You're seriously comparing two criminals running around (using, admittedly, significant ordinance) to having enemy bombers overhead?

You're the one who suggested we should treat them equivalently by "keeping calm and carrying on." The British people did so by:
1) Blacking out their city after dark - at the behest of the government.
2) Staying in hiding in basements and bomb shelters during the (often-nightly) attacks - at the behest of the government.
3) Pitching in to help stop fires, and aid the wounded afterwards - at the behest of the government (and common-fucking-decency).

Again, do you really think "keep calm and carry on" was intended to tell them, "get out to the pubs, boys, don't let those germans stop you from having a pint"? The insistence that a police request to "stay inside, stay out of the way of police while we find the guy who did this and bring him into custody" constitutes some sort of "civil panic" is so farcical it's hard to believe you're serious.

Taking reasonable precautions is certainly appropriate during a known attack. Shutting down the city because there might be some further incident is an entirely dissimilar category.

Only if you define "during a known attack" so narrowly that the only time the Germans were conducting a "known attack" was when the bombs actually impacted the streets of London, and the few seconds afterwards until the sound of the explosion died away.

This entire series of events in Boston transpired in less than 24 hours. A cop was murdered at MIT, a man was carjacked, and the police responding to the carjacking were shot at, and had bombs thrown at them as they chased the suspects through the city. They shot one and took him into custody, the other was cornered in hiding in the neighborhood where they conducted the searches during the day Friday. Would you really have preferred they just told people, "Hey guys, don't worry about it, this guy's wanted in connection to the murders of 4 people & the maiming of 200 or so, he's armed, desperate, and hiding in your neighborhood, but we're all going to just go home and get a good night's sleep, and we'll keep looking for him tomorrow night, or well, he's bound to turn up at some point, we'll get him then, I guess! Keep calm and carry on!"

1) I'm willing to bet fairly good money that nearly every search conducted on Friday was done with the full voluntary consent of the property owners. Furthermore, there is legal precedent which allows the police to enter and search property without a warrant, and without the voluntary consent of the property owners anyway, so your talk about objecting is rather silly. The situation on Friday certainly fell within the definition of exigent circumstances. The point is: NO search conducted Friday was illegal or a violation of anybody's rights, and your claim that you would have refused such a search is probably moot - your attempt to refuse would have been (legally) overridden by police, and if you attempted to prevent them from entering your property, you probably could have been arrested for doing so.

2) You say, "it's not just limited to hot pursuit," when earlier you said "apply during hot pursuit, not just pursuit." If you concede it's applicable during hot pursuit, and call what happened on Friday "hot pursuit," why are you arguing the point at all?

2b) A simple, cursory examination of any of the literal reams of newsprint that have been consumed by journalists writing about the events in Boston would have told you that the area where the searches were conducted was a small section of Watertown. In the future, please don't offer opinions on matters you're ignorant of, and you'll spare yourself the embarrassment of being completely wrong.

2c) You wrote, "Those residences in the immediate vicinity of the suspects last known location are permissible to search. The whole of Boston? No." The searches occurred in a very small portion of Boston, and you've conceded they were completely reasonable. The so-called "lockdown" was a "request" that people stay inside, and had nothing to do with any constitutional issue, because they did not have the weight of any law behind them. The police made a request. That was the only thing that affected "the whole of Boston."

3) You are WRONG - exigent circumstance entry & searches must be "strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation", as in the linked case. If your defense attorney were competent, he'd know this, and file a motion to suppress all evidence gathered during that search. Your argument that "anything an officer sees can be held against you" applies in searches conducted under the auspices of a search warrant. It does not hold true in cases where exigent circumstances justify the search.

4) I'm sorry, do you prefer "ignorant mouth-movings," "whining," or some other term to describe your chest thumping about how the police state is coming, and you're ready to stand against it? NOTHING new happened on Friday. No "step down a slippery slope." No "chipping away at our constitutional freedoms by police intent on stealing our freedom like they want to steal our guns." No "violations of fundamental constitutional rights." All that happened was a bunch of police officers conducted a search and an investigation using procedures and legal standards that have long standing precedents.

