Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 17 Oct 2013 @ 2:40am
Re: The Lavabit Hotel
Except your analogy is fundamentally flawed. In the hotel situation you describe, what would actually happen is this: The police have reason to believe a guest is doing something criminal in one of the rooms, so they get a subpoena and search the entire hotel and every room in it without telling any of the other occupants that their rooms had been searched.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 17 Oct 2013 @ 1:57am
"Justice" = cash
Moore noted the fundamental asymmetry of patent trolling, saying he could only fight because he had pro bono representation: "Most people who can't get a free lawyer like me will settle."
Not just patent law, this is a fundamental problem with all civil law - it's completely biased towards the party with the money. You can accuse anyone of anything more or less without fear of reprisal and if you're rich and they are (relatively) poor, they'll be almost forced to settle because they can't afford to fight it in court. I don't know how this gets fixed (or perhaps it's by design since it totally favours corporations). Perhaps for civil disputes there should be the option of a state-provided lawyer for the defendant as for criminal law but with costs being owed by the defendant if they loose and by the plaintiff if they win...
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 16 Oct 2013 @ 3:37pm
Close
It's a technological issue, on which Lavabit's entire business was based.
That's not quite accurate. It doesn't just affect Lavabit, it affects potentially any business or individual that uses hosted services, so that should read:
"It's a technological issue on which a large number of entire businesses and an increasingly ubiquitous aspect of life for private citizens are based."
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 8:11am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, that is kind of the point. Whatever it may be called, a right to silence stops looking like a "right" when it's limited by when and how you can not say things.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 8:06am
Re:
Quite the opposite actually, the Westminster system is set up such that ALL citizens have the ability to form their own party
True, theoretically at least. In both UK and US. But that's the problem - it's only theoretically true. It takes way more money to be elected to parliament than even a fairly large group of citizens is likely to amass without, for example, corporate backing. And even if one manages the unlikely feat of being elected to parliament without compromising one's values or selling out to corporate interests, it's one against 649. This is why we have an 2 party + 1 spoiler system and not an "anyone can make it" system. Whatever the rules say, lack of choice is institutionalised in british politics as it is in US politics. Just look at the current makeup of the house. Even if every single "independent" (and I use the term laughingly as it includes, for example Sinn Fein and the Scottish Nationalist party) that's managed to get elected shares a view on something, that's a total of 34 votes - not even enough to beat the Lib Dems at anything, never mind sway the government. The price of a seat in either house (IIRC ~$1.5M+ for congress, ~$6M+ for senate) in the US makes the same problem if anything even more insurmountable over there.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 8:04am
Quite the opposite actually, the Westminster system is set up such that ALL citizens have the ability to form their own party
True, theoretically at least. In both UK and US. But that's the problem - it's only theoretically true. It takes way more money to be elected to parliament than even a fairly large group of citizens is likely to amass without, for example, corporate backing. And even if one manages the unlikely feat of being elected to parliament without compromising one's values or selling out to corporate interests, it's one against 649. This is why we have an 2 party + 1 spoiler system and not an "anyone can make it" system. Whatever the rules say, lack of choice is institutionalised in british politics. Just look at the current makeup of the house. Even if every single "independent" (and I use the term laughingly as it includes, for example Sinn Fein and the Scottish Nationalist party) that's managed to get elected shares a view on something, that's a total of 34 votes - not even enough to beat the Lib Dems at anything, never mind sway the government. The price of a seat in either house (IIRC ~$1.5M+ for congress, ~$6M+ for senate) in the US makes the same problem if anything even more insurmountable over there.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 7:19am
Re: Re: Re:
Excuse me, but here in the UK we have a true democracy.
No, we really, really don't. Technically, I think, the UK is a "Constitutional monarchy". The US is not a democracy either, it's a republic. Theoretically in both, the electorate get to choose those that make the decisions, but do not get any further decision making power themselves. A "true democracy" is where the people get direct decision making ability. As PaulT notes above, that too has its dangers of course.
You make us sound like a third world dictatorship. We're not.
No indeed, they tend to be more honest about the level of control the ruler has over the serf-uh-citizens. As for the UK actually being like a dictatorship, well no of course it's not. However, my point was that the average voter has literally zero voice in government. Being able to select once every few years the least objectionable of 2 parties whose policies one doesn't support and who are more likely to look after to corporate interests than those of an average citizen does not constitute much in the way of voice. Oh, and I could be wrong but I believe the UK is also the only western country that does not include a "right to silence" in their criminal procedure... that's fairly police-state-y if not actually dictator-y don't you think?
