Note that first of all this is not a "news" story. It's a bunch of charges made by one side in a deep political debate. There's no attempt at substantiation, and not even the pretense of the courtesy of allowing the other side to comment. Second, that so many fierce "independent thinkers" at Slashdot have just accepted the charges and assumed they must be true. Because after all everyone knows Cuba is bad, right? And how do we know? Because "a lot of people" say so. And you make fun of Trump supporters.

If it's important enough to the cops to find you, they will. "Off the grid" or on. Google Unibomber. Chances are you're not doing anything that interests them anyway. I'm not defending government snooping--just stating what I believe the facts are right now.

"Beg the question" doesn't mean "beg for the question." It means to avoid answering the question.

It doesn't matter what this law will say. What matters--and this is of course true of every law--is how it will be enforced. They don't care about MP3s or even cryptography as such. What they care about is being able to decrypt the communications they want to decrypt. It's much easier from their point of view to write an overly broad law even if it appears stupid because it's only the enforcement that counts, and they control the enforcement.

The petitioners oppose what they call Trump's "brand of hate"--perhaps there's a brand of hate they don't oppose? Hate has gotten a bad name, from liberals. Why is hate bad? I hate a lot of things. I hate racism, I hate police brutality, I hate the waste of lives in the society we live in. Am I a bad person for "hating"?

This is how the entire aerospace/aviation industry has functioned from the beginning. Government pays for R&D and private industry capitalizes on it. Boeing's 747 came from work done to develop the C-5. If you're shocked by this story then you haven't been paying attention for the last fifty years.

First of all, what government does not do all this? Second, this is the result of thinking it's OK to not let people you disagree with have the same right to speak as you do. How is this different from what Anonymous does? Or in the US, the people who think it's a good idea, because they don't like Donald Trump, to keep him from speaking?

Where were all the conservatives who complain about government regulation strangling businesses when government regulations strangled Lavabit?

I'm sure if you're against Trump this seems like a good idea. But what will you say when a group of pro-Trump hackers dismantles the campaign you support? If you don't like what Trump has to say, answer it. Trying to silence him will a. fail and b. only prove to his supporters that he's right.

The real basis for this proposed law has nothing to do with encryption or drug trafficking or child molesting. It has everything to do with anti-americanism. He even says as much - it's about keeping US companies from having any influence in Europe.

Why do you think it's worth mentioning that Trump doesn't understand macro-economics? First of all, he probably does, just fine. Second of all, and more important, he and his supporters don't give a s*it about traditional economic "theory" or political theory or any of that other bull. They're mad and they want someone to fix everything.

This is why I don't and never will have a banking app on any mobile device.

I hope that's true because that's what I am. If asked if I am a believer or an atheist I say no. I'm not interested enough in the question of whether God exists to have an answer. I leave that to people who think it's important. I don't.

This is the wrongest part of his manifesto. Immigration--that is, the free flow of labor across national boundaries--strengthens the working class by undercutting national and nationalist prejudices, and anything that strengthens the working class hastens the demise of capitalism. His point of view is that workers are not capable of making history, only being the objects of history. This is wrong--if you don't believe me go work in a sweatshop for a few years.