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http://www.studentsfororwell.org/

of course, the secret service actually comes to the door of many kids...

here are 3 diff examples:
http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc100405
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/170992_prosser 28.html
http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000379.php
http://shockandblog.com/blog/modules.php?name=News &file=article&sid=16
http://shockandblog.com/blog/modules.php?name=News &file=article&sid=18

Let me guess. Everything bad that is happening is made up. All of it. They are all partisan attacks to make George Bush look bad. We are actually living in the freest paradise on the planet and nothing bad happens here. ...

http://www.studentsfororwell.org/

of course, the secret service actually comes to the door of many kids...

here are 3 diff examples:
http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc100405
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/170992_prosser 28.html
http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000379.php
http://shockandblog.com/blog/modules.php?name=News &file=article&sid=16
http://shockandblog.com/blog/modules.php?name=News &file=article&sid=18

Let me guess. Everything bad that is happening is made up. All of it. They are all partisan attacks to make George Bush look bad. We are actually living in the freest paradise on the planet and nothing bad happens here.

> The US is a great nation because it has taken risks. For better or worse, those risks have propelled us forward.

and cleverly positioned ourselves thousands of miles from Hirohito & Hitler! Those fools that set up countries closer were completely overrun, then while they were rebuilding we took over much of the economy around the world.

> I would rather live proudly in a country that isn't afraid to face issues than to live in a state of mediocrity.

Right, I personally admire our great leadership for the way they decisively tackle:
    - governmental incompetence brought about by new old boys network
    - foreign debt that threatens our entire econmy
    - foreign oil dependency that threatens our entire economy
    - growing polarization between the faith-based & reality-based parts of the country
    - high cost of health care that leaves many without *any* health care
    - attacks on US soil by immediately attacking an uninvolved third-party (that has huge amounts of oil)
As I watch us lose yet another industry (auto), and watch us put engineers out to pasture while we outsource to india and china(!) I'm left just happy & glad to know that our leadership isn't afraid to face issues.

> Take this as cocky if you must but where would the world be without the U.S. involved in the past 100 years?

Right, i'm sure the rest of the world is just jealous of our great successes in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afganistan.

That's what is really fabulous about 'merica: it really doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks. We've got our own reality goin' on:
    http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000935.php

There's no point in arguing politics, the one truth is that there is no truth, so what's the point?

Spoken like a true Republican.

This is similar to the millenium challenge military exercise where General Paul Van Riper basically negated the support to military operations intelligence gathering technology like satellites, communications intercept etc. How'd he do this? With using human runners to deliver messages, broadcasting foreign language messages over the muslim call to prayer loudspeakers and generally just negating the adversaries strong points (technology) by refusing to play in their arena.

I also think you guys way overestimate the capabilities of the NSA. Yes they have the logistical and monetary backing to electronically gather any information they want, but at the base level they are still humans with human problems like bureaucracy, slow decision making etc. The essential dialogue between a target and a team of NSA guys is still human and can be exploited with deception and and the right strategy. I'm not doubting they are a great organisation that could take down people but I'm just saying there is the possibility that one could outwit such policing and intelligence agencies if you were smart and had a paranoid and devilish attitude about it.

Well yes, that is mean... But it's somewhat less mean than murder and embezzlement...

Yes but it's not like the gov't hasn't done those things as well.

But the point stands that this will only catch small-timers that aren't smart enough to set up encrypted communications.

Except that wiretaps are too expensive to use to catch small-timers. But they're oh so useful for going after suspected communists/homosexuals/terrorists/politcal leaders. And with former iran/contra henchmen on staff, you can bet the current adminstration would never do anything of the sort, right?

Anyone who thinks that big organized crime doesn't have their own IT guys who know this stuff forwards and backwards, and set up secure communications and encrypted storage for their bosses is a fool.

Which makes me think of the movie "Sneakers".

The Bush administration has already escaped into a faith-based parallel universe, as our own reality-based universe wasn't to their liking.

