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Well, McAfee won't detect it.. this newer article says that McAfee contacted the FBI to make sure their software won't accidently detect it and alert the user.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A337 1-2001Nov22.html

So now and then I see a conspiracy theorist say that the government is suspicious of nonconformist OS users...

So what happens when it becomes virtually impossible to use M$ OSs for terrorism?

Right, it makes us alternate OS users look suspicious.

Mind you, I'm generally not that paranoid, but if you ever read the Washington Post check out today's (11/20) article about Bush's consolidation of executive power and think about his family *cough*dad's CIA*cough* and friends, and tell me it isn't a little worrisome.

The software packages, including 400,000 units of Microsoft's new Office XP program, are valued at $900 million by the company, although others peg their price tag even higher. The one million refurbished laptops and desktop computers to be donated to schools are worth between $500 and $600 apiece, one source said. The firm would also set aside as much as $90 million for teacher training and establish a foundation to dispense a possible $250 million in grants. A federal judge would retain authority over the agreement for five years.

So, $900,000,000 for software,
plus $500 x 1,000,000 laptops/desktops,
plus $90,000,000, for training
and $250,000,000 in grants
= $1.74 billion (though the $250 million is mentioned as "possible").

Of course, as EVERYONE has mentioned, the retail "value" of the the software is NOT what it costs Microsoft to give it away.

Washington Post

**********

"In September 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter presumably burned up in the Martian atmosphere because propulsion engineers failed to convert English and metric units.

Three months later, its sibling spacecraft the Mars Polar Lander likely crashed because a software glitch shut off the descent engines prematurely, sending it on a fatal plunge into the red planet."

CNN

Every year there is an effort in Congress to discontinue the penny. I'm all for the Internet saving my handy pocket-size Lincoln portraits.

Wrong. Sure, there are a handful of fundamentalists who sincerely think that the commercialist lifestyle is a capital crime. Similarly, there are some in the US who believe that God hates fags (of course, the same people eat shellfish, wear poly-cotton blends, and don't support slavery). But I digress.

Do you know why Timothy McVeigh became a terrorist? Because he couldn't pass the physical for Army Special Forces. That's all it took to swing a man 180 degrees. Exclusion --> Bitterness --> Hate --> Revenge.

It's the same for 90% of US-haters in the world. They'd love to have some of the western luxury that they see on BayWatch. But they live under a regime that stays in power thanks to US support.

Compare to Iran. 20 years ago they hated us fiercely. We left them to do their own thing. Today the younger 50% of the population loves american stuff. Another 10 years for a few more old ayatollahs to die and we'll be best pals.

Unless we piss them off again with gunboat diplomacy.

Text:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011112/ts/plane_ crash_dc_1.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/12/newyork.crash/ind ex.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/nyregion/12WIRE- PLANE.html
http://www.usatoday.com/hlead.htm
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsession id=GX1YUYCNLN1WQCRBAE0CFFAKEEATGIWD?type=topnews&S toryID=365206
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A147 84-2001Nov12.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,38565,00.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-a p-plane-crash1112nov12.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnatio nworld%2Dheadlines

Video:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/popoff/Daily News/STREAM1_video_popoff/index.html

CNN may be down but the Washington Post is up and has a photo.

Abcnews.go.com appears to be down.

MSNBC is up with coverage.

Washington Post

Sun Sentinel

According to The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64 663-2001Nov8.html, for the goat-wary),

The Justice Department has decided to listen in on the conversations of lawyers with clients in federal custody, including people who have been detained but not charged with any crime, whenever that is deemed necessary to prevent violence or terrorism.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft approved the eavesdropping rule on an emergency basis last week, without the usual waiting period for public comment. It went into effect immediately, permitting the government to monitor conversations and intercept mail between people in custody and their attorneys for up to a year at a time.

this article says that 366,272 copies were sold last week... P2P is hurting sales? why didnt they all wait to download it?

Well it is probabably good you are not a lawyer :)

All anti-trust cases are federal cases, it is a federal statute, and one of the few issues that has original jurisdiction in a federal court. If a State, private company, individual, or Fed govt wants to bring suit on anti-trust, it is a federal matter.

Now just because the Bush DoJ (and I did vote for the man) sold out, and gave MS a deal replete with so many loopholes that you could drive a truck through, additionally exempting them from anti-trust laws, additionally refusing to do what the Court of Appeals asked for in a remedy (for the fruits of their illegal conduct to be destroyed, you know the same court that everyone who refuses to read the opinion of says precluded break-up, but in fact did nothing of that nature), then States SHOULD STAND UP.

After all, these State A.G.s did not get millions of dollars from MS in contributions (yes, the GOP recieved around 2 million last year, and the same fundraisers who took the checks are also now working in DoJ as Ashcroft's top luitenants, Also see the Wash. Post article talking about how a top MS lawyer regularly consulted with DoJ anti-trust chief Charles James (he was James' mentor))

But I am not cynical, just hoping the states stay vigalant.

Oh, that is why the States do not need to capitulate to the DoJ decision

Here's a basic overview from 1998.

A quote from the article:

The Justice Department and the states contend that Microsoft is violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, which was passed by Congress in 1890. The act has two sections. The first section prohibits certain types of agreements that restrict the flow of trade. The second section prohibits the misuse of monopoly power, namely anti-competitive actions that seek to maintain that monopoly power and actions that attempt to use that monopoly power to dominate another market.

I found a more recent summary of the Court of Appeals decision, some of which "reverses" my thinking -- in actuality, the antitrust code does not directly confer a right to compete to the competitors of a monopoly market. But it does guarantee that the consumers have a right not to be harmed by anti-competitive practices by the monopoly holder. This tends to mean the same thing, but not always. Microsoft has apparently argued effectively that since they have not raised prices the way the old monopolists did, that they have not harmed consumers.

Yes, sort of. This Washington Post article describes what happened. The sunset clause does NOT apply to all provisions, however. At least Ashcroft didn't get a completely blank check.

-- Live Free Or Die (State Motto of New Hampshire)

The newest revisions included in the USA act awaiting passage this very moment blur the lines considerably, reducing all citizens to potential victims of secret FISA warrants, black bag jobs, and surveillance of their communications and financial transactions as detailed in this write-up of the bill at ACLU.ORG

More troubling by far are the sentiments echoed in this story at the Washington Post, which contain speculations by government officials about the need to apply torture to material witnesses and the justification for this torture due to the urgent nature of the investigation. Mind you, these are material witnesses, not indicted criminal suspects. The fact that they have not been indicted removes all Miranda rights protections from them, including right to counsel. The fact that they are not citizens removes any protections against unlimited detention. There are persistent but unconfirmed reports of the detainees in Manhattan being subjected to sleep and sensory deprivation, and reports that doctors are being called in to determine exactly the levels of "pressure" they can be subjected to, as well as recommending drugs to be used to assist in interrogation. These reports seem to indicate that the torture has already started, and is not merely being discussed. The participation of doctors in this kind of torture, even in a monitoring capacity, is directly against the Nuremberg Code, the UN Principles of Medical Ethics, and the UN Convention against Torture.

As a nation, we are perilously close to returning to the days of the Cold War and before when unwitting human experimentation in mind-control and behavior modification was conducted in secret, when U.S. soldiers were drugged and in some cases driven to suicide in order to try out the very "truth serums" being discussed in the Post article, and when conscientious objectors were used as guinea pigs for starvation and cold weather exposure experiments not so very different from those that Nazi doctors were hung for at the end of WWII.

Looking at things from a legal point of view, we are either at war with someone, or we are not. If we are at war, then aren't the people being held in Manhattan Prisoners of War, and subject to the protections of the Geneva Convention? If we are not at war, then this all devolves into a pure criminal proceeding where coerced testimony, "assisted interrogation" and the like are clearly unconstitutional and will poison any cases ever brought against these people.

