My guess is you're not going to find this information online; when I worked at Bank of America, it was in our operations manual. These manuals not being public domain, they probably won't be online anywhere (although you might get lucky and find the requirements buried on the Federal Reserve website somewhere).
Basically, rush funds to the bank would cost the branch $45 per $1000 we had rushed over. (Yes, the branch - the branches are each allocated an expense fund by the corporate office for reasons just like this). Now, we rarely had to use this, but it was there when we needed it.
At any rate the analogy is a flawed one. There is no "Federal Bandwidth Insurance Corporation" to re-up the telecom's when they run out of bandwidth.
I doubt that seriously. Now, it's possible and likely that their lawyers DID tell them it was legal - but I doubt that would have been their motivating factor.
My reasoning is this:
Companies will generally make decisions based not on legality, but on cost - if doing something illegal is potentially worth tons of money if they get away with it, and the potential punishment is minimal (oooo... a whopping $50,000 fine) they're going to do it, even though it's illegal.
I find it more likely that Qwest was less certain they could win such a lawsuit than AT&T and BellSouth were. The whole "we were just doing what we were told and it's really the NSA's fault" type of thing.
Privacy is necessary for free speech to have any meaning.
That's why all the Founding Fathers published *anonymously* the Federalist Papers and related writings in support of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
No, I didn't really have any doubt. I've known this was coming for a very long time, long before 9/11 ever happened.
But, I have a relatively high bar for when I finally declare someone or something "unsalvageable," because I try my damndest to be fair. This is so that when the reaper comes knocking, I can say I gave everyone a fair chance and did not jump to conclusions.
I have only, once in my life, ever been wrong in a suspicion; but because I was wrong once, I make sure to be very patient to always be as correct as I can be.
Alas, the current state of the United States is just about a millimeter under my bar. Won't take long for this country to cross it.
And then what am I going to do? Haven't really decided yet. That 2nd Amendment is become more and more relevant, though..
As my moniker suggests, I prefer a balanced judgement to a dogmatic one. Interestingly, in this particular case, a balanced judgement doesn't answer your question with "Yes" or "No."
Rather, I take this approach.
Assertion: The government is not the bad guys Conclusion: It is ok to violate our rights if it's for a good cause.
I would think that the above conclusion seems nonsensical. If we accept that the current administration's plans don't include Big Brother-like control over the American public (a proposal that to some, might seem unrealistic, but I am willing to accept it for the sake of argument), that still leaves the question of whether it is RIGHT to be carrying out these surveillance programs.
The ends almost NEVER justify the means; a superior stating of this adage is the following:
"It is never a question of whether the ends justify the means; the means make the end."
In this case, the means being used are possible encroachments on the civil rights of American citizens. Acceptance of that kind of program can only have one end: surveillance of American citizens themselves.
That is not a power I want my government to have, regardless of how "safe" it might make the country. I am not willing to give up my fundamental rights for the ethereal promise of safety.
The US government is and always was, accountable to the American people. The system of checks and balances was put in place so that the no single branch of government could have enough power to destroy the rights of American citizens; the belief was that if one branch acted improperly, at least one of the others could kick them back in line.
What President Bush is attempting to do is tantamount to suppression of the system of checks and balances put into place specifically to protect us from government abuse.
And I leave you with one final question:
If what Bush has approved is so upstanding and legal, why should he fear a legal challenge? I, for one, would like another branch of government besides President Bush to tell me that my freedoms are not being violated, not because I think President Bush is lying, but because that's what the other branches are there for in the first place. And a healthy dose of suspicion of the government is very necessary to a free democracy; that is the only way a society remains free.
Only a dictatorship would take steps to prevent anyone from knowing if their rights were being violated.
If Mr. Bush is so sure of his assertion that nobody's rights are being trampled and that all of his Executive Orders approving these actions are legal, then he shouldn't be afraid for these actions to face the rule of law.
But then, the administration knows full well that none of this will stand up to a legal challenge.
You are witnessing the actions of a dictatorial administration consumed with the belief in its own superiority and its own place above the law. Bush believes that as President, he can do anything he wants without regard to the law; he believes himself to be invinceable.
Unfortunately, as Congress and the courts stand now, he's right.
