Someone commented on Reddit that space programs bring us (the human race) closer. The reaction I am seeing in the international press to India's mars mission is quite the opposite - instead of praising India or just reporting the news, all I see is "BUT THEY ARE SO POOR!" and skepticism. I don't want to say this, but I felt journalists were being almost "jealous" that India achieved this.
I think the scientists involved would be totally fine with skepticism about technical decisions that they have made on such missions. I would argue that they might even appreciate it when it comes from people who actually understand the subject (instead of having knowledge worth one wikipedia page). But what might discourage them (and disappoints me, for being a citizen of the country in question) is the lack of trust that is being put in space exploration and petty cost-benefit analysis being used. The same analysis that has been refuted a million other times on hundreds of other occasions in all countries and continents.
yup - I totally dont understand this - why does no one apply this cost-benefit analysis when the US goes to pointless wars for years on end - spending literally TRILlIONS - for something that will have very limited positive outcomes. Especially given the poverty in the US itself - the number of homeless people and foreclosures.
>>The reaction I am seeing in the international press to India's mars mission is quite the opposite
Indian press was no different. There was 20 minute debate(These guys are still debating if the mission was necessary) on whether the mission was necessary. The next 2 hour prime time news was about Sachin Tendulkar's last test match.
Some channels just gave a passing reference. All that was shown is that ISRO had launched a mars mission with a 20 second clip of the rocket taking off.
There is no popular demand. The general public is not in any position to understand what the mission is or why its important. How much effort was gone into it, and how it was done.
Not jealous, just surprisingly misinformed and perhaps narrow minded :) Hope that India is going to work on the communications side of things, exciting times indeed!
right - and so do Indians I'm very sure - it's just that anyone with an understanding of science and a sound logical ability will know that tooting about how bad the poverty in a country is - when they're achieving something succesful - is anything but "concern". those problems have been there for decades - 70 million worth of toilets isnt going to solve indias sanitation problems. 70 million worth of space missions will inspire 70 million more kids to become scientists and engineers - and drive the country forward.
> Terrorism is not a great threat to either the US or the UK - a tiny number of people have been killed by it, and yet it is painted as an existential threat which must be fought at all costs
"Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Own Furniture as by Terrorism"
Few people were killed in the Boston Marathon bombings. But many were maimed , and it will remain traumatic for them for the rest of their lives. But , more importantly, this bomb hit a group of people whose only reason for being hit/killed was that they were in the same geographic area as this bomb. There was no reason for this tragedy.
In drunk driving, you can place the cause relatively easily. Furniture falls over because a shelf was badly built. You can place the cause. Most acts of terrorism happen due to extremely nebulous and complicated reasons, so the people who die in events such as 9/11 and Boston died "for no reason".
Talk to some Japanese people about the March 11th Tsunami. the feelings about that event are very similar to those Americans have about 9/11, as a turning point in society and something where many innocent people died for no good reason. Terrorist attacks are basically on the same level as huge natural disasters, emotionally.
Terrorist attacks are extremely traumatising for people just like getting an arm cut off is traumatizing a lot more than being slowly bruised over and over on the arm. It's a huge shock event that feels unavoidable, and people don't want to experience it ever again (because we're not all robots who count lives like we're accountants). It's a major event and trying to avoid it is entirely reasonable.
How are "In drunk driving, you can place the cause relatively easily." and "only reason for being hit/killed was that they were in the same geographic area as this bomb. There was no reason for this tragedy." incompatible in any way?
You can also place the cause of the bombing extremely easily - the person with the bomb. In drunk driving accident, people get hit/killed just because they were in the same geographic area as the drunk driver. They will also get sometimes extremely traumatised (enough to avoid any road travel).
Both cases are completely out of control for the affected people. What's the big difference?
I don't know what you are smoking but given your comment history, I am sure you would be fine if the police came knocking at your door at night and randomly wanted to search your place, without a warrant. Right? Since you did nothing wrong, it should be OK for the police to randomly search people's places and arrest them. We should trust the police also and let's remove the judicial oversight they have. Correct?
