I tend to agree that neither political party is doing what they should be doing. The only time they care about the American People is when it's time to win their vote.
Take a look at Senator Feinstein, who got right up to defend the Obama Administration, slam Edward Snowden, and then act like there isn't anything they see wrong with spying on every American. Just how long does it take for you to keep doing the wrong thing because you begin to realize that you've been wrong all along.
This is why the supporters of the Democratic Party are so disillusioned and disappointed with the attitude that Senate Democrats seem to be taking over this whole NSA spy scandal. Even the two year old down the street from me said that it's wrong to spy on everybody when they have done nothing wrong.
Democrats seem to be taking every single American citizen, lumping everyone into the same pile, and taking the attitude "well, we wouldn't be spying on you if you were innocent". This whole concept of "everybody is guilty" is something you expect from Republicans, NOT from Democrats.
I truly don't think that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans realize the shit-storm that Snowden kicked up. Snowden's only move was to reveal the program that revealed the massive spying on every American in the country. But, what has happened is that this whole mess is having an unintended side effect, it has split not only the country down the middle, but there are members in both political parties who are on either side of this discussion.
There are Democrats and Republicans in support of the program and who are criticizing Snowden for what he has done and who are calling for his extradition back to the United States. Then, you also have the other half of the Democrats and Republicans who are also calling for an end to the program, greater transparency and an end to the massive hunt for Snowden.
This issue isn't just about what is right or wrong, but how far our government went to cover it up and exactly who was complicit in this mess as well.
This whole NSA Spy Scandal has become an embarrassment to this country and yet the Democrats are falling over themselves so much that they have lost the compunction to admit that maybe they were wrong for supporting the NSA's program. It's an old trick that Republicans are always caught up in and yet, Democrats got suckered into falling for that as well.
The Obama Administration and the Democratic Party have finally been brought down to the same level that Republicans always seem to be caught in.
If Republicans were smart, they would seize on this scandal and rally to Snowden's defense because Democrats, as they continue to defend the Obama Administration, the NSA and this spying scandal while advocating that Snowden needs to stand trial for who they consider to be a traitor to this country, they really are missing the whole point of this.
The more Washington Democrats continue to refuse to give up the fight, one which they are losing, the NSA Spy Scandal is going to doom the Democratic Party much like how Republicans have been brought down over Watergate, Iran Contra, and the miscellaneous scandals that have embroiled the party.
Democrats really need to just admit defeat and one of those gestures could be in repealing The Patriot Act, disbanding the FISA courts and make a grand gesture that this abuse would never happen again because this country is being torn apart over this NSA spying program.
I'm just flabbergasted that Democrats still won't admit that they've been fighting a losing battle.
The comment made by "Smarterthanyou" is misleading. While it may have been a Republican idea, it's the Democrats who took their idea and flipped it so far over the top that the Democrats have become the "New Republicans".
The issue that everyone keeps forgetting is that the Obama Administration in league with the U.S. Congress, thinks that every American is a security threat and a risk to national security. The only reason that you spy on Americans is that you suspect them, in some way, of committing a crime. When the government is spying on *every* American, it means that you suspect every American of the crime of being a threat to the national security of this country.
Hell, President Obama and Harry Reid are always talking about how hard it is to pass bills in Congress and how they're always talking about going around Congress in order to get Congress.
If anyone is guilty of any crime, it's the Democrats for actually suggesting that the president bypass Congress in order to get things done.
Quoting polls conducted by the liberal news media? Really?
The polls everyone seems to be quoting are not accurate. There is not only overwhelming support for Snowden here in the United States but in other countries, Snowden has also become a folk hero. There is more animosity toward the liberal news media (who didn't start reporting on Snowden until after The Guardian broke the story and started revealing many classified documents that revealed the secrecy behind the spy program), the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress.
Fact is, there is more support for Snowden in this country and abroad then there is for those against him.
I can't believe you guys quoted polls that were conducted among liberal news media which was largely liberal Democrats who were taking those polls. IN the history of this country, there hasn't been a single poll that's refletive of the people living in this country.
Does President Obama actually think his speech appeased anybody? The only thing he managed to do was to reinforce everyone's perception that the only President Obama and the Democrats know how to do is to continue to lie to the American People.