The corrupting influence at work here is the mixing of Intelligence activities and criminal proceedings, which are anathema to each other. Intelligence is the world of innuendo, hunches, and threads of circumstance where decisions to attack aspirin factories with cruise missiles can be made on the slimmest of evidence, or none at all. Criminal prosecution depends on rigorously documented chains of evidence, sworn testimony and eye-witnesses. Phrases like "beyond a reasonable doubt" seemed to appear frequently the two times I was a juror, once in a murder trial. Due to this difference, the FBI is not institutionally equipped to operate in the Intelligence community, and the CIA is psychologically unable to grasp the difference between rumor and evidence. Mixing the two as the USA act does will forever damage the integrity of our nation's government and reduce the United States to a totalitarian state the likes of which the world has never seen before:

Every totalitarian distopia ever envisioned in literature (or occurring in real life, over time) has one attribute in common: the crushing lack of personal luxury for the masses. This has been at least a partial stimulus to any resistance against these regimes. The levels of affluence in most of the US, combined with the public's ability to have their attention monopolized by the most recent media craze, whether the Gary Condit affair, or the current Anthrax scare, makes us most susceptible to a gradual erosion of our rights. The frogs are being not so gently boiled right now and no one is complaining too much.

Write to your Congress-Critters today!

"I fear for the Republic"

Tom Porter

You've been told by your government and your biased media that Bin Laden is indeed responsible, and that the talibans have supported him. Now, pray tell, have you seen any proof?
No.

Perhaps you were misinformed. That's the only non-insulting explanation I can think of. If you read this entire post and don't believe any of it then I'd be truely fasinated to hear your explanation. Don't forget to explain why anyone would go through all this effort against uninvolved parties.

I did this search using evidence+linking+bin+laden. 3,360 matches returned. I quit after the first 20 results. I'm sure you'll dismiss some of these items, but don't overlook the guilty verdicts in the embassy bombings near the bottom. :) The only reason Bin Laden wasn't tried in court years ago is because the Taliban are protecting him. Note, any link below longer than 1 line is merely to provide the source of the quote.

"Federal authorities have identified more than a dozen hijackers of Middle Eastern descent in Tuesday's bombings and gathered evidence linking them to Osama bin Laden". Oh yeah, US gov and US media are all lying. Ummm, could you remind me why they'd want to let the actual guilty parties keep blowing stuff up? " Within 48 hours some 4,000 special agents and 3,000 support personnel were assigned to the case, with about 400 FBI laboratory specialists deployed to examine the forensic evidence." There must be over 10,000 people involved in this conspiracy, not even counting everyone in the media.

"A German government spokesman said Wednesday that German, British, French and Israeli secret services had also linked the Saudi dissident to the world's worst terrorist atrocity." Ummm, I guess that means Germany, England, France, and Isreal are part of the conspiracy too? Could you give me a clue why?

During an active investigation eveidence is kept confidential. Here's the leak that prompted a major lockdown on information: "A US Senator Orrin Hatch has said that FBI official intercepted telephone calls, which indicated bin Laden had been involved in plotting the attacks on New York and Washington." Damn, would have been helpful if other operatives in the US phoned Al-Qaida too. I guess that's the end of that source of evidence.

The specific evidence may not be public, but governments are getting to see it. "Meanwhile, the U.S. began providing its allies with what some governments said is clear evidence linking Saudi-born Osama bin Laden to the Sept. 11 attacks. Some reports said that evidence includes records of communications by bin Laden's aides, notes left by suicide hijackers before the attacks, and reports that some of the hijackers received training in bin Laden's military camps."
and "information linking Osama bin Laden with the terrorist's plot. Britain's Tony Blair has seen it. Pakistan's top leaders have seen it. Some evidence has even been published on the Internet." I guess we have to add Japan and Pakistan to the conspiracy list.

"Authorities are also reported to have been gathering evidence that some of those involved in Tuesday's attacks may also have been behind, among others, the bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen and the Millennium bombing plot on U.S. soil." Oh yeah, must be more dis-information.

Specific public evidence hard to come by on in any active investigation, but there's plenty of evidence on the 1998 embassy bombings available. Take a look at this declassified summary of findings of the FBI investigation into the Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings on August 7, 1998. Written November 18, 1998. There was enough evidence to indict Bin Laden and others on murder and other charges. "In total, the U.S. government has public indictments against 26 members of bin Laden's international group, Al Qaeda. Of those men, three have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the U.S. government as witnesses. Four were tried this year [and convicted]. Six are in custody in the U.S. or abroad and are awaiting trial. Thirteen, including bin Laden himself, are fugitives. The six other bin Laden associates in custody include several high-ranking members of Al-Qaeda." August 1997 raid on El Hage's house in Nairobi yielded this letter linking Bin Laden to the cell that bombed the embassy.

And Bin Laden implicates himself: "journalists with access to bin Laden said he and his followers openly boasted in recent months that they were preparing for attacks against the United States in retaliation for American support of Israel.
A videotape has been circulating in the Middle East for several months in which bin Laden recites a victory poem about the Cole bombing, and then issues a call to arms: 'To all the Mujah: Your brothers in Palestine are waiting for you; it's time to penetrate America and Israel and hit them where it hurts the most.'" and I still say the video Bin Laden released afterwards amounts to a confession and promise to continue.

Ravens (-7 1/2) at Browns: Ravens Coach Brian Billick faults last week's defensive breakdown on team's switch to Linux operating system

they dont say what about the switch caused the defensive breakdown, but it could be worth researching this further

Ravens (-7 1/2) at Browns: Ravens Coach Brian Billick faults last week's defensive breakdown on team's switch to Linux operating system.

Ravens (-7 1/2) at Browns: Ravens Coach Brian Billick faults last week's defensive breakdown on team's switch to Linux operating system.

Levinson, in establishing that Lincoln did not have the authority to suspend habeas corpus, clearly established that Congress does have the authority. In September, 1863, Congress subsequently granted Lincoln the authority he had assumed.

The threat today of detention without trial does not come from presidential decree but from Congress. The current anti-terrorism law imposes detention without trial on non-citizens for up to 7 days.

There is no doubt that detention without trial, along with denying access to a lawyer, are very useful tools in fighting terrorism. The pressure to adopt them doesn't have to come from a government bent on despotism but from an honest concern for protecting the lives of citizens. Given Congress' authority to enact such laws, people who oppose them on the grounds that they threaten civil liberties are in effect saying that their elected government poses a greater threat than the terrorists.

After 9/11, who can doubt where the greater threat lies?

"We must give up some of our freedoms to help combat terrorism."

The predictable words -- and actions -- are beginning to spew from political, military, and law enforcement officials and their supporters. For safety, for security, for the greater good, they somberly tell us, we must comply with their agendas. To be protected from terrorism we must submit to more restrictions -- on our ability to travel, our freedom from arbitrary searches, on the privacy of our communications, on our right to bear arms, on our ability to conduct business hidden from the prying eyes of government.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) has called for a global prohibition on encryption products without backdoors for government surveillance.

Travel regulators have banned knives on planes. (Does this mean even the pilots can't protect themselves and passengers against hijackers?)

ISPs who were reluctant to cooperate with the FBI's invasive Carnivore program are now rushing to comply.

The Senate has, in the wake of Black Tuesday, voted to increase the FBI's authority to tap the phones of anyone suspected of terrorism. As we've seen by all these other random restrictions, we are ALL suspects in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Perhaps most ominously of all, the Washington Post quoted House Democrat Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) as making the self-contradictory, but entirely predictable statement, "We're in a new world where we have to rebalance freedom and security. We can't take away people's civil liberties . . . but we're not going to have all the openness and freedom we have had." The Post then went on to describe how every war or crisis of the last 100 years has been use to increase government power -- often in the most draconian ways. More Data Here Freelance supporters of the Surveillance State are rushing to urge everyone to comply. One liberal talk show host responded to callers who complained that Big Brother policies at airports were a problem, "Big Brother is the only thing holding us together!"

