Slashdot Mirror
More WTC News
Current WTC happenings: The FBI is searching ISPs with FISA warrants. Architects and civil engineers are starting to speculate on why the towers collapsed. Pictures: NASA, a powerful photoessay, newspaper headlines. Current investigation news: LA Times, NY Times, CNN. They're finally starting to mention casualty figures. Finally, bjb writes: "It isn't the hollywood blockbuster of a story, but I'm a daily reader of Slashdot, and I was on the 38th floor of the WTC 1 building when the first plane hit. Oh, and I was reading Slashdot at the time. You can read about my experience here. It was originally an email that I sent out to friends and family, but I was asked by NPR's Talk of the Nation to make it a web page."
Apparently ISP's are allowing the installation of Carnivore. They say it's only for a few days, but we'll see how long that claim holds up...
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
There is another good article on the collapse at NewScientist.com
I was very much impressed with the way the buildings withstood that kind of impact long enough for some people to escape. The loss of life if they had gone immediately, or had toppled sideways just doesn't bear thinking about.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
They are in need of computers, supplies and human techs. If you can please help. Some of us can't donate blood. But we can donate our extra computers and supplies.
r y/ 0,23008,3347294,00.html
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/showtell/sto
---
eeww, I'll have a crab juice.
Apparently, for the vast majority of buildings in the USA, an impact by an aircraft, similar to what happened, would take them down almost instantly. The construction of these buildings saved lives.
There are many articles in New Scientist Magazine on many related subjects to this event, including one that discusses the buildings in some detail.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
an alternate news site using Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
As everyone knows by know, Morgan Stanley Dean Whitter occupied roughly 10% of the WTC, with some 3500 employees. There's a good article on Yahoo this morning about their offsite back strategy, and how it enabled them to start working again almost immediately.
Ask why they stood! The fact that any building was capable of taking a direct impact from a jetliner with a full load of fuel and then stand for over an hour (and allow lots of people to get out) is remarkable! We need to make sure we keep building them like that.
Trying to build skyscrapers aircraft-proof isn't feasible, I don't think. But building them capable of resisting that kind of trauma for at least a little while is.
http://www.rotten.com/news/articles/coup-cover-300 .jpg
This is not a joke. It appeared in the current issue of Wired magazine, which was on newsstands before this all happened. I guess it's just one of those odd coincidences.
dinner: it's what's for beer
is to once again terrorize our own citizens. from anti-communist witch-hunts to asian-american ww2 camps to the generally accepted anti-Arab anti-Islamic trends of America for more than a decade, we still have a lot to learn, it seems.
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
My boyfriend is a professional structural engineer who has done a lot of work on major LA buildings. He's currently attending Berkeley for a masters in Structural Engineering and, in chatting with his professors, came to this (paraphrased):
1) Yes, the buildings did withstand the impact of the airplanes. They didn't fall immediately, did they?
2) Buildings are built to a certain fire code, in that the building won't completely catch on fire and collapse for a certain length of time (usu 1hr?). The escape routes are located generally in the four corners. Since the plane took out one of them, this means that the required escape time is now 2+ hours.
3) Jet fuel burns with a much higher temperature than normal fuel.
4) Steel expands and crystalizes under extreme heat. Since the plane(s) hit at a "centre"-ish spot, the steel tried to expand up and down, but since the steel in the "up" and "down" weren't hot and wouldn't move, the steel in the "centre" buckled.
5) Since jetfuel burns hotter, step 4 happened faster and also reduced the "buckle" time by a certain amount - when used along with the increased escape time required, means that considerably fewer people would be able to escape.
6) Since the steel buckled, the upper floors now come crashing down on to the floor immediately below. Being as that floor is not suited to hold X number of upper floors MOVING rapidly at it, it collapsed and repeat until bottom.
Therefore, it was the fire that made the buildings collapse, not the impact of the planes.