You should ask yourself why the police should not be allowed to do this. And then if you do understand, you may perhaps realize why the GCHQ should not be allowed to carry out mass surveillance.
The NSA said they prevented 54 attacks but it was widely reported supported by evidence that that was not the case. Not to mention that they repeatedly lied to Congress. If you trust these organizations so much, good for you. But this bogeyman of "terrorism, drug dealers" is not acceptable by most people who understand this. The probability of me getting killed just randomly on the street is far far higher than me getting killed in a terrorist attack in the US. Statistics are important. Why should the government go overboard to prevent this? Have you realized that gun violence in the US for example causes more deaths than all terrorism attacks combined? And yet even a slight mention of this has gun lovers cry about how their second amendment is being violated. Let's not forget that there is a fourth amendment also:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
There is a reason that democracies around the world don't allow police to just randomly walk into your house and arrest you. A good reason.
Just because terrorism has to be prevented, doesn't mean that our basic rights have to be violated. By that logic, let's go even further and install CCTV cameras and microphones in everyone's homes. All crimes can be prevented. And perhaps the next step can be to have thought control devices even.
A serious question: while I have nothing against Silk Road (the drug war is a waste of money anyways), aren't people afraid of putting stuff in their body that they had an anonymous person send to them? I mean, unless the seller has a reputation, isn't there is a substantial risk of using that drug?
Are my fears unfound? On one hand, the idea of buying drugs online is probably more safe than doing it on the streets, but the anonymity this offers has a potential downside like the one I mentioned above.
Your fears are no larger than those of a drug addict on the street, not sure what exactly is in the little baggies they buy. Frankly, I think online is safer, as the guy you're buying from online has a reputation system, and is less likely to stick a gun in your face and take your money. And less likely to sell you baby powder and run.
If a grocery store harms you in an illegal way you they can be punished by the force of the state in a variety of ways. The same is not true of a anonymous person on an inbound tor site.
If someone sold bad shit on the silk road, they'd lose all of their rep and stop making money.
On the original silk road, it cost a very large amount to get a vendor account. So if you decided to start selling bad shit, you'd have to play nice for a while to break even, a while longer to build trust, and then go out in a blaze of bad shit.
I don't really see why anyone would do that. If you have good enough connections to get a good rep on the Silk Road (or similar site), you have good enough connections to never need to sell bad shit. As Stringer Bell would say, it's all about the product. If you have better product than your competition, you'll win in the end.
Not the grocery store, the guy at some factory somewhere that peas into the soup that eventually makes it way to your shelf.
Point is there is a huge web of people everybody trusts to not be evil. They are trusted for no good reason (other than as stated most people aren't sociopaths). But some are. Protecting against them isn't worth the tiny risk of exposure.
Likewise fretting over being "defrauded" by anonymous (but reputed) persons whom you buy illicit goods from is not worth worrying about. Same with ebay, kickstarter etc.
> Do you ever buy anything at grocery store, drug store, restaurant that you put in your body?
These are all inspected by governments. You can argue that this is imperfect, does not happen frequently enough, leaves something to be desired, won't catch everything, etc., but speaking personally, I do take those inspection scores seriously when I see them posted on the walls of places.
It would not be controversial to state that the Federalist Papers were published anonymously, despite the fact that the authors gave themselves the pseudonym "Publius".
You've clearly been watching too much tv. Most people don't buy drugs from random dudes in sketch alley. They get them from a dealer a friend knows. This peer network will have a stronger safety record. A dealer would never risk selling something that's unsafe, as sales would dry up within days of hearing about a bad incident.
There are actually some independent people who test various drugs on Silk Road. Obviously they could be wrong/rigged, but it seems like a far better step than buying anywhere else:
The LSD Avengers are a group of individuals that perform trip, reagent, and lab tests on LSD that is found on the Silk Road in order to verify the legitimacy of the product and to weed out scammers. Their primary goal is to aide individuals in easily finding the holy grail of psychedelics.