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 15 Oct 2013 @ 2:54am
Re:
I think the bigger problem is that governments are set up in such a way that most citizens of a country can have basically zero effect on the government and its decisions.
Money or publicity are the only things that talk in modern politics and the "average citizen" is capable of neither and only has a tiny voice on a national scale - not even the 1/63Mth a UK citizen should theoretically have. Even the greatest activist in the world can't raise enough "tiny voices" for a government to care without either. Money usually means some sort of corporate backing which tends to dilute the message anyway. Catching the whimsy of the media usually distorts the real issue by going for the "human interest story" and if anything tends to result in bad law by knee-jerk reaction.
I think a constitution for the UK might be a good start, but what is really needed is a new form of government - a true democracy perhaps, where citizens can genuinely have a voice and each voice counts no matter how much money they have. Modern communication technology makes that dream at least feasible, so perhaps that's why politicians always seem so scared of it.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 14 Oct 2013 @ 4:09am
Re: Re: Re:
Anything that would get the kid removed by CPS should get the teacher fired.
I agree with the sentiment, but therein also lies the problem - It's rarely that simple. Too often children are removed from families when they shouldn't and not removed when they should be. The same goes for teachers and for everything else.
This is not to say that such services are inherently bad necessarily, just that in the real world things are rarely black and white. We have created this labyrinth of rules and laws and tests and increasingly we enforce these with "Zero tolerance", removing the human element and forgetting that such lines are models of acceptable human behaviour. Like any model, they do not - CAN not - take account of every variable to be fairly enforced without judgement being exercised in their use and yet we seem to strive to remove all such possibility of judgement and remove humanity from human decisions.
And when these hard-drawn lines become arbitrary and based on knee-jerk responses to tragedy or personal bias of someone in a position of power, that lack of humanity becomes even more dangerous.
Striving for perfection is human nature, but believing it can be created with law is an insanity we all need to wake up from.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 13 Oct 2013 @ 2:59pm
Re: Re: Re: Just yesterday
You appear to want to make up my opinion for me !
No, just attempting to identify you from semantic content given a lack of other useful information to go on and I note that you also avoided the point no matter who you are.
Then you do need to actually READ that constitution you refer too, and find out what it actually DOES SAY!
I will when your government does. I also not that again you avoided answering the point.
And as for the rest of it about what a license plate is or isn't, I note yet again that you avoid discussing anywhere near the point raised in favour of a tangential issue of your own manufacture so now I'm even more sure you're who I think you are and realise I'm wasting my time asking questions.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 11 Oct 2013 @ 11:10am
Re:
I'd much rather have the US as a free country and risk attacks like this then have it as a police state and still risk attacks like this.
THIS! As nations (US, UK and others) we seem, in our arrogance and stupidity, to have come to a point where we not only think perfect is attainable, but expect and demand perfection; Perfect security perfect protection for children perfect medicine perfect safety in ludicrously dangerous jobs and on and on And when we don't get it we all bleat "SOMEONE must be to blame! You must to better!"
This is how we accept the unacceptable for the illusion of the unattainable. It has to stop.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 11 Oct 2013 @ 5:30am
Re: Just yesterday
Right here I was reading about the general public being able to record the police, after all it's "in public view", so what is so wrong with police recording people in those very same public places ?
I'm curious, do you actually believe this or are you just contradicting Techdirt automatically? For example, you seem to be the same person who is usually the first to jump the other way when it comes to constitutional protections and rail endlessly about how those protections only protect one from governmental interference. If so it seems a huge blind spot to not see the difference between a private citizen videotaping something and a police force doing so does it not?
In addition, you seem to be carefully ignoring the first paragraph about how there's no problem collecting the data, just what is done with it afterwards.
You also completely avoided any mention of whether it's a good thing for the government to know exactly where you were and who you are associating with and to keep this data indefinitely whether you have broken any laws or not.
Now I'm not a legal scholar, lawyer or even American, but I seem to remember that this sort of thing is frowned upon by that constitution thing there. So it seems a little odd that you'd ignore what was, after all, the main point of the article to focus on a largely made-up semantic argument of your own.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 10 Oct 2013 @ 9:15am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Simple... It's all promotion.
By that definition, YOU are promoting and should therefore ban yourself from a site that can be seen by children who have no choice but to be promoted at. Please, please do so.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 10 Oct 2013 @ 8:31am
Re: The good old days
However I don't remember ever seeing any kind of bad injury during play.
