Civil Liberties And The New Reality

We need a broader discussion about the tech world's growing and sometimes simplistic anxieties about free speech, privacy and other civil liberties in the wake of last Tuesday's attacks. It's been suggested that while thousands have lost their lives, millions more are in danger of losing certain rights because of the new wiretapping and surveillance authority the Justice Department is seeking. Those are valid worries. But there is a new reality in the post-World Trade Center world, one that now may have to balance some rights against others and prepare for aircraft-bombs, biological and chemical attacks,and horrific assaults on civilians. As bad as it was, it could have been much worse. I'm not sure I'm ready to tell those kids whose parents didn't come home last week that they and others down the road just have to suck it up because people may be unwilling -- even temporarily -- to lose any measure of privacy.

Politically, America is an intensely polarized country, where discussion of issues quickly tends to bog down in notions of what is "left" or "right," thus ideologically pure, and consideration of a wide range of issues, from gun control and abortion to privacy and surveillance -- quickly freeze people into opposing camps characterized by rigidity, hostility and absence of communication. On the Net, people with particular interests increasingly often talk only to one another and consider only their own particular values and beliefs.

In fairness, let me declare my own warped perspective at the moment. I live just west of New York City, felt much affected by a visit to the attack site, and live in a town which has apparently lost somewhere between 30 and 40 people. Elsewhere in the country, life is beginning to move on, as it should, but in greater New York, it's still all death, all the time, on TV and in other media. As bits of bodies get pulled out of the wreckage, people give up hope of finding people from the wreckage, people give up hope of finding the people they love, and disruptions continue as the funerals and memorial services increase. People here remain numb and heavy-hearted.

It's easy to be suspicious of Attorney General John Ashcroft and of the FBI he heads when they say they need broader powers to wiretap, monitor the Net and conduct surveillance of Americans. Many people worry that once these powers are granted, they will never be given back. And some of these people don't have a comforting record of sensitivity when it comes to protecting privacy, free speech and individual civil liberties. But the terrorist attack has changed the entire context of these discussions, putting the issues far beyond knee-jerk reflexes.

But there is also something reflexively knee-jerk in the automatic "they-are-taking-our-freedoms-away" response from certain quarters online. The Justice Department isn't proposing dropping all restrictions or warrants or oversight regarding wiretapping and surveillance. They propose to ease some of them. This may or may not be a good idea. But it needs -- deserves -- to be rationally and openly considered.

First- and second-generation Internet dwellers value their freedoms, and have often had to defend them. Our government, sponsors of the CDA, Carnivore, and the DMCA -- it doesn't have a noble history here. Few people in government have ever made privacy and freedom online a political priority.

But the cataclysm at the World Trade Center is a historic event, and many people do, in fact, need to "get it." We will be living, thinking and behaving differently. Many of us -- if we and our families want to live safely -- will have to redefine our traditional politics, and consider new ways of defining certain rights.

The night of the attacks, reporters asked a New York City fire official why the city put out a desperate call for gas masks and vaccines that morning. "We thought one of the hijackers might possibly be carrying Anthrax -- there were some intelligence reports about that." The official stopped. "If they had been," he told reporters, "there might be 100,000 dead people, maybe more."

My own record of yowling about privacy and the First Amendment ad nauseum is clear enough, so I feel entitled to consider some other points of view, especially this week.

Certain rights -- equality, liberty -- are considered inviolate. But almost all rights are subject to a series of checks and balances, always subject to circumstance, never absolutes granted without reservation, in perpetuity, regardless of external circumstance. Yes, people online have the right to keep their communications private and people have the right -- I believe -- to move online and travel in the real world without their movements being monitored and recorded by governmental authorities. But people have the right to go to work without buildings falling on them, too.

This is how the WTC attacks have challenged our system of rights. The thousands of dead and millions of others who work in vulnerable office towers, or travel or study or live near airports (or schools, or ports, or national symbols) have rights too, and they have been grievously violated.

The government has an obligation to protect them.

These terrorists are technologically skilled, government authorities say. They use the Net to e-mail one another, and to send encrypted files, sometimes online, at other times via Zip disks or other media. They move money online, make plans there, thus avoiding possible interception by traditional intelligence monitors listening to phone and cell calls. Is it really totally unreasonable for authorities to seek broader powers to follow these conversations? Wiretap laws are not adequate for teaching these kinds of criminals. Existing wiretap laws require warrants for each telephone, even though criminals and terrorists might use dozens of phones or a variety of communications systems.

If terrorists are proven to be using encrypted files, aren't government agents entitled -- even obligated, on behalf of the thousands of innocent victims and many more future victims -- to get warrants to intercept them? Would we really rather that our water systems be poisoned, or our cities choked with gas, or planes flown into schools and City Halls? This would have seemed silly hyperbole to me a month ago, but all of these things are now plausible in the post-World Trade Center world.

Many of us have already happily and willingly surrendered some privacy to Napster, Amazon, gaming sites, EZ-Pass toll systems, online retailers and other Web tracking services which have lists of our shopping, reading, entertainment habits and preferences. Corporations have abolished many conventional notions of privacy, while most Americans shrug it off as a new convenience. Is it really our position that Wal-Mart can own the details of our lives, but that government agents tracking those people who murdered 5,000 of our fellow citizens can't?

Nobody in his right mind would support a blank check for government authorities. Any new laws to fight this new kind of war ought to be temporary, and self-expiring, perhaps subject to annual review. There ought to be clear civil and criminal penalties for wanton violations of privacy and excessive monitoring.

But when something like the World Trade Center attacks occur, the challenge, it seems to me, isn't to retreat into our knee-jerk positions, but to pause and carefully consider the new reality. Any government's primary obligation is to protect and defend its citizens. The failure to do that last week occurred primarily, many terrorism experts say, because our existing intelligence institutions don't have the human resources, the technology or the laws to keep up with a sophisticated, well-funded, technologically-savvy network of murderous enemies. We might want to ponder what rights we owe the living and owed the dead -- the right to live, to be and have parents, to work or fly without being torn to bits or crushed in a collapsing inferno.

Comments

Handing them a victory

[dreamchaser]

If we allow our rights to become significantly abridged, then we have let the terrorists win. I do not claim to have the answers, but we are treading on a slipperly slope that could lead to the loss of more than just a little privacy.

Certainly, we would all be physically safer if we lived in a totalitarian regime with no privacy protection. Would that be worth the cost? No, Katz does not advocate this, but the very subject of the erosion of our civil liberties is a dangerous one. Yes, we need a national debate on this. Hopefully cool heads will prevail.

Re:Handing them a victory

[FortKnox]

I have to disagree with this.

Although your statement is the patriotic one, the reason they attacked in the first place is because of the US' foreign policy in the middle east. It has nothing to do with our rights. If we were a totalitarism with the same policy, they'd still try the same thing (but, most likely, fail miserably because terrorism only really works in a democratic environment).

