Lol.. needed that laugh.
its not that the "evil" republicans are pushing it. it's that republicans finally gave up trying to fight it. Even then, i'm not sure its quite that black and white. My guess that as a compromise to get republicans on board, they made sure there were some pretty big loopholes for their corporate constituents included in the bill.
I guess we will just have to wait and see. The sweet sweet tasty democrats haven't been exactly perfect on net neutrality either. But they have been much better in terms of understanding the consequences of not having it. Maybe that's just because they generally have a distrust of large powerful corporations. Can't imagine why that is :p

wow, I haven't seen so many shills in one place in quite a while. the reason you are being called out isn't because of your position but because you conveniently leave out details which completely invalidate your arguments.

1. secret courts - yes, the original intention was to make sure there was probable cause before the court was to issue a warrant. In reality, even statements by the court indicate that it has been not much more than a rubber stamp. Less that one percent of requests for warrants have actually been denied. The court is not protecting any citizens. It is protecting the impression of process and procedures so that the government cannot be sued for breaking fourth amendment protections.

2. Spying on everyone. - yes, we all know that the NSA director perjured himself when he said that only metadata was being collected. Within weeks, the rest of us learned about prism which collects not only metadata but content itself. The fact that you leave this out means to me that you know your argument is flawed and that you are trying to discount and minimize facts and evidence that has already been publicly disseminated.

blah blah blah. more bullshit about things being legal that in fact were not legal until unconstitutional laws were instituted to make them less illegal. Lets not even get into the fact that when these laws were passed, the senate intelligence committee did not even know about prism and other programs which were meant to "collect all data".

As for phone record metadata, this is the type of information that government and investigators used to need a warrant to get and they needed to request it from the phone company. Now you are implying that a warrant isn't needed because it's public information and therefore there is no expectation of privacy. FUCK YOU! If there is a reason to suspect someone of a crime, then there is cause to get a warrant. If there isn't, then you have no claim to that or any other information.

Blah blah blah. About the NSA and breaking laws. Laws have been created to make what the NSA is doing "legal". That does not in any way mean that it is constitutional. These things are not at all equivalent to how things were in 1979 or even before the patriot act. You are disingenuous to imply that these things are even remotely equivalent. In 1979, the intelligence infrastructure was even remotely set up to monitor the activities of normal American citizens.

Blah blah blah. terrorists use the same networks and such. You know there was a time when the intelligence services needed to actually do real investigative work. They didn't just get to treat everyone like a criminal until one committed a crime.

Freedom isn't free. It's difficult and expensive. Attempting to take away peoples privacy and autonomy to make the jobs at the NSA easier doesn't make us more free. It makes us less free. Being free without the freedom part of it is actually not being free. Even if some government officials are lying to you about how much freedom you actually have.

I can think of at least a few "I told you so" that I owe to some friends who extolled the virtues of this made up currency.

"I have these really fancy beads here that are worth a lot. if you give me that thing you have that I need, ill give you these beads and I promise that the guy in that next village will agree with me that the beads are worth a lot. He may not want to change these beads for other types of currency but you can get whatever you want from him. I call these beads bit-coins.

its ok that these beads aren't made of gold or silver or anything that could otherwise be used to make anything.
its ok that the local government doesn't even really consider these valuable currency. Or that there are no laws to protect anyone who gets robbed of these beads."
see the difference?

To me, this is the same thing as the whole "privacy doesn't exist anymore" statement.
It is used as an excuse to make even more obtrusive and intrusive things and expecting that people will just accept them under the false premise that "privacy doesn't exist anymore". When Mark Zuckersnot first made this claim, it was less of a reality than it was a marketing ploy. If people accept that privacy doesn't exist, then they are more willing to give up more of it. Sure, with the natureof the internet and online communications as well as new technologies, the ability to retain privacy has taken different forms and in some ways has been reduced. One has to examine not only the everyday tools they use but also the ideas and technologies behind them as they all have potentially negative consequences now or in the future.

Not to the point. Just because someone thinks that some business model or business tactic is ok does not make it so. businesses owners and, in particular internet businesses are notoriously lacking in creativity. when one company sees that another company has jumped on the bandwagon for a specific technology, tracking cookies, off-shoring, etc, the rest of us really don't have much recourse unless we want to stop all the offending businesses. We are basically forced to accept these bad ideas. You don't have any idea how much shit I get even after so many years from friends because I don't buy into facebook and thus, do not use it. We could stop using the internet, but that's not really a viable solution. Instead, we have to find other ways to let those businesses know that those tactics are not acceptable while trying to survive in what really is an internet powered world. Just because the herd has bought into this marketing BS, those of us who are more thoughtful of our privacy should be be compelled to join the herd and their lack of forethought.

It started out with people just trying to make a little something on the side using a ads on their website.
Then it turned into a way to pay for your website. Then it was a way to make a living.
Then it was a way to better target customers on your website. Then it was a way to track metrics for your website usage.
Then it was a way to track uses across websites. Then it was a way to build a profile about users based on the ad click-through.
Then it was to build a personality profile. At the same time, it was used by malicious and non-malicious companies to infect your computer
with malware and trojans (read: Sony rootkit)

Ive never been a fan of any web advertising. From the very beginning I saw it as a bad business model. Nowadays, people are rebelling
many of the above uses of web advertising. Its not any businesses right to track me once I leave their website. I dont even like to be tracked while I am on their website.