This applies to most recreational drug taking. It all entails risk. Dealers are shady and so are their sources. There aren't a lot of "completely trust this guy who sells me LSD" scenarios.
They do, but they take the risk. Shows how much people want that stuff in their body.
The fear of unknown chemicals in there is extremely warranted. However, I believe the fear of there being a higher probability online is unwarranted. Because of the anonymity between online and real personas, you're probably more likely to be buying from someone with a high online reputation, which would be more likely to give untainted products.
They have ratings systems on there to help this - obviously it doesn't mean it's not possible to get stuff that isn't want you think it is, but it's not too much better or worse than trusting a local dealer on the street.
If you kill people slowly, so, booze, fags, fatty food, pollution, and so on, then its fine. Killing people really fast, well, that's then it gets iffy. Oh, unless you are a government waging a jihad, or is it "war", on something.
I agree, but I do wonder what is going to happen when people start speaking up to say something quite the opposite. "I don't speak for my employer, but I think the NSA is quite awesome and I don't mind that they've been listening to us at all." Or something to that effect.
With the increasingly alarming NSA plans being revealed, if someone thinks NSA is doing a good job, they deserve to be fired. His thoughts and opinion doesn't give him the rights to have public data available to governments. This, ofcourse, assumes that he is into Security Team at some well known company.
In this circumstance, I hate to defend those that did what they did. The comment above about authoritarian followers is a good explanation as to why the officers/medical staff would comply. But I could see how one would comply, not to serve or aid, but out of fear or simply the with the perception that they _had_ to comply.
Doctors command an astounding level of respect and trust, and both are necessary for their profession to even exist. If I cannot trust a doctor while I am unconscious or otherwise vulnerable, then I would be putting myself at risk by avoiding seeking medical help if it became necessary. That level of trust is so high, I don't think it would be a stretch to think many people would expect a doctor to put a patient's needs and wellbeing above their own.
These doctors may have risked their livelihoods or their freedom by refusing to comply, but they knew full well the actual harm they would do if they did comply. They should be held accountable.
These doctors may have risked their livelihoods or their freedom by refusing to comply
Yeah, no. The first doctor is home right now, sleeping well, knowing s/he did the right thing by refusing to comply. The cops didn't have shit, the second hospital doctors completely abdicated their responsibilities absent any compelling interest and they went along with it because they wanted to, because they found a good enough reason. How do I know? Because the existence of the first doctor(s) proves they could have said "no."
When the cops haul a man in for "standing funny", anything you do to oppose their will is painting a target on your back.
The first doctor got away with it because the other doctors went along with the officers' demands. If everyone had refused they would have been ethically in the right, but you can be assured the authorities would have reacted far less favorably.
They went to a different hospital. That's not just turning to the next guy. The doctor at the first hospital explicitly refused on ethical grounds and did not get any unfavorable repercussions from the authorities, which completely refutes your point.
Do you know any medical personnel? They guard their licenses tightly and know exactly how they could be vulnerable. These people aren't stupid and have a culture versed in telling cops to back off. Note that the first doctor(s) they went to said, "no."
Just because you can see how they would comply says more about you than them.
Well, I guess after you've unlawfully probed a person's anus once, you're kind of committed, and your best hope for avoiding a backlash is to justify it by actually finding something.
Does the Fifth Amendment only apply to US citizens? The reason I ask is this: if I am traveling to the US and the TSA asks me to decrypt my laptop or unlock my phone, am I protected under the Fifth Amendment? Well, are US citizens protected under it at the airport?
2) Does the Fifth Amendment prohibit certain things?
The Fifth Amendment, like the others, generally applies to not just citizens, but legal residents and others who are on U.S. soil.
The second issue is what's interesting here. The literal text of the Fifth Amendment is:
"No person... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."
Literally, it prohibits people from being forced to testify against themselves in a criminal trial. The Supreme Court has ready it very broadly to prohibit all sorts of other things, but one limit it has recognized is that it still only applies to "testimonial" incrimination. Think: testifying on a witness stand. Non-testimonial acts, like forcing someone to unlock a box, are not covered.
