Tag: Rights Dealing with Amendments Lower or Higher Than Two

Big Brother is Watching

A tip of the old hat goes to Dvorak Uncensored for this story. A federal class action lawsuit is bring brought forth against the Lower Merion School District. The school district issued laptops to each child with an integrated web camera which the school was able to remotely turn on and spy with. From the article:

Michael Robbins thereafter verified, through Ms. Matsko, that the school district in fact has the ability to remotely activate the webcam contained in a student’s personal laptop computer issued by the school district at any time it chose and to view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer.

Additionally, by virtue of the fact that the webcam can be remotely activated at any time by the school district, the webcam will capture anything happening in the room in which the laptop computer is located, regardless of whether the student is sitting at the computer and using it.

Scary stuff. Several question arise from this. First what was the purpose of being able to remotely enable the web cameras? Was it to spy on the children to ensure they weren’t doing anything wrong? Was is because there are perverts in the school district who get their jollys off of underage kids on camera? The implications of this could be rather astounding.

This also further proves a motto in the security industry, trust no one.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Well it’s a another week which means there is another hot topic for bloggers. This week is the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. Since it’s a slow news day I figured this is a good way to get the daily post count above two.

Anybody who has read this blog or listened to Truth About Guns (New episode is in the works by the way) knows I’m a libertarian. That’s libertarian with a lower case “l” by the way. This puts me square under the belief that peoples’ rights have the utmost importance. On of those rights is to ability to do as you please so long as you don’t violate another person’s rights.

I see no reason gays can’t join the military and server along sight straights. Yes it may make some of the straight service men and woman awkward but frankly that’s just too bad. Is somebody’s life making you feel uncomfortable? If so feel free to cry me a river and toss your complaint into it.

I have gay friends. They are every bit as capable as anybody else. None of them have an inability to control their sex drive. All this bull shit about gay people serving ruining our military is hogwash. There are already gay people serving, they just can’t openly state they’re gay.

Of course people are mentioning the fact they won’t want to shower with other people of the same sex who are gay. My response, don’t complement yourself so highly. Gay people don’t go around ogling people of the same sex any more than straight people ogle people of the opposite sex. That means a majority of gay people are going to be checking out your ugly ass any longer than you check out an ugly person of the opposite sex. I’m sorry to be the one to inform you that you’re just not that attractive to everybody of the same sex who is gay. If they do check you out who cares? Really what does it matter? Does it make you uncomfortable? Maybe you should remember that the next time your ogling a member of the opposite sex.

I know there are a ton of people who disagree with me and that’s OK to, I respect your right to have a differing opinion. Hell I’m even willing to debate the subject so long as your argument doesn’t involve simply being homophobic. But in the end this thing is an entire non-issue. We already have gays serving in the military and the only thing abolishing “don’t ask, don’t tell” is going to do is let this people be open about it. All “don’t ask, don’t tell” accomplishes is forcing a subset of the military population to lie.

More Open Carry Drama

Says Uncle has a post about more open carry drama occurring, this time in Michigan. The group Michigan Open Carry decided to have a meeting at a Pondarosa which the owner was fine with. Well that is until some of the members started showing up with rifle:

Officials from Michigan Open Carry say the owner of Ponderosa greed to let them hold a meeting at the restaurant. But he says he didn’t expect the meeting to be held on a busy Saturday — and certainly didn’t expect the men to bring more than handguns.

“At first, we looked the other way on the handguns,” said owner Dennis Holleran. “And then some gentleman shows up with an assault rifle, and that was just too far over the top.”

The owner called the police who came and ousted the Michigan Open Carry members. Of course there are hard feelings going around as would be expected. A lot of people are saying the open carry advocates were well within their right to carry and therefore what happened was unconscionable. But they are also forgetting another right, the right of a property owner to determine what happens on his or her property.

I personally can’t say the owner of the Pondarosa was out of line. Something was happening on his property that he was uncomfortable with so he took measures to make it stop. I don’t believe he should have called the cops before asking the people to leave but alas it’s his place and he can do as he pleases.

If somebody doesn’t want me to carry a gun on their property then I won’t go there. The owner sets the rules and I can chose to either abide by them or not go there. Likewise a property owner has the right to say he will allow me to carry a handgun but not a rifle. We as gun owners need to realize that we have a right to keep and bear arms and property owners have a right to determine what they will and will not allow on their property.

Of course these rules are different for governments in my book since that land is owned by the tax payers. Because of this I don’t think government has the right to determine what rights they will respect and what rights they won’t respect. But that’s an entirely different topic.

On another point relating to the topic at hand I want to say the police handled this situation very well:

But LPD say no one was arrested and notes they’re now working cooperatively with Open Carry to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

“I think the taxpayers of Lansing want us to respond to gun calls. But at the same time, we need to be aware of individual rights.”

