Prankster Calls NSA To Restore Deleted E-mail 221
First time accepted submitter manu0601 writes "Since the NSA snoops, intercepts and store our e-mails forever, why not use it as a backup service? It just lacks the API to restore files, therefore this guy [YouTube video] called the NSA to ask for a backup restoration. Guess what? It did not work." After all, why should we have to pay twice for services already performed with tax dollars?
No service. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm telling you, the government just isn't providing service. So what are we paying them for, anyway?
Re:No service. (Score:4, Funny)
So what are we paying them for, anyway?
To be allowed to live... To avoid 'detainment'. These are the things you pay for. I don't know why people are so repulsed when the mafia does these kinds of things.
Re:No service. (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought it was to build roads, sanitation and the basics of civilization. Your local mafia does that?
Re:No service. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, they do the actual building...
They put stuff IN the cement. They dont make it. (Score:5, Funny)
Becoming part of the foundation of a building is not considered construction.
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I thought the mafia was quite good at 'disposal' tasks. Rum runners were quite good at creating transportation routes... I think you're on to something ;)
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If your state is like mine (CA), the county can't keep up with the roads & education has gone down the drain because the state has been taking/keeping a massive percentage of the funds usually allocated for that... The state in turn is doing so in hope of covering the budget shortfalls caused by a mixture of:
-- rising costs, due in large part to the needs of the massive wave of low/no-income immigrants, including the explosion of kids needing expensive bilingual teachers full-time for several years
-- a
Re:No service. (Score:5, Funny)
Otherwise I am CONVINCED that they would help him out. That is how the government works, right?
Helping the folks that pay for their wages, comfy chairs, first class coffee on their long leisurely coffee breaks?
Always at the service of the people in a jiffy and with a smile!
Always doing that little extra to make sure your every tax-penny is a well-spend-penny.
The government that always goes for the 110% customer care.
A wink and a tip to the hat whenever you merrily walking out of some government building where they truly understood your case.
Where papers and forms are kept to a bare minimum in order to keep the well oiled machine running as cost-effective as possible.
<bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep>
The government that <bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep>
Wait... what? Is that my alarm clock? <bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep>
I just KNEW I was dreaming...
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Re:No service. (Score:4, Funny)
Being a ward of the Bureau of Prisons is not the same as working for the fed.
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Being a ward of the Bureau of Prisons is not the same as working for the fed.
Yeah, that's more like being a contractor than an employee.
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On occasion they do make contributions to the asphalt and concrete used in building.
Re:No service. (Score:4, Funny)
What are we paying them for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the water you drink clean?
Is your food supply safe?
Do the lights come on when you flip a switch?
Can you travel through the air at nearly the speed of sound for a few hundred dollars?
When you turn on the radio in your car, do you hear voices/music coming out of the speakers?
Can you read this message?
Are you speaking English?
Because if you are, you can be assured that your government is doing at least some things you find useful. There are places - quite a few actually - for which the above do not all apply. The taxes there are exceptionally low, and you may wish to consider relocating to take advantage of the savings and buy the above items yourself. Note: if you form a group to provide such services, that's cheating. another word for that kind of cheating is called "Government."
Re:What are we paying them for? (Score:5, Insightful)
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You will note that Overzeetop stated that 'goverment' provided the enumerated services. Not the "US Federal Government", not the Taliban, not the Federation. Perhaps he should have used 'Government' to imply a broader sense of the term but his initial position still stands. Without a functional civil governing system - which can have multiple levels and even some, gasp, redundency, you end up sitting in a dusty field dying of thirst and an number of other unpleasant circumstances.
Mankind has never come u
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If you think maintenance and enforcement of regulation is free, you should try it some time.
The largest slice of the pie we (taxpayers) pay for is the military - hence the speaking English tongue-in-cheek comment. Do we need a military to defend America? That's another question entirely, though had you asked that in 1937, or in 1958, you'd probably get the same answer as today - a big shrug. Though in a world with nuclear subs, rockets, and fighter jets it may no longer be sufficient to rely on personal a
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Most of those services are provided by state and county government. The federal government does not educate you for instance...
