This is simply the result of big government in our lives. It's the bureaucratic mess that occurs when government is given too much power over our lives; when we let them have that much power over our lives. They decided, for her, that the money she was collecting was sufficient to live on... not that the decision made sense, it doesn't, but bureaucratic decisions tend not to make sense.

It will be worse when the government passes universal healthcare coverage. Under the current proposals, they will tell you whether you're insurance is sufficient, and if not, will fine you for not having the proper coverage. Eventually, as government continues it's reckless spending, more and more people will be told their coverage is insufficient as they try to cover the increasing debt. Then, you will decide to get the best coverage available so you won't be fined, and that will result in being taxed for having a "luxury" plan.

LOL was just thinking about that line when I stumbled across your post. Seriously, if you don't laugh, you'll cry because that's exactly what will happen.

Chances are that Visa-Mastercard know these numbers exist in the US government system, but do not care. You really only need to be compliant if Visa-Mastercard enforces the compliance with fines... but then again, the fine is $25,000... so to the US government, they may just pay the non-compliance fine to get VM off the government's back.

Your credit card number isn't your property.. it's the property of the credit card company that issued the card. Therefore, they can distribute the number to whoever they want, including the US government. If you don't like them doing this, then protest and possibly stop using credit cards altogether.

It's kind of interesting to see a story like this. Helmets were once made out of copper or leather or other soft materials leading to extremely strong steel helmets and now composite (almost brittle) helmets that absorb impact. Why? Because in the previous designs, they were found faulty, and someone ingeniously improved upon the old design.

Can we expect helmets to protect against everything? Let's say that helmets did protect well against the shockwaves of blasts, then the article author would be complaining that helmets do not protect soldiers from a chance encounter with another planet or some other random scenario.

Obviously there are still improvements to be made, but to make a silly comment that helmets cause brain damage is misleading. As the threat changes and issues are discovered, new equipment will be designed to combat those new conditions. After all is said and done, the helmets used today are far better than they were even a single generation ago.

An open barn door... is a hole in the wall. Therefore, it's a hole.

Stop trying to sugar coat the inability of Democrats to secure anything... our nation or their own mail server.

Right, there's a difference. The difference, in this particular case, is that Fox refused to tell you the truth about the information they were providing you (i.e. that the information was wrong). That proves the distinction right there.

Just like man-made global warming is settled, I thought orbital dynamics is settled! I mean... 400 years, c'mon.. of course it's settled! Obviously these findings go against the overwhelming consensus among astrophysicists and is therefore wrong!

I think this was actually Obama's Stimulus Plan... how else did he plan to spend $878 Billion so fast?

I'm glad we have a President who doesn't side with corporations that donate heavily to his campaign. If that were the case, some company like Google would use those campaign dollars to nudge the President to do it's bidding and get the FCC or something to go after other companies that may be hurting it's exploitative business model.

I'm just saying... it's great to not have to worry about that for a CHANGE.

Did you read the EULA?

READ THE EULA.... Amazon, per the EULA, has the right to modify the services AND has the right to modify the EULA.

The EULA also says the "service" includes the provisioning of digital content. In computers, the common definition of provisioning includes both the activation and deactivation of any rights the user has to a particular resource. In this case, the book was the resource and the act of restricting the right of the book to the user was part of the provisioning process.

Your assessment is simply wrong. It is not a violation of the EULA (illegal is the wrong term). It is also not illegal to perform actions covered under the EULA unless those actions break the law. But there was no law broken here... in fact, Amazon was upholding the law by removing an illegally sold copy of a book.

So you're stating that Amazon may not be able to reserve the right to change the service they are providing?

Since every service provider has used this clause from the beginning of time, I would find it hard to believe that suddenly now the courts would rule that illegal.

Everyone from cable providers, cell phone providers, telephone services, credit cards, airlines, taxi cabs, etc etc etc always retains the right to modify the services they offer and prices they charge for those services.

Your right is to reject those terms by not using the services anymore when the service provider changes the terms. You also have the right to reject the EULA based on the existence of this clause. This user obviously was OK with this clause when he bought the device.

Amazon did not have the legal right to license a copy of the book to constitute ownership to the end user. Therefore, the user has no right to the content.

An analogy would be someone selling you a stolen car. Sure, you can claim you now "own" it because you paid for it, but legally the car is still owned by the guy it was stolen from. Just because you bought stolen property doesn't give you ownership of the property. In fact, you'd most likely be SOL if you tried to recover any funds as the police hauled away the car to give it back to the original owners.

No, the buyer did not have a license to the book because the seller did not have the right to sell him the book.

Because Amazon did not have the right to sell the book, they decided to revoke access to the book which they can do under the modifying services clause. This means they chose to modify the service to include the ability to delete books they accidentally attempted to license.

The EULA is available here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530

Specifically, it says:

Changes to Service. Amazon reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service at any time, and Amazon will not be liable to you should it exercise such right.

Amazon modified the service by removing the book.

End of discussion.