These "laws" will survive until the point where they are used against someone who has the intelligence and presence of mind to expose their inner contradictions. They are an example of the authori=ties refusing to face up to reality.
The compulsion to expose the driver of a car cannot survive the two possible drivers each claiming that the other was driving.
Similarly it is impossible to prove that you know something that you claim not to.
Also there are ways of securing an encrypted device that are not susceptible to forcing a single person to give up a password.
I would expect a competant intelligence agency to collect this kind of stuff. I would also expect a competant intelligence agency not to get caught.
By this measure the NSA is not a competant intelligence agency.
It has become sloppy because it has got used to using tame judges and politicians to cover up for its mistakes instead of avoiding making them in the first case. It has probably also become sloppy because it has grown to large and acquired too broad a brief.
This is a disaster because the NSA's incompetence has resulted in it being unable to fulfil its proper role.
By default the government has certain responsibilities - basically it is responsible for everything that we cannot do without. Where those responsibilities coincide with something that is a natural monopoly or where most providers will be "too big to be allowed to fail" (defence, law enforcement, finance) or something where market mechanisms cannot work properly (health, education, a safety net for the poor and the unfortunate) then direct state involvement is inevitable. For other necessities (eg food) the state will have to provide a degree of regulation and contingency planning. Any attempt to shrink the state beyond this inevitable (and rather large) size is a charade designed to enrich certain powerful individuals at the public expense.
Having said that there are some areas of the state I would like to shrink (because they don't fall into the categories above). The obvious example here is (so called) intellectual property.
Google does not have a valid repeat infringer policy. They are going to be sued out of existence.
and they will be replaced by something far more difficult for the RIAA to deal with - something like YACY where there is no-one to even send a takedown notice to.
It would be at best a Pyrrhic victory but most likely an own goal.
this government, and especially the current administration, has proven that it can't run anything effectively.
Unfortunately the one thing that the government is even worse at than running something is procuring said something from a third party.
Once you add the fact that certain things are inevitably the responsibility of government then it becomes clear that the involvement of the private sector only makes things worse.
The key here is this - if something is essential then it is part of the government sector - even if it appears to be private - e.g. the banks.
The only way that helathcare can truly be private is if you regard it as non-essential - in which case the result is that the poor will die unnecessarily. That is a possible political position - but those who take it should admit it.
�Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.�
No tell them about the real person (St Nicholas of Myra) who is behind the mythical Santa. Tell them the true stories about how he fought against injustice and corruption.
Tell them about how business interests is the Netherlands and the US transformed the inconvenient real person into the commercially useful Santa.
I tend to believe that persons within an industry have access to information, current and historical, that inform their opinion. Thus, I believe it is a mistake to tell one who certainly has such information in hand that he/she if just plain wrong if I do not have such information so that we both talk using the same baseline of information.
Sounds plausible but..
Whenever I haved become privy to this "information" it has turned out not to be what I thought it would be.
You have to remember that such information will only be available if the person in charge takes the trouble to make it available and then only in a form that they dictate. Thus there is a high probability that the assumptions that they started with will be built into said information.
Your attitude is a recipe for willing subjugation to those who you beleive know better than you do. If the American founding fathers had taken that line the USA would have remained a British colony.
On the post: UK Man Jailed For Not Giving Police Thumbstick Password
Re: Re:
On the post: UK Man Jailed For Not Giving Police Thumbstick Password
Re: Re: Self incrimination in the UK
The compulsion to expose the driver of a car cannot survive the two possible drivers each claiming that the other was driving.
Similarly it is impossible to prove that you know something that you claim not to.
Also there are ways of securing an encrypted device that are not susceptible to forcing a single person to give up a password.
On the post: Copyright Week: How Copyright Is Being Use To Destroy Property Rights
Re:
When the advertising says "own it on DVD" then they have created the expectation that you own the movie in some sense - not just the plastic.
In any case the point of the article was to say that the rights are not really property at all.
On the post: Copyright Week: How Copyright Is Being Use To Destroy Property Rights
Re: Truth in labelling
and how often you see/hear the phrase
"Own it on DVD"
when they actually mean something quite different!
On the post: NSA Spying Fallout Hits French Satellite Deal
Expect
By this measure the NSA is not a competant intelligence agency.