If you're black, and living in the South, the Federal government is undeniably responsible for your education.
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If you can come up with anything outside of the Military, and interest to private banks, I'll be impressed.
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If you can come up with anything outside of the Military, and interest to private banks, I'll be impressed.
I'm pretty sure that the U.S. Federal Government is the single biggest supplier of pork in the entire world.
Re:What are we paying them for? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is every word you type into the internet carefully saved, to be used against you later?
Is your participation at a religious worship service documented, to be used agaisnt you later?
Do citizens get a free dronestrike for talking to the wrong people, saying the wrong thing, and going to the wrong church?
Thank you tax dollars!
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They guy tried to test that bit out and didn't get any help. So he'll have to wait until the court case. If he actually gets one.
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I pay local companies for my utilities. (Water, Electricity, garbage removal)
I pay local grocery providers for food
I pay airline fees for travel.
I listen to ungodly amounts of commercials on terrestrial radio, or pay for music via satellite, radio, etc
The government may have had a hand in getting these things started, and might run oversight to keep them in place ... but the individual companies run like any other private business and expect to turn a profit. At best, the government keeps them from ru
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Is the water you drink clean?
You are delusional if you live in a big city in the US and think your water *that you drink* is clean
Is your food supply safe?
Are you out hunting and killing your own food? Even then it is debatable since you don't know where they have been drinking. But I guarantee you that anything you buy in the store is not safe.
Do the lights come on when you flip a switch?
Most times, but the power grid in the US is so unstable to the point that might not always be the case (need a citation -- LOOK IT UP FOR YOUR FUCKING SELF)
Can you travel through the air at nearly the speed of sound for a few hundred dollars?
No, I can not. I am on a blacklist because I happened to speak
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Wow...a lot of what you say here is pretty foolish. I guess if you can't trust the food we have in supermarkets, you can't trust that we went to the moon either, right?
Re:What are we paying them for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Local and private sector regulations at work? (Score:2)
Water, food, electricity, flight control, radio communications, the internet - all the result of FEDERAL government regulations. Without those, you have unfettered capitalism and race-to-the bottom economics. There's a reason most US cities are no longer completely socked in with smog, and it has nothing to do with local government spending or private sector voluntary efforts to reduce pollution.
For all the bullshit money-wasting stuff the feds do, there is still a lot that you would sorely miss if it were
Re:What are we paying them for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and no...
> Is the water you drink clean?
In some places, the local government is in charge of the water supply. In others it's subsidized and regulated by them. Either way, the government is in the loop.
> Is your food supply safe?
While this is always provided by private industry in this country, it is rather heavily regulated by the government at all levels to ensure a safe food supply.
> Do the lights come on when you flip a switch?
Again, in some places, the local government is in charge of the electricity supply while in others it's subsidized and regulated by them. Either way, the government is in the loop.
> Can you travel through the air at nearly the speed of sound for a few hundred dollars?
While the actual air travel is provided by private industry, you can thank the government for not having to worry about crashing into other planes midair, parts falling off the planes, (Due to safety regulations) and safety from terrorists and other baddies on planes. (#3 is debatable, although they are *trying*...)
> When you turn on the radio in your car, do you hear voices/music coming out of the speakers?
This is another area where, although private industry provides the actual service, the government makes it possible. The FCC licenses frequencies to certain groups and ensures they don't interfere with each other. Think of the madness if anyone could broadcast anything they wanted on any frequency!
> Can you read this message?
> Are you speaking English?
Although there is private education in this country, there is also free public education. It's highly likely that a person picked at random went to public school and learned to read and write there.
The government may not be perfect - none is - but it is functioning on some level and you are getting services from it, whether you like it or not. Your job as a citizen is to try to fix the parts of it which are broken.
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Re:Anonymous Troll (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, sort of. one government service is protecting water rights.
I cannot dump my sewage in the stream upstream of you, nor can I dam up the stream and keep all the water for myself while you die.
Nor can I dump the waste from my factory or hog farm into the watershed.
This is a problem going back for millennia, and one of the reasons that people formed governments.
It has to do with what economists call "tragedy of the commons", a problem that governments are probably the only workable solution.
