Almost no one believes any use of torture is ever justified. But what they consider torture will vary depending on who is being tortured.

A person suspected of being a Muslim (that seems to be a crime these days) is most probably somehow connected to a radical group who are somehow connected to a terrorist group and is, therefore, hiding information that is somehow important to my personal safety. Because someone, somewhere, who claimed to be a Muslim, detonated a bomb that killed x number of people.

If the interrogation of such a person requires some intensity reserved only for those who cannot claim protection under a 'civil' law, this is not necessarily torture. It may be just an aggressive search for knowledge.

I don't believe the use of torture, per se, is ever justified. But.... an aggressive search for information when my personal security is at stake?.....

This is the problem with Internet mobs, or mob justice of any kind. The degree or severity of the crime is proportional to my own value system rather than an impartial value system.

While I view the comments to be offensive and insensitive to the extreme, I view some of the comments of Paul Rand on the subject of those 'subjects' who are so ill-advised as to belong to the race of the 'un-intitled', to be even more offensive and insensitive. And before someone gets their self-righteous anger seething, the race of the 'un-intitled' knows no colour, no country, other than the colour green, and the country called 'terra firma'.

"publicly approved intelligence missions" in this sense means approved by the governing body elected to manage the country on behalf of the people - the 'public'. The purpose of elections is so that the 'public' can get on with creating wealth and other such endeavours while those elected to manage can handle the 'mundane' tasks of running the country. While the 'public' is not called upon to approve individual actions, they have through the process of an election approved the actions of the people elected. And this is regardless of whether an individual voted for these people or not. That is the way democracy works.

The problem you are referring to is that most people (and this is worldwide, not just in the U.S.of A.) don't give a s*#t come election time and allow the minority to elect the group that will best serve their (the minority) interests. In the case of the U.S.of A, it may be 'Big Oil', 'Big Banks', 'Pharmaceuticals', 'Agro-Industry', or 'the Religious Right'. Who knows? Who cares?

The poor very often do not even have the means, transportation, time, whatever, to get to the polls. It is the massive middle group - soon to be poor - who fail in thei duty here. And the frequently 'trotted out' cop out of 'they're all the same' doesn't fly. There is no law that says there is only two. And if you get involved early enough and stay involved long enough you can make a change - and a real one, not the kind that new media marketers trot out.

Why not a 'Glass Free section' - in the same way as a 'Smoke Free' section.

Of course, that gets into the realm of "Glass Free Restaurant", which is what this is all about.

My opinion - I agree with the Restauranteur. His place. His rules. Privacy in some places even if not in all places.

But it is also true that you can never expect complete privacy anymore - too many spies around of the government kind. Eat at home and perhaps you will be safe from prying eyes.

Too much code. Too many coders. Bean counters in charge of the design and feature set.

Sounds like a scam to make as much money as possible without delivering any noticeable results.

I love American Enterprise. The leaders of the Tea Party should write a song.

No. They 'poise' (sic) (or poison, methinks) completely nameless bystanders with fracking and other wonderful schemes.

I think there is another side to this - with respect to 'high achieving' countries you mention. In my experience, parents in those countries are much more involved in the education of their children. Engaged parents cooperating with even competent (as opposed to excellent) teachers makes all the difference.

Crap!

Only for those with enough money to afford them.

Damned if you do. And damned if you don't.

What was that country song - 'yah can't please everyone, so yah got ta please yourself'.

Do yourself a favour. Stay home. Let everyone complain. This conflict involves about 5 different Muslim sects and their strongest belief (each group) is that Allah will take care of them (each one of them). Each person within each group holds firm the belief that death in this conflict is a guarantee of Paradise.

It may not be our notion of civilized but... to recall a oft repeated saying of my youth "Who died and made you God?"

Perhaps I am mistaken here but - a backdoor is not something that calls out. It is something to allows you to call in.

I have put back doors in (old) systems simply to allow me to over-ride system problems and to take control of the system as and when needed.

It doesn't take many brain cycles to see how this would be useful in a very heated situation between nominally friendly (?) powers to give one the upper hand in intelligence about the plans of the other.

It also doesn't take many brain cycles to know that this would be useful one time only as it would quickly be identified and blocked, even if the actual source of the leak could not be definitively proven.

A digital 'sleeper cell', regardless of the cost, is something that foreign intelligence agencies are working on constantly - from the time of Sun Tsu.

As I have written my 'backdoors' in assembly code - I know they can be very hard to detect as long as they remain silent. Just waiting.

But, if you read the article (what? On /. Never) - you will see that there are avenues of redress. Specifically a government body that will reimburse the couple for their costs if they are found to be truly burdened by such costs.

Also, the First Nations group also is contributing to the cost of preserving some portion of their history, even if this was simply a death resulting from a nomadic life style.

I don't believe that Ontario, Canada is the only jurisdiction that will offer such support. Many times it comes in the form of private foundations interested in this but it also comes from the governments that mandate the preservation of historical artifacts.

Interesting as it is, it is not solely the responsibility of the couple who 'did the right thing'.

Once again, No!

Don't use it for real. Don't accept friend requests from real friends, unless they are also engaged in the subterfuge and using a different name.

Accept lots of friend requests from people you don't know - and possibly don't want to know (but who knows?) - and create a robust presence of fictitious online activity.

Most of Facebook is like this anyway. So what's the problem. Just use the characteristics of social networking creatively to create some fog for who you really are.

No!

If you don't participate it raises flags immediately. Regardless of your age.

Participate but be boring. Most (all?) accounts are so- this is nothing new.

The whole trick to avoiding scrutiny, even of supposedly terrorist activity is to be extremely boring.

Think of Mr. Bean. The man's a millionaire because he is so good at being extremely commonplace.

Also, as is possible for electronic mail, drop boxes obscure and possibly even eliminate information of the parties at either end.

With the number of new mail accounts in the public domain being created and abandoned on a daily basis it is easy to hide in the confusion. This requires a degree of paranoia that I think is bordering on unhealthy but - if enough people were actively engaged in civil disobedience to obscure the results - it might be useful.

Once again...

It is not the reaction time. They have the parameters. They don't look at everybody. But they can. What if they come looking for you? 3 million people and their conversations is far to much to analyse. But, if I want to intimidate - I start with one. Only one - and then I spread out. You do remember McCarthy don't you?

In this case, apparently, they have the public interest at heart. Search for the network that sponsored the brutal attack. And keep spreading out on the search until you find something. Intimidate everyone you find to try to get more. If the original target is innocent, or a dupe, you will eventually get to the guilty party.

But... what if they need to find closure and nothing shows up. Who takes the hit.

Further to my comment above.

They know what they want to look for -name and location.

Now who else contacted this person.

Repeat search.

Analyse results.

Start a new search based on illegally obtained information.

Repeat until I can find something that I can correlate in another way - legal this time.

Get a warrant to search.

Submit results of earlier search - repeat search if needed to update date and time stamps to make it appear legal.