Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged last year

[Jim Thompson]

On Tue, 03 May 2005 12:58:38 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 03 May 2005 19:07:44 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
see_website@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 03 May 2005 06:46:51 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
see_website@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 02 May 2005 19:29:13 GMT, "Kevin Aylward"
see_website@anasoft.co.uk> wrote:


Yes. I find the argument of, well marijuana is harmful, so it
should be illegal, completely bogus. Its got f'all do do with
state what someone chooses to do with their own bodies.


Fine, so long as the state does not facilitate the harm, and does
not pay any resulting medical expenses.


And I knew that was coming...Its a completely bogus argument.


It's not bogus in San Francisco. Drug abuse is a serious burden on
public medical resources already. We keep the drinking water clean and
the rats out of the restaurants in the cause of public health; so why
not restrict the supply of heroin?


Its bogus because we can use the *same* argument to justify banning
*anything*.

You name it, anything you like, and I well tell why it causes harm to
something.

Do you wish to ban everything? If not, the why chose one over another?


Ban the things that do a lot more harm than they do good. One of the
mandates of government is "to promote the public good." What's wrong
with that?

John

Every vice I have is really innocuous, so I shouldn't be taxed.

Now, you, on the other hand, do things of which I do not approve, so
you should be taxed accordingly.

And, if you're a Democrat, all fees and taxes should be doubled ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Rene Tschaggelar wrote:

Winfield Hill wrote:
Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged to 3,464 last year,
according to the Justice Department. Taking law enforcement at
its word without question, judges rubber-stamped approvals on
every single request they received. Be careful, watch out. And
remember, email is next.

We in Europe are there already. Providers have to store
the whole email trafic for at least 6 months. Somehow, I tend
to appreciate SPAM in this respect. It fills their disks
and makes it harder to sift through it.
I planned a tool that automatically sends a bunch of mail
at timed intervalls to selected adresses containg a random
selection of triggering keywords from an editable list.
That is going to be fun.

All that e-mail about penis enlargement* is actually secret al Qaida
communications.

(If we can get them to believe this, then maybe the homeland security
folks will start to chase the spammers off the net.)


* The ones about breast augmentation are our allies and are to be
encouraged. ;-)

--
Paul Hovnanian mailtoaul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world,
those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
<thegreatone@example.com> wrote (in
<pknf71pnr3nh17t342igukai8b9rb4g9j7@4ax.com&gt about 'Court authorized
wiretaps in the U.S. surged last year', on Tue, 3 May 2005:

And, if you're a Democrat, all fees and taxes should be doubled ;-)

AIUI, the Democrats are prone to do that themselves, like Old Labour in
UK. The Conservatives say New Labour has introduced 157 million
(approx.) new taxes without anyone noticing. If they haven't noticed,
they had too much money anyway! The Liberal Democrats want to increase
income tax for people getting over GBP100k per year. Note, 'getting',
not 'earning'!
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Tue, 3 May 2005 22:21:49 +0100, John Woodgate
<jmw@jmwa.demon.contraspam.yuk> wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote (in
pknf71pnr3nh17t342igukai8b9rb4g9j7@4ax.com&gt about 'Court authorized
wiretaps in the U.S. surged last year', on Tue, 3 May 2005:

And, if you're a Democrat, all fees and taxes should be doubled ;-)

AIUI, the Democrats are prone to do that themselves, like Old Labour in
UK. The Conservatives say New Labour has introduced 157 million
(approx.) new taxes without anyone noticing. If they haven't noticed,
they had too much money anyway! The Liberal Democrats want to increase
income tax for people getting over GBP100k per year. Note, 'getting',
not 'earning'!

Yep. Phoenix is somewhat of a retirement community. You should see
all the letters to the newspaper from the ol' folk, saying in unison,
to "save" social security, just raise the maximum income level that is
taxed. I don't know where they get off thinking they're entitled to a
bigger piece of me, just because I EARN more.

Of course, in August (65 years + 6 months), I'm entitled to start
receiving Social Security payments. I intend to take them. Not worth
the powder to blow 'em to hell, but I'll take 'em ;-)

I'm continuously getting crap snail mail from AARP. I just sent some
back today, scrawled across with, "I may be old, but I ain't senile"
;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Winfield Hill]

Jim Thompson wrote...