Now, before I'm flamed, realize that I don't want my rights taken away from me, either. But not because I think the terrorists will win.

The only way the terrorists will win is if we get all our influence out of the middle east for the sole reason that we don't want them to terrorize us again.

Re:Handing them a victory

[Anonymous Coward]

If we allow our rights to become significantly abridged, then we have let the terrorists win.

I often see comments like this. I think they are inaccurate.

The terrorists' primary goal, I think, is to stop our interference in Muslim countries and the Mid-East region. They consider it sacred ground and don't want us there with our decadent Western morals. The message is "you can't interfere in our part of the world without your lives being affected."

Eventually, of course, they'd like to convert the rest of the world to their brand of radical Islam (or, presumeably, kill us). But I don't think that was the purpose of these terrorist attacks. So I don't think they care about whether our privacy is affected. Curtailing our liberties in ways which have no bearing on their radical Muslim beliefs won't affect their thinking of us as the "Great Satan."

"Letting the terrorists win" would involve lifting the sanctions of Iraq, stopping interference is Mid-East wars and politics, or halting support of Israel. Of course, since the view is "we can't give in to terrorists", it may curtain us from doing the right thing... for example, reconsidering the sanctions of Iraq (which hurt the people of Iraq far more than Saddam) or political interference (Saddam Hussien and bin Ladan were once on "our side"). There are no easy answers.

I think changing our views on foreign policy might encourage more terrorism as the terrorists will see their attack was successfull. But changing our views on privacy issues, from the terrorist's perspective, just makes their "job" harder. It may or may not discourage them, but I don't think it will encourage them.

So I think discussions of the privacy issues should be strictly based on the merits of protection vs. the merits of protecting our rights, without worrying about whether the terrorists consider them victories or not.

In any case, the overall issues are too important to let pride enter into it.

Re:Handing them a victory

[zpengo]

I heard it stated very concisely on the radio yesterday. Someone said, "We must not only protect American citizens, but the idea of America itself."

The ideal of "freedom and justice for all" is more important than any number of American lives. That's what turned me around on the civil liberties debate; I got tired of hearing all the people whining about invasion of privacy, etc., but when it comes down to it, the ideals of this nation are what made it great, even if it meant a lack of security in some areas, as well as loss of life.

This is a great country. It's worth our blood to keep it that way.

Re:Handing them a victory

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way the terrorists will win is if we get all our influence out of the middle east for the sole reason that we don't want them to terrorize us again.

Which is unfortunate, because to some extent, this is the right thing to do. I've been saying for years that the U.S. has no right to be setting up puppet dictatorships (e.g. Iraq) to fight against those we wish to see have less influence (e.g. Iran), much less attack them when they don't stop where we wanted them to (e.g. Kuwait).

We also should stop backing Israel as a matter of policy, and instead back them only when they adhere to the same human rights standards we claim to hold others to (but don't, e.g. China).

This event's major reprecusion is that for at least a year, the effort (from people like myself) to re-evaluate U.S. foreign policy in the middle-east will be ignored. In a very real way, the attackers have hurt themselves. But... I don't think they care. All they wanted was to create a war in which U.S. ally states (e.g. Saudi Arabia) would feel compelled on religous grounds to at least limit U.S. access to their countries, while nations hostile with the U.S. (e.g. Iran, Sudan, etc) would take a more active role in attacking U.S. targets. Also, if the U.S. attacks Afghanistan, there's a good chance the Saudi people will become discontent enough with King Fhad to finally succede in one of thier attempts to remove him from power.

Of course, that would be disasterous for U.S. policy in the region, which is likely why we didn't just bomb bin Laden's possition after the WTC incident.

The U.S. overt and covert policies in the middle-east have left us in a very delicate situation. The house of cards has been maintained in order to prevent oil weath from translating to too much global political power, but that instability could now result in the U.S. being at war with most of the region. Not good, since some of them have NBC capabilities while others have networks of terrorists who, as yet, have been uncoordinated in their attacks....

Imagine the N.Y. situation with about 100 more attackers involved and the resources of some of the wealthiest people on the planet.... :-(

speaking of liberty

[dario_moreno]

I wonder if all the people who failed
in the chain of events of last week will
lose theirs. Will there by a trial for
something like criminal negligence against
the federal government, NSA, CIA, FBI, FAA,
USAAF, canadian border patrol and the Massport authority ?
I am not speaking of course of the 5$/hour
security staff at the airport, who did what
they could and where motivated to do.

It's an Old Reality

[jazman_777]

But there is a new reality in the post-World Trade Center world

The State will always use a crisis to increase its power, size, interference, control. This is old hat.

Re:It's an Old Reality

[Golias]

Equally wrong was this statement:

Politically, America is an intensely polarized country...

America is a nation made up mostly of either moderate pragmatists, and people who are not really very engaged in politics. If it seems polarized, it is because our media is made up mostly of shrill extremists (like Mr. Katz).

Its very simple really...

[Nos.]

Security and freedom are inversely related. If you have a very secure safe environment, you've more than likely given up a lot of personal freedom. On the other hand, if you have complete personal freedom, chances are you are vulnerable to these (and other) kinds of attacks.

The question then becomes, where is the balance. What amount of freedom are you willing to give up to feel safe?

Primary argument I see around

[weslocke]

The primary rationale I see bandied about is that during wartime every populace has to give up certain rights or to allow the governement the ability to infringe on those rights if need be. Be it the ability to free movement during World War II (what with gas rationing and etc) or freedom of the press (to not relay possibly sensitive information). But most of the civil liberties that have been infringed upon in the past have seemed to be ones that are very apparent.

The problem I have with the current batch of liberties to be thrown away is that they aren't that apparent. Sure wiretapping laws are making news right now, but 4 or 5 years from now they won't be slapping you in the face in the same manner that gas rationing would. (Does that make sense?)

Past liberties given up have been so apparent that as soon as the crisis/rationale was over, people would've clamored for those rights back. However with wiretapping/backdoor encryption/etc the process is so transparent that I can't see enough people even realizing that they're still in place to create enough of an outcry to get them back. (whew... thank god for runon sentences)

But all that being said, if that's what it actually takes then I'm for it. If it's just the FBI using the current crisis as a free ticket to push the same agenda that they've been pushing for the past few years... well...

It's a Basic Failure

[jazman_777]

The failure to do that last week occurred primarily, many terrorism experts say, because our existing intelligence institutions don't have the human resources, the technology or the laws to keep up with a sophisticated, well-funded, technologically-savvy network of murderous enemies.

You'd think that the CIA could track the enemies that it created itself, such as bin Laden.

