According to FIRE's president, they go after public universities that are obligated to guarantee first amendment protections to students. But they have different criteria for private universities, for instance that publicly say they support free speech but then have restrictive speech codes or selectively squelch some speech. Their position is, if it's public the school must give you freedom of speech; and if it's private, the school must clearly and consistently indicate what speech is allowed so that you can make an informed choice to pick universities.

Here is an explanation from FIRE's president

In an open letter, the group said that it is worried about the political implications of the economists’ work: “the suggestion that an ideal level of genetic variation could foster economic growth and could even be engineered has the potential to be misused with frightening consequences to justify indefensible practices such as ethnic cleansing or genocide,” it said.

Well, I guess scientists had better go back and un-invent and un-discover any empirically verifiable or useful thing they may have invented or discovered that has the potential for misuse.

http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2011_Progress_Report.pdf

http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/

Why do you presume that what someone does "in their private life" doesn't really affect others? Humans are socially interdependent. What happens in someone's private life very, very rarely _doesn't_ bleed over into the public sphere somehow. There is almost always a conflict between majority-minority rights even when the primary activity is "in private" because it drastically affects social convention outside. I don't believe you're really ready to accept the logical consequences of your statement.

Take marriage and homosexuality/heterosexuality, hypothetically. There are plenty of people who don't give two shits if you are have gay sex or want to get married. But they don't want to have to subsidize your lifestyle or be force to participate in it economically. There are various laws encoded that give special consideration to married couples with regard to insurance, social/commercial discrimination, adoption, etc. Right now those laws represent a majoritarian, heteronormative social convention and so most people don't mind them. But if you aren't in the majority, you realize that these laws subsidize people that conform to a social norm. This is in fact why so many gay people want the rights of the married, because they are unjustly excluded from these benefits.

Now look at the other side of the coin. Expand the definition of marriage, and suddenly it's subsidizing non-heteronormative behavior. Now some people realize they are paying to subsidize behavior that they don't agree with. Yeah, they are hypocrites. But it's eye-opening because you learn how society and law actually promotes some so-called "private" behavior over others.

So my question to you is, are you willing to put your money where your mouth is and dismantle a wide range of social services and safety nets that subsidize _with other people's money_ some people's private sexual lives? One's sexuality may not be a choice, but undeniably, society's decision to subsidize one definition of marriage over another is a choice, and one that forces others to participate in it economically.

I don't think your definition of "work" and the judge's definition are the same. No one expects that this info won't be made public on the internet. By issuing a gag order, however, the judge provides legal leverage to prosecute or legally disadvantage dickheads who are harassing this family. What we have evidence you got your religious friends across the pond to post this info in defiance of UK law? Guess who's church is now classified as a criminal group collaborating with foreign religious extremists to undermine the lawful authority of the commonwealth?

Mind you, I don't particularly support the legal system to undermining the basic right of free expression, but at the same time if these people are claiming the legal protection of the law for themselves, they have to acknowledge that just because a law is not practically enforceable does not mean they won't be punished for breaking the law or encouraging those beyond its reach to do so. And in the end that may be enough to at least quash some of these religious nutjobs and keep them from harming innocent people in their attempt to force their own religious beliefs on others.

I think you're being particularly obtuse. There is no reason that you can't give anyone any job title you like so long as they are not a government official. What laws should do is make it illegal for corporations and foreign governments and organizations receiving donations from either to contribute money to election funds; run political advertisements; or provide gifts, food, travel/travel expenses, entertainment, lodging, etc. to anyone in political office (elected or appointed) or to their relatives.

Sure you may not be able to ban individuals from going to visit congress critters and appointed officials, but you can sure as hell make them less likely to be received since they won't be bearing gifts or swaying an election in exchange for wink wink whatever. Sadly because of absurd Supreme Court rulings, such a law would most likely require a constitutional amendment, one that specifically states corporations are not individuals with the rights of individuals. I actually think this is doable as a grassroots reform movement and people could really get behind an independent party or group of politicians honestly trying to reform the laws and clean up the system. It certainly has popular support.

Not completely ineffective, just not as effective as we'd like. The next FCC commissioner, for example, cannot have her over to discuss what Comcast would like changed by the FCC. That is a real benefit. The problem being that most people don't give a damn and are too easily distracted by other issues so they don't vote out the corrupt legislators that don't pass a similar ban.

It is actually quite interesting. The so called Tea Party is a combination grassroots movement and lobbyist/PR firm funded movement that manages to focus completely on issues other than lobbying. This is an issue where the vast majority of Americans: Democrat, Republican, and independent are in agreement. Not many people think it should be legal for companies and foreign governments to give gifts to or meet with lawmakers or provide them with campaign funds. It's just that people are too distracted by other issues to gather together behind reform candidates and vote on it. There is some chance, this is the purpose of the Tea Party, to prevent a real grassroots movement that does end up rooting out corruption and banning most lobbying.

Congress refuses to pass a law. The Obama administration, on the other hand, issued an executive order the very first day banning lobbying by former members of the administration to executive branch employees. So because the legislative body is corrupt, she can lobby Congress. The executive is slightly less corrupt, so she theoretically can't talk to former co-workers or anyone in the executive branch (including the FCC) about law and policy changes without that member of the executive being fired. That's about as close to honest as we've been able to come in recent decades.

