I agree, and it irks me when people blather on about our founders & democratic principles. Here's the citation, people:

Even better for runners in training, there are plenty of fast predators available.

ID is a religious argument, despite what its proponents might have you believe. The intelligent design of life cannot be grounded in observable phenomena, and thus cannot be regarded as scientific.

I wasn't criticizing you, just the original offender. Quotation without interpretation shows me that someone hasn't bothered to truly make the effort to understand his position, which annoys me to no end.

I said nothing about "liberty." I did imply, however, that people needed to learn to think and speak for themselves. To "understand" something means that one can move beyond the quotation and into interpretation. What a dullard.

But unlike speech, you can print out what you see online.

Your newspaper likely originates in digital format, as well: people enter their stories on a computer, correct? From there, they're posted online and printed.

Congratulations on your journalism classes. I'm sure they provided you with a solid foundation in tort law.

Seriously, pulling out the founding fathers over the campus Barney Fifes? Pathetic. If you can't come up with an argument without quoting trite, overused phrases from Bartlett's book of quotations, keep your trap shut.

Do you have this signature because you often post comments that are stupid and/or wrong? MS doesn't have to support "things" (great word, there, jockstrap) because it's financial suicide for "things" to not develop Windows drivers.

Thank you for your stunning observation. We'd probably have never cleared that up without your assistance.

I'd be willing to be that they're also the recipient of more FOIA requests than any other two agencies combined. If that's so, then this may be as meaningless a statistic as any other. In addition, I'm sure that many of the requests relate to the late 1960s - which won't be found anyway.

The William & Mary mess? They've also got an extensive (and wealthy) enough alumni donor base that remains fairly generous. He knew it was a safe choice (as such decisions go).

I have yet to have a student (in 4 years) not subscribed to Facebook (I teach college students). My evidence? Inevitably each one of them asks to "friend" me (and is turned down). It astonishes me how willingly they plug information into an online form - and how indifferent they are to the idea that anyone can find out anything about them with the right searches. The reason? They presume it as a fact.

Poke around in a few respected sociology publications - they'll confirm a number of my observations, as will any number of faculty.

Honestly, what I said wouldn't be questioned by most of my colleagues, hence my flippant phrasing. I assure you, I'm far more concerned than my offhand remark might indicate: we have a generation grown up accustomed to giving up information without question online - not to many phishing sites, mind you, but to companies, schools, and state entities. Yes, some students are careful - most of the geeks are - but the majority by far aren't geeks, and they've been programmed. Lessig was right in Code - once corporations drive online development for commerce, architectures of control will become so entrenched as to be accepted as the norm.

Thanks for calling me out - I should have taken the chance when I first posted to explain what I see as the greater threat: not the shiny new intrusion, but the trusted tool we've had in our lives for years.

First - the constitution prevents only the government from banning free speech. It doesn't prevent you from signing away your right.

BUT - these agreements aren't enforceable because the implied threat of withheld medical treatment means that the patient is signing under duress.

The difference between this form and those you sign agreeing to pay is important: this form requires you to "pay" (with the promise of silence) in order to be treated while the latter is a promise by you that you will pay after services are rendered.

For all the gloom & doom - and I'll admit that I agree with some of it - nobody seems to have actually read the article and seen any of the pluses. Yes, it's somewhat suspicious that the biometric registration is being applied only to sixth formers (I assume this is akin to our senior year of high school), whose adult features have pretty much developed, but honestly, who the hell thinks that it will be any easier to spy on them than it is already, given the astonishing amount of privacy they give up via facebook or similar sites?

For those who don't read, here are a few of the stated positives to give a bit of balance to the proceedings:

"Not only a hit with the students, who enjoy signing themselves in, the system is saving a member of staff about an hour and a half each day in recording data."
[...] Principal Richard Barker said: "With this new registration technology, we are hoping to free up our teachers' time and allow them to spend it on what they are meant to be doing, which is teaching.
[...] "Only today (Thursday, 05 March) we had a fire alarm test and the administration staff were able to quickly and effectively print data off from the system showing who was on site.

There's a long history of technologies being used for purposes unintended by the designer - it's one of the marks of a useful tool - and as long as we are users of tools, this will continue.