I can't believe that people are beating the drum to increase funding for the CIA, or to cut the CIA loose. Heh, they set bin Laden up to start with, and encouraged Islamic fundamentalism in the anti-Soviet cause. Now he's Blowback. And what about that fundamentalist terrorist group, the KLA, that we've funded and supported? And we want the CIA to get _more_? To do _more_? Of what? The same old thing? No, thanks. No people who truly love liberty would tolerate such a vile organization like the CIA on its own shores.

Re:Just get rid of the Muslims and Islam lovers

[CS_Snapple]

Do you actually know anything about the Muslims than what you see in the media when they're talking about terrorist attacks?

The Muslim religion does NOT breed violence and hate... that seems to have more to do with the geography and history of that religion. My roommate of 4 years in college was a Muslim, and he's told me a good deal about his religion. It doesn't preach hate or violence. That's a human trait. Hell, look at the things the Catholic church has done.

Don't group all Muslims together. They're as varied as any other group.

Losing Privacy OK, Within Reason

[waldoj]

I'm not sure I'm ready to tell those kids whose parents didn't come home last week that they and others down the road just have to suck it up because people may be unwilling -- even temporarily -- to lose any measure of privacy.

I'm totally with you here. Absolutely.

If terrorists are proven to be using encrypted files, aren't government agents entitled -- even obligated, on behalf of the thousands of innocent victims and many more future victims -- to get warrants to intercept them?

Yup. And you used the magic words: "to get warrants." This warrantless-wiretap stuff is scary. It would be one thing if it were windowed (a sunset date, say, 90 days from now), which I think we could tolerate for the purpose of the immediate crisis. But to forever and ever have wiretaps without a court order? That's no good.

But here's the part about your statement that makes me uncomfortable. I assume that by "intercepting" "encrypted files," what you mean is not merely for federal officials to possess the encrypted data, but to be able to decrypt that data. And I can't say that I agree with that. Firstly because of the technical problems: any encryption with a backdoor is much, much easier to crack. (IANAC [I Am Not A Cypherpunk], but this is what I gather to be the case.) Secondly because what that really is, is a law against secrets. "There can be no secrets." And a law against encryption is as worthless as a missle defense shield. If people want to tell secrets, they'll meet in person in a dark alley. But to fatally weaken electronic secrecy for this purpose, I think, is going too far.

I'm willing to give up a lot of privacy on a temporary basis (and some on a long-term basis) to prevent this from happening again. But to permanently surrender electronic secrecy? I think that's asking too much.

JM2C,
Waldo

Fallacy Alert

[pointym5]

But people have the right to go to work without buildings falling on them, too.

That is a fallacy Jon, or at least a distortion. The implication is that people have a right to be protected from bad things by society, and I strongly disagree.

If the government were dropping buildings on people, then clearly that would be as criminal as if a terrorist were to do it, and I would expect some consequences. But in much the same sense, I do not have a right to be free from disease. I do not have a right to be ensured that my car will not be stolen. I do not have a right to not be robbed by a criminal.

Think of it this way: a particular sort of crime -- that is, an act defined societally as a crime -- does not imply that potential victims have a right not to be victimized. Society condemns and punishes perpetrators of crimes, and on popular agreement puts in place systems and mechanisms to make perpetration of crime more difficul. None of that implies that citizens have unlimited rights to safety.

One problem...

[shaolind]

Is that it's rare to "temporarily" give up any privacy rights.

Don't give up any of my rights!

[Angry White Guy]

Global, sweeping legislation is going to do about as much as your commentary to protect human lives. Terrorists don't care about laws, and to prove this to you, Check the FAA regulations about hijacking planes. If terrorists are willing to commit murder, they are certainly going to break the laws which make it more difficult to plan to commit murder.
I am not saying that my personal rights outweigh the rights of the 5,000+ dead, but I think that the rights of the entire country, and the world as a whole, do. This may seem cold and callous, but I am not ready to submit to unwarranted search and seizures, or trial without due process for any reason.
There is no guarantee that by having my rights revoked I will help even one life be saved, and the potential for abuse when civil liberties and rights are revoked escalates to a plane which I do not want to go.
I would rather let a thousand criminals go free than hang one innocent man, and if we allow ANY of our rights to be revoked, we will hang more than just one man.

Angry White Guy

Bad laws are inevitable...

[mttlg]

The US government is demonstrating an unprecedented amount of unity. Which of course is a very bad thing. The main reason why our government is often unable to screw people over effectively is the automatic opposition across republican/democrat lines. Without that, and with the full support of other important officials, just about anything can become law if it can be called "antiterrorism." Add in the fact that congressmen don't listen to engineers, and even good ideas could result in bad implementations. Our government has the capability right now to make some very big mistakes that could take years to correct, so there is no such thing as overreacting. We must substitute our voices for the usual voices of opposition that have gone silent, so that our nation's delicate emotional state does not give the terrorists yet another victory to celebrate.

It's about time.

[FFFish]

Hindsight is 20-20.

You look back, and you can clearly see that the US and other governments were heading this direction.

It's little surprise, then, that they are taking advantage of this opportunity to achieve their goals much, much faster, with far, far less trouble from the masses.

We'll soon have a passively numb population who have no expectation of privacy, no desire to become informed, and no passion for influencing the direction of government.

Baa! Baa! Baa!

Sheep are good. They buy consumer products without questioning their value, quality, or necessity. They pay their taxes without questioning where the money goes. They go to work and meekly accept lousy pay and lousy conditions. They don't challenge the laws. They don't cause trouble.

That's what the corporations want. That's what the governments want. And that's what we're going to get.

Who should spy on whom?

[sjonke]

If anyone should be allowed to spy on anyone else, then it should be the citizens of the US whom are allowed to spy on their own government in order to keep them in check, not the other way 'round. Allowing a government to spy on its own people is right up there with the KGB and Communism. Didn't we fight that once?

Very well thought

[BigGib2]

I agree with Katz, surprisingly, but I do find that he has some problems with his statement. I don't think there is such a thing as 'post-WTC attack'. We've always lived in a world that has terrorists, it's just that America has been fortunate enough not to have to deal with too much of it (unlike some other countries). I don't think we need to take any liberties away, we only need to re-evaluate what is needed to make the intelligence gathering easier when certain giveaway signals are given.

Katz is forgetting something.

[Anonymous Coward]

The "one step beyond" Phenomenon. Why is it difficult to check Drug on Olympics ? Because drug maker are already One step beyond. Why will backdoor on encryption program and other wiretap things be next to useless ? Because forewarned is forarmed and terrorist will either use under the hands encryption without backdoor or use uncrackable method like one time pad, imbed into other file type, whatever.

Then what ? Make encryption illegal ?

But nothing will stop any governement once it has taken the first step on restriction ladder : it will ask for more : Drug dealer are using encryption too, right ? And they do more death pro year. And then it will be another group and so on.

