"...there have been no serious legislative efforts to improve the oversight or regulation..."

A good way to get people to read the article. But the existing settlement and damages is $54 billion (as mentioned and discussed fully towards the end of the article).

Why does anyone feel the need to improve the regulation or oversight, if the punishment fits the crime already? And what's additional punishment going to do?

If the punishment for murder is life in prison, is adding another mandatory 20 years to the sentence going to fix anything?

...which makes it not so scary anymore.

Obviously. Preferably from Islay.

Apparently (slides 15-16), anyone who uses encryption is automatically suspicious and will be recorded.

Slashdot, you should be ashamed of yourselves! Phone records are not metadata--these are DATA. Thank you, Dianne Feinstein, for now abusing one of tech's most important words, and using it as an attempt to whitewash what happened.

Metadata would be information about how those phone records are stored, such as a database schema, OO relational diagram, etc.

This is vital to the conversation--phone logs are DATA, and that DATA is subject to abuse. This is clearly an overreach.

If only we had some sort of "Affordable Health Care Act" that would require insurance to not exclude people based on prior conditions.

I bet we could even get the President of the U.S. in on it--we could even name it after him! I bet he cares!

And what about all those neurons that *aren't* in the brain? Optic nerves? Stomach lining? These neurons have just as much to do with memory as the brain itself.

"One more victory like that and we're really finished."

Maybe he should have sued California for allowing ANY exemptions or deductions at all...

Nobody's invented a native widget in decades. The only reason SWT is still around is because of Eclipse, otherwise it would have died the same horrible death as all of IBM's other Java technologies.

The problem with Java desktop applications is that the desktop itself is become irrelevant.

Just compare the salaries of people writing Java desktop applications with those writing web apps or phone apps.

Or don't take my advice...I've only been in the business of writing Java desktop apps for 15 years.

And ./ readers finally realize that it's the Chinese glyph for "made you look."

It opens up the possibility of interstellar travel in a big, big way.

Neither. Both will say they want to. Both, to varying degrees, will try. Obama will talk about the revenue side and Romney will talk about the spending side, but all economists know that neither end really has any impact on GDP other than short-term hocus-pocus.

Neither, but how is this even an issue? This is only important to crypto-libertarian conspiracy theorists who don't understand how our government works but are eager for a fiscal witch-hunt. Who supports auditing the Department of Education? Who supports auditing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? There is oversight in all of these departments, and yes, even the Fed.

Neither.

Neither.

Kind of a no-brainer, but Obama, of course. Already has and will continue to do so.

Neither will "start" a war with Iran, but Romney's former school buddy certainly would if Romney gets in.

Neither, but to some degrees, both will try. But again, see my answer to above. It's a non-issue that's all about public perception.

Neither, sadly.

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you will know that Obama is our first gay president and Romney bullied gay people in college and feels no remorse for it.

Lots of BIG differences here, but I question what you see as "important real issues."

I went outside and it did not rain. Therefore, if everyone went outside it would never rain. In fact, I can point you to studies in various deserts where people go outside all the time and it never rains. Going outside is healthier, right, than staying inside, so we should all go outside.

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...in my mouth, of course...

I thought I was the only one who saw that Mitt Romney's answer to everything was to bash Obama...about entirely everything else but the question being asked.

I encourage everyone to do themselves a favor: count the number of negative things each candidate has to say and then tally it up.