Leaked: Info on US Data Collection Programs

[Broomstick]

No need to hold back because of Aspergers Syndrome- when I turned 18 I promised my parents I would claim no special rights on account of Aspergers, and I intend to keep that promise.

That actually may be a relevant fact. Is your Aspergers of the sort where it makes it difficult for you to recognize social cues? I also wonder if some things that are ambiguous to you are not so ambiguous to us.

Nationality is a construct so arbitrary that it could be compared to classifying people by zodiac for it's accuracy- hence why I reject it. So as to not insult people I don't go around claiming that they do not in fact have nationalities, but that is in fact the case.

I have to disagree with this. While people can change their nationality, the culture one is raised in does affect one. In other words, it is more useful than the zodiac, even if it's accuracy in predicting things is not 100%.

[Carinthium]

Straha:

There are. More even than there are ethical schools.

Then give me some even remotely plausible theories of justification. There aren't that many possibilities.

If Coherentism can't account for the world around it the answer isn't to try and force either the theory or the incoming data onto a Procrustean Bed but to reject the theory as inadequate.

So you have a basically pragmatic structure of epistemic self-congradulation in which the purposes of an epistemic construct is to justify believing in the world as it is? Why not consider the possibility that it isn't?

The law, and conceptions of the law, are not universal. The law as we understand it now it is a relatively recent creation, and is founded in a uniquely Western basis of statecraft and morality.

Let's also turn this question on its head for a moment and return, in a way, to where the detour started. If we take the gut feeling of "I don't like or understand this" as a basis for morality then there would be no way to support abolitionism in the Southern United States in the 1850s. For the slave-owner the slave was an animal, or at best an animalian human, and the idea of granting them protections and equality would be absolutely absurd. They were taught this from youth, understood it to be true, and would object to it in much the same way I imagine you would to me saying I think chickens should have the right to vote (which, by the by, I do.)

Put another way, gut feelings are cultural because what we understand is based on culture. In order to use gut feelings as a basis for anything without incorporating incredible a priori biases you need to deconstruct the preconceived notions that lead to gut feelings which ultimately leads to other, and far more fruitful, lines of philosophy and ethics.

The thought experiment behind such a thing is not cultural. To demonstrate:

-A keeps ordering B about and telling him what to do. B correctly protests that he can't even understand said orders. A punishes him for violations anyway.

On the face of it, this seems problematic regardless of culture.

There are two laid out there above in my last post. The simplest one is this: You can never arrive at an objective epistemology so as to be able to adequately engage in deontological ethics. As long as we engage the world through biases and conceptions (as, indeed, we must) the impartail analysis necessary for deontology can never arise.

There are two possible responses to this.

1- Deontology based on universial human intuitions
2- Deontology based on Cultural Supremacism (either ultimately circular or based on criticisms of other cultures)

Both work well enough- just as in science, there is sufficient objectivity to be getting on with.

Broomstick:

That actually may be a relevant fact. Is your Aspergers of the sort where it makes it difficult for you to recognize social cues? I also wonder if some things that are ambiguous to you are not so ambiguous to us.

I can recognise social cues as well as anyone. I am also capable of seeing implicit interpretations- I just also see that they must of necessity be ambigious. I do remember what it was like when I didn't understand them, but that isn't now.

I have to disagree with this. While people can change their nationality, the culture one is raised in does affect one. In other words, it is more useful than the zodiac, even if it's accuracy in predicting things is not 100%.

Nationality and culture are not the same thing. What differences are there between being raised in, say, urban United States v.s urban Australia v.s urban UK v.s urban France v.s urban Germany?

[Broomstick]

Nationality and culture are not the same thing. What differences are there between being raised in, say, urban United States v.s urban Australia v.s urban UK v.s urban France v.s urban Germany?

Well, for one thing, the US has a MUCH higher tolerance of violence, particularly that involving guns, that any of the other nations listed. The US is far more uptight about sexuality, and far more hypocritical. A teenager in the UK, France, or Germany will find it much easier to obtain birth control and better educated in regards to sex than the teen in the US, which is why they have a lower teen pregnancy rate (I am not familiar with how Australia is about this and thus do not include it in my comments). When disaster occurs Americans are far more likely to look toward private charity/assistance/aid than the government, and European nations tend to look more toward the government to render aid rather than private citizens (this was commented about here in a thread about the Boxing Day Tsunami some years ago). People in Europe are more more likely to be polylingual than people in the US or Australia.

