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Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

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531–540 of 617 posts

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#531

Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A. Death penalty, loaded guns everywhere, a general attitude of being the masters of the world which leads to things like suspicionless searches. No, thanks. I think the best would be if more people would actually stop dealing with the USA. Its becoming a trend. I once turned down an invitation to a conference in Hawai, and guess what, I was not alone.

As a european who is not always very fond of the US, this is ridiculous, and lazy thinking. The amount of generalization and black and white simplifications to come up with such a thing is impressive though.

We are running concentration camps with 70000 children currently. We elected an almost-Nazi with routinely espoused almost-Nazi views who had a total information awareness intelligence apparatus at his fingertips. We have demonstrated legal facilities for "enemy combatants", "extraordinary rendition", offshore torture, treating an american citizen as a terrorist so they can be denied their constitutional rights.

Most of that is from the Bush administration. The parent's declaration would have been slightly paranoid in that regime, but with this one, it is arguably a bit mild. The statement should now be that no country should be dealing with the USA.

The parent's sentiment might have been somewhat outrageous

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#532
post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again what do you base this on? I got a concealed carry permit after a 2 hour training class. During this class I had to fire a total of 6 rounds at a target ~15 feet away. I was not given any training on how to use the weapon, only a primer on the laws about when I can shoot someone. At no time did I have to demonstrate that I could safely bring my weapon from concealment to ready without shooting myself in the leg…

> At no time did I have to demonstrate that I could safely bring my weapon from concealment to ready without shooting myself in the leg or a bystander. It's not hard. If you pull the trigger, a bullet comes out (if the safety is off and if there is one in the chamber). So, simply don't pull the trigger until you are ready to fire a bullet. Most (if not all) people that buy guns, you included, understand this basic co…

The Mask of Zorro (1998)

Don Diego de la Vega [indicating sword]: Do you know how to use that thing?

Alejandro Murrieta: Yes! The pointy end goes into the other man.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#533
post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, in this very thread there are discussions, presumably by Americans, about whether human rights “afforded” to people only apply to citizens or all humans. They are literally arguing if “people” only means US citizens.

The Bill of Rights affords citizens protections from their government. They weren't written as inalienable human rights. So it has long been debated whether those protections are owed to non-citizens.

And thus slavery was legal.

Do you think slavery should be legal?

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#534
post #208
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think it’s silly to suggest that maybe all humans should have the same protections against their rights being violated. Don't different countries have different views of rights? What happens when those rights are at odds? For example, Turkish people can't speak ill against their governments [0]. This contrasts with countries that have fewer restrictions on speech, like America. So I think the main issue is,…

> Don't different countries have different views of rights? And so they would apply their views in their own jurisdiction. > What happens when those rights are at odds? Whichever jurisdiction you stand in correspond to the rights that prevail for you. The way I see it, a country says what the rights of people/humans are, and they defend those beliefs in their own jurisdiction, where they have the absolute power to. >…

> I think baddox's comment does not necessarily imply all humans in the world. I interpreted it as all humans in a given jurisdiction.

Ah I had not thought of it in this way but that makes sense. I can't disagree that all people in a single jurisdiction should be afforded the same procedural rights (I couch it in procedural rights because substantive rights are stripped from felons for example in many jurisdictions).

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a gun easily enough. However the people who actually do that tend to be enthusiasts who are well trained. To have a loaded gun on your person you need to be well trained in most states.

Again what do you base this on? I got a concealed carry permit after a 2 hour training class. During this class I had to fire a total of 6 rounds at a target ~15 feet away. I was not given any training on how to use the weapon, only a primer on the laws about when I can shoot someone. At no time did I have to demonstrate that I could safely bring my weapon from concealment to ready without shooting myself in the leg…

He's parroting NRA talking points.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#536
post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Death penalty exists, but it is rare. As an American, this attitude drives me nuts. "We don't kill that many people, and heck most of them are even guilty!" Regarding "loaded guns exist, but they are not common." Again, this is the same attitude of "Even though we have a mass shooting every week, all in all it's not that much." Even if my chances of getting murdered in public are lower than, say, a car accident, th…

Mass shootings are an incredibly small source of gun deaths. ~2/3rd are suicide and ~1/3rd are murder. While the US does have pretty high gun related homicide rates, it is largely because proportionally more of our homicides involve guns. Our overall homicide rate is a fair bit higher than most european countries but nowhere near the top world-wide (about #90.) However, much of this is concentrated into particular lo…

You are correct that such fears aren't terribly practical. Human beings in fact aren't terribly reasonable about what they are concerned about.