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I cannot dump my sewage in the stream upstream of you, nor can I dam up the stream and keep all the water for myself while you die.
Nor can I dump the waste from my factory or hog farm into the watershed.
AKA denying people water!!! See government is EEEEEVILLLL!!!!
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True, sorta, but the worst excesses occurred before government intervention and "appropriate licenses" were required. here's an example: http://www.environmentalcouncil.org/priorities/article.php?x=264 [environmentalcouncil.org]
Also, ask anyone who lived in Los Angeles in the 1960-70's
It was a free-for-all before the 1970's , and then we elected representatives who promised to do something about that and they did ( see Nixon, EPA (1970), Clean Water Act(1972) . BTW, I'm an old person, and I remember very well the days before
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Re:Anonymous Troll (Score:4, Insightful)
The opposite of providing that thing ... poorly.
See water, food, electricity.
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The government regulates those things.
Or are you just dense?
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You're right, food safety is completely useless. As long as you pay Monsato/Nestle/PepsiCo/McDonalds/etc/etc/etc for your food, it doesn't really matter if it's tainted and you die from it.
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Everywhere I've lived (also in the US), water has been provided by the city.
Water provided by the city? (Score:2)
Okay, I've actually moved around a lot. Right now my water is via personal well. Before that it was the town, before that a cooperative, before that a public company.
Personally, I've always found I get the best service from the cooperatives. Partially as a result and thinking about the economics I think coops are the best economic model for utilities due to their monopolistic nature - if you at least have the customer owning them, it makes the company care more for serving their owner-customers than maki
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"a small co-op" Now that brings up something else interesting.
Most people who live outside of cities have telephone service, electricity ONLY because some government entity enabled, cajoled, and forced the larger providers to supply services to the remote areas. See " Rural Electrification Act of 1935" as an example.
For those that don't know, those "remote areas" are where our food comes from.
BTW, Some detail about the regulation and the huge rate hike would have been nice.
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"I didn't know the government cleans my food for me"
Well, what is does is shutdown, fine, or imprison people who sell you food that isn't clean.
Do they not make children read Upton Sinclair in school anymore?
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Yep. Working towards doing it on a totally off-grid solar system.
You're building an entire solar system just to power your house? You must go through a LOT of light bulbs.
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It has grown well past its original mandates and has perveted many of those.
I do have to make a serious response to this, though. You seem to be under the false impression that there were "original mandates" that limited the federal government. This simply isn't true. The current Constitution was written after the dismal failure of the Articles of Confederation, which established a federal government but explicitly denied any enforcement capabilities to it. It basically said that the name of our new country was the United States of America, and each of those states acted like l
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That's why they put phrases in such as "promote the general Welfare"
"General welfare" only exists 2 places in the US Constitution: In the preamble and in the enumeration of congresses power to tax:
We the People of the United States, in Order to ... promote the general Welfare ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
In both cases the "general welfare" is not an enumerated power, but a justification. In order to promote general welfare, the constitution is established. In order to promote general welfare and provide for a military, the US may establish taxes. At no point does the constitution just say "as long as you are promoting the general welfare, do whatever you want and to hell with
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You cook your own food, you didn't mention anything about growing it, or slaughtering your own animals...
I'm choosy about where I get food. For example, I make an effort to source meat which I suspect is not bad for me, and if it makes me feel bad I don't buy it again — which is why I no longer eat meat from Costco, for example. Mostly I buy meat from a local butcher who has really amazing porterhouses. I mostly buy organic produce as well, except for some of the stuff which tends not to absorb pesticides. We do produce some vegetables in a garden at home, notably tomatoes and basil. Both of these are ex
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Hey, if you live up to your name, drinkypoo, why clean it at all?
If I were planning to live up to my name, I'd certainly need to clean it, because clean water makes for better booze.
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Clean water? The Federal Government doesn't do this. State and local governments do this.
The states and municipalities do the work of building and maintaining water supplies, but they do it to standards developed and enforced by the federal EPA, under the Clean Water Act, which means that you have few instances of a municipality skimping on, say, water main maintenance. The feds also sometimes get involved in interstate water deals and disputes between states over who gets what from a shared water supply.