He offered no evidence to show how Big Brother made us safe on Tuesday, September 11.

WE MUST THINK FREE, NOT PATRIOTICALLY JERK OUR KNEES

Soon we may be at war. And as always at such times, we'll be expected to "pull together," "do what our leaders tell us is necessary," and sacrifice more freedom in the name of "safety and security" or patriotism. And, as the reality of the Day of Horror seeps in, who doesn't feel an urge to strike back, to "get behind our government," to "show those murdering bastards they can't push Americans around," and to "do whatever it takes to defend the greatest country on earth"? -- even if that means sacrificing individual liberty to "the cause."

Whatever happens from here on out, we need to remember that Big Brother is NOT holding us together -- that he never can and never will. We must remember that the kind of restrictions on the liberties of ordinary Americans that were entirely ineffective in preventing the attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 will not magically prevent future attacks merely because their severity is increased.

What did all of Big Brother's efforts do to prevent Tuesday's slaughter? The violations of freedom we've already been subjected to in the name of safety -- airport x-rays, ID checks, disarmament, body searches, and the whole gamut -- became a sick a joke when the day arrived that we needed them to protect the country against the world's worst criminals. In fact, Daniel Pipes of the Wall Street Journal was quick to point out how the government's reliance on mass eavesdropping and tracking actually diverted resources from more effective anti-terrorism methods, such as actually studying and infiltrating genuine terrorist groups.

Yet now the government proposes a giant national effort to do more of the same -- to impose more ineffective, wasteful, and oppressive mass surveillance and restrictions.

New restrictions on the freedoms of non-violent people will do nothing to make America or the world safer. They'll make us less safe, as well as less free.

There are at least two reasons for this:

THE FIRST is that more restrictions, and more power placed in the hands of government, will simply, in the long run, create more rage and therefore more desire to strike violently. (As we also saw, some restrictions, like those that forbid armed citizens on planes, also make it harder for Americans to protect themselves and their country.)

THE SECOND is something we observed, tragically, though cell phone calls from four doomed, hijacked planes: the fatal passivity and dependence that seems to be becoming the norm in American behavior.

THE PASSIVE, UNTHINKING AMERICAN

It appears now that a handful of heroic passengers on one flight, having learned via telephone that two other hijacked planes had already smashed into the World Trade Center, decided not to allow themselves to be used as weapons of war. These passengers on United Flight 93 attacked the hijackers who were in control of the plane. Doomed in any case, they ended up dying in the woods and fields of rural Pennsylvania, rather than passively allowing their captors to get away with an even more horrendous mass murder.

We also know that, on at least one other flight --American Airlines Flight 77, which smashed into the Pentagon -- passenger Barbara Olson learned from her husband, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, of the World Trade Center catastrophe. During two separate calls, Mrs. Olson (a well- known author and conservative television commentator) asked her husband what the pilot -- standing next to her in the back of the plane -- should do.

Picture that. Passengers and crew have been herded -- and note that word well, herded -- to the back of the plane. Even the pilot, the leader, the chief decision-maker, does nothing. Can't think what do to. Can't act. Instead of attempting to save their own lives and the lives of others on the ground, what do they do? They expect a federal government official to make the decision for them. THE EVIDENCE SAYS THAT THESE PEOPLE DIDN'T EVEN FEEL EMPOWERED TO DEFEND THEIR OWN LIVES WITHOUT FIRST ASKING THE ADVICE OR PERMISSION OF WASHINGTON, D.C..

And why should we have expected otherwise? Americans have been told repeatedly never to resist crime, always to submit to any demand a thug makes of them. Always go along -- for safety's sake. Go along in order to avoid angering the criminal. We've been told always to submit, as well, to any demand made by anyone who appears to be "in charge." These people on Flight 77 -- and presumably on two of the other flights -- were apparently so paralyzed by their conditioning that they couldn't assert themselves even when the alternative was certain death.

Even as pathetically disarmed as they were, they could have battered the hijackers with their briefcases, with their shoes, their purses. They could have overwhelmed them with sheer numbers of bodies. They could have gouged at their eyes with fingers or car keys. Could have knocked them unconscious with luggage from the overhead racks. Could have tripped them, stomped on them, tied them up with cords from audio headsets.

But except on United Flight 93, they apparently did nothing. And so three planes flew, sure and true, into the heart of three American landmarks, slaughtering thousands.

THE ONLY TRUE SECURITY MEASURE: A BILL OF RIGHTS CULTURE

We must take back America as a country. We must make it free and independent again -- no longer the would-be ruler of its own people, and no longer playing at being the world's supercop. Only by doing that will earn the world's peace and respect.

We must take our own individual lives and independent spirits back from would-be rulers and criminals, as well.

If we consent, passively, to give up more freedoms -- even "temporarily," or "as an emergency measure" -- we'll be doing the opposite. We'll be less safe, less free.

To restore American freedom and personal courage, we must restore the Bill of Rights -- in our country and in our hearts and minds. If we understand the Bill of Rights, we'll understand what we're fighting for -- and why. If we let it slip away what's left won't be worth fighting for.

This means not merely having an intellectual or legal understanding of the Bill of Rights. This means not merely memorizing the Bill of Rights or teaching it to our children. This means understanding the concepts of individual liberty that underlie the Bill of Rights -- then living those concepts, breathing them, eating the, dreaming them, holding them as the most central values of our lives, in the same place we hold our beliefs in the diety, or our dedication to our families, or to truth or justice.

We must behave as free people, expect and encourage others to behave as free people -- and have zero tolerance for anyone who abuses freedom or uses his authority to violate the Bill of Rights.

If there ever was a time in history to get behind the Bill of Rights and promote it, it is now. If we yield to this mushy thinking that the road to freedom and safety lies in GIVING UP freedom and the Bill of Rights, then we might as well bow down in defeat right now.

If we don't defend our rights, we'll have no rights. If we don't defend ourselves, our family members, and our fellow citizens -- AND defend their freedoms -- then our lives will be no more valuable than those of cattle and sheep. And the America we end up with won't be the America we thought we were fighting for.

If you want to be a passive herd beast -- obey whatever the authority of the moment, be that a bureaucrat or a hijacker, tells you to do. Listen to their lies about "safety and security" and obey, obey, obey.

But If you truly want to combat terrorism or terror-war, learn the Bill of Rights, teach the Bill of Rights, and enforce the Bill of Rights with every action of your life.

FIGHT BACK WITH THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

The Liberty Crew Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.BR

There is also an article in the Washington Post which mostly gives the same information we have already but also cites the case more specifically as "Macromedia v. Adobe, C01-3940". So the next step is Findlaw which can get us to the web site of, say, the district court for Northern California (disclaimer: I'm not sure that is the right district but it is a decent guess). That web site seems to say there is lots of fascinating information on PACER but that's a pay service. So I think I'm more or less at a dead end (although I didn't try, say, searching the patent databases looking for macromedia owned patents which look plausible).

As for why PACER costs $$$, they answer that on the PACER site as follows:

Why are there user fees for PACER?

In 1988, the Judiciary sought funding through the appropriation process to establish the capability to provide electronic public access services. Rather than appropriating additional funds for this purpose, Congress specifically directed the Judiciary to fund that initiative through the collection of user fees. As a result, the program relies exclusively on fee revenue.

I mean first, metal music was forcing kids to kill themselves, then metal music was forcing kids to kill their parents. Then, Tipper Gore thought metal music was destroying America. Now, Anthrax is killing the USPS? Who'd of thought. I always thought the RIAA wanted to prevent music transfered over the internet. Now others want Anthrax transmitted over email. How weird.

