This is spot on, and the way that this can happen is we need first need the government to re-recognize the right to privacy. Then we can define what controls we want to have on privacy. EG, I own my info, no one else can share if without my express permission. I can demand those who I have given my info delete it when the transaction or relationship is over. There must be harsh financial penalties for breaking these laws. $10k/non compliance incident and $100K + actual damages for theft or fraud using private data.

How exactly do you prove your the one who shot or poisoned the target? Seems difficult to collect not to mention the legalities and morals of the act. Sounds more like an FBI honeypot.

The company does not own those debts. Those are owned by the investors who bought the company and took ownership.

I agree wholeheartedly, unfortunately...

I hope the whole place melts down or any type of natural disaster. These tools will be used against the evil and the good alike.

even in those places, this officer can be out enforcing speeding or other truly dangerous infractions instead of racking up revenue for the city and his own career advancement.

The people killing jews in Germany were just doing their jobs too, right? It's not a valid reason to do this. This officer just wants to get easy tickets for generating revenue and he will get a commendation as well. Meanwhile people speeding in other places and causing real traffic danger will not get caught by this officer. How this got modded up is beyond me, but I guess there are always tools who love the police and support all their stupidity.

Every system devised by men can be broken by other men with the right funding. If your system maintains any records like posting of items for sale, that's easy for someone to grab at some point. Once they determine the physical locations and gain access it's all over. Even if the system only sends messages which are not stored, those can be intercepted eventually given enough work or again the physical access to the servers.

This is the same response that most people get when contacting their congressmen. On top of that, mine is Michael McCall, and he is the Chairman of the Dept Homeland Security committee, so he's REALLY on the side of NSA spying. His people literally laughed at me when I called to voice objection to the Cyber Security Bill.

OK, I'm down with that. I have iphone now, but I would consider switching to Android. Can you provide some examples or links of releases that you mentioned? I don't want to continue to be part of the problem.

It seems every device, every internet service, basically every communication node that we use has been turned into something that is beyond George Orwell's worst nightmare. As long as there is continued complacency on the part of people using this technology, the invasion of privacy will continue to grow. This of course assumes that it could get much worse. The only options at this point are to stop or drastically reduce using these networks while we attempt to build our own.

you are absolutely right. This need/desire for "works right every time" is seen in the popularity of the glock style handguns which are the de facto standard for law enforcement. They fire 99.999% of the time when a bullet is loaded. I don't like the DAO because I'm a much better shot with the single action, but I'm in the minority of gun owners.

A good post with great ideas, all of which I'd support. But you have go one step further. There is an election before the general election. Not the primary election but the one where the special interests can fund the candidates they want to get elected. This means you only get to choose from pre-bought candidates. So it's hard to get a politician to vote for your fixes because the pool of potential candidates is limited to those who can get enough campaign contributions from the special interests. It's an insidious problem that is pervasive throughout the system. Getting it out of one area will just lead to it the other areas recontaminating everything. Some of this is discussed in an excellent TED talk. http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html

Based on this event, most rappers should be jailed immediately, especially Rage Against the Machine...

It's not about fairness, it's about reality. The mom needs more time as she is recovering from the labor. Plus she is often the primary care taker and can get exhausted easily. As a father, I can tell you that 8 weeks of paid leave is a real nicety and quite rare in the US. They don't have to provide any paid leave. Paid time off is not a right. I get bewildered by people claiming all kinds of erroneous rights.