The problem is that there isn't anything that President Obama or Congress could do that could restore the trust that he lost with the American People. Ever since this Snowden thing began, his administration has made one blunder after another and the only thing that Democrats have done is to turn Snowden into a cause.
At this point, I don't see Snowden ever returning to the United States because authorities would arrest him just as soon as he touched ground in this country. Law enforcement agencies use all kinds of duplicitous tricks in order to capture and/or arrest somebody they are after. Anyone think that the Federal government wouldn't resort to the same tricks?
Snowden's cause has become a rallying point for injustice among the people and he simply has become an ideal, a martyr, for everyone who has ever suffered an injustice. I find it hilarious that Snowden's status as a champion of human and civil rights has been created solely by Democrats and the liberal media, although I suspect tha6t isn't what they intended when they began their campaign to discredit him.
There is a problem with the way Washington is viewing the security and safety of the American People. I see it in the simplest of terms. Let me explain.
Whenever you have a democracy as important as the United States of America has and you justify abusing that democracy by passing laws that cancel out such protections as 'privacy' and 'basic civil and human rights' in favor of national security then you have already lost and that democracy is forever lost.
That is where dictatorship and communism begin because what good are constitutional rights, granted by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights if the government won;t let you exercise them.
Making excuses to justify why you are allowed to violate the privacy rights of the people who elected you into office means that it is more than likely illegal but also wrong. Democrats running our government have forgotten the basic principles as to why the United States was formed in the first place and those same Democrats forgot why we rebelled against the British Empire.
It's sad that Democrats continue to justify why they think they are allowed to spy on the communications of the American People. Because of that, the Democratic Party is going to lose the elections in 2014 and in 2016.
The NSA isn't all that bright. By automating those jobs they leave themselves wide open to renegade hackers and other potential problems. At the end of the day, you need actual people monitoring those systems not to mention the rabid fervor that this is going to cause with American voters.
It's very sad. If Martin Luther King, Jr. had given his famous speech in the current environment, he would have been arrested, charged with a felony and prosecuted by the Justice Department.
What's sad is that we have a black president who thinks he has the power to persecute a white man (Snowden), a black man in charge of the Justice Department chasing after Snowden because the government has decided that since it didn't like a white man has done, that it's okay for a black man to label a white man as a traitor instead of as a whistleblower and the government says it protects whistleblowers as long as they aren't government whistleblowers embarassing the Democratic party.
How much do you want to bet that if Obama had been a Republican president and the roles in Congress for the parties were reversed, how much Democrats would be calling for Snowden to be labeled a hero.
Amazon is something else. Their defense is that there is no true price to anything? Right. Not only is this a merit-less based defense but the statement is inaccurate.
First, the producers of the merchandise set the prices for the merchandise they produce. While most prices are not set in stone, some companies keep strict cost controls on the retail prices of their merchandise, such as Apple, Microsoft and the software industry.
Second, most merchandise is tagged as "Suggested Retail Price", which means that retailers can either sell at that price or lower.
There are some companies like Apple, Microsoft and Disney that take a hardnosed approach to the selling of their merchandise and most retailers are restricted from selling the merchandise they sell that is produced from those companies or they face very stiff repercussions.
For example, Apple will not allow retailers to sell its line of hardware (iPod, iPhone, iMac, iPads) below a certain price because they don't want their products to become devalued, which is why you never see any of Apple's products priced too low. The only time that Apple products are priced too move fast is when Apple is rolling out a new model for any particular item. New iPods and iPhones are generally marked down by as much as $100 when a new model is about to be released, otherwise, you never see more than $5 off the actual price of an iPod or iPhone.
Disney also maintains strict price controls on its products. Disney has a nasty habit of not allowing retailers like Best Buy and Target to sell Disney DVD's and/or Blu-rays below the $29.99 SRP and especially on their animated releases, they tend to retaliate against retailers by refusing to ship them any product. They are especially harsh when a retailer breaks a street date on their home videos.
Microsoft is the same way.
Most other companies who product merchandise are much more lenient on their merchandise pricing. But to say that there is no true pricing is disingenuous.
I'm shocked and disappointed with Mike's article. Siding with the Obama Administration and their arbitrary decision to ignore the ruling of the the courts and the ITC.
