You know, I'm not sure anyone explicitly says this. You may have discovered an exciting new legal defense: Where's the law that says I have to obey the law?

Have you read New York v. Burger? The NY police were conducting the search. They have police powers. The absence of the paper work established that a violation of the law was committed, and the statute requiring the paperwork gave the cops the right to look around. The stolen car parts discovered were something that particular law was supposed to be curbing. The ruling applies specifically to commercial property, and to industries that are specifically regulated. Yes it establishes that the police can charge you with a crime based on evidence discovered in an administrative inspection, but it doesn't say anything about the standing of evidence of a crime unrelated to the regulatory area of a federal agency discovered in an unrelated inspection and then reported to a local law enforcement agency, which is the only way that an FCC inspection could result in being charged with a crime other than violating FCC regs.

But the police belong the Executive branch of the government. What *EXECUTIVE* power does the FCC actually have? They're an independent entity within the government.

The police are not part of the Federal government at all, unless you mean the Washington DC police, who are run by Congress as part of its power to administer Federal districts and territories. The FCC is part of the legislative branch, since its existence and powers were established by act of Congress. No-knock warrants have nothing to do with an exception for the 'executive' branch. They have to do with the definition of local policing powers reserved to the states and localities, and can only take place with a warrant.

Coming through the door of my house without being accompanied by the local constabulary will result in the FCC jackboots leaving on stretchers.

The FCC has no 'jackboots'. They have guys in suits with EM meters.

You're aware that some states have what's called a "Castle Doctrine" in place, right? Meaning: you enter my house (or even in some cases, my car) without my permission, I can defend myself by any means necessary.

That's not the castle doctrine. The Castle doctrine says that you may not be liable for using deadly force to defend yourself from attack or credible threat of attack in your own home, not 'I can kill you if you are in my house'. A guy knocking on your door and asking to have a look at your radio is not going to establish a Castle doctrine defense. The FCC is not going to push their way into your house.

They get to search whatever they want to try and find it. Further, anything they might find meanwhile can be used against you. This is absolutely an unconstitutional search.

Where does it say that? There is a difference between an administrative inspection and a search. The FCC is asserting the right to conduct the former without a warrant. How is the FCC going to 'use' things they find against you? They can't arrest you; all they can do is fine you for violating FCC regs. They can't prosecute you for violations of the criminal code. They have no general law enforcement powers.

We have an organization that decides if legislation is contrary to the Constitution. They're called the Supreme Court. You don't get to decide the constitutionality of legislation for yourself. You have to obey all laws properly passed by a legislative body, until the law is struck down. That's why the ACLU and other organizations create test cases to get bad laws struck down. If you violate a law because you think it isn't constitutional, you will go to jail until the SC rules. If you kill someone based on your opinion of the constitutionality of the law they are acting under, you will go to prison for murder.

So Mr. FCC gets to come in and his friends insist on coming along, without a warrant, and get to poke around just like the law says they shouldn't.

Nope. The FCC has the right to inspect your equipment. No one else gets to 'come for the ride'. If the FCC shows up with a cop and asks to see your wireless router, you can have them wait on the porch while you bring the router out. You can let Mr. FCC in and tell the cop to go get a cup of coffee. They can't 'poke around'. They can inspect equipment- you show them the equipment, they look at it. If they start opening drawers or lifting up carpets, they are conducting an illegal search. When the Fire Marshall comes into your building to perform fire safety inspection, it is very clearly limited by the law to a visual-only inspection; he can look at the door and see if it is blocked, he can ask you to produce your legally required fire extinguishers. He can't look through your sock drawer for matches and fireworks. That's the difference between an administrative inspection and a search.

Where is the slippery slope? That the FCC might chose to interpret a 1934 law in a way that obviously contradicts the 4th Amendment? Here's the protection against that: it obviously contradicts the 4th Amendment. The FCC has lawyers, too. They are just as smart as the average Slashdot poster. What is the incentive for the FCC to try and go into a random house and ask to see your wireless router or the fob for your car keys, without evidence of some kind of violation of the FCC regs?

