At the moment their claim to legality is "we are immune from UK law if the secretary of state tells us to spy on people under section 6, ergo we are legal even if he is telling us to do something illegal".

So no, what they're doing is illegal yet un-prosecutable, and they want to make it legal so they don't feel so bad about spying on their own people for a foreign power like the STASI did.

According to the military, that isn't the problem. Apparently the current generation is more willing to kill than any prior generation that they kept records for... WW1's generation had a really hard time actually intentionally shooting someone.

Even up to Vietnam it was quite common for US soldiers to intentionally miss.

The military is saying the problem is not that people are sissies so much as they're fat and weak. So they've shifted a lot of the training from bits where they key up people's killer instincts and instead spend that time running laps and doing push ups.

I can send you reports from the marines and army. They're very happy with the "grit" of the men showing up to serve. They're just annoyed out how out of shape they are.

We have become a nation accustomed to throw money at every problem. Looking back at the conflicts we have been involved since WWII, I guess we have also forgotten how to win wars. What is the end result? A very expensive and sophisticated army that can't win a war?

In the meantime, the Chinese and the Russians are threatening the sovereignty of their neighbours. Strange days indeed.

Ah how the U.S. Military has softened up. I remember pushups, kick in the helmet, and more pushups, sweat in the eyes, drill sergeant fear and pushups to correct my shooting posture and shaking.

I am sure it is a cool corrective tool to use, but its a crutch. But we have been shooting guns for centuries and using less-than-accurate firearms than we have now, its a matter of attention, caring and wanting to be good with your firearm.

And icing on the cake: When I was in the 'motherland' for OIF, it was a great feeling to know I had good shooting mechanics and trusted my shot. I couldn't imagine being in the military and sucking at that.

no, just make it illegal under penalty of long prison sentences for businesses to use public arrest records when considering hiring people. maybe if that hr person was afraid of squatting over a filthy toilet clutching her underwear while looking over her shoulder in fear, 4 times a day for 4 years, she might think twice about denying someone a job for being arrested in a police state. just saying.

Why do arrest records have to be public?

Would you like them to be not public?

"No, we have no idea where your hubby Joe Smith is. We haven't arrested him"
'But he was seen in the back of your patrol car!'
"Nope, sorry lady"

Ugh. Just castrate the guy and be done with it. It's called prevention, people.

Taps that feed the NSA/CIA are FBI property. So they want the TPB webserver logs? The people wanted the FBI to do something about organized crime back BEFORE it promoted the corruption it has on the scale it is at this point. Subsequently, "There's no such thing as TPB bay logs". -and I doubt that there is any interest in copyright trolls other than FBI shits and giggles and exactly what do they propose to do with these logs if they existed by submission to a 'broken system'?

Why does religion get lumped in with race and sex. Religion is a choice and does not deserve to be put next to things that you are.

The USA's famous "right" to free speech only applies to dialog between you and the government.

Other citizens don't have to put up with your bullshit and your right to free speech isn't being violated in the slightest when they tell you to STFU.

Define how vpn is being blocked.

An ISP would be giving up its carrier status if it interfere with user traffic.

Drone pilots more removed from the action than infantry? Hell yes.

More removed then the rest of the Air Force? Hell no.

The way a drone strike works is a drone loiters on station for weeks on end. During this time the drone's pilots figure out who is in the house when, so they can avoid blowing it up when the local equivalent of the Girl Scouts are in the living room. Which means drone pilots know when their target takes the trash out, whether the teenage daughter has a boyfriend who sneaks in sometimes, etc. This makes for attacks that are much easier on the civilian population then normal bombing, because you can skip the night when the girl and her boyfriend are enjoying themselves, but it makes for very stressed out drone pilots.

OTOH, an F-16 would only be able to loiter on target for a half-hour at a time, and the pilot would be spending his time there focussing on the attack, so he has no fucking idea that the terrorist mastermind he's about to attack has a daughter up to hijinks. He'll drop the bomb, write on his paperwork that the building was totaly destroyed, and dance the Dance of Successful Combat Missions.

It's not as easy to sneak onto a military base (where, you know, base housing is located) as the TV/movies would have you believe. You do know that, right?

Drone pilots are actually burning out due to extreme crisis of conscious issues. They work 9-5 killing people, then go home to their families; they're not living in a constructed fantasy of good versus evil fueled by the fact that other people are living in the same fantasy and mutually trying to kill you under the impression that you're the invader. They see themselves as terrible assassins, not righteous heroes fighting a murderous enemy.