In other news, Anthrax is going to change it's name to "Basket Full Of Puppies"

"We must give up some of our freedoms to help combat terrorism."

The predictable words -- and actions -- are beginning to spew from political, military, and law enforcement officials and their supporters. For safety, for security, for the greater good, they somberly tell us, we must comply with their agendas. To be protected from terrorism we must submit to more restrictions -- on our ability to travel, our freedom from arbitrary searches, on the privacy of our communications, on our right to bear arms, on our ability to conduct business hidden from the prying eyes of government.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) has called for a global prohibition on encryption products without backdoors for government surveillance.

Travel regulators have banned knives on planes. (Does this mean even the pilots can't protect themselves and passengers against hijackers?)

ISPs who were reluctant to cooperate with the FBI's invasive Carnivore program are now rushing to comply.

The Senate has, in the wake of Black Tuesday, voted to increase the FBI's authority to tap the phones of anyone suspected of terrorism. As we've seen by all these other random restrictions, we are ALL suspects in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Perhaps most ominously of all, the Washington Post quoted House Democrat Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) as making the self-contradictory, but entirely predictable statement, "We're in a new world where we have to rebalance freedom and security. We can't take away people's civil liberties . . . but we're not going to have all the openness and freedom we have had." The Post [washingtonpost.com] then went on to describe how every war or crisis of the last 100 years has been use to increase government power -- often in the most draconian ways. More Data Here [afcomm.com] Freelance supporters of the Surveillance State are rushing to urge everyone to comply. One liberal talk show host responded to callers who complained that Big Brother policies at airports were a problem, "Big Brother is the only thing holding us together!"

He offered no evidence to show how Big Brother made us safe on Tuesday, September 11.

WE MUST THINK FREE, NOT PATRIOTICALLY JERK OUR KNEES

Soon we may be at war. And as always at such times, we'll be expected to "pull together," "do what our leaders tell us is necessary," and sacrifice more freedom in the name of "safety and security" or patriotism. And, as the reality of the Day of Horror seeps in, who doesn't feel an urge to strike back, to "get behind our government," to "show those murdering bastards they can't push Americans around," and to "do whatever it takes to defend the greatest country on earth"? -- even if that means sacrificing individual liberty to "the cause."

Whatever happens from here on out, we need to remember that Big Brother is NOT holding us together -- that he never can and never will. We must remember that the kind of restrictions on the liberties of ordinary Americans that were entirely ineffective in preventing the attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 will not magically prevent future attacks merely because their severity is increased.

What did all of Big Brother's efforts do to prevent Tuesday's slaughter? The violations of freedom we've already been subjected to in the name of safety -- airport x-rays, ID checks, disarmament, body searches, and the whole gamut -- became a sick a joke when the day arrived that we needed them to protect the country against the world's worst criminals. In fact, Daniel Pipes of the Wall Street Journal was quick to point out how the government's reliance on mass eavesdropping and tracking actually diverted resources from more effective anti-terrorism methods, such as actually studying and infiltrating genuine terrorist groups.

Yet now the government proposes a giant national effort to do more of the same -- to impose more ineffective, wasteful, and oppressive mass surveillance and restrictions.

New restrictions on the freedoms of non-violent people will do nothing to make America or the world safer. They'll make us less safe, as well as less free.

There are at least two reasons for this.

The first is that more restrictions, and more power placed in the hands of government, will simply, in the long run, create more rage and therefore more desire to strike violently. (As we also saw, some restrictions, like those that forbid armed citizens on planes, also make it harder for Americans to protect themselves and their country.)

The second is something we observed, tragically, though cell phone calls from four doomed, hijacked planes: the fatal passivity and dependence that seems to be becoming the norm in American behavior.

THE PASSIVE, UNTHINKING AMERICAN

It appears now that a handful of heroic passengers on one flight, having learned via telephone that two other hijacked planes had already smashed into the World Trade Center, decided not to allow themselves to be used as weapons of war. These passengers on United Flight 93 attacked the hijackers who were in control of the plane. Doomed in any case, they ended up dying in the woods and fields of rural Pennsylvania, rather than passively allowing their captors to get away with an even more horrendous mass murder.

We also know that, on at least one other flight --American Airlines Flight 77, which smashed into the Pentagon -- passenger Barbara Olson learned from her husband, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, of the World Trade Center catastrophe. During two separate calls, Mrs. Olson (a well- known author and conservative television commentator) asked her husband what the pilot -- standing next to her in the back of the plane -- should do.

Picture that. Passengers and crew have been herded -- and note that word well, herded -- to the back of the plane. Even the pilot, the leader, the chief decision-maker, does nothing. Can't think what do to. Can't act. Instead of attempting to save their own lives and the lives of others on the ground, what do they do? They expect a federal government official to make the decision for them. THE EVIDENCE SAYS THAT THESE PEOPLE DIDN'T EVEN FEEL EMPOWERED TO DEFEND THEIR OWN LIVES WITHOUT FIRST ASKING THE ADVICE OR PERMISSION OF WASHINGTON, D.C..

And why should we have expected otherwise? Americans have been told repeatedly never to resist crime, always to submit to any demand a thug makes of them. Always go along -- for safety's sake. Go along in order to avoid angering the criminal. We've been told always to submit, as well, to any demand made by anyone who appears to be "in charge." These people on Flight 77 -- and presumably on two of the other flights -- were apparently so paralyzed by their conditioning that they couldn't assert themselves even when the alternative was certain death.

Even as pathetically disarmed as they were, they could have battered the hijackers with their briefcases, with their shoes, their purses. They could have overwhelmed them with sheer numbers of bodies. They could have gouged at their eyes with fingers or car keys. Could have knocked them unconscious with luggage from the overhead racks. Could have tripped them, stomped on them, tied them up with cords from audio headsets.

But except on United Flight 93, they apparently did nothing. And so three planes flew, sure and true, into the heart of three American landmarks, slaughtering thousands.

THE ONLY TRUE SECURITY MEASURE: A BILL OF RIGHTS CULTURE

We must take back America as a country. We must make it free and independent again -- no longer the would-be ruler of its own people, and no longer playing at being the world's supercop. Only by doing that will earn the world's peace and respect.

We must take our own individual lives and independent spirits back from would-be rulers and criminals, as well.

If we consent, passively, to give up more freedoms -- even "temporarily," or "as an emergency measure" -- we'll be doing the opposite. We'll be less safe, less free.

To restore American freedom and personal courage, we must restore the Bill of Rights -- in our country and in our hearts and minds. If we understand the Bill of Rights, we'll understand what we're fighting for -- and why. If we let it slip away what's left won't be worth fighting for.

This means not merely having an intellectual or legal understanding of the Bill of Rights. This means not merely memorizing the Bill of Rights or teaching it to our children. This means understanding the concepts of individual liberty that underlie the Bill of Rights -- then living those concepts, breathing them, eating the, dreaming them, holding them as the most central values of our lives, in the same place we hold our beliefs in the diety, or our dedication to our families, or to truth or justice.

We must behave as free people, expect and encourage others to behave as free people -- and have zero tolerance for anyone who abuses freedom or uses his authority to violate the Bill of Rights.

If there ever was a time in history to get behind the Bill of Rights and promote it, it is now. If we yield to this mushy thinking that the road to freedom and safety lies in GIVING UP freedom and the Bill of Rights, then we might as well bow down in defeat right now.

If we don't defend our rights, we'll have no rights. If we don't defend ourselves, our family members, and our fellow citizens -- AND defend their freedoms -- then our lives will be no more valuable than those of cattle and sheep. And the America we end up with won't be the America we thought we were fighting for.

