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Insofar as King, the memo regarding COINTELPRO against blacks said "The Counterintelligence Program is now being expanded to include 41 offices... For maximum effectiveness of the Counterintelligence Program, and to prevent wasted effort, long range goals are being set...Prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement...King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed 'obedience' to 'white, liberal doctrines'". This is simply a secret police, a political police, trying to undermine the democratic process in this country. I know old-timer activists from the 1960s who found out due to FOIAs that the FBI had tried to get them fired from their jobs by sending anonymous letters to their employers.

Then on Fox News they whine how the liberals shackled the CIA and FBI in the 1970s - they neglect to mention how Nixon's White House staff, including old CIA hands like Hunt, were doing things like breaking into the Democratic Party campaign headquarters at the Watergate hotel however. The CIA was undermining democratic governments not only in places like Chile, but in Australia (Whitlam affair) and Italy (P2, Gladio). Even after the FBI was supposedly cleaned up in the 1970s, Reagan had them trying to seduce nuns (who were unhappy about nuns being raped and hacked up in El Salvador, as well as the archbishop being assassinated) involved in CISPES. Now with the Patriot Act etc., all of the constraints and watchdog functions over these organizations have disappeared.

At least we "geeks" have not been so foolish as to forget history. The FBI *earned* the mistrust and fear that we, and other people who haven't already been brainwashed yet. The story of COINTELPRO is a case in point. There are many other similarly creepy programs that they've embarked on in their history, and since the Patriot act has practically removed the checks on their authority that once existed, there is more reason than ever to be mistrustful and fearful of them.

While it's more than a touch paranoid to apply it to himself, COINTELPRO , which he mentioned, was quite real, and did some pretty darn nasty things. It's the very reason why the "wall" between the FBI and CIA, and a lot of restrictions on the agencies, were set up in the first place.

Lets spell it, out the Patriot act is designed to reimplement domestic spying as it was prior to the 1970's.

The real problem I see here is that we are creating a methods by which a government member can know absolutely anything about anyone at any particular point. Now what if we (meaning the US) mistakenly elect government officials with very bad intentions? It HAS happened before in democratic countries, and I will neglect specific examples in order to avoid Godwin's Law.

How soon we forget. It has happened before and it happend right here in the good ol' USofA. Ignoring the obvious Watergate references, there was also the little matter of the 1960's COINTELPRO. This is why we have most of our (scant) existing privacy rules in the first place (the ones that Ashcroft and Co. are working so hard to get overturned).

-JS

She looks fairly young judging by her photograph. I wonder if she's ever read about COINTELPRO, as just one example of government snooping gone too far.

It seems to me that Paine is correct after all. Any government, no matter how well set up, is a double-edged sword. Unfortunately, his dream for American democracy is dead. In it's place is the old adage, Might Makes Right. Money, it seems, is not without its drawbacks. We as a nation are still dealing with the affects of the Industrial Revolution: an era which marked the rise of the corporation, and a proportional decline of U.S. democracy.

Our legislature is bribed into passing laws that are not only unconstitutional, but also demonstrate an unconscionable degree of avarice. Our Courts, charged with the review of the law to determine its constitutionality, have declined to remove this blight from our lawbooks. Jefferson was understandably worried about creating a political machine which has so little room for direct democratic participation.

And what are we left with? A legislature more interested in furthering the interests of the multinational corporation then the general Public? An executive branch that has asserted autocratic powers (For Further Reading)? Law enforcement that has a careless disregard for the law? And a supreme court which is derelict in its duty? Something must be done to restore the American way, and put power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people. Paine would say that it is inevitable-- violations of the 'natural law' concerning government do not go uncorrected. As computer techs, we should understand this. When something is broken, you fix it. What we need is a debugger!

I wish to note however, that you do not use a sledgehammer on a PC that doesn't work, nor do you perform any unnecessary drive reformats. In this manner, I do not advocate a use of physical force to solve our current dilemma. (There ECHELON, you can rest easy now.)

It is with no small irony that I choose to quote from an author whose works are in the public domain. Copyright does not mean, "eternal money," nor does it mean, "absolute power." Unfortunately, there are some people that construe it as such.

I was thinking more of the McCarthy eraHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) , or the FBI's COINTELPRO
Of course the entertainment industry selling out it's artists, to gain favors from the government and the government breaking the law to in order to uphold the law is realy a 50's and 60's thing, and went out with the Nixon administration, right ?