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I won't say somebody is an idiot, but I agree that the government can get any information it wants now without any checks and balances, thanks to the Patriot Act. http://www.bordc.org/resources/businessbook.pdf This particular PDF talks about the cost of doing business with the Patriot Act. If somethink like the Carrier IQ program that tracks everything you do with your phone can be inbedded into phones operating system, what is to stop something like that from being inbedded into all major operating systems of all devices and being accessed by the government. Answer. Nothing.

Let's see. USA has had:

- Government attacks on journalists.
- Government attacks on citizens who take video recordings of police in public, often because those citizens posted to sites like Youtube the evidence of police committing abuse and brutality.
- Government shutdowns of entire websites based not on convictions under the law, but of "indictments" based on one-sided presentation of carefully chosen and misrepresented lists of evidence, complete with fabricated and delusional accusations of "mass conspiracy" spun out of whole cloth with inserted accusations of "terrorism" and other things designed not to have any factual basis but merely to constitute an emotional appeal (read: "oh but think of the children", which always comes behind some censorship law or other).

Hell, you don't even have to be that recent. The "USA PATRIOT ACT" (what an Orwellian name!) has plenty to be worried about already. And then we have the DMCA and all the other chilling effects laws the USA has enacted...

ANY QUESTIONS?

Yes, just one. Have you been asleep since 2001?

The USA PATRIOT Act section 802 defines domestic terrorism so broadly that it could apply to an individual exercising his or her freedom of speech, expression, and assembly through acts of civil disobedience. The Department of Justice has not revealed how it is using section 802.

In June 2004, Buffalo, New York, artist Steve Kurtz was detained by law enforcement and had his home searched by FBI agents. Despite finding only harmless substances, which Kurtz uses in his politically motivated art projects, the FBI proceeded with a Grand Jury hearing to decide whether to indict Kurtz under the USA PATRIOT Act’s biological agents provision. On June 29th, Kurtz’s bio-terrorism related charges (USA PATRIOT Act section 817) were dropped.

Also pitting the USA PATRIOT Act against the First Amendment, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, a Saudi computer science doctoral student in Idaho, was charged with providing material support to terrorist groups (USA PATRIOT Act section 805) by being a webmaster. A jury acquitted al-Hussayen of all terrorism-related charges in June of 2004, and prosecutors subsequently dropped all remaining charges.

http://www.bordc.org/threats/speech.php

Wow, what HP's doing sounds amazingly familiar.

Here's an article on a bill immunizing the Bush Administration from prosecution for basically doing the same thing. Too bad HP can't call him up and ask to be included on the bill.

BTW, here's another article, this one by the ACLU on exactly what the Cheney-Specter bill does.

Yeah, don't get me started on Alberto but for him to provide a warrant on every citizen in the United States without reasonable cause seems a bit far fetched as well as being completely unconstitutional.

The argument used to address congress recently was that we're at war and any and all means of engaging the enemy are legal. While I understand and accept that the NSA has been given power to monitor conversations from US citizens to foreign countries, it still isn't legal for them to monitor internal domestic communications without a warrant, which, as far as I can tell, includes wartime.

If you have a lot of time, read through this document, which details how the domestic spying was found to be legal earlier this year. It does not show any evidence that the NSA has authority to collect a phone database of domestic calls and analyze them.

This is off topic, but I thought it might be relevant within a degree:

Join thousands of other Americans by calling Congress on Wednesday, May 17 to demand they investigate this government intrusion immediately. ADC, the BORDC, the ACLU, People For the American Way, and other organizations have declared the week of May 15 "National Call-in to Congress Week" and are asking their constituents to call their members of Congress on a specific day. Let's keep those phones ringing in the Congressional halls all week long! Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask the operator to connect you.

Bill of Rights Defense Committee Page

The snooping into your phone bill is just the snout of the pig of a strange, lucrative link-up between the Administration's Homeland Security spy network and private companies operating beyond the reach of the laws meant to protect us from our government. You can call it the privatization of the FBI -- though it is better described as the creation of a private KGB....You should be more concerned that they are linking this info to your medical records, your bill purchases and your entire personal profile including, not incidentally, your voting registration.

Dossiers. Remember when the Soviets fell and people started buying their dossiers (this was in the 90's). It was crazy, business people would see that the KGB had a detail synopsis of their daily life, where they worked, who they hung out with, etc. in case they could turn a double agent, etc. On Soviet citizens, they had complete records of phone conversations (transcripts), photos, fingerprints, hair, everything. This is just the beginning. And with so much of our personal business being handled over the 'net (taxes, banking, bills, not to mention email and personal communications, entertainment, and now VoIP phone calls...), it's easier than ever for them to compile a dossier on people.

But yes, you're right, the fact that the company makes a network recorder is not news. Mainly because there was a Narus story on Slashdot like last month..

Now that I have a little more time, let me expand on my other comment.

Recall yourself back to the fall of 2001. We had the terrible shock of 9/11 of that year. By October 26th, the USA Patriot Act (hereafter referred to as the UPA) was signed by the President. Forty-five days may sound like it was plenty of time for Congress to properly consider a bill of such potential sensitivity. Indeed, it might have been.

But Congress did not have 45 days.