I'm continuously getting crap snail mail from AARP. I just sent some
back today, scrawled across with, "I may be old, but I ain't senile"
;-)

Hey, that's for us to judge, you old goat! :&gt

I started getting AARP mail when I was 50, weird. Now that I'm over
60 it's more appropriate. Last month I got my first senior-citizen
discount, a $13 haircut at 10% off, only $11.70 for a custom mowing
that I specified: my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo. My new scheme is to mess-up the hair at
various points during the cut, and have snipped off whatever sticks
out too severely. It worked like a charm. Right out of bed, no more
futzing at the mirror. Pretty good for under $12, but I did leave a
$5 tip. You'll be able to see the results in Harvard's spring 2005
DEAS newsletter when it comes out soon.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Jim Thompson]

On 3 May 2005 18:03:23 -0700, Winfield Hill
<hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote...

I'm continuously getting crap snail mail from AARP. I just sent some
back today, scrawled across with, "I may be old, but I ain't senile"
;-)

Hey, that's for us to judge, you old goat! :&gt

I just tired of the constant barrage... they're nothing more than
insurance peddlers.

I started getting AARP mail when I was 50, weird. Now that I'm over
60 it's more appropriate. Last month I got my first senior-citizen
discount,

I've been taking senior discounts for years. My wife cringes, but,
hell... a discount is a discount ;-)

a $13 haircut at 10% off, only $11.70 for a custom mowing
that I specified: my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo. My new scheme is to mess-up the hair at
various points during the cut, and have snipped off whatever sticks
out too severely. It worked like a charm. Right out of bed, no more
futzing at the mirror. Pretty good for under $12, but I did leave a
$5 tip. You'll be able to see the results in Harvard's spring 2005
DEAS newsletter when it comes out soon.

Ask for a twist cut. They take a grouping of your hair, twist in a
spiral, and then clip it. It ends up lying down flat (you've seen my
"do"). My maintenance is simply to smooth toward the front (the
front, naturally... covers the bare spots after a shower... nothing
else required, not even any "goo".

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[John Larkin]

On Tue, 03 May 2005 18:02:21 GMT, Richard the Dreaded Libertarian
<eatmyshorts@doubleclick.net> wrote:

On Tue, 03 May 2005 09:47:13 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 03 May 2005 09:18:05 -0700, Jim Thompson
thegreatone@example.com> wrote:

On Tue, 03 May 2005 08:45:56 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

[snip]

If the heroin supply were unrestricted, do you think consumption and
social harm would drop?

The crime associated with dopesters needing to raise money for their
habit should drop.

But many more dopsters might be created. Neither of us know the
overall slope of that curve.

"Might be"? Take a look at The Netherlands.

The Netherlands is hardly the USA. And they have been cracking down on
hard drugs lately, too.

John

 

[Bob Monsen]

Kevin Aylward wrote:

Joe wrote:

"Winfield Hill" <hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote in
message news:d4s38r0248b@drn.newsguy.com...

Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged to 3,464 last year,
according to the Justice Department. Taking law enforcement at
its word without question, judges rubber-stamped approvals on
every single request they received. Be careful, watch out. And
remember, email is next.


--
Thanks,
- Win

Let's see .... 3464 wire taps ... less than 0.1% of the population.
Not bad.


Its less then 0.0014% of the population of the US!

Same deal for this err grand "problem" of terrorism. A recent quote put
the deaths at 1900. Well about 0.5% of the population die of old age a
year, so at over 1,000,000, most extra deaths that people complain
about, are in the noise floor

Of course. More people die of starvation in a single day than die of
terrorism in a year. The entire terrorism argument is a convienient
rationalization for armed globalization. The terrorists are generally
pissed off about globalization, so it's ironic that their attacks can be
used to mobilize western populations against them.

However, the fact that there are only a tiny number of wire taps is
simply an indication of the listener's inability to process the data,
particularly in cases where tranlsation is required. With slightly more
advanced speech recognition software, however, this number could rise
dramatically, and really without warning.

People point out that if you do anything illegal you shouldn't have much
of a problem with it. The problem with that logic is that the definition
of 'illegal' changes to suit the whims of those in power. Liberal groups
were targeted by wiretapping and covert ops in the US during the 60s and
70s. Oddly, this happened again after 9/11. Political campaigns are
getting increasingly dirty, and using wiretaps as a weapon isn't unheard
of. Apparently, the US government routinely taps the phones of UN
ambassadors. Once a state religion is mandated, perhaps religious groups
that don't 'toe the line' will be targeted. Giving the state this kind
of power is a slippery slope.

