MetaFilter

Having been to Hong Kong after the handover, and then into mainland China, there is a very real difference in feel between Hong Kong and China. I didn't have any interaction with regular law enforcement there, or with the legal system, but customs into Hong Kong, and then customs from Hong Kong into China, were completely different experiences. A Hong Kong visa is "show up at the border with a U.S. passport", a China visa to visit a factory in Guangdong was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by straw at 4:38 PM on June 12, 2013

I think the CIA has better resources at their disposal, we're not going to be affecting things one way or another.
On the other hand it would be a shame if they didn't use it ask metafilter at all. Maybe there's an analyst tragically sitting at his desk in Langley, wondering if he can still eat that lasagne he put in the office fridge last week but not knowing who to turn to answer this conundrum.
posted to MetaTalk by Erberus at 1:55 PM on June 12, 2013

Do you really think MeFi isn't just some massive front for the CIA's data-gathering? Wake Up Sheeple!!!
posted to MetaTalk by hydatius at 9:59 AM on June 10, 2013

There is absolutely no way the CIA is depending on Metafilter to find him.
posted to MetaTalk by nooneyouknow at 9:58 AM on June 10, 2013

Now he's just revealing secrets to the foreign press.

Secrets no one suspected even!
posted to MetaFilter by Brandon Blatcher at 2:55 PM on June 12, 2013

I will say that tablets are pretty much the most obnoxious way to take a public photo, what with blocking the view of everyone around you.
posted to MetaFilter by klangklangston at 2:24 PM on June 12, 2013

No sarcasm: he is the best human.

Fighting this in the court system will ensure it stays bubbling around in the news cycle for freaking years. Anything else he could do and it would just blow over. But he's going to make Obama's weasels fight.

I'm getting a little bit of that "12-dimensional chess" about this guy. Which is good, because that beats Obama's 11 dimensions pretty easily.
posted to MetaFilter by seanmpuckett at 8:56 AM on June 12, 2013

"Compliance Innovations. I've just been sitting here for several minutes contemplating this name. Is compliance really an area in which we need innovation? The various forms of the word 'comply' make me feel dirtier than any other words."

Compliance to innovation is pretty much the motto of the 21st century. Everything must change, whether you like it or not.

I really wonder how these plates would perform in low light conditions.
posted to MetaFilter by Kevin Street at 4:01 PM on June 11, 2013

"It's the first of its kind," says David Findlay, co-founder of Compliance Innovations, the South Carolina company that created the e-tags.

Compliance Innovations. I've just been sitting here for several minutes contemplating this name. Is compliance really an area in which we need innovation? The various forms of the word 'comply' make me feel dirtier than any other words.
posted to MetaFilter by brianconn at 3:48 PM on June 11, 2013

Behind every idiotic government proposal is a halfwitted vendor seeking to capture a new market.
posted to MetaFilter by aramaic at 2:34 PM on June 11, 2013

Because people who have had their cars stolen want them back?

None of the stated goals actually require the e-paper license-plate part of the system! The license plate is updated by means of the cell network. All of the stated goals can be met with just the cell-radio part of the system. Stolen car, kidnapped kid? Ask it where it is à la "find my iphone". If you want to get all fancy and dystopian, attach the cell module to the CAN bus so it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hattifattener at 2:27 PM on June 11, 2013

This will be hacked immediately. Random vanity plates for everyone!
posted to MetaFilter by tempestuoso at 1:38 PM on June 11, 2013

I cannot tell what point you're trying to make here.

The point is that no matter what, it's all legal because of reasons.
posted to MetaFilter by one more dead town's last parade at 3:36 PM on June 11, 2013

About Pearl Harbour and reading Japanese coded messages bla bla bla ?

The US was at WAR with taht country and its citizens during that time. Hello? WW2 remember?

Is the US at war with me, or again at war with German teenagers? Kenyan grandmothers? The Cargo Cultists in the middle of nowhere Islands?

Is the US really at war, inside their minds, with the other 6.5 billion people whose rights you seem to be blithely... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by infini at 3:25 PM on June 11, 2013

I wish to introduce an image to the discussion.
The winners.
posted to MetaFilter by adamvasco at 3:05 PM on June 11, 2013

Secret Court Opinion on Secret Surveillance Needs To Remain Secret, Says Government

But it's not really secret! Trust us!
posted to MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 1:54 PM on June 11, 2013

Go gentle on him, young sirs. Its hard to come to terms with the fact that the very foundation on which your entire body of expertise stands upon is riddled with termites and hollowed through. What value now of the oaths you took or vows you made?
posted to MetaFilter by infini at 1:50 PM on June 11, 2013

Secret Court Opinion on Secret Surveillance Needs To Remain Secret, Says Government
In San Jose on Friday, President Obama said:
That's not to suggest that you just say, trust me; we’re doing the right thing; we know who the bad guys are. And the reason that's not how it works is because we’ve got congressional oversight and judicial oversight. And if people can't trust not only the executive branch but also don't trust Congress and don't trust federal judges... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by adamvasco at 1:47 PM on June 11, 2013

What secret law?