Lights? The Federal Government does not supply electricity to homes. Local governments, usually through public corporations, and some private companies do this.
Again, the feds, specifically the Department of Energy, are involved in making that all wor
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Lights come on? Yes. Whatever would we do without the government to regulate electricity? After all those pesky power companies don't really like to sell electricity and would make more money if it were completely unreliable. (In case you're confused that's sarcasm).
Wasn't that part of Enron's reason for deliberately sabotaging energy distribution in California to make it unreliable? They were trying to manipulate prices and make a fake case for deregulation.
Hmmm ... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny, but could you get yourself into legal trouble with this?
I'm sure they could come up with some trumped up charges under the Patriot Act or something.
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Fortunately the dude's name is Nicholas S. Adams - so he's covered by a broad FISA declaration.
no, no fucking irony to be found there (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:5, Informative)
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Phone recordings where only one party has knowledge of the recording are legal in most US states. Maryland (presumably where the operator was located) isn't one of them but international calls would fall under federal jurisdiction which does also permit recordings with consent from one party (i.e. the caller making the recording).
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Ironiception (Score:5, Funny)
Why does getting jailed for recording a call to an agency known for recording everybody's calls without legal oversight, in order to get a recording of a conversation (even if by email) strike me as just a tad ironic?
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Jesus Christ, the signal to noise ratio has gone insane at /.
In the US, the law is dictated by where the call is generated. Some states allow recording, some states do not, some states allow for "single party consent" (as along as ONE of the parties know) and some require notification before the call starts or beeping tones every $x seconds.
He called from outside of the US, so US law is irrelevant here.
Cant help you, give me your information (Score:5, Interesting)
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"Mr. Mohammadi? Mr. Mo... OK, OK, Masood? We're not going to be able to help you over the phone, but if you'll drive over to the Delta terminal at JFK we'll have someone meet you there. No, no need to pack a bag. No, it should only take you 23 minutes. There's no traffic on Van Wyck, but just avoid Lefferts and Sutter because there's a traffic jam there. I can guide you, but you must do exactly as I say. OK? The street outside your house is empty... go now."
Even though he stayed on the line long enough for them to trace it through multiple countries she still kept asking... which makes me think the video is a fake.
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Citation needed. I can't even get most webpages to load that fast.
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Citation needed.
It was on Pop-Up Video.
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A phone trace is done by getting the records from the phone company. Back in the days of operators manually switching lines, you actually did have to keep someone on the line to complete a phone trace because a phone trace would have required having the manager at the local switching office call around to find out where the call was coming from. All of those manual operators were replaced by electronic switching and electronic record keeping. As soon as the record-keeping became electronic, it became unnece
Re:Cant help you, give me your information (Score:5, Informative)
Ping time can geolocate? Within 10 feet. I'm about to piss on myself laughing. Ping is more determined by quality of network than distance, and varies according to the route each ping takes. You assumptions assume every route is the same, or is on a cell phone. They are not.
Go play network expert somewhere else, and get off my lawn.
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It is not about how long does it take to trace. The thing is, once you made a call, there will be a record created at every relay server you passed through and eventually it will be possible to find the exact device you were calling from or, for a cellphone, your approximate location. No need to stay on the line.
Re:Cant help you, give me your information (Score:4, Insightful)
I love how the lady kept trying to get this guys information even tho they supposedly couldnt help him. WE HAVENT BEEN KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR EMAILS BUT WE SURE WOULD LIKE TO.
Well yeah... it's like the guy that called the BATF to ask which assault rifle would be better to use for destroying his computer, which he was upset with. The agent dead panned with a reply of, "Well sir, that depends... how much have you had to drink?"
But I will admit... if someone rang me and wanted to restore deleted e-mails, and I was a law enforcement officer, I'd want to know what kind of e-mail could be so important it'd compel people to call me too. If nothing else, I'd want to investigate the guy just to make sure he really was just another harmless drunk, and not one of the perenially stupid people who buzz the police to complain about being ripped off by their drug dealer, or who gave money to a prostitute who then left without rendering service. Take enough phone calls from the general public, and you will have no faith left in humanity to speak of... at which point you just dutifully take down the information, be as polite as possible, and then file it under "Yet Another Probably Drunk Person, But Since It Could Be A Really Stupid Terrorist, Please Sign This Search Warrant" and move on to the next idiot caller.