"The argument goes something like this: the founding fathers would never have sacrificed any degree of privacy for any degree of security. This should strike anyone and everyone that reads it as an utter absurdity."
Personally I don't interpret the Franklin quote to mean that. I suppose some do, but I would be hardpressed to be certain that even Slashdotters are interpreting (or using) the quote that way. Using an absolute to make those who invoke the quote look absurd, seems to me unfair.
Of course there's always a tradeoff, a question of degree when deciding what absolute freedoms to give up in order to have a stable society. But personally I think it's worthwhile to ask ourselves, BEFORE we jump off a cliff, if what we're doing is really necessary, rather than try to fix the problem after the cat is already out of the bag (e.g. now our only recourse is to take this to court - it should never have been created in the first place).
That is one of my favorite quotes about patriotism of all time, especially this part:
"May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were once our countrymen."
The final act of disillusion to say "you are not one of us if you will not fight for freedom."
This quote should be above the entrance to every school and government building as a constant reminder that freedom requires diligence.. and a vengeful populace to keep the government in check.
"What are they personally giving up (in more specific terms than just "privacy")? What are they personally gaining?"
But therein lies the problem: I don't think they actually know the answers to those questions. Your average human is horrifically bad at evaluating the long term consequences of their choices.
This is not a specious claim, but one backed up by decades of psychology and medical research. The brain simply is not (day-to-day) capable of grasping the enormity of the consequences of a choice 25 years down the road.
And so, for most people, they will instead respond to these kinds of questions with "Well, how is wiretapping effecting me TODAY?" And the answer is, it isn't. Not yet. So they believe everything is okee dokee.
It is THIS FACT that the poll is reflecting - not the fact that people are, in the long term, going to accept invasions of privacy for spurious claims of security.
"Violating their rights and not being accountable to those same people is not."
Hehe. Well, any sufficiently restrained government, anyway. There are those would would suggest that one *side-effect* of government is that government will ALWAYS get bigger and attempt to whittle away the rights of its citizens.
"Otherwise they still would have slavery and would be killing Indians and burning witches and invading Canada and Mexico (in that context they are exactly like their forefathers). It seems that they never intended to apply their freedoms to everybody."
In the past 15 years or so, our educational system has struggled very hard to recast our Founders as elitist slave owners who had no desire for everyone to have equal rights.
In point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
If you search Google for phrases like "George Washington slaves", "Thomas Jefferson slaves", "John Adams slaves" etc., you will find that almost EVERY ONE of the founding fathers had stipulated in their Will that upon their deaths, their slaves were to be freed.
Almost every single one.
You have to understand the politican and social climate of the time: All of the Founding Fathers were born into a world that accepted slavery. With the new United States being such a new country, that was hardly the right time to attempt to outlaw it. You'd end up either in political gridlock (meaning the country would NEVER get formed) or with outright civil war, which ended up happening anyway, except that the intervening 70 years gave the country time to stabilize to be able to actually survive the war.
The personal writings of the founders at the time all demonstrate that they felt very guilty at the obvious contradiction between proclaiming freedom and liberty, and owning slaves. Which is why they (almost) all freed their slaves upon their deaths.
Ultimately, our Founders WERE honorable and they WERE courageous, thoughtful, decent men. I doubt seriously that any group of powerful men has ever been so moral and so decent, since.
"they'd still have less information about me than amazon.com already does."
The difference between Amazon.com and the government is that Amazon.com has no vested interest in silencing people for no good reason.
"Privacy is an illusion. Get over it, or move to a 12x12 shack in Montana"
Just because it seems like the complete elimination of privacy is inevitable doesn't mean I'm going to lay over and die instead of fighting it to the bitter end.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Just because you can make a post on a public message board doesn't mean you have free speech.
You still DO, but real free speech is speech that the government would prefer be repressed, but isn't. Free speech only really matters when you're saying something unpopular.
Whether the media is a propaganda machine is not my concern in this particular discussion, nor is it particularly relevant to my comment. A free society depends on a free press and and informed electorate. While we are at the mercy of what a news outlet chooses to report, I would rather the media report a story than suppress it just because it might be viewed as "flamebait," to use the Slashdot parlance.
"There is no "right not to be taxed" under the Constitution; the government is specifically empowered to collect taxes."