Executive order number 2, from Obama's first day on the job, bans lobbying for 2 years by former members of the administration. So no, there is no law, but there is an order in place that gets anyone in the executive branch meeting with her to discuss changes to laws or policies fired.

You're wrong. Foxconn makes everything, the Kindle, The Xbox360, the Wii, The PS3, Motorola cell phones, Intel branded motherboards. Apple is a big customer, but only about 20% of their business.

Apple does have a good deal of say, for the factories supplying Apple, which Apple regularly audits and requires human rights policies to be upheld. You can read their audit and required remediations openly published on Apple's web site as well as see a list of the suppliers Apple has stopped working with entirely because of human rights violations. Now see what information you can find on what all those other companies have done. Have any of them ever done anything to make things better? And it is Apple the Daily Mail decides to pin it on. Brilliant!

How about Intel, Amazon.com, Cisco, HP, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, Sony, and Samsung? All too small to mention? I agree mentioning Apple gets more eyeballs, but because of their popularity and news appeal, not just size. Not mentioning these other companies is absurdly irresponsible reporting.

Everyone does business with companies that work people like slaves, especially in the electronics industry. Apple stands out because jobs actually tried going to all US manufacturing with his company Next and because Apple is about the only company firing suppliers for human rights violations and requiring changes to woking conditions for factories supplying Apple. Moreover, they're the only company conducting audits and openly publishing them for all to see, including what changes they require supplier to make. And there is the worst part of all this. It pays to shut up and do bad things, because being open and honest about what's happening while working to make things better for people, just gets the press to write misleading articles attributing abuses at your competitors' factories to you.

Apple is probably the best in the industry for working conditions in China and they do publicize that. Newspapers, however, don't care because Apple's popularity makes demonizing them sell more papers, even if it's doing so by misinformation. Apple audits their suppliers, publishes the audits openly and actually takes corrective measures. They dropped a number of suppliers because of poor working conditions, too long of hours, or child labor. They forced others to change policies and provide compensation to workers in order to keep their business. Basically no other company in the industry does this. Daily Mail should be ashamed of the way they spin Foxconn as an "Apple supplier" without mentioning all the other companies like Intel, Nokia, HP, Acer, etc. and not bothering to find out if the plants they are complaining about are the ones Apple audited and required changes at, or service some other company entirely. And they can't even plead ignorance because they mention Apple's audits as one of their sources.

Except, this article isn't "bringing it to light" it is obscuring what is going on by focusing only on Apple in a very misleading way. It is entirely probable some of the issues they mention are happening at plants making things for Sony(or some other company) because, Sony, unlike Apple has not stepped in to stop the practices. By referring to Foxconn only as an Apple supplier and not checking to see which company is funding the practices that are abhorrent, all that is happening is they are providing incentive to make things worse.

That would be fine, if it were happening, but Apple is the one company that is not allowing them to use underage workers or make people work extreme numbers of hours. They're the one company that is actually investigating and firing suppliers for just those practices. But all that is obscured by the slanted reporting.

They did at one point, or in a way. Jobs left Apple and founded Next which did all it's manufacturing in the US, not the third world. Unfortunately, people were not wiling to pay a premium for that and elected politicians who would not even enforce the antitrust laws on the books, so Next was purchased by Apple and went back to the status quo. So Apple does the only thing that they can to stay in business, prevent the abuses at the facilities they work with, using regular openly published audits and reports on what action they take in response to abuses. Sorry, but picking on the only company doing anything is really, really counter productive, and trying to spin what Foxconn does overall, not at plants making things for Apple, as though it was Apple's fault is likewise counter productive.

The issue we were discussing is the list of cell towers and wifi networks stored on iPhones and which Apple has changed in this update. As for logging user location data anonymously, I'm sure Apple is doing so, at least they said they were when I clicked through the location stuff on the maps application in my phone. But that is a significantly different from what we were discussing.

I'm all for investigating abuses in Chinese labor and dealing with them, but tis article is counter-productive. First, it constantly refers to Foxconn only in relation to Apple, not mentioning the dozens of other corporations it supplies. It repeatedly refers to facilities run by "Apple's supplier" but doesn't mention if they were actual facilities that make things for Apple and which Apple audits yearly and openly publishes information about and what they found and what action they took. It mentions Apples audits in the phrase, "...but its[Apple] own audit reports suggest suppliers in China may not meet up to these standards." It does not mention the list of changes Apple required from various suppliers nor the numerous suppliers Apple fired outright for violating Apple's human rights policy.

I find this article irresponsible because it is just heaping bad press on Apple (not the rest of the industry) when in truth Apple is the only company I have been able to find actually taking a stand and doing something about the problem. There is no mention of Asus, Sony, Intel, Acer, Nokia, etc. who are all supplied by Foxconn. Thus readers are misled into thinking Apple is the issue. All this article does is motivate Apple to stop publishing audits and stop all the good work they've been doing to remediate the labor problem. I'd like to be the first to throw a big "Fuck you!" to the Daily Mail for their irresponsible, slanted journalism.