"Anonymous" Hacks Palin's Private Email 1733
netbuzz writes "'Anonymous,' best known for its jousts with Scientology, has apparently hacked Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account. Contents, including sample emails, an index, and family photos, have been posted by Wikileaks, which calls them evidence that the GOP vice presidential candidate has improperly used private email to shield government business from public scrutiny." Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax. Update by J : Genuine.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Not cool... (Score:2, Insightful)
C'mon guys. We all know that e-mail isn't very secure. I personally don't have anything in any of my e-mail accounts that I would be concerned about anyone else reading -but I'd still be offended if someone posted it public.
This is in poor taste.
Hacking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Scrutiny (Score:3, Insightful)
I keep reading from a variety of sources that using personal email means surely she was hiding things from public scrutiny, from possible subpoenas, etc.
Okay, if you see proof of illegal activity in her email, then she was likely hiding it. But the public can't read her work email either. Using personal email does not necessarily prove motive or wrong-doing.
Encryption, maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
This wouldn't have even been an issue if she'd used encryption.
Maybe high-profile leaks like this will help convince the public at large that encryption is beneficial, even if you aren't doing anything wrong.
This is why you use official email systems (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a really good reason why they should NOT be using their private email. Sure, using the government systems opens them up to having their corruption on record, but having it on something like Yahoo mail opens it up to something like this, potentially exposing WAY more information than that. Not that government email is unhackable, but I'd certainly expect it to be at least a little bit more secure.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand.. I agree they crossed the line.. on the other I kind of understand people's motives. Now I am in no way shape or form advocating hacking someone's email account, but there's something important to consider here. There's a great article at NY Times [nytimes.com] which talks about Palin's rise in politics. Here's one excerpt:
Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.
If she does infact use her private email address for correspondence with other staff members or governmental bodies, can you really consider it a private email account anymore? I'm not asking for response from slashdotters with analogies here, but if she does infact potentially use her personal email to avoid subpoenas then why the hell should it be considered personal. She is paid by the taxpayers and they have a right to know what is going on. Why have her staff members been studying the use of personal email accounts for official business anyways?
Maybe the deal with her using personal email for work is just a rumor, and maybe the whole deal with "Anonymous" is not true, but still things aren't just black and white here.
What will happen in retaliation? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is true, I think it's possible that Anonymous has just painted a gigantic bulls-eye on a free internet.
I am all for ferreting out corruption, but what I worry about is how many will paint this: "Terrorist Rogue Hacker attacks Vice Presidential Candidate."
What limits are there on privacy now? I hope I am wrong.
Re:This might be what she deserves (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This might be what she deserves (Score:1, Insightful)
He's not a public official and therefore doesn't have to.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:2, Insightful)
>If that even happened at all, I could whip up similar screenshots in 5 minutes.
Similar, in the sense that it can be verified as authentic by authors of some of the content?
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I think Scientology is a dangerous cult, the actions of Anonymous to date have been demonstrating that they are just a group of dangerous radicals. Anonymous is dangerous because they attack and slander groups they disagree with and hide behind masks so that their opponents can not adequately defend themself. Now, I know many of the people who hate Sarah Palin and the Republicans won't see a problem with this, but for a moment imagine how you would feel if a similar group performed the same action on Barack Obama (or a political leader in your own country) and see how 'wonderful' it would be.
You'd think this may actually hurt her but.... (Score:1, Insightful)
All Palin has to do is keep the spotlight on her for the next 2 months and McCain may actually stand a chance.
Re:I've looked. Check Gawker (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, there is proof...
What she said isn't the story, it's who she said it to.
Re:This might be what she deserves (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you misunderstood him. His private email is private. His work email is also private (as it is a private business). There is no reason anyone should see any of his email.
Palin's personal email is private. As a public servant, her work email is public...at least to some degree. Not that anyone should have immediate access to it, but there are legal procedures in place on how the public can gain access, for example, in the case of a lawsuit. She tried to circumvent that by using a private email address. It's only fitting that everything in that account becomes public. That fact that she was stupid enough to mix private and personal email...well, thats just too bad for her.
Re:Scrutiny (Score:4, Insightful)
Repeat after me: STATE/FEDERAL business MAY NOT use NON-STATE/NON-FEDERAL Email servers.
It is not legal, it violates records retention acts and it is unethical as well as it
keeps the business of OUR government from OUR scrutiny.
To head off the quips, yes the business of government is not normally availible to the public,
however it MUST BE MADE PUBLIC upon lawful order. If the exchanges are not on STATE/FEDERAL
servers, then the public release of it may not be possible.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, remember this is the same group that hacked an epilepsy support page to try to induce seizures. Also realize this is pretty much the opposite of constructive: Palin is being used as a distraction to keep us from thinking about real issues. This only furthers that distraction. It would be one thing if they found evidence of corruption, but this is merely digital tabloid fluff.
Anonymous is doing this entirely to feed their own egos.
Missing big story (Score:2, Insightful)
This seems to spell out why, besides being able to avoid public oversight, someone shouldn't be using private email accounts to conduct government business. Shouldn't the bigger question be, why was she using a private email, accessible from any public network, that more easily exposed the people of Alaska, as well as herself, to hackers?
Re:Not cool... (Score:3, Insightful)
Then she shouldn't have mixed her official business (as a public servant) with her private business.
Re:First impression: not cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Since she's advertising herself as a candidate with strong ethics who's trying to clean up government and get rid of backroom dealing, she clearly feels that she's not accountable to the same standard of ethics that others should be held to. This is a huge lapse in judgment that voters need to be aware of before they cast their votes.
A Few Things (Score:1, Insightful)
1. Anyone hacking into anything should be shot.
2. If this happened to The One or Hilliary, 90% of Slashdot would be shitting their pants with indignation and outrage.
3. It's funny how the left is always whining about privacy but they seem to be the worst when comes to invading it.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:1, Insightful)
We do it for the lulz.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
But I suspect secret service is investigating mostly to determine if there's a real security risk IE if she e-mailed out that there was a spare key to her house under a fake rock in the garden, or she was going to be in room 287 of the doubletree hotel.
I suspect the Secret Service is investigating mostly because this is high profile and will end up being publicly embarrassing. Not so much to Palin as to the people she was communicating with.
No doubt someone archived the entire account in their e-mail program and will dump it all online sometime before the election.
Re:First impression: not cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot readers and posters are very big on privacy.