While I have no love for either company, with Apple patent trolling every company that sells products in the United States and resorting to a "sue happy" state where they target anyone and everyone who sues the "i" in their product name.
I seem to recall when Apple decided to send a cease and desist letter to a restaurant simply because they used an apple in the logo for their business.
It's just disappointing that with Apple suing Samsung left and right that the U.S. Government is protecting Apple and ignoring the courts in the process. The Obama Administration is simply using its own authority to give our courts and the ITC the middle finger.
It's disrespectful and just proves how corrupt our government has become.
Everybody should be very concerned about this because supposed the NSA/Justice Department discover information about a crime, like child pornography. Let's say again that the information is passed on to local prosecutors. Let's say again that a court allows the information to be used in a criminal trial even though no warrant was ever used. By "no warrant", I mean that the FISA court is not a legal court because they do not allow an adversarial process where a defense attorney represents the opposing party of the NSA/Justice Department.
Not only could evidence be used on the face of a warrant that cannot be disclosed (all FISA warrants, etc, are classified and placed under GAG orders).
The FISA courts post a threat to our criminal justice system because it allows the FISA court to gather evidence that prosecutors wouldn't be able to use.
The Obama Administration still hasn't stated exactly what crime he's accused of. Treason? What country was he aiding? What terrorist groups was he aiding? The only organizations he aided was "The Guardian", a news media organization and the last I heard, declaring war on journalists is not an advisable position to be in.
Tell me about it. I hate it when people deliberately show just how ignorant and stupid they really are. 3-5%? Really? That Amazon commenter forgot how to count.
I'm incensed by the comment that "Only 3-5% of homes in the US do not have access to wired broadband services". Not only is that statement misleading by the Amazon commenter but it grossly inaccurate and so far off the cuff that you can't help but to shake your head at that figure.
That number that only "3-5%" of homes don't have wired broadband services is so misleading that I fell out of my chair at how wrong that is since the number of Americans in the United States who don't have broadband services is much, MUCH higher than that. Mostly because the prices of broadband services are so expensive.
There are currently more than 300 million Americans living in this country, according to official population numbers reported by the government. The FCC reported (per an Ars Technica article published in 2012) that 119 million Americans in the United States lack broadband services.
Tell me something? How does somebody get 3-5% of Americans lacking broadband services when the FCC reported last year that 199 Million Americans lack such services. The last time I checked, and feel free to correct me on this, but 119 million from 300 million is actually closer to 35%, not 3-5%.
Either that commenter is the dumbest person on this planet or they simply don't know how to properly count and need to go back to school.
This will never pass. Both parties, Democrats and Republicans, support the government's ability to spy on every American. After all, neither party represents the American People. The only time that Democrats and Republicans represent the people is during the election season. After they get elected into office, they go back to the same BS that they previously engaged in.
I remember her infamous quote over the health care bill. Not only was the health care reform bill passed illegally but I had always thought that Congress was required to have an actual, hardcopy of each bill before it could be called for a vote.
I'm just shocked that nobody has called Democrats out on that fact. It's like voting on a budget without seeing what is included in the budget.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Take a look at Senator Feinstein, who got right up to defend the Obama Administration, slam Edward Snowden, and then act like there isn't anything they see wrong with spying on every American. Just how long does it take for you to keep doing the wrong thing because you begin to realize that you've been wrong all along.
This is why the supporters of the Democratic Party are so disillusioned and disappointed with the attitude that Senate Democrats seem to be taking over this whole NSA spy scandal. Even the two year old down the street from me said that it's wrong to spy on everybody when they have done nothing wrong.
Democrats seem to be taking every single American citizen, lumping everyone into the same pile, and taking the attitude "well, we wouldn't be spying on you if you were innocent". This whole concept of "everybody is guilty" is something you expect from Republicans, NOT from Democrats.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
There are Democrats and Republicans in support of the program and who are criticizing Snowden for what he has done and who are calling for his extradition back to the United States. Then, you also have the other half of the Democrats and Republicans who are also calling for an end to the program, greater transparency and an end to the massive hunt for Snowden.
This issue isn't just about what is right or wrong, but how far our government went to cover it up and exactly who was complicit in this mess as well.
