In response to Tail Hook, Congress passed laws preventing commanders from overturning jury conviction for sexual assault, requiring a civilian review when commanders decline to prosecute, requiring dishonorable discharge or dismissal for those convicted, eliminating the statute of limitations for courts-martial in rape and sexual assault cases and criminalizing retaliation against victims who report an assault. The President did nothing. So who, exactly, demonstrated the power to do something about it?

The Constitution is only a few pages . You ca read it, rather than making wild guesses about what it says. So far, all your guesses are wrong. Article 2 section 2 enumerates the powers of the president. They are:
Make treaties
Appoint certain officers, subject to Senate approval
Serve as commander in chief of the armed forces
Sign or veto bills passe by Congress

There may be one more I'm not thinking of off the top of my head, but "run everything " is not in the list. 99% of what the president does is at the direction of Congress. The Constitution vests most authority in Congress. If you don't believe me, like I said you can easily read it for yourself. It's short enough that I had it memorized at one point in time.

The Constitution grants CONGRESS the power to coin regulate money, not the executive. The exact wording is "Congress shall have the power..." The executive has only those powers that Congress grants it, except for a very, very few granted directly by the Constitution.

> that the government had the power to make unreasonable ones before.

The Constitution is the founding document that CREATED the federal government. It didn't exist "before". Before the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, we had only a loose coalition of states, with the confederation itself having virtually no power - not even the power to tax.

I am a computer tech. I repair tech all day long. I know one or two things about technology in general.

This is what's known as the, "Do you know who I am?" argument, and it's always a big winner.

If somebody tells you they "know one or two things about technology", you better BTFU because there are so precious few of these Masters of All Technologies that their pronouncements are as precious and rare as rubies.

So you Apple H8'ers out there better just sit down and shut up and learn something from Marlin Schwanke. Who is a computer tech.

The fourth amendment, and the rest of the bill of rights, lists things the government shall not do.
Separately, the enumerated powers clause lists what they are allowed to do, and says they may not do anything else oter than what is listed - all other powers are reserved to the states and the people, the Constitution says.

Nothing in the Bill of Rights or anywhere else in the Constitution gives the executive the right to perform searches, except that Congress has legislative power (limited to the enumerated powers) . It's Congress that grants the executive search power, by passing a law saying they can search _____ when _____. The fourth LIMITS that, saying Congress may not allow unreasonable searches. The Constitution does NOT say that all reasonable searches are allowed.

Ireland *has* ratified it, as part of being in EU and implementing directives. The absolute minimum that can be implemented is that it is illegal for data belonging to EU nationals to leave EU without the *owner's* permission. Everything else is window dressing.

Written into the Act (2003) is the get-out clause (section 8), where data can leave without permission (say for US subpoena purposes). However, this is not a carte blanche instant compliance thing and requires the owner be informed as to the transfer with a maximum of 40 days before it can occur to allow an appeal against it. Failure to do so is the illegal act.

USA LEOs can subpoena all they like. However, if the data belongs to a foreign national (say, British) and is held on a foreign server (say, in Ireland) then Microsoft would be breaking EU law in handing it over as *that* is the law that applies, not US. Thus, as coercion to commit a criminal act is itself illegal in both US and EU, Microsoft refused to comply. This has nothing to do with the constitution.

If it was the other way around, for example data belonging to a US citizen stored anywhere else on the planet being subpoena'd by any other country on the planet, US would tell them to go fuck themselves. And they'd get applauded for it.

That, mate, is what we call "bigotry". There are many factors influencing choice of development machine. For the dev with a family, that includes paying for the kids' clothes.

Now comes the mobile phone, as people tend to upload pictures of their glorious bodies

The dick pic is the killer app of mobile phones.

I've always said this. I'm trying to remember the first time I held a mobile phone with a camera in it, but I'm pretty sure the first thing I did was reach for my zipper.

Can you substantiate this? Every time somebody has said this to me and they've gone into specifics, it's been bullshit.

You know, it's good that you come to me instead of the morons you've been talking to you, because I can definitely substantiate this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interac...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04...

http://arstechnica.com/busines...

See, the reason "Silicon Valley" (meaning the tech industry) is allowed to play this game is because they're willing to let the NSA upskirt your private information and communications. And since they've already got their hand up your dress, they're going to cop a little feel for themselves, you know? So the US Government is happy, the corporations get to make a shitload of money from your private information and communications, and they get to keep playing their little tax game.

If you had a government worth a damn (like during the trust-busting era), they wouldn't allow companies like Apple to perpetrate their little willful fraud.

Now, the next time somebody tells you about Apple and the government playing footsie to protect Apple's tax advantage, I hope you won't continue to say it's bullshit.

Same here. Which anti-trust laws? Be specific.

Same here. Now when somebody asks you "Which anti-trust laws is Apple violating?" you'll be able to tell them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

http://www.jstor.org/discover/...

See, the problem is "vertical integration". You can't control both the product, the store that sells the product, the insurance that covers the product, the consumables (media) that plays on the product and on and on down the distribution chain. Even making both the hardware and the software is arguably a violation of anti-trust. But when you start to also own the only store that sells software for the product and have a vested interest in every bit of software that runs on the product you've crossed so many lines that Apple should have been broken up into several companies long ago. Same with Microsoft and many others. They're not just over the line, they're WAY over the line. The technical term is an oligopoly. They are anti-competitive and they destroy entire markets. Oligopolies are what happen in fascist countries.

I hope you appreciate the time and energy I spend disabusing you of your notion that "it's bullshit". And I hope you enjoyed edification as much as I enjoyed providing it.