Some courts have held, and the EFF argues, that providing an encryption key is unlike providing the key for a box because it requires you to recount things that are in your memory, and is therefore testimonial.
> Non-testimonial acts, like forcing someone to unlock a box, are not covered.
(IANAL) The example is not 100% applicable. You can only be legally compelled to open a lockbox if doing so provides no testimonial information. If there is uncertainty around whether you had control over the contents of the lockbox, then opening it would definitely provide that information. This action is therefore considered to have a testimonial component, and covered by the 5th Amendment.
You can still be compelled to open the lockbox, if doing so will not run afoul of the 5th Amendment. There are generally two ways to do so. One is that the action does not have a (non-trivial) testimonial component: If there is no doubt that you had control over the contents of the lockbox, then there is effectively no information being provided. The second way is that the testimonial component is not used against you: the prosecution cannot say that you opened it, but is otherwise allowed to use the contents as evidence (with caveats).
A close analogy is: Even if you can be compelled to open a lock box, if it is filled with papers that are in an unknown language, can you then be compelled to translate those documents? That, to me, is the equivalent to providing a decryption key.
I don't think it's a great analogy, because translating documents requires a wholly different level of mental involvement than simply recounting an encryption key. Note that even fishing out and providing a regular key requires some degree of mental involvement.
What about providing information such as what language the document is written in? Of course, the real equiv. is if the document is written in code, then can you be required to reveal the secrets of the code?
> Some courts have held, and the EFF argues, that providing an encryption key is unlike providing the key for a box because it requires you to recount things that are in your memory, and is therefore testimonial.
I am not aware of any court in the US which has held otherwise to be honest.
There are a few cases where individuals were ordered to decrypt contents but in all those cases, it was content that the law enforcement officials had already seen on the computer.
For a parallel, there's a case before the Supreme Court which was just argued over whether the 5th Amendment protects an individual from testifying against himself in the context of a court-ordered psychological evaluation. The likely outcome is that it does unless the defendant raises an insanity defence, and then, as long as the defendant can offer evidence that he was not sane, the state gets to compel him to have an evaluation.
What I am getting at is that the 5th Amendment almost certainly both applies and prohibits, generally, forced decryption at least in the US. There may be cases, however, where the 5th Amendment does not apply because nothing new is revealed to the government that the individual has not already presented.
>The Fifth Amendment, like the others, generally applies to not just citizens, but legal residents and others who are on U.S. soil.
This true only once you are on the soil, not at the entry points. If you are not a US citizen, or at least granted some form of acknowledgement by the government i.e. a visa, the protections of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not apply to you. Again, this is true at the entry point to the US[1].
So to come back to the original example: if I enter the US as a non-citizen, can TSA or border security force me to decrypt my hard drive? The answer, with no doubt, is 'absolutely, yes they can'. In the eyes of Homeland security, if you are not a US citizen, you have no rights at the border and they will not hesitate to detain you or send you right back if you are uncooperative.
Literally, it prohibits people from being forced to testify against themselves in a criminal trial.
The 5th Amendment and other parts of the constitution are taken to imply other rights. The Presumption of Innocence is one of these. (Taken to be implied by the 5th, 6th, and 14th amendment.) However in U.S. law, it is fine for jurisdictions to compromise this for certain kinds of crime. Prosecutors may not need to prove motive or intent, for example.
> Prosecutors may not need to prove motive or intent, for example.
This is true but even for strict liability crimes there may be vagueness problems unless you can show some degree of at least a very general intent.
For example consider rape. You can't imprison someone because of a totally reasonable misunderstanding of this sort, so typically you are going to have to construct consent from the view of the accused. This leads to all sorts of things like (in many/most/all? states) the nature of the relationship is relevant. If you wake a woman up with sex and she's your wife and you normally share a bed, no prosecutor anywhere is going to consider that rape, but if you move into the bed of a friend-of-a-friend you let sleep in your guest room and wake her up with sex, that will be.
These things get really complicated. My reading of the cases in the US which have ordered compelled encryption have held that there was already full testimony that the documents existed and were of a certain nature, and were decryptable by the defendant that it was solely a matter of demonstrating what was already testified to.