1) It's very arguable whether you'd have any legal standing to refuse such a search, under long-established case law.

2a) Exigent circumstances are most certainly not limited to "hot pursuit." Go read up on it before you spout off with inane assertions that are demonstrably false. Here's a appeals court decision specifically related to whether or not "exigent circumstances" existed for the police to make an arrest - based on them observing a sawed off shotgun in a home through an open door, when they went to a house to ask the owner some questions. There was no hot pursuit; the appeals court vacated the suppression of the shotgun as evidence, and remanded the matter to the district court for further proceedings.

2b) The affected area of searches was limited to an ~20 block area where the suspect was chased to, cornered, and hiding. The searches did not occur "across the whole of Boston." The searches WERE confined to the "immediate vicinity of the suspects' last known location.

2c) The suggestion that "people stay home" was not a "search and seizure" in any way. if you want to be taken seriously, don't try to conflate the issues in an attempt to make the situation sound worse than it was.

3) Such evidence is trivially suppressed in court by any competent defense attorney. Their discovery of your dimebag was in no way associated with the exigent circumstances that would have allowed them to come in and search your property against their will. Motion to suppress, granted, case dismissed.

4) So you're saying that all your shouting about restrictions on freedoms are moot, since no freedoms were restricted?

Yet, the police don't lock down all of Atlanta every other week just in case.

By this logic, the 9/11 attacks were "just another plane crash that should be handled and investigated by the NTSB, warranting no additional response or scrutiny from any other agency. Jesus, we don't shut down a COUNTRY because some planes crash into buildings!"

The arguments about trading essential freedoms for security are specious in this case, because the immediate, short-lived steps taken by police & government to apprehend the suspects have NOTHING to do with any real "loss of freedom." The REAL risk to your freedoms becomes having to subject yourself to invasive probing before you're allowed to stand on the railing at the marathon next year. The REAL risk to your freedoms comes from the legislature applying ineffective and invasive laws riding the wave of fear that these sorts of events create.

You "freedom fighters" are picking the wrong battle. Your enemy is the Patriot Act and other similar laws, and no doubt some doozies will be proposed after this event, by well-meaning but misguided legislators and special interest groups. Your enemy is NOT the police asking people to stay home - and out of the line of fire - while they search for the suspect who is almost certainly hiding somewhere in their neighborhood. Your enemy is NOT the police asking for permission to search your homes in order to apprehend a suspect - it's legal if you consent, and it's arguably legal even if you don't consent, given the doctrine of exigent circumstances.

If you were growing your own Cannabis in a closet, you might feel differently.

1) If the officers walk up and knock on the door and ask the property owner / resident for permission to search, it's voluntary, and you've not lost a thing. THIS conversation didn't happen:

"Hi Sir/Ma'am, there's a dangerous criminal whose wanted in connection to the murders of four people this week, on the loose in this area, and we'd like to check your house to make sure he's not hiding here with guns and bombs. Is that okay?"
"FUCK YOU, cop, get a warrant!"

2) Doctrine of exigent circumstances -- long held as a completely reasonable justification for warrantless searches -- allows police to search without a warrant in cases where evidence may be destroyed, a suspect may escape, or significant harm may come to the public if they delay searching while they get a warrant. Any attempt to suggest that these searches - even if NOT voluntary - were illegal is complete and utter bullshit. A suspect running around a neighborhood armed with pipe bombs and guns who has already participated in the murder of 4 people and the maiming and injury of scores more absolutely presents a substantial threat to the public and the risk of escape, meaning that invocation of exigent circumstances is a completely legitimate - and constitutional - exercise of police authority.

3) In the circumstance where somebody was arrested for a pot plant in their closet during these searches, any defender who didn't immediately move to suppress THAT evidence (gathered during an unrelated warrantless search on an entirely different matter) is assuredly a stoner idiot himself.

