...I'm going to trust a link to install software on Android from outside of the Play store?

I think not.

Clearly you've never heard of the F-Droid project. Go read up on it.

This is a non-story. It has always been a non-story. It has already been investigated, and what turned up was a gigantic pile of nothing. But then, that's all Daryl Issa's "investigations" have ever turned up.

Yes, the IRS investigated a bunch of applications for tax-exempt status for a number of "Tea Party" groups. They also performed the same investigations on so-called liberal groups. They're supposed to do that; otherwise any moron could claim tax-exempt status. Were there problems with the investigations? Yes, because the tax law that requires them is so vague that it's basically left entirely to the discretion of the investigator.

Were any applications denied? No, not really. Did the IRS investigate more "Tea Party" groups than liberal groups? It would appear so. It would also appear that there were a hell of a lot more "Tea Party" applications flooding in during the timeframe in question (which makes sense, given that the "Tea Party" is not grassroots, but entirely the construction of FreedomWorks).

As for how "terribly convenient" it is for multiple IRS personnel under investigation to have lost the data in question, well... Considering that the IRS is underfunded (sounds weird, but it's true); and considering that they have tens of thousands of personal computers, none of them brand new, and all of them in various states of disrepair and subjected to various forms of abuse; and considering that every one of those tens of thousands of computers are running FUCKING WINDOWS , then you are provably a drooling idiot if you think the probability for unrecoverable data loss is anything less than 1.0.

The only story here is that IRS regs concerning tax-exempt political advocacy organizations are hopelessly vague. Moreover, it's not a story that belongs on a tech-oriented site. If I wanted to read about fabricated right-wing ghost stories, I'd visit RedState. Get this shit off Slashdot.

written by richard lightman [ ... ] his web site is now offline: you can get a copy of depinit however using archive.org.

Last snapshot I could find on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/200...

here on Slashdot we frequently have people (the "2nd amendments folks") allude to using their guns to overthrow the US government by force (which is obviously a totalitarian strategy) and also threatening to arbitrarily kill people for various perceived offences without a proper trial

Hi! As a card-carrying NRA member, I'm one of those "Second Amendment folks" you're talking about here. A couple of points:

1. It's "the Second Amendment," not "the Second Amendments." There's only one Second Amendment.

2. Overthrowing the government by force is the right of the people, yes. It's also unbelievably stupid in the overwhelming majority of cases. Civil war is horrific and something best avoided. The Framers did intend the armed populace to be a bulwark against governmental infringements on liberty, yes, but mostly by means of making the government afraid to violently oppress the people for fear of the armed resistance they would face.

   In this, the Framers have been overwhelmingly successful: where in past eras a government would've just bludgeoned people into believing the law was what they said it was, nowadays our politicians have learned to couch things in terms of "counterterrorism" and "protecting the children" and we'll quite amicably assent to whatever they say the law is.

   The Framers had the right idea, they just weren't quite clever enough: they thought the risk would be a government that used force against the people, whereas the real risk is from public relations and focus groups.

   Anyway -- short version: although I am one of those "Second Amendment folks," I, and all of the other "Second Amendment folks" I know, am absolutely against civil war. Horrible, terrible idea. I've seen enough gunshot wounds already in my life, thank you very much: I feel no need to be the cause of them.

3. This would amount to "terroristic threats", and would be considered grossly illegal in all 50 states. I, and all of the other "Second Amendment folks" I know, think this behavior is reprehensible.

I'm not weighing in on that one. I'm only correcting the original poster, who said the U.S. rarely waives sovereign immunity. In fact, the opposite is true: it rarely invokes it. Tens of thousands of tort claims against the U.S. government are underway even as we speak, all of them with waived sovereign immunity.

One cannot simply sue a branch of the government without asking permission from the government to allow it to be sued - guess how often THAT happens?

Glad you asked: it happens all the time, ever since the Tort Claims Act of 1948 substantially waived the sovereign immunity doctrine. You can read more about it at Wikipedia.

People sue the government all the time. It's literally an everyday occurrence.

...it is arguably "stealing reputation" (depriving another of their reputation and taking it for yourself).

I've referred to it as "reputation fraud," but yes, we appear to be in general agreement.

I see this old semantic game blooms anew on Slashdot. "It isn't stealing". Fine. It's fraud. Don't worry that your reputation is shot and/or somebody else is trading on your good name. It isn't stealing. Oh... the victim feels much better now.

I don't understand; what are you complaining about? You're correct. It isn't theft, it is fraud. So why call it theft when it's clearly something else?

If you call it by the correct name, you'll get community support, even among the "copying is not theft" crowd. OTOH, if you call it stealing, then you'll get mired in a gigantic semantic dogpile as hundreds of people re-litigate what constitutes "stealing."

We don't even need to raise the "Is it stealing?" question in this case. It's clearly fraud. So call it "fraud." Geez...

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DOING ON SLASHDOT?!?

You want to spread whiny, partisan, maliciously misleading horseshit? Go to RedState or Breitbart; that's their stock in trade. It doesn't fscking belong here. Get this garbage off Slashdot now.

Patton told his troops they were strictly forbidden from dying gloriously for their country, but were instead expected to make the other poor bastard die gloriously for his.

When we send soldiers off to battle we expect them to win and come home alive. We accept that reality will not always permit this, but that's the nature of the beast. If we send people on a one-way trip to Mars, we are demanding that they die gloriously for us -- which is exactly what Patton forbade his soldiers to do.

Your comparison, not to put too fine a point on it, is crazy.

Professionals do the job and get paid.

They did neither.

End of argument.

"Hey, kid. If you get down in that mine, dig out the coal, and bring it back to me, I'll pay you. ...What? You want a light? Why did you take the job if you don't have the tools to do it? Batteries cost money, kid. ...What? What's all this whining about dust and poisonous gases and how you can't carry more than two lumps because you're only six years old? I'm paying you; do your job. You don't want to be thought of as unprofessional, do you?"

What self-serving sophistry.

"Contracts" or not, the developers' reaction was the correct one.