The beautiful thing about the Constitution is that it is a government granting power to the states by default - anything not SPECIFICALLY granted the Federal government in the Constitution is supposed to remain the purview of the states.
If you've read the Federalist Papers, you'll know that the Founders considered the idea of a national "income tax" to be vile, unethical, and immoral. That's why there wasn't one. They chose instead to tax who SHOULD be taxed - merchants. It is then left to the states to manage the incomes of their citizens.
I did read that part, and my opinion is unswayed: The best way to raise a generation of sheep is to make sure they're unaware of their freedoms, and unaware of when someone might be trampling on them. Children - especially children - need to learn what freedoms and rights are and the internet is becoming one of the best ways to do that (I should think that 5 minutes on the internet will teach a person that dogma is completely and utterly pointless - it did me, anyway).
Frankly, if I have to work hard to teach my child to be safe on the internet, so that they can have access to information that keeps them free, then I am willing to do that, even if it means at some point they might find themselves in a dangerous situation.
Freedom is not a walk in the park. It requires alot more work than dictatorship, and alot more diligence. But in the end, it is worth it; it would be well for our politicians to remember that.
If you have a problem, legislate it away so it doesn't exist anymore!
It worked for drugs! It worked for corporate corruption! It worked for terror!
Oh, wait..
While I by no means approve of kids being exposed to potentially dangerous situations, cutting them off from access to potentially HEALTHY social interaction, as well as information necessary to learn what freedom really means (e.g. access to sites like Slashdot) would basically be throwing the baby out and keeping the bathwater.
When I was in school, teachers monitored my computer use very carefully. That is their job. They took it seriously. They actually cared to make sure I was spending my time on the school's machines responsibly.
Whatever happened to that? First you legislate away a parent's right to educate their own child. Then you legislate away the child's right to access to information. What's next? "Programming Camp" where all children are hooked up to a computer and everything the government wants them to think is instantly downloaded into their brain?
I simply don't understand whatever happened to the responsibility of critical thinking.
"So, rather than your little ISP eat it's own shit over your extravegant downloading habits, or jacking up your bill, they are trying to shunt this bandwidth hurt over to the major players who supply it."
Unfortunately, what ISP's like your friend's have done is alot like an airline that overbooks a flight: it relies on people not showing up in order to make a profit.
That is a BAD business model.
If I buy a connection from my ISP that claims I will get unlimited transfer bandwidth per month at 1.5GBps, then I'm going to feel it's my right to download as much as I want, as fast as I want. That's what you promised me. That is what I am paying for. It is YOUR FAULT if you can't deliver.
I see no reason that YOU should then charge me more for what you promised, that you can't deliver.
Unfortunately, your friend's ISP is SOL. They should have charged more from the beginning, because their customers sure as hell aren't going to accept a price hike now.
"There are very few markets which have high costs of entry"
Let's see..
Automobiles Railroad Power production/delivery Satellite TV/Telephone/Anything Cable Internet/Telephone/TV Water purification/delivery Operating systems (OSS notwithstanding - it took 10 years for Linux to become a viable alternative to Windows, which was a viable operating system starting with 3.1 way back in 1992). Entertainment production and distribution (wide distribution commercial - not talking back office internet stuff) Mass merchandising, such as WalMart
Stop me when I get to a "few."
Problem is, these days almost ALL industries have a high cost of entry, simply because the incumbants are so well entrenched. Sure I could start a mom-and-pop grocery store but I'll never be able to compete with Giant Grocery's supply chain.
Not that I think this makes a case for regulating grocery stores - they are very very lightly regulated, only really for health reasons.
The point is, monopolies are in some cases necessary, in other cases inevitable, and in all cases should be controlled, because I have never - never - seen a monopoly not abuse its power one way or another. I am a student of history, because it is the greatest teacher - and history teaches that individuals and companies with too much power will always abuse it, even if their intentions are good.
Slashdot Mirror
My guess is you're not going to find this information online; when I worked at Bank of America, it was in our operations manual. These manuals not being public domain, they probably won't be online anywhere (although you might get lucky and find the requirements buried on the Federal Reserve website somewhere).
Basically, rush funds to the bank would cost the branch $45 per $1000 we had rushed over. (Yes, the branch - the branches are each allocated an expense fund by the corporate office for reasons just like this). Now, we rarely had to use this, but it was there when we needed it.