In the evry End the terrorist are using "terror" to paralyse, cripple the population or throw the opposition into incosiderate steps. By just implementing the above , Katz, not only you do not rise the chance of getting terrorist caught on security alone, but you acknowledge their terror and show them that they have WON. Their ACTION pushed YOU into COUNTERREACTION.

Re:Handing them a victory - Rights

[jazman_777]

Would you accept more
government involvement in
your life if it meant more
security against terrorism?

Last check:

Yes 71% 44,665 votes
No 29% 18,202 votes
Perhaps part of freedom is being able to surrender rights, at best only temporarily.

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." --Samuel Adams

No no no

[TomatoMan]

Security and freedom are inversely related.

No, this could not be more wrong. Security and convenience are inversely related. Security and freedom are not. This is a very important distinction.

I think, John...

[Todd Knarr]

I think the first thing that needs to be asked about all these proposed new laws is, "Would they have done anything to stop the WTC incident had they been in effect before it?". For example, would the new wiretap powers have done anything given that the government doesn't seem to know that communication between the terrorists was going on at all? If US-made crypto tech has back doors or key escrow or other access mechanisms installed, do you think the terrorists will give up what they already have and switch to it? And if they don't, will those access mechanisms help one bit? Will additional restrictions on checked luggage and manifest checks stop someone who walks past a bored security guard carrying a knife in his pocket and boards the plane?

This is my heartburn with a lot of what's being proposed. Not that it may restrict our rights, but that it will restrict our rights without doing anything about the problem being used to justify it.

Re:Franklin (Whoops)

[gimple]

Thank-you for the exact quote.

It takes on a interesting shade of meaning when fully and correctly quoted doesn't it? Consider the word essential.

What is an essential liberty? Is freedom of movement? Yes. Is boarding an airplane essential? No. Is the freedom to associate? Yes. Is using electronic communications? No.

The difficulty is when you attempt to live in world full of artifical dichotomies. "It's this way or that way." The world is fully of shades of gray, but many people insist on black and white.

Dropping the word "essential" from Benjamin Franklin's quote is a convenient way to force the discussion into black and white terms.

All of these measures are cheap, but not right.

[ARR0]

All of the changes being suggested and argued about have one thing in common--they provide a cheap alternative to actually solving the problem.

It would be possible to solve the problem of security in our skies without taking away any of our liberties. Make sure there are (frequently) law enforcement officers on board flights. Yes, this is being considered, but it is expensive. It's cheaper to build a database and track each person flying. It is an invasion of privacy, but it is cheaper.

It would be possible to solve the problem of Middle Eastern terrorism, but it is expensive. It would require assistance to the desperately poor parts of the region, to build schools, hospitals, and the other things they need to support a decent life. It would require us to be willing to pay a higher price to get oil that is not purchased from tyrants. It would require us to give up our notion of "client states" and recognize that the people who are considered too poor and powerless to worry about today will be desperate enough to follow a madman tomorrow. But it's cheaper to try and spy and assassinate our way out of the problem. It won't work, of course, and will create bigger problems down the line, but it is cheaper than solving the problem.

The world didn't change last week, really. Many innocent people lost their lives in a senseless tragedy. The tragedy will be compounded if we don't start educating ourselves about the world we live in, and if we don't realize that there is no person on this planet too poor, too different, or too desperate to be important.

Nope, it's not

[YIAAL]

There's no automatic relationship between freedom and security. Many times in American history, when we have suppressed freedom in wartime we have gained no additional security at all. For example, the interning of Japanese Americans didn't increase our security. Banning the teaching of German during World War I didn't increase our security. Hoover's FBI blackmailing didn't increase our security.

It is a serious error to assume that because sometimes increased security reduces freedom, anything that reduces freedom increases security. Things don't work that way.

Totalitarian "safer"?

[mikosullivan]

Certainly, we would all be physically safer if we lived in a totalitarian regime with no privacy protection.

One of the great misconceptions about life in a police state is that it is somehow "safer". Was Nazi Germany safe to live in? You could be arrested and killed just for angering the wrong person. Was Stalinist Russia safe? You could be sent to a concentration camp just for being the first person to stop clapping.

When we give up our rights, we're far less safe, because all we're doing is legalizing violence.

We need to all remember this cornerstone of liberty: Freedom is our strength.

Absolutly Not!

[pgpckt]

Jon is wrong here. This is not a temporary fight. It never is. The Taliban has accused the United States of using a pretext to try to hurt Afghanistan or hunt down Bin Laden. I know passions are running very high in the US congress right now, and congress has all the pretext it needs to take away our rights. Not just for a little while, but forever.

millions more are in danger of losing certain rights because of the new wiretapping and surveillance authority the Justice Department is seeking.

That is correct. The way Americans have been talking, they are ready to sign away the constitution. "Sure, search my email, scan my phone calls, whatever it takes" has been the rally cry of the people. The government doesn't have to try too hard to justify the removal of privileges. Don't you ready your own message board? In a different article (search is down), a representative in congress said "Once your rights are taken away, they are rarely given back. No one in Congress wants to seem soft on terrorism or soft on Crime." We are talking about amending surveillance rules, and they may never be amended back.

Many people worry that once these powers are granted, they will never be given back.

Yep. See the above. Laws made in the heat of passion stay on the books. Law makers won't change the law for the appearance it makes. Try reading the article that was posted by CmdrTaco about the subject of liberties and the rush to have them taken away.

These terrorists are technologically skilled, government authorities say. They use the Net to e-mail one another, and to send encrypted files, sometimes online, at other times via Zip disks or other media. They move money online, make plans there, thus avoiding possible interception by traditional intelligence monitors listening to phone and cell calls. Is it really totally unreasonable for authorities to seek broader powers to follow these conversations?

The short answer is Yes, it is unreasonable. "Here is a good idea. Let's ban crypto. And screen cell calls. And read all email. And Faxes. What? You are against this? You must have something to hide!" I can see it now. Besides, if you implement the above, the bad guy can always use another system. The Bad guy will figure out a way to communication. Meanwhile, the good guy (you too Jon) will have all our private communications analyzed and recorded. (sarcasm) Sounds like a peachy system to me! (/sarcasm)

Many of us have already happily and willingly surrendered some privacy to Napster, Amazon, gaming sites, EZ-Pass toll systems, online retailers and other Web tracking services which have lists of our shopping, reading, entertainment habits and preferences.

Damn, looks like you don't read slashdot after all. Most of us are FAR from happy about giving up our rights. Most of us hate to register (which is why every time there is a reg. required link in a slashdot story, someone always posts a way to get around it). You are really out of touch Jon if you think the people are happy about our losses of privacy and the sharing and selling of personal information.

. Any new laws to fight this new kind of war ought to be temporary, and self-expiring, perhaps subject to annual review.