This is true but even for strict liability crimes there may be vagueness problems unless you can show some degree of at least a very general intent.
The problem here is that the prosecutors hold a lot of sway over how much Presumption of Innocence should be relaxed in each case, as they are the ones who advise the governments of local jurisdictions about these matters. That would be like the umpires always being on the payroll of the home team. I'm not so sure this situation is conducive to a level playing field.
It won't work on Customs and Immigration. When you're talking to them you're not "in the US" yet. After that, yes, the privilege against self-incrimination is granted to everyone in the United States, citizen or not.
Caveat: The "border search exception" has some other pretty enormous holes.
Hopefully a lawyer will chime in, but I searched this a while ago. As a US citizen, CBP cannot require you to answer any questions beyond your customs declaration. They can detain you, but you don't have to say anything; they cannot deny you entry.
As a non-citizen, I don't believe you need to answer any questions, but they may decide to just deny you entry at that point, and it could cause problems if you ever wish to return. Best idea I've heard of is to have your company encrypt the laptop before you travel and do not provide you the key until you're done travelling.
The one case I am aware of was when a CBP agent stated they saw child porn on the laptop, which the person subsequently locked. In that case a court ordered him to provide the key.
Better idea: Buy a laptop when you get here, or have it shipped to you, and load it by downloading from the VPN. Upload your data before you return, and then Wipe/Destroy/Donate before crossing borders.
One of the things I like about my W500 Thinkpad (and my Dell D830 and ilk before that) is that it is insanely easy to swap the hard drive.
If I were concerned about traveling with certain data I would use a travel drive. Swap it in before going, and, as suggested, download what I needed once safely at my destination.
Now I'm wondering if there are other ways to carry that data with me in a format that would resist inspection. For example, on an SD card inside a camera. Or on a DVD. Break up the data into smaller files and named them variations on foo.jog or bar.avi or something, and reassemble things later.
For something like that the question might be whether I could be compelled to install or copy files to the active machine for inspection or evaluation if anyone got wise.
Yes in theory everyone.. not just nationals/citizens are protected by the constitution/bill of rights. But the reality is that no, there are too many exceptions to what was supposed to be a source of truth in our laws to do much more than 'pretend' we are protected by the constitution; citizens or otherwise.
Russians being protected by the 5th Amendment is not an example of Russians being subject to American laws, but an example of the American government being subject to American laws.
In general, the US constitution only specifies "citizens" and not "people" when it's talking about things like voting and holding office, etc. Rights (such as the bill of rights) are generally expressed as belonging to "people", not just the citizens of the US. It's also in the spirit of the declaration of independence that "all men are created equal", which would lead one to believe that they all have certain inalienable rights, citizen or otherwise. Just because the current xenophobic culture that is popular today doesn't jive with that doesn't change it. It also doesn't mean that Russians are subject to American law (at least not while in Russia), but that for things such as rights, they apply to everyone. So, for instance, some would maintain that warrantless searches, "close" to the border or otherwise, are unconstitutional no matter who they are performed on.
That's a wild distortion of the use of the word "people" in the Constitution. Uses of the word "people" in the Bill of Rights must be interpreted consistently with the uses of that word in the Constitution proper. The word "people" is used only twice in the Constitution proper. Once in the Preamble:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Once in Article I, Section 2:
"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States."
In both cases, it is clear that "people" refers to the body politic--the people who, by their consent, are governed by the United States.
I would interpret it a different way. Since the other two uses of "people" saw it necessary to clarify, then the word "people" without those clarifications must refer to people in general.
I know this is a bit offtopic but why is the obsession with the semantics and the literal text of the Constitution?
It is just words on paper created by mortal men that certainly were unable to see 200 years into the future. And with the advance of technology some parts will begin to show their age. Both the government and the citizens can do a lot of things right now that they could not foresee.
And yet the idea of the changing, expanding and clarifying it seems to be a taboo in modern US politics. People are only allowed to interpret it, but not allowed to talk about changing it.