...unless the privacy being violated is that of some politician they don't like. The ability to download and install Linux doesn't imply the existence of any consistent ethical system.
The ol' double standard... (Score:5, Insightful)
"McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Manager Rick Davis: 'This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment'..."
When someone does this sort of hacking/eavesdropping/snooping to a government official, it's called "a shocking invasion of...privacy and a violation of law."
When the government does it to you, it's called the "Patriot Act."
Re:No way to tell? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikileaks is NOT down. Just accessed it, albeit slowly, at 1915 ET.
Does anyone here honestly believe that many politicians of many political stripes -- including both Republicans and Democrats -- don't maintain personal email accounts on which "government business" has sometimes been discussed or conducted?
Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that I understand the reasoning of anonymous actions, in that s/he thinks Palin is doing wrong, and s/he wants to call attention to it.
This may just backfire, and generate support for Palin, thereby defeating his actions purpose. Indeed, this type of attack could even be used as a method for generating support by Palins camp.
The end is not justified by the means, and these types of attacks should not be pursued, either by the attacker, nor by the readers of such "information".
Re:I've looked. Check Gawker (Score:5, Insightful)
So far only two emails, some personal photos, a contact list and some inbox screenshots have been posted. Nothing incriminating.
Depends how you define "incriminating".
Work email goes to and from work accounts. Personal email goes to and from personal accounts. That's a policy common in corporations and in government, and is increasingly strictly adhered to the higher up the ranks you go.
As a member of public office, she is accountable to the public, and her email pertaining to her office is a matter of the public record, and subject to things like the Freedom-of-Information-Act (FOIA). Using a personal Yahoo account to conduct government business would be hugely inappropriate for a multitude of reasons; not least of which is undermines her accountability to FOIA.
In Palin's case its evident that a number of her contacts are @alaska.gov... meaning she was corresponding as 'personal palin' to other public officials using their office-accounts.
While perhaps not incriminating, it is hugely inappropriate. Either she was sending them personal messages -- which is inappropriate; she should have sent those to their personal accounts, or she was sending or receiving work related messages which is completely unacceptable.
Palin clearly didn't adhere to this separation of work and personal (hell, her "personal" account is 'gov.palin' which is itself inapprorpiate) and while I'm sure many many people are guilty of it, its still inappropriate, and most of us aren't angling to be 2nd in line to the presidency, so the scrutiny on her is warranted. It would be nice if we could unmask the other canditates personal accounts too, to have a more balanced exposee, but that's beside the point.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:1, Insightful)
Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?
Considering recent results from politicians with experience, I think I'll go for the hockey mom.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Anonymous most likely are doing this because they got lucky. I would guess hack attempts are made at a number of public and political figures. If they have a successful strike, then I'd expect them to run with it. I wouldn't overplay the deliberateness of this.On the other hand if a possible vice- or actual president is daft enough to have unencrypted emails floating round a public system, then it's hardly surprising those emails surface. And anyone can be Anonymous - that's it's greatest strength (even more so than the technical competence of some of its members).
Now if they have found that she was conducting official business through private email accounts and was doing so to avoid scrutiny, then that is interesting.
Re:First impression: not cool (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what I don't get, after reading about half of the posts in this thread: About 95% of the posts don't mention the right to privacy, at all. But monitoring e-mail traffic by secret service in order to catch terrorists or prevent possible terrorist attacks, is frown upon by the great majority of Slashdotters.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
The dumbest thing the democrats have done so far in this campaign is focus on Palin. What the hell happened to the issue-driven debate? This was really the time for Obama&Co to shine, so if they botch the whole deal because they chose to make the election a question of character, which is the republicans' favorite playing ground, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.
Get back on topic!
Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like Palin or the entire McCain campaign in the least... but how is this even remotely acceptable? We cry and bitch and moan about warrantless government wiretapping, yet when some group of a-holes breaks into an elected official's personal email account and posts screenshots on the web, we see it as just some more dirt on a candidate. The best word that describes that is "despicable."
Mark this as flamebait all you want, but people running for public office have constitutional rights too. I've always considered Anonymous a bit shady in their dealings, and this justs seals the deal.
Too much attention to entertainers (Score:4, Insightful)
Matt Damon [breitbart.tv] or Lindsey Lohan [suntimes.com] would do the same to you, if you tell them, Obama is a crock... With Barbara Streisand [breitbart.com] singing a notch lauder to drown your screams...
Seriously, there is a good reason, Romans considered entertainers to be among the lowest class of citizens — above only prostitutes... They weren't even allowed to serve in the regular army units.
In Florida she would go to jail... (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't get to the wikileaks site, but if the summary is correct, then this is interesting because in Florida, with the Sunshine Law, this could result in her prosecution. In Florida you cannot conduct, or even discuss, government business in private.
http://www.fsne.org/sunshine2005/news/history/index.shtml [fsne.org]
For example, W. D. Childers went to jail for discussing government business in private.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/08/State/Ex_Florida_Senate_pre.shtml [sptimes.com]
Not sure if Alaska has something similar.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
When the McCain announced Palin as his running mate, I recognized quickly it was quite an ingenious move on their part. I wouldn't be surprised that one of the big reasons she was picked was because of all the issues and drama surrounding her. It is enough to create a media feeding frenzy, diverting the major coverage away from the issues that could defeat them. As they say no publicity is bad publicity, and all the negative coverage paints her as the victim or underdog, whom literature has taught us to root for.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
I respect your opinion on this issue, though I don't agree. Sarah Palin has done the exact same thing that Bush did - hide governing related communications on non-government servers. I believe this is illegal. I also think republicans have been doing this since Nixon got caught with tapes. Rather than reform their integrity, they reformed their communication systems to illegally hide their activities. Sarah Palin is scary, and Anonymous is doing us a favor. Only the light of scrutiny will reform our government.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
"no publicity is bad publicity"
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about marketing. One of the first things I was taught in my marketing classes is how that is a crock.
Bad publicity has bankrupted companies, people and countries. It's drove people to suicide. There IS bad publicity.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?
Presumably the connection is that a creationist clearly lacks even a modest helping of critical and independant thinking.