4) No freedoms were restricted. People came and went freely during the day - unless you can point to a single person who was arrested for "opening his front door"? They were ASKED to stay home and stay indoors, so that police wouldn't have thousands of civilians wandering around the neighborhood they were searching. This means thousands of people at risk of being caught in the crossfire if another shootout occurs, and thousands of people into which a suspect trying to escape could blend in order to get out of the neighborhood. This means more police manpower drawn away from the search to search the people & vehicles leaving the neighborhood, which means the neighborhood is subject to a massive police presence and police control for even longer.

Far more lives were affected by the lockdown than by the bombing itself.

That you would draw an equivalency between "I lost my life or legs in a bombing" and "I was asked to stay inside for a day so hundreds of edgy police could conduct their search and not have to worry about thousands of edgy civilians wandering around a crime scene in which an armed & dangerous suspect is at large" speaks volumes about you.

I would find no offense, and perhaps even some small glimmer of comfort, in my community and country opting to follow the British war slogan: "Keep calm, and carry on".

I'm sorry, are you really suggesting that "Keep Calm and Carry On" was the suggested British response DURING an air raid? I can assure you, it was not. The British people regularly huddled in blacked-out houses and shelters during the Blitz, hoping that their pilots and anti-aircraft batteries would keep them safe.

*In between* air raids, they were asked to "keep calm and carry on" - and that's a reasonable request. But in the middle of an emergency, they weren't being told "Pop over to the cafe for a spot of tea and crumpet while the bombs fall, don't let that Luftwaffe ruin your day!" They were being told, "take shelter, and turn out your lights.

1) Facial recognition: if you have friends on Facebook whose faces you don't remember, you might want to consider trimming your friends list a bit.
2) Overlay of items at grocery store: Better would be to transmit my list ahead of time, and have my groceries delivered to me, or waiting for me when I pull up after work. Don't trust that the produce will be any good? A quick shopping trip on your own shouldn't take long - hit the local farmer's market & butcher for the stuff that's likely to spoil.
3) Guided tour: Marginally useful. I could see something like this being used for a self-guided tour.
4) Education: Not sure how an overlay would be any better than a virtual cadaver in high resolution on a large monitor for learning anatomy.
5) GHang/Skype: Can't see you with these on - if you want to participate, still need a camera pointing at yourself.
6) Record videos: Yes - POV videos for athletes, creepers, protesters, cops, etc. But they already make head-mounted cameras, and it's likely that those head mounted cams will record far better quality than GGlass, at least for the first few generations with small optics.
7) Play music and video: Sure, you can. But I already have my phone which has a lot of music, and a pair of headphones. Video arguably better, but a 4-5" phone screen (or tablet screen).
8) Play games: Sure, though it seems you'd need something like a Kinect system added to them before they'd have much use for "games requiring interaction."

I've yet to see much of a compelling use case for these. As somebody pointed out in a sibling post, "AR is cool, but GGlass isn't an AR system," and that's sort of the problem with them. People are imagining it'll do all these amazing things that it's not being built for. Kind of like saying "I'm gonna break the sound barrier in my new hang glider." Hang gliders are cool, but they ain't built for supersonic travel.

Yes, if you changed a few sentences in any document, you can, literally, completely change the meaning of that document.

We could change just a few sentences in an assault weapon ban, and ban all firearms completely.

We could change a few sentences in other articles of the Geneva Convention, and make it okay to literally torture people.

I don't see how this is relevant.

I realize that.

Then why did you say, above, "You'd think all of this would be illegal under" the UN convention you linked to? There's a difference between "I think this should be illegal, and the UN should add it to this convention..." and "You'd think this would be illegal under a convention which explicitly does not cover weapons like this." It'd be like pointing to an assault weapon ban and saying, "you'd think that pepper spray would be illegal under this ban."