The other problem is that once the ability to wiretap gets easy, it gets
easy to misuse. People are people, and they can often be tempted to
misuse any power they are given for financial or personal reasons.
Wiretapping a corporate CEO can be quite profitable.

The right to privacy is a good thing, even when you don't need it,
because you never know when you *will* need it.

---
Regards,
Bob Monsen

 

[Paul Burke]

John Woodgate wrote:

It would be interesting to legalize public sale of heroin and speed.
Sellers would be regulated and taxed...

Yes. That is exactly what should be done. Just like for alcohol (except
the lawsuit option; people are indeed expected to know that
over-indulging in alcohol is damaging) and tobacco

In fact alcohol is very similar to heroin in terms of damage and
addictiveness, with the big differences that you don't inject alcohol,
so no problems acused by dirty needles; and you can buy it legally and
openly, so people are less likely to be (directly) brought into contact
with crime by it.

Of course, you lot over the water did try to apply the same techniques
once. The result of the 'war on alcohol' was similar to that of the 'war
on drugs': a massive opportunity for organised crime. Where's Eliot Ness
when you need him?

Paul Burke

 

[Daniel Haude]

On 3 May 2005 18:03:23 -0700,
Winfield Hill <hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote
in Msg. <d5970r0ubp@drn.newsguy.com>

my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo.

This used to work for me until I got married. Maybe it starts working
again when the marriage is old enough...

--Daniel

 

[Winfield Hill]

Daniel Haude wrote...

Winfield Hill wrote

my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo.

This used to work for me until I got married. Maybe it starts
working again when the marriage is old enough...

It helps to go around pretending you're an electronics guru.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[John Larkin]

On 4 May 2005 05:19:06 -0700, Winfield Hill
<hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote:

Daniel Haude wrote...

Winfield Hill wrote

my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo.

This used to work for me until I got married. Maybe it starts
working again when the marriage is old enough...

It helps to go around pretending you're an electronics guru.

Yeah, Einstein got away with bad hair.

John

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

"Winfield Hill" <hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote in
message news:d4s38r0248b@drn.newsguy.com...

Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged to 3,464 last year,
according to the Justice Department. Taking law enforcement at
its word without question, judges rubber-stamped approvals on
every single request they received. Be careful, watch out. And
remember, email is next.

So What - "they" let you lot off easy:

Having no doubt consulted in depth with their more experienced
"partei-genossen" from the former STASI, the EU is indeed going forward with
gay abandon* archiving the connection details of *ALL* telecommunication for
seven years; in case the "The Proper Authorities" will ever need it.

All is not lost, though: the data-volume on the Internet is doubling just
about every 6 months and the processing power needed to handle the flow only
doubles every 18 months .... crunch! ....

"They" will Tax bits soon.

*) since this stupidity is coming from the very continent where they at one
time had a field for "ethnicity" on tax filings and ballot papers so that
one presumably could get preferential treatment in some minor way - but also
about two decades later providing a solution to the German State's emerging
problem of recognising the Jews!

 

[Frithiof Andreas Jensen]

"Bob Monsen" <rcsurname@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:A-udnfawmZhONejfRVn-tw@comcast.com...

to their cultures. That is a byproduct of the expansion of western
culture into the middle east.

Not to mention the flow of Oil Money to support all the Islamist schools
around the planet; and that the worlds *need* for Oil will prevent any
"sorting out the differences" that the Western Culture went trough after the
Reformation, where various Religious wars decimated (at least) the
population in Europe.

The Saudi Wahabbis are not liked at all amongst the Muslims - the Iranian
Shiites have hated them ever since they took the other side at Karbala,
adding more venom when the Wahhabis later ursurped the religious sites with
weapons aquired from the West. Should the US leave, the score will be
settled.

Maybe Democracy emerges when all the people willing to die for their
particular cause have indeed done so ... and everybody else is fed up with
the way things are.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Wed, 04 May 2005 07:54:47 -0700, the renowned John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On 4 May 2005 05:19:06 -0700, Winfield Hill
hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote:

Daniel Haude wrote...

Winfield Hill wrote

my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo.

This used to work for me until I got married. Maybe it starts
working again when the marriage is old enough...

It helps to go around pretending you're an electronics guru.


Yeah, Einstein got away with bad hair.