HAHAHAHAHAHAH. Yea right! Even if they were self-expiring or needed to be reviewed, no one would ever dare vote against a proposal that "fights crime." They wouldn't have a job any more. Even if the law did go away, you are still talking about a couple of years of impeding MY and YOUR freedoms. I don't remember a suspension clause in the Constitution........

I will NOT support any measure to take away MY freedoms, even for a little while. If the CIA (or whomever) wants more power to spy over seas, I can support that. I will NOT support any measure that increases the government's ability to spy on Americans like myself. ABSOLUTLY NOT!!!

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

Sounds like pretty good words to remember at a time like this. What price are you willing to pay for freedom. I will protect the security of the United States, but I will NEVER agree to ANY SUSPENSION of FREEEDOM!

Why Do We Need Privacy?

[ZenGeek]

I'll play Devil's Advocate among this largely Libertarian crowd. Why is privacy important to us?

If we are not ashamed of our actions, why do we care if anyone observes them?

If we are ashamed of our actions, shouldn't we change our behavior? (Either don't do it or don't be ashamed of it.)

Don't you think this world would be a better, safer place if everyone behaved as if they were being watched?

Zen

Too easy to circumvent...

[HiredMan]

As with all civil liberties I think the government must should a pressing and immediate need - and that their remedy address that immediate need and ONLY that need.

The terrorists apparently (according to media reports) used the NYC public library and Hotmail to communicate. Neither place stores such messages in any way beyond what the users keep. And there's no indication that they used encryption for these communications - they just used public access and free accounts to fly "below radar". You can also encode messages into the content - as a series of text messages or encode it inside images or MP3 tracks - rather than simply encrypting text.

Going lo-tech like this (and using phone cards like the OKC bombers did) drives law enforcement crazy trying to recreate/retrace steps. If the terrorists are as tech savvy and wiley as the Justice department paints them to be then they'll just shift tactics giving them the same protections they have now - but stripping Americans of their personal privacy protections..

I fully support the right of (and agree with the needs of) law enforcement to protect us and pursue people who break the law - but I don't trust law enforcement to "police" themselves when given wide berth to perform their duties.

While I sympathize with the idea of feeling a deep personal loss that is the wrong time to enact laws, strike back blindly or make rash decisions. (I admit that other than finding out that one of the terrorists lived about a block and a half from my house my personal involvement in the tragedy is relatively limited.) The law is suppossed to be the fair handed and impartial enactor of what society views as necessary - that's why the state can execute someone but you can't - even if you're the aggrieved party.

Anyway - I didn't mean to go on like that... this is my first post since last Tuesday - suddenly my karma points seemed unimportant... The bottom line is - remedies NEED to address REAL problems and provide REAL solutions to those problems not just band-aid fixes that hurt in the long run and don't help - even in the short term. I don't trust our (largely) tech-ignorant Congress to pass good laws on difficult issues on such short notice when they have (mostly) law enforcement as advisors and consultants.

=tkk

What do we value more?

[g0atboy]

JonKatz is absolutely correct -- it is imperative that we look far beyond knee-jerk reflexes, which it is only natural to have in a situation like this. We as a nation have a responsibility to protect ourselves. To protect our way of life.

It is easy in what is perilously close to being a time of war to think of nothing but getting a bigger hammer. If he hits me, I will simply hit him back harder. Perhaps, in fact, we ought to have hit him back first. Maybe that would solve everything? Or maybe not.

It would be easy for us to slip right back into the Mcarthy mindset of the 1950's, having learned absolutely nothing in the past half a century. It was 1949 when George Orwell wrote about what happens when government interferes too much with the citezens' private lives. Do we want for him to have been right after all?

We Americans are now being called on to look into our hearts and weigh our freedoms against protecting our national identity. A difficult proposition for a country whose national identity is freedom. A country under attack because of our freedoms. Now more then ever it is vitally important that we not let go of those freedoms. That is just what the terrorists want us to do.

Re:More insanity from people who do not understand

[Penguingenuity]

Yes:

The country with no enemies needs no walls.
If we hadn't spent the last 30 years pissing off the smaller nations of the world, they wouldn't have motive to do this. America is a demonstration that competing religions can co-exist. If we treated the rest of the world like we treat ourselves then there would be fewer radicals, more patriotism (in the off season if you will... peacetime), and greater worldly respect. We are standing at a great opportunity, a chance to no longer tell the world what we are about, but _show_ them. A violent response will breed terrorism. If we really do mean freedom and justice for all why does the news say "revenge and death to all"

My hope is that the careful consideration yields a calm and effective response rather than more terrorism-inspiring violence.

peace!
vote!

(linux!)
AD

The real issue for our security...

[raretek]

...is when are we going to stop oppressing other countries? When are WE going to stop remaking other nations in our self righteous image?

When iraqi's saw American's destroying their cities, they felt the exact same way we all felt when we saw the trade center get destroyed. When serbians saw American warships dropping bombs on their hospitals, you can bet they wanted so badly to hurt us back.

But Americans live in this little dream world where they can go around the globe bullying anyone and everyone and expect no retribution. That dream has ended. Those people were not cowards who did this, I dare say that very few of our elected officials have the guts to die for something they believe in, but that's exactly what the people who did these things did. I'm not saying they're heroes, but I am saying that Americans should wake up and smell the coffee. These people hate our war machine and the businesses that finance and manipulate it so much, they are willing to give their lives to rid the world of it.

Only emotional tripe sees it as anything else. Anyone with half an ounce of reason left in them will ask themselves "Why do they hate us so much?" An objective look at our foreign policy of the last 50 years will turn up an obvious answer. Just pretend that America was on the recieving end of all the campaigns that we dished out, and very quickly you can clearly see the hate that we have fostered towards ourselves around the globe.

The curse causeless does not come. Neither does a man harvest grapes where he plants brambles. You do not reap peace where you have sown war. Anyone who wants you to believe otherwise has a hidden agenda, or is a complete idiot.

We need to change our foreign policy and to quit fostering hate among the nations. This makes alot more sense than giving up the very things which make America great, our civil liberties. "Good will and free trade with all, entangling alliances with none."

God Bless America and my fellow Americans who have been harmed by these bombings. My advocation of peace and a change of our unjust foreign policy, does not in any way mean I think what happened was just. It was horrific, and I have shed more than a few tears for the pain that has been visited to all those families out there. My heart goes out to you, but we must not be ruled by emotions, but by reason, and we must not make decisions based on fear. Fear is a bigger threat to our nation than any terrorist.

Technology is a tool

[The Panther!]

I have two comments regarding this article, and the situation in general.

First, a quote from the article: But people have the right to go to work without buildings falling on them, too. There is no provision of such a right anywhere in the Constitution. Inventing "rights" so that people can argue a case is an abuse, and pollutes the discussion. What people have a right to is life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Their right to life was infringed; nothing stated about buildings. This sort of tactic was frequently used in the late 80's and early 90's when everybody thought rights grew on trees... right to fresh water, right to be paid the same as a more qualified person doing a similar job, etc. If you're going to argue law, be a lawyer first. FWIF, IANAL either, just annoyed.