If you want to be a passive herd beast -- obey whatever the authority of the moment, be that a bureaucrat or a hijacker, tells you to do. Listen to their lies about "safety and security" and obey, obey, obey.

But If you truly want to combat terrorism or terror-war, learn the Bill of Rights, teach the Bill of Rights, and enforce the Bill of Rights with every action of your life.

FIGHT BACK WITH THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

The Liberty Crew [jpfo.org] Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.BR

My family lives in New York City. My sister was telling me that she had to submit to a full body search when she went to a concert at Madison Square Garden earlier this week, and I expressed a concern for her civil liberties. She told me that she didn't, of course, enjoy submitting to a full body search, but that she would gladly give up some of her freedoms in these "terrifying times" if it would even potentially be a deterrent to terrorists. The thing that she (and many other Americans) do not realize is that the laws that are being enacted to enable the authorities to infringe on her freedoms in these terrifying times are a slippery slope-- as stated in the Washington Post article, there is no "sunset," or expiration, date on these laws. I sent her a funny article from the Onion this week, and she was offended: this is not something to joke about, she said. "I'm scared right now. I see soldiers on the street corners and it makes me feel awful, but if that causes one potential terrorist to think twice about attacking me or mine, I'm glad to have them there." I don't know how to respond-- I'm glad, as well, if they're a deterrent, but it's really a question of how imminent the danger is, and whether we can ever really know how imminent danger of terrorist strikes is. If we don't know (and how could we?) I'd rather have the civil liberties. Failing that, I'd rather know that, when the fear dies down, we'll be able to restore all that we've lost.

I think that the real issue is not that these bills are passing, but that they're passing without expiration dates; that they're potentially part of a much longer-term loss of our civil liberties. That is a slippery slope that we cannot afford to start down.

Yeah, I feel your disconnnect buddy.

I've been watching Big Brother grow stronger and stronger in the name of fighting terrorism. Hells bells, I tried submitting an ACLU update calling for urgent action on the freakin Senate bill from hell but even Slashdot didn't get it. It's now passed the Senate, thanks a bunch Malda. A mundane Senator doesn't have a clue. Okay maybe one did.

Posting anonymously to avoid the coming bitchslap.

After the first tower was hit I started talking to a co-worker on AIM (I was at home) and she said that something happened to our NY office (it was in one WTC) so I walked upstairs to my television, turned on NBC and watched LIVE as a plane hit the second tower and the anchor on TV said something to the effect of "holy shit, this is intentional."

The Internet cannot do that right now. No matter what webpage or steaming media site I goto I will see it 10 - 15 seconds or read about 3 minutes later... after my roommate (who watches TV all the time) would have screamed "OH MY GOD!"

Don't get me wrong, I get almost all of my news from the Internet but we still cannot beat the Live aspect of TV (I know there's a few sec. propagation delay and all but nowhere near as bad as the net.)

On a side note, washingtpost.com changed their website almost immediately and was up for a good part of the day. I was very pleased with their coverage and especially quickly using some type of hosting site as well. Yahoo! was very slow if it came up at all and I didn't even try msnbc.com.

The "best" part of the Internet for this tragedy was the searchable list of the missing. This is something that could definitely not be done via TV and would take up so much room in print media.

I agree. The whole point of a democracy is that in theory we must treat all of our citizens like responsible adults who can make their own decisions and be held accountable for them. We don't need to be legislated right down to our socks. Running America like a kindergarten goes counter to almost every reason this country was founded. We don't need more rules. We need higher expectations and more civic responsibility.

(And no, I don't have any concrete suggestions or wisdom; I'm a grandiose abstracts kind of girl, sorry.)

On a semi-related note, have you seen the excellent essay by Salman Rushdie in the Washington Post?

The ties between Egyptians and Afghans of the Islamic Militant bent are quite strong, geographical differences aside.

according to a Washington Post article

"In Hollywood, Fla., the FBI last weekend quizzed Paul Dragomir, manager at the Longshore Motel, about a visit in late August from two men he believes were hijackers Atta and Ziad Samir Jarrah, who demanded 24-hour Internet access.

Loaded down with baggage and laptops, the men signed in at the small pink beachfront motel using apparent aliases. They claimed to be computer engineers from Iran, Dragomir said, and said they were down from Canada to find jobs.

They booted up a laptop, showing Dragomir that they had NetZero Internet accounts. For the next few hours, Dragomir unsuccessfully tried to accommodate the men."

Makes one wonder just what or who 'motivated' NetZero to pull the plug on this product.

I suspect that various governments are bringing pressure to bear. Hotmail et al are probably next. See this article at

Clinton Suspended from Arguing Before High Court also "In other action, the court rejected arguments that FBI blunders should give Oklahoma City bombing co-defendant Terry Nichols the chance for a new trial."

Court Order

what I *really* would like to see, if it's even possible, is a working model of Babbage's Analytical Engine

FYI, here is a review of a recent book entitled The Difference Engine by Doron Swade that addresses some of the issues you raise.

A collection of Babbage links is here.

I'm not sure what the AC who posted the above was trying to prove, but that work certainly wasn't original. It's from a column in yesterday's Washington Post by a man named Michael Kelly.

Here's a link to the original: Pacifist Claptrap

The tears have come in the kitchen, the car and the shower, too. Like many Americans, Phil Zimmermann, a stocky, 47-year-old computer programmer, has been crying every day since last week's terrorist attacks. He has been overwhelmed with feelings of guilt.

Phil is right that "overwhelmed with feelings of guilt" is the critical passage, however, it becomes even more manipulative because of the context in which it is placed. It suggests that Phil's grief was not caused by the attacks themselves, but by his belief that he was somehow responsible for the death of ~7000 people. What Phil is doing now seems more to me like a "Clarify that I don't regret doing it, while not pissing off the WP" strategy (in order to avoid hurting his business). But the truth is, the WP article was extremely manipulative (whether because of sensationalism or malicious intent is irrelevant), and Slashdot was right in pointing that out.

Now, I don't know what kind of letters people have written, and I'm sure some of them were immature, but certainly harsh criticism was and remains warranted. The only thing that is worth emphasizing is that Ariana Eunjung Cha, the author of the piece, likely did not have any bad intentions -- it was the WP editors that made the critical change. As a journalist, I have often experienced that articles by me were manipulated in a way to fundamentally change their meaning, or downplay the importance of certain issues, without giving me any notice of it (in one case of an article dealing with child porn hysteria, the whole article was watered down). So the WP deserves much criticism for doing that -- perhaps just a little more focused on the real problem (editors taking liberties to manipulate the essential message of an article) than it likely was.

I was wrong, it was incompetence. Just found a Washington Post article about how the FBI did know that suspected terrorists were taking flight lessons, and convicted one man in 1995 of plotting to kamikaze CIA headquarters.

But intelligence failures like this are common where any really daring plan is concerned. Intelligence analysis is like trying to build a jigsaw puzzle with only 10% of the pieces -- it's easy to get it totally wrong, and the analysts are quite aware of this. So when the analysts just don't believe the other guys can be thinking that big or would take such risks, they might make the connections, but then don't believe it. Pearl Harbor is one obvious example, but not the worst one -- that's a tie between Stalin's utter surprise when Hitler invaded in spite of all sorts of warnings (not to mention the obvious fact that Hitler HAD to go for the Soviets' oil fields while his tanks still had enough fuel to get there), and Hitler's total belief in the disinformation spread by the OSS that the big landing was going to be in Brittany, Normandy was just a feint...

Also if you look at the LIDAR maps they are colour keyed for depth and can give you a good indication of what is below ground. (Also mouse-over the thing that says "cross section" for another view.)

He should write the ditor about this. Given their mis-representation they owe him at least that.