It is as close to theology as I could not imagine. I don't know of any other country that treats its founding laws that way.
> I know this is a bit offtopic but why is the obsession with the semantics and the literal text of the Constitution?
The literal text of the Constitution is the current law of the land. That's why its interpretation continues to be relevant. I'm perfectly fine with amending the fuck out of it in theory, but I can agree with most people that such amendments need to be carefully reasoned about before being enacted.
I, for one, don't consider the Constitution to even be correct. I consider it to be real. It's not really different from a man saying, "The sun comes out at night." I feel obliged to correct him, but to do that, I have to acknowledge that he said it.
> It is as close to theology as I could not imagine.
Your mistake is mostly in imagining that it is not theology. It is. [1]
Many people, most notably libertarians, have been co-opted by the refrain of "what the Founders originally meant" and "what the Constitution originally said" as a way to justify their policies.
This is made more confusing by the presence of "originalist" jurisprudential theory. [2] But this originalism is also an outgrowth of dominionism.
Libertarians would normally be expected to oppose this kind of trend, but their label was part of the co-opting. The result is that there are libertarians and Real True Libertarians, just as there are Christians and Real True Christians and Republicans and Real True Republicans (read: not a RINO).
All of this is dominionism. It's arguable that a lot of this is just a wave of echoes from the Reconstruction after the Civil War, which was unprecedented in a lot of ways (the rise of the central executive using what was unquestionably force to suppress rebellion and secession; the breaking of the institution of slavery on a national scale; the deliberate and callous humbling of the losers in the war), and merely delayed until the 1980s because of the two World Wars and Vietnam.
>It's arguable that a lot of this is just a wave of echoes from the Reconstruction after the Civil War, which was unprecedented in a lot of ways (the rise of the central executive using what was unquestionably force to suppress rebellion and secession; the breaking of the institution of slavery on a national scale; the deliberate and callous humbling of the losers in the war), and merely delayed until the 1980s because of the two World Wars and Vietnam.
It wasn't so much "delayed" so much as faded over time without completely subsiding until, as the post-WWII realignment of the major parties progressed, it eventually became political useful for one of them to deliberately expend resources and propaganda efforts to fan it, starting with Nixon's "Southern Strategy".
You have to put the EFF's action in procedural context. They're at "Plan B." They've lost "Plan A," which was the political debate. Voters, broadly, are mistrustful of "hackers" and don't see a problem with searching computers at the border. Certainly, my mom doesn't see a problem with such searches. Now, the EFF is coming along and asking a federal judge to tell my mom and all the voters like her that they can't do what they want to do, all because of some "words on paper created by mortal men" 200 years ago. This is "Plan B." At this stage, the rules are different and more restrictive. To overcome the democratic will, you not only have to show that your point of view is better, but you have to show that this 200 year old document requires people now, 200 years later, to act a certain way. That procedural posture leads to "the obsession with the semantics and the literal text of the Constitution."
As for why this spectacle doesn't happen in other countries, it's largely because in those countries there is no "Plan B." If you lose at "Plan A" you're done. In the U.S. you have a "Plan B" because we have a judiciary that is a co-equal branch of government. Other countries have constitutional courts, but those courts have very limited jurisdiction and do not function as a co-equal branch of government. In the U.S., you have 94 federal district courts, 13 courts of appeal, and 1 Supreme Court, any one of which can declare a state or federal law unconstitutional. Moreover, unlike judges of constitutional courts in other western countries, American federal judges have the extensive powers of common law judges. They can not just declare laws unconstitutional, but force public officials to take affirmative actions to remedy violations.
The U.S. federal judiciary is, as an institution, extremely anti-democratic. It can not only defeat the democratic will of a state or even the national legislature, but do so in a way that binds all future legislatures. The power to bind legislation in the future is one that no legislature in the U.S. possesses. The obsession with "the semantics and the literal text of the Constitution" is the flip side of this anti-democratic power. The judiciary derives its legitimacy from its role interpreting the text of the Constitution. To the extent that it strays from that text, it loses legitimacy.