That was a favourite game at my school too and rough to the point of violence, but I too cannot recall any serious injuries. A chipped tooth I remember, lots of people groaning from being winded by a rough tackle, sprains, bruises, the occasional bloody nose or lip, a few black eyes...
They say "Kids these days think everything is handed to them on a platter." How the hell else are kids supposed to think when they get wrapped in cotton wool until they are "adults"?
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 9 Oct 2013 @ 11:51am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Since when has it been the role of any police force to disrupt the activities of people that they merely suspect are about to take part in criminal activity in order to prevent that activity?
Presumably shortly before, in that same parallel universe, they decided it was their job to enforce civil liability on behalf of corporations too.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 9 Oct 2013 @ 10:00am
Doubly dubious
In the case of the Boston Marathon bomber, we were able to use these tools to determine whether there was, or was not, a subsequent plot in NYC.
Except it's impossible to prove a negative, so the best he's in fact saying is "With this massive invasion of privacy and violation of the constitution we can be reasonably sure that there's probably not any other related pieces of the plot out there... until of course we get proved wrong by something we missed in the enormous haystack."
Yeah, that's a great justification... basically, "It doesn't matter whether any of this stuff really does anything as long as we think we can convince people they are safe and we're doing something with the enormous amounts of money we spend."
On the post: Lavabit Case Shows Why We Need Tech Literate Judges
Re: The Lavabit Hotel
The police have reason to believe a guest is doing something criminal in one of the rooms, so they get a subpoena and search the entire hotel and every room in it without telling any of the other occupants that their rooms had been searched.
On the post: Developer Claims Patent Troll Lodsys Demanded To Be Paid Via Swedish Bank To Avoid Taxes
"Justice" = cash
You can accuse anyone of anything more or less without fear of reprisal and if you're rich and they are (relatively) poor, they'll be almost forced to settle because they can't afford to fight it in court.
I don't know how this gets fixed (or perhaps it's by design since it totally favours corporations). Perhaps for civil disputes there should be the option of a state-provided lawyer for the defendant as for criminal law but with costs being owed by the defendant if they loose and by the plaintiff if they win...
On the post: Lavabit Case Shows Why We Need Tech Literate Judges
Close
"It's a technological issue on which a large number of entire businesses and an increasingly ubiquitous aspect of life for private citizens are based."
There FTFY
On the post: London School Of Economics Wants To Crowdsource A Constitution For The UK
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: London School Of Economics Wants To Crowdsource A Constitution For The UK
Re:
This is why we have an 2 party + 1 spoiler system and not an "anyone can make it" system. Whatever the rules say, lack of choice is institutionalised in british politics as it is in US politics. Just look at the current makeup of the house. Even if every single "independent" (and I use the term laughingly as it includes, for example Sinn Fein and the Scottish Nationalist party) that's managed to get elected shares a view on something, that's a total of 34 votes - not even enough to beat the Lib Dems at anything, never mind sway the government.
The price of a seat in either house (IIRC ~$1.5M+ for congress, ~$6M+ for senate) in the US makes the same problem if anything even more insurmountable over there.
On the post: London School Of Economics Wants To Crowdsource A Constitution For The UK
This is why we have an 2 party + 1 spoiler system and not an "anyone can make it" system. Whatever the rules say, lack of choice is institutionalised in british politics. Just look at the current makeup of the house. Even if every single "independent" (and I use the term laughingly as it includes, for example Sinn Fein and the Scottish Nationalist party) that's managed to get elected shares a view on something, that's a total of 34 votes - not even enough to beat the Lib Dems at anything, never mind sway the government.
The price of a seat in either house (IIRC ~$1.5M+ for congress, ~$6M+ for senate) in the US makes the same problem if anything even more insurmountable over there.
On the post: London School Of Economics Wants To Crowdsource A Constitution For The UK
Re: Re: Re:
As for the UK actually being like a dictatorship, well no of course it's not. However, my point was that the average voter has literally zero voice in government. Being able to select once every few years the least objectionable of 2 parties whose policies one doesn't support and who are more likely to look after to corporate interests than those of an average citizen does not constitute much in the way of voice.
Oh, and I could be wrong but I believe the UK is also the only western country that does not include a "right to silence" in their criminal procedure... that's fairly police-state-y if not actually dictator-y don't you think?