It has become sloppy because it has got used to using tame judges and politicians to cover up for its mistakes instead of avoiding making them in the first case. It has probably also become sloppy because it has grown to large and acquired too broad a brief.
This is a disaster because the NSA's incompetence has resulted in it being unable to fulfil its proper role.
On the post: Revelations About Massive UK Police Corruption Shows Why We Cannot -- And Must Not -- Trust The Spies
Re: Re: Re:
Having said that there are some areas of the state I would like to shrink (because they don't fall into the categories above). The obvious example here is (so called) intellectual property.
On the post: Revelations About Massive UK Police Corruption Shows Why We Cannot -- And Must Not -- Trust The Spies
Re:
and those of a religious disposition should remember that getting too close to the state has its dangers for them also.
The mechanisms that were used by Stalin to persecute the church in Russia in the 20's and 30's were put in place under the previous Tsarist regime.
On the post: RIAA's Boss Thinks He Knows Better Than Google How To Build A Search Engine
Re: Re:
and they will be replaced by something far more difficult for the RIAA to deal with - something like YACY where there is no-one to even send a takedown notice to.
It would be at best a Pyrrhic victory but most likely an own goal.
On the post: RIAA's Boss Thinks He Knows Better Than Google How To Build A Search Engine
Re:
and 100% of traditional pirates used boat to attack merchant ships. Therefore boats should be designed differently.
On the post: University Professor: Candy Crush Is Turning Children Into Obsessive Gamblers
Re: Re: In other news
There is no justice or logic in the world.
(Actually can't be strictly true - or this piece of logic wouldn't exist!)
On the post: University Professor: Candy Crush Is Turning Children Into Obsessive Gamblers
Re:
No - defense contractors do mostly supply something useful. You are thinking of security equipment suppliers.
On the post: University Professor: Candy Crush Is Turning Children Into Obsessive Gamblers
In other news
On the post: Little Evidence Of 'Infringement Risk' For 'Copyright Intensive' Companies
Re: Re: Re: Re: There will always be these claims
http://xkcd.com/1289/
On the post: When You Give Doctors Incentives To Get It Right, Rather Than To 'Do Everything', People Get Better Care For Less
Re: The problem with government run healthcare
Unfortunately the one thing that the government is even worse at than running something is procuring said something from a third party.
Once you add the fact that certain things are inevitably the responsibility of government then it becomes clear that the involvement of the private sector only makes things worse.
The key here is this - if something is essential then it is part of the government sector - even if it appears to be private - e.g. the banks.
The only way that helathcare can truly be private is if you regard it as non-essential - in which case the result is that the poor will die unnecessarily. That is a possible political position - but those who take it should admit it.
On the post: 7 Things You Missed If You Didn't Read Wired's Big Story On How The NSA Is Killing The Internet
Oh Yeah
Really?
How about this case?
On the post: Weird California Incident Last Year Points To The Real Threat To The Power Grid (Hint: It's Not Cyberattacks)
The average politician
On the post: UK Porn Filter Blocks Porn Filter Advocate Claire Perry's Website [Updated]
Time for the Old C s Lewis quote
― C.S. Lewis
On the post: DailyDirt: Dysfunctional Capitalism
Re: Re: Re:
However most participants try to subvert most of the rules most of the time with the aim of creating a monopoly.
Fact is most capitalists dislike real capitalism and try to re-identify the word with a system that favours them.
On the post: DailyDirt: Here Comes Santa Claus
Re: I say give them the unvarnished lie!
No tell them about the real person (St Nicholas of Myra) who is behind the mythical Santa. Tell them the true stories about how he fought against injustice and corruption.
Tell them about how business interests is the Netherlands and the US transformed the inconvenient real person into the commercially useful Santa.
On the post: CEO Of 21st Century Fox Thinks People Aren't Really Asking For A La Carte TV Channels
Re:
Sounds plausible but..
Whenever I haved become privy to this "information" it has turned out not to be what I thought it would be.
You have to remember that such information will only be available if the person in charge takes the trouble to make it available and then only in a form that they dictate. Thus there is a high probability that the assumptions that they started with will be built into said information.
Your attitude is a recipe for willing subjugation to those who you beleive know better than you do. If the American founding fathers had taken that line the USA would have remained a British colony.
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