoppers for a "reasonable" amount of time using "reasonable" force. What makes you say that's not the case?
It's not clear to me from reading the blog how long the author waited after giving his ultimatum before going to call the cops himself. I agree that the store employees acted poorly in this example, though. When he attempted to leave, upon detaining him they should have immediately called the cops. Period. I suspect they were trying to do the author a favor, by reasoning with him and getting him to show the receipt, instead of calling the cops as a first resort. In retrospect, they should have just called first and asked questions later.
On the page pertaining to "false arrest" at that site, there is the following text:
Many states have enacted legislation to protect the merchant from such false arrest claims by allowing the store to make "investigative detentions" of a customer suspected of shoplifting. In these jurisdictions, the law allows certain latitude or "merchant's privilege" if the merchant has a reasonable belief that a customer has stolen merchandise. In many jurisdictions, law allows the merchant to detain a customer for a reasonable time, and in a reasonable manner, for the purpose recovering the stolen merchandise or for summoning the police.
The problem with these statutes is that they are vague as to what "reasonable" means and what the word "detain" means. Some merchants have overly relied on this statutory language to protect them from lawsuit only to discover later that it would not relieve them of liability.
In states with such statutes, theoretically a large retailer like Circuit City would keep abreast of "how far" they can go without risking a lawsuit, and would push the law exactly that far and no further. It seems feasible to me that some states might consider failure to show a receipt to constitute probable cause. Especially since these stores don't make any effort to hide the fact that they inspect receipts when customers exit the store. The assumption is that anyone shopping there is aware of that policy and plans to abide by it, or else they wouldn't be shopping there. So, when someone seeks to avoid having his receipt inspected, it's likely for nefarious reasons.
If they see you concealing merchandise does in no way equal "Unwillingness to produce a receipt".
Agreed. But I'm not certain concealment is a necessary condition for "reasonable suspicion of shoplifting" in every state. If you'll refer back to the link I posted, it says:
"unless you've met your state's definition of probable cause for shoplifting... a retailer has absolutely no right to detain you"
At issue is Ohio's definition of "probable cause for shoplifting", which I wasn't able to find by perusing the Ohio revised code.
As for whether the merchandise is purchased or not...that's sort of the point of asking for a receipt- to determine whether it was purchased. It's convoluted, I admit, but I could see a retailer successfully making the argument, "We don't detain people who have legally purchased merchandise; we do, however, detain those whose merchandise is of unknown status." Until you show a receipt, the status of your merchandise (purchased or non-purchased) is unknown.
This is speculation, but it sounds like they would have, eventually. The guy gave them three options: 1) Let me go, 2) accuse me and call the cops, 3) get out of my way so *I* can call the cops. They let him call the cops. Either way, the cops arrived.
With regard to police searches. I'm guessing concessions are made for merchants trying to ensure their property doesn't walk off in someone's shopping bag. For instance, citizens can't normally forcibly detain someone until police arrive. However, in the case merchants with reasonable suspicion of theft, they can. I haven't found anything in the Ohio (or Texas) criminal code that specifically addresses merchants' rights, so I suspect it comes down to case law.
What I found from a cursory googling seems to contradict this. They have a right to detain you if there is reasonable suspicion that you've shoplifted. Unwillingness to produce a receipt could be argued to constitute reasonable suspicion. So while they can't physically force you to show the receipt, they can physically detain you until police arrive.
The cop, however, seems totally out of line for demanding to see the guy's license, considering Ohio has a law that specifically forbids this except in cases of traffic stops.