Those are just a few examples. There are many more. While each on its own is not hugely significant as a whole they can add up to significant differences in outlooks and values. For example, taxes tend to be higher in Europe than the US because Europeans ask their governments to fund robust social safety nets and medical care. In the US, taxes are lower in part because the government does not take on those tasks. Europeans tend to prefer their system, which leaves them with less disposable income but more social security. Americans tend to prefer their system, which results in lower taxes but puts individuals at greater risk of disaster if things go awry. This is not a 100% correlation, as there are some Americans that would favor, say, a European-style health system (like myself) and some Europeans that are as pro-free-market as the most rabid US capitalist but statistically knowing a person's nationality and culture of origin enables one to make some predictions with an accuracy considerably better than chance.

This can even apply to sub-cultures that seem to cross national lines. For example, while North Americans of African descent are at higher risk of serious high blood pressure than European-descended Americans, Africans are not - so being a black African vs. a black American affects whether or not you are likely to suffer a particular medical problem.

So yes, where you were raised, and where you live - particularly if someone has chosen to move to another nation on a permanent basis - does say something about you.

[loomer]

I'm sorry, I believe I asked you to answer my question, Carinthium. Don't you fucking try and weasel out.

Rather than going on to answer Straha with ideas like a universal human nature (here's a hint: Humans are not universal in our intuitions, barring very basic biological drives like 'eat' 'sleep' 'maybe shit in the woods from time to time'. Claiming that you can base deontological ethics on universal intuition is ethnocentric and a pretty much discredited position), how about you actually answer my fucking questions for a change? You keep dodging them, and I'm getting sick of it.

[Carinthium]

The problems with Holmes are best illustrated with a counter-example.

Say Examplestan is a country in which the Federal Government has been understood to have only powers over Foreign Affairs, Defence, various taxes, and Tarriffs. Cars have only recently been invented, and due to a pathetic oversight the local State has no law agaisnt stealing cars.

As a criminal, I decide to take advantage of the legal loophole to steal a car. I fully expect, based on my Constitutional knowledge, to be acquitted even if caught. I point out that the legal reasoning the Federal Government uses to uphold it's anti-car stealing legislation is pathetic. The judge rules the law valid and convicts me. As a result, the judge has made a retroactive law by retroactively (de facto) amending the Constitution.

To take another example, say the jurisprudence before the case said that the Federal Government could make laws with respect to Cars through some stretch of the Tarriff power, but that this was not the case when the Constitution was first written. The judge themselves did not make a retroactive law- but the change of understanding in the jurisprudence was itself a retroactive law.

If when the Constitution was first written the arsinine reading of the Tariff power WAS the popular understanding, then it was not a retroactive law. However, it was so ridiciolously unclear it may as well have been.

[loomer]

I didn't ask you to provide a counter argument to Holmes. I asked you if you've read any of him yet. Have you? Answer the fucking question.

[Carinthium]

Unless there's something I'm missing, I don't need to yet. I still have a lot of work right now, so Holmes is on the backlog.

[Simon_Jester]

Carinthium, you're jumping up and down and proclaiming that the way the world's judiciaries work is anathema. You say it's evil, that you'd destroy it if you could, that anyone who can tolerate or accept it is somehow a traitor or "no countryman of yours" or some such.

You've gotten very emotional in your choice of language about this. More emotional than I'd expect out of a sane, rational person talking about a functional status quo. Even if you don't like the status quo, talking about how you'd kill to change it isn't the act of a stable person.

And you're doing this when, by your own admission, you know absolutely nothing about the serious, formal, scholarly arguments for doing the things the way they are done.

That's backwards. It's out of order. It's like attacking the theory of relativity when you've never taken classes on advanced mathematics, or relativity itself, or for that matter even read a book meant for intelligent laymen on the subject. How can you have such a passionate criticism of a matter where you are ignorant?

[loomer]

Okay. You haven't read Holmes yet. I shouldn't have to ask you four fucking times before I get an answer.