Boston Police have announced that they have no suspect in custody, as of the press conference at 6:06 pm EST.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/boston-police-no-arrests-have-been-made-in

Again, the thing you're missing is that there's lots of cases of employers providing free food, whether it be catered meals for special functions, or free donuts and snacks, and the IRS doesn't tax employees or the employer for that either.

This is clearly addressed in the guidelines. I'm not sure why you're getting hung up on the distinction. On the one hand, you're arguing that the tax code should be simplified, and on the other hand, you seem completely unaware of what the tax code says currently. Curious.

"catered meals for special functions" are exempt because they are:
1) A business function which requires people to eat on-location;
2) Not "usual" - i.e., delivered regularly;
3) Not a "goodwill / retention / attracting new hire" measure;

Google's free meals do not qualify on all three of those points, therefore they shouldn't be tax exempt. If you want to exempt "free stuff that's not money" as compensation, then you've opened the door for even more tax avoidance and abuse. If you're going to say that, then why not simply do away with the income tax entirely, and slash government spending accordingly?

Not all employees will want massages anyway (but of course will happily take the raise

And not everybody will choose to eat in the cafeterias, but of course will happily take the raise, too. So why doesn't Google simplify *everybody's* life, and simply give everybody some extra money in their paycheck, and begin charging for these services? The employees benefit (those who want to use them don't have any net loss, while those who don't want to use them can use the money on things they value more), and Google benefits in not having to go through all the tortuous process of having to account for these things

It's not the IRS' job to make sure that Google gets to save a few bucks on offering services instead of additional pay because they're banking on the fact that some % of their employees won't take advantage of those services.

So what? Google's paying taxes to buy the food, they're paying payroll and FICA and other taxes for the employees working at the cafeteria, they're just making it more efficient by not giving a bunch of money to some third-party vendor to use as profit, by doing it in-house. They also give other valuable benefits that are untaxed, such as free parking. Why should free parking be exempt, and not free lunches? Why not free bus fare?

I don't get to claim a tax deduction when I buy food in the cafeteria at my work, yet my company still "pays taxes to buy the food, pays payroll and FICA and other taxes for the employees working at the cafeteria," so why, exactly, should Googlers be exempted from paying taxes on the money they buy food with? That's the essence of what we're talking about here, and it's a question that NOBODY has answered in any way other than "but I like Google!"

As for bus fare - the IRS allows for numerous transportation benefit exemptions, including bus / mass transit fares, parking, bike commuting, and ride-sharing. These programs are ALSO generally exempted up to the $240 dollar per month amount. In cities where parking is expensive, it's quite common for employers to offer mass transit benefits - bus, subway, commuter rail, ferry, etc. (An "Unlimited 30-day" MTA card in NY will run you about $115 a month, well under the $240 per month limit. I'm sure there are still companies that offer parking stipends as well, even in New York - many of them probably cap the benefit at $240, to keep the benefit non-taxable, so the employee has a choice: keep driving & parking (and pay the difference between stipend & fees out of pocket), or take the subway. There are plenty of tax-exempt fringe benefits your company can offer instead of / in addition to a parking program. In most areas that are not smack in the middle of the business district of the closest city, on-site parking is the fringe that makes the most sense, but it's not the only one the IRS allows.

When the meals are provided every day, all day, for free, using expensive ingredients, and for the purposes of retention, goodwill, morale, and attracting new hires (the food is featured prominently in lots of their recruiting materials), it is not exempt, and is considered compensation, and thus taxable. Again, this doesn't seem unreasonable - everybody MUST eat, and their other alternatives would be brown-bagging it, or spending money on restaurants in the area. They don't have to spend on either of those, and instead can eat on site free of charge. Since this has the net effect of putting more money in the pockets of employees, Google has provided them with a significant (4000-5000 could easily be an effective 4-5% raise) additional source of income.

And this is precisely the point of my whole argument: the tax code needs to be simplified.

s/simplified/modified to provide specific benefits to Google, because they're cool and stuff./g.