Second and more importantly, technology is a tool. If you were to replace all the details of the terrorists using computers, using Zip disks, and so forth with them knowing how to drive cars, calling people on the telephone, and similar commonplace tools that are familiar to everyone (today), the analogy holds that people unfamiliar with those tools would wish to restrict them!!! This happened at the turn of the century when horse and buggy was common and cars were not. Legislation was introduced to keep cars from scaring horses, people, and upsetting towns. The fear is less that of terrorists using technology against us, but rather of technology itself. By reducing the tool's utility, our government can only accomplish a reduction of the users of those tools. Terrorists will find other ways.

What concerns me most is that people somehow think we've become insecure physically through use of intellectual technology. I'm sorry, but the attacks were purely physical. The communication leading up to it was what they are attacking. Rather, focus on preventing the physical attacks and leave communication alone.

Enough

[LordKariya]

What the fuck is the matter with you people ? Katz lives a short distance from the Site of the disaster... he posts a well-written article about the potential change in perspective in YRO, drawn from his own recent experience... and what follows ? "STFU Katz". Do you even read the articles anymore ? This isn't intended so much as an information piece as it is a thought piece. If you don't have anything interesting to say, then STFU Snapple boy.

Re:Enough

[Lyka]

I think a certain percentage of the ./ readership has a knee-jerk reaction to Katz himself, and that's at the root of the problem. If you're among that percentage, in order to prove to yourself that you are cool, with the "in" crowd, and a brave warrior against liberalism and political correctness, you have to produce a flame whenever another Katz article comes out.

A few observations

[jd]

Those who are shouting loudest about protections are those who were (physically) directly affected by Tuesday's catastrophe.

Those who are shouting loudest about freedoms are those who were least (physically) affected by Tuesday's catastrophe.

Note that I emphasise the physically part. Everyone on the planet (well, maybe with the exception of some stone-age tribes in the Amazon jungle) was emotionally affected. The biggest distinguishing factor was the physical impact. The loss of a family member or friend; or even just being in New York has altered some people's worlds drastically.

Yes, I really do believe it's that polarized, and yes, I really do believe that many of the arguments are entirely selfish ones. Me, me, me. Give it a rest! There happen to be 5,999,999,999+ other people who happen to be affected by all of this. For once, humanity needs to think on a GLOBAL scale, not merely on what they can personally get out of it.

To those who advocate the loss of freedoms -- exactly what is this supposed to achieve?

• The new airport security measures aren't working - there are countless reports of airport staff able to smuggle a wide range of weapons through airport security.
  
• Scanning e-mail won't work, until there are context-sensitive relational monitors. Keyword recognition is junk. If you can't tell the context of a word or phrase, in relation to the sender, the receiver, the rest of the e-mail, and any related e-mails, then automatic systems will be worse than useless. There's just TOO MUCH data flying over the Internet for even a small army of humans to weed through, after a key-word search.
  
• Profiling is a good excuse to resurrect the old Mcarthy trials. Did America gain anything from those, first time round? Then why suppose you will, this time?
  
• Back-door on Encryption - yeah, give all the Bad Guys an easy way to monitor your electronic bank transfers, and inject a few of their own. If there's a back-door, then anyone can use it, and not all those people will have your best interests at heart. (I also suspect there are a lot more computer crackers than there are airline hijackers.)
  
• Wire-taps, et al - we all know, because we've all been guilty of this at some time or other, that it's human nature to take just a teeny step beyond what is allowed. Laws are meant to provide for reasonable actions, regardless of circumstances. If the spirit and/or letter of the law is found to be genuinely unreasonable, then it needs to be dealt with through the normal procedures. If the spirit and/or letter of the law is not unreasonable, just merely irritating, then those affected should ask if they are trying to tackle the right problem. You don't ask speeders if they want the speed limit increased, so that they don't have to pay the fine. You don't ask axe-murderers to define "justifiable homicide". So why ask security agencies to re-write the rules on wire-taps?
  

Ok, now to those who argue that freedoms should be protected at all costs...

• How did this magical freedom protect the inhabitants of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or the four aircraft?
  
• How is this freedom to prevent further attrocities? (Especially as those demanding it are unlikely to be pro-active in doing any preventing.)
  

The bottom line is that NEITHER approach works. No great surprise. You cannot add an unbalanced approach to an unbalanced situation, and get a balanced society.

It is impossible to prevent these kinds of hostilies by adding yet more hostility to the equation. The maths is very simple, but those in England and Ireland learned that it is also painful to accept. The only answer to war is peace and the only answer to factionalism is unity.

Sure, there's still violence in England and Ireland, but people aren't living in fear that pubs in Birmingham, or shopping centers in London or Manchester are going to turn to smouldering rubble the next day. Disarmament on a real scale has become a very real possibility. A BIG change from the last 20 years, where bomb drills were routine in schools, celebrities got gunned down or blown up, and transport systems were regularly targetted.

There may very well be "sleepers" in the American population, agents from all sorts of countries. America has probably more than a few of its own in other countries. The ethics and international legality of such agents can be debated to the ends of the earth, with no solution likely.

But if there ARE "others" amongst us, how are they remaining others? How are they able to have zero empathy for those they live around, every day of their lives? (After all, if they DID have empathy, they could not do anything to harm those they cared about. Empathy is a far stronger force than all the agencies in the world.)

In short, why are Americans so bloody frigid that Afghans can live here for many years and not gain one iota of compassion? Sure, they're the ones who flew those planes, but ALL OF US are responsible for creating a world in which they were emotionally capable of doing so.

THAT is the key to all of this. Meaningless phrases and turgid responses don't bring people closer. They are the wall we hide behind, to avoid people. We avoided them, alright. We avoided them so bloody well that 18 of those people decided to wipe out 6,000+ others.

Pink Floyd has it absolutely right. Our callousness, coldness, cruelty, emotional abuse, our entire self-centered perspective, are just bricks in The Wall. And, as their video described, The Wall leads to militancy, extremism and violence. Just as we've seen in Afghanistan.

The choice would seem to be simple - polarity and the continued building of The Wall, or tolerence & peace.

I know which I'd prefer, but I also know which way the world is heading. Does anyone have a spare cryogenics facility they can lend me?