Sen Merkley calls it that
posted to MetaFilter by rhizome at 1:35 PM on June 11, 2013

Google seeks approval from Justice Department to disclose more numbers on requests about users
posted to MetaFilter by Golden Eternity at 1:00 PM on June 11, 2013

There is no privacy interest in dialed numbers.

Again, you probably want to read up on the facts of the case. It's not just dialed numbers that we're talking about here, not just going forward in time, not just of one targeted phone line, and it's not related to the investigation of any particular thing.

What we're dealing with in 2013 is not Smith in so many ways, so I don't know why you keep bringing it up.
posted to MetaFilter by one more dead town's last parade at 12:24 PM on June 11, 2013

Dude, "extra judicial, extra territorial planetary residents" is not not the preferred nomenclature. "Undocumented", please.

Um... I hereby document myself.
posted to MetaFilter by infini at 11:20 AM on June 11, 2013

Emptywheel with some follow up on Director Clapper's "least untruthful" response to Senator Wyden's yes or no question about whether the NSA collects data on Americans:

Wyden had given Clapper the question in advance (so, it wasn't a surprise);
Wyden gave Clapper an opportunity to revise or amend his response after the hearing; Clapper declined.

I have a hope that Director Clapper will get another shot at this. Third time's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by notyou at 7:44 AM on June 11, 2013

Booz Allen Fires Edward Snowden

Booz Allen announced this morning that the company has officially fired Edward Snowden, the man behind the NSA leaks, for "violations of the firm's code of ethics."

Booz Allen can confirm that Edward Snowden, 29, was an employee of our firm for less than 3 months, assigned to a team in Hawaii. Snowden, who had a salary at the rate of $122,000, was terminated June 10, 2013 for violations of the firm's... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Room 641-A at 7:17 AM on June 11, 2013

This is pure conjecture on my part, but I strongly believe that it will turn out that the NSA has found a solution that transforms the factoring of large primes from an NP-complete problem into a trivial one. If that is the case, all shared-key cryptography would be broken and about as easy for them to read as plain text.

Factoring integers that are the result of multiplying two large primes is not known to be an NP-complete problem. A fast solution... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ltl at 6:17 AM on June 11, 2013

US-Beamte schickten Deutsche nach Facebook-Mails zurück, Lotte-Lene Burkhard, Der Westen, 07 June 2013
[Google Auto-translation]
Against an agreed allowance Jana should take care of the children. Besides, she wanted to attend a language course to improve their English. With their prospective host-father had regular contact via Facebook.

Than the high school graduate finally landed in the U.S., it was taken away and questioned at... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ob1quixote at 6:11 AM on June 11, 2013

nightwood: “Total surveillance of all German citizens by the NSA? I hope that's a mis-translation. Because I don't see the current revelations showing that.”

My correspondent on the Continent told me this morning about people coming forward and saying they were detained and questioned after arriving in the U.S. and being confronted in these interrogations with print-outs of theoretically private conversations from e-mail and Facebook. Still scrounging for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ob1quixote at 5:46 AM on June 11, 2013

I'm waiting for Pew to poll me and the rest of the world who are not US citizens to see how we feel about this.
posted to MetaFilter by infini at 5:26 AM on June 11, 2013

John Oliver's first bit on the Daily Show last night was terrific: "Good News: You're Not Paranoid." "Brought to you by tinfoil; why not wear it as a hat?" He even identified it as worse than Orwell.

"I think you're misunderstanding the perceived problem here Mr. President. No one is saying that you broke any laws. We're just saying, it's a little bit weird that you didn't have to."
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 2:26 AM on June 11, 2013

I just wish it would be treated like news by grownups instead of a chance to argue about who we think really killed JFK.

well garsh mebbe sum dai wen i gro up i can lurn all bowt it

Watched the video, read the article, among others, and that's what I'm commenting on. Please do not swing that giant "you're all acting like little children" brush among people who are commenting from all kinds of different perspectives,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:21 PM on June 10, 2013

Reading/books as social display has a lot of class baggage, really.

Certain types of reading as social display can certainly be classist but that no more makes reading classist than the fact that $250 per head tasting menus at michelin starred restaurants exist makes eating food classist.

"Reading is classist" is pernicious and false. Reading is one of the great class equalizers. That's one reason... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Justinian at 2:25 PM on June 10, 2013

I dunno, it's pretty crazy but "craziest thing ever on Metafilter" is a high bar!
posted to MetaFilter by Justinian at 2:32 PM on June 10, 2013

I don't disagree that reading is patriachy approved and also classist

This is just about the craziest thing I've ever read on Metafilter.
posted to MetaFilter by Aizkolari at 2:31 PM on June 10, 2013

The builder said differently:

I guess I made the classic mistake of believing the MeFi writeup and "journalism".
posted to MetaFilter by DU at 2:15 PM on June 10, 2013

This weekend DNI and former BAH executive James Clapper explained his "least untruthful" response to Senator Wyden's question last March in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

First, the exchange with Wyden:

Wyden: "And this is for you, Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front. And I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer, because I know Sen. Feinstein wants to move on.