-mrsmalkav
Sure it is. Events like this open up the potential for society to give up liberties for perceived safety which probably isn't all that real. I for one worry about the future of our liberties in teh name of 'preventing another WTC'
I submit that these bastards could STILL get the weapons on board even with all the changes. No curb side checkin? LIke thats gonna make a DIFFERENCE? Its SO simple to make a weapon - just as a prisoner. Consider this:
Shaving kit - inside, one normal razor that uses a double edged blade. Blade installed, no spares. Elsewhere in your bag, a plastic or wooden handle of some kind with slot for blade, by itself or with other stuff that looks innocent. Maybe a little super glue. GO to a stall in a terminal bathroom. Take blade, insert in handle, glue in place. Slit someones throat when necessary and take over whatever vessel you're on. Think about it - you can probably come up with plenty on your own. Thats just one way and there are plenty others. These guys planned this for MONTHs as the reports of flight training indicate. You wouldn't even NEED to bring weapons with you - maybe one of your pals works IN THE TERMINAL past the checkpoints and cna give you a weapon of some kind. Banning plastic knives? OK - thats gonna help!
Face it folks - no matter WHAT happens, the only thing that could prevent something like this is sky marshals on EVERY flight in civilian clothes. And even then, they may not be able to overpower 5 guys with weapons (since shooting guns in the air is er, not a great idea)
So in short, I think our forefathers wisdom IS applicable and helpful to remind folks that we may be fooled into giving up liberties for supposed security that doesn't really exist
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
Now that planes have been used themselves as weapons, and the passengers with them, I doubt there will be a high-jacking where they're aren't people like Glick and Barret, who are among the few passangers who apparently made sure that flight 93 crashed in PA woods, and not a national landmark.
The sentiment has been repeated over and over these past two days: "If I fall, the guy behind me will get him."
I hope that if such a day ever comes for me, I can get over my imminent death fast enough to do some good.
Nothing is more dangerous than someone who thinks they have nothing to lose.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Logically this would make sense, but religious fanaticism is not based on logic but something more like brainwashing and indoctrination.
Remember these terrorists committed their acts in the belief they were doing the right thing. Even though there is no religion that I know of that could possibly condone such barbarism - this is not about religion, religion is a victim, along with countless innocent people. In that regard, there would be no "toppled by their own people" since these fundamentalists would rather die for their beliefs/brainwash.
A conventional war in Afganistan would be very costly. Remember the invincible Russian army was decimated. The problem is that there isn't a visible standing army, but a guerilla army that hides in the towns and cities. To push for victory in this theatre would involve levelling every village and town and leave nothing standing, which would involve thousands more innocent victims.
There isn't an easy answer, but a decision must be made. Why is US/Nato nuking/destruction all of Afganistan better that Tuesday's actions? To me it is still genocide.
Concentrate on eliminating all sources of indoctrination, remove the tools for brainwashing and intolerance - remember that the freedom of choice ends when the actions are criminal, fundamentalists behind this attack have abrogated their rights. Root out the organisations responsible. There is no quick solution, only a path that needs to be travelled. Once everyone on the planet has the freedom to choose their destiny can the barricades these terrorists have created be broken down.
Hi there. I'm sure many peple won't read this because it was posted so late in this discussion, but I thought you might like a quick word from some of the ER's I've been in today down here. (Columbia, NYU, and Vincent's). Tragically, everyone is really just standing around waiting for live people to come in, and there seems to be a general lack of this. Every now and then a fire fighter comes in, but is generally stable at this stage - likely incidental damage.