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It's to add him to the list of "troublemakers." Then the first time he sorta-slips-up they won't just "throw the book at him," they'll use all the books to crush him like a bug. He wouldn't be the first...
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Getting as much information about a problem someone brings to you is decent handling, even if you know someone above you is at most going to laugh and throw away the conta
Boring (Score:2, Insightful)
Rather boring and uneventful. How did this ever get posted anyways?
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How did this ever get posted anyways?
The NSA posted it. Slashdot was forced to comply with a Secret Court ruling, and give the keys to the editor desk to the NSA. They posted this so no one else tries it, as it is a waste of their secretary's time.
So we all know that the NSA can read our email. That's no big deal, given a fistful of Secret Court rulings.
But can they read Bashar al-Assad's email? Probably not. They're too busy recording calls made by Presbyterian grandmothers in Ohio.
Frankly, I wish that they would spend a wee bit of ef
Welcome to the new slashdot (Score:2)
Rather boring and uneventful. How did this ever get posted anyways?
If it is anti-government it goes on the front page, simple as that.
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Maybe Dice could spin Slashdot off and create a separate website where all they do is post links to articles nerds might be interested in along wi
customer service (Score:5, Funny)
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Now on the No-Fly list... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just wait until this individual attempts to travel in the near future. If you phone the NSA and acknowledge that they have your email, they will retaliate.
After all, the government right now is persecuting a "leaker" who they "claim" is lying because after all, they swore up and down that they weren't reading email and listening to phone calls of average Americans. And the government wouldn't LIE, now would they? So the leaker has to be wrong. And yet, they pursue him like he has some relevant information that can cause damage.
FOI (Score:2)
tsk tsk - he should have put in a freedom of information request instead.
10/10; would pay for this service (Score:2)
Once, in a previous life before becoming an enlightened free software user, I had a windows 95 install that got infected with a virus and died. For reasons that are obvious or easily guessed I probably deserved it but I also lost valuable data when I sanitized the harddrive. If the NSA could retrieve a pre-infection copy of my clipart folder from 1997 I'd pay up to a 5$ service charge without hesitation. I can't imagine I'm the only one who might actually have a legitimate use for my own intercepted data
From the safety of Holland (Score:2)
This was a prank, but what happens with a subpoena (Score:2)
They'd have trouble arguing that something was a deep black national intelligence secret after sharing it with the DEA. A prosecutor or someone in discovery in a civil suit can make legal demands for information.
The resulting case would be educational, in that it would put more than one lawyer's kid through college.
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Never mind the DEA. The IRS gets to look at that data as well (thanks to the Patriot Act). And they'll go after a dropped nickel, intelligence security be damned.
Want to know what the gov't has on you? Short them a few hundred dollars and wait for the audit. They'll bring every scrap of information they can get their hands on to the audit. A bit of social engineering and they'll read your entire life history back to you. So you pay the tax plus penalties and you've got a peek at your dossier that the 10%
This is Like Obama Care (Score:2)
Instead the NSA acts like theyr'e selling an airplane ticket?
Try a FOIA request (Score:2)
For retrieval of your data.... or maybe a lawsuit, with a subpoena for their copy of your files; or seek a court order for a copy of the data......
Re:First Post (Score:5, Funny)
Damn you, XKCD. See what you did?
Re:Freakin Hilarious!! (Score:5, Funny)
The real problem is that even if you did get your email back it would be heavily redacted. :-)
thank you for bringing this to our attention (Score:3)
As a future convenience, you have been added to our service, all at no charge to you.
Our whole goddamned civilization is going to collapse under the irony. It's all lolcats from here on out. Damn, the alienz are going to be dumbfounded when they finally stop by to check up on us.
Re:Naturally, they now DO have that video logged (Score:5, Funny)
So, we have to enable the backup service first? No problem:
al Qaida, Jihad, Backpack, Pressure Cooker, Fourth Amendment.
There. That should do.
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And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how dupes at Slashdot get started