Explain to me then why you feel confident critiquing him based on the idea of a bunch of bizarre alterations to an example intended only to demonstrate retroactivity - which, by the way, none of your additions alter. An alteration made to the interpretation of the constitution is NOT retroactive you goddamn tool. Here is a simple fucking test for retroactivity in criminal matters:

1. Does this decision or law penalize conduct that has already happened?
2. If no, does it alter the penalty or standards for conviction of conduct that has already happened?
3. If no, does it abolish an offence that has already happened?

If a decision or statute does not do any of these three things, it is not retroactive for criminal law purposes. Get that through your fucking head or fuck right off. If you can't even grasp retroactivity, you cannot debate law.

[Carinthium]

Simon_Jester:
Because I know all that I need to know- that the way judges work in the modern world involves a status quo where no matter how hard a person tries it is impossible in practice for them to truely be able to predict in advance a judicial decision in many cases even if they're an experienced lawyer. Most people don't even know the basis of the laws that govern them. Retroactive law is merely the most extreme example.

With those things out of the way, the only questions that remains are ones of ethics. In addition, it's status quo bias to assume something better than it is because we have it.

(Also, PLEASE don't hold back on any insults you would use against an ordinary person you were arguing with. I may not like insults, but I like being treated differently because of Aspergers even less)

loomer:
I thought it was pretty clear implicitly.

I perfectly comprehend your example, but I am disputing it. If you can accept the concept of a law that is de facto but not de jure, why not an amendment either to law or the constitution which exists de facto but not de jure?

[loomer]

Carinthium, do you acknowledge that a judicial ruling that changes the interpretation of the constitution is not retroactive unless it criminalizes or otherwise alters the legal status of prior conduct?

[Carinthium]

No- it is still retroactive. I care less about it if it doesn't criminalise anything, but it is still retroactive as a rule of interpretation is a de facto law.

[loomer]

Then we're done. If you are incapable of actually understanding and using a word correctly, there is no point to further engagement.

Sit down, shut the fuck up, open a book, and educate yourself. Otherwise you will continue to make yourself look a fool, because you ignore the contributions of all those who have come before and build your pathetic little sand castle atop the giant mountains they have built and then proclaim yourself to be a great architect, because look how tall the tower is!

If anyone else wants to try and hammer some sense past this fucker's thick skull, good fucking luck. He can't even understand the concept of retroactivity in law.

[Carinthium]

I note that you still haven't refuted my argument. I will also point out:

ret·ro·ac·tive (rtr-ktv)
adj.
Influencing or applying to a period prior to enactment: a retroactive pay increase.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ways lawyers use a word isn't the only one.

[Korto]

I'm sorry, I've got to butt in here, because this hypothetical's fucking awful

Say Examplestan is a country in which the Federal Government has been understood to have only powers over Foreign Affairs, Defence, various taxes, and Tarriffs. Cars have only recently been invented, and due to a pathetic oversight the local State has no law agaisnt stealing cars.

As a criminal, I decide to take advantage of the legal loophole to steal a car. I fully expect, based on my Constitutional knowledge, to be acquitted even if caught. I point out that the legal reasoning the Federal Government uses to uphold it's anti-car stealing legislation is pathetic. The judge rules the law valid and convicts me. As a result, the judge has made a retroactive law by retroactively (de facto) amending the Constitution.

There's a specific law in the constitution about stealing cars? In anyone's constitution? And your example is fantasy, because the judge doesn't do you for car theft, because that's not state law in your example. You get done for THEFT, which has been fucking illegal since fucking cavemen. After that, maybe it goes to the government, and maybe they bring in a special law against car theft, but it doesn't then apply to you because it not retroactive. If they tried to make it retroactive then it would be ruled unconstitutional.
And really, as someone who's been banging on about the correct meanings of words, maybe you need to crack open a book and find out what the rest of the world means by "retroactive".

[Carinthium]

I was assuming that the State was one with specific punishments for different types of theft. It would be foolish on their part, but was necessary because I'm not good at examples.

I never said anything about stealing cars being in a Constitution- stealing cars was a law the State did not have in any way, whilst federally powers over cars were implicitly a state responsibility.