Thanks for the reply, but I think you slightly misunderstood what I was asking. It was not a criticism over the way judiciary are doing their work.
What I was wandering is why there is no scrutiny over the constitution itself - are parts of it relevant still, could they be bettered and so on. Quick checking of the years of the enactment of the various amendments shows that after the initial flurry of activity there is some calm period for the country to settle down - but then with the changing society various amendments are enacted and we have roughly one amendment every 5-10 years after WWI until the seventies.
And then suddenly that stops for 42 (so far) years. So in times of unprecedented technological and social change there is no perception that the document itself must change.
Is the text about well regulated militia needed for security still relevant when you have professional huge standing army ?
Do we need new constitutional right in the digital era and not have to rely on the pity of SCOTUS to extend the current we have?
So basically my question is why the constitution is considered sacrosanct and perfect, and not something with flaws and shortcomings that should be fixed?
> we have roughly one amendment every 5-10 years after WWI until the seventies.
> And then suddenly that stops for 42 (so far) years.
I missed this earlier, but you've got your facts wrong. The last ratified amendment was the 27th in 1992, or 21 years ago. The 26th was 21 years before that in 1971.
> Is the text about well regulated militia needed for security still relevant when you have professional huge standing army ?
The Wikipedia page has a lovely summary of Judge Scalia (and originalist) contorting himself to pieces over it. It would be entertaining if it weren't law.
What I'm saying is that the most obvious way to change the Constitution, judicial interpretation, is circumscribed by the considerations I mentioned.
Outside of that, you'd need a Constitutional convention or a series of amendments. But nobody wants to open that can of worms. You'd be as likely to see an amendment banning abortion as one guaranteeing privacy. The equal protection clause of the 14th would be on the chopping block. People would seriously propose repealing the 13th amendment.
> Rights (such as the bill of rights) are generally expressed as belonging to "people", not just the citizens of the US.
Erm. Are we reading the same Constitution? There's only one instance of the word in there and it's talking about IP ("To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"). The understanding of IP law that I've seen is that American patents don't apply internationally: they have to be converted over to the other governments' systems.
> It's also in the spirit of the declaration of independence that "all men are created equal", which would lead one to believe that they all have certain inalienable rights, citizen or otherwise.
This is the same Declaration of Independence that didn't bother including slaves and women as "men", yes? Just to be clear on what the "it" you're referring to isn't being changed by modern times.
> It also doesn't mean that Russians are subject to American law (at least not while in Russia), but that for things such as rights, they apply to everyone.
The essential claim here is that rights granted by American law apply to Russians.
What you're not saying, but perhaps are meaning to say, is that there ought to be legal structures that transcend national boundaries to apply to the entire human race and that we can in turn derive American law from such a structure such that there are situational effects at a national level. The UN, and the UNDHR, come closest to this but American law does not recognize the UNDHR as anything but a set of suggestions. Judges do not use it as a guideline. Legislators do not use it as a blueprint. (And further, the UN does not have in its membership the entire human species.)
That would make sense. It would reduce Americans' sense of sovereignty, and thus would be fought tooth and nail by the xenophobic culture you reference, but it would then make sense to talk about universal human rights.
It's funny. I've been of the mind for the past decade and a half that we need a species-level government precisely in order to achieve effects like this, but it's also specifically the people who want these effects who are most horrified at the prospect.
So perhaps that's not what you're meaning to say. Maybe you're suggesting that there's a moral Lawgiver who hands down rights and everyone should listen to Him for a change? That's what the Founders largely thought, after all.
> The understanding of IP law that I've seen is that American patents don't apply internationally
Of course they don't apply to other governments, they apply to the US government. The constitution, and American law, tells the American government what rights it ought to enforce or protect, within it's jurisdiction.
> This is the same Declaration of Independence that didn't bother including slaves and women as "men", yes?
It makes no such distinction. Didn't the US have a civil war over this? Which side won?
> The essential claim here is that rights granted by American law apply to Russians.
In places where American law applies, yes. Do you think they shouldn't?