It seems that Aluria is leaving the "Reality-based Community".

http://www.warblogging.com/: Excellent, thoughtful writing by George Paine.

http://www.juancole.com/: If you really want to understand the Iraq war and the Middle East.

http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/: Eschaton, for brief and very incisive commentary.

"There is no consistency as to what is acceptable in one region for the ATF that won't be acceptable somewhere else," said Wickman. "The ATF people seem, as a rule, to feel this whole idea of hobby rocketry being regulated by the (government is) a mistake and a waste of time. There's a disconnect between the ATF in Washington and the regional field offices."

What's worse, even though not much has changed about the regulations, they are subject to arbitrary interpretation in the field, said Bundick, of the National Association of Rocketry. "It's a never-ending treadmill to try to pacify the local inspector."

The Justice Department's Nowacki didn't respond to questions about the ATF's perceived inconsistency.

• (1st) free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion;
  
• (4th) unreasonable searches and seizures;
  
• (5th) freedom from self-incrimination;
  
• (6th) rights to counsel and to a speedy trial
  
• (8th) freedom from cruel and unusual punishments
  
• (9th) rights retained by the people
  
• (10th ) or rights reserved by the States

I'm not terrorably concerned with the goverment tracking the movement of money, they do allready.

The way the government traditionally tracks money requires you to take the money out of your pocket. What concerns people is that embedding RFID chips in money allows the government and anyone else to track money hidden in your money belt as you walk through the airport, the mall, the football stadium, the street, etc. It allows the government to know where you went after leaving the bank and allows thiefs to know who is a good target.

This was discussed by George Paine in Your bank account, your liberties.

From http://www.freemikehawash.org/ "On April 28, the day before Mike would have been ordered released, the U.S. Justice Department issued a Complaint, charging Mike with Conspiracy to Levy War on the United States. Mike is being targeted because he is a Muslim. The Justice Department has organized a smear campaign to portray him as a radical."

From Warblogging (a blog about making war against Republicans apparently): "I urge you to write letters to the editors of your local newspapers. Call your senators, call your congressmen. Call into your local radio talk shows. Make a fuss. Tell everyone who will listen about Mike Hawash. He deserves it, and so does the next one who will be dragged into this Kafka-esque nightmare."

From Wired: Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee

Oh, let's not forget the ever-accurate New York Times: Terrorism Task Force Detains an American Without Charges

If you browse around and read other articles on many of the private publications that spoke out on this you find constant Bush bashing, comparisons of Republicans to Nazis, an much worse. Liberals figured that this successful natuaralized American of 17 years had a good chance of actually being innocent, so what better way to give the Bush administration grief.

What I don't understand is, why don't the Liberals actually wait till they have some solid information before they bash away? Time after time they just make themselves look like air-heads on things like this.

Here is a clue: What MOTIVE would the current administration or any administration have for falsely arresting anyone on terrorism charges? This notion that the administration hates Arabs just doesn't hold water. They arrested these people because they HAD something on them. Does that mean that every single one will be found guilty? No. But if I let party politics rule my every decision as most of these people seem to do, I think I'd WAIT till one of the innocents had been let go to start my smear campaign. A lot less erroneous web pages to clean up that way. (4000 hits on google to web content proclaiming this guy's innocence).

• http://warblogging.com/
• http://agonist.org/
• http://www.alternet.org/
• http://www.stratfor.com/corporate/static_index.neo

Maybe you won't get killed in the US, but you can expect to be arrested. I've heard similar incidents regarding anti-Bush attire.

I think you're confusing a weblog with a "livejournal". A weblog is similar to slashdot (or warblogging.com and back-to-iraq.com). In fact, my weblog (http://privon.com) deals with politics, science, and civil rights as well as opinion pieces I've written about various issues. A weblog is another source of information.

What you're thinking of is commonly called a "livejournal" and it's exactly that - a journal. Some blogs are also journals. For example, I've got two 'blogs'. One is the one I mentioned above. The other is slightly more journal oriented, with me posting about things I've done that my family and friends (and possibly others) might find interesting. For example, I've recently posted about visiting the Trek Bicycles Demo Day as well as some of my latest photography experiences.