On the post: London School Of Economics Wants To Crowdsource A Constitution For The UK
Re:
Money or publicity are the only things that talk in modern politics and the "average citizen" is capable of neither and only has a tiny voice on a national scale - not even the 1/63Mth a UK citizen should theoretically have. Even the greatest activist in the world can't raise enough "tiny voices" for a government to care without either. Money usually means some sort of corporate backing which tends to dilute the message anyway. Catching the whimsy of the media usually distorts the real issue by going for the "human interest story" and if anything tends to result in bad law by knee-jerk reaction.
I think a constitution for the UK might be a good start, but what is really needed is a new form of government - a true democracy perhaps, where citizens can genuinely have a voice and each voice counts no matter how much money they have. Modern communication technology makes that dream at least feasible, so perhaps that's why politicians always seem so scared of it.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re:
This is not to say that such services are inherently bad necessarily, just that in the real world things are rarely black and white. We have created this labyrinth of rules and laws and tests and increasingly we enforce these with "Zero tolerance", removing the human element and forgetting that such lines are models of acceptable human behaviour. Like any model, they do not - CAN not - take account of every variable to be fairly enforced without judgement being exercised in their use and yet we seem to strive to remove all such possibility of judgement and remove humanity from human decisions.
And when these hard-drawn lines become arbitrary and based on knee-jerk responses to tragedy or personal bias of someone in a position of power, that lack of humanity becomes even more dangerous.
Striving for perfection is human nature, but believing it can be created with law is an insanity we all need to wake up from.
On the post: VA State Police Collected Massive Amounts Of License Plate Data By Scanning Plates At Political Rallies
Re: Re: Re: Just yesterday
And as for the rest of it about what a license plate is or isn't, I note yet again that you avoid discussing anywhere near the point raised in favour of a tangential issue of your own manufacture so now I'm even more sure you're who I think you are and realise I'm wasting my time asking questions.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re:
On the post: How The Dream Of Spying More On The Public With Cameras Will Likely Decrease Public Safety
Re:
As nations (US, UK and others) we seem, in our arrogance and stupidity, to have come to a point where we not only think perfect is attainable, but expect and demand perfection;
Perfect security
perfect protection for children
perfect medicine
perfect safety in ludicrously dangerous jobs
and on and on
And when we don't get it we all bleat "SOMEONE must be to blame! You must to better!"
This is how we accept the unacceptable for the illusion of the unattainable. It has to stop.
On the post: VA State Police Collected Massive Amounts Of License Plate Data By Scanning Plates At Political Rallies
Re: Just yesterday
For example, you seem to be the same person who is usually the first to jump the other way when it comes to constitutional protections and rail endlessly about how those protections only protect one from governmental interference. If so it seems a huge blind spot to not see the difference between a private citizen videotaping something and a police force doing so does it not?
In addition, you seem to be carefully ignoring the first paragraph about how there's no problem collecting the data, just what is done with it afterwards.
You also completely avoided any mention of whether it's a good thing for the government to know exactly where you were and who you are associating with and to keep this data indefinitely whether you have broken any laws or not.
Now I'm not a legal scholar, lawyer or even American, but I seem to remember that this sort of thing is frowned upon by that constitution thing there. So it seems a little odd that you'd ignore what was, after all, the main point of the article to focus on a largely made-up semantic argument of your own.
On the post: High School Student Forced To Remove NRA Shirt, Because Pictures Of Guns Are Scaaaaary
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Schools Ban Tag, Cartwheels And 'Unstructured Play:' The Inevitable Outcome Of Unrealistic Promises And Expectations [UPDATED]
Re: The good old days
They say "Kids these days think everything is handed to them on a platter." How the hell else are kids supposed to think when they get wrapped in cotton wool until they are "adults"?
On the post: London Police Order Registrars To Shut Down A Bunch Of Websites Without Any Legal Basis; Threaten Registrars If They Don't Comply
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: James Clapper Says 'Peace Of Mind' Trumps Effectiveness In Evaluating NSA Surveillance
Doubly dubious
Yeah, that's a great justification... basically, "It doesn't matter whether any of this stuff really does anything as long as we think we can convince people they are safe and we're doing something with the enormous amounts of money we spend."
On the post: London Police Order Registrars To Shut Down A Bunch Of Websites Without Any Legal Basis; Threaten Registrars If They Don't Comply
Re:
On the post: London Police Order Registrars To Shut Down A Bunch Of Websites Without Any Legal Basis; Threaten Registrars If They Don't Comply
Re: Fucking Weasels
On the post: UK Intelligence Boss Blames Snowden And Reporters For Giving A 'Gift' To Terrorists
Re: A little history (reposted due to error)
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