At any rate the analogy is a flawed one. There is no "Federal Bandwidth Insurance Corporation" to re-up the telecom's when they run out of bandwidth.
"That's what bandwidth caps and such are for."
If that's what bandwidth caps are for, then the telcos should implement a new, amazing, astounding, novel idea: USE THEM.
Don't sell me something and then get mad at me when I use it.
I doubt that seriously. Now, it's possible and likely that their lawyers DID tell them it was legal - but I doubt that would have been their motivating factor.
My reasoning is this:
Companies will generally make decisions based not on legality, but on cost - if doing something illegal is potentially worth tons of money if they get away with it, and the potential punishment is minimal (oooo... a whopping $50,000 fine) they're going to do it, even though it's illegal.
I find it more likely that Qwest was less certain they could win such a lawsuit than AT&T and BellSouth were. The whole "we were just doing what we were told and it's really the NSA's fault" type of thing.
Exactly... because it leads to revolution. Then how secure would the nation be?!
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Ben Franklin
r $605
Agh that's the worst rewording of the quote I have ever seen. Not blaming you, just thought you'd like the real one:
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
http://www.futureofthebook.com/stories/storyReade
Privacy is necessary for free speech to have any meaning.
That's why all the Founding Fathers published *anonymously* the Federalist Papers and related writings in support of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
You laugh now...
Let's wait and see what happens in a year. Gotta give those NSA guys a FEW months to dig up some dirt on him.
No, I didn't really have any doubt. I've known this was coming for a very long time, long before 9/11 ever happened.
But, I have a relatively high bar for when I finally declare someone or something "unsalvageable," because I try my damndest to be fair. This is so that when the reaper comes knocking, I can say I gave everyone a fair chance and did not jump to conclusions.
I have only, once in my life, ever been wrong in a suspicion; but because I was wrong once, I make sure to be very patient to always be as correct as I can be.
Alas, the current state of the United States is just about a millimeter under my bar. Won't take long for this country to cross it.
And then what am I going to do? Haven't really decided yet. That 2nd Amendment is become more and more relevant, though..
As my moniker suggests, I prefer a balanced judgement to a dogmatic one. Interestingly, in this particular case, a balanced judgement doesn't answer your question with "Yes" or "No."
Rather, I take this approach.
Assertion: The government is not the bad guys
Conclusion: It is ok to violate our rights if it's for a good cause.
I would think that the above conclusion seems nonsensical. If we accept that the current administration's plans don't include Big Brother-like control over the American public (a proposal that to some, might seem unrealistic, but I am willing to accept it for the sake of argument), that still leaves the question of whether it is RIGHT to be carrying out these surveillance programs.
The ends almost NEVER justify the means; a superior stating of this adage is the following:
"It is never a question of whether the ends justify the means; the means make the end."
In this case, the means being used are possible encroachments on the civil rights of American citizens. Acceptance of that kind of program can only have one end: surveillance of American citizens themselves.
That is not a power I want my government to have, regardless of how "safe" it might make the country. I am not willing to give up my fundamental rights for the ethereal promise of safety.
The US government is and always was, accountable to the American people. The system of checks and balances was put in place so that the no single branch of government could have enough power to destroy the rights of American citizens; the belief was that if one branch acted improperly, at least one of the others could kick them back in line.
What President Bush is attempting to do is tantamount to suppression of the system of checks and balances put into place specifically to protect us from government abuse.
And I leave you with one final question:
If what Bush has approved is so upstanding and legal, why should he fear a legal challenge? I, for one, would like another branch of government besides President Bush to tell me that my freedoms are not being violated, not because I think President Bush is lying, but because that's what the other branches are there for in the first place. And a healthy dose of suspicion of the government is very necessary to a free democracy; that is the only way a society remains free.
Only a dictatorship would take steps to prevent anyone from knowing if their rights were being violated.
If Mr. Bush is so sure of his assertion that nobody's rights are being trampled and that all of his Executive Orders approving these actions are legal, then he shouldn't be afraid for these actions to face the rule of law.
But then, the administration knows full well that none of this will stand up to a legal challenge.
You are witnessing the actions of a dictatorial administration consumed with the belief in its own superiority and its own place above the law. Bush believes that as President, he can do anything he wants without regard to the law; he believes himself to be invinceable.