I argue the current non-support of Linux by U.S. ISPs is different than this situation in Sweden. U.S. ISPs' decision is purely a matter of business. Linux users are much, much less prevalent, so to offer full support for the platform would result in a price increase, which would make them less competitive. As someone who occasionally runs linux I find this reality inconvenient, but I can hardly blame them. It just makes sense. This Swedish ISP's actions, on the other hand, don't seem to be motivated by any business concerns, but rather an intentional snub at Microsoft. The article makes it sound as if like there's an "easy fix" they could make on their side, once, at little cost, and be done with the matter entirely. That's very different than what a U.S. ISP would have to do in order to offer linux support that is "comparable" to their Windows support. They would need to either hire a separate group of support engineers expressly to support linux issues, or train their current ones, whose grasp of Windows is already tenuous at best.
Unless Lundis Energi is totally naieve, they must realize that before long the majority of their user-base will be running Vista. If Microsoft patches the issue at hand, then they can safely get away with doing nothing. If Microsoft doesn't, then need to work around it or face a huge number of dissatisfied customers.
But I'd be pretty pissed if my ISP inconvenienced me, the consumer, because of their idealogical objections to Microsoft. Bottom line: they have to have realized that many of their customers would eventually run Vista, yet they made no effort to accomodate those users. The fact that the bug is Microsoft's is 100% irrelevant.
You're missing the point of my question. Regardless of which distro I choose, I'd still be running the linux kernel (i.e. similar hardware support issues) and I'd still be running many of teh same apps (Firefox, etc.) If you feel like the best way to spur linux adoption is to improve a particular distro, then that's a valid answer. Maybe not the one I'd give, but an answer nonetheless.
This is actually one of the apps I had in mind when I posted the question. I was trying to think of a short list of apps and/or kernel areas that, if they were improved, would make me much more likely to run Linux as my primary desktop. Wine is one. An "ideal" Wine would let me run necessary apps without having to suffer the overhead of a virtualized OS instance. Each wine release seems to fix a ton of bugs, and yet many of the highest profile apps still don't work without massive tweaking.
The other app I had in mind is Firefox. If I were donating resources to Firefox, I'd task them with making it bulletproof from a performance / stability point of view. No more having to close firefox periodically because memory leaks. Make it more performant than Opera.
Okay Microsoft, we've been telling you for years but you don't want to get it. Linux is "free as in speech" not "free as in beer." That means that the users get a whole lot of rights that you wouldn't give in your worse nightmare. The freedom to redistribute. The freedome to modify. etc, etc, etc.
Actually, "free as in beer" is one of the main advantages mentioned by most of the linux advocates I know. Certainly that's many peoples' perception. So it doesn't seem odd for Microsoft to address that misconception.
Without having pored over every detail, it seems pretty reasonable to me. I'm not surprised their comparison was limited primarily to Red Hat. It doesn't make sense to compare Windows to "linux", which is essentially the kernel. One has to compare it to one or more distributions. Red Hat is probably their biggest competition in the corporate space. It and SuSE.
Without any arrogance, I can say that I rate pretty high on the IQ scale as measured by IQ tests. Not in the 160+ range, but definitely more than two standard deviations above the mean. From the time I was 11 I attended public "magnet" schools that were intended to serve gifted students. My math curriculum was usually two years ahead of the standard (meaning I took Calculus as a sophomore in high school) while the other subjects were on track, but supposedly contained advanced content.
In this environment, the insidious lie students come to accept is that they're "doing everything right" and achieving at their potential, when in fact they are not. This was definitely my experience. Consider the evidence: I attended a special school, took coursework above grade level, and exceled on standardized tests like the SAT. Unfortunately, rarely was I ever challenged. Consequently, my goal became to achieve an "acceptable" level of performance with as little effort as humanly possible. How to make that math exam challenging? Try not studying at all beforehand, then deriving methods to solve the problems on-the-fly during the exam.
The true tragedy isn't that I failed to cover material "early" while in high school that took in college; it's that I was never forced to learn such skills as "working hard to learn something even when it's difficult". This became painfully evident when I eventually did encounter challening material (in graduate school) and failed to respond appropriately.