Comment removed (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The ol' double standard... (Score:1, Insightful)
No privacy rights here (Score:5, Insightful)
the fact that we weren't in the know in regard to her violation of law, her illegal act before the hacking, doesnt make her any more right about the matter. a crime is being committed, you just dont have proof.
its like someone filming a gang operation and publishing it, and then gang coming up and claiming that their privacy rights were violated.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
You misunderstand. Bad publicity is bad publicity. No publicity is also bad publicity. Sometimes slightly bad publicity can drown out the really bad stuff, or divert attention without hurting too much. Especially when the issue is not selling a product to make a profit (like a business), but flinging mud at a political opponent.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's more of the fact that they have view points that are different than Sarah Palins. And therefore targeted here.
If they really were trying to prove corruption they'd have surely hacked the other candidates as well. Especially McCain and Biden who have been in Congress long enough to have a thousand times what either Palin or Obama would have.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:1, Insightful)
[Citation Needed]
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that's just not true. People put blinders on when it comes to their religion. For example, the best mathematician I've ever met personnaly was a prof at Rice University--an altogether brilliant man--who was a devout Christian. I doubt he was specifically a creationist, but he believed in literal interpretation of equally odd parts of the Bible. The last day of class before finals he would always give a lecture on the importance of developing a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and pass out Bibles or portions thereof. The students always put up with it because he was a once-in-a-lifetime combination of genius and great lecturer.
I can't explain it, but it's true nevertheless. Heck, look at William Buckley, certainlt a critical and indpendent thinker, who would present profund insight into the value of personal libery and personal choice, and then in the next breath condemn legal abortion as a great evil.
It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?
Maybe not, but if she's getting the launch codes, I sure as hell care about whether she is counting on the Rapture.
It's not like Scientology is above framing (Score:2, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) [wikipedia.org]
Re:Confirmed by her campaign (Score:5, Insightful)
It's often said you can't believe everything you read on the internet, you're banking on something you haven't even really read yet.
She's probably guiltier than sin, but I try to wait till something is verified before I bring out the tar and feathers, especially if your news source is Anonymous.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, everyone knows actors should just stay away from politics. Now, who's this Reagan fellow I keep hearing about...
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Presumably the connection is that a creationist clearly lacks even a modest helping of critical and independant thinking.
More specifically it's because I'm a biologist dependant on federal funding. There should be no one within arms reach of the federal budget who has such a flagrant misunderstanding of something so basic. She would have the power and the motivation to bring biomedical research in the US to a dead standstill. It's kind of like putting a pedophile in charge of the preschool.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, instead, let's listen to some anonymous, opinionated asshole on the internet. (And no, the irony that I'm also one of those assholes is not lost on me)
Just because someone's occupation might not be in high academic regard (i.e. an actor), does not mean he has no smart things to say.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
If they really were trying to prove corruption they'd have surely hacked the other candidates as well.
It's also possible that their 'hacking skills' don't go too far beyond guessing a password and the other candidates aren't stupid enough to use a Yahoo account for official government correspondence.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
You're giving 'Anonymous' a bit much credit there. Anonymous doesn't have an agenda, per se. They do it for the Lulz [encycloped...matica.com]. Scientology is an easy target. Mrs. Palin is, if anything, an easier target due to her sudden and dramatic rise. I have no doubt in my mind that if Anonymous could find Mr. Obama's personal email account, they would do the same thing with exactly the same glee.
'Anonymous' extends from the anonymous posting habits on 4chan and certain other message boards, where it's easy to bullshit, dickwave, and otherwise behave in a sociopathic manner. They hate because it's fun and not because it serves any purpose. It's not about supporting one candidate or the other. It's about hatred, misanthropy, ego gratification, and taking sadistic pleasure in torturing someone. Bigotry, sexism, and racism probably play into the mix as well.
Anonymous published Mrs. Palin's email address with exactly the same glee that they would report a Camwhore's secrets to her family and school administration.
Will she leave *us* alone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, I'm happy to leave her alone -- so long as she promises to leave all of us alone. Her socially reactionary politics scare the bejebus out of me, and apparently quite a few other people too. With McCain 72 and quite possibly cancerous, a McCain win would put Palin a hop, skip, and cardiac jump from being in the driver's seat. If we're supposed to leave her alone, we need some guarantee that she's not going to do everything in her power to mold the country's society into her own warped ideal.
And so far, nothing she's said has been anything but highly alarming.
(If you were trying to be funny, sorry for missing your point -- your link just went to a generic E! list of videos, and I saw nothing specific about Palin.)
Cheers,
It's her fault, really (Score:4, Insightful)
And thus, by conducting state business on an outside, cheapo email account instead of the state-provided one she was supposed to use, Sarah Palin has exposed state business data to hacking, public exposure in potentially inappropriate ways, and corruption of data.
Shame on her!
Re:The ol' double standard... (Score:2, Insightful)
Invasion of privacy, huh? That's interesting, since according to Republican politicians and the judges they put on the bench there is no such thing as a right to privacy.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
In a election campaign, a trial isnt required to do damage.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:2, Insightful)
The argument is valid no matter the messenger. Why wouldn't Matt Damon have valid opinions? Because he's good looking and stars in action movies?
The fact is if McCain gets elected Sarah Palin will be next in line to a 73 year old man with a history of cancer. (To paraphrase Damon again) we need to know if she really thinks there were dinosaurs here 5,000 years ago. That's pretty important information, troll.
Re:The ol' double standard... (Score:5, Insightful)
If a wingnut hacker had gotten into a Democrat's account, the drama queens at Fox would be all over what they dug up, spinning like mad.
Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently it's okay to do it to the masses because it might catch THE TERRORISTS OMG!, but when it happens to a candidate they like, suddenly it's the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.
Personally I agree that privacy is important and Palin shouldn't have been put through this, but that's because I'm against that sort of invasion on principle, and I'm not willing to pick and choose who it's okay for and who it isn't.
Re:adolescent garbage (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in a trial of public opinion..
i dont get it (Score:1, Insightful)
you have 2 choices : obama. or mccain.
any sane individual chooses the better of available choices when offered.
unless you have the means to transfer a green martian to be president and magically set things straight that is
It's NOT anonymous. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't give the word more power than it already has. Anonymous doesn't exist. Anonymous is many individuals that act on a whim. Or in other words, everybody IS part of anonymous if you refuse to show your identity.
Also, no, anonymous is not only /b/. It's everybody.
Re:Evidence not admissible (exclusionary rule) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Grow Up a Bit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:First impression: not cool (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh for fuck's sake! Nobody's denying her right to privacy. But when a public servant and possible soon-to-be vice president is too stupid to use a proper password for her email-account AND apparently uses yahoo mail to conduct shady business her right to privacy simply is not the most interesting matter at hand.