Unfortunately, as Congress and the courts stand now, he's right.
"The argument goes something like this: the founding fathers would never have sacrificed any degree of privacy for any degree of security. This should strike anyone and everyone that reads it as an utter absurdity."
Personally I don't interpret the Franklin quote to mean that. I suppose some do, but I would be hardpressed to be certain that even Slashdotters are interpreting (or using) the quote that way. Using an absolute to make those who invoke the quote look absurd, seems to me unfair.
Of course there's always a tradeoff, a question of degree when deciding what absolute freedoms to give up in order to have a stable society. But personally I think it's worthwhile to ask ourselves, BEFORE we jump off a cliff, if what we're doing is really necessary, rather than try to fix the problem after the cat is already out of the bag (e.g. now our only recourse is to take this to court - it should never have been created in the first place).
That is one of my favorite quotes about patriotism of all time, especially this part:
"May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were once our countrymen."
The final act of disillusion to say "you are not one of us if you will not fight for freedom."
This quote should be above the entrance to every school and government building as a constant reminder that freedom requires diligence.. and a vengeful populace to keep the government in check.
"What are they personally giving up (in more specific terms than just "privacy")? What are they personally gaining?"
But therein lies the problem: I don't think they actually know the answers to those questions. Your average human is horrifically bad at evaluating the long term consequences of their choices.
This is not a specious claim, but one backed up by decades of psychology and medical research. The brain simply is not (day-to-day) capable of grasping the enormity of the consequences of a choice 25 years down the road.
And so, for most people, they will instead respond to these kinds of questions with "Well, how is wiretapping effecting me TODAY?" And the answer is, it isn't. Not yet. So they believe everything is okee dokee.
It is THIS FACT that the poll is reflecting - not the fact that people are, in the long term, going to accept invasions of privacy for spurious claims of security.
"Violating their rights and not being accountable to those same people is not."
Hehe. Well, any sufficiently restrained government, anyway. There are those would would suggest that one *side-effect* of government is that government will ALWAYS get bigger and attempt to whittle away the rights of its citizens.
Agh. Sorry for the paragraph glut. I forgot to select "Plain text" formatting.
"Otherwise they still would have slavery and would be killing Indians and burning witches and invading Canada and Mexico (in that context they are exactly like their forefathers). It seems that they never intended to apply their freedoms to everybody." In the past 15 years or so, our educational system has struggled very hard to recast our Founders as elitist slave owners who had no desire for everyone to have equal rights. In point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. If you search Google for phrases like "George Washington slaves", "Thomas Jefferson slaves", "John Adams slaves" etc., you will find that almost EVERY ONE of the founding fathers had stipulated in their Will that upon their deaths, their slaves were to be freed. Almost every single one. You have to understand the politican and social climate of the time: All of the Founding Fathers were born into a world that accepted slavery. With the new United States being such a new country, that was hardly the right time to attempt to outlaw it. You'd end up either in political gridlock (meaning the country would NEVER get formed) or with outright civil war, which ended up happening anyway, except that the intervening 70 years gave the country time to stabilize to be able to actually survive the war. The personal writings of the founders at the time all demonstrate that they felt very guilty at the obvious contradiction between proclaiming freedom and liberty, and owning slaves. Which is why they (almost) all freed their slaves upon their deaths. Ultimately, our Founders WERE honorable and they WERE courageous, thoughtful, decent men. I doubt seriously that any group of powerful men has ever been so moral and so decent, since.
"they'd still have less information about me than amazon.com already does."
The difference between Amazon.com and the government is that Amazon.com has no vested interest in silencing people for no good reason.
"Privacy is an illusion. Get over it, or move to a 12x12 shack in Montana"
Just because it seems like the complete elimination of privacy is inevitable doesn't mean I'm going to lay over and die instead of fighting it to the bitter end.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than
those who falsely believe they are free."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Just because you can make a post on a public message board doesn't mean you have free speech.
You still DO, but real free speech is speech that the government would prefer be repressed, but isn't. Free speech only really matters when you're saying something unpopular.
Whether the media is a propaganda machine is not my concern in this particular discussion, nor is it particularly relevant to my comment. A free society depends on a free press and and informed electorate. While we are at the mercy of what a news outlet chooses to report, I would rather the media report a story than suppress it just because it might be viewed as "flamebait," to use the Slashdot parlance.
"There is no "right not to be taxed" under the Constitution; the government is specifically empowered to collect taxes."
The beautiful thing about the Constitution is that it is a government granting power to the states by default - anything not SPECIFICALLY granted the Federal government in the Constitution is supposed to remain the purview of the states.
If you've read the Federalist Papers, you'll know that the Founders considered the idea of a national "income tax" to be vile, unethical, and immoral. That's why there wasn't one. They chose instead to tax who SHOULD be taxed - merchants. It is then left to the states to manage the incomes of their citizens.
If only the media would ignore such stupidity, we wouldn't have to deal with people who disagree with stupid laws and want to remain free.
There, I fixed your spelling for you.
I did read that part, and my opinion is unswayed: The best way to raise a generation of sheep is to make sure they're unaware of their freedoms, and unaware of when someone might be trampling on them. Children - especially children - need to learn what freedoms and rights are and the internet is becoming one of the best ways to do that (I should think that 5 minutes on the internet will teach a person that dogma is completely and utterly pointless - it did me, anyway).
Frankly, if I have to work hard to teach my child to be safe on the internet, so that they can have access to information that keeps them free, then I am willing to do that, even if it means at some point they might find themselves in a dangerous situation.
Freedom is not a walk in the park. It requires alot more work than dictatorship, and alot more diligence. But in the end, it is worth it; it would be well for our politicians to remember that.
If you have a problem, legislate it away so it doesn't exist anymore!
It worked for drugs! It worked for corporate corruption! It worked for terror!
Oh, wait..
While I by no means approve of kids being exposed to potentially dangerous situations, cutting them off from access to potentially HEALTHY social interaction, as well as information necessary to learn what freedom really means (e.g. access to sites like Slashdot) would basically be throwing the baby out and keeping the bathwater.
When I was in school, teachers monitored my computer use very carefully. That is their job. They took it seriously. They actually cared to make sure I was spending my time on the school's machines responsibly.
Whatever happened to that? First you legislate away a parent's right to educate their own child. Then you legislate away the child's right to access to information. What's next? "Programming Camp" where all children are hooked up to a computer and everything the government wants them to think is instantly downloaded into their brain?
I simply don't understand whatever happened to the responsibility of critical thinking.
"So, rather than your little ISP eat it's own shit over your extravegant downloading habits, or jacking up your bill, they are trying to shunt this bandwidth hurt over to the major players who supply it."
Unfortunately, what ISP's like your friend's have done is alot like an airline that overbooks a flight: it relies on people not showing up in order to make a profit.
That is a BAD business model.
If I buy a connection from my ISP that claims I will get unlimited transfer bandwidth per month at 1.5GBps, then I'm going to feel it's my right to download as much as I want, as fast as I want. That's what you promised me. That is what I am paying for. It is YOUR FAULT if you can't deliver.
I see no reason that YOU should then charge me more for what you promised, that you can't deliver.
Unfortunately, your friend's ISP is SOL. They should have charged more from the beginning, because their customers sure as hell aren't going to accept a price hike now.
"There are very few markets which have high costs of entry"
Let's see..
Automobiles
Railroad
Power production/delivery
Satellite TV/Telephone/Anything
Cable Internet/Telephone/TV
Water purification/delivery
Operating systems (OSS notwithstanding - it took 10 years for Linux to become a viable alternative to Windows, which was a viable operating system starting with 3.1 way back in 1992).
Entertainment production and distribution (wide distribution commercial - not talking back office internet stuff)
Mass merchandising, such as WalMart
Stop me when I get to a "few."
Problem is, these days almost ALL industries have a high cost of entry, simply because the incumbants are so well entrenched. Sure I could start a mom-and-pop grocery store but I'll never be able to compete with Giant Grocery's supply chain.
Not that I think this makes a case for regulating grocery stores - they are very very lightly regulated, only really for health reasons.
The point is, monopolies are in some cases necessary, in other cases inevitable, and in all cases should be controlled, because I have never - never - seen a monopoly not abuse its power one way or another. I am a student of history, because it is the greatest teacher - and history teaches that individuals and companies with too much power will always abuse it, even if their intentions are good.