They have the right. They have exercised that right. The government has responded through the appropriate democratic process, as expressed by the representatives who (after much political debate) voted to pass the act.
Except no one read it. Remember " you have to pass it to find out what's in it"?
Name a single innocent person who has been affected by the NSA. NSA is not the threat, it's the maniacs that for example leave bombs at public sport events or goes shooting at a school.
You have to be kidding. Have you not seen the cost so far the the American economy? Cisco, Boeing, all the cloud services have lost millions to billions because foreign customers will no longer buy American technology. You think that doesn't hurt every one of us?
There was, once upon a time, a Constitution with a 4th amendment. I don't trust my government anymore. They lie like rugs. The sample doesn't have to be anonymous. They have your vehicle license number. It's probably also a way to help fill the national Police DNA database. No, sorry.
This never would have happened when the Constitution was in effect. None of the three branches of government actually do what they were designed to do in the Constitution. We have the Executive branch making laws, such as declaring changes in the health care law without going through Congess. Clearly a violation of law. We have Congress not passing budgets which is their job and giving away powers like controlling the money supple to the Federal Reserve. The Supreme court won't touch any of this and they pretty much just decide what they personally feel rather than the law. Example; corporations can spend huge sums of money to buy corrupt Congress people and Senators because corporations are people. If corporations are people, why aren't they limited to the same spending limits people are?
It's almost as if British English and American English are separate dialects.
In which case arguing over which one is 'correct' is fairly useless, no?
That's the way it is in some parts of the world. When I was in the Peace Corps in the Ivory Coast West Africa, I taught at the University of Abidjan. My best friend also taught there. My friend was British and I'm American. The University labeled his classes as "English" and mine as "American". I sometimes still slip and spell color as colour.
....In addition, if 'the whole thing falls apart' then we as a nation are fucked.
As far as I'm concerned "we as a nation" ARE ALREADY fucked... When both parties shit on the Constitution, and any amount of truth from the government is non-existant, we are swirling down the toilet... I'm a Army vet, and love this country and the Constitution, and before anybody decides to label me, I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN, NOT A DEMOCRAT, NOT A LIBERTARIAN, I AM AN AMERICAN!!. What is happening to the country I love makes me absolutely sick... Frankly, I'm glad I'm in my 60s, and not a young'un anymore, as I don't want to see where this country will be in 10-20 years.....
I'm one of you, too. I'm in my 70s and I feel fortunate that to have lived in this country when we were indeed free and had no nanny state to look over our shoulders. Why do I have to pay more for a plastic bucket because there is someone so dumb they don't keep their babies out if it. How much money, in time and manpower did it cost to mandate that all buckets have safety labels on them. Just one instance of the Nanny State. It never stops. My mantra has been for many years; Every day the city makes new laws, the county makes new laws, the State makes new laws and the Congress makes new laws. Every one of those laws is something you could do yesterday but can not do tomorrow. Old laws are never removed. At what point are all of our freedoms gone? Throw mission creep into the mix and you end up with out of control organizations like the NSA. The poeple who claim "I have nothing to hide are precisely the people who allow this to happen. They throw away their rights to say no to searching their homes and vehicles and don't believe the 5th amendment is needed. These were and are rights that were given to all of us and I am saddened to see how they are thrown away by uneducated people and stolen by power hungry politicians of both parties.
lack of term limits
You don't need term limits when you can vote for the challenger.
However, this takes an educated electorate, so good luck with that I guess.
No you can't. The reason we are stuck with the crappy politicians we have is because the left and the right are so far apart that no red State would ever vote for a Democrat and no blue State would ever vote for a Republican. The politician in office is usually not challenged by others in his/her party so they basically have a job for life no matter how crappy they are. That is what we have now. Senators are especially difficult to pry out of their seats.
When I was in the Peace Corps (American) in Africa, I met several Dutch Peace Corps volunteers. They were all multilingual and their English was almost perfect. They told me that when you come from a small country surrounded larger countries that speak other languages, you learn their languages. They were all great people. The world could use more people like the Dutch.
And don't forget; The NSA can't track and tap the phones of us with POTS like they can you folks with cell phones. Therefore they must force all of us to have cell phones so we can be tracked and listened to. Warrants are only needed with POTS.
Analysts are still searching for the source of the bit pattern:
01000010010000010100111001011010010000010100100100100001
in the telemetry received just before impact.
So it was Japanese.
01000010010000010100111001011010010000010100100100100001 translates to BANZAI!
If necessary, outsource any remaining work to 1 or more subcontractors, each of which has 250 employees or less.
That potential loophole is ridiculously easy to seal with some careful phrasing of the rules. You simply have to look at beneficial ownership and make companies have to report injuries from subcontractors. No, the proper way to deal with this is through getting the rules written in a sane manner in the first place. If information like this is made public then it needs to be done so in a manner that explains the context.
The notion of reporting workplace injuries is a good idea (in principle anyway) but there are a LOT of nuances to the issue. Many workplace injuries have nothing to do with the actual performance of work at the job. Sometimes people just trip and hurt themselves in ways they could just as easily have done in their living room and which the company could not possible prevent. Should that be something the company is held responsible for? There are a LOT of people who falsely claim to have received workplace injuries in order to get workers compensation payments. Should the company be penalized by public reporting of these false claims? What about when it is unclear whether the "injury" was real or not?
It's a complicated issue and a simply reporting requirement is both a significant administrative burden and a potential source of misleading information about the safety of a given workplace.
As a member of a Safety Committee for over ten years I have a bit of insight. Pushing job safety is important. I worked in the electrical power industry. A mistake there can easily cost a life. However, when employers start putting sanctions and letters in personnel files it has a chilling effect. Accidents are no longer are reported. Near misses will never be reported. If management truly care about safety then they will want true data and push for safer working conditions, not punishment. Safety is an attitude and if management has the wrong attitude towards accidents then the safety program just falls apart.
"But everyone does it!!"
-cold fjord justifying any action of the US Government's surveillance programs
You know. When I was young we Americans used to pride ourselves on our moral values. We would talk about the atrocities of war and were proud that the U.S. didn't do that. When I was in the Peace Corps in Africa, we would say how glad we were as Americans that we don't have to bribe officials at customs to get our bags through. We don't have cops stopping cars because they wanted bribes. Those were things that others did but we were better than that. Well, other countries may spy on all their citizens and read their mail, but we used to be better than that. This is where our country has failed. We are all lazy now and want to take the low road instead of the high road. We USED to be better than that. That's what made us special.
There is a lot more that Snowden has not released yet. He is wisely using the drip, drip, drip method of disclosure so the press and public have time to digest each successive piece of information. Before it's done, it will become clear that the House and Senate oversight committees were either derelict in their duties or complicit in illegal activities. They either knew or they didn't. Either way, eventually they will be the ones asking for clemency.
We can only hope. The Senate (House of Lords?) Seems to love this spying and the police state.
I always thought that Elmer Fudd was a cartoon caricature of Barney Frank. Am I wrong?
This is not the law in Arizona, where APS (Arizona Public Service) is. If you, for example don't pay your electric bill, after a couple of months APS will cut your service but that's all. The State does not become involved unless there is a safety issue for children or others.
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. -- Plato
