The debate as to whether Pluto is a planet or a dwarf planet rumbles

What's with this "dwarf" nonsense — and big planetarism? We demand equal gravity for all planets!

It will be interesting to see if the F35 arrives at all.

And it, probably, should not. Modern technology already does — or soon will — allow sending a "zerg rush" of remotely-operated drones to overwhelm enemy's defenses. Remotely operated by the new generations raised on video-games — and often too fat for personal fighting anyway.

Oh, and it is not just aircraft — the same logic would apply to tanks and ships. Once you no longer need to care about the soft pink body(ies) inside the military vehicle, you can stuff if with much more weaponry, make it do things which would've killed the human personnel before (like 20-g turns), and comfortably send it on "suicide" missions.

do you have any sources to cite?

Though the GP should've included a link or two, finding them for such a famous case is not at all difficult. Here is the Wikipedia's write-up, and the source they are citing.

unless there is something life threatening a judge would not issue a warrant on something like here-say

Ok, first of all, it is spelled "hearsay" — as in "I heard him say, that ...". I corrected your mistake earlier — and gave you a link describing the term. Yet you keep using it even though it is not even applicable, strictly speaking, anywhere other than in court...

And, no, it is perfectly fine for a judge to issue a warrant (for arrest or search) based solely on the officer's repeating, what somebody told them. That somebody would have to repeat the same thing in court during trial (if any) — otherwise it would, indeed, be "hearsay" — but it is sufficient for issuance of a warrant for an officer to quote a third party.

Imagine yourself calling police to report, say, a neighbor raping his goat. Your tip, even though made without oath, and not to the judge himself — thus "hearsay" — would not be enough to convict the man of zoophilia or cruelty to animals, but it would be enough for police to go to a judge and getting a warrant to search his premises.

"If you want a warrant for searching for drugs you need more than here-say."

Sure. A judge can deny a warrant request, if he disagrees with police, that probable cause exists. But it is entirely up to him and, however flimsy police's arguments may be, if the judge agreed with them, then the 4th Amendment's requirement is satisfied. Police still need to find something, but they can now legally proceed with the searching...

Assuming the suspect has a lawyer, and the only evidence presented is from either Google or Microsoft, I would tell the client not to plea and demand a trial

Sure! But in these two cases police did manage to obtain more evidence (legally), so that's now moot...

The government would get screwed in the deal. The most effective exploits would somehow be left out of the deal.

Worse. The proposed program would encourage the software vendors to deliberately place bugs into their code — so as to sell them to government later. It would not even be illegal for them to do so, it seems, not under the current laws.

Law enforcement should surely investigate, but unless there is something life threatening a judge would be foolish to give a warrant for here-say accusation.

The requirements for a issuing a warrant are much less stringent, than for a court conviction — they have to be. A warrant is issued over a mere probable cause, whereas a conviction requires "beyond reasonable doubt". In other words, while hearsay is not enough for a trial, the term does not even apply in a non-court setting. Consider the circumstances: whereas your landlord may have planted the drugs in your bedroom to get rid of an inconvenient tenant, there is no incentive for Google (or Microsoft) to falsely implicate one of their users, so if they do report them to police anyway, it is probable, there is something behind the accusation.

But in either case — be it landlord or e-mail service provider — a judge may issue a warrant if he agrees with the police, that probable cause exists, even if they all remain reasonably doubtful.

Obviously a kidnapping (as well as other crimes)

For better or worse, it is generally agreed in this country (and most others), that child pornography is both as vile and urgent, as anything else you can think of.

issue a warrant without an investigation

In the US "investigation" is not something the judge (or the jury) does. Police investigate and then present whatever they found.

certainly rare because they may not hold up in court as Constitutional

Once a judge has issued a warrant, the Constitutional requirements are satisfied. Because, as I said, it does not matter, what arguments were used to convince him to issue it. The 4th Amendment is only there to ensure Judicial oversight of police. And that's enough for decent living because, after all, a search warrant itself does not mean conviction (or even further prosecution) — the ensuing search still has to find something.

I'll need to read more on these proceedings because there is surely a mismatch between your statement and the headline.

Oh, but they are consistent. The e-mail provider finds (what appears to be) criminal material and forwards it to police — the "tip" mentioned in the headline. Police take the material to a judge, who issues a warrant for a search (in Google's case) or arrest (in Microsoft's case). Police arrest the subject and get him to incriminate himself (in Microsoft case) or search the suspect's possessions and find more criminal material. While the originating tips themselves couldn't be used to convict, each was enough to begin an investigation which uncovered more evidence — as is very often happens in criminal prosecutions.

Now, because police could (and did) abuse their powers with malicious prosecutions, an officer's own "hunch" can no longer justify initiation of an investigation — nor even asking for your ID. But an anonymous tip about a "suspicious person" in the neighborhood is still sufficient for them to have a reasonable suspicion and harass such person over nothing more than a glance at some soccer mom's precious daughter.

if third party is in the custody chain of evidence the evidence becomes inadmissible in court

I see, that's good to know. However, in these cases, the third party-provided evidence was used not in court, but to get a warrant to search elsewhere.

Your landlord with keys to your apartment, calls the cops and claims he found drugs in your apartment, opens the door for the cops and shows them where the drugs are.

That's right. However, if the cops use the landlord's testimony to get a warrant to search your office — and find drugs there — then that would be perfectly admissible evidence...

Whether Google or Microsoft have a EULA that claims they can snoop through your data as often as they want is not relevant.

Well, it is relevant to your earlier claim: "They are not a Law enforcement agency and have no right to read through customer data on their own accord". I suspect, they do have such a right — even if the results of their "reading through" are not usable at a trial.

They are not a Law enforcement agency and have no right to read through customer data on their own accord.

Are you aware of a law prohibiting it? I am not, but IANAL... Without such a law, their access to the subscribers' email is controlled only by their own Terms of Service. Which are, of course, subject to change at their discretion.

Because MPAA/RIAA are way more important than children!

A remarkably stupid statement. And with an exclamation mark too!

Google and others are doing this for two reasons

1. Genuine and sincere disapproval of child pornography, which remains one of the very few things, that are still considered wrong by (almost) everybody;
2. Fear of bad publicity, which would surely ensue, when a CP-ring is discovered by other means later and the mail-providers get asked the uncomfortable questions over why they've tolerated it despite having the technology to do exactly, what they are doing now.

Neither consideration is applicable to the plight of content-creators. Unfortunately...

In my opinion, education is not about how to do something immediately useful, but primarily about learning to learn. Vocational schools may be different, but that's why they are generally frowned upon — I wish, universities weren't teaching with Java exactly because it is in such wide use in the industry today.

While studying, learn to use a language (or two), which you aren't likely to encounter at any future workplace. Pascal. Lisp. Fortran — whatever. That will still teach you to learn things and force you to learn again, when you are hired. Not only will you be more adaptable to future changes in fashion, you'll also have the awareness of how various problems are solved in different languages — making you a better programmer every day.

Google searches for ...

Sorry, but no. The onus is on you — one making the claim — to offer links supporting it.

You Google it, you pick the links you deem most suitable, you embed them in your posting.

Making the reader do it is not only impolite, it also makes it easier to attack your argument (that FreeBSD is superior) — the Google search could very well offer a link to some blog saying "FreeBSD networking sucks"...