It might be beneficial for you to review your definition of a blog. Blogs can be an excellent source of information, not just a diary.

How about Jose Pedillo? Or more worryingly, since there does seem to be a strong likelihood that Jose intended harm (even though the Justice Dept now claims "he's a small fish"), how about Mike Hawash, who has no charges against him, and no explanation of why he's being held or kept in solitary confinement or strip searched every time he returns to his cell.

1) We have a bill of rights, though it seem it is being reduced from the original 10.

We can say whatever we want against the government (a right it seems many slashdotters are very well aware of) and we and are families will not get killed/tortured for it. We don't even have to look farther than across our northern border to find a country that doesn't have freedom of speech. Canadianfreespeech.com
Or in freedom loving Germany: Gotta Love Freedom
What scares me more than incidents like this in which someone is being held illegaly is what becomes legal for the police and government once the thought police have full power.

2) If we don't like our leaders, we can elect them out in 4 years or less.

Without these, we would have something similar to most of the dictatorships in the world, and Iraq is what happens when a dictatorship goes bad -- really bad.

So yes, things like this should be fought, but hating our country and the good things about it is only going to make things worse. We need to remember those things to remind ourselves what we are fighting for. We must remember that in this case the law is on our side. Why not try to file a lawsuit against the people who are illegally holding this guy? Or would we rather try to see how far we can stretch reality by bad comparisons and speculation in an effort to make the US look bad?

Warblogging.com has been covering Hawash's story, as well as the Total Information Awareness story for a good while now. "George Paine" is a well-informed writer and his links are usually pretty good.

1. segregationist there is a two tiered legal system for "in-groups" and "out-groups". these groupings can be religious, racial, ethnic.
2. expansionist usually through direct force of state (viz. war). but also via economic imperialism.
3. ultranationalistic some sort of mystical, mythical or quasireligious importance is placed on the nation.
4. capitalist contrary to the nsadp's name, there ain't no socialism in national socialism.
5. reactionary makes policy based upon current circumstances rather than creating policies to prevent problems.
6. repressive all the secret police stuff that we associate with fascism.

so...

1. iraq wins (treatement of kurds worse than treatment of african americans. hands down)
2. u.s. wins (have you been listening to the "pax americana" stuff from pearle &co? that plus the habit of the u.s. running "proxy wars" to expand their influence (hussein was a pro-us proxy warrior to fight iran once) gives this to the u.s. hands down)
3. tie. maybe down in the states you don't see it, but from the outside american nationalism looks really scary! i can't speak for iraqi nationlism - but i am willing to wager it's pretty hefty
4. u.s. wins - although not socialist, iraq is not as ideologically committed to laissez faire capitalsim as the u.s. is.
5. tie - iraq has been struggling to avoid internal collapse for twelve years. survival struggles are by definition reactionary. the us has based it's entire foreign policy in response to s11 - a reactionary stance.
6. iraq wins - well, duh. in the united states the cops don't shoot you without trial... well sometimes but not very often... but homeland security may be looking to change that( here, here, here)

fascism comes in 31 different flavours. feel free to oppose them all.

http://www.warblogging.com/
Breaking news, analysis, also covers related events in the US. Cynical slant.

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/
An Iraqi blogger. Hoax? It's well done

>> Wherever you go you see closed shops and it is not just doors-locked
>> closed but sheet-metal-welded-on-the-front closed,
>> windows-removed-and-built-with-bricks closed, doors were being welded shut


http://volokh.blogspot.com/
Excellent analysis of causes and outcomes. Breaking news, too.

http://www.sgtstryker.com/
Military / conservative perspective on Iraq and the news. Liberal and conservative views in the discussions.

http://www.defensetech.org/
It's all about the gear. The Slashdot of war technology.

http://timblair.blogspot.com/
Conservative and irreverant news analysis

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/

http://uswarblog.tripod.com/warblog/

http://www.nowarblog.org/
"Stand Down: The Left-Right Blog opposing an invasion of iraq"

http://www.back-to-iraq.com/
Back to Iraq 2.0

http://www.warblogs.cc/

--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu