I think I'll stick with mailing a check though, because I want to include a short note thanking you all for what you're doing. She should know she's not alone.
If you send a check to Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP, As Attorneys for Marie Lindor" we will deposit it in our escrow account and apply it to Ms. Lindor's account. I can assure you she will warmly appreciate it. Our mailing address is: Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP, 110 E. 42 St., New York, NY 10017, Att: Ray Beckerman
Ray - she'll be receiving a check from me (or PayPal, if you manage it). I don't have much but you guys deserve the best society can heap upon you for what you're doing.
Saying 'Thank You' doesn't even begin to cover it.
The theory behind capitalism is that people pursue their own interests. That creates the 'unseen hand' that is the feedback system that makes the economic system work for the benefit of everybody.
Too bad that system only works (and the theory explicitly STATES this) when no particular entity has too much control over it. Then, that entity becomes a parasite. Much of what we call free market capitalism today is in reality that sort of parasitic relationship.
You might want to check US Code section 17 before you claim Fair Use isn't codified in law. It is now.
Besides, there are other posts in this thread more insightful than mine that shed light on the supposed different between an affirmative defense and a right.
I didn't know regular DVDs let "a paying customer - the freedom to do what I want with my movies" Isn't circumventing the encryption illegal because of the DMCA?
You have the RIGHT to format and time shift, but the MEANS to do so is made illegal to you by the DMCA. It's such an artful contradiction written into the law; you'd admire the artistry if it weren't so evil.
I wonder what it says about demographics when it comes to the performance of social engineering, when slashdot seems to be overwhelming in support of Michael Righi, while the most common fark comment on the same article seems to be "why didn't the douche just show the receipt?"
That's easy. Concern for civil liberties is a luxury in which few people indulge, particularly those concerned more with their everyday lives. To those for whom the true effects of civil liberties violations are never seen, the whole idea of civil liberties is a laughable one.
Without trying to sound arrogant, the demographic of your average Slashdotter leans more towards the direction of people who for reasons of intellect or hard work, have the time and wherewithal to actually think about such things. For everyone else, it is a waste of time.
Put more simply: When concerned with survival, few people concern themselves with the means. And the degree to which you must work to survive is similarly the degree to which you don't care about ephemeral concepts like 'rights'.
They don't have to have any sort of cause to search your bag in their store. The 4th Amendment only applies to governmental industries.
There is plenty of case law which says you don't check your civil liberties at the door when entering a private establishment.
Now, when they directed the police to search there, I'm going to say that the police, relying on the sworn statements of store employees, had probable cause to conduct a search
Michael Righi, the man arrested, was the one who called the police - to force the store to let him leave. They had no right to detain him. If anything, the police should have trusted HIM first - instead the officer immediately took the word of the store employees.
Oh, and no swearing of statements ever took place. They could have been lying.
I can't say I'm an expert on US law, but if your system is anything like sane, then no private operator has any right to search a persons belongings without their consent.
Except in very few instances, they don't.
The obedience you see is a result of very effective social engineering to make people believe they do have the right to search people.
Read the blog post. He quotes the law that made this illegal.
There's two separate issues here: Whether he should have been asked to show the contents of his bag is a different issue than whether he should have been arrested for not showing his driver's license. Both will have to be prosecuted.
Let me ask you something then, as a business owner:
Assuming you support the idea of examining people's bags on their way out the door, why would you treat them like criminals?
Whatever happend to "sorry man, I fucked up, my mistake" "oh, ok, shit happens, have a good day, watch it next time" and simply get on with your life?
Look at how often government entities have ever released formal apologies. Then ask your question again.
Not to mention, there is little that will deter this sort of behavior more than the threat of being sued for all you're worth.
But particularly, because a police officer was involved in this case, the courts must explicitly say that what Righi did was perfectly within his rights - otherwise we'll continue to see it. Since they are apparently incapable of figuring it out on their own, police must be told what people's rights actually are.
He said no to the police. Unless you have enough money or friends you always pay when you do that. Especially these days. Remember, most law enforcement know the rest of us are lower life forms than they are. The law does not matter, being right does not matter, nearly as much as money or power. Get used to it, it's going to keep getting worse before, if, it gets better. There are rapidly getting to be enough broad laws out there that everyone is guilty of something. You might just not know you have done anything wrong.
You might want to read his blog. He IS such a person.
For example, here's a link to a known photo of the USS Ohio [defenselink.mil], the first Trident missile sub. Note that the propeller is fully submerged in the known photo.
It is standard procedure to scrub images before releasing them, whether or not they contain classified information. That image has been photoshopped to remove the prop.
Waay too many assumptions in this article: * Our propellers are more advanced than the other guy's.
Without going into too much detail, yes they are. The Chinese are catching up quickly though.
* A 2-D snap from a satellite is going to reveal significant details.
This is probably why the military has not bothered to try to get the image removed from the internet. Knowing the general design is only about 10% of the issue.
I always see fine-print at the bottom of the end of a commercial. Sometimes the commercial fine print is so small it won't even render on a 480i TV.
I could be wrong, but I thought some of that was illegal now.. I don't see it at the bottom of car commercials anymore, for instance. Something about conditions a consumer can't physically read not being legally binding.
I'm not saying it's right, but they could have things setup enough so that it's barely legal. Just enough fine print on the commercial to say "We the provider consider the term unlimited to mean as much as we are able to offer without impacting the overall network architecture, and we reserve the rights to alter the definition of unlimited as the environment changes."
I suppose that's true. Although, I think then we'd get into the realm of what would the consumer consider reasonable.
Where did your morality come from, but a culture that teaches the value of life?
Morality is a requirement of human existence. We can't survive without it.
This was not the case in Roman times, before the spread of christianity, and look at the sorts of things they did.
Oversimplify, much? The Romans also adopted and expanded on the ideas of democracy and natural philosophy that had a direct impact on the Renaissance, and more, almost all our modern engineering is derived from what they figured out how to do.
Until the last couple of hundred years of its existence (which, incidentally, were the years when the Roman Empire was CHRISTIAN), the Roman Empire was quite the beacon of knowledge and philosophy, despite the fact that its genesis was formed out of conquest.
But more to the point: You've oversimplified the relationship between morality and politics.
And look at the mess the 'Christian' nations have made of the world. You probably don't want to hold us up as somehow 'better' in comparison. We've F-'d things up enough to give the Romans a run for their money.
That would cover them pretty legally, though keeping everything secret is a jerk thing to do. Who knows, perhaps the secretive act alone might violate some little law somewhere.
Service fraud. Claim you'll provide a service, claim there's no limit on your usage, and then ban you for using it? Any judge that wouldn't find for the customer is being paid off.
Court is the last and only recourse for the little guy when a corporation decides to swing their considerable bat at them.
Why are we so much more lenient in censoring violence--an act that inflicts pain and can end human lives vs. sex--acts that bring pleasure and can create human life?
Because one is an unnecessary act, generally avoidable if declared a sin, while the other is an absolutely necessary function, unavoidable even under the worst shame and proclamations of sin.
I'll leave you to figure out which one, then, serves as the most effective means of mind control.
From what I can tell, the fundamental question was whether the contract was fair - in particular whether the two parties to the contract had equal bargaining power.
And as you go on to elucidate so well, consumers have nowhere NEAR equal bargaining power.
For the free-market advocates who drone on and on about Adam Smith and the invisible hand and what have you, they always miss that Smith's economics only apply in an economy where the seller and the buyer have approximately equal influence over the price and item in question, be it a physical item or a service.
When one party has significantly more power than the other, you've got a market primed to pound the little guy into the ground - and that's exactly what is happening in the US (elsewhere too, but as I am American I concern myself primarily with where corporate law in the US is heading).
Two months into it and I already have a $125 bill! To be fair, I did make 3 minutes worth of long distance calls and dialed local number to connect to my ISP on this line while I was waiting for my DSL connection. Nothing after that though, as I use my cell and Vonage for all of my calls.
Some providers have a "service" wherein if you use a certain amount of a certain a-la-carte service (or in some cases, ANY of that service) they'll automatically kick you into the next highest service plan, and charge you full price for the pleasure.
In SOME cases, that has been ruled bait-and-switch and is illegal. I'd check your jurisdiction to see if that's the case and read your bill very, very carefully to see if you were charged for services you didn't sign up for.
if you want to avoid most of it you just wait until they've finished fixing things. Usually that takes about two years.