Email acha@washingtonpost.com and let her know how irresponsible you think she is, and what a poor job of professional journalism she is doing. All I have to say is that I work with journalists, and this is one of the most irresponsible bits of journalistic BS I've ever seen.

Letters must be exclusive to The Washington Post, and must include the writer's home address and home and business telephone numbers. Because of space limitations, those published are subject to abridgment. Although we are unable to acknowledge those letters we cannot publish, we appreciate the interest and value the views of those who take the time to send us their comments.

Situations like this are pretty much the reason the Post has an ombudsman.

As Zimmermann says, the Washington Post usually takes accuracy very seriously. I'm sure they will give this the attention it deserves.

How is the validation of an individual's identity ensuring his sanity on a flight? If I carry this card, and prove that I am indeed the holder of the thumb and body which the card indicates, what is stopping me from running into the cabin of the plane with a fork, and declaring the plane in the name of Homer Simpson? Nothing.

Stop trying to fill your pockets, Larry, at the expense of the very same freedoms which made you rich.

We have Microsoft trying to pull everyone's personal credit information into Passport and .NET, so they can control where you go, when, and how you get there, and we have Oracle, trying to capture and store and "manage" your very identity. I don't think so.

We also have the DMCA, the SSSCA, backdoored "encryption" (anything with more than one keyholder is not encryption), the RIAA, MPAA, gps tracking devices in rental cars, cameras at every intersection, Dmitry Sklyarov vs. US/Adobe, and traffic tickets being sent in the mail for infractions you were never stopped for.

How is this giving me liberty again?

What people in our government fail to see is that the collection of these events, coupled with those who are trying to restrict stem cell research, our encryption, our liberties, and now, in a very delicate potential time of war, issuing lethal foreign policies. People are leaving this country, and taking off for other places where the opportunities may not be as vast, but the freedoms certainly are.

I'm very close to taking off as well, before the borders are closed, and I have to show my passport, fingerprint, and biometric validation, along with government approval to leave this country, and I'm taking all of my loved ones with me.

From: "Sandy Sandfort" <sandfort@mindspring.com>
To: "Cypherpunks" <cypherpunks@lne.com>
Subject: PHIL ZIMMERMANN
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:23:55 -0700

I just wrote Phil about the Washington Post interview. The following is his response:

The journalist slightly misinterpreted my remarks, and missed the shades of grey in some of what I said. I did *not* say that I was overwhelmed with guilt over PGP. I told her about my crying, just as everyone else I knew had cried over what had happened. I also told her about the hate mail, and that I "felt bad" that the terrorists may have used PGP. Indeed I do feel bad about that. But feeling bad about them using it is not the same as feeling that PGP was a mistake, or that I have changed my principles about human rights and crypto. I thought I had also made it clear that I had no regrets about developing PGP. She did not report any individual facts incorrectly in her article. But I think she connected the dots in a slightly different way, and seemed to conclude that I was wallowing in guilt over PGP. I'm sure she meant no harm.

I am still very much aware that PGP was a good thing, and that strong crypto helps more than hurts. I have been saying that to the press all week. I just said it again in two more interviews I had before breakfast this morning, and will continue to say it. It seems I have to say it more forcefully.

I will prepare a statement on this later today. In the meantime, feel free to let our colleagues know that I have not gone soft on civil liberties.

According to a September 21, 2001 BBC story, Aid agencies prepare for Afghan tragedy, Workers in the WFP, World Food Program, have pulled out of Afghanistan because of fear for their safety. If you look at the story, be sure to see the face of the woman in the photo at the top. Her face tells everything. She is one of the innocent people.

The story says, 'According to latest estimates, as many as six million Afghans are now affected by drought, war or displacement. Aid agencies are issuing urgent pleas that the U.S.-led "war against terrorism" does not become a war against innocent civilians. Correspondents say the WFP withdrawal alone has left two and a half million Afghans without any visible means of support.'

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010911/ts/iraq_u sa_plane_dc_4.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A457 0-2001Aug27.html

FAS has some more info on the bird here.

Phil Zimmerman, the Big Brain behind the popular home PC encryption tool, Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), is taking flak for enabling the infrastructure used by the terrorists behind the WTC attack.

I think the argument is supposed to be something along these lines: Without publicly available, tough-to-crack encryption, the terrorists would never have been able to communicate effectively to orchestrate their dastardly plot. Mr. Zimmerman brought this technology to the masses, and was a strong proponent of easing restrictions on the dissemination of that self-same technology. That technology eventually made it into the hands of the Bad Guys, and now we see the results.

I've got to resist the urge to compare encryption tech to a weapon. "Where's the outrage against Smith and Wesson!" I would shout at the top of my lungs. "What about Molitov, or Winchester? Who should be rolling over in their graves?"

Those questions are just as easily directed against Boeing and Lockheed-Martin though. After all, those guys made the weapons used. And of course, the aerospace industry IS taking a lot of flak.

But I've got to break away from that mindset.

Encryption is not a weapon in and of itself. Zimmerman was concerned - rightly, I think - that the increasing pace of technology, snooptech included, threatened the privacy of the common man. It threatened the ideals of the U.S. Constitution. It threatened to aid in the creation of a police state. That's what he was fighting against.

Encryption was a stand against the encroaching invasion of civil liberty. It was a tool for ensuring freedoms - the freedom to speak, the freedom to communicate securely, and the freedom to conduct business. Many of Zimmerman's methods derived from, and are enchancements on, commerce transaction security technologies. Had your credit card number lifted lately? I have, and it's no fun.

Encryption was a method of keeping the law honest, of maintaining the spirit of the law in a time when the law had no words to use. Remember, PGP came about during the birth of the publicly-available Internet (has it only been 6 years?). The Internet was, and still is, a new medium of interaction, with borders and behaviors outside of the well-established Way of Doing Things that the laws were written for. We have laws for public gatherings. We have laws for telephone conversations. We have laws for sending mail and packages around the country and the world. We didn't have anything for the Internet, because it works like all of those at once, and more besides.

Metaphors of all kinds popped up to describe the way the Internet worked - it's a telephone conversation, it's a society unto itself, it's a giant hard drive where everyone has access, it's a division of autocracies where No Man Is King - but none of those metaphors were 100% legally applicable to the actual situation of the Internet. Without adaquate descriptions of the legal state of the Internet, the Internet HAD NO legal state - and thus was open to anarchy from all vectors, including that of the methods of law enforcement, and whether the law was even allowed to enforce anything.

Anarchy in the methods of law enforcement. Think about that for a minute.

A while back on this board, there was a big debate over the appropriateness of the 2nd Amendment, specifically the Right to Bear Arms. Over and over, the point was brought up that guns don't kill people, people kill people.

There are ways of organizing a conspiracy without relying on high technology. It's been done over and over, successfully, for at least 6000 years. Ask Brutus, or whoever shot Kennedy, or Judah.

Tools that build up can be used to tear down. It's an unfortunate reality of the bidirectional parity of things. I'd like to thank Phil for giving us a tool that enhanced our meaning of civilization, and encouraged questions about it.

Tatsujin

"We must give up some of our freedoms to help combat terrorism."

The predictable words -- and actions -- are beginning to spew from political, military, and law enforcement officials and their supporters. For safety, for security, for the greater good, they somberly tell us, we must comply with their agendas. To be protected from terrorism we must submit to more restrictions -- on our ability to travel, our freedom from arbitrary searches, on the privacy of our communications, on our right to bear arms, on our ability to conduct business hidden from the prying eyes of government.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) has called for a global prohibition on encryption products without backdoors for government surveillance.

Travel regulators have banned knives on planes. (Does this mean even the pilots can't protect themselves and passengers against hijackers?)

ISPs who were reluctant to cooperate with the FBI's invasive Carnivore program are now rushing to comply.