I consider my own right to privacy very important, but I would not expect any sympathy if someone pwns my mail account because I used my zip code as pw.
And despite also being wrong, hacking one persons account is something completely different than constantly monitoring everybody's communication and creating a police state.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:2, Insightful)
Damn straight. In a sane society, to be trusted with the capability to kill millions of people, one must demonstrate a strong ability to engage in disciplined critical reasoning.
Creationists have demonstrated that they lack this ability.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i dont get it (Score:3, Insightful)
stop living in dream world.
Re:i dont get it (Score:4, Insightful)
I can count five candidates without even looking them up, not to mention write-ins.
The US electoral system, with winner-takes-all contests and single votes, is designed as a two-party system. Any third party that does not drop out and endorse one of the existing candidates (generally in exchange for concessions on their favorite issues) takes votes away from the candidate that most closely represents their views. Thus, third party candidates generally end up hurting their causes in exchange for personal gratification.
So the parent poster was mostly right: you have 3 choices. 1. Obama, 2. McCain, 3. don't vote/vote for third party/otherwise throw vote away (all equivalent).
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Having someone who knows how to play politics, can talk to the right people on your behalf, and understand the balance of favors is a good thing. Obama can fight for change, make plans for changes, An experience VP can really help those plans become reality.
Obama wants change in the way the government works, this is good but you can't just start doing everything you want immediatly. If you so you will get no where.
Change is a process not a goal.
Nice of you to determine who is worthless and who isn't~
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.
No, it doesn't. Not necessarily. But being a creationist shows that you're willing to overlook overwhelming evidence in order to believe something written in the bible. What happens when there's a Second Cold War and the fundamentalist with their finger on the big red button starts reading about Noah and how God killed everyone but Noah and his family?
And remember, Bush's "crusade" is still killing people every day.
Re:Evidence not admissible (exclusionary rule) (Score:2, Insightful)
Evidence obtained in violation of the law may not be used against someone, even if the person violating the law is not acting on behalf of law enforcement.
It might prompt a lawful subpoena of said evidence.
Re:Glass Half Full (Score:1, Insightful)
Neither can the GOP.
I have no idea whether or not Anon was dumb enough to overlook this or they're on somebody's payroll, but not only will any of these emails NOT be admissable in any sort of meaningful investigation, but any lawyer/ PR spokesperson/ sympathetic pundit with half a brain will raise the very plausible question-
How long have hackers had access to her account?
Maybe those hackers sent emails to her government employees! Maybe she didn't send them at all! It's all a setup!
Doesn't add up ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck yes! (Score:5, Insightful)
I want the person with their finger on the button to think that they're going to murder billions, not send them all to happy fluffy fucking cloud world.
POTUS is no job for someone with a world view that's more conservative than the one espoused by the Catholic church.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I agree (I am OP). Democrats are also to blame, like that guy with $200K cash in his freezer who just got re-elected... if not in jail, he should certainly be kicked out of the party. However, this specific need for secret communication seems particularly republican, and I feel it is due to Nixon getting caught.
are you a moron ? (Score:2, Insightful)
you owe infinite amounts of ass to them for saving your sorry single ass from living under such a shameless power abuser for the next 4 years.
you get a clue (Score:3, Insightful)
what you said basically means 'richard nixon had the right to withhold the tapes he was recording from watergate scandal investigators - because they were a private affair'.
its stupidity at its best.
this woman purposefully used a private email in order to avoid investigation of her conduct while doing government business - PEOPLE'S RIGHTS. constituents.
apparently she doesnt recognize constituent rights or anything - her rights are what matters, not theirs. she thinks she can wantonly ignore laws if it suits her.
there can be no privacy or rights in doing this.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:1, Insightful)
McCain said he doesnt know how to use email. bet he wishes his veep didnt either
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rove Leaked E-Mail (Score:3, Insightful)
anonymous is not even remotely associated with obama.
and karl rove isn't running McCain's campaign. you are ignorant.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
If that had actually said "Democrats have been doing it for just as long", then yes, citation would have been needed.
What this shows... (Score:3, Insightful)
People justifying this is bullcrap though, if someone walked into your house and started snooping around while you were taking out the trash, you'd want them arrested. Think of an web e-mail account as a free apartment. You don't own the property itself but what is inside is still yours (at least until you move out).
People sometimes forget the correct government e-mail account but remember the personal account. They send it to your personal account. There's no "undo" for sending e-mails unless you are under a MS exchange server. You tell them to stop doing that next time you see them in the hallway. This isn't her sending stuff out from the account, this is her receiving e-mail.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:4, Insightful)
What's worse, I found some strong evidence that phanboy_iv won't actually place any such wager. zomg!
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:1, Insightful)
The woman is a monster.
She should never have been chosen. the only reason she was chosen was BECAUSE she's as ridiculously evil as George W. Bush. If the Democrats don't attack her, they lose more than the election.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who is voting based on issues has already made up his mind. Unless you have strong feelings on one of the flip-flops.
Now it's time to convince the other 95% of the country.
Re:What this shows... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I'm sure she was planning on this being her personal private account for non-government use when she named them gov.sarah and gov.palin @ yahoo.com
Re:Too much attention to entertainers (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that guy wanted a smaller, more efficient government [google.com]. What a schmuck.
Generalization doesn't work that way. Actors may generally be idiots; that doesn't mean any specific actor is an idiot.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:2, Insightful)
Democrats never do anything bad. It's not like one is currently being investigated for his taxes, or that another got re-elected despite having $200,000 in his freezer.
This is really just another incredibly lame attack on Palin--the most popular politician in the country, and a woman Democrats are VERY afraid of because she represents a future presidential candidate after Democrats screwed over their own first female nominee (Clinton won the Democratic popular vote, but higher-ups disenfranchised her supporters anyway).
Re:Too much attention to entertainers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that guy wanted a smaller, more efficient government.
And after 8 years, we were left with a bigger government, much more deeply in debt. But thanks to his impeccable acting skills, he convinced most people that the opposite had happened.
Password recovery questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone went through the password recovery dialog and was able to guess answer "Where did you meet your spouse?".
Can someone give me the rationale for those password recovery mechanism that are usually far weaker than the passwords themselves? They seem like such a blatantly bad idea, that I must be missing something in failing to understand why they exist at all
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
William Buckley, certainlt a critical and indpendent thinker, who would present profund insight into the value of personal libery and personal choice, and then in the next breath condemn legal abortion as a great evil.