Perspective, please

[MacGabhain]

The abridgment of our rights is in no way a "win" for terrorists. Yes, it is a loss for us, but I have trouble with the idea that a bunch of l33t h4x0rs not being able to sit around chatting about their latest music swaps in total anonymity is anywhere near the loss of, say, containment around the Monticello Nuclear Power plant, just NW of Minneapolis (leading to 7 figure death tolls in the Minneapolis area and the forced evacuation of everything between here and around South Bend). A light plane loaded down with fuel could break through quite easily, with a clean hit. That, however, requires organization and planning. They need schematics of the plant, they need access to a plane (which will either be registered or suspiciously unregistered), they need to make use of a legitimate airport to avoid blowing up on take-off with all the bouncing barrels of gas, etc. The FBI has had remarkable success preventing this sort of thing by knowing what to look for. But over the last few years, they've increasingly lost the ability to look.

And there's the big hole in the "Oh no! We're losing our freedoms!" position. Let's say that we give every single government emplyee the right to read everyone's email and access everyone's web habits and everything else. We STILL haven't lost any "privacy" that we had 20 years ago. Human's have never had anything like the ability for anonymous, private communications that we've developed in the last 3-5 years. It's NOT something inherant in the human condition. It's something we allot to ourselves, and, as such, needs to be alloted reasonably. Now, when you've aquired a controling interested in every internet backbone in the country, you can make everything private and anonymous. Until then, you have NO RIGHTS not allocated you by contract or law. You're using an artificial communications system owned and maintained by other people, for which you're not even playing close to enough to cover the costs incurred by your usage.

Re:Perspective, please

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fourth Amendment was adopted in direct response to the English Parliament's practice of giving colonial revenue officers complete discretion to search for smuggled goods by means of writs of assistance. The writs permitted colonial authorities, including British troops, to enter homes and offices at will and search any person or place they wanted. The early Americans rebelled against these general searches, and on the eve of the Declaration of Independence, Samuel Adams said he regarded the opposition to general searches as "the Commencement of the Controversy between Great Britain and America." It is fair to say that absolute protection from general government searches is one of this country's founding principles.

When the framers struck the original balance between personal privacy and the needs of law enforcement, remote listening devices had not yet been invented. But it is clear that had they existed, the framers would not have approved of them. By definition, electronic surveillance constitutes a general search, not a search limited to specific objects, people and places as required by the Fourth Amendment. Wiretapping, bugs, and keys to encrypted messages intrude on the most intimate aspects of human life. They hear/see everything and everyone, indiscriminately. Like vacuum cleaners, they sweep up all the details of innocent and often intimate private conversations. A tap on the phone of one person necessarily captures the conversations of anyone who happens to use that phone or call that number. Unlocking one person's encryption code subjects all who electronically communicate with that person to government surveillance. Even obtaining a court warrant does not fix this problem. Electronic eavesdropping cannot be regulated by a warrant precisely because of its dragnet quality; the object to be seized or the premises to be searched cannot be limited or even specified, because it is in the very nature of the technology to catch everything.

In 1927, during the height of federal enforcement of National Alcohol Prohibition, the Court attempted to come to grips with electronic eavesdropping for the first time. Roy Olmstead, a bootlegger convicted entirely on the basis of evidence from wiretaps, argued before the Court that a search had been conducted without a warrant and without probable cause in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. In a 5-4 opinion, the Court ruled that a physical entry (a "trespass") must be committed before the Fourth Amendment's protection could be invoked. Since the wiretaps were physically placed outside Olmstead's home, the Court reasoned, there was no government intrusion and therefore no Fourth Amendment protection. The Olmstead decision defined the law for forty years, and during that period, the government was able to engage in virtually unrestricted electronic spying.

The Olmstead case, by a narrow 5-4 margin, destroyed the original balance of the Fourth Amendment, but it was also the occasion for Justice Louis D. Brandeis' prescient dissent in which he warned that, "The progress of science in furnishing the government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire-tapping." Brandeis wrote that because wiretaps indiscriminately pick up every conversation within their reach, they constitute the kind of general search prohibited outright by the Fourth Amendment, and that even a warrant requirement would not give sufficient protection. Unfortunately for our privacy rights, Brandeis' dissent has never been adopted by the Court, although it did overrule its Olmstead decision in 1967 when it belatedly recognized that the Fourth Amendment applied to wiretapping and electronic spying (Katz v. U.S.). Nonetheless, Justice Brandeis' account of the framer's intentions is right on the mark:

"The makers of our Constitution...sought to protect Americans in their
beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They
conferred as against the Government, the right to be let alone -- the
most comprehensive of the rights of man and the right most valued by
civilized men."

Cryptography can help shift the balance of the Fourth Amendment back to what the framers originally intended. And that is what the FBI is against.

The government's own records show that electronic surveillance is of marginal utility in preventing or solving serious crimes. It did not, for example, stop or lead to the apprehension of the Unabomber, Timothy McVeigh, or the first World Trade Center bombers. Those crimes were solved by good detective work. Serious crimes of violence, including terrorist crimes, are almost never the targets of electronic surveillance. Electronic surveillance does, however, lead to violations of the privacy rights of vast numbers of innocent Americans. According to the government's own statistics, 2.2 million conversations were intercepted in 1996, of which 1.7 million were deemed innocent by prosecutors.

Electronic surveillance is absolutely inconsistent with a free society. Free citizens must have the ability to conduct instantaneous, direct, spontaneous and private communication using whatever technology is available. Without the assurance that private communications are, indeed, private, habits based upon fear and insecurity will gradually replace habits of freedom.

Re:Perspective, please

[HiredMan]

Yes, perspective, please...

"Let's say that we give every single government emplyee the right to read everyone's email and access everyone's web habits and everything else."

Does this is any real way make you safer or prevent the terrible scenerio you lay-out?
Sadly the answer is, "No." Even if you allow the government to do this you won't be any safer. If the terrorists are smart enough to use encryption over the internet now in this country (no evidence of this - but they're making laws as if it's true) then they can create ways around these restrictions. They can exchange porno pix or vacation photos with encoded messages for instance. And if they're willing to wait for years to strike then they don't need the urgency of the Internet to communicate - they can use regular mail... unless you want to give the government access to that too...
If these people can fly round trip to Spain for a 6 hour f2f meeting (as reported) they can certainly easily exchange one-time pads (unbreakable encryption technology) for completely secure communications. You lay-out a compellingly bad scenerio but you don't show how the changes you suggest make that scenerio any less likely.

The perspective you need is to consider at what level you feel safer... Should we require people to carry papers and only move between cities or states or even crosstown only with permission?
Why not? We'd be safer...

Since I feel we wouldn't be much safer under this scenerio let's ask what would be lost.
Do we really want to empower the government to know everything we do on-line? Remember J. Edgar Hoover? He kept files and ran investigations on anyone he felt like - documenting their private lives and then used that knowledge for political ends. Do we want the government to be able to do this legally? I don't...

Perspective indeed...

=tkk

Re:Perspective, please

[Paolomania]

Human's have never had anything like the ability for anonymous, private communications that we've developed in the last 3-5 years.

Well, for the millenia before microphones were invented, you could always just wispher in someone's ear if you wanted your communication to be private.

