He was only in Moscow because it was en route to his actual destination in Latin America.
I have to wonder about that, just a little. I have no question that he's a good guy who did the right thing, or that he was stranded in Russia through no fault of his own, but... just look on a map. How in the world is Russia on the way from China to South America?!?
As Watchdog.org points out, the spirit of the law is somewhat undermined by the letter of the law.
There are noteworthy exceptions, many of which appeared in previous iterations.
Tracking is permitted without a warrant with the informed consent of a device owner, unless the owner knowingly loaned it to a third party. You can track calls for 911 emergencies. A parent or legal guardian can provide informed consent to locate a missing child. The government can track its own property or employees in possession of that property. And alcohol ignition interlock control devices placed by court order would also be traceable without a warrant.
I don't see how any of these things undermine the spirit of the law, which is that warrantless surveillance of criminal suspects is a bad thing, since none of these exceptions are about the surveillance of criminal suspects. The closest one would be the breathalyzer one, but such a person isn't a suspect; it's someone who's already been caught doing something that recklessly puts at risk the lives of everyone around them, and as such has shown themselves unworthy of the same level of trust as ordinary, law-abiding citizens.
Just because they occasionally get some thing right doesn't mean they're not mixing it in with pushing a horrendous, barbaric (in the most literal meaning of the word: anti-civilization) crap that causes very real harm wherever it goes.
Meh. On the one side, DOJ corruption. On the other side, a bunch of Libertarians.
Like I said earlier today in the article about the ISIS fearmongering, when bad guys are fighting bad guys, the best thing to do is just stay out of their way and let them.
I really don't see why everyone's so worried about ISIS. They may talk big, but all of their "great victories" have consisted of the forces defending the cities they're attacking being utter cowards who run away from ISIS forces that they could easily crush. They've gone and proclaimed a new Caliphate, which is likely to be exactly as well-received in the Middle East as the UK Prime Minister proclaiming the re-establishment of the British Empire would be here or in India. And most of the people they're fighting against are people who hate us anyway!
If our enemies want to fight our enemies... why not just get out of their way, stand back and let them? Overblown scaremongering notwithstanding, ISIS has never actually attacked us or done anything to hurt us the way Al Qaeda did. So why are we so concerned about them again?
Are the two teams competitors or are they different entities within the same organization?
That would be an much less interesting question if they were both in the same league and thus literally competed with each other on a regular basis, but since they're not, this becomes a bit tricky. But who says they can't be both?
Interesting, but I think the most significant thing in the graphene article is the last paragraph, where it says that someone's discovered (or is coming close to working out) a process that brings down the cost of graphene manufacturing by a factor of 1000.
Look at what just a few researchers with the considerable resources required to manufacture graphene have already come up with. It's kind of amazing. But make graphene cheap enough that any scientist can get his hands on a few kilos of the stuff, and we'd have a new Industrial Revolution on our hands!
It seems to me there's only one real answer to this philosophical question: the self-driving car's highest duty must always be to keep the people inside safe.
It has to be this way, not because of ethics or moral concerns, but simply because no one would buy a car that's programmed to sacrifice them in an emergency!
Of the roughly 1,700 people who submitted online comments for [Philadelphia]’s survey, around 99% of those were negative.
I have to wonder about that survey, based on the very simple observation that it's Philly. Keep in mind that the City of Brotherly Love has so much hate floating around that the locals booed Santa Claus!
Regardless, the Cardinals way is dead, unable to pull itself from a muck of its own making.
You really believe that? After living through the Clinton administration? After reporting on CIA officials lying to Congress? After the endless cycle of MPAA lies about new technology that always keeps getting believed each new iteration?
Remember the High Court/Low Court system. Someone powerful and influential like a manager of a major sports team does something wrong, they'll get a slap on the wrist, tops. Sad but true.
A few times I've heard innuendos about how "everyone knows" that PayPal is evil and loves to screw its customers over. It's a lot of the same stuff you hear about Google, except with even less in the way of actual examples of customers getting screwed over.
All I know personally is, I've been using PayPal pretty much forever and never once had a bad experience with their service.
What? Making it so easy to pay for stuff and send money around that they've become the default payment system for the Internet? Having a tech support system where it's easy to reach a real human being? Running a mature, stable platform that's been around since the 90s, so you can be confident it will still be there tomorrow?