Instead of being told "you could do so much more" when I was younger, I was continually bombarded with the message that "you are a super-star; you just need to stop slacking off and get higher grades." In other words, that my only deficiency was that I slacked off and made less-than-perfect marks. Somewhere along the line it became all about the grades, instead of learning simply because it was enjoyable and I had a talent for it. Perhaps not surprisingly, "getting good grades" wasn't enough to movitate me when things became difficult or even slightly tedious.
The only copy of Windows I've ever purchased cost $5. Directly, at least. That was Windows 98. My university cut a deal with Microsoft that allowed students to purchase Windows, Visual Studio and Office for $5 per CD. Back in Windows 3.1 days I think I borrowed a friend's copy. Since then (2k and XP) I've been using volume-licensed images obtained from my employers. Ditto for the Office suite.
I'm still using XP and probably won't switch to Vista until SP1 at the very earliest, or at the latest when Microsoft stops releasing non-security updates to XP. That's slated for 4/14/2009. Virtually all the commonly identified problems with XP have been total non-issues for me:
It supports my hardware better than the current rev of Ubuntu, which shipped with a flawed version of libata and is unable to mount my CD/DVD combo drive during install. To be fair that's just one distribution, but it's a pretty prominent one and the bug is a show-stopper for affected users.
I've had zero problems with malware, and I don't run any third-party firewall or anti-virus software. And I use IE as my browser, believe it or not. Turn the XP firewall on, sit behind a router, apply updates in a timely manner and don't take unreasonable risks (like opening email attachments sent by random people). Never had a problem.
It almost never crashes. IE crashes, sure. But it doesn't take down the OS. And that's more of an IE problem than an XP problem.
Compared to a linux install with KDE or Gnome, it's really not that resource intensive.
As for whether it's a "bad mistake" to underestimate how well one's product will sell, I agree it's not ideal, but in the grand scheme of things it's one of the "less bad" mistakes to make. I also question whether it's so dire for Microsoft that XP is still selling well compared to Vista. Either way they make money when someone buys a license. The purchase of XP licenses might actually be better for Microsoft in the long run, since if the purchaser is tied to Windows he'll have to buy a second Vista license 2-3 years from now when XP is no freely supported.
Given the naturalistic worldview that is most likely held by the editors of Cosmos and majority of its readers, in which the universe is impassive, unthinking and unfeeling, it is in fact no tragedy at all "for nature" if mankind ceases to exist. That kind of thing only "matters" if there is someone for it to matter "to".
Re:it really doesn't beg that question.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 1
May not be what they intend, but it is what their actions tell their customers they want to happen.
Their actions tell me, "We don't want you to copy this, because doing so negatively impacts our bottom line, meaning we have to charge more for this stuff." The question is whether their belief that copy protection positively impacts sales is actually true. If it is, then DRM effectively lowers the cost of their product since they can sell more of it and live with lower margins. If it doesn't positively impact sales then it's a complete waste of time.
Accessing http://gmail.google.com/ will redirect you to a secure page for login, but after that you're back in plain text. If you start at https://gmail.google.com/ then afaik the rest of your gmail session runs over SSL.
Slashdot Mirror
When I asked for "basis", I was envisioning a link to a state statue, not an a priori claim that it's against the law. Most of what I've found online suggests that in most states, merchants with probable cause to suspect theft can detain shoppers for a "reasonable" amount of time using "reasonable" force. What makes you say that's not the case?
It's not clear to me from reading the blog how long the author waited after giving his ultimatum before going to call the cops himself. I agree that the store employees acted poorly in this example, though. When he attempted to leave, upon detaining him they should have immediately called the cops. Period. I suspect they were trying to do the author a favor, by reasoning with him and getting him to show the receipt, instead of calling the cops as a first resort. In retrospect, they should have just called first and asked questions later.
