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Comment Breaking News from the 2000s (Score 1) 100

Is there anyone who is aware of concepts like Secure Flight and the No-fly List really thinking that prior flight information isn't being kept by DHS and used in evaluating future security stance?

If you fly a one-way, last minute cash ticket to Iran, be prepared for that flight data to be taken into account on future US flights. This should be obvious to everone.

Comment Re:Would be an improvement to have options (Score 2) 49

Yes and no. Getting forward-depoyed engineers out to somewhere near a combat zone entails risks, but if you've got combat-ready individuals who've also got both the training *and* the authorization to do field repairs it gives a lot more flexibility to the entire system. In addition to that, there's an inescapable morale improvement when orders reflecting some semblence of reality and sanity come down from the top, and saying "yes, you can do what you need to do to get your job done with product XYZ" actually counts for a lot.

And beyond that, remember that the military is not in any way, shape, or form "all grunts." If some of those contractors want to enlist or join direct, there's a market for that too.

Comment This seems like a red herring (Score 1) 151

The principle here is simple. A journalistic outlet or blogger reported on a story and asserted that a person was involved with a terrorist organization. The university made its choice. Whether the outlet was or was not correct is a matter for the courts if the subject decides to sue for defamation or libel. AI doesn't really matter here, and plenty of anonymous reporting has indeed happened for legitimate, non-nefarious reasons.

If the subject does decide to sue the author, then discovery will turn up what it turns up.

My money, however, would be on the student lying through their teeth about their actions.

Comment The echo chamber is real (Score 1) 40

the virus that causes COVID-19 and a host of other conservative discussion topics

Who in their right mind approved this sentence? Why is "the virus that causes COVID-19" (and thus the global pandemic that was the most important thing since 9/11 in defining modern life) a "conservative discussion topic"? That should be an "everyone discussion topic."

Comment Re:Wont make much difference (Score 2) 75

Most immigrants are a) fleeing from a very grim situation, b) paid a LOT of money to get here, or c) physically risked their lives and basically ran a triathlon to make it here. The last thing theyre gonna do is utterly blow it by picking up a criminal record or talking sh&t. The vast majority of immigrants keep their heads down and are VERY law abiding. Crime rates among immigrants are much lower than citizens. Despite what you hear on right wing media.

You're being a bit cagey and loose with the term "immigrant" there. This covers everything from business owners to border crossers to student visa overstays to anyone else.

And yes, it's entirely reasonable for USCIS to do due diligence before giving someone the privilege of permanent residency, and certainly before becoming a US Citizen. If they came in in 2013 or 2017 and post heavily in support of Hamas on Twitter and Facebook, there's no particular reason the US *has* to provide them citizenship. And, in fact, it's debatable whether we want to keep them in the US at all even now.

Comment This really is a no-brainer (Score 1) 53

Plenty of stuff out there is not appropriate for kids. Securing network via filtration is pointless on a mobile device, and kids are more than smart enough to get around various other mechanisms to access things they shouldn't be able to, including social media.

The principle has always been that something that could be secured in real life (18+ shops and events) should also be able to be secured in the cyber world, but there was never a practical way to validate it that didn't also risk exposing the token and identity of the user access it to be vulnerable to exposure. Well, we have a system now. Smart phones, like them or not, function as de-facto IDs already, and there is no rational reason for Google and Apple to be unwilling to associate the age of the cloud account holder as an AVS somehow. We have the biometrics, we have the pervasive internet, we have the standardized protocols and simple QR-encoding of relevant authentication. Banning under 16 users (for example) from Snapchat is a single, simple switch that the industry has not been willing to enable. If legislation is required to force their hand, so be it.

Comment Re:Rsilvergun derails another discussion (Score 0) 182

I'm sure for a certain percentage of people, talking to a shrink leads to rooting out some other underlying cause rather than true gender dysphoria and further treatment becomes unnecessary. Of course, that's a bit like saying because you went to the doctor thinking you had Covid and it turned out to actually be a run-of-the-mill head cold, therefore Covid doesn't exist.

That "certain percentage of people" that have an "other underlying cause rather than true gender dysphoria" is around 95%. You're being a bit too glib with your analogy.

Comment "that researchers have historically assumed they d (Score 2) 54

Sometimes I think about the dumb people I met in university that were academically successful through rote effort and in part due to that didn't realize how unintelligent they were, and thus also seemed to vastly underestimate everyone else's comprehension of the worldâ"for example many an anthropology student or even prof for whom the idea that cultural values aren't universal seemed like such a mindblowing idea they couldn't imagine people having come to such (frankly obvious) conclusions on their own. When I hear stuff like "that researchers have historically assumed they didn't comprehend" I just have to sigh, clearly an entire field run by egotistical dolts, the kind of people who kept ignoring Neanderthal tools in archaeological digs because they *must* be Human ones because only Humans could make fancy tools like thatâ" The dolphins say so long and thanks for all the fish.

Submission + - Fifteen Years Later, Citizens United Defined the 2024 Election (brennancenter.org)

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: The influence of wealthy donors and dark money was unprecedented. Much of it would have been illegal before the Supreme Court swept away long-established campaign finance rules. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 decision that swept away more than a century’s worth of campaign finance safeguards, turns 15 this month. The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called it the worst ruling of her time on the Court. Overwhelming majorities of Americans have consistently expressed disapproval of the ruling, with at least 22 states and hundreds of cities voting to support a constitutional amendment to overturn it. Citizens United reshaped political campaigns in profound ways, giving corporations and billionaire-funded super PACs a central role in U.S. elections and making untraceable dark money a major force in politics. And yet it may only be now, in the aftermath of the 2024 election, that we can begin to understand the full impact of the decision.

Submission + - Anti-Trump Searches Appear Hidden on TikTok (ibtimes.com)

AmiMoJo writes: Searches for anti-Trump content are now appearing hidden on TikTok for many users after the app came back online in the U.S. TikTok users have taken to Twitter to share that when they search for topics negatively related to President Donald Trump, a message pops up saying "No results found" and that the phrases may violate the app's guidelines. One user said that when they tried to search "Donald Trump rigged election" on a U.S. account, they were met with blocked results. Meanwhile, the same phrase searched from a U.K. account prompted results. Another user shared video of them switching between a U.S. and U.K. VPN to back up the user's viral claims, which has since amassed more than 187,000 likes.
Crime

Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Pardoned (bbc.com) 339

Slashdot readers jkister and databasecowgirl share the news of President Donald Trump issuing a pardon to Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht. An anonymous reader shares a report from the BBC: US President Donald Trump says he has signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht, who operated Silk Road, the dark web marketplace where illegal drugs were sold. Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 in New York in a narcotics and money laundering conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he had called Ulbricht's mother to inform her that he had granted a pardon to her son. Silk Road, which was shut down in 2013 after police arrested Ulbricht, sold illegal drugs using Bitcoin, as well as hacking equipment and stolen passports.

"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump said in his post online on Tuesday evening. "He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!" Ulbricht was found guilty of charges including conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking. During his trial, prosecutors said Ulbricht's website, hosted on the hidden "dark web", sold more than $200 million worth of drugs anonymously.

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