What will happen is:

a) The FBI comes up with an idea.
b) The people complain.
c) The idea is dropped...
d) ...and implemented 3 years later under a different name.

Welcome to the USA. Home of the free.

Aaaah yes. They spend 1 BILLION dollars to enable tests like "intelligent traffic systems" or "self-flushing toilets".

Certainly. Of course.
And it has absolute NOTHING to do with training combat of, say, military people in a city, defending the state against the citizens. Nothing about rising water or sinking fuel amounts or anything like that.

Nothing new hare, move along.

Get yourself a second briefcase (which should - like the first one - look old and battered).
Fill it with the exact same stuff: laptop, tablet, call phone and kindle.

The first one you always carry with you, the second one is somewhere safe.

In the evening, you simply pick up your second briefcase, and bingo.
If flying somewhere - have one case with you, the second one in the belly of the plane.

Sitting here in Germany (and being a German), I get this message when I call the link:

"Sorry, your IP address shows you are coming from a country that requires us to block access to this particular site."

Thanks you, Germany, Thank you very much for taking such good, loving and thoughtful case of your children.

So the USA airlines are messing up again. Very fascinating. Utterly.

Especially to see the article here, for computer guys, who meet to talk about... computers. Software. High technology. Fascinating hardware.

Not some crap you expect to see in some lower-end news hype.

Yes and no.

The official name was supposed to be 'Pearl' (after a quote from the bible, of all things), but a language named PEARL already existed, so it was turned into Perl.

The later created "Practical Extraction and Report Language" is also officially accepted - as well as, yes, "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister".

My apologies - I didn't notice I hadn't signed in. The above message is from me, I don't write usually as AC.

Since the court will allow such a device installed on your vehicle in 99% of all cases anyway, this doesn't really change anything...

I also agree.

For a change, they're not bothering us, not wasting their or our time, not sniffing our data lines, library books or whatever.
They're using a very simple, fast and accurate system to see if somebody hasn't gotten a required permit. And collection money on it. And it seems to be worth it - already over 250 people have been caught, and sent a (relatively low) fine.

Actually looks like they're making sense.... hm. Hang on. The state making sense? There must be something behind this! Evil aliens? Looking for terrarists in your backyard? Playing God to harmless civilians? There must be Something Wrong! I've never seen the state make sense!

Well, seeing how the US Army seems to (partially) enjoy killing and their wonderful power over civil, er, sorry, terrorists, I'm sure the veterans will like more video games like that.

(Yes, I read WikiLeaks)

...and?

You're saying that the Brasilians are ignoring moronic laws set up by industry and reality-estranged politicians, and you consider this something not to be proud of?
I don't get it.

You're right.
And isn't that an excellent reason to fully ignore all games requiring connections to some or other server, which might die on you in a few years anyway?
Check out the games before you buy. CD-based protection? Okay. Server-based protection? Hands off.

Mhm... yes and no.

Hating the USA (or any other country, for that matter) is simply a sign of being part of those 50% of humanity (the ones with below-average IQ).
Why hate an entire country? It can be that it's run by a particularly lousy dictator (dictator bad citizens bad) or a government selling itself out to the industry (also doesn't mean that the citizens are bad), or your local PR agency is cursing the country because .

The leaders of countries are usually idiots. Politics is typically not something done by bright people, so you can't even blame them for it. Hating them will not help you much, especially as you've never met them in person, getting to know them better.

Best thing you can do is ignore these morons, and stay away from countries who are currently giving trouble (such as the USA, for insists on the right to take away our notebooks at the border for at least six months, without needing reasons) .

But don't blame the citizens. They're just people like you and me.
The above post is quite correct - there are a large number of countries who used to be world powers, and now they're simply nice tourist destinations: Italy, Spain, Greece, Egypt, Portugal, the UK, Holland... they were all big, then came a crash + collapse, and now they're harmless. Same thing will happen to the USA - good. Just wait for it to blow over, then you can go and visit again.

>I'm a computer programmer, not a BP employee or apologist.

Again, my apologies. I just keep getting good news about BP, and sniffing closer at it, I keep running into the PR industry...

Oh, well. Guess I should trust Slashdot more.... oops. Probably simply need more sleep ;)

I am sorry if I seem to misunderstand something, but... who are you? And who gave you "+3, Insightful"?

Yes. They buy a search term, to try and put a spin on the news. Of course this is irritating. And no, we're not interested in news from them as we know that they have a very large and currently exceptionally busy PR department, making news from them quite worthless.

Again, sorry if I seem paranoid or something, but... who are you? I keep finding very positive entries, protecting BP, writing positively about them. Seems a bit weird, especially seeing that they're trying to keep 3rd-person data away from this.