Yesterday, one of the firemen was brought in - in his mid fourties, I would suppose. He had a brother and 3 sons who were all firefighters; one of the latter was not accounted for all day yesterday. He himself had gotten caught in the first collapse, had gotten out and went in the second building and was then caught in that collapse and received some blows of debris into his back, for which he was being treated. It's that kind of bravery from the very salt of the earth which makes me so proud to be an American. God bless to all. K
Yeah... I've been wondering if some sort of "emergency slide" would be more effective at getting people out in a hurry... I picture something like the spiral slides in a waterpark, located in the central space of the building. Probably with some sort of mechanism to keep everyone on the slide moving at the same speed (wouldn't have to be powered; a simple harness attached to a cable to provide resistance would probably do the trick)... 'Course, this wouldn't have helped people above the impact site, but I can't help but think that with some design work that an idea like this could make a dent in the length of time it takes to evacuate such large buildings. And I don't think there'd be much of a barrier to handicapped people using such a system either, although I could be wrong on that one.
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Aside from letting the military take care of military matters, I'll tell you what we should do.
We should mow our lawns. We should go out to eat. We should sit on the porch with a beer. We should travel across the country. When the planes are back in the air, we should fly somewhere.
The terrorists don't have any real hope of getting the U.S. to say "Sorry. We'll stop doing the things that make you angry." They have no defined goal toward which they are working. They have a vague goal of defeating us. Because of this, they know they won't gain anything substantial by performing these acts.
The one thing they can accomplish, is to get us to drastically change our way of life. They can frighten us into not travelling about our own country the way we used to. They can get us to hide in our homes, to quit going to our sporting events, movies, etc.
That's their one spoil of war: our lifestyle. And that's not a spoil the military can get back for us. We have to do that. We have to refuse to give it to them.
The perception, even among ourselves, is that American culture is sometimes shallow. Hopefully, we will prove through this time that it only appears so because we refuse to surrender it to such people as would try to take it from us.
We need to go to our baseball games. We need to go buy a bunch of things we don't need from Walmart. We need to take our SUV's out to the lake for a picnic, or to go camping. We need to be ourselves. If we become somebody else, anybody else, we surrender.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Interesting reading:
- Terror in the Mind of God: the Global Rise of Religious Violence
- Political Islam
Meanwhile, in Australia they are already stoning school buses with Islamic kids on them... (I have a rant about this on my home page.)Danny
[I have written 600 book reviews]
I have written over 900 book reviews
I didn't write this, I was sent it in an email, I don't know the original author. I am a muslim and I live in the US. I was born and raised in Canada with Indian background. I feel I need to help clear up what is true and what is not true with regards to Islam. Islam is a religion and a person practicing Islam is a muslim. There are five basics pillars of islam that any muslim should follow. All the guidance of what muslims should do is in the holy book called the Qu'ran or "Koran". Unfortunately, it seems that Bin Laden and others have taken religion as a vehicle to project their political hatred and motives. What he is doing, has nothing to do with Islam at all. Islam teaches people to be loving, peace giving, god fearing people. It teaches us to live with diversity, other religions, and humility. All the things that bin laden has said in the interviews and has done in the past are not words from the qu'ran but his words. And unfortunately the media and lack of real knowledge has blurred what is true and what is not. The statement by binladen that non-muslims cannot live in a muslim country is false - 100% false. India was ruled by muslims for 900 years, christians, muslims and hindus lived happily together. Same in palestine, before the partition, arab jews and arab muslims lived together for hundreds of years in peace. The main reasons for hatred and fighting the past 50 years was due more to political landscape than religion. Unfortunately, religion is a powerful tool that gets people motivated and people in power have used it as the lauch pad for fighting. Another item that binladen keeps talking about is Jihad or holy war. There is discussion of Jihad in the Qu'ran and when and why it is appropriate. It is never an offensive tactic. Jihad is only permitted when a muslim is being opppressed to practice their religion. Only real examples where Jihad may have been appropriate in recent years would be the Bosnian war where Bosnian muslims were being executed strictly based on their religion. But by no means, can a muslim country attack another country (muslim or not) as an act of Jihad. That is incorrect. the basics of islam are similar to christianity. Believe in one god. In arabic the word god is Allah. The god is the same between all three religions. jews, muslims and christians pray to the same god. That is very important to understand. But a true muslim is humble, not greedy, not arrogant and never shows jealousy. Tolerance, helping neighbours of any race, creed, or religion is the first thing. One of the five pillars of islam is to give to the poor. It's required, not a choice. As any religion or race, there are a small group of radicals that take any religion and bend it for their convenience. This seems to be the case with bin laden, saddam hussein, and others who have killed humans for their gain. None of these people will go to heaven as they believe they will. Jihad is not valid here nor does is it say to kill innocent children, parents, and siblings. Jihad only allows fighting among soliders, not civilians. Unfortunately these people are misled and doing very evil things that they will be punished for it. I'll stop rambling here..I hope this helps you guys get a better understand of what is going on. Just remember, Arab is a race..there are Arab Christians, Arab Jews and Arab muslims. At the moment radical arab muslims are causing trouble and doing things that are absolutely not tolerated in Islam at all. I hope these groups are stopped and removed. I was in NYC yesterday and I was there when it happened. I saw the second plane slam into the WTC 2. It was an experience I wish I had not witnessed. But we need to grow strong and not stereotype. best regards, a muslim in america.
