Damn first pest denialists... this problem has been going on for a lot longer than now, and the fact that it's just being reported is stupid. Oh, correlation doesn't mean causation! Intarwebs! Car analogy! (collapses giggling)

Considering the expansive definition of what a "trade secret" is these days, it could be grandma's tuna cassarole recipe that the secretary shared. Afterall, maybe someone decided to make a restaurant based on it, and thus it was supposed to be a secret recipe and... you know, the recipe was actually a wiccan spell to summon the lesser demon of stupidity; Litigatus.

That sound was the point going over your head. The government isn't establishing a special group of "government approved journalists". Journalistic shield laws allow anyone to publish with the option of keeping their source private. However, only people who regularly publish and have earned a reputation for honestly are likely to be taken seriously... and as a result, people who do regularly publish are greatest at risk for censure from the government.

J. Random Blogger doesn't have much to worry about if he says "a confidential source told me the NSA is spying on everyone." but the editor in chief of the Washington Post saying has quite a bit.

All too often, people like this beat their chest and rip grass up screaming about their rights... and secretly hope that nobody will notice their call for "right" is a call to avoid personal responsibility. There is no human right ever now, or in the past, that relieves one of their higher obligations to their own humanity. Part of that means accepting that we need to make social contracts, like licensure for driving, in order to ensure everyone's safety. Every right comes with its own responsibilities, just as all power comes with it as well. Disregard that, and you become a monster, a villain, a sociopath.

Driving isn't a right. You don't need a car to survive. You don't need it to be successful. It's a convenience, like a dish washer, or running water. People talked about human rights as far back as pre-greek times, and they didn't put in their treatise on the subject, "And Thou Shalt Preserve Thy Right To Locomote By Means Of Crushed And Fossilized Animal Remains."

People like this don't know the meaning of the word human right. They think it means "I get to do whatever I want." Human rights aren't for that; they're put there to ensure that greater evils do not take place, because several millenia of history tells us that if we don't accept that people need to be able to question authority, to defend themselves against it, to have equal partnership in the establishing of social contracts between themselves and those of other social classes... civilization doesn't happen.

Human rights, fundamentally, ensure that civilization happens... not that you get to drive 140 MPH in the fast lane. Perspective... some people need it.

Thanks for the info, but I don't want paywalled sites to get my eyeballs. The Illinois Times manages to give away paper copies as well as their online version and still make money, why can't the Times? They certainly have a much larger readership.

Ron Paul was a libertarian in the party that started the war on drugs (Reagan)

Nixon came up with the phrase, although it actually started under a Democrat, young fellow.

I voted Green Party. The Libbies want corporations to have the liberty to foul the water and air. I grew up two miles from a Monsanto plant and saw the difference after the Clean Air Act. I don't want to go back to those times. The Greenies want to legalize drugs AND keep environmental protections.

Not that I think the War on Drugs (TM) is any less stupid and wasteful than the War on Terrism (TM), but at least we see that we don't need a parallel, secret justice [sic] system to "fight" it.

Both are drains on the treasury and both are harmful to society. The "war" on terror castrates the constitution, and the drug laws foster violent crime. Look at Chicago in the 1920s and Chicago today. Different illegal drug, same outcomes.

The article is behind a god damned paywall. This one isn't. Google lists many, many sources.

Does Jah-Wren Ryel work for the Times and is trying to increase subscription numbers? A link to a paywall is no citation whatever.

Oh, and according to what I read, these aren't warrentless searches.

It's their workers who get exploited, not their customers. Look at this incident. The company was repeatedly fined for safety violations, and those broken laws resulted in a dozen dead miners. Someone should have gone to prison for negligent homicide.

That's the exploitation he's referring to. These sociopaths don't care who they kill or how badly they foul the atmosphere (Monsanto before the EPA). They'll destroy the economy and impoverish huge swaths of the population for gain (Banks the last decade).

Indeed. This woman can't possible be a parent. She's certainly never battled a public school system to try to get a decent education for her kids. If I could have afforded to send my kids to private school I would have done so in a heartbeat.

Look at some of your fellow slashdotters, some of these guys seem barely literate, not knowing there from they're and their, not realizing that loose and lose are both verbs that mean completely different things, using greengrocers' apostrophes, etc (although many of these folks may not be native speakers). At least in the US, the public schools are abysmal.

Would I be for outlawing private schools? Of course. There should be a level playing field. It's terrible that our poorest children get the poorest educations, yet the rich who can afford a decent education sneer that they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It just isn't possible.

It was bought out and is now a corporate tool for Dice. All the original editors have moved on. It's just a dead husk now.

Like Facebook soon will be; I'm advising all my friends to turn their profile pics all black and delete all personal photos and "likes", unsub from all groups, etc. Basically, gut your profile and delete all your past posts, etc. Just leave a stub.

Moron. You're still in High School, right? Because you talk like you're 15.