I love how it's illegal to adjust part of URL but perfectly legal to wiretap, decrypt personal communications and spy on billions of people.
There are a myriad of things that are legal for the government to do that are illegal for a common citizen. There's no irony in that.
Weev didn't hack anything. He committed data theft and possibly attempted extortion. Those should be the the basis of his trial.
Also, just to be clear, those things are actually quite illegal for the government to do both on a national and international scale.
If the government does not require a warrant to do something, then it should be legal for anyone to do. After all, the entire purpose of a warrant is to insure oversight in the use of government power.
The government doesn't require a warrant to prevent people from entering or leaving the country.
The government doesn't require a warrant to block off city streets or do any of a number of things to public property.
The only things that the Constitution requires the government to get a warrant to do are "search and seizure", which are terms with very specific meanings in the Common Law. The NSA somehow argues that intercepting people's traffic isn't a "search" until an analyst actually looks at it, which I think is a ridiculous argument; however, the response isn't "everything you do needs a warrant", but "that's a search, and searches need warrants".
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Citizens in the US have a duty to de-escalate the situation, a 'duty to retreat', unless they're backed into a metaphorical corner ('castle doctrine').
Police are presently seen as having a duty to escalate - to allow someone potentially hostile to back down and leave without handcuffs is seen as a dangerous failure, extending even to periods when the police officer is off-duty. Meek compliance with 'lawful orders' is the penultimate goal, and people will be bossed around, arrested, tortured (Who the fuck thought 'drive stun' mode was a good idea), or shot for failing to show appropriate amounts of submissiveness.
Assault against a police officer is seen as a crime against the state, whereas assault against a citizen is essentially mandated for a police officer to do their job.
The rules for actual murder are only slightly less assymmetrical.
Examples abound.
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First breaking off civil relations with the citizenry via the drug war and then paramilitarizing our police force post 9/11, and finally having their behavior revealed with Youtube and smartphones, has severely damaged the credibility of the police in this country, good and bad; It's going to take some severe changes to bring it back - changes explicitly designed to "make it harder for them to do their job", as they would describe it.
From Wikipedia: "A Stand-Your-Ground law is a type of self-defense law that gives individuals the right to use deadly force to defend themselves without any requirement to evade or retreat from a dangerous situation. It is law in certain jurisdictions within the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law
This is the type of law that allowed Trayvon Martin's killer to walk away as an innocent man.
Please stop. Zimmerman's legal team never even mentioned SYG. It wouldn't have made sense, since their claim was that at the time of the shooting he was pinned on his back and unable to move. In such a situation, no one has a "duty to retreat".
I'm not claiming SYG is good or bad law, but if you'd like to argue against it please do so in a sensible manner.
"The "stand your ground law" was not used by the Zimmerman defense team during the trial, although it was considered at an earlier time. Some sources have pointed out that “Stand Your Ground” was mentioned in the Jury Instructions preceding the trial,[308] however, this is part of the required Jury Instructions in all Florida murder trials in which the defendant claims “Justifiable Use of Deadly Force” as part of their defense."
And: "The police chief said that Zimmerman was released because there was no evidence to refute Zimmerman's claim of having acted in self-defense, and that under Florida's Stand Your Ground statute, the police were prohibited by law from making an arrest."
Honestly, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that SYG played a role in the jury's decision-making process. But hey, don't take my word for it, what about the reaction of the Governor of Florida (again from Wikipedia): "Three weeks after the shooting, Florida Governor Rick Scott commissioned a 19-member task force to review the Florida statute that deals with justifiable use of force, including the Stand Your Ground provision."
If that's still to tenuous a connection for you, let's hear from one of the jurors on the case: "An anonymous member of the jury appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 on July 15 to discuss how Florida's Stand Your Ground law provided a legal justification for Zimmerman's actions. According to the juror, neither charge against Zimmerman applied "because of the heat of the moment and the Stand Your Ground" http://thewabashc3.blogspot.fr/2013/07/timothy-johnson-media...
So yeah, I really do think it's "sensible" to think that SYG helped Trayvon Martin's killer walk away as an innocent man.
Other parts of the world take the idea of excessive use of police force somewhat more seriously and are weary of it.