This whole NSA Spy Scandal has become an embarrassment to this country and yet the Democrats are falling over themselves so much that they have lost the compunction to admit that maybe they were wrong for supporting the NSA's program. It's an old trick that Republicans are always caught up in and yet, Democrats got suckered into falling for that as well.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
If Republicans were smart, they would seize on this scandal and rally to Snowden's defense because Democrats, as they continue to defend the Obama Administration, the NSA and this spying scandal while advocating that Snowden needs to stand trial for who they consider to be a traitor to this country, they really are missing the whole point of this.
The more Washington Democrats continue to refuse to give up the fight, one which they are losing, the NSA Spy Scandal is going to doom the Democratic Party much like how Republicans have been brought down over Watergate, Iran Contra, and the miscellaneous scandals that have embroiled the party.
Democrats really need to just admit defeat and one of those gestures could be in repealing The Patriot Act, disbanding the FISA courts and make a grand gesture that this abuse would never happen again because this country is being torn apart over this NSA spying program.
I'm just flabbergasted that Democrats still won't admit that they've been fighting a losing battle.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
On the post: Obama's Response To NSA Was To Appease The Public, Not Reduce The Spying
On the post: Obama's Response To NSA Was To Appease The Public, Not Reduce The Spying
Hell, President Obama and Harry Reid are always talking about how hard it is to pass bills in Congress and how they're always talking about going around Congress in order to get Congress.
If anyone is guilty of any crime, it's the Democrats for actually suggesting that the president bypass Congress in order to get things done.
On the post: Obama's Response To NSA Was To Appease The Public, Not Reduce The Spying
The polls everyone seems to be quoting are not accurate. There is not only overwhelming support for Snowden here in the United States but in other countries, Snowden has also become a folk hero. There is more animosity toward the liberal news media (who didn't start reporting on Snowden until after The Guardian broke the story and started revealing many classified documents that revealed the secrecy behind the spy program), the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress.
Fact is, there is more support for Snowden in this country and abroad then there is for those against him.
I can't believe you guys quoted polls that were conducted among liberal news media which was largely liberal Democrats who were taking those polls. IN the history of this country, there hasn't been a single poll that's refletive of the people living in this country.
On the post: Obama's Response To NSA Was To Appease The Public, Not Reduce The Spying
The problem is that there isn't anything that President Obama or Congress could do that could restore the trust that he lost with the American People. Ever since this Snowden thing began, his administration has made one blunder after another and the only thing that Democrats have done is to turn Snowden into a cause.
At this point, I don't see Snowden ever returning to the United States because authorities would arrest him just as soon as he touched ground in this country. Law enforcement agencies use all kinds of duplicitous tricks in order to capture and/or arrest somebody they are after. Anyone think that the Federal government wouldn't resort to the same tricks?
Snowden's cause has become a rallying point for injustice among the people and he simply has become an ideal, a martyr, for everyone who has ever suffered an injustice. I find it hilarious that Snowden's status as a champion of human and civil rights has been created solely by Democrats and the liberal media, although I suspect tha6t isn't what they intended when they began their campaign to discredit him.
On the post: NSA Tries To Justify Its Surveillance Programs With Ridiculous Assertions
Whenever you have a democracy as important as the United States of America has and you justify abusing that democracy by passing laws that cancel out such protections as 'privacy' and 'basic civil and human rights' in favor of national security then you have already lost and that democracy is forever lost.
That is where dictatorship and communism begin because what good are constitutional rights, granted by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights if the government won;t let you exercise them.
Making excuses to justify why you are allowed to violate the privacy rights of the people who elected you into office means that it is more than likely illegal but also wrong. Democrats running our government have forgotten the basic principles as to why the United States was formed in the first place and those same Democrats forgot why we rebelled against the British Empire.
It's sad that Democrats continue to justify why they think they are allowed to spy on the communications of the American People. Because of that, the Democratic Party is going to lose the elections in 2014 and in 2016.
On the post: Rather Than Not Spying On Everyone, NSA Is Getting Rid Of 90% Of Its Sysadmins
On the post: Civil Rights Leader And Congressman John Lewis Says Ed Snowden Latest In The Line From Thoreau To Gandhi To King
What's sad is that we have a black president who thinks he has the power to persecute a white man (Snowden), a black man in charge of the Justice Department chasing after Snowden because the government has decided that since it didn't like a white man has done, that it's okay for a black man to label a white man as a traitor instead of as a whistleblower and the government says it protects whistleblowers as long as they aren't government whistleblowers embarassing the Democratic party.
