Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

You are confused. The "can't work for regulating the Internet simply because its an "old law" that predates the Internet" is incorrect. The old law already has provisions for the internet and does not allow the regulation of it without legislative action. The FCC since 1970 or so has been dealing with it and regulating it per the "old law" perfectly fine. This change to a title II regulation is outside the scope of the law and needs a law to be passed to make it kosher.

Also, if you need a distinction between the two, the second amendment bars the government from action. The old law is being use (although illegally) to take action that isn't allowed by the law. In both situations, the answer is to amend- not ignore.

Two different concepts and I'm completely sorry you cannot see that fact. I'll try to explain it to you but because of how obvious it already is and you missing it, I'm not sure I will be successful.

Ok, for starters, the second amendment is a bar on the government to act in certain ways. If you think times have changed to the point the second amendment is no longer needed or needs adjusted, then gather support and amend it.

The 1930's act does not directly cover the internet as a title II service because the 1930's act has another category that the FCC was perfectly fine placing it in called an "information service". This information service was defined as

I
NFORMATION SERVICE. --The term ''information service'' means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service.

In 1970, the FCC attempted to classify the early internet or computer or data processing as an information service with it's computer I inquiry. This attempted to define a bright line to differentiate between communications services/processing as the phone lines would be and computer data processing (think internet or BBS) which is an information service. It left some ambiguity because it created a dual category or hybrid category that were both information services and communication services. Clearly this was not working as more phone systems started automating their networks and more grey area hybrid categories started popping up. So around 1976, the FCC started it's second computer inquiry or "computers II".

In computers II or computers two, the FCC further distinguished between data processing and communications processing and introduced a term called enhanced services. This also distinguished between computer processing to maintain a communications network as remaining regulated under the communications services portions of the law. This enhanced service is defined by Federal Standard 1037C as

Enhanced service is service offered over commercial carrier transmission facilities used in interstate communications, that employs computer processing applications that act on the format, content, code, protocol, or similar aspects of the subscriber's transmitted information; provides the subscriber with additional, different, or restructured information; or involves subscriber interaction with stored information.

which the internet or any reasonable interpretation would group it into. It's design was to clear up the gray areas and insert data processing into either it's information service or communications service category respectfully.

Well, fast forward to 1996 with the telecommunications law. It added under title II of the telecommunications act, a requirement that upon subscription of internet services that providers must inform customers of commercially available content filtering or blocking software commonly known as parental controls and absolved liability of any software or company on the behalf of the customer filtering or screening content for offensive material. It also put the definitions of enhanced services into law as information services copying almost directly from the computers II inquiry findings.

Now the FCC has always maintained that the law classified the internet and versions that led up to the internet as an information service and not a title II regulation. Even for the short time after the Portland cable case which the courts ruled the FCC had to regulate it under title II the FCC held it was not and contributed to the overturning of such order on appeals which was validated by the supreme court.

So in short, here we have a law from 1936 that has historically been interpreted in a specific way and supported by court case or torte law, and all the sudden instead of changing legislation to accomplish a goal worth accomplishing, the FCC up and decides that at least 40 years of precedent is incorrect and to achieve whatever goals it wants, the internet is now a title II regulation. SO to answer your question, a law being changed with absolutely no legislative oversight is different from a constitutional bar on the government acting but in the light of historical facts, it is the same thing- people upset over government entities doing or attempting to do things which it is not constitutionally or legislatively empowered to do.

I have to agree on the build quality -- that soldering is not very professional looking, unless some unskilled tech at the police department (or where ever) builds their own devices, that screams out "home made". The white/brown wires are barely soldered to the pad on the back side of the board.

Given the history of terrorism in spain and the nature of the conference (free speech related) and the france issues, they probably used mirrors at an entry point of the conference and did a once over in all cars parking in the event lot on entry. They likely did this looking for cars rigged to explode and found this tracking device and investigated it.

Its a quick and easy way to show a security theatr is present.

It doesn't say just "data". It says data "sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of the results." It further says that the online data requirement does not supersede any nondiscretionary statutory requirement. You agree that your SSN and DOB are not relevant but think that somehow they are required for independent analysis of the results, and you trotted out the HIPAA acronym but don't seem to believe that HIPAA would be a nondiscretionary statutory limitation.

Liar. I did not assert the law is wrong. I assert that YOUR interpretation of a law you did not read is wrong.

If your DOB and SSN are put online by the people who ran your study then your problem is with them. It will not be EPA's fault because the EPA didn't require it, simply because this law doesn't require it AND it specifically excludes such data.

Only those rules that aren't based on the best available science, using studies that are not clearly identified and are not available online in sufficient form to allow independent analysis of the results. Those are the only rules that this law would create legal difficulties for.