Why would that track record make you want to not have anything to do with them?
As has been noted above, the article's focus is rather misleading. It emphasizes the Bitcoin stuff, and almost entirely ignores the part about actually sending someone over to join them, which is a legitimate crime no matter how you spin it.
Here's something that's bound to annoy a lot of fearmongers out there: You know what's the #1 most efficient thing the US government could do to inhibit the spread of Islamic terrorism?
First, a bit of background. Anyone remember The Troubles? Ireland had a serious terrorist problem for quite a while, people using religious fanaticism as an excuse for violent thuggery against people they had political differences with. Sound familiar?
It went on for decades, but you don't really hear about it much anymore, because it's over now. And how did it stop? To put it simply, it was perhaps the one truly good thing to come out of 9/11. There are a lot of people of Irish descent living in the northeastern United States, and 9/11 literally hit close to home for them. It took a lot of the "freedom fighter" romanticism out of the narrative and made it hard to ignore what terrorism was really about: murder and fear. Suddenly that wasn't cool anymore, and a whole lot of Irish-Americans who had been financially supporting the Irish terrorists stopped sending them money. And when their largest source of funding dried up, they found themselves unable to continue operations, and The Troubles ground to a halt very quickly.
If we'd like to apply the lessons learned, it's not actually that hard if we face the facts, because once again these terrorists are getting a whole lot of money from the USA. It's kind of an open secret, an elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about, that they get a lot of their funding from oil money. (How's that for a slogan? Filling up your gas tank is supporting terrorism! This one's actually true; does that make you uncomfortable?) So if the government really wanted to cut Islamic terrorism off at the knees, they should take a large percentage of the (often ineffective) military budget and retask it for subsidies for the development and deployment of solar power and electric cars, both in America and around the world!
Try telling that to a right-wing true believer (the people who yell the loudest about the threat of terrorism) sometime and watch their heads explode.
On the post: Sunday Times Doubles Down On Government Stenography, Detailing Calls For Prosecution Following Its Own Debunked Story
I have to wonder about that, just a little. I have no question that he's a good guy who did the right thing, or that he was stranded in Russia through no fault of his own, but... just look on a map. How in the world is Russia on the way from China to South America?!?
On the post: New Hampshire Legislators Propose Law Banning Warrantless Use Of Tracking Devices
I don't see how any of these things undermine the spirit of the law, which is that warrantless surveillance of criminal suspects is a bad thing, since none of these exceptions are about the surveillance of criminal suspects. The closest one would be the breathalyzer one, but such a person isn't a suspect; it's someone who's already been caught doing something that recklessly puts at risk the lives of everyone around them, and as such has shown themselves unworthy of the same level of trust as ordinary, law-abiding citizens.
Where's the problem with these exemptions, then?
On the post: Evidence Suggests DOJ Got A Gag Order Silencing Reason Over Its Bogus Subpoena
Re: Re:
Just because they occasionally get some thing right doesn't mean they're not mixing it in with pushing a horrendous, barbaric (in the most literal meaning of the word: anti-civilization) crap that causes very real harm wherever it goes.
On the post: Evidence Suggests DOJ Got A Gag Order Silencing Reason Over Its Bogus Subpoena
Like I said earlier today in the article about the ISIS fearmongering, when bad guys are fighting bad guys, the best thing to do is just stay out of their way and let them.
On the post: Hey IMAX: IMAX Can't Threaten People With Trademark Infringement For Saying IMAX. IMAX. IMAX.
I believe you mean trademark rights?
On the post: House Caves On Fast Track, Issues Moves Back To The Senate
Is that really a question? It's what he's been doing all along...
On the post: After Claiming USA Freedom Would Be A Boon To ISIS, Ex-NSA Director Now Mocks How Weak USA Freedom Is
Re:
If our enemies want to fight our enemies... why not just get out of their way, stand back and let them? Overblown scaremongering notwithstanding, ISIS has never actually attacked us or done anything to hurt us the way Al Qaeda did. So why are we so concerned about them again?
On the post: Apple Informs Bloggers It Will Be Using Their Content In Its 'News' App Via An Opt-Out Only 'Agreement'
Yeah, them and the entire rest of the commercial software world. In this particular case, Apple's no worse than the status quo, shoving unilateral "agreements" down their customers' throats.