They bike to work, smoke a cig, and then worry about a Muslim terrorist blowing them up.

Unfortunately people aren't reasonable and our prosperity is partly based on resources and partly based on sucking in a lot of smart people from elsewhere to further enrich the nation we built with said resources and this shitty marketing could easily damage the second ultimately more important source of our prosperity.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#537
post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also factor out gang-related gun homocides since your average American/tourist is not involved in organized crime. Basically, the chances of being killed randomly by a mass shooting or random murderer are extremely tiny. I will say though that even ignoring gun homicides, our average homicide rate in the USA is rather high compared to other western countries.

Tiny is relative is it not? Relative to Japany chances of getting shot are extremely high. It's also not just about getting shot, it's about being near it and having to worry about it. I've been in at least 3 shooting situtstions in my time in the USA. Once in Westwood waiting in line for movie, once in Santa Monica while eating, once in Mira Loma as a kid and if I add friends and family they've all had experiencea.…

> Relative to Japan, chances of getting shot are extremely high.

Right, but still... https://xkcd.com/1252/

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#538
post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver in the US than by a gun. Your chances of being killed by a gun are basically zero (unless you are travelling to the US specifically to commit suicide), so that's a somewhat bogus concern

I don't understand why people always discount suicides among gun deaths, as if suicides only happen to "other people". It's true that you can limit your gun risk by being white/urban/middle-class/mentally healthy, but these are not advantages available to everyone. There's a lot of victim-blaming in some of these comments, which glosses over the fact that plenty of infants and toddlers die from guns. Gun deaths in to…

When someone says they don't want to travel to the USA because they are afraid of being killed by a gun, it is disingenuous to inflate their chances of dying by including suicide as an option.

If I say "What are my chances of dying by gun or car if I go on a vacation to the USA?" are you really going to factor in suicide as an option? Generally it is presumed that the person is not considering going to the USA to commit suicide on their vacation.

Thus, most people discount suicides to tailor the gun figure such that a more apples-to-apples comparison can be made.

It's like people claiming to be terrified of going to Japan because the chance of dying by a rope around your neck is insanely high compared to the USA.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#539
post #474
post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bill of Rights affords citizens protections from their government. They weren't written as inalienable human rights. So it has long been debated whether those protections are owed to non-citizens.

> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is…

> When any governing entity no longer respects those rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

Interesting that you read it that way. I read it as when YOUR governing entity no longer respects YOUR rights, it's time to turf the bums out and start again.

Yeah, everyone has the rights, but not everybody has the same government. The People are not random people, they are citizens.

Re: Court: Suspicionless Searches of Travelers’ Phones and Laptops Unconstitutional

#540

Best thing is to just not have anything to do with the US of A. Death penalty, loaded guns everywhere, a general attitude of being the masters of the world which leads to things like suspicionless searches. No, thanks. I think the best would be if more people would actually stop dealing with the USA. Its becoming a trend. I once turned down an invitation to a conference in Hawai, and guess what, I was not alone.

As an American, I'm lovin' it! Guns are everywhere, yet shootings are very rare. I feel very safe knowing I and others around me all want and enjoy safety, and we have strong law enforcement to keep it that way. (Although I agree that our 4th amendment has been horrifically raped in modern times.) The vast majority of gun deaths are consentual (suicide), and of the homicidal remainder, the vast majority are within or…

If the guns were removed, you'd be more safe, as if there are no guns your chance of shooting goes down from "very rare" to 0.
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