State administrators must come up with an equivalent equivalency test.

It would be beneficial to force these politicians to actually use the technology, of which so many of them are so proudly ignorant. Most of them know less (and that's no exaggeration) about computers and the Internet than an average 8 year old child, yet in their hubris they feel that they are qualified to enact legislation to regulate it.

We would all benefit if they understood what the Internet is and actually used it in the course of their jobs. On Youtube I watched (or rather listened to) the entire congressional SOPA Hearing from 12/15/11 and was shocked at the general profound level ignorance of technology in general. It reminded me of a bunch of drunk blind people discussing a photograph of an elephant.

These people flat out dismiss any expert opinion regarding technology as "technical Jargon" and feel that there is no need for them to understand any of it, but they are nevertheless hell-bent on trying to control it. I think having them work virtually as well as maintain their own computers would be an excellent start.

In France such tweets are considered a criminal offence. Anything can be criminalized.

Why can't FOR ONCE a "real scientist" stand before Parliament/Congress to help them get the facts straight by making it clear what a "scientific theory" really is and how it is not a "hunch' and cannot nor will not ever become a "law" etc...? Yeah - we Slashdotters mostly know better, but in my opinion articles like this are merely well targeted geek troll-bait.

Mod me to hell.

I feel safer already. But seriously I do think we need more such laws. If we are boiling a frog then perhaps turning up the heat may be the best course of action at this point.

Perhaps things would improve if the BBC actually had to EARN their money rather than sucking the population dry through the abuse of stoneage "laws". For the Americans here, in many European countries, people are forcedd to pay for a "license" for simply owning a TV. Here In Germany people have to pay even for owning a smartphone or computer simply because they *might* visit their website and view their crappy content.

They aren't "people". They are "foreign nationals". Please get your terminology straight.

I just accessed #BesseresHannover and posted a tweet and I am in Germany. I did however acquire my Twitter account in the US... I wonder if the are blocking it based on the user's IP address or user profile?

"School resource officers (which are police officers)"

How orwellian can you get?

If I were serious about blogging then I'd host my own. I wonder why more people don't?

.... but what's the reaction going to be when a drone chasing a car thief crashes into a back yard birthday party?

As long as the police were following procedure then it's just collateral damage. Remember, in America "the law" must be enforced at all costs.

The big problem with the Fermi paradox is that the earth isn't covered in a kilometer deep layer of cats.

Of course it isn't. Everyone knows it's turtles all the way down.

That sounds like seti@home which is still around.

Is SETI wasting its time listening for radio signals? Just how powerful would a stable radio signal (such as a television type of transmitter)have to be at the source from a "nearby" star-system (say 20 light years) in order to be detected here on Earth, and as a corollary to that question, how powerful would an inadvertent stable signal on Earth have to be in order to be be detected at the same distance using similar equipment as that used by the SETI program? Do we even transmit anything strong and long enough that it could be detected at such a distance? I would imagine that the signal-strength would drop off too quickly to be detectable.

Why won't the government realize that it is wasting its time and our money? Many of the sites are probably not even located in the US and will continue to operate even after their domains are seized. (You gotta the word "seized") And tools like Mafiaafire http://mafiaafire.com/ render their efforts increasingly pointless. The whole ordeal reminds of the Princess Leia quote from Star Wars "The tighter you clinch your fist, the more systems will slip through your fingers." When will they ever learn?