On the post: Some Now Suggesting Cardinals Hack May Have Violated The Economic Espionage Act
That would be an much less interesting question if they were both in the same league and thus literally competed with each other on a regular basis, but since they're not, this becomes a bit tricky. But who says they can't be both?
On the post: Churchix: The Face Recognition Event Attendance Desktop Application You've Been Praying For?
Re:
On the post: DailyDirt: Riding Through Space On A Beam Of Light
Look at what just a few researchers with the considerable resources required to manufacture graphene have already come up with. It's kind of amazing. But make graphene cheap enough that any scientist can get his hands on a few kilos of the stuff, and we'd have a new Industrial Revolution on our hands!
On the post: John Oliver Gets Helen Mirren To Read CIA Torture Report As An eBook To Get People To Read It
Nitpick
On the post: Should Your Self-Driving Car Be Programmed To Kill You If It Means Saving A Dozen Other Lives?
It has to be this way, not because of ethics or moral concerns, but simply because no one would buy a car that's programmed to sacrifice them in an emergency!
On the post: Comcast Thinks Using Misleading Polls Will Somehow Fix Its Horrible Reputation
I have to wonder about that survey, based on the very simple observation that it's Philly. Keep in mind that the City of Brotherly Love has so much hate floating around that the locals booed Santa Claus!
Having said that, Comcast still sucks.
On the post: The Cardinal Way: FBI Investigating STL Cardinals For Hacking Into Astros Database
You really believe that? After living through the Clinton administration? After reporting on CIA officials lying to Congress? After the endless cycle of MPAA lies about new technology that always keeps getting believed each new iteration?
Remember the High Court/Low Court system. Someone powerful and influential like a manager of a major sports team does something wrong, they'll get a slap on the wrist, tops. Sad but true.
On the post: Huge Loss For Free Speech In Europe: Human Rights Court Says Sites Liable For User Comments
Re: Re:
On the post: DailyDirt: Passwords Suck, But What's Better?
Re: Re: Re: PayPal
A few times I've heard innuendos about how "everyone knows" that PayPal is evil and loves to screw its customers over. It's a lot of the same stuff you hear about Google, except with even less in the way of actual examples of customers getting screwed over.
All I know personally is, I've been using PayPal pretty much forever and never once had a bad experience with their service.
On the post: DailyDirt: Passwords Suck, But What's Better?
Re: PayPal
What? Making it so easy to pay for stuff and send money around that they've become the default payment system for the Internet? Having a tech support system where it's easy to reach a real human being? Running a mature, stable platform that's been around since the 90s, so you can be confident it will still be there tomorrow?
Why would that track record make you want to not have anything to do with them?
On the post: Virginia Teenager Charged With Providing 'Material Support' For ISIS Through Tweets, Blog Posts About Privacy And Bitcoin
Re:
On the post: Virginia Teenager Charged With Providing 'Material Support' For ISIS Through Tweets, Blog Posts About Privacy And Bitcoin
Re: Quandary
First, a bit of background. Anyone remember The Troubles? Ireland had a serious terrorist problem for quite a while, people using religious fanaticism as an excuse for violent thuggery against people they had political differences with. Sound familiar?
It went on for decades, but you don't really hear about it much anymore, because it's over now. And how did it stop? To put it simply, it was perhaps the one truly good thing to come out of 9/11. There are a lot of people of Irish descent living in the northeastern United States, and 9/11 literally hit close to home for them. It took a lot of the "freedom fighter" romanticism out of the narrative and made it hard to ignore what terrorism was really about: murder and fear. Suddenly that wasn't cool anymore, and a whole lot of Irish-Americans who had been financially supporting the Irish terrorists stopped sending them money. And when their largest source of funding dried up, they found themselves unable to continue operations, and The Troubles ground to a halt very quickly.
If we'd like to apply the lessons learned, it's not actually that hard if we face the facts, because once again these terrorists are getting a whole lot of money from the USA. It's kind of an open secret, an elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about, that they get a lot of their funding from oil money. (How's that for a slogan? Filling up your gas tank is supporting terrorism! This one's actually true; does that make you uncomfortable?) So if the government really wanted to cut Islamic terrorism off at the knees, they should take a large percentage of the (often ineffective) military budget and retask it for subsidies for the development and deployment of solar power and electric cars, both in America and around the world!
Try telling that to a right-wing true believer (the people who yell the loudest about the threat of terrorism) sometime and watch their heads explode.
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