I'm a Canadian, but I've been as shaken up by all this as if I were American. The horror of what happened is independent of nation -- everybody (or almost everybody) on the entire planet was hurt by this. I can't imagine what the people in New York and Washington are going through, but I know it's a horrifying thing without anything resembling rational explantion.
Here in Edmonton, all flags are flying at half mast -- not just on government buildings, but anybody who has a flag is doing the same. In the Provincial Legislature Building, there are books that people are signing to express their condolences to America and tell you that you're not alone. A moment of silence has been recommended for 10am today.
Similar things are happening around the world.
And it matters. I was talking to an Arizonan friend of mine last night. We got to talking about all the ways the world is reaching out, about how people are trying to express their shock and horror and outrage all over the world, and she cried. She told me to tell everyone I could that it matters -- the books are not being signed in vain, the half-mast flags are being seen, the sympathy is felt.
It's as important as donating to the Red Cross.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
To those who are willing to be 'inconvenienced' at the aiport in order to be safe... No amount of inconveniencing will give you the safety you crave.
Repeat after me...
No amount of 'inconveniencing' will give me the safety I crave.
Repeat it over and over as a mantra until you achieve enlightenment.
I could learn martial arts well, with a bunch of buddy's, get onto the plane, kill a few people with some well placed jabs, and take control. Would you be willing to be manacled to prevent this? You can make knives quickly out of many things. Take a stiff plastic or metal box for example. Are you going to make people strip before they get on the plane? I'm sure someone more imaginative than I can come up with scenarios in which even being stripped and manacled would not be enough.
There is no security in the direction you wish to go. As Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would trade liberty for security will get and deserve neither.".
The only way to prevent these attacks is to decrease the motivation to perform them. This is done by being a nice country, and by being implacably and harshly punitive in our response to such attacks.
I will be traveling by air soon, and I intend to make up some leaflets to distribute at the airport about this. It's either that, or get upset at being patted down and create a scene. I think the leaflet approach to venting my frustrations is much more constructive.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Islamic fundamentalism is just as dangerous to the world as National Socialism (Nazi) ever was.
Be careful -- there may be truth in what you say, but it can be misinterpreted.
This is a good place to point out that Islamic leaders around the world have condemned the attack as inhuman and un-islamic. American Islamic leaders in particular have directed their followers to donate blood, money, to volunteer in the emergency response and to assist law enforcement in any way they can. It is also very likely that some of the victims of this crime were muslims themselves.
The US press has not picked up on this yet, but the foreign press (e.g. The London times) is starting to to report the beginning of a wave of hate crimes in America against Muslims. I even heard one congressinal pinhead libelling Islam as a totalitarian ideology masquerading as a religion. These developments are disgraceful and unworthy.