It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.
Committed atheists could easily condemn legal abortion as a great evil if they believed that purposefully killing a human being was wrong. Person-hood is the legal test for inalienable rights. The test could just as easily be "existing as a distinct being with human genes". Pro-life isn't just a religious cause, even though the religious folk are the most vocal.
Re:Posting near the top.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone went through the password recovery dialog and was able to guess answer "Where did you meet your spouse?".
What's with that anyway? Sites insist on a long gobbledygook password (God forbid we use something that doesn't have digits and capital letters) and then let us change the password by typing in something where a list of 100 covers about 99% of the answers. Just how stupid are these supposed security experts?
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:3, Insightful)
She's screwed. She's using her personal address to ask if here blackberry account can't be subponea'd.
Or she's trying to make sure that her lovey-dovey notes to hubby don't get plastered all over the news media when the Obama-ites on the "impartial" committee "investigating" troopergate subpoena everything then leak it all to the press. I had similar questions at a job I once worked at. I sent a similar message from a home email to one of the partners of the firm, who happened to be a lawyer. I was not planning to do anything illegal, but I did want to make sure that if anything ever happened, my personal and private emails would not be grabbed. When he told me it was a possibility I began using PGP to encrypt anything really personal and private.
I think that it's far more possible the democrats, wanting to make a mountain out of this molehill, are pushing this big time. It will backfire I do believe, since the same hacked email account doesn't appear to actually have any real business work. Of course, that doesn't matter to people that want to believe the worst of someone. A hacked Obama account without any emails to Ayers or Rezko wouldn't stop me from believing the he had regular email contact with known terrorists and criminals. But at least I recognize that I feel that way because of my own predisposition to dislike socialist elitists who want to keep me from ever experiencing the American Dream that they have gotten to live.
So you believe everything in the Wash Post? Well, the National Enquirer says Elvis was spotted in a KFC in Alabama! I'd better believe that too! Believe 1/2 of what you hear and 1/8th of what you read. And always remember that these days so called "impartial" reporters are anything but. And that goes for both sides of the spectrum.
Re:Too much attention to entertainers (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, do you want the US to behave like the Roman Empire?
Re:They crossed the line this time (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm a "fundamentalist" Christian (watch my karma go down :-) ), however, I don't believe I am a nutjob. I believe that many people who claim to be Christian today don't act like it, and thus, our country has a bad impression of Christians.
While there are a few issues I believe being a Creationist would have an effect on, for the most part, I'm not sure what would be entirely different. Some issues are not entirely Christianity-related, but opinion-related.
There a host of other issues out there, but that's where I revert into state's rights :-). That is because I believe the Founding Fathers intended a system based on the rights of states, and the citizens.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama is a socialist. I don't want that kind of change. On the other hand McCain isn't any better, just another version of the current administration. So, the choices appear to be keep the poor status quo or make a change toward socialism.
You think Obama is a socialist? Silly American, you have no idea what socialism is.
Re:Something or Other (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, piffle. Just because I'm not infatuated by Obama doesn't make me a right-wing fanboy.
Would it help if I said that I find all three (D, R, and L) candidates giant shit-sacks? Probably not.
I've done the Outraged Partisan bit. I've tried the Fervent Ideologue schtick for a while, too. It's all junk. "If I vote for this guy, we'll have 14 hours of sunshine and unicorn farts for everybody! If the other guy wins, the tides will reverse, the Sun will dim, and my fridge will cease to store dairy and poultry at a safe temperature." Believing that there is a significant difference between one party and the other is an appeal to magic. It sure does feel good, though, right?
Re:First impression: not cool (Score:3, Insightful)
Privacy for the individual is very important, but privacy is for individuals, not for government. People acting as agents of the government are not entitled to privacy during the time they are in that capacity. That is, the govenor of Alaska, when she is performing the duties of govenor of Alaska, should not and does not have any expectation of privacy.
If she gets AIDS, that's her problem, and a personal matter. If she has schitzophrenia, that's a different story. Once she's out of office though, and becomes a regular citizen again, she's entitled to whatever rights not taken away from every other citizen.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
She might be less shy with the nukes than she would otherwise if she doesn't expect to be on Earth when they land.
I want someone who knows, right down to her balls, that if she helps start an apocalypse, she's going to fry on Earth with the rest of us.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need religion to be pro-life and anti-abortion (Two separate topics in my opinion).
I simply cannot find a more definitive point at which 'life' begins than at conception. It has nothing to do with my religion, but it is the most logical point at which you can say "Before that point, it was definitely not a human" and after that point "If we do not interfere, it will become a human". I've tried to rationalize abortion by looking at different stages of pregnancy, but I cannot find, or it hasn't yet been identified, that there is a singular event that bridges alive and not alive. Conception, is the most definitive point.
Of course, I'm also very much opposed to the death penalty.
I also, thankfully, have not had my beliefs tested at any extreme level (Child with downs syndrome, or due to rape, or had a loved one murdered and the suspect caught). I am very thankful for that. So while I do not know if I'm strong enough to hold to my convictions, I hope that I never have to face them, but if I do, that I remain true to my beliefs.
So please don't assume that it is just the religious that are against abortion. You can have completely secular objections against it.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
So Anonymous is like Al Quaeda then? A name for a concept that's treated like a group to sell newspapers.
Re:Alrighty then... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh... TOP-FREAKING-GUN!!!! For that movie alone, I would forgive him if he were in "heaven's gate." Like how I forgive Mel Gibson and his crazy fundamentalist christianity because of braveheart.
And a few good men was good. I was trying to think up a pun there but it came out too lame.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Define "socialism" as you meant it above.
2. Why not?
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
Or any evidence.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't you make something useful and sell it?
It must be nice on your planet where all knowledge is directly sellable and profitable! Biology is not all about making cures for the common cold and viagra. The most important work going on today is understanding the basics. Discovering a gene that maintains chromesomal integrity will get you absolutely nothing that you can sell but would be absolutely essential to a real cure for cancer. Just not directly. That's why the government gives grants, because the research that it buys proves its worth in the long run and isn't rewarded by market forces. Same reason the military isn't a private enterprise.
Being dependent on the federal government especially does not entitle you to run any portion of it.