I live up the block from WTC.

[Anonymous Coward]

Katz lives 40 miles away, and "felt personally affected by a visit to the attack site." What a crock. He's a vulture who went there to prey on the greif of others.

We have NO right not to have buildings fall on us, anymore than we have the right to not drown at sea.

Terrorism can NOT be stopped, with or without wiretaps, strip searches and manacling every passenger on a plane. One could simply become a pilot, whack the co-pilot, lock the newly secured door, and ram the building of choice.

There is nothing you can do to stop a determined attacker. They're worse than slashdot trolls.

What you can do is survive. You can rebuild, and you can go on. When your car gets a flat, you don't rubbercoat the worlds roads, you put on an extra tire. The old tire may be repairable, it may be gone. That doesn't really matter, anymore than a few thousand deaths to a terrorist attack matters in the larger scheme of things.

Sound callous? Maybe, but it's also true. 100,000 people die every year from autoaccidents. Why not ban the auto? Because its impractical - no one wants to take the bus or train everywhere. No one wantsa to pay for a rail link to every place someone might possibly want to go.

THAT would be cheaper than "stopping" terrorism.
Israel has all the wiretap power they want, and that doesn't stop them from having terrorists bomb cafe's every few weeks. Don't pretend that the US with an ethnically diverse population of CITIZENS could screen better than a (justifiably) paranoid nation in the midst of hostile territory. (The legitimacy of their location is a seperate topic, I make no claims one way or the other here.)

If you can't stop something, you must learn to deal with it. Have a backup center, hire more brokers and paper pushers and secretaries and firemen and everyone else who you lose.

The way to "stop" people who are willing to die for their cause is to let them die, to have their compatriots see that however successful the attack may be tactically, it's negligable strategically.

Suicidal bombers believe in a cause, and that their attack will aid that cause more than they could in a lifetime of work. As spectacular the WTC attack was - since every station replayed it ad nauseum - most of manhattan was unaffected. The day after people were in the park, walking dogs, playing soccer and football.

The world is not changed forever, we have not lost any innocence we still had, life will be the same.

And FYI, New York is not all death death wtc death on the tube anymore, the broadcast networks stopped over the weekend. Simply because it's replaced Conduit as the lead off story on news shows doesnt really matter. Jackie Chan's cartoon show is back on and life is back to normal - for those who were not directly affected by the loss of a job. Otherwise, its no different [individually] than a bus crash, or even a slip and fall broken neck death. Your loss is not greater simply because its yours.

And to you Mr. Katz - Your writing is almost always based primarily on 2nd hand knowledge and misinformation, and occaisionally amusing when treated as such - like any good troll. This article is the worst in a long long line of bad OpEds. Your obviously not an investiagtive journalist and it seems you can't even reports simple data anymore. Slashdot would be better off with a link to the AP newswire site instead of your tired, trite opinionitorials.

Unlike you though, I would not try to pass laws restricting YOUR freedoms. To sell out one groups liberties to live and die, according to the lifestyle thay have chosen, whether as a free speech advocate, a gay christian preaching in Afghanistan, or a race car driver is not just wrong, it's evil.

Personally, I would rather my death be caused by a criminal element's fiery blast than a strangulation of my lifestyle condoned by my government.

Afghanistan = Waco, TX

[dscowboy]

On April 19, 1993, the US attorney general ended a standoff near Waco, TX with one of the worst outcomes possible. US Gov action taken during the standoff is universally denounced as reactionary and far from ideal. Forces surrounded a compound of religious extremists for an expensive standoff, during which both sides suffered severe casualties. In 2001, US forces will again surround a group of religious extremists for an expensive conflict, from which nothing will be accomplished other than slaughter and the incitement of millions of similar extremists. The slaughter and enemy-making will be justified by the increased approval rating US politicians will receive as their angry redneck constituents watch people die on television.

No matter how powerful and frightening the US military is, US citizens will never be free from "terrorism" by radicals. As long as an establishment exists, there will be extremist rebels that will attempt to thwart the establishment through violence. Just as the sun creates shadows, authority and power will always create opposition and rebellion. Violent, religion-based exremeists (quite willing to die for their cause) will only grow stronger as their opposition (the authority and power of the US goverment) is exercised.

If there are any /. readers out there with historical knowledge of the American Revolution, it would be interesting to know what kind of "terrorist acts" the rebels performed on the British Empire to help gain their freedom. Muslims that support Osama (and there are many more of them than a few Palenstinians and Afghanis) see themselves the same way American rebels viewed themselves, as victims of an evil empire's imperialistic policies.

Katz: from Heel to Face

[Anonymous Coward]

Jon, this article seems like your attempt to turn face after being the heel for so many months.

You "journalists" are nothing more than wrestlers without the color--you embrace current trends, and seek to maximize your connection to them by your "expert" opinions, all to get the harangues or allocades of the commonweal you constantly, if secretly, hold in contempt.

NO RIGHTS SHOULD BE GIVEN TO *ANY* GOVERNMENT THAT THE PEOPLE ALREADY POSSESS. It is not "knee-jerk" to be alarmed about the discussion of banning crypto, increased wiretaps, etc. in a response to an event that literally billions people live in fear with already. The fact that this crime has come home to America is what this is *really* about. And weak, pandering, and, yes, un-American deep thinkers like you try to give away WHAT PEOPLE DIED FOR LONG BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. (Yes, crypto is new, but so are surveilence satellites. The Man has *plenty* of tools; one should *really* be asking why a "former" CIA asset has such an extensive network in an allegedly foriegn and hostile land.)

If you're not seeking to hold the line, then you're little more than a Stormtrooper in service to the New World Order.

This has been happening all over the world

[evilpaul13]

If you were watching the news around 6PM Tuesday then you'd know that the people of Afganistan were subject to terrorism too. N. Ireland isn't exactly the safest place in the world either.

The point is, that Afganistan isn't at all free, and there is limited freedom in N. Ireland. And there is still terrorism. There isn't an instance I'm aware of where a gov't released a new power it was granted even on a temporary basis. That emergency income tax measure, Amendment XVI, really faded into the night after Reconstruction didn't it?

Any freedoms we give up will not make us safer, and will never be returned to us. If you believe otherwise then you are fooling yourself.

The gov't has made clear by the DMCA & SSCA among other blatant special interest attacks on Free Speech and the right to due process under the law that it simply cannot be trusted. In the US, people used to be innocent until proven guilty. If there is no legitimate enough belief of wrongdoing to convince a federal judge then the gov't has no right to violate my privacy.

If warrants may be needed on a moment's notice then a solution that wouldn't violate the 99.999% of the population would be to have some judges on call 24/7 to authorize or deny such warrants. Unless the FBI is just fishing for terrorists, they can get warrants to read terrorists email and leave mine and the rest of the country's email alone.