Just about every law on the books could be interpreted in ways that violate the Constitution. So far, I've seen no evidence that such an argument is being put forth by the FCC or anyone else. What is the need to write into the law a protection against an interpretation that doesn't exist? If someone is willing to ignore the obvious Constitutional objection, they'll just ignore the law as well.

And where is the FCC saying that exactly? The examples in the article were exactly of the nature of someone running an illegal transmitter. Their assertion is that they have the right to inspect the device. So if you have a keyless entry on your car, they can ask to have a look at your signaling device and the receiver on the car. They can't go through your sock drawer looking for pot.

They have exercised this power in the sense of fining people for not letting them inspect equipment. The reason that they do it, most likely, is because it would be too easy to dodge inspections otherwise. If they have to 1) knock and ask first and then 2) get a warrant if you say no, it's too easy to relocate the transmitter and then fire it up again when you think the heat is off. They would rather not add the time and expense of applying for a warrant each time they have to do an inspection, the way that a LEA does with actual searches. Furthermore, they are looking at preserving their general right to perform inspections without additional authorizations by the court; their view is the law provides them with the right to perform inspections of the equipment, and if you buy that equipment, you've consented to be inspected.

Imagine if the fire marshal had to get a warrant every time he wanted to make sure that the fire exits weren't being blocked in a large office building. It would significantly hamper the ability of the agency to conduct its job.

But they're not asserting the right to conduct searches. They're asserting the right to perform administrative inspection of equipment that falls under their mandate. That means they have to know that a piece of equipment that is believed to be in violation of the regs is inside your residence. Then they can ask to see that equipment (it might be 'the source of the radio transmission in such-and-such frequency band' rather than 'the transmitter with serial number xxxxxx'). If you produce the piece of equipment, they likely can't even come into your home without permission or a warrant.

It's a tool in the arsenal against T E R R O R I S M and that is what it was specifically created for.

It was created sixty years before 9/11. Guess again. If the Feds can't get a warrant from probably cause to conduct a real search, then likely anything that they notice on an inspection (and it would have to be out in the open, something that was found legitimately in the course of inspecting the equipment in question- put your drugs in the bathroom cabinet and your AK-47's in the fridge, and you're good to go) would be thrown out by the same judge if it really was a fishing expedition. There were no changes to admissibility rules for evidence that were included in the Patriot Act that I am aware of.

No, because the FCC is always going to 1) identify themselves, 2) knock on the door and ask to see specific equipment or a specific transmission source, and 3) walk away and issue you a fine by mail if you say no. These Castle scenarios where 'FCC goons' bust into your house, RF detectors blazing, is pure fantasy. Furthermore, the Castle doctrine applies to a situation where you could reasonably believe you are in danger of physical harm in your own home. When is the FCC ever going to make you think you are at risk of physical harm? A guy with a clipboard knocking on your door and asking to see your HAM transmitter or CB radio is not justification for homicide.

No, they're planning on knocking on your door and asking to see your transmitter if they have triangulated a signal that violates FCC regs to your house. If you say no, they are going to fine you. No home invasions. They simply assert the right to inspect any equipment covered by their mandate to inspect transmission equipment. If you decline to let them perform the inspection, they will charge you with violating the regulations.

Why is everyone equating equating the right to inspect with no-knock raids? The FCC isn't going to kick in your door while you're trying to flush your transmitter. They're going to knock, ask to see the transmitter, and then go back to their office and issue you a fine by mail if you say no. The FCC has no interest in putting their agent's lives at risk in order to get someone to switch off their CB. All of this ranting about government goons and guns is just melodramatic bullshit. If the government wants to infringe on your rights, they'll do it through the legal system, not by kicking in doors. It's much more effective and much lower risk.