I was explaining my reasoning for my statement that I didn't want a creationist in the white house, not saying I get to decide the next president. Keep up with the conversation or go play with your toys somewhere else.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Anonymous is not doing us a favor by hacking Palin's email. First, anyone concerned with privacy rights should be alarmed not just by the intrusion, but by the 'it's okay, we did it for a good reason' defense. I would think that a group known as Anonymous would get that.
Are you kidding? These are the guys that torment teenagers with webcams until they cry, or post flashing gifs on forums for epileptics. They're doing for the lulz, i.e. to create chaos and then laugh at it. People that mention ethics get denounced as 'moralfags'.
Seriously, spend some time on 4chan's /b/ board for a while and you'll realise who silly what you just said is.
Re:What will happen in retaliation? (Score:3, Insightful)
That bullseye had been painted there long ago, buddy.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:4, Insightful)
What is a threat about Palin is not her inexperience, it's that her policies, ignorance, and will to corruption are essentially Bush on steroids. And the fact that McCain picked her is just one more piece on the pile of evidence that he has abandoned whatever principles he may ever have had, if any.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
If you vote for a third party, you may as well vote for whichever of the two candidates you hate the most because that's what you're doing.
Voting for a third party does not, never has, and never will, send a message. The two major parties are well aware of what the outliers in their party want. They don't care. Democratic candidates are not going to move further left, the Republicans are not going to move any further right, no matter if you vote for a Pat Buchanan or a Ralph Nader.
They're not going to do this because catering to the lunatic fringe loses you the middle which is where elections are determined. No one gives a rats if you vote for a lunatic fringe party because catering more towards your ideology would lose them the election faster than losing your vote.
As a side note, before you start throwing around the word "Socialism", learn what it means. By any global standard, Obama is not even remotely socialist. He believes in things like universal health care, but that's not socialism, it's just universal health care. If you don't agree with universal health care say you disagree with it, but don't try to claim that it's socialist and bury it under the "I hate the commies" pile.
You might also want to consider that the current Republican Administration currently owns controlling shares in the largest insurance company in the country, as well as two major investment bankers.
The "free market" ideals of the current government have forced them to take a more "socialist" control of the economy than any previous government in US history, just to fix up their mistakes.
Private email account? (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely the most serious issue here is not whether a private email account was hacked or whether Sarah Palin tried to hide things from scrutiny, but the fact that she is putting government information - potentially sensitive and confidential - on a server outside government control. If this was a private company, she would probably be dismissed. It isn't much different from taking your work laptop computer home and leaving it in your car, something that usually has serious repercussions if it gets stolen.
This is something that should worry most American citizens - that and the fact that she seems to be even more ignorant about and less interested in international affairs than Bush. I really don't understand why it is that America keept electing politial leaders based on whether they appear to be good parents, "likeable" or good enough liars to look sincere when they talk about God. shouldn't they be elected for being good leaders, who have the knowledge and wisdom to handle the task? Who have the best interest of their people in mind? Who, in short, are aware that they are public servants and not divinely appointed kings?
Anyway, this is democracy, and America will get the leader they need; if you elect the McCain/Palin team, apparently you didn't learn the lesson with Bush and need another lesson.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:5, Insightful)
Clinton won the Democratic popular vote, but higher-ups disenfranchised her supporters anyway
Oh, get off it.
Sheesh. The rules for the primaries don't have any frigging thing to do with popular vote.
They have everything to do with delegates.
It's not like Clinton was hoodwinked into thinking she needed to win the popular vote and just stumbled onto the fact that she had to win delegates. She knew from the start.
She talked up how she'd win the delegates - at least she did until she was losing on the race for delegates. Then she (and STOOPID people like you) began harping on the "popular vote."
BO won and HRC lost on the rules of the contest - delegates. If the race had been on popular vote, you would have to assume that all the candidates would run their races differently. (And you can be sure they would have done so.)
Since the primaries are about the candidates meeting the voters and vice-versa, a system that doesn't simply focus on popular vote is probably better. (It tends to get the candidates out to less population dense areas and meet with more people - rather than blasting only at large groups of people...)
Now, if you want to complain that the delegate system currently in place is a poor system, you'd probably get me to agree with you.
BUT! Hillary most certainly didn't get screwed by the party ignoring the "popular vote," That's just the sound of a loser reaching for another set of rules that favors them, when they're losing by the rules they agreed to play by.
And people who do that - they're not only losing, they ARE losers.
-Greg
P.S. And even if you want to play a loser argument...exactly how do you count popular vote in caucus states? Hmmm. Just another huge, gaping, enormous hole in your inane, bullshit postulation that "Clinton won the Democratic popular vote, but higher-ups disenfranchised her supporters anyway"
And I'd bet you are REALLY PISSED that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, and the WHOLE FRIGGING NATION was disenfranchised. Right?
Sheesh!
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, its the Alaska Public Records Act.
Thanks. I did a bit of googling, and I'm not sure but I think advisory communications between the governor and her advisors may be exempted:
http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Alaska_Public_Records_Act [sunshinereview.org]
In 1986, in the case of Doe v. Superior Court, the Alaskan Supreme Court ruled that there is a limited "executive" or "deliberative process" privilege that protects communications between the governor and his or her aides about policy matters. This decision related to internal communications about advice, opinions and recommendations. In a 2000 case, Gwich'in Steering Committee v. Office of the Governor, the court said the privilege is intended to "protect the mental processes of governmental decisionmakers from interference."
Also, from what I've seen a lot of what people are describing as "political communications" actually has to do with political campaigning. If I understand correctly, it would actually be unethical to use a government account for that sort of communication.
Re:I've looked. Check Gawker (Score:3, Insightful)
Not at all. The fact she had a yahoo account was already made public what, a week ago? That's more than enough time to have an aid make a thorough scrubbing of her yahoo account and then leave it open for someone to "hack" into using a conveniently easy-to-guess password retrieval question.
This helps her with regards to her corruptions trials ("but there were no inappropriate emails, which was proven during the yahoo mail break in").
This helps McCain against Obama (the right-wing nutjobs are already painting this as left-wing hacktivism, instead of the skiddie crap we all know it to be).
She couldn't have had this turn out better for her if she had tried.
She's an important GOP figure (Score:1, Insightful)
So they won't seize her computers they'll just ask and believe her when she says "no, I'm not using my private email to conduct government business" and leave.
This doesn't work for the plebian, nor for the powerful who have annoyed the more powerful.
They should now seize her computers and undergo investigation to retrieve all emails on that account. They won't, they'll spend all their time looking for the "perpetrator" of this attack.