Agreed. The problem is, this time, Microsoft is attempting to force the issue by removing XP from the market. I have spoken to no less than 7 people in the past WEEK alone that are buying new computers now so they can get XP instead of Vista. People don't get to wait the 2 years until the software is stable, Microsoft is forcing them to buy the unstable version so that it can improve its quarterly earnings. When XP was released, Microsoft waited over 2 years to pull 98 from the market. This time, they tried to do it a mere 4 months after releasing Vista, only to extend it to the end of the year (a mere 9 months) after the consumer outcry.
While Microsoft is entitled to pull a product if they don't want to sell it anymore, the flip side of that is that the only reason they can get away with it is because of their power over the market. When a company removes from the market a product for which there is huge demand, to replace it with something with little demand, you can be assured there's something seriously wrong with the competitive status of that market.
I have worked as a programmer for big (60+ developers) projects. Even 1 bad for each 10 good ones is enough to destroy a product when you are working on that scale. Remember you have a give time limit to finish the software, so your good ones can't keep revising the work gone by the bad ones.
We have a couple of contractors that our managers really like because they finish their work VERY quickly.
Problem is, the reason they finish it quickly is the same reason I then spend 2 months fixing it. It's unbelievably frustrating and I think the managers are finally beginning to catch on.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the info.
I think I'll stick with mailing a check though, because I want to include a short note thanking you all for what you're doing. She should know she's not alone.
Ray - she'll be receiving a check from me (or PayPal, if you manage it). I don't have much but you guys deserve the best society can heap upon you for what you're doing.
Saying 'Thank You' doesn't even begin to cover it.
Too bad that system only works (and the theory explicitly STATES this) when no particular entity has too much control over it. Then, that entity becomes a parasite. Much of what we call free market capitalism today is in reality that sort of parasitic relationship.
You might want to check US Code section 17 before you claim Fair Use isn't codified in law. It is now.
Besides, there are other posts in this thread more insightful than mine that shed light on the supposed different between an affirmative defense and a right.
You have the RIGHT to format and time shift, but the MEANS to do so is made illegal to you by the DMCA. It's such an artful contradiction written into the law; you'd admire the artistry if it weren't so evil.
I would actually bother to reply to such a monumentally retarded post, but you're posting AC, so you wouldn't read it anyway.
That's easy. Concern for civil liberties is a luxury in which few people indulge, particularly those concerned more with their everyday lives. To those for whom the true effects of civil liberties violations are never seen, the whole idea of civil liberties is a laughable one.
Without trying to sound arrogant, the demographic of your average Slashdotter leans more towards the direction of people who for reasons of intellect or hard work, have the time and wherewithal to actually think about such things. For everyone else, it is a waste of time.
Put more simply: When concerned with survival, few people concern themselves with the means. And the degree to which you must work to survive is similarly the degree to which you don't care about ephemeral concepts like 'rights'.
Very informative. Going in my list of comments to save from Slashdot, which is very, very short.
Notably, the store manager never said he believed Michael had stolen anything - his only crime was refusing the post-checkout search.
There is plenty of case law which says you don't check your civil liberties at the door when entering a private establishment.
Michael Righi, the man arrested, was the one who called the police - to force the store to let him leave. They had no right to detain him. If anything, the police should have trusted HIM first - instead the officer immediately took the word of the store employees.
Oh, and no swearing of statements ever took place. They could have been lying.
Except in very few instances, they don't.
The obedience you see is a result of very effective social engineering to make people believe they do have the right to search people.
Read the blog post. He quotes the law that made this illegal.
There's two separate issues here: Whether he should have been asked to show the contents of his bag is a different issue than whether he should have been arrested for not showing his driver's license. Both will have to be prosecuted.
Let me ask you something then, as a business owner:
Assuming you support the idea of examining people's bags on their way out the door, why would you treat them like criminals?
Look at how often government entities have ever released formal apologies. Then ask your question again.
Not to mention, there is little that will deter this sort of behavior more than the threat of being sued for all you're worth.
But particularly, because a police officer was involved in this case, the courts must explicitly say that what Righi did was perfectly within his rights - otherwise we'll continue to see it. Since they are apparently incapable of figuring it out on their own, police must be told what people's rights actually are.
