As an accused boot-licking pro-establishment government-and-big-business shill, I agree.

As a relatively sane individual who tends to think for myself, I also agree.

As someone with passing familiarity with 4th-amendment case law, I also agree.

This guy was a first-class idiot. An encrypted hard drive is little different from a locked safe. A court can order you to open it to reveal evidence, but the police need sufficient probable cause to convince a judge to issue that order. Saying "All the evidence is in there and I have the key" is pretty convincing probable cause that there's important relevant evidence in the safe (or disk). Saying nothing is a good way (and the only really safe way, as far as I know) to ensure that you're not giving the cops any additional assistance in proving your guilt.

The inability to elect proper representatives has nothing to do with whether or not the negotiations are secret.

So... was it patented? Was there, in fact, any legal protection to prohibit Disney from using the technology, or was it left unpatented by an inventor who didn't care? If the latter, would the state of robotics be as advanced today without Disney making the control systems from that little bird widely known? Even if it were patented, did the patent broadly cover all use of such technology, or merely the specific implementation as used in the bird?

I know that's a lot of questions to have to research before inciting an angry mob to go after the big-business bogeyman, but those are important questions to have answered. Go ahead; your pitchfork will wait here until you get back. You might want to extinguish the torch for now, though.

Secret negotiation provides an easy way to have a candid discussion, without worrying about vague implications of precise wording that one's political opponents will quote out of context and turn into the next hot election issue.

For example, in a negotiation, a diplomat can say "we don't need the unions to have disproportionate control over production costs", in reference to potentially giving unions control over tariffs. In public, that diplomat can then be quoted as saying "we don't need the unions", and he's lost a large number of supporting votes right there. If he's a Democrat, his career's over, because he didn't toe the party line giving unions full control over everything commercial.

Right now, I'd wager there's even a few Slashdotters getting mad at me because I used their precious unions in an example. Such is the danger of public discussion.

You're right, though, that Congress routinely fails to say "no", on the assumption that full and fair negotiations have already taken place. That's the big problem: there's never any push for politicians to do what's right rather than just reinforce the party.

I find it amusing that every reply so far has focused on the rhetorical question at the end of your post, even though you hit the real issue on the head.

Sure, this equipment is nicely sorted and in usable condition, but is there a distribution network on the receiving end? Are there actual storefronts, or merely front companies for stripping operations? From TFA:

It seems Mr. Benson has made a habit of this tactic, and should already know that his methods run afoul of export laws. It's not a case of the big bad government out to stop the little guy from bringing luxury to the third-world savages, but rather just another guy who thinks that ignoring laws makes for a good business model.

That testing is actually how I know about it. Since there's no mass inoculation effort for it in the US, I'd never heard of such a thing until I met a Frenchman who expected (and received) a false positive on a test.

Actually, there is a vaccine. It's pretty new, having only been around for about a century...

Welcome to Lake Wobegon High School.

Immunity is collective, as the effective protection implied by the term is only feasible if a large majority of the population participates. That choice to participate or not is personal, but the cost of not participating is also collective, as one layer of defense is lost for the whole population. The result is exactly what you see here: a greatly increased chance of exposure for everyone, and a chance at an epidemic.

Congratulations on your complete failure to understand influenza.

Flu shots "don't work" because influenza is such a simple organism. Most big organisms (pretty much anything you can see with the naked eye) have mechanisms to protect their DNA from changing too much. Cells that mutate are killed off, and offspring that mutate too much can't grow. That's why it takes thousands of years for even small changes. The benefit, of course, is that once such an organism thrives, it stays that way. There are practically no single-individual species out there (some exceptions apply).

Influenza completely lacks those mechanisms. It is free to mutate rapidly, often leading to significant differences in only a few years. Part of those significant differences are the proteins exposed to the body's immune system, so the particular strain of virus that was most aggressive one year may give way to a completely different strain for the next winter season (when human immune systems are at their weakest).

To produce a flu shot each year, researchers track the incidence rates of many different strains, and the ones that seem most troublesome for the coming year are what the vaccine protects against. There is a balance that must be struck between providing enough material for the body to develop immunity, and providing too much material, such that the person actually gets sick.

Flu shots, therefore, are not an absolute shield against the diverse array of viruses we call "influenza".

No, it only provides still more evidence that vaccines work exactly as we expect them to. There is only a good chance that a person will develop an immunity from a vaccine, and only a good chance that an immunity will protect them from the actual pathogen, so we hope to also give them a good chance to never encounter the pathogen in the first place. Skipping vaccinations increases the likelihood that you will be a safe harbor for the pathogen, greatly increasing the chances of exposure for someone whose immunity is ineffective or not even present.

Immunity is a collective endeavor. You're undermining it.

To be a "troll" would mean that I make comments to bait others into angry responses. With very few exceptions, I don't do that. I do, however, hold opinions different than your own.

I feel that the stability and predictability of following established procedures are more important than the immediate gratification of making exceptions for causes that were lucky enough to become the blessed champions of the Internet echo chamber. Sure, the so-called "establishment" makes mistakes, and injustices happen. The "establishment" is designed for that. That's why we have an appeals process and an ever-growing body of legal precedent. We make mistakes, but ultimately learn from them.

When events as momentous as Snowden's leaks occur, I think it's important to use the situation to improve our laws, and by extension the country and world. I disagree with the calls to overthrow various parts of the government, because I don't see any long-term improvement in them. Snowden's might get freedom, but wht about the other whistleblowers who come after him, and what about genuine traitors who intentionally harm, then claim "whistleblowing" as a defense? Do we treat future situations similarly, or do we craft a new "justice" for each instance according to the whims of a capricious public?

Ultimately, that's the question on which we disagree: do we, as a society, care more about the public being able to declare judgements, or to predict them? I choose the latter.

Those ancient cretins vandalized language into a byzantine mess.

Shush. You're interrupting the Two Minutes Hate.

Fair enough. I'm clearly not a railroad guy.

Or we could just not care too much about requirements when using a word.

"Cars" on a magnetically-levitating train are called "cars" because they are analogous to the real cars on a wheeled train. Perhaps "segments" is a better term, but now the usage is common enough that there will be no confusion in colloquial discussion.