The real division is not between religions, but between people who believe there can be civilized coexistence between people who have different viewpoints, and those who believe that one side can only enjoy freedom at the expense of the other. Osama bin Laden is one of the latter, and he deivides into two camps: the Christian/Jewish side and the Muslim side. People spreading religious or ethnic hatred are, in effect agreeing with him and doing his work; their personal feelings towards him are simply petty tribalism.
Make no mistake: America was targeted because we are a free, open and pluralistic society where muslims can coexist peacefully with christians, jews and even atheists. This marks us out for special hatred,and with good reason: our success and preeminence in the world shows that all ideologies of intolerance preaching freedom for one viewpoint through the oppression of others are lies.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I, for one, think enough is enough. If these tanks were filled with foam, there is a good chance the momentum of the things would have carried the fuel tanks out the other side of the building and the buildings would not have fallen. They fell because of fire; and fuel cells greatly minimize fire.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
When this happened, I had a lot of thoughts going through my head... but found it difficult to clearly say what I felt...
So I will leave that to someone esle (who is much more qualified to do so):
>Subject: It Doesn't Have to Be Like This
>Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:14:00 -0400
Death, Downtown
Dear friends,
I was supposed to fly today on the 4:30 PM American Airlines flight from LAX to JFK. But tonight I find myself stuck in L.A. with an incredible range of emotions over what has happened on the island where I work and live in New York City.
My wife and I spent the first hours of the day -- after being awakened by phone calls from our parents at 6:40am PT -- trying to contact our daughter at school in New York and our friend JoAnn who works near the World Trade Center.
I called JoAnn at her office. As someone picked up, the first tower imploded, and the person answering the phone screamed and ran out, leaving me no clue as to whether or not she or JoAnn would live.
It was a sick, horrible, frightening day.
On December 27, 1985 I found myself caught in the middle of a terrorist incident at the Vienna airport -- which left 30 people dead, both there and at the Rome airport. (The machine-gunning of passengers in each city was timed to occur at the same moment.)
I do not feel like discussing that event tonight because it still brings up too much despair and confusion as to how and why I got to live... a fluke, a mistake, a few feet on the tarmac, and I am still here, there but for the grace of...
Safe. Secure. I'm an American, living in America. I like my illusions. I walk through a metal detector, I put my carry-ons through an x-ray machine, and I know all will be well.
Here's a short list of my experiences lately with airport security:
* At the Newark Airport, the plane is late at boarding everyone. The counter can't find my seat. So I am told to just "go ahead and get on" -- without a ticket!
* At Detroit Metro Airport, I don't want to put the lunch I just bought at the deli through the x-ray machine so, as I pass through the metal detector, I hand the sack to the guard through the space between the detector and the x-ray machine. I tell him "It's just a sandwich." He believes me and doesn't bother to check. The sack has gone through neither security device.
* At LaGuardia in New York, I check a piece of luggage, but decide to catch a later plane. The first plane leaves without me, but with my bag -- no one knowing what is in it.
* Back in Detroit, I take my time getting off the commuter plane. By the time I have come down its stairs, the bus that takes the passengers to the terminal has left -- without me. I am alone on the tarmac, free to wander wherever I want. So I do. Eventually, I flag down a pick-up truck and an airplane mechanic gives me a ride the rest of the way to the terminal.
* I have brought knives, razors; and once, my traveling companion brought a hammer and chisel. No one stopped us. Of course,
I have gotten away with all of this because the airlines consider my safety SO important, they pay rent-a-cops $5.75 an hour to make sure the bad guys don't get on my plane. That is what my life is worth -- less than the cost of an oil change.
Too harsh, you say? Well, chew on this: a first-year pilot on American Eagle (the commuter arm of American Airlines) receives around $15,000 a year in annual pay.
That's right -- $15,000 for the person who has your life in his hands. Until recently, Continental Express paid a little over $13,000 a year. There was one guy, an American Eagle pilot, who had four kids so he went down to the welfare office and applied for food stamps -- and he was eligible!
