The new law gives the government the power to conduct dragnet surveillance that has no connection to terrorism or criminal activity of any kind.
A law like this is fundamentally inconsistent with the Constitution and with the most basic democratic values.
I have to admit I'm not all that worked up about the part of the new FISA law that shields the telcos from lawsuits about their illegal wiretapping; to my mind, if the government asks someone to do something illegal, and they do it, the most serious thing is that the government asked, not that the someone went along with it. Whether the telcos can be sued or not seems mostly a distraction from the basic issue, which is that the Bush Administration blatantly violated the law.
Can we sort of concentrate on that more?
And speaking of governments without enough respect for the rights of the goverened, Bill points us at the very interesting 15 powerpoint slides on the organization of Iran's government (which he accurately describes as "fascinatingly Byzantine").
Closer to home, "Why it really takes so long for a pharmacist to count out a few pills" addresses a mystery that we wondered about years ago. Is this the real explanation?
The latest object to be hackable over the Internet: Coffee Makers!
And continuing to climb the curve of seriousness, here is Mr. Clock Radio!
(That came in some spam, and I was impressed.)
And here is Dale Innis in Google's exciting new virtual world, "Lively":
Click through to flickr for amusing commentary.
And finally, speaking of amusing commentary, I will break with tradition and link directly to the Secret Dale Innis Weblog to point you at Meaties, a short story of which I am very proud (and there's an interesting link or two in the comments, too).
So there we are! Another lazy Sunday, eating bagels and watching TV, thinking about doing some quests in WoW or some random hanging-about in SL, looking out the windows at the sunlight, indulging in sleepy blinking and random lolling-about. Thanks for reading as always, and may your own Sunday be just as sunny as you want it.