On the page pertaining to "false arrest" at that site, there is the following text:
In states with such statutes, theoretically a large retailer like Circuit City would keep abreast of "how far" they can go without risking a lawsuit, and would push the law exactly that far and no further. It seems feasible to me that some states might consider failure to show a receipt to constitute probable cause. Especially since these stores don't make any effort to hide the fact that they inspect receipts when customers exit the store. The assumption is that anyone shopping there is aware of that policy and plans to abide by it, or else they wouldn't be shopping there. So, when someone seeks to avoid having his receipt inspected, it's likely for nefarious reasons.
Not that I necessarily disagree, but what's your basis for this belief? I wasn't able to find anything definitive after some cursory googling.
This is speculation, but it sounds like they would have, eventually. The guy gave them three options: 1) Let me go, 2) accuse me and call the cops, 3) get out of my way so *I* can call the cops. They let him call the cops. Either way, the cops arrived.
He was still in the parking lot, which they presumably also own.
With regard to police searches. I'm guessing concessions are made for merchants trying to ensure their property doesn't walk off in someone's shopping bag. For instance, citizens can't normally forcibly detain someone until police arrive. However, in the case merchants with reasonable suspicion of theft, they can. I haven't found anything in the Ohio (or Texas) criminal code that specifically addresses merchants' rights, so I suspect it comes down to case law.
What I found from a cursory googling seems to contradict this. They have a right to detain you if there is reasonable suspicion that you've shoplifted. Unwillingness to produce a receipt could be argued to constitute reasonable suspicion. So while they can't physically force you to show the receipt, they can physically detain you until police arrive.
The cop, however, seems totally out of line for demanding to see the guy's license, considering Ohio has a law that specifically forbids this except in cases of traffic stops.
I argue the current non-support of Linux by U.S. ISPs is different than this situation in Sweden. U.S. ISPs' decision is purely a matter of business. Linux users are much, much less prevalent, so to offer full support for the platform would result in a price increase, which would make them less competitive. As someone who occasionally runs linux I find this reality inconvenient, but I can hardly blame them. It just makes sense. This Swedish ISP's actions, on the other hand, don't seem to be motivated by any business concerns, but rather an intentional snub at Microsoft. The article makes it sound as if like there's an "easy fix" they could make on their side, once, at little cost, and be done with the matter entirely. That's very different than what a U.S. ISP would have to do in order to offer linux support that is "comparable" to their Windows support. They would need to either hire a separate group of support engineers expressly to support linux issues, or train their current ones, whose grasp of Windows is already tenuous at best.
Unless Lundis Energi is totally naieve, they must realize that before long the majority of their user-base will be running Vista. If Microsoft patches the issue at hand, then they can safely get away with doing nothing. If Microsoft doesn't, then need to work around it or face a huge number of dissatisfied customers.
But I'd be pretty pissed if my ISP inconvenienced me, the consumer, because of their idealogical objections to Microsoft. Bottom line: they have to have realized that many of their customers would eventually run Vista, yet they made no effort to accomodate those users. The fact that the bug is Microsoft's is 100% irrelevant.
You're missing the point of my question. Regardless of which distro I choose, I'd still be running the linux kernel (i.e. similar hardware support issues) and I'd still be running many of teh same apps (Firefox, etc.) If you feel like the best way to spur linux adoption is to improve a particular distro, then that's a valid answer. Maybe not the one I'd give, but an answer nonetheless.
This is actually one of the apps I had in mind when I posted the question. I was trying to think of a short list of apps and/or kernel areas that, if they were improved, would make me much more likely to run Linux as my primary desktop. Wine is one. An "ideal" Wine would let me run necessary apps without having to suffer the overhead of a virtualized OS instance. Each wine release seems to fix a ton of bugs, and yet many of the highest profile apps still don't work without massive tweaking.
The other app I had in mind is Firefox. If I were donating resources to Firefox, I'd task them with making it bulletproof from a performance / stability point of view. No more having to close firefox periodically because memory leaks. Make it more performant than Opera.
Actually, "free as in beer" is one of the main advantages mentioned by most of the linux advocates I know. Certainly that's many peoples' perception. So it doesn't seem odd for Microsoft to address that misconception.