The Senate has, in the wake of Black Tuesday, voted to increase the FBI's authority to tap the phones of anyone suspected of terrorism. As we've seen by all these other random restrictions, we are ALL suspects in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Perhaps most ominously of all, the Washington Post quoted House Democrat Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) as making the self-contradictory, but entirely predictable statement, "We're in a new world where we have to rebalance freedom and security. We can't take away people's civil liberties . . . but we're not going to have all the openness and freedom we have had." The Post then went on to describe how every war or crisis of the last 100 years has been use to increase government power -- often in the most draconian ways. More Data Here Freelance supporters of the Surveillance State are rushing to urge everyone to comply. One liberal talk show host responded to callers who complained that Big Brother policies at airports were a problem, "Big Brother is the only thing holding us together!"

He offered no evidence to show how Big Brother made us safe on Tuesday, September 11.

WE MUST THINK FREE, NOT PATRIOTICALLY JERK OUR KNEES

Soon we may be at war. And as always at such times, we'll be expected to "pull together," "do what our leaders tell us is necessary," and sacrifice more freedom in the name of "safety and security" or patriotism. And, as the reality of the Day of Horror seeps in, who doesn't feel an urge to strike back, to "get behind our government," to "show those murdering bastards they can't push Americans around," and to "do whatever it takes to defend the greatest country on earth"? -- even if that means sacrificing individual liberty to "the cause."

Whatever happens from here on out, we need to remember that Big Brother is NOT holding us together -- that he never can and never will. We must remember that the kind of restrictions on the liberties of ordinary Americans that were entirely ineffective in preventing the attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 will not magically prevent future attacks merely because their severity is increased.

What did all of Big Brother's efforts do to prevent Tuesday's slaughter? The violations of freedom we've already been subjected to in the name of safety -- airport x-rays, ID checks, disarmament, body searches, and the whole gamut -- became a sick a joke when the day arrived that we needed them to protect the country against the world's worst criminals. In fact, Daniel Pipes of the Wall Street Journal was quick to point out how the government's reliance on mass eavesdropping and tracking actually diverted resources from more effective anti-terrorism methods, such as actually studying and infiltrating genuine terrorist groups.

Yet now the government proposes a giant national effort to do more of the same -- to impose more ineffective, wasteful, and oppressive mass surveillance and restrictions.

New restrictions on the freedoms of non-violent people will do nothing to make America or the world safer. They'll make us less safe, as well as less free.

There are at least two reasons for this.

The first is that more restrictions, and more power placed in the hands of government, will simply, in the long run, create more rage and therefore more desire to strike violently. (As we also saw, some restrictions, like those that forbid armed citizens on planes, also make it harder for Americans to protect themselves and their country.)

The second is something we observed, tragically, though cell phone calls from four doomed, hijacked planes: the fatal passivity and dependence that seems to be becoming the norm in American behavior.

THE PASSIVE, UNTHINKING AMERICAN

It appears now that a handful of heroic passengers on one flight, having learned via telephone that two other hijacked planes had already smashed into the World Trade Center, decided not to allow themselves to be used as weapons of war. These passengers on United Flight 93 attacked the hijackers who were in control of the plane. Doomed in any case, they ended up dying in the woods and fields of rural Pennsylvania, rather than passively allowing their captors to get away with an even more horrendous mass murder.

We also know that, on at least one other flight --American Airlines Flight 77, which smashed into the Pentagon -- passenger Barbara Olson learned from her husband, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, of the World Trade Center catastrophe. During two separate calls, Mrs. Olson (a well- known author and conservative television commentator) asked her husband what the pilot -- standing next to her in the back of the plane -- should do.

Picture that. Passengers and crew have been herded -- and note that word well, herded -- to the back of the plane. Even the pilot, the leader, the chief decision-maker, does nothing. Can't think what do to. Can't act. Instead of attempting to save their own lives and the lives of others on the ground, what do they do? They expect a federal government official to make the decision for them. THE EVIDENCE SAYS THAT THESE PEOPLE DIDN'T EVEN FEEL EMPOWERED TO DEFEND THEIR OWN LIVES WITHOUT FIRST ASKING THE ADVICE OR PERMISSION OF WASHINGTON, D.C..

And why should we have expected otherwise? Americans have been told repeatedly never to resist crime, always to submit to any demand a thug makes of them. Always go along -- for safety's sake. Go along in order to avoid angering the criminal. We've been told always to submit, as well, to any demand made by anyone who appears to be "in charge." These people on Flight 77 -- and presumably on two of the other flights -- were apparently so paralyzed by their conditioning that they couldn't assert themselves even when the alternative was certain death.

Even as pathetically disarmed as they were, they could have battered the hijackers with their briefcases, with their shoes, their purses. They could have overwhelmed them with sheer numbers of bodies. They could have gouged at their eyes with fingers or car keys. Could have knocked them unconscious with luggage from the overhead racks. Could have tripped them, stomped on them, tied them up with cords from audio headsets.

But except on United Flight 93, they apparently did nothing. And so three planes flew, sure and true, into the heart of three American landmarks, slaughtering thousands.

THE ONLY TRUE SECURITY MEASURE: A BILL OF RIGHTS CULTURE

We must take back America as a country. We must make it free and independent again -- no longer the would-be ruler of its own people, and no longer playing at being the world's supercop. Only by doing that will earn the world's peace and respect.

We must take our own individual lives and independent spirits back from would-be rulers and criminals, as well.

If we consent, passively, to give up more freedoms -- even "temporarily," or "as an emergency measure" -- we'll be doing the opposite. We'll be less safe, less free.

To restore American freedom and personal courage, we must restore the Bill of Rights -- in our country and in our hearts and minds. If we understand the Bill of Rights, we'll understand what we're fighting for -- and why. If we let it slip away what's left won't be worth fighting for.

This means not merely having an intellectual or legal understanding of the Bill of Rights. This means not merely memorizing the Bill of Rights or teaching it to our children. This means understanding the concepts of individual liberty that underlie the Bill of Rights -- then living those concepts, breathing them, eating the, dreaming them, holding them as the most central values of our lives, in the same place we hold our beliefs in the diety, or our dedication to our families, or to truth or justice.

We must behave as free people, expect and encourage others to behave as free people -- and have zero tolerance for anyone who abuses freedom or uses his authority to violate the Bill of Rights.

If there ever was a time in history to get behind the Bill of Rights and promote it, it is now. If we yield to this mushy thinking that the road to freedom and safety lies in GIVING UP freedom and the Bill of Rights, then we might as well bow down in defeat right now.

If we don't defend our rights, we'll have no rights. If we don't defend ourselves, our family members, and our fellow citizens -- AND defend their freedoms -- then our lives will be no more valuable than those of cattle and sheep. And the America we end up with won't be the America we thought we were fighting for.

If you want to be a passive herd beast -- obey whatever the authority of the moment, be that a bureaucrat or a hijacker, tells you to do. Listen to their lies about "safety and security" and obey, obey, obey.

But If you truly want to combat terrorism or terror-war, learn the Bill of Rights, teach the Bill of Rights, and enforce the Bill of Rights with every action of your life.

FIGHT BACK WITH THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

The Liberty Crew Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.

The Washington Post is reporting that Phil Zimmermann, the creator of PGP, has gotten hate mail in the wake of the WTC attacks.

"We must give up some of our freedoms to help combat terrorism."

The predictable words -- and actions -- are beginning to spew from political, military, and law enforcement officials and their supporters. For safety, for security, for the greater good, they somberly tell us, we must comply with their agendas. To be protected from terrorism we must submit to more restrictions -- on our ability to travel, our freedom from arbitrary searches, on the privacy of our communications, on our right to bear arms, on our ability to conduct business hidden from the prying eyes of government.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) has called for a global prohibition on encryption products without backdoors for government surveillance.