John

That would be the twice-divorced Albert Einstein, yes? ;-)


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 04 May 2005 11:19:41 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
<speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 07:54:47 -0700, the renowned John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On 4 May 2005 05:19:06 -0700, Winfield Hill
hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote:

Daniel Haude wrote...

Winfield Hill wrote

my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo.

This used to work for me until I got married. Maybe it starts
working again when the marriage is old enough...

It helps to go around pretending you're an electronics guru.


Yeah, Einstein got away with bad hair.

John

That would be the twice-divorced Albert Einstein, yes? ;-)

Yup. He "got away" twice.

John

 

[Bob Stephens]

On Wed, 04 May 2005 11:19:41 -0400, Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Wed, 04 May 2005 07:54:47 -0700, the renowned John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On 4 May 2005 05:19:06 -0700, Winfield Hill
hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote:

Daniel Haude wrote...

Winfield Hill wrote

my new don't-comb-it, whatever-it-looks-like-when-
I-get-out-of-bed hairdo.

This used to work for me until I got married. Maybe it starts
working again when the marriage is old enough...

It helps to go around pretending you're an electronics guru.


Yeah, Einstein got away with bad hair.

John

That would be the twice-divorced Albert Einstein, yes? ;-)


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

No wonder he was always going on about relative-ity

Bob

 

[Bob Monsen]

Paul Burke wrote:

John Woodgate wrote:

It would be interesting to legalize public sale of heroin and speed.
Sellers would be regulated and taxed...

Yes. That is exactly what should be done. Just like for alcohol
(except the lawsuit option; people are indeed expected to know that
over-indulging in alcohol is damaging) and tobacco


In fact alcohol is very similar to heroin in terms of damage and
addictiveness, with the big differences that you don't inject alcohol,
so no problems acused by dirty needles; and you can buy it legally and
openly, so people are less likely to be (directly) brought into contact
with crime by it.

Of course, you lot over the water did try to apply the same techniques
once. The result of the 'war on alcohol' was similar to that of the 'war
on drugs': a massive opportunity for organised crime. Where's Eliot Ness
when you need him?

Paul Burke

The legalization of drugs issues is a strange one, because in the US,
it's been made into a moral and political issue rather than a medical issue.

I certainly wish US lawmakers would take the medical position, so we
could do something useful about it. We are never going to have an effect
on the supply side, which is the moral/political position: just impose
our will on them for their own good. Our supply-side efforts so far have
been, in effect, selection pressure (in the darwinian sense), causing
only the most dangerous, effective supply organizations to thrive in the
absence of competition.

---
Regards,
Bob Monsen

(This space for rent)

 

[Bob Monsen]

Jim Thompson wrote:

Ask for a twist cut. They take a grouping of your hair, twist in a
spiral, and then clip it. It ends up lying down flat (you've seen my
"do"). My maintenance is simply to smooth toward the front (the
front, naturally... covers the bare spots after a shower... nothing
else required, not even any "goo".

...Jim Thompson

Electrolysis is the answer.

Fortunately for me, my genes have provided this service already. I was
the head model on the right:

http://www.healthcentral.com/ency/408/ImagePages/17083.html

I haven't needed or owned a comb in years. For social occasions, I use
the sacred hat:

http://www.a1partysupply.com/detail/4/13077/12/2/O.T.H.-HIPPIE-PONY-TAIL-HAT.html

---
Regards,
Bob Monsen

 

[Rich The Newsgroup Wacko]

On Wed, 04 May 2005 09:47:39 -0700, Bob Monsen wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:


Ask for a twist cut. They take a grouping of your hair, twist in a
spiral, and then clip it. It ends up lying down flat (you've seen my
"do"). My maintenance is simply to smooth toward the front (the
front, naturally... covers the bare spots after a shower... nothing
else required, not even any "goo".

...Jim Thompson

Electrolysis is the answer.

Fortunately for me, my genes have provided this service already. I was
the head model on the right:

http://www.healthcentral.com/ency/408/ImagePages/17083.html

On the _right_? Dude, you look just like Cybil Shepherd!

I haven't needed or owned a comb in years. For social occasions, I use
the sacred hat:

http://www.a1partysupply.com/detail/4/13077/12/2/O.T.H.-HIPPIE-PONY-TAIL-HAT.html

--

Cheers!
Rich
------
"Nuke the gay, unborn, baby whales for Jesus."