You might want to read his blog. He IS such a person.
Oh, they chose the wrong man to mess with..
What shocks me is that the cop instantly took Circuit City's side without even bothering to figure out if there was any reason he SHOULD.
I'm not sure what that says about the cop but that was his fatal mistake and I suspect it's going to be a very, very expensive one.
It is standard procedure to scrub images before releasing them, whether or not they contain classified information. That image has been photoshopped to remove the prop.
Yes, I know that for certain.
Without going into too much detail, yes they are. The Chinese are catching up quickly though.
This is probably why the military has not bothered to try to get the image removed from the internet. Knowing the general design is only about 10% of the issue.
Ummm.. no comment.
I could be wrong, but I thought some of that was illegal now.. I don't see it at the bottom of car commercials anymore, for instance. Something about conditions a consumer can't physically read not being legally binding.
I suppose that's true. Although, I think then we'd get into the realm of what would the consumer consider reasonable.
Morality is a requirement of human existence. We can't survive without it.
Oversimplify, much? The Romans also adopted and expanded on the ideas of democracy and natural philosophy that had a direct impact on the Renaissance, and more, almost all our modern engineering is derived from what they figured out how to do.
Until the last couple of hundred years of its existence (which, incidentally, were the years when the Roman Empire was CHRISTIAN), the Roman Empire was quite the beacon of knowledge and philosophy, despite the fact that its genesis was formed out of conquest.
But more to the point: You've oversimplified the relationship between morality and politics.
And look at the mess the 'Christian' nations have made of the world. You probably don't want to hold us up as somehow 'better' in comparison. We've F-'d things up enough to give the Romans a run for their money.
Service fraud. Claim you'll provide a service, claim there's no limit on your usage, and then ban you for using it? Any judge that wouldn't find for the customer is being paid off.
Court is the last and only recourse for the little guy when a corporation decides to swing their considerable bat at them.
$20 says he doesn't reply to you, because he knows you're right.
The theistic monopoly on morality is coming crashing down and boy oh boy do they hate it.
Disclaimer: This post is half troll. I actually want him to respond to the parent's post.
Because one is an unnecessary act, generally avoidable if declared a sin, while the other is an absolutely necessary function, unavoidable even under the worst shame and proclamations of sin.
I'll leave you to figure out which one, then, serves as the most effective means of mind control.
And as you go on to elucidate so well, consumers have nowhere NEAR equal bargaining power.
For the free-market advocates who drone on and on about Adam Smith and the invisible hand and what have you, they always miss that Smith's economics only apply in an economy where the seller and the buyer have approximately equal influence over the price and item in question, be it a physical item or a service.
When one party has significantly more power than the other, you've got a market primed to pound the little guy into the ground - and that's exactly what is happening in the US (elsewhere too, but as I am American I concern myself primarily with where corporate law in the US is heading).
Some providers have a "service" wherein if you use a certain amount of a certain a-la-carte service (or in some cases, ANY of that service) they'll automatically kick you into the next highest service plan, and charge you full price for the pleasure.
In SOME cases, that has been ruled bait-and-switch and is illegal. I'd check your jurisdiction to see if that's the case and read your bill very, very carefully to see if you were charged for services you didn't sign up for.
Agreed. The problem is, this time, Microsoft is attempting to force the issue by removing XP from the market. I have spoken to no less than 7 people in the past WEEK alone that are buying new computers now so they can get XP instead of Vista. People don't get to wait the 2 years until the software is stable, Microsoft is forcing them to buy the unstable version so that it can improve its quarterly earnings. When XP was released, Microsoft waited over 2 years to pull 98 from the market. This time, they tried to do it a mere 4 months after releasing Vista, only to extend it to the end of the year (a mere 9 months) after the consumer outcry.
While Microsoft is entitled to pull a product if they don't want to sell it anymore, the flip side of that is that the only reason they can get away with it is because of their power over the market. When a company removes from the market a product for which there is huge demand, to replace it with something with little demand, you can be assured there's something seriously wrong with the competitive status of that market.
We have a couple of contractors that our managers really like because they finish their work VERY quickly.
Problem is, the reason they finish it quickly is the same reason I then spend 2 months fixing it. It's unbelievably frustrating and I think the managers are finally beginning to catch on.