If companies and advertisers went back to just serving small unobtrusive amounts of non-targetted, non-tracking advertisement, then I think more people would be OK with that. Even though I am not fond of it, I think that would be an acceptable cost. The problem is that they want more and more and the people they are taking it from is the user. The user doesn't have any say in what is an acceptable form of advertising.
People either accept it out of ignorance or apathy or they use tools to block out as much of the nonsense that these companies and advertisers try to push onto us. There are other ways to make money on the internet beyond using ad revenue. When people in droves tell you that what you are doing is bad, you shouldn't try to find a way to circumvent their ability to prevent you from doing those bad things. You should try to find a way that is more acceptable to more people.

LW-

Murder happens everyday. If someone murders you because they don't like who you are or what you say, then that is a hate crime.

We don't have to accept hate crimes where people are upset that we are expressing our legal rights. Nor should we.
People who would kill in this way are crazy and/or stupid. It doesn't matter if you find the legal right wrong or odious. If you cant handle the law in your country, then try to change it. Don't ignore it and take it out on someone who is following that law. If you can't then move to a place whose laws more closely represent your ideology.

Stop making excuses for these fuckwits. Instead, be more constructive and explain to the fuckwits that Freedom of speech not only helps the people they don't like, but also them. Then explain to them that killing someone for saying something you don't like is NEVER justified. If they still do it, then they are criminals and nothing more. Don't give these people a stage or justification for their behavior.

We need to stop catering to the desires of crazy people. It's not any different than a psychotic neighbor who doesn't like that you have a barbeque in your backyard so he comes over and kills you. You have a right to have a barbeque. Should you give up your rights just because some lunatic doesn't think you should have it? There is a reason we try not to let crazy people create rules. We would get crazy rules. We have laws and right in place here. Just because someone in some other place really doesn't like the fact that we have those rights mean that we should give up those rights? And do we justify by saying that he asked for it by expressing his given rights in a way that someone not even in the same community or even the same country has a problem with? Fuck that.

Nobody likes to be insulted. Nobody likes to be offended. Its pretty much guaranteed that anything you do or say every minute of the day might offend someone for some stupid or not-so-stupid reason. It is impossible to live your life without upsetting someone or some group at some time. Even if that is what you are intending or using as a way to make a point. You do not deserve to be killed for it. Nor should we be justifying it just because that's how crazy people are.

Stop making excuses for crazy people.

And this is the problem with our judicial system in this country. Larry and Oracle can EABOD as far as i'm concerned. His financial needs and wants should never get in the way of a fair and just legal system.

People aren't dogs. If you punish a dog it may not know what you are punishing it for.
When you punish a human for doing something you don't want the human to do, its not difficult to lay it out pretty clearly the behavior that is unacceptable. If the other humans cant pick up on that clearly worded message about what is acceptable and unacceptable, then they certainly shouldn't be prosecutors. They shouldn't even work for McDonalds as that requires a person to be able to follow guidelines and directions.

These people are employees. They have a lot of leeway in their decision making but they still need to follow rules. Just because they've found out ways to get what they want better by overcharging someone and then accepting a plea bargain, that doesn't mean that it was ever an acceptable thing to do. It just means that nobody ever thought or was able to successfully challenge it.

Apparently you haven't really played any newer games recently.

It used to be that DLC added something to an already complete game. Nowadays, the DLC that ships in the weeks and months after the games release does little more than make the original game a little bit more of a complete experience.

This is something that gamers have been complaining about for years. It isn't that gamers are against adding new content to an already good complete game. Its that you need to buy the additional DLC to make the piece of crap you bought a complete game in the first place. Or at least playable.
They take it a step further also. They bundle patches to break the broken shipping product that was shipped too early and without enough quality control into the DLC that you have to buy after.

People who shoot guns at gun ranges are not trained to deal with high stress situations.

People like to point out when someone with a gun is able to defuse some situation. they conveniently dismiss those situations where having a gun gets an innocent person shot, get the armed citizen shot or killed, or makes the situation worse.

Lets face it. You are not the Cowboy or the hero that's going to save the day. you are not trained to deal with hostile situations, with people firing back at you, and any other sorts of situations that don't come from shooting at paper targets.

in the vast majority of cases, having some goof with a hero complex walking around with a gun not only makes people around feel less comfortable, but it also is more likely to put other people in danger.

If I wanted to create code or software and limits its use that is my prerogative.
You can argue whether free software is then free.. but if I wanted to say my software can only be used by santa clause and the easter bunny, this is my choice.

How you feel towards my statement is barely relevant. If you want to test my right to limit the use of my own original code, then that is your prerogative.

despite its implications, people who create original works of any kind can choose at thier sole discretion, how that code is used.
Its exactly the same as saying i can give my software away for free to student and charge an outrageous fee to anyone wantin gto make money from my software or derivative works.

put that in your pipe and smoke it.
this is not intended to be a troll.