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aclevernicknameon Did you know John Roberts is also chief justice of the NSA’s surveillance state?

forgive me. I was breaking down the fourth wall, and talking to the reader of the thread themselves. I was trying to support your argument. :)

aclevernicknameon First arrest captured on Google Glass points to a “Little Brother” future

silence is considered a commercial dishonor, and allows the other party to dictate the terms of the contract you're negotiating. Police are excellent contract negotiators ("you are under arrest" is a contract offer, legally), and are trained that if you're not in acceptance with their offers/orders, they pretty much get to do whatever they want to/with you.

Seems the Supreme Court disagrees with your opinion as well [1].

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/supreme-court-silen...

aclevernicknameon NSA Rejecting FOIA Requests by US Citizens

You're living in a Free World. Have you read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Those are the ones you need to enforce, alongside your Intellectual Property rights ( to your likeness, voice samples, and output). Take them to the International Criminal Court. but _you_ have to sue. As a person with rights that can be prejudiced.

aclevernicknameon NSA Rejecting FOIA Requests by US Citizens

as my prof once said: "it ain't as easy as 1-2-3, but it is as easy as 1-2-3-4-5-6".

aclevernicknameon Did you know John Roberts is also chief justice of the NSA’s surveillance state?

If you think the parent is incorrect, I invite everyone to look up Gonzales v. Raich, and Wickard v. Filburn. Everything is commerce, and therefore regulated under Congress via the commerce clause.

aclevernicknameon In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A.

When a country abuses their own rules, the heads of state must be tried in an international (criminal) court. But no non-lawyer knows how to do it, so it never gets done.

You're right about it being the norm. The only way to stop it is to sue them. it's literally the only thing they understand.

aclevernicknameon NSA Rejecting FOIA Requests by US Citizens

Oh man, this is easy. They denied his request because there was no confirmation that they did or did not have information.

send a "Hi how are you" letter to the NSA chief, naming him as a party, with an affidavit stating that the NSA does, in fact, have information on you. Give him 10 days to rebut it. Then give him a second letter, acknowledging his fault/acquiescence to the affidavit. then 10 days after that, send a third notice cementing his agreement to the affidavit's truth.

THEN you go do a FOIA request. Include your paperwork with the FOIA request. They can't refuse, because they'd have to contradict your private agreement with the NSA Chief first. if they do refuse, you now have legal recourse in (Secret) courts, because the NSA will now be proven to have obstructed process.

aclevernicknameon HBGary, Palantir, Prism, Facebook and The Industrial Surveillance Complex

That's slightly disingenuous, though I don't think you did it intentionally.

Oracle was the name of the software database Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oats created, named after the CIA project they all worked on together [1]. Imagine a world where Edward Snowden got excited about the NSA surveillance, and dorked out on it. That's these guys. Products of the government, who found a way to sell products to the government.

Palantir smells a lot like the same sort of beast, I think. Just my opinion, though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation#Overall_tim...

aclevernicknameon New York City Launches .nyc Domain Names

Halsbury's Laws of England: Local Government says this about the relationship between the Lord Mayor of the City of London (not the Mayor of Greater London) and the Queen:

By ancient custom the Lord Mayor tenders the City Sword to the Sovereign when she enters the City on state occasions, in token acknowledgement of her overriding authority. The Sovereign touches the sword and, by that gesture, returns it to the Lord Mayor with implied permission to carry it before her whilst she is in the City. Also by ancient custom the permission of the Lord Mayor is sought for the passage of troops through the City, and he receives quarterly, under the Sovereign's sign manual, the password of the Tower of London. As spokesman for the citizens, he is entitled to the right of special access to the Sovereign.

They're essentially a small enclave of "free" [1] people who are allied with Liz, smack dab in the middle of London. Most of the previous Lord Mayors of the City of London were descendants of the people who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta. If, in order to stay in honor of the rules of law, they must grant her a faux sovereignty in their kingdom, it's to do her honor that she would not normally [2] need bestowed on her, in order to keep her allied with The City.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_City#Freedom_of...

[2] (Free people are all "kings" or "sovereign")

aclevernicknameon New York City Launches .nyc Domain Names

This is interesting. I take this as another step towards New York City being recognized as a nation of it's own, much like The City [1] and Vatican City [2]. The United Nations HQ is already based there, so it has a good claim to said sovereignty.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_city

aclevernicknameon Firefox Takes the Performance Crown From Chrome

> Not really surprising that the Chrome crowd are finding something else to fixate on now,

Heck with the Chrome fans, lookit all the IE10 zealots in here!

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

> Yes, the same applies for you calling everyone who doesn't share your view a "shill".

Check out your Argumentum Ad Hominem! [1]

> "shill"

> shill

> "shill"

are you quoting me when you say "shill"? where did I use that word? If I didn't use it, doesn't that make this a Strawman Fallacy? [2]

>I humbly request you to change your mindset from the pre-2000 slashdot era

Perfect example of Association Fallacy [3].

> grow up

followed by an Appeal to emotion! nice! [4]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_by_association

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

>The "goalposts" haven't "moved".

