"One reason why "plain English" laws are better for the populous even though they may be harder for the lawyers and the courts."

Sadly, they can also make two people who commit the same crime get vastly different outcomes, "fairly", because interpretation can start to vary.

You have such a fundamental misunderstanding of some very basic concepts of justice

This statement, followed by an analogy that creates a dotted line between the original poster and racism, and is a poor analogy to boot. Not that most analogies used in the wild are much more than poor attempts to link a statement to racism, sexism, nazis, psycopaths or something similarly "evil" ... versus truly clarifying a situation.

Should the use of my real name truly burden me and psychologically harm me, I have a recourse that for hundreds of years has been taken by women upon marriage ... I change my name. Rather unlike a physical trait. I would argue that my name is not an innate trait ... it's something that can and every day for someone in the world, does, change. Should the harm I suffer by using it day in and day out be so great, the difficulties caused by changing it should pale in comparison.

Now should I not want to change it, but still be allowed to use any name I can think of any day of the week, the fact that I identify as transgender doesn't suddenly give me more rights than someone who is not to do so. Who is anyone to say that one reason is okay and another is not? And how do we go about deciding who it is okay to be unfair to and who not? These questions usually end up falling on politicians who will ram into place something that will help them get/stay elected.

Welcome to politics. You build your argument around a base which allows you to brand those who criticize you with a statement that isn't necessarily true, but makes you seem evil.

"You oppose this? Really? You want small children to be abused?"

In Seattle, there were recent bus cuts, being largely blamed on failure of a vote to give the system more money. What do you see in the news? "Blind man's bus cut". So opposing giving money to the bus system means you want disabled people to suffer, you evil evil person you.

Politicians are looking for an emotional response so that their arguments both resonate with you at a low level and can be defensed without needing to use the true merits or flaws of the argument. Not to mention they can run 30 second ads that sound great since they don't go into the details.

This actually makes me think of all the other ways that we can "protect the children". I should be required to give a set of keys to my house to the authorities, so that they can get in easily to "protect the children". I shouldn't be allowed to delete anything on my computer, since that would be tampering with evidence anyway, so that they can "protect the children".

In fact, we should start implanting chips into all children so that we can find them more easily and protect them. If they want it to be removed when they are 18, we'll have a few hundred forms for them to fill out and a fee. In retrospect though, to make sure that adults don't spend too much time around children, to protect the future children we should probably leave it in.

could impose requirements beyond what is required by either the 4th Amendment or the privacy provisions in the California Constitution.

And I'm sure that the California government has never done ANYTHING that imposes requirements above and beyond the national or state constitution.

Should this be read as, "We already wish you had less privacy then you do now, so we'd rather stick to the minimum"?

"If they were socialists, they wouldn't be paying themselves exorbitant salaries, they'd be spreading the money around."

Though in practice, it typically also involves a little more spread around to those doing the spreading ... because they are so important. If not directly, via cronyism. Or in another way via the over used phrase, "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others."

South Lake Union is also much closer to First Hill, with a number of large hospital facilities (Virginia Mason, Swedish, Harborview) then the Redmond Campus. Many of the workers could head down easily after work, during work, before work without being put out too much.

If I am one of the 50 million Americans who are uninsured ... and I need a million-dollar heart transplant, for $250 I can get a complete medical record including insurance company details

Something tells me it would be a little trickier than that given all that is involved in that million-dollar heart transplant. Not to mention all the local news coverage, the calls to the insurance company prior to surgery given the high cost of the surgery, getting on the waiting list, etc, etc. Not to say that it's not possible that people buy the records for getting medical care, but maybe that example isn't the best in the world.

In reality, I imagine it's the SSN coupled with a wealth of information about that person that is really what is so valuable. That can be used for any number of things other than medical care specifically. It's only naturally to link the source of the data to the ultimate purpose, but in this case I don't think they are so closely intertwined. It's simply valuable data held in a hospital network.

Seems like the same thing as an ignore, just allowing the majority group to suppress you for everyone, even those willing to listen to you versus just those who would rather not read it missing out.

As a society we seem to have a really hard time with a lack of censorship. We know that things shouldn't be censored, or at least we seem to, but on the other hand there are things we don't want to read and don't want others to be influenced by them. It probably comes from difficulty in listening to views that seem contrary to our own. And in a way, the internet feeds that by allowing us to live in a bubble with those of our same way of thinking, whether they live nearby or not.

People are getting to be pretty brave, at least when part of a large group, during the in-person conversations as well. Would you, by yourself, be willing to step in-front of 20+ strong believers of the opposing view? Especially in this day and age where politicians like to rile up their fanatical base till they're frothing at the mouth and itching for a fight.

"That actually brings me to the next point - the flu is a much more deadly disease and kills lots more people. But here you are worrying about an Ebola plague."

Not to mention HIV and Aids, which given the topic of Africa is a good example. At least 40% of the people who get Ebola are likely to survive it and then lead an ordinary life Ebola free. Those with HIV and Aids live with the the rest of their life. Not to mention that HIV and Aids are already covering the globe.

"for lack of understanding that their problem can become our problem"

That's a slippery slope my friend, as we have found with countless wars and international interventions.

I think that we're all taking this a bit too far down the rabbit hole and forgetting the simple answer ...

"They have stuff over there that I could sell for money. I don't have money. I'm not a doctor, I don't know what is going on in those tents and I'm not allowed in. How about I just go and take all that stuff and sell it? If I get sick, that's okay, I've been sick before."

Unless you're trying to write a book and need to up that word count, what more philosophical understanding does it take then that? If you're not careful, scientific over-analysis can just take you farther from the simple truth of a situation or at a minimum overly complicate it.

• The government will continue to operate all future, similar projects in the exact same fashion, regardless of this report.

For those we are intolerant of, we also like to come up with labels that immediately serve to invalidate what they are saying, or make it dangerous to side with them. With all the talk in society about the need to stop using words that label others in a derogatory fashion, we certainly like to do it a lot. By slapping a generic label on people we can quickly and easily minimize anything they have to say. It's too powerful of a tool to give up entirely apparently.