So kudos to them for not making a big fuss out of this and understanding they need to be aware of peoples’ rights.

This is Retarded

No seriously it is. There is a web site dedicated to stopping people from using the word retarded. Retarded is a legitimate medical term for Christ’s sake. This is no different than deterring the use of the word idiot, moron, or stupid. All of those words are legitimate medical terms referring to an improperly developed mind and are used in derogatory manners.

Trying to stop the use of terms in place of flowery hippie phrases is one of by biggest pet peeves. It’s akin to saying a child isn’t poor, they’re at risk at hope. I’m sorry (OK I’m not) to be blatant about this but no matter what word you create to replace retarded it’s eventually going to be used in a derogatory manner because people like to insult each other. The best thing you can do is ignore it and eventually people will move on to another word.

These campaigns are stupid. I personally pledge to keep using the word retarded as well as every other word I use to insult things.

If You Don’t Want Security to See You Naked You Can’t Fly

Good news British subjects! If you are selected to go through a full body scanner at either Heathrow or Manchester airports you must submit or you don’t get to fly:

It is now compulsory for people selected for a scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly.

Previously if you were selected to go through a body scanner you could opt for a full body pat down instead. Personally I’d go that route, if somebody wants to see me naked I better be getting free drinks out of the deal.

South Australia Bans Anonymous Political Speech

Welcome the South Britain Australia. Feel free to go about your business but if you’re going to talk about any upcoming elections do note you cannot do so anonymously. South Australia just passed a law making anonymous political speech illegal unless you publish your legal name and post code. Media organizations also have to keep peoples’ names and address on file for six months or face a $5,000.00 fine.

Australia seems to be doing it’s best to become as hated in my book as Britain. They censor the Internet, claim women with small breast promote pedophilia, and now doesn’t allow the freedom of speech unless they government knows who you are. Of course all this shit started happening after the citizenry were effectively disarmed, but that could just be a coincidence.

Umm… What

This certainly falls under news that makes you go, “What the fuck?” Dvorak Uncensored posted a bizarre story that could only come from the Commonwealth. Australia is looking at banning porn with women having A cup breasts. From the article and no I’m not making this up:

Breasts came under the spotlight a year ago, as Senators Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett commenced a campaign against publicly available porn. Rounding up magazines from corner shops and filling stations, Senator Joyce claimed that publications featuring small-breasted women were encouraging paedophilia.

Hear that ladies? If you have small breasts you’re encouraging pedophilia! Obviously the next logical step here is to arrest and imprison all women who have A-cup sized breasts for distributing child pornography.

Body Scanner Fail

Bruce Schneier linked to a video of a person sneaking bomb components pasted on of those fancy full body scanners the TSA wants to put everybody through.

The video is in German but you can tell what’s going on even without knowing the language the French fear.

Don’t Hack Google

Here is something to note, don’t hack Google. Apparently several malicious hackers from Google have been banging on their virtual door. Strangely enough these attacks have originated in China. This wasn’t a bunch of bots or script kiddies, these attacks were targeted at Google and the malicious bastards knew what they were doing. They even managed to run away with some of Google’s intellectual property. But here’s the icing on the cake:

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Well apparently this has made Google think about it’s China operation. First they are looking over the “viability” of their China operation. There is even the threat of pulling out of that country entirely (With how much money is at stake I’m betting this won’t happen). But effective already Google is no longer censoring search results on their Chinese page.

It’ll be interesting to watch how this turns how. I believe if you want to sell your toys in a country you need to follow that country’s rules. If you don’t like those rules you simply don’t go there. But seeing as how Google is playing by China’s rules and being punished for it I’d say screw it as well.

Congress Members Trying to Bar Posting of Sensitive Government Documents

Remember the lead of the TSA Standard Operating Procedures document a bit back? Well it appears as though three jackass congressmen want to make it illegal for websites to post such materials. From the article:

In their letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (.pdf) on Wednesday, Reps. Peter T. King (R – New York), Charles Dent (R – Pennsylvania) and Gus Bilirakis (R – Florida) asked, “How has the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration addressed the repeated reposting of this security manual to other websites, and what legal action, if any, can be taken to compel its removal?”

They also asked if DHS is “considering issuing new regulations pursuant to its authority in Section 114 of Title 49, United States Code, and are criminal penalties necessary or desirable to ensure such information is not reposted in the future?”

That’s right Peter T. King, Charles Dent and, Gus Bilirakis want to bar websites from posting leaked government documents because our transparent government by the people and for the people doesn’t want citizens to see such documents.

Because I’m in a rather prickish mood I thought I’d do my duty and post the document on this site. So here it is everybody a copy of the TSA Standard Operating Procedures [PDF] document. Enjoy.