Whether or not this is infringement on your 4th Amendment rights actually depends greatly on how the law is applied. If the FCC is asserting the right to enter any house because there is a phone or a wireless device inside, it's obviously infringement. The FCC has lawyers, and knows this, so there's little chance they would adopt such a tactic. All of the cases mentioned in the article related to fairly powerful transmitters that were being used in a way such that the violation of FCC regs could be detected by someone miles from the source. That means that 1) by the time the FCC directionalizes the signal and shows up at your door, they already have probably cause and could get a warrant if they needed it, and 2) the FCC could reasonably assert in court that the device is not something that most people have in their house, and is a sophisticated enough device that the fairly uncontroversial right of administrative inspection to have a look at that particular piece of equipment.

The stock price will likely not reach those heights again not because Microsoft is fundamentally in trouble, but because the market primarily values growth. Microsoft already owns a piece of damn near every computer in the world, so there's really nowhere to go but down; their non-core offerings have, at best, a checkered history and don't inspire confidence in investors.

MS has been transitioning out of the 'growth' mold in the assessment of stock pickers for years. That's why the price is down, and is staying down. Paying out dividends is not a ploy to buoy the stock price, as the stock is already training at a premium way above the dividend value; paying dividends is just what a reasonable Board does in response to a huge excess of cash that can't be reasonably invested in growth. They're a publicly traded company and have to act in the interest of the shareholder.

As to their revenues... they took modest losses in one of the worst economies since the Depression, during a period when their last major product release is several years in the mirror, and people are holding out on major purchases as the next one comes into view. That's a pretty enviable position to most companies.

I know a lot of people who have done both. It depends a great deal on 1) what the masters program is, and 2) what kind of work you can get right now.

If the masters program consists of taking a few more classes, doing some problem sets, and a few small programming projects, skip it. Employers will (rightfully) lump you in along with every other undergrad or BS + MS who finished simply by following a pre-planned track.

If, on the other hand, you're actually doing independent work- working on some large, independent/group projects, doing real research, maybe getting your name on a paper or two and building some decent prototype/POC systems, then the masters may give you a real advantage, because you'll be able to talk about real experience working on projects, but still have a wider theoretical base than a lot of people fresh out of school. A really applied, hands on MS program gives you the best of both worlds, in a way. At some large companies, a MS is a gateway to higher-level work as an architect or other high-level designer/developer- whether by policy or by happenstance, most of the people you compete with for those positions will have post-grad degrees.

What kind of work can you get? Keep in mind that the hiring market is very competitive right now; you may see yourself dumped into a support/low grade technical positions as a fresh grad that doesn't provide great experience. If you can spend two years actually writing real code that gets used in a production system, the experience might be more valuable. If you're going to be doing tech support or fire-and-forget CGI forms for two years, the real world work might be much less useful to your ultimate career than doing the MS.

I came out with a BS and started working, but I had a degree from a well-reputed school and good internship experience. A lot of the guys I knew in my office had bachelors degrees from local schools, and they started out doing support and incidental minor scripting. My starting job was as an engineer, on the other hand. The lesson for me was that a solid education (which the MS can be a big part of) can leapfrog you past some of the duller entry-level busy work.

My advice would be:
1) Talk to people who have done the MS program. What did they do? Are there opportunities to do real research or project work that will set you apart from other people who took a ton of classes?
2) Apply for a few jobs and see what you can get. If you can get a job at a good company that will take an interest in your career development (usually means a larger company- small companies are very friendly, but often lack the resources to really develop their people) and will pay you well, that might be convincing for you. If you're going to be punching a clock doing work that doesn't advance your career (there are plenty of people with BS's in Software Engineering and Computer Science doing what is essentially tech support that could easily be done by someone with an associates degree or a self-study with an A+ cert), the MS will probably offer you better options.
3) Make a real assessment of what you're like as a student. Getting the most out of a MS program will require that you are able to manager yourself and challenge yourself, and take on big commitments without someone standing over you forcing you to do it. If that sounds like you, great. On the other hand, if you sat in the back of every classes and did fine while avoiding notice and not getting involved in much (frankly, I was this type of student!), a MS might end up just being a few more lines on your transcript without much to contribute.