This case is a big deal because the court ruled that the right to record stuff like this was "well established" which in turn means that official immunity does not apply so the public officials involved can be sued for damages as individuals. That is about the best outcome possible.

Falun Gong has some significant similarities with the 19th Century movement that produced the Taiping Rebellion. That rebellion went on for 14 years and left as many as 30,000,000 dead, making it one of the most destructive wars in human history. Hence the Chinese are more nervous than we are about odd religious movements.

something like 2/3 of US land

Sorry ... slashdot likes to axe non-ASCII characters, it seems.

Frankly, we can't worry about "political suicide" any more. The way we are spending, we are on the verge of actual national suicide. The Federal Reserve is talking about bankruptcy as a real possibility. Nationally and internationally, there are signs that faith in the dollar is waning fast. If the dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency of choice, the US economy as we know it will go into a tailspin of hyperinflation. We're at the point where we have to cut, deeply, and across the board, or we'll see a depression that will make the 30s look mild by comparison.

Why even look for specifics? Take the budget from 25 years ago, adjust all numbers for inflation, and use that. Presto!

But since you asked for specifics:

• Pull all troops from Germany, Japan, Korea, and any other place we fought more than 10 years ago. It's time our allies protected themselves instead of relying on the US. Wonder why the US military budget is so big? Because nobody else pulls their weight.
• Eliminate all farm subsidies.
• Privatize Amtrak. What a waste of money. If it can't operate in the black, it's mismanaged and/or unnecessary.
• Cut funding to PBS. The recent scandals, as well as the admissions they don't need federal funding, ought to be sufficient justification for this.
• Axe the War on Drugs. Waste of time, money, and lives.
• Cut the Dept of Education. Unconstitutional. Anything that is really needed, the states can do just fine.
• Cut the TSA. Their incompetence knows no bounds.
• Cut pension plans for Congress. Drop in the bucket, I know, but it's the principle of the thing.
• Cut the IRS. Seriously. Do you know how much money is expended just to take in the tax revenue, with all the compliance monitoring that has to take place? Good grief! Enact a simple consumption tax, and BAM, you get instant savings, and much less potential for abuse by politicians. Plus getting back all the lost productivity in the private sector that was going toward record keeping and the filing process itself.
• Cut the SSA and end Social Security. Fund existing obligations through sale of unconstitutionally held federal lands. (Do you realize something like of US land west of the Missouri River is owned by the FedGov? Insane.) Let people plan their own lives, because they have incentive to do it right. DC has squandered the money and made a thorough mess of it.

That's just the outright cuts I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's plenty more, and still more that could be pared back and reorganized.

You know who doesn't have a light pollution problem?

North Korea!

(Did I misunderstand the whole Godwin thing?)

5 year old pentium D with 2GB of RAM running XP [...] can't install IE9, which means HTML5 cannot be widely adopted until the majority of the business world installs Firefox.

Fixed that for you.

"There are times when discussing a situation on the radio to a supervisor is not acceptable because of the questions relating to which charges should be filled or what city ordinances may relate to a certain situation."

And those are NOT appropriate for the radio why? That is what a unit-to-unit call is for: rather than the whole talk group hearing it, only the supervisor and the cop here it. AND you get it on the nice multi-track recorder, admissible in court, in case any issues arise.

"I know for fact that every department going doesn't use APCO-25..."

And those departments are upgrading as DHS money becomes available. Moreover, I'm pretty sure California is on APCO-25, since they are buying the equipment to test it, and are testing their radios on that equipment.

"You loose[sic] credibility with me when you make remarks that the police abuse people."
And you "loose" credibility when you assert they don't. I'm not saying ALL cops abuse people, but SOME do - this is a demonstrated and adjudicated fact - and many times they use the cell rather than the radio precisely due to that nice multi-track recorder on the comm center.

The cop has to carry his radio - that's a given. There is no reason for him to have a state paid-for cell phone. Even if he needs to make a phone call pursuant to his duty - again, he can make a PSTN interconnect call on the radio (and again, have the advantage that it is recorded in a nice court admissible format).

Sorry if I touched a nerve, but: it is exactly that mentality - "We are the Thin Blue Line, we must protect our own, no matter what" that is causing people to NOT trust the cops. Rather than saying "Use the radio. Be recorded. If you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. If you ARE doing something wrong, IA will find you and destroy you, and we will all help, because enforcing the LAW is our JOB." you have folks like you saying "It's OK if we hide things, because, well, BECAUSE, citizen."

Considering that I DESIGN the equipment the law enforcement types use to check out the system, I suspect I know quite a bit more about APCO-25, the uses of it within various law enforcement contexts, and the infrastructure than you do, sir. I doubt you could tell an LDU1/LDU2 from a TERMLC or a PDU, or even know what those acronyms are. I seriously doubt you have ever worked with any LEO comms officers, where I was working with the Phoenix/Mesa project on the first deployment of APCO-25 there a decade ago. I've worked with the FBI, the Secret Service, and several state level LEOs.

Again: there is NOTHING a LEO needs to discuss officially that cannot go over the radio, and be more secure than going over the PSTN, let alone any cellular networks.