Cory: Not to be snide, but Ubuntu can tell you how many bits you've downloaded. You have to open a terminal, but I assume you're up for that. Check out /sbin/ifconfig (you'll have to know which interface is active and be able to work in deltas, but it's not impossible).

All that being said, I agree that selling the internet by the bit is pretty silly given that bandwidth is the actual commodity. Trying to download 4 GiB on one day is much harder on my ISP than spreading that out over the course of a month. Of course, individuals don't really have good tools for controlling their own bandwidth use either, but my ISP does a pretty good job of capping my bit rate (either by having enough customers that I can't go over my max or by actually capping it).

Of course, Gilmore knows that he can travel without ID. His lawsuit was at least partially about wanting to read the law/rule/regulation that requires him to provide ID. Most of the hype and case itself seemd to be about the right to travel anonymously (which has been more or less upheld), but there's still the lingering question of why we can't read the law/rule/regulation that requires the production of identification.

How does one ask one's representatives for an explanation of the situation when one can't point to the text of the constraint?

CPT. TIM @ #18: I think the point that the "think of the children" objectors are making is that if the guy sitting next to one of their kids in the airport terminal is browsing something objectionable to the parent there's not much the parent can do to prvent the child from seeing what his neighbor is doing (try telling your kids not to look at something). Kids do not need to seek out objectionable material in order to come into contact with it.

That being said, I generally agree with Cory's point. People who object to the content visible on the BB front page need to ratchet their righteous indignation and American hyper-Puritanism down a few notches. Most of our children saw naked breasts for their first year or so with no detrimental effects (and certainly many positive health benefits). There's no honestly defensible reason for BB to be filtered at the airport.

On the other hand, we may want some sort of filtering. I mean, who wants to sit through a 14 hour plane flight with a screaming child who's just been traumatized by the sight of a donkey doing a man in the butt? ;)

BTW, those making the comparison to private companies doing what they like with their Internet connections are drawing a seriously flawed analogy. Airports are most often public or public/private partnerships run for the benefits of the local population and the people that travel to their cites. It's immaterial whether the wireless service is provided by a private contractor who owns the gear or by the government itself. The venue is a public good and should be run as such.