>Emscripten isn't currently production-grade software, and it still just compiles down to JavaScript.

took you two sentences to contradict yourself and move the goalposts again. Nowhere were we talking about "production grade".

> I hope you understand that either of those options is still a case of using JavaScript. Are you seriously disputing that?

That's a strawman fallacy. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

aclevernicknameon You May Not Like Weev, But Your Online Freedom Depends on His Appeal

What a useless article. Jury found weev guilty already, and now they're filing an appeal. No word on when the appeal will be heard, just 1,000 words to fill up that lack of information, combined with linkbait headline.

aclevernicknameon Restore the Fourth Organizes Protests Against Unconstitutional Surveillance

so it's not hard, except for that whole "getting the apathetic to vote" part? America is called a sleeping giant for a reason.

aclevernicknameon Restore the Fourth Organizes Protests Against Unconstitutional Surveillance

Let's also remember how Nokia, Siemens A.G, and Twitter were all used to identify protesters in Iran back in 2009 [1].

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html

aclevernicknameon Demonstrations to protest NSA spying planned for July 4th

please do. I'll be home all day on the 4th.

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

standard ubuntu builds, across multiple computers. Perhaps not.

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

That's right, move them goalposts [1]. Thanks for the reply, always a fan of your comments.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

"posts" would connote more than one, correct?

also, good job with that strawman you put up there. you sure knocked it down real well.

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

Keep up the pro-microsoft posts! maybe we can see a resurgence in Windows Phone adoption!

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

the ability to connect to 10+ IMAP accounts and not use 700MB of RAM would be a nice feature. I can either run Thunderbird or Firefox on my netbook, but not both.

aclevernicknameon Mozilla and Partners Prepare to Launch First Firefox OS Smartphones

Look at you, pretending asm.js and emscripten don't exist.

aclevernicknameon Texas teen makes violent joke during video game, is jailed

Can you tell me which of these ten planks [1] have not been implemented in the United States?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto#II._Pr...

aclevernicknameon Texas teen makes violent joke during video game, is jailed

This is even funnier, considering that post-2008 bailouts, the Big 3 Car companies (GM, Ford, Chrysler) all moved their factories/jobs to St. Petersburg, Russia. I'd say "ironic", but it seems to have been planned.

Either way, we're now the USSR, and all the capitalism is on the other side of the ocean.

aclevernicknameon Lawyers said Bush couldn’t spy on Americans. He did it anyway.

Now that you've brought up the subject of illusions, let's discuss some of the bigger illusions we currently agree to en masse:

1) the 30+ year war on drugs, still in effect because the masses believe the illusion that being excessively tough on crime makes for a better society.

2) 12 USC being modified by the Trading With the Enemies Act of 1917 to include "United States Citizen" [1].

3) House Joint Resolution 192 of June 5th 1933 banning gold and silver as currency, ushering in a bankruptcy with the trimmings of Keynesian Economics [2].

4) "9/11 changed everything".

5) Most relevant, NSPD-51 pulling all branches of government under the Executive during Bush II [3], and none of us caring.

Every one of the above is an illusion; handwaving by bureaucrats, that were integral for bringing us to where we are today. Why do you choose to accept/live by the above illusions? because everyone else is?

(Additionally, you may be making an Appeal to Incredulity [4], if you weren't already aware.)

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/12/95a

[2] http://www.focusoncommerce.net/index_htm_files/LAW%20-%20Hou...

[3] https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-51.htm

[4] http://www.rationalresponders.com/logical_fallacy_lesson_11_...

aclevernicknameon Ecuador Spikes Halts Snowden's Asylum Because Julian Assange Is a Fame Hog

So, Snowden is disappeared in Russia, and Ecuador halts Snowden's asylum request. We've had no update on Snowden's whereabouts since his (missed) flight to Havana, and don't even know if he's actually in the airport he's reported to be stuck inside.

But let's blame this on Assange. We can spin this to make him look weaker for trying to help. That will help to minimize the effect both of their efforts have on the world. The "good guys" keep winning, and the "bad guys" keep losing.

God Bless America.

aclevernicknameon Lawyers said Bush couldn’t spy on Americans. He did it anyway.

the case the parent refers to is Marbury V. Madison, where SCOTUS assumes the ability to interpret matters of constitutionality.

aclevernicknameon I Used DuckDuckGo for a Week and Had to Switch Back. Here’s why.

unless you count !image, which redirects to GIS.

aclevernicknameon I Used DuckDuckGo for a Week and Had to Switch Back. Here’s why.

Google does not offer a Tor Hidden Service, but DDG does [1]. Not only can google not see my search query (unless I use !g instead of !sp), but not even my ISP knows what I'm looking for. There is a bit of lag for searches (5 whole seconds maybe), but those of us used to the way Tor works, this is not much of a problem at all.

There's also a Firefox Search Add-on [2], for those interested. I combine it with Foobar [3] for a more seamless and chrome-like interface.

[1] http://3g2upl4pq6kufc4m.onion/

[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-to...

[3] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/foobar/