[loomer]

I note that you still haven't refuted my argument. I will also point out:

ret·ro·ac·tive (rtr-ktv)
adj.
Influencing or applying to a period prior to enactment: a retroactive pay increase.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ways lawyers use a word isn't the only one.

Jesus christ, you really are that fucking stupid, aren't you?

[Carinthium]

Nobody ever said we had to use the word in the legal sense for this discussion. Given this is a casual forum, why not use the ordinary sense of the word?

[Metahive]

So you do know that you have a mental disability that is known to impair empathy and ability to abstract of the people affected yet you still claim to be able make lectures about these topics? I do know people diagnosed with Asperger and other form of autism and guess what, most of them make an effort to compensate for their disability by informing themselves thoroughly about these issues. You however don't seem to see any necessity to do so.

That's why I constantly pictured Christian Weston Chandler whenever I read one of your creeds.

[Korto]

I was assuming that the State was one with specific punishments for different types of theft. It would be foolish on their part, but was necessary because I'm not good at examples.

"Not good" doesn't even begin to cover it. Try "I really, really suck donkey's balls". I don't believe there's any state in the world that has such compartmentalised theft law that they no longer have just plain "Theft" as a safety net, there never will be, and you have to go to a complete fantasy non-human race to have such a thing, which makes the entire example nonsense. Now, there has been compartmentalisation in other areas. For instance, rape was until recently somewhere in the US defined as a man having non-consensual sex with a woman, meaning that if a man raped a man, it couldn't be charged as rape, and wasn't (they were probably charged with assault, which at least has "ass" in it). The law has since been changed, I believe, but I haven't seen any news about people being recharged with rape.
Some real-life examples of retroactive laws would help your case, I think, but I suggest you give up on finding them in criminal law and try tax law. Governments can be pretty dodgy when it comes to getting their hands on money they feel you should owe them.
Oh, and "retroactive" as meant in law, please? That's generally preferred in a debate about law.

I never said anything about stealing cars being in a Constitution- stealing cars was a law the State did not have in any way, whilst federally powers over cars were implicitly a state responsibility.

And yet you said the judge changed the constitution to find the guy guilty. Let's just accept your example sucked donkey's balls and leave it at that.

[loomer]

Nobody ever said we had to use the word in the legal sense for this discussion. Given this is a casual forum, why not use the ordinary sense of the word?

The provided example of meaning actually verifies my stance you goddamn idiot. Learn to understand a word if you want to be treated with any kind of respect or dignity. As for what sense of the word? Motherfucker, this has been a debate about law. What other sense would be in use? Learn to understand context. You will find it matters in life.

[Questor]

I think it's simpler than that Metahive. From his posts in the three threads he's active in at the moment, he really doesn't understand that a word is a semi-shared conceptual symbol. He's trying to treat them as inarguable facts.

Carinthium, without reading too much of this... interesting... discourse, how on Earth are you finding that legal rulings make retroactive law?

Your example before was nonsensical. Almost all law falls through from a general case to more specific cases. The most general case (in American jurisprudence) is that "X is Legal." Following that, things can be made illegal - all illegal acts (Y) are a subset of all acts (X) (Y ⊂ X for the more mathematically inclined). Then, a subset of the acts made illegal (Z) can be defined to be legal (Z ⊂ Y ⊂ X). Assuming A ⊂ Y, A is not legal simply because it is a subset of acts Y rather than being Y.

In other words, It's not legal for me to steal you car while wearing a pair of red polka-dotted mukluks simply because I was wearing the mukluks. Crimes are defined in terms of acts.

To take a practical example, in Cal. Pen.Code § 240 assault is defined as:

240. An assault is an unlawful attempt, coupled with a present ability, to commit a violent injury on the person of another.

That means that an assault must be:
(A) An attempt to cause violent injury
(B) Committed by by someone who is actually able to cause said injury
(C) Not otherwise permitted by law

Obviously, a great number of crimes satisfy those conditions, some a lot more serious than others, so my favorite group of people also wrote CPC § 245(a)(1).

245. (a) (1) Any person who commits an assault upon the person of another with a deadly weapon or instrument other than a firearm or by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years, or in a county jail for not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.

Now those two look awfully similar, don't they? Well lets break apart §245(a)(1) into parts.