You're talking about the word "data", which is IRRELEVANT. The controlling clause is "sufficient to allow independent analysis." If the people who ran your study think your SSN is required to analyze the data they collected, they're morons and they shouldn't be conducting studies to start with. Your problem will be with THEM, not the EPA, because it will be THEM and not the EPA that puts your data online when they are legally prohibited from doing so. If they do that, you sue THEM, not the EPA. And it won't have anything to do with this law, so claiming that this law is at fault is just another lie.

Idealy they will use a tonsilometer but baring that, the oldschool five knuckle multiplyer will work.

Or purchase a burner phone, call it from the devicevwith the sim and record the number on the caller ID. From there you can track down who owns the number.

Of course it probably sends GPS coordinates via sms. You could attempt to study the format and send bogus location reports like saying it is at the center of the fukishima reactor, the rim of some volcano, or in the middle of the ocean.

Just hope it is not a rental car and the car company starts charging you credit card for excess mileage or out of boundry insurance coverages.

Or someone crying in a corner telling her friend that he said he loved her but she couldn't be with him on the secretive trip out of town and not to call while he was gone.

This tech is availible to anyone. There are a ton of possible explainations.

Perhaps. I have enough time to actually read a TWO PAGE law to see what it says and don't have to take the word of someone who may have an agenda. You've spent enough time spreading misinformation about the content of the law that you could have read it three or four times by now, and when you are challenged to cite a part of the law that supports your incorrect claims you might have actually read it just to try.

And just how did you "note" that I did not? Since I did, and then actually followed the links to the laws, it seems you are wrong yet again. As for TFA agreeing with you, well, the actual law doesn't, and I think the courts will pay a bit more attention to the law and not some article about it.

1. It was a full two pages long. What an onerous task.

2. You were making claims about what the law says without bothering to read it. That makes you look stupid.

3. You weren't telling us what every proposed bill says, you were talking about one. "Every" isn't an issue; "one" is.

4. I quoted for you the relevant sections, so you've just admitted that you don't even bother to read what you reply to.

When I enter a discussion about what a law ways, and the law is a scant two pages long and is self-contained, yes, I make time to read it so I know for myself what it says. You would rather parrot a longer, incorrect, and apparently politically motivated and biased report on the bill instead of deal with the truth.

Well, you see, there's a difference between us. Just as the bill you so vehemently oppose calls for the EPA to use "the best available science" (another direct quote), I use the best available source. In this case, the bill itself (all forty two lines). You choose second hand information, which seems to have led you to make quite a few erroneous statements.

Let's summarize, shall we? The law requires:

(1) The EPA use the best available science. Is this an issue? Should this not be the standard already?

(2) The source of the data and science be clearly identified. It does not say that every participant in every study must be identified. Is identifying the source of data used to make regulatory decisions a problem? Should this also not already be the standard?

(3) That the data be online in a form sufficient to allow independent analysis and substantial reproduction of the results. It does not require EPA to do this analysis (thus the word "independent"), it does not require anyone to do the analysis. It does not require EPA to put this data online (and (2)(A) says that explicitly). And (2)(B) explicitly exempts from this requirement any data that is restricted by other statutory requirements. I.e., no SSN, DOB, or other PII for medical studies. Why is it a problem that the data the EPA uses to base its regulations on has to be online?

So, what's the problem? Your repeated "the EPA has to prove reproducibility" is a lie. Your concern that your SSN is going to be put online is not changed by this law since this law doesn't require it, nor does it require your DOB. This law just doesn't have the downsides you keep claiming it does, and I've quoted it enough by now that you could have figured that out.

Twilio is one provider that provides this service.

Put one of these in the hands of criminals, and it'll be the end of police helicopters -- it's got to be easier to take down a lightweight fiberglass clad helicopter than a car.

There may be no such thing as a truly winnable war, but there sure as hell are losers in war. The Nazis, Italian fascists, and Japanese militarists LOST. They lost up the wazoo. They lost everything. Had the US and USSR (as examples) lost WW2 in that way, they never would have had 45 subsequent years of burgeoning influence before history finally well and truly caught up to them.

I haven't seen anyone mention yet that this "bill" is pure horse shit. Legislation can't just declare that power which the FCC already has (given to them by the 1934 act and by follow-on legislation) doesn't count, and they can't do such-and-such. To accomplish what they claim to want to accomplish, they have to frame new legislation that changes the FCC's authorization. Of course they know this. They have lawyers; hell, they ARE lawyers.

This piece of shit is just kabuki theater. Nothing to see here.

Or he wrote that in the hopes of getting laid.

Probably. In any case, several female scientists were directly involved in the Manhattan Project, so... false. And of course, my favorite genius starlet, Hedy Lamarr, invented a frequency hopping wireless technology for torpedo guidance (which was, naturally, rejected but not because she was female). I guess women just aren't big on gunpowder firearms.