Rusty Nails (SCO v. 45)
Online Security (HT: Justin Taylor)
A 5 part series providing good tips and info on keeping your online actions secure. I’ve added excerpts from each part.
There is still risk in using the Internet (inversely proportional to the amount of effort the user puts into security), and this guide makes no mention to the many online security risks users have absolutely no control over (you might have nightmares and be frightened off the Internet if I told you about those).
Log out of web based email, banking/shopping sites and social networks such as Facebook when you are not actively using them. If for example you have Facebook logged in on one tab, malicious code on another site in another tab can attack your Facebook account.
Facebook applications can attack users, including their other social networks, other friends on social networks and other sites, including banking sites. The only even relatively safe way to use Facebook is to turn off all Facebook apps and quizzes.
If the site does not use https, do not use it.
Many people ignorantly downplay the risk of privacy, saying that they have “nothing to hide.” However, privacy is not mainly about hiding bad behavior, but about controlling the context in which personal details about our lives are disclosed. All of us have had sensitive, very personal conversations with our closes friends that we would not make public.
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If faced with a mob, thank the founding fathers you’re able to have a shotgun in your hands
From the files of Tea Party OWS violence, it seems that one developer in San Francisco was able to “discourage” a mob from vandalizing the building he works in, without having to wait for the authorities to show up (assuming, of course, that they would show up).
“We had people who attempted to break into our building,” the landmark Rotunda Building on Frank Ogawa Plaza outside City Hall, Tagami said Thursday. He grabbed a shotgun that he usually keeps at home, went down to the ground floor and “discouraged them,” he said.
“I was standing there and they saw me there, and I lifted it – I didn’t point it – I just held it in my hands,” Tagami said. “And I just racked it, and they ran.”
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Freedom of Religion distortion of the day
Once again, we see the misguided notion that the 1st Amendment of the Constitution is all about freedom FROM religion instead of freedom of religion.
Ron Baker, pastor at Russell Baptist Church in Green Cove Springs, said that he would continue to pray no matter what happens. The flagpole, which is the site where the prayers have been taken place, is at the center of an ideological standoff between the school board and those who wish to pray. “Did you ever think that in America you’d be in trouble for praying at the flag? It’s disturbing.” Baker told Fox News.
The issue was raised when the attorney for the Clay County School Board, J. Bruce Bickner, submitted an opinion declaring that praying at the flagpole was against the law, “it is a violation of the United States Constitution for a teacher, school administrator or other school district employee to join in a prayer session during their work time.” Wrote Bickner.
[emphasis added]
Umm… no, it’s not.
The first amendment protects the people from the government establishing a state religion, as well as allowing the citizenry the right to exercise the religion of their choice.
For Bickner to be correct, he will have to demonstrate how holding the prayer during school hours is equivalent to the state establishing a religion (which would certainly surprise quite a few other protestant denominations, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, etc. congregations across the country), and how this action could prevent anyone, including Bickner, from exercising the religion of their choice.
Good luck.
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I think you’re incorrect. The Supreme Court established in 1962 and 1963 that an official employee of the state cannot promote religion without violating the constitution. Then in 1971 the Court listed criteria for what practices are constitutional in public schools according to the First Amendment:
1. they must have a secular purpose
2. their effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion
3. they must not foster an excessive entanglement with religion
Anon,
you may very well be correct. Although my comment was not aimed at legal opinion, but at original document text. While courts may render their opinion on the matter (in this case, some 180 years later) they are, of course, not immune to error (ref. Dred Scott).