Someone on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for real? Yes, it is. So spare me the talk about all the precautions the airlines and the FAA is taking. They, like all businesses, are concerned about one thing -- the bottom line and the profit margin.
Four teams of 3-5 people were all able to penetrate airport security on the same morning at 3 different airports and pull off this heinous act? My only response is -- that's all?
Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the "terrorist threat" and today's scariest dude on planet earth -- Osama bin Laden. Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But, something just doesn't add up.
Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so far off path?
Or am I being asked to believe that there were four religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill themselves today?
Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to die for the cause -- but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I don't know. What I do know is that all day long I have heard everything about this bin Laden guy except this one fact -- WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden!
Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA!
Don't take my word for it -- I saw a piece on MSNBC last year that laid it all out. When the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him and his buddies in how to commits acts of terrorism against the Soviet forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran. Bin Laden was grateful for what we taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques against us.
We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing the terrorizing.
We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers!
We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of innocent people, and we never let the human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit.
We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam, in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head from the horror we have helped cause.
Yet, our recent domestic terrorism bombings have not been conducted by a guy from the desert but rather by our own citizens: a couple of ex-military guys who hated the federal government.
From the first minutes of today's events, I never heard that possibility suggested. Why is that?
Maybe it's because the A-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card. It's much easier to get us to hate when the object of our hatred doesn't look like us.
Congressmen and Senators spent the day calling for more money for the military; one Senator on CNN even said he didn't want to hear any more talk about more money for education or health care -- we should have only one priority: our self-defense.
Will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world isn't living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes?
In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all.
The Senators and Congressmen tonight broke out in a spontaneous version of "God Bless America." They're not a bad group of singers!
Yes, God, please do bless us.
Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!
Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity...
Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.
It doesn't have to be like this...
Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
This is a touchy topic, so stop reading here if speculation about the legal implications will bother you.
Time and again, I hear politicians from the mayor of NY to congress to the president refering to this as an act of war (see the president's most recent remarks).
There's a problem with this. If this was an act of war, it cannot, by definition be a federal crime, no?
What's more, if this was an act of war, anyone we "capture" is a prisoner of war, and we must obey the terms of the Geneva Convention and other international treaties. They will have to be re-patriated after the conflict, or brought before an international court for war crimes, NOT tried for federal crimes in the U.S.
Now, I can see the attack on the WTC being called out as a war crime, but if we treat this as an act of war, the Pentagon was a valid military target, and the attack on that building was legal (the point could even be made that Bin Laden had made it quite clear that he had declared war on the U.S. before the attack, unlike the Japanese who had tried but failed to do so before Pearl Harbor). The use of a commercial airline to do it is obviously not acceptable, but I'm not sure how much weight that will carry in a war crimes tribunal.
What I'm trying to say is that we've painted ourselves a very restrictive map here. There's no such thing as "murder" in the criminal sense in an act of war. There's only international treaty on the rules of war.
Now, I'm not a lawyer (I hate the acronym), and I could be wildly off-base here, but is this just short-sightedness or have we decided that the support that we get from the international community as a result of an act of war outweighs our desire to bring these criminals (soldiers?) to trial? Or, are we just planning to ignore international law, and bring anyone we capture to trial anyway?
Call it my contrarian nature, but amidst all the usual self-centered-libertarian-police-state-paranoia, I feel compelled to point out that loss of privacy is not necessarily loss of liberty. Nowhere is it guaranteed even in the US constitution; never has it been established that privacy actually produces a freer society; and in practice the idea that you can actually have privacy is a total myth. David Brin makes a good case in his for all of this and more in his controversial The Transparent Society (chapter one available here). His core arguement is for complete transparency - that all citizens should be allowed to observe the activities of individuals, government, and business - rather than the alternative of those having the power to do so using surveillance to their private advantage. While you'll almost certainly have objections, it's well worth consideration, and it's always worth it to look at things from an alternative perspective.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?