How much do you want to bet that if Obama had been a Republican president and the roles in Congress for the parties were reversed, how much Democrats would be calling for Snowden to be labeled a hero.
Hypocrisy in government is a wonderful thing.
On the post: There Is No 'True' Price For Anything
First, the producers of the merchandise set the prices for the merchandise they produce. While most prices are not set in stone, some companies keep strict cost controls on the retail prices of their merchandise, such as Apple, Microsoft and the software industry.
Second, most merchandise is tagged as "Suggested Retail Price", which means that retailers can either sell at that price or lower.
There are some companies like Apple, Microsoft and Disney that take a hardnosed approach to the selling of their merchandise and most retailers are restricted from selling the merchandise they sell that is produced from those companies or they face very stiff repercussions.
For example, Apple will not allow retailers to sell its line of hardware (iPod, iPhone, iMac, iPads) below a certain price because they don't want their products to become devalued, which is why you never see any of Apple's products priced too low. The only time that Apple products are priced too move fast is when Apple is rolling out a new model for any particular item. New iPods and iPhones are generally marked down by as much as $100 when a new model is about to be released, otherwise, you never see more than $5 off the actual price of an iPod or iPhone.
Disney also maintains strict price controls on its products. Disney has a nasty habit of not allowing retailers like Best Buy and Target to sell Disney DVD's and/or Blu-rays below the $29.99 SRP and especially on their animated releases, they tend to retaliate against retailers by refusing to ship them any product. They are especially harsh when a retailer breaks a street date on their home videos.
Microsoft is the same way.
Most other companies who product merchandise are much more lenient on their merchandise pricing. But to say that there is no true pricing is disingenuous.
On the post: Surprise: Obama's New US Trade Rep Overturns ITC, Stops Ban On Apple Products
While I have no love for either company, with Apple patent trolling every company that sells products in the United States and resorting to a "sue happy" state where they target anyone and everyone who sues the "i" in their product name.
I seem to recall when Apple decided to send a cease and desist letter to a restaurant simply because they used an apple in the logo for their business.
It's just disappointing that with Apple suing Samsung left and right that the U.S. Government is protecting Apple and ignoring the courts in the process. The Obama Administration is simply using its own authority to give our courts and the ITC the middle finger.
It's disrespectful and just proves how corrupt our government has become.
On the post: Senators Not Impressed With James Clapper's Carefully Worded Responses
Not only could evidence be used on the face of a warrant that cannot be disclosed (all FISA warrants, etc, are classified and placed under GAG orders).
The FISA courts post a threat to our criminal justice system because it allows the FISA court to gather evidence that prosecutors wouldn't be able to use.
On the post: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
On the post: How Far We've Fallen: Attorney General Eric Holder Promises Russians US Government Won't 'Torture' Or 'Kill' Ed Snowden
On the post: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
On the post: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
That number that only "3-5%" of homes don't have wired broadband services is so misleading that I fell out of my chair at how wrong that is since the number of Americans in the United States who don't have broadband services is much, MUCH higher than that. Mostly because the prices of broadband services are so expensive.
There are currently more than 300 million Americans living in this country, according to official population numbers reported by the government. The FCC reported (per an Ars Technica article published in 2012) that 119 million Americans in the United States lack broadband services.
Source: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/08/119-million-americans-lack-broadband-internet-fcc-reports/
Tell me something? How does somebody get 3-5% of Americans lacking broadband services when the FCC reported last year that 199 Million Americans lack such services. The last time I checked, and feel free to correct me on this, but 119 million from 300 million is actually closer to 35%, not 3-5%.
Either that commenter is the dumbest person on this planet or they simply don't know how to properly count and need to go back to school.
On the post: Rep. Rush Holt Bill To Repeal PATRIOT And FISA Amendments Acts Now Live, Ambitious
On the post: Nancy Pelosi Saved The NSA Surveillance Program; Now She Should Help Kill It
I'm just shocked that nobody has called Democrats out on that fact. It's like voting on a budget without seeing what is included in the budget.
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