Re:First impression: not cool (Score:1, Insightful)
This is what I don't get, after reading about half of the posts in this thread: About 95% of the posts don't mention the right to privacy
Get this: when discussing government matters via private email, Palin was not acting as a private citizen.
The reason why politicians are not supposed to use private email to discuss government matters is that public oversight on government activities is one of the pillars of democracy. Politicians essentially have no right to privacy when it comes to their performing their government duties; they are supposed to be open to public scrutiny.
What i don't get is why some people think that exposing corruption (or exposing the breaking of rules that are there to prevent corruption) is worse than the corruption being exposed.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:3, Insightful)
even in playing rts games you see that "research" and "advancement" is something you undertake only after you've amassed a threshold surplus of resources in order to fund the research. in other words, your statement "make something and sell it" is misguided because a lot of important research is SOOOO far away from being market viable that it needs no-strings cash to fund it along.
this is actually the problem with big pharm - I worked at one for two years out of undergrad. There is such a focus on lifestyle/consumer drugs because that's what you can "make" and "sell" based upon the emotional desires of the consumer - often not so much for the greater good but more for short term profit.
in fact some argue that our economy has big problems for this same reason - there is artificial growth - based on ipod sales and back to school and christmas seasons, etc. and such - instead of real healthy growth based on fundamental economic staples. in short, the US has kinda gotten fat and decadent - and the thought process is - how can we keep this gravy train going? I'm as guilty as us all.
the consumer, contrary to popular opinion, is not always right.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
See, now, when I look at the stages of pregnancy, I see fertilization as "large cell plus tiny wannabe-cell equals large cell", not some sort of dramatic change worthy of special treatment... much less a supernatural event where a hidden deity sneaks a soul in, as claimed by the religious folks. This view is validated by the fact that a single fertilization can readily lead to two (or hypothetically more) resulting embryos, resulting in multiple unique individuals with identical DNA. This tells me that DNA is not really central to what it means to be an individual, unique person. Therefore, the moment when two haploid genomes join into a diploid genome isn't a particularly good moment to start saying that a cell has become a person.
Instead, I ask myself the question: what makes a person a person? And my answer is that a person (1) reacts to the surrounding environment; (2) remembers the past, learns from it, and makes predictions from it; and (3) has a personality, which seems to be a second-order effect of established memory plus genetic biases. (Yes, by this standard, many animals count as "persons". I'm not terribly concerned about that: in this context of "person", I'm concerned with how to treat a person ethically, and it's clear that animals with these traits must also be treated ethically.) And it's obvious to me that, while some of these things start while the fetus is in the womb — certainly the first, and the beginnings of the second — they definitely don't start until after the embryo has become a fetus, and based on how the brain works they definitely don't start prior to the formation of the human-style frontal cortex around weeks 22-26.
As a result, I don't see any moral issues whatsoever in abortion in the first trimester or the early second trimester, for the same reason I don't see moral issues in masturbation or exfoliation or hysterectomies. The bigger moral concern is the emotional well-being of the mother. Pregnancy is a big deal, after all: the choices surrounding pregnancy — abortion included — take on a very weighty importance due to their massively life-changing consequences.
Re:Posting near the top.... (Score:1, Insightful)
I also realise it is a gross invasion of privacy, yet arent these emails meant to be public record?
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:3, Insightful)
And therein lies the failure of democracy. It has become a fight between tribes, not aa genuine appraisal of what is best for oneself, ones country and the world.
Re:No privacy rights here (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess its OK to warrrantless wiretap and watch emails then because they could involve illegal activity?
its already ok to warrantless wiretap and watch emails. HER party legislated it. her party was using it against anyone not from her party. people used it against her. observe the irony.
More to the point, what would happen if nothing had been found? The difference between your analogy and what actually happened was, filming an event in progress (assuming its in a public space) is not a breach of privacy. This is more like breaking into someones house, with, based on the usual goings on /b/, vandalising the inside of said house, and then happening to come across evidence of misdoing. It might have been there, but that doesn't make what you did right.
privacy cant, and shouldnt be allowed to be used for shielding illegal activities. imagine a citizen filming someone suspicious doing something in his backyard. if the filming shows stuff of a criminal nature, it is evidence, discovery. noone can claim privacy rights and make the evidence illegitimate. at least, they shouldnt be able to do. it would be an abuse of rights and exploitation of law. if, there is nothing wrong in the film, then it is indeed a violation of privacy.
The worst bit is based on the your opinions on other issues I quickly browsed, you seem to be willing to throw away your moral standpoint in an instant. You post negatively about border checks of laptops and the Bavarian trojan thing, yet when it happens to this politician its suddenly OK? While I agree that something untoward may have occurred here, if we don't respect the principles of our common law justice system in our most scrutinised cases (corruption in high office), what hope does the man on the street have?
see, its like this. if you were living in 1938, and happened to discover evidence that nazis were planning mass murders of ethnic groups, would it be immoral to use that evidence and act upon it ? OR, you had 'illegally' uncovered evidence that nazis were behind the reichstag burning ?
there are some stuff in the world that has much more aspect than an individual's privacy rights. this woman is no ordinary bavarian citizen. she is poised (by any chance) to become vp of the country with most powerful army in the world, and god forbid, she may be president in 1-2 years due to the other biting the dust out of old age. risks are paranormally high. she is a religious nutjob, she may start a world war 3, in which all of the rights, legalese and modern values of life are sure to be trampled to dust, during and after.
no. while poised to a position like this, she doesnt have similar rights as a citizen. sorry. cant let her. she has to pass a lot of tests, be them legal, or illegal, to prove that she is not dangerous. and up to this point, she has proven to be someone who tramples rule of law, and ignores citizens' rights at whim. she is just one person, and when her rights are ignored, just one person's rights will be ignored. but she is in office. she already ignored the rights of 700.000 alaskans, and already (as of today) defied a subpoena from a legitimate court of law. and if she takes a higher office, she has the possibility of trampling rights of not only 300 million americans, but also many other people of this world.
no she doesnt have any rights.
Re:Too much attention to detail (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You need to watch Magnolia (Score:4, Insightful)
Never mind his acting ability or lack thereof, he is a member of a pseudo criminal pyramid selling cult and legitimizes its existence by his membership.
Now if he switched to supporting the Freezone I might have more time for him but he is a figurehead for a vile cult and should be called out as a nasty piece of work.