"Last... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by notyou at 1:08 PM on June 10, 2013

Er...what? The guys who committed the rape in Steubenville are in what way analogous to "the Sheriff" or "Prince John" now? You're suggesting that this was some kind of "revenge" arrest--that the FBI or the DA or someone was so outraged to see the rapists convicted that they decided to "get" this guy?

Sometimes metaphors pull the reigns out of their riders' hands and gallop crazily off across the field pooping... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by aught at 11:20 AM on June 10, 2013

I believe the current US government has a deliberate policy of targeting people who use any sort of behavior that borders on hacking in conjunction with any sort of activism, and devoting highly disproportionate efforts to dragging them into court and convicting them of some sort of crime, which doesn't at all fit the seriousness of any actual crime that they may have committed. That their purpose in prosecuting him here is entirely political, to send messages and make examples.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tyllwin at 9:48 AM on June 10, 2013

There's part of me that fears that I would be harassed or otherwise "marked" for offering any assistance.

This means that PRISM is working as it should, and that you should be happy about it, like a good American Patriot.
posted to MetaFilter by Old'n'Busted at 8:54 AM on June 10, 2013

Hey America, your priorities are showing.
posted to MetaFilter by mek at 7:24 AM on June 10, 2013

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were also traitors, if we want to get technical on the definition of "traitor" here.
posted to MetaFilter by BlueJae at 9:09 AM on June 10, 2013

I feel that the NSA, Homeland Security, and other agencies put in charge of keeping us "safe" are likely not trying to become tyrannical. They're following the directives and ideas they've been given.

Truly, we were the HAL 9000 all along.
posted to MetaFilter by Apocryphon at 11:09 PM on June 9, 2013

Brianstorms wrote: "Turnkey tyranny" was mentioned in an 1819 article in a political magazine in London.

A "turnkey" was once an official entrusted with the keys of a prison, someone who was on the very lowest rank of prison management. It then became a derogatory term for someone with enough officious power to make people's lives unpleasant, but not enough to earn them any respect. The article you link to uses it in its literal... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Joe in Australia at 10:14 PM on June 9, 2013

I've confirred with my fellow Obama appologists and its been decided to go with Snowden is mentally unstable and not trustworthy. High school dropout makes $200,000 a year. Really? You don't think we can knock that one to peices. Claims he was living in Hawaii, where is the sun tan? Also says he voted for a third party presidential candidate; so he's easily put in the category of nutty weirdo.

See its easy. By Friday he'll be destroyed in the eyes of the public.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by humanfont at 8:00 PM on June 9, 2013

There is no way on earth you can convince me that this is nothing more than the same scare tactics that I've seen Republicans use time and time again.

If you cannot be convinced by any means then you are not arguing in good faith.

So you're an anarchist that doesn't believe in taxation or any other form of government intervention?

No. Instead, I lost the context of the statement as the length of the thread ballooned out of control.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 7:02 PM on June 9, 2013

I've only been saying that calling these actions "totalitarian" or "secret police" is incredibly disgusting and a poor argument to give, when you can simply say: "I THINK THIS IS ILLEGAL."

Maybe you need to unpack and reflect on that, because it isn't enough to "simply" state one's opinion. Comparisons to historical regimes (including fictional ones such as George Orwell's) are part of trying to explain why,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by polymodus at 6:47 PM on June 9, 2013

But is taxing people a totalitarian practice?

That is some quite impressive level of disingenuous bullshit when you are comparing to a non-Humpty Dumpty definition of totalitarian.
posted to MetaFilter by jaduncan at 6:39 PM on June 9, 2013

There's a big difference between totalitarian practices in order to "protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime," and totalitarian practices in order to protect the lives of U.S. citizens.

Wow. Now there's the creed of the authoritarian.
posted to MetaFilter by jaduncan at 6:16 PM on June 9, 2013

I guess I don't see any proof of totalitarian practices so far in any of this

Secret courts, secret laws, and warrantless eavesdropping seem like totalitarian practices, to me. Granted, I'm just a nobody, but that's just what I think.
posted to MetaFilter by Blazecock Pileon at 6:12 PM on June 9, 2013

I was a kid when Soviet Refuseniks were in the news a lot, and I remember all the stories visitors told about life in the former Soviet Union: the feeling of being followed, the knowledge that phones were tapped, the constant fear that you were talking to a government informer. One of the things visitors kept coming back to was that each floor of their hotel had someone sitting at a desk so the government could track who was coming and going and who they were talking to. This was considered an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Joe in Australia at 5:59 PM on June 9, 2013

This is the biggest problem I have. I don't deny that the intelligence agencies in the United States may in fact be violating privacy rights far more than we think. But it's an unfounded leap to go from: "This is a massive infringement upon our privacy for the sake of security," to "This is a massive infringement upon our privacy for nefarious purposes of controlling the populous." ... We don't have a secret police, a la Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, whereby... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by orthogonality at 4:27 PM on June 9, 2013