THAT is the essence of your whole argument. People everywhere are expected to pay taxes on income, with a fairly narrow set of exceptions for perks that are exempted. $4000-5000 / yr worth of meals and free food qualifies as income no matter how you want to slice it - it'd easily cover yearly groceries for a typical person who isn't pinching pennies when they buy food - averages published by the USDA suggest the average grocery bill is topping out around $360 per month for a single person.

The IRS has created specific exemptions for fringe benefits that don't include this type of meal program - it sucks for Google if that somehow makes them spend more money to administer the program differently, but bear in mind that "it's cheaper for Google to do it this way," really is an argument that says "Google shouldn't be expected to pay the same taxes everybody else has to, they should be allowed to ignore the law if they like." Whether or not the law *should* be simplified, it is NOT simplified today - and so Google should be in compliance with it while they use some of their considerable lobbying power to buy new laws -- that Google "doesn't like the law as it stands today" is not sufficient grounds for them to ignore it.

Wrong again. It's not a product, but it is a service. Services have value, and can be taxed.

It is specifically exempted as a fringe benefit, up to a certain amount ($240 per month, in 2012, I believe), and it MUST meet the "qualified parking" definition. The value of the parking at Google is far below $240/month per employee - by comparison, the average price of parking in lower Manhattan is around $400-450 per month.

If a company wants to give out free weekly massages to employees to help them work better, or free lunches, or whatever, it shouldn't have to account for this exhaustively to the IRS.

So... give your employees a pay raise that will cover the value of a weekly massage, and then offer them the option of getting the massage, or not - there's no micromanaging required. If they want to keep providing meals, then they have to set a fair market value once per year for that benefit, and withhold taxes accordingly. It doesn't require micromanagement, either - it simply requires them to declare it and set FMV.

The issue here is that Google is giving employees a valuable benefit that employees are not paying taxes on; Google is also almost certainly charging the costs of this program as an operating expense (thereby reducing their declared profits, thus reducing their own tax obligations) - and they are doing so in a way that appears as if it violates tax laws. If the gov't doesn't care to simplify the tax code, it's Google's (and its employees') obligation to come into compliance.

Irrelevant.

no, quite relevant. We are talking about taxable compensation. Google isn't "giving you" the property they own that constitutes a parking space. They are allowing you to park your vehicle on their property as long as you're an employee. The service has monetary value, but it is not compensation for your work any more than "providing electricity to power your computer" is compensation for your work. It is a precondition of you being able to work, and it is provided for work purposes by your employer.

There's tons of tech companies where sodas and other drinks are available for free.

And these often can be exempted under the "de minimis" fringe benefit exceptions. You should review the EMPLOYEE's tax guide to fringe benefits: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/fringe_benefit_fslg.pdf

They explain pretty clearly what conditions allow you to exclude meals and other fringe benefits from your taxable income.

I'm pretty sure the restaurants I go to pay taxes, and the employees of restaurants I go to pay taxes, and the suppliers of restaurants I go to pay taxes, too. Yet I'm not allowed to take a tax deduction for the value of all meals I eat at restaurants.

Yet, Google employees do get to do this, for the meals they eat at work. Stop knee-jerking over the fact that "Google" is named in this article, and engage your brain. This is an employer-provided benefit - why shouldn't it be treated as income? If I get a stock grant, that's a taxable event. If I get a corporate car for personal use, that's a taxable event. Why would meals provided by your employer exist in some sort of tax-exempt zone wrt income taxes?

"dinged for taxes on an extra $4000-5000 per year." Not "pay an extra $4000 to $5000 per year in taxes."

If they are given $4-5k in food by their employer over the course of a year, the argument is that this is a form of income, and thus they should be paying taxes on the value of that food.

Kind of a reasonable argument, actually. If "things" aren't taxable income, then can CEO's request to be paid in cars, jets, and yachts, and avoid all income taxes?