The approach of law enforcers in the 21st century is to assert that nothing a person might do with digital technologies is protected by the need for reasonable searches. We see this with dragnet monitoring of cellular networks, with casual roadside searches of personal electronics, with the FBI attaching a f***ing tracking device to a car and asserting that this should be allowed without oversight, and so much more.

Law enforcers assert that theu need these powers to enforce the laws and to catch the law breakers... and they're right. Bad police behavior is simply more efficient. It allows the Bushes and the Obamas and Merkels (and Camerons and Blairs and Assads and Ahmadinejads too, but there's another place for that discussion.) to make more laws that would take more money to enforce reasonably and constitutionally. Since the money isn't there, the enforcers must get more efficient, which means rights and ethical behavior must go by the wayside.

I've moved beyond which laws we need or don't need when considering civil rights. I firmly believe that every time Congress passes a law or Obama signs an order, no matter how well meaning, civil rights are violated. It's just like the kitten meme - http://static.portent.com/images/2007/08/God-kills-kitten.png . This applies to state legislatures, governors, mayors, HOAs...

If we ban or regulate or protect less, our rights will be violated less. Think about it. Think of the children. Think of... the kittens. lol

1. knowingly and without authorization, harbors, either directly or indirectly
2. knowingly and without authorization, protects, either directly or indirectly
3. knowingly and without authorization, gives intelligence to, either directly or indirectly
4. knowingly and without authorization, communicates [with], either directly or indirectly
5. knowingly and without authorization, corresponds with, either directly or indirectly
6. knowingly and without authorization, holds any intercourse with the enemy [Woohoo! - kidding (same thought here...)], either directly or indirectly

There are really 12x OR cases here.

If Wikileaks were the enemy, that would be giving intelligence to the enemy 'directly' (meeting condition 3).
If Wikileaks were not the enemy, but through them the enemy ultimately obtained the intelligence, that would be an 'indirect' giving (meeting condition 3).

I suppose he can argue that he was authorized.

Comma and operator delineated lists are sometimes difficult to parse in English. English Legalese is even more difficult as the commas and other operators are sometimes inferred. Please let me help.

'Corresponds' is cleverly concealed behind an 'or' operator and is therefor not necessary to satisfy the condition.

[Anyone who,] without proper authority, knowingly...gives intelligence to...the enemy...indirectly...shall suffer [as much as possible].

His best defense would be that he was too... stupid... to knowingly do anything. I suppose he could argue that he was sleepwalking the whole time, but I don't think it'll work. 'Indirectly' own him here.

I work in K-12 education. We are considering a large deployment in our 5-12 student space. Rationale is as follows:
  --District already has "free" Google Apps for EDU; chromeOS 'just works' in this environment
  --Hardware is mostly low maintenance
  --Devices are at least as durable as ipads and similar devices
  --Devices cost same or less than laptops, ipads, etc
  --Devices have keyboards and so will be more useful for testing
  --Google is a sturdy enough organization that it'd take years for them to fail if they did - probably longer than our hardware cycle.

These devices do not meet every need in every space, but if you want to put a browser, keyboard, office apps and internet literally into the hands of a large number of people, it may well be the best option.

Keep it classy Dice.

Crackers.

Already commented elsewhere here or would use mod points. Mod parent up!

The problem is not the diplomat's limo, but getting there. Equador doesn't have a private limo port that could be considered part of the embassy.

All of these 'situations' assume embassies that look a lot like the embassies that the US or Britain might normally have in foreign capitals.... Big mansion-like buildings surrounded by a fence... certainly something with a nice private place for a limo to pull up and still be on embassy grounds. Equador doesn't have one of those.

Equador has a bit of office space in the middle of a building that has other office space. There is no private helipad or carport or other place to try any of the 'situations' that anyone has suggested. You can safely assume that he elevators/doors/stairs/windows are under surveillance. There'll be no sneaking.

How much is an acre-foot? Is it like a football-field-hand? American or Brazilian or Australian Football? How many hogsheads is that? Or Troy Ounces?

By that logic, there is no such thing as climate change. CO2 emissions do not change the underlying system, and were they do stop completely, the system would, in time, revert/adjust. By your logic, climate change can't exist unless thermodynamic laws (or whatever) are changed.

Anyone who thinks that the deployment of [technologies] across large portions of Earth's surface will not have significant impact is delusional. Don't be that guy.

All "clean" energy, whether wind, solar, hydro, coal, fission, etc. is merely "relatively" clean. Wind kills birds and warms areas downstream. Coal makes smog and dumps carbon. Hydro kills fish and and alters local climate. Fission makes giant lizards emerge from Tokyo bay...

Let's stop software developers from testing their work as well. Be serious.

Testing is not the "problem" and is probably not the "solution". If you do not check for progress, you cannot know whether your effort (in teaching, programming, rocket construction) has been successful.

I seem to recall we saw this a while ago:
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html
Odd to hear it so clearly from MS now.

Mod Up.

The real problem with teachers' union contracts is not the contracts themselves or the steps or the pensions or the benefits... the problem is that we place Kindergarten teachers (whose main skill is being 'good with kids') on the same scale as Physics teachers (who still have to have rapport with their students but also have to have a mastery of science and mathematics).

The contract writers do know this, so they try to split the difference since the union won't let them fix the problem. K-7 teachers are ridiculously overpaid in general and advanced subjects teachers are still underpaid by a wide (50%+) margin.

Strongly disagree here. This is the drivel (IMO, sorry) that has become popular in amongst educators and education speakers in the past decade or so. Yes 'learning process' is important, but the 'facts' we ask primary and secondary students to apply this to are not arbitrary.

We have learned over a time as a species (or culture or nation perhaps) that this particular set of facts is important. The reading, writing, mathematics, history, and more, and their associated 'facts', are all absolutely worthy, important, and necessary in and of themselves. It is for this reason that we have developed organized systems to pass theses facts on to future generations. The facts are important. Period.

We wonder why young students discount the value of these facts. We should ask first whether their opinion matters. Youth have _always_ discounted the value of their elders' knowledge initially - but we have weakened our own position by accepting this drivel - this indefensible position - that the facts are not worthy of being passed on.

As for 'learning process', as we value the 'facts' less, we do a poorer job of conveying learning process as well. We have so discounted (for example) the memorization 'process' [after all, why should students memorize dates or people or events?!] that many of our students can't... but try to approach calculus without memorized multiplication facts. Writing skills (not handwriting) have declined as we teach less grammar (grammar is the SYNTAX of the language; important 'facts'). The fact that we can google (or duckduckgo) the facts does not help much in practice...

Sorry for the rant but this stuff bothers me.