To violate §245(a)(1) an act must be:
(A) An attempt to cause violent injury
(B) Committed by by someone who is actually able to cause said injury
(C) Not otherwise permitted by law
(D) Committed with a deadly weapon that is NOT a firearm or likely to produce great bodily injury

So, obviously, any act which satisfies §245(a)(1) also satisfies §242. This is where the concept of "Lessor included offenses" comes from. Depending on trial strategy, a suspect may be charged with both or just §245(a)(1). This also leads into the concepts of plea bargaining.

OK, that was a nice and long winded deconstruction of the example, now onto retroactivity. In almost all jurisdictions rulings do not make retroactive law, they say "This is what the law always was, it was just applied improperly." Ruling a law unconstitutional does not make any acts that the law made illegal legal, it says that they were never illegal in the first place. This is NOT a semantic difference.

If a law is passed making Yellow Cars illegal and you paint yours yellow and are jailed, then the court rejects the law, you are entitled to sue for compensation for a bad arrest and imprisonment. You probably won't get it, because the law generally recognizes when people act in good faith, but you are entitled to try.

If, on the other hand, congress repealed the law, you'd stay in jail. Do you understand the difference between the scenarios?

[Questor]

Ghetto edit: "Now those two look awfully similar, don't they?" is a remnant from a previous draft using §242 - Battery.

[Carinthium]

I should note that I was using my example like philosophical examples to prove an ethical point (I had to think about it to realise the incongruity here). Since the question is an ethical one even if it does relate to law, doing so was legitimate.

So you do know that you have a mental disability that is known to impair empathy and ability to abstract of the people affected yet you still claim to be able make lectures about these topics? I do know people diagnosed with Asperger and other form of autism and guess what, most of them make an effort to compensate for their disability by informing themselves thoroughly about these issues. You however don't seem to see any necessity to do so.

That's why I constantly pictured Christian Weston Chandler whenever I read one of your creeds.

An ordinary person has even less understanding of the law than I have due to lack of legal education. You don't have a perfect understanding of the law as it exists- nobody does, as it is too complicated. Finally, if the law truely were understandable all judicial decisions would be predictable in advance- and they aren't, to anybody.

I think it's simpler than that Metahive. From his posts in the three threads he's active in at the moment, he really doesn't understand that a word is a semi-shared conceptual symbol. He's trying to treat them as inarguable facts.

At the moment I'm considering the status of words but am resorting more to the ethical point that it is immoral to force a law on somebody that they cannot perfectly understand. That argument does not depend on the nature of words anyway.

[Flagg]

Back on topic:

NBCNews

US charges NSA leaker Snowden with espionage

By Pete Williams and Becky Bratu, NBC News
Federal prosecutors filed espionage charges against alleged National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, officials familiar with the process said. Authorities have also begun the process of getting Snowden back to the United States to stand trial.

The charges were filed June 14 under seal in federal court in Alexandria, Va. -- and only disclosed Friday.
Snowden has been charged with three violations: theft of government property and two offenses under the espionage statutes, specifically giving national defense information to someone without a security clearance and revealing classified information about "communications intelligence."

Each of the charges carries a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Snowden, who is a former employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, leaked details about far-reaching Internet and phone surveillance programs to The Guardian and The Washington Post earlier this month. He revealed his identity while in Hong Kong, where it is believed he is still hiding.
Top intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday that the programs made public this month have helped foil more than 50 terrorist plots since Sept. 11, including one to blow up the New York Stock Exchange.
President Barack Obama defended the programs in an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS on Monday. He stressed that it was important to him to set up checks on the system.
Officials said charges against Snowden were delayed because the United States and authorities in Hong Kong have been going back and forth to make certain that whatever charges the U.S. filed would conform to the extradition treaty with Hong Kong.
The U.S. has filed a "provisional arrest warrant," formally asking the police in Hong Kong to arrest Snowden. Because the FBI has no jurisdiction outside U.S. borders, U.S. prosecutors must ask local police to make the arrest.
The arrest would start the formal extradition process in court, which will be governed by Chinese law and could take several months to resolve.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday said members of his anti-secrecy website have been in contact with Snowden's lawyers and are helping him seek asylum in Iceland.

I hope we can get this cowardly little shit back. Shame that heroes like Manning go down but little fuckers that run to China seem to be getting away with it.