Travel regulators have banned knives on planes. (Does this mean even the pilots can't protect themselves and passengers against hijackers?)

ISPs who were reluctant to cooperate with the FBI's invasive Carnivore program are now rushing to comply.

The Senate has, in the wake of Black Tuesday, voted to increase the FBI's authority to tap the phones of anyone suspected of terrorism. As we've seen by all these other random restrictions, we are ALL suspects in the eyes of the U.S. government.

Perhaps most ominously of all, the Washington Post quoted House Democrat Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) as making the self-contradictory, but entirely predictable statement, "We're in a new world where we have to rebalance freedom and security. We can't take away people's civil liberties . . . but we're not going to have all the openness and freedom we have had." The Post then went on to describe how every war or crisis of the last 100 years has been use to increase government power -- often in the most draconian ways. More Data Here Freelance supporters of the Surveillance State are rushing to urge everyone to comply. One liberal talk show host responded to callers who complained that Big Brother policies at airports were a problem, "Big Brother is the only thing holding us together!"

He offered no evidence to show how Big Brother made us safe on Tuesday, September 11.

WE MUST THINK FREE, NOT PATRIOTICALLY JERK OUR KNEES

Soon we may be at war. And as always at such times, we'll be expected to "pull together," "do what our leaders tell us is necessary," and sacrifice more freedom in the name of "safety and security" or patriotism. And, as the reality of the Day of Horror seeps in, who doesn't feel an urge to strike back, to "get behind our government," to "show those murdering bastards they can't push Americans around," and to "do whatever it takes to defend the greatest country on earth"? -- even if that means sacrificing individual liberty to "the cause."

Whatever happens from here on out, we need to remember that Big Brother is NOT holding us together -- that he never can and never will. We must remember that the kind of restrictions on the liberties of ordinary Americans that were entirely ineffective in preventing the attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 will not magically prevent future attacks merely because their severity is increased.

What did all of Big Brother's efforts do to prevent Tuesday's slaughter? The violations of freedom we've already been subjected to in the name of safety -- airport x-rays, ID checks, disarmament, body searches, and the whole gamut -- became a sick a joke when the day arrived that we needed them to protect the country against the world's worst criminals. In fact, Daniel Pipes of the Wall Street Journal was quick to point out how the government's reliance on mass eavesdropping and tracking actually diverted resources from more effective anti-terrorism methods, such as actually studying and infiltrating genuine terrorist groups.

Yet now the government proposes a giant national effort to do more of the same -- to impose more ineffective, wasteful, and oppressive mass surveillance and restrictions.

New restrictions on the freedoms of non-violent people will do nothing to make America or the world safer. They'll make us less safe, as well as less free.

There are at least two reasons for this.

The first is that more restrictions, and more power placed in the hands of government, will simply, in the long run, create more rage and therefore more desire to strike violently. (As we also saw, some restrictions, like those that forbid armed citizens on planes, also make it harder for Americans to protect themselves and their country.)

The second is something we observed, tragically, though cell phone calls from four doomed, hijacked planes: the fatal passivity and dependence that seems to be becoming the norm in American behavior.

THE PASSIVE, UNTHINKING AMERICAN

It appears now that a handful of heroic passengers on one flight, having learned via telephone that two other hijacked planes had already smashed into the World Trade Center, decided not to allow themselves to be used as weapons of war. These passengers on United Flight 93 attacked the hijackers who were in control of the plane. Doomed in any case, they ended up dying in the woods and fields of rural Pennsylvania, rather than passively allowing their captors to get away with an even more horrendous mass murder.

We also know that, on at least one other flight --American Airlines Flight 77, which smashed into the Pentagon -- passenger Barbara Olson learned from her husband, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, of the World Trade Center catastrophe. During two separate calls, Mrs. Olson (a well- known author and conservative television commentator) asked her husband what the pilot -- standing next to her in the back of the plane -- should do.

Picture that. Passengers and crew have been herded -- and note that word well, herded -- to the back of the plane. Even the pilot, the leader, the chief decision-maker, does nothing. Can't think what do to. Can't act. Instead of attempting to save their own lives and the lives of others on the ground, what do they do? They expect a federal government official to make the decision for them. THE EVIDENCE SAYS THAT THESE PEOPLE DIDN'T EVEN FEEL EMPOWERED TO DEFEND THEIR OWN LIVES WITHOUT FIRST ASKING THE ADVICE OR PERMISSION OF WASHINGTON, D.C..

And why should we have expected otherwise? Americans have been told repeatedly never to resist crime, always to submit to any demand a thug makes of them. Always go along -- for safety's sake. Go along in order to avoid angering the criminal. We've been told always to submit, as well, to any demand made by anyone who appears to be "in charge." These people on Flight 77 -- and presumably on two of the other flights -- were apparently so paralyzed by their conditioning that they couldn't assert themselves even when the alternative was certain death.

Even as pathetically disarmed as they were, they could have battered the hijackers with their briefcases, with their shoes, their purses. They could have overwhelmed them with sheer numbers of bodies. They could have gouged at their eyes with fingers or car keys. Could have knocked them unconscious with luggage from the overhead racks. Could have tripped them, stomped on them, tied them up with cords from audio headsets.

But except on United Flight 93, they apparently did nothing. And so three planes flew, sure and true, into the heart of three American landmarks, slaughtering thousands.

THE ONLY TRUE SECURITY MEASURE: A BILL OF RIGHTS CULTURE

We must take back America as a country. We must make it free and independent again -- no longer the would-be ruler of its own people, and no longer playing at being the world's supercop. Only by doing that will earn the world's peace and respect.

We must take our own individual lives and independent spirits back from would-be rulers and criminals, as well.

If we consent, passively, to give up more freedoms -- even "temporarily," or "as an emergency measure" -- we'll be doing the opposite. We'll be less safe, less free.

To restore American freedom and personal courage, we must restore the Bill of Rights -- in our country and in our hearts and minds. If we understand the Bill of Rights, we'll understand what we're fighting for -- and why. If we let it slip away what's left won't be worth fighting for.

This means not merely having an intellectual or legal understanding of the Bill of Rights. This means not merely memorizing the Bill of Rights or teaching it to our children. This means understanding the concepts of individual liberty that underlie the Bill of Rights -- then living those concepts, breathing them, eating the, dreaming them, holding them as the most central values of our lives, in the same place we hold our beliefs in the diety, or our dedication to our families, or to truth or justice.

We must behave as free people, expect and encourage others to behave as free people -- and have zero tolerance for anyone who abuses freedom or uses his authority to violate the Bill of Rights.

If there ever was a time in history to get behind the Bill of Rights and promote it, it is now. If we yield to this mushy thinking that the road to freedom and safety lies in GIVING UP freedom and the Bill of Rights, then we might as well bow down in defeat right now.

If we don't defend our rights, we'll have no rights. If we don't defend ourselves, our family members, and our fellow citizens -- AND defend their freedoms -- then our lives will be no more valuable than those of cattle and sheep. And the America we end up with won't be the America we thought we were fighting for.

If you want to be a passive herd beast -- obey whatever the authority of the moment, be that a bureaucrat or a hijacker, tells you to do. Listen to their lies about "safety and security" and obey, obey, obey.

But If you truly want to combat terrorism or terror-war, learn the Bill of Rights, teach the Bill of Rights, and enforce the Bill of Rights with every action of your life.

FIGHT BACK WITH THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

The Liberty Crew Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.

Congress has passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (local) against Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and others. A military deployment has begun. Russians think we will have a Sea of Bloodshed and others have said this will be worse than Vietnam. Frankly, I'm scared. This may be highly tacky; but I would like to know what kind of military devices we may have that would be both effective against terrorists and yet accurate (not like the gulf war) enough to avoid innocent casualties. And what about those ten million mines?