Re:Too much attention to entertainers (Score:5, Insightful)
While generally true, Roman aqueducts were a step up in the engineering sense, and their ubiquity across the Empire was unmatched. Romans also used them not just for irrigation, but for water supply of cities.
It's one thing to have an isolated sewer-like system in a single specific place. It's another to establish it as a standard thing expected to be present in all major cities of the empire. And, again, engineering.
The difference is, again, ubiquity and quality. Romans built roads everywhere, not just in the cities proper; and their roads were so good that a lot of them lasted to our time.
It waged war on its borders. Pax Romana, by definition, is the condition that was within those borders.
A quick look at the list of all-out wars between various Germanic tribes during their migration age is all that it takes to disprove it. What Romans did was conquered them once and for all, and ensured that no fighting took place within their borders. It's hard to ask for anything beyond that, really.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:1, Insightful)
You think Obama is a socialist? Silly American, you have no idea what socialism is.
Don't be too hard on him/her. A common trait of that kind of (North American, US in particular - I have way higher regard for the typical Canadian) person is that the US is "The World"(tm). Any other country, place, system of politics or whatever, is mostly considered to be a figment of someone's imagination.
In other words: Thinking that Obama is a socialist (hah! yeah, it _is_ funny) is just a symptom of a much larger underlying problem.
The fact that the above mindset appears to overlap to a large extent with current US international policy is frightening.
Public schools deserve more than ideology. (Score:3, Insightful)
the consumer, contrary to popular opinion, is not always right
The consumer is right, but the problem is that we've screwed up our educational system K-12, among other things, by arguing over ideological lines rather than practical ones. Extreme liberals want to fill classrooms with a bunch of white guilt stuff about slavery, the indians and the holocaust, and extreme conservatives, want to teach about Jesus. Well, here's the problem. Jesus and the Holocaust are all well and good, but they don't help kids learn how to do anything useful.
The biggest shortfall in our engineering right now is that kids actually aren't learning how to make things and be comfortable doing so from an early age. Every classroom needs to have legos and blocks for the younger ones, and in high school, you need to have CNC machines, CAD systems, chemistry labs and in the very least, every school district should have an electron microscope. People only believe in all of this earth is flat gobbledygook because all the tools that science has may as well be on another planet too, but if you put all of this stuff in kids hands, and from an early age... many can learn to think like engineers and scientists because they will be engineers and scientists. I know this sounds expensive, but, I am all for capping federal spending on entitlements for the elderly so that we can, instead, really just load up on our schools. I have no problem with a redistribution of wealth in education because it is in the best interests of the money'd classes to have smart people to someday become stewards of their corporations, rather than the retards that we have to day.
I mean, just imagine a classroom where you integrated engineering with algebra and then calculus so that, people can grasp and visualize things. You could easily show multiplication as an area and a volume problem with legos and show how calculating lets you know much material you need before you make it. You can use smaller and smaller blocks to plant the seeds of understanding limits and then calculus and then work in building shapes out of various curves and using the calculus to know how many blocks you need. Kids can learn about atoms and molecules by actually looking at them in an STM, and could have real chemistry sets and real motors and real generators and yes, lets cap lawsuits against public schools because some kids are going to get hurt playing with this stuff, but, such occasional injury is the risk that we have to accept to become a society of learning how to do things. But, at the end of the day, a young man or woman coming out of high school should have built their own electric motor, their own internal and external combustion engine, their own simple logical gate, their own computer, and synthesized a couple of different kinds of complex chemicals. I mean, I think teflon is something you could make.
None of this is even really out of the ordinary from what Americans had a century ago. Kids back then worked on farms and so got a good sense of how to fix things and make things because well, there wasn't like a Best Buy you would just return something too and things were so valuable that you just couldn't throw them away to get a new one. We need to put the positive aspects of that environment in place too.
Also, we really need to stop it with this first amendment crap taken to an extreme and get all of the junk off of the media. Parental responsbility is all well and good, but just about everyone is a parent, and you know there is a larger societal responsibility to not be programming ourselves with a steady diet of bad human behavior, violence, and smut.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:3, Insightful)
The COS has a long history of vindictiveness, and plenty of lawyers. They probably already threw resources at Anonymous equivalent to whatever law enforcement can do. The only thing law enforcement can add is warrants and subpeona power.
Re:Intended purpose of hacking the e-mail (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he doesn't want to vote for a socialist because he's not a socialist and doesn't believe in socialism.
Socialism doesn't work because of the moral hazard issue. The lazy get to profit off of the labor of the hard working. Sure, you lift the bottom up a little relative to everyone else, but the cost is destroying innovation and potential for growth.
If I'm going to make the same if I mail it in and work 30 hours or if I work 80 hours, guess what? I'm mailing it in...
Re:Posting near the top.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I do realize that this is a gross invasion of privacy, but you know what, I honestly don't care.
You should even if you don't care about Palin, because it has practical negative effects for the rest of us.
If we continue to escalate the personal attacks against candidates for public office, that will eliminate a large class of qualified people from running just because they don't want to subject themselves to that kind of punishment. We complain about the selection of candidates, but there is a strong selection bias here.
I have even heard commentators say that Sarah Palin should not have run because she would be putting her family through these personal attacks. If we eliminate all the people who don't want to subject their family to personal attacks, who are we left with?
I sure wouldn't want to run for anything that drew that many attacks.
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The crossed the line this time (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, so you think she'll be able to predict the exact millisecond of the rapture and hit the launch button right before she's assumed into heaven?
Seriously? Look, there's no connection whatsoever between believing in the rapture and controlling nuclear weapons. None.
I'm not defending belief in the rapture; I think it's retarded, as belief in any doomsday story is retarded. But don't make shit up about Palin just because you disagree with her beliefs. The fact is, a person can have vastly different beliefs than you, and still do good in the world.
Re:Too much attention to entertainers (Score:3, Insightful)
Roman civilization lasted for 2000 years — from around 500BC, when the city was founded, to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
That's pretty long by any measure — US has existed for less than 250 years — even if we ignore for a second the fact, that the modern Europe (and the US) consider themselves the descendants of their civilization.
But you did not just make a moronic irrelevant observation, that all earlier civilizations have waned for some reason or the other — or else they wouldn't be "earlier" — and that we should not adapt any of their opinions or other features, if we want to survive.
You must've tried to make a specific point... And the only point you could've been making in the context, is that the disdain for entertainers has, in your opinion, contributed (significantly) to Romans' demise. Is that what you are saying?