> The constitution, and American law, tells the American government what rights it ought to enforce or protect, within it's jurisdiction.
No, it doesn't. You can keep asserting this, but making up claims from thin air is not actually enforced law.
> It makes no such distinction. Didn't the US have a civil war over this? Which side won?
Are you proposing that we should have a feminist versus anti-feminist war? Because I'm pretty sure the anti-feminists would win that one right now.
> In places where American law applies, yes. Do you think they shouldn't?
My opinion isn't material. My questions have, aside from the philosophical digression, been about the factual ground we're upon.
Because if American law applies to foreign nationals, then Guantanamo becomes a lot less illegal. Quote passages of US Code, or other relevant law. Not your philosophical opinion, which isn't the point here. If you want to discuss what should be, then let me say that I don't even want America to exist. That's how far afield we're going if you want to know what my opinions are.
I have no idea where this argument is supposed to be going. In general, Constitutional rights apply to non-citizens within the US, and this has been held since at least 1886, see e.g. http://www.salon.com/2010/02/01/collins_5/. There have been various Supreme Court cases over the last decade about whether they apply to people under the jurisdiction of but not inside the US, namely Guantanamo detainees. Outside of US jurisdiction, there are circumstances in which residents of foreign countries can violate US law (criminal or civil matters), which involve interacting with the US, such as (for better or worse) "cybercrime", in which case the US can attempt to extradite them or take other measures. These are separate issues, but only the one about Guantanamo detainees is at all controversial.
> Um. Which theory is this? Last I checked, as an American citizen, I'm not subject to Russian law. Why are Russians subject to American law?
You are on Russian soil (unless you have diplomatic immunity). It would be reasonable (but perhaps not true) to assume that if you're subject to limits of law in a jurisdiction you're also privy to its protection (presumption of innocence etc).
That page is very misleading. Not only does it wildly distort the original policy of CBP that included the "100 miles" thing, but it ignores the fact that the "100 miles" aspect has since been retracted.
All the original policy stated is that the "border search exception" to the 4th amendment did not have to be at the literal border. This was to accommodate border checkpoints in the southwestern U.S. which are for practical reasons not right at the border but a few miles inland along major highway routes.
I'd expect that if CBP is asking for your encrytion key and you are not a U.S. citizen and you refuse to provide it you're probably going to be refused entry. Being refused entry isn't to be taken lightly. It may very well mean you will never be allowed entry again.
As others have pointed out it's probably better to simply not know the encryption key or to download your data after arriving. Which are covered in the guide I linked.
Your post mentioned the TSA but I'm not aware of the TSA asking for encryption keys. I'd be surprised if they ever do or have since their mandate is aircraft safety. Searching data would not likely be allowable under the search exceptions they operate under. Your concern should be towards CBP doing the search while clearing passport control/customs.
This might just be a thought exercise, but I remember reading somewhere that 100 miles from the borders and 50mile radius at all port of entries the Amendments do not apply. Also, these explicitly state 'persons' not citizens or residents so in that sense you're safe.
Same can be said for Canada. As a non-white, I have not faced any discrimination yet in Canada ever since I moved here ten years ago. Sure there may be racism but at least not in the everyday life and certainly not in the tech sector.
Same can be said for West Germany. The horror stories are overwhelmingly from the former East Germany and Berlin.
I'm not trying to defend what is going on "over there", but you have to realize that Germany is, in many respects, still not one country and will remain so for a very long time.
Whenever you hear people speak of German unification, keep the following in mind: While we were incredibly lucky that there was no bloodshed, the people of East Germany were completely screwed in the process. More than twenty years after the beginning, it is misleading to speak of unification.
What happened was an annexation.
Every part of East German society was uprooted, down to the most minuscule. Massive labor migration to the west completely changed demographics, with many young women leaving but fewer young men doing so.
Wherever you have conditions such as these in any European country, Skinheads and the like will start appearing. As if it was some perverse rule of nature.
Maybe we're screwed. Maybe it is an emergent trait of European culture. I hope it isn't.
