>>>So you think printers should be treated the same as guns?
No. You are the one that dragged a gun reference into the discussion. Guns have nothing to do with printers.
>>>As to "so freaking what", most of the time it's pretty irrelevant; but
> if I want to write an anonymous whistle-blower letter to my senator or
> the GAO or somebody about malfeasance in the government department I
> work in, it suddenly becomes pretty darned important!>>>
>
> So write the letter and if you are scared, buy a used printer from the local Good Will, use the library printer, whatever. There are ways to protect yourself if you want to get the word out but you do not want to be fired. Whistle blower laws might protect you.
>>>And I, as a fairly sophisticated technology user, am in a much better
position to protect myself than most. But I'm not concerned just with
*me*; I'm concerned with our entire society. >>>
In this case, society does not need protection. Lets wait untill all printers incorporate GPS and other tracking technology becfore we start spreading the silly notion that the government can track your location. Clearly not at all true.
If you behave you will be left alone. But thanks for your concern.
>>>And given the abuses the government routinely commits with the police
> powers it has now, I'm very much opposed to giving them more. >>>
>
> And what abuses are you talking about?
>>>Um, are we getting too far afield for this to be the right mailing
list for the discussion? I'm talking about American citizens taken
from their homes on American soil and locked up in detention camps for
years without charges, American government officials arguing openly
for torture, new laws making it illegal to investigate how something
works, voting machines that can't be audited, designed and
manufactured by a company whose president has promised to do "anything
possible" to deliver the election to one party, organized "riots" of
party staffers to *stop* the counting of ballots, state attorney
generals arguging before the US Supreme Court that an attorney
sleeping in the courtroom is providing adequate representation to a
client on trial for his life, and so on and on and on. >>>
I must agree with you. We are getting too far off topic and I am certain the moderators are pissed at this thread; at you, and most certainly, at me and my large mouth. We started talking about the printer codes, not everything else you mentioned in the above paragraph. Perhaps as long as the thread breathes, we should discuss the "problem."
Incidentally, many of the problems you mentioned above have happened before.
Bob
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