This bill was introduced in the House on October 23, a fact which you may verify here. The bill itself is three hundred and forty-two pages, when presented in PDF format. (You can read it here.) Now, we may have varying opinions on the intelligence of various members of Congress, but it seems like a safe bet that any particular member would have had a difficult time reading a 342 page bill in three days, let alone understanding the full implications of such a broad bill on such a sensitive subject.

Yet it was even worse than it appears. If you'll be so kind as to look here, you'll see that it was introduced in the House on the 23rd, and passed without amendment on the 24th at 11:03 AM after approximately 100 minutes of debate. It was received in the Senate the same day, passed that chamber without amendment on the 25th and was given to the President. He signed it the next day.

As if the time to consider the matter wasn't compressed enough already, also recall that the Senate was rather distracted at that moment by the anthrax attacks.

I ask you, do you think Congress fulfilled its responsibilities in this matter? Did Congress give this matter the serious consideration which the defense of our Liberty demands?

If your answer is no, then I fail to see how you can object to the proposal to extend the sunsetted provisions by a few months while the matter is considered further. Yet the administration and Congressional leadership are demanding that it be permanently extended as-is, with no more discussion. Does that not seem a bit... odd? What harm can come from further discussions while the law remains wholly in force?

Dismiss the opposition to the UPA as ACLU propaganda if you like. But there's a much broader opposition to the UPA than you might think. Read what William Safire has to say on the subject, or visit the website of the grassroots Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Heck, read the bill.

Then tell me it's all ACLU propaganda.

How to keep the country running and yet combat the deficit even has party allies drawing swords. It's taxes and spending debated per usual -- but this time it's the difference between the House and Senate budget priorities that's causing all the heat. In an editorial, THE WASHINGTON POST said "though neither offers much to cheer about, the Senate's version is by far the fairer. It would cut $35 billion in projected entitlement spending over the next five years, compared with $50 billion in the House version. But the differences between the two bills are bigger than those numbers suggest. The Senate would make the cuts without digging into programs for low-income people." THE ECONOMIST echoed these sentiments somewhat, noting, " The House package, supported by Mr Bush, tries to cement his tax-cutting legacy...Some 40% of the House tax cuts would go to those earning more than $1m a year; the very rich would get only 8% of the Senate's cuts."

Below are links to the ongoing debates surrounding U.S. fiscal policy -- reducing the deficit, tax cut plans, and budget priorities. Explore both sides of the debates and then do your own number crunching by visiting sites with budget numbers and analyses.
Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act:

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Not for profit grassroots group concerned with American civil liberties. The site contains updates on local civil liberties actions, tools for activists, a legislation watch and policy briefs on the Patriot Act.

The Department of Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security offers information about Homeland Security legislation, the President's Homeland Security proposal, and analysis of the department. Other features include transcripts of speeches given by Governor Tom Ridge at the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation 2002 Service to America Summit and President Bush's Address to the Nation concerning homeland security. Online chat transcripts with Governor Ridge are also included.

Homeland Security, Homeland Profits
On the Corpwatch Web site (a corporate watchdog group), Wayne Madsen argues that corporations are standing to make billions from selling "surveillance and information-gathering systems to government agencies and the private sector." Madsen cautions that this technology will be utilized to intimidate and squelch dissent.

How the USA Patriot Act Puts the CIA Back in the Business of Spying On Americans
In this issue brief, the American Civil Liberties Union argues that the USA Patriot Act includes domestic espionage against American citizens. According to the ACLU, the USA Patriot Act "permits a vast array of information gathering on U.S. citizens from school records, financial transactions, Internet activity, telephone conversations, information gleaned from grand jury proceedings and criminal investigations to be shared with the CIA (and other non-law enforcement officials) even if it pertains to Americans."

First off, the gestapo did a LOT more than just murdering jews. They spent a lot of time monitoring as many of their citizens as possible. Basically, you did not dare speak out, as the person next to you may very well be SS.

Next, we ARE a lot closer than what we were even a decade ago. Now, that gov. are tracking citizens and listening in their voice and internet coversations, how is that different than what gestapo did to the average german citizen? Likewise, the reason why so many fought against FDR's Social Security was that they were afraid that the SSN could be used in part of a national ID (interestingly, the republican party fought it hard based on that). The more that a gov. tracks and listens, the easier it is for the next one, to extend that further. They all say that is for the "good of the nation" or for "homeland defense".

A good example is China now has forced abortion on women and forced sterilization on both sexes. We are not talking a 1-2 months abortions, but 9 month (ready to deliver). Now, with this kind of tech., how easy will it be for a gov. to say, oh, we know that you are pregnant by listening in on coversations. And yes, if China is doing this now, how soon will other govs. decide to do the same? Perhaps, they have decided that junior there does not have the genetic make-up that is desirable. But of course, we both know that a gov. would NEVER take that step. Right?

And no western gov. would ever spend their effort listening in on all their citizens.

And no western gov. would ever control the press by locking up foreign journalist (say known musleum reporters in a war zone) or allowing their own press to be owned by just a few friendly companies in which the CEO and "moderators" decide what is ok to print/tell/view.

And no western gov. would try to control those who do have intimate knowledge of deals

10 years ago, I would have though ppl crazy for thinking that a DB is bad. Now, In light of what has happened over the last 5 years, I have changed my mind.