Without having pored over every detail, it seems pretty reasonable to me. I'm not surprised their comparison was limited primarily to Red Hat. It doesn't make sense to compare Windows to "linux", which is essentially the kernel. One has to compare it to one or more distributions. Red Hat is probably their biggest competition in the corporate space. It and SuSE.
Without any arrogance, I can say that I rate pretty high on the IQ scale as measured by IQ tests. Not in the 160+ range, but definitely more than two standard deviations above the mean. From the time I was 11 I attended public "magnet" schools that were intended to serve gifted students. My math curriculum was usually two years ahead of the standard (meaning I took Calculus as a sophomore in high school) while the other subjects were on track, but supposedly contained advanced content.
In this environment, the insidious lie students come to accept is that they're "doing everything right" and achieving at their potential, when in fact they are not. This was definitely my experience. Consider the evidence: I attended a special school, took coursework above grade level, and exceled on standardized tests like the SAT. Unfortunately, rarely was I ever challenged. Consequently, my goal became to achieve an "acceptable" level of performance with as little effort as humanly possible. How to make that math exam challenging? Try not studying at all beforehand, then deriving methods to solve the problems on-the-fly during the exam.
The true tragedy isn't that I failed to cover material "early" while in high school that took in college; it's that I was never forced to learn such skills as "working hard to learn something even when it's difficult". This became painfully evident when I eventually did encounter challening material (in graduate school) and failed to respond appropriately.
Instead of being told "you could do so much more" when I was younger, I was continually bombarded with the message that "you are a super-star; you just need to stop slacking off and get higher grades." In other words, that my only deficiency was that I slacked off and made less-than-perfect marks. Somewhere along the line it became all about the grades, instead of learning simply because it was enjoyable and I had a talent for it. Perhaps not surprisingly, "getting good grades" wasn't enough to movitate me when things became difficult or even slightly tedious.
The only copy of Windows I've ever purchased cost $5. Directly, at least. That was Windows 98. My university cut a deal with Microsoft that allowed students to purchase Windows, Visual Studio and Office for $5 per CD. Back in Windows 3.1 days I think I borrowed a friend's copy. Since then (2k and XP) I've been using volume-licensed images obtained from my employers. Ditto for the Office suite.
I'm still using XP and probably won't switch to Vista until SP1 at the very earliest, or at the latest when Microsoft stops releasing non-security updates to XP. That's slated for 4/14/2009. Virtually all the commonly identified problems with XP have been total non-issues for me:
As for whether it's a "bad mistake" to underestimate how well one's product will sell, I agree it's not ideal, but in the grand scheme of things it's one of the "less bad" mistakes to make. I also question whether it's so dire for Microsoft that XP is still selling well compared to Vista. Either way they make money when someone buys a license. The purchase of XP licenses might actually be better for Microsoft in the long run, since if the purchaser is tied to Windows he'll have to buy a second Vista license 2-3 years from now when XP is no freely supported.
Way to spin it, Slashdot. Making the "mistake" of underestimating how well a product is going to sell: not a bad mistake to make.
Given the naturalistic worldview that is most likely held by the editors of Cosmos and majority of its readers, in which the universe is impassive, unthinking and unfeeling, it is in fact no tragedy at all "for nature" if mankind ceases to exist. That kind of thing only "matters" if there is someone for it to matter "to".
Their actions tell me, "We don't want you to copy this, because doing so negatively impacts our bottom line, meaning we have to charge more for this stuff." The question is whether their belief that copy protection positively impacts sales is actually true. If it is, then DRM effectively lowers the cost of their product since they can sell more of it and live with lower margins. If it doesn't positively impact sales then it's a complete waste of time.
Accessing http://gmail.google.com/ will redirect you to a secure page for login, but after that you're back in plain text. If you start at https://gmail.google.com/ then afaik the rest of your gmail session runs over SSL.