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Senate Trashes Civil Liberties; House to Vote Today
The U.S. Senate passed its version of the "anti-terrorism" legislation last night. The Washington Post, CNN, and Wired all have stories. There are terrorists under every rock, and we must destroy our freedom in order to save it. Remember: gamblers are terrorists too. The House is apparently going to drop their version of the legislation and vote on a copy of the Senate bill.
After reading the original story here about 3 weeks ago, I sent letters and emails to my representitives and congressmen. I even called an office. This is the first time I've ever done anything like this - I feel very strongy about this issue.
I received no auto-replies, no real replies, no acknowledgements, nothing.
Guess who's not getting my vote at the next election?
I swear, I'm gunna run for some public office and end this crap.
All right, related to the earlier story on our reps not paying attention to us, how *DO* we shine the light of reason into our government?
Perhaps it's time for more than letters, calls, and emails to our reps. Maybe it's time for a bunch of us to get together and get out in our communities and spread the word.
The reps may not be listening to a horde of geeks, but chances are good they'll start hearing us loud and clear if a more balanced mix of their constituents pipes up.
Now we have another problem (or rather a few). How *do* we get people (average Joe/Jane) to listen, and even discuss these issues? Everyone still seems on edge after the 9/11 attacks, but I'd like to believe that energy could be channeled in a positive direction.
Anyone got a site up specificially to discuss this stuff? I'll email all my friends the link.
So, maybe I am giving too much credit to the checks and balances system, but won't these new laws still have to be upheld by a court?
to put on my asbestos suit.....
... ok ready..
First of all, this does not fall under the ben franklin remark about sacrificing liberty for safety etc etc...
terrorism is a semi-expensive business... it takes money to train people to fly a 757 into a tall building, pay off people, etc etc.
Osama and co. obviously is using one of the oldest tricks in the book to launder money.. gambling.. how many people complained when we shut down the mob run casinos in vegas? not many. why? because it helped shut down that element.
Osama and friends are more like pissed of rich boys than they are 'good muslims'. Chances are we wont find him, so the next best thing is to make it very crappy for him to live...
it's also been shown that they have used the net to transmit messages, and now maybe even TV.. if putting harsh restrictions on cryptography can hinder him as well, what all is lost? It's because of paranoia and people continually fighting the governments efforts that these people pulled off what they did. We complained about military spending, intelligence, etc... and now look what happened..
we say we want the govt to protect us, so when will we let them do their jobs?
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
since the moderators generally vote down things they don't agree with. However against half the provisions of this bill I am, I do agree with one thing: wiretapping an individual not a line. Before you hit that downgrade button, listen up. If I have email, a phone, a cell phone, wireless network access and all, I can easily just alternate or use one, none or all. In the old day, wiretapping your phone was sufficient. Now, its not. However, the protection is not gone... they still need a warrant, there is still a line of defense.
I do think voting down the amendments was a bad thing. Please read the bill or at least the summations before commenting. Overall this is a bad bill, but that provision should be passsed (with the amendments attached)!
> we need a balance between security and freedom
m l (disclaimer: yes of course this article contains propoganda, but then what doesn't).
Big implicit assumption here is that there is a conflict between the two. I would argue that there isn't. Reducing freedom often reduces your security too. This is because, the freedom any government is most keen to irradicate, is the freedom to disagree with it. For instance, Germany wasn't a very free place before WWII, the lack of freedom and rampant patriotism allowed their leaders to drag them into a war which seriously decreased the security of the German people.
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Herman Goering
The proposed law concentrates on classifying things like cyber-activism as terrorism. Most of this legislation is not aimed at reducing the chances of someone releasing anthrax at the super-bowl, it's aimed at reducing protest and dissent, which they are expecting for good reason.
The talk about innocent civilians being killed in Afghanistan misses the point IHMO. A question which is probably of more relevence to Americans is: are we benefitting from this action ?
Trying to irradicate terrorists with bombs is like trying to clean a windscreen with greasy fingers. You might shift the original bits of dirt, but you make a far worse mess in the process. The problem is not a few makeshift training camps in Afghanistan. Where did the terrorists learn to fly planes, where had they
been living for the past few years ? The root problem is the hatred in people's hearts. If you want to understand the hatred, don't read CNN, read some middle east papers and see what they say. Even if it's nothing but a pack of lies, it's worth knowing what the US is accused of.
To figure out whether this action might make us safer, there are two questions to answer:
(1) will it decrease the hatred (particuarly amongst muslims) ?
(2) will it make terrorists think that attacking the west is a bad idea ?
I'll leave the answer to question (1) as an exercise for the reader. The answer to (2) is less obvious, but I don't think you need a degree in psychology to figure it out. The kind of people capable of flying planes into buildings,
or releasing anthrax at a football game, will not be swayed by logic. It was never their strongpoint. Since we seem to believe we
can secure our goals through terror and bombs, I don't see any reason to expect better reasoning from terrorists.
For a hint as to where the push for war comes from, look at http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/10/11/17799.ht
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
The police of the U.S. would be able, it seems, to access any record about an individual whatsoever, without warrant. Am I right here?
I heard "someone" on National Public Radio this morning interviewed. They were speaking about "network analysis", and the conversation was quietly interesting. NA covers credit card purchases, credit profiling,that sort of thing.
He said that law enforcement on the Federal level wants access to our marketing data.
You heard me right.
He said that businesses had more information about us than the government did -- implying, to me, some surprise that the government doesn't have as good a set of data on its citizens as biz does, and that that obviously, in the light of the new day, this should be rectified.
The Feds want to apply network analysis, the same kind of tech used to track your credit history, to be applied to everyone's data, so that they can work up a pattern of questionable behavior and jump on someone before they actually do a deed.
You heard me. Pre-emptive law enforcement.
Good enough for terrorists, for now. But remember, the current admin wants to expand the definitions of "terrorism" to someone who gets unauthorized access to a network or computer system. And I gor-un-tee that they will add more definitions of a "terrorist" as the decades wear on in their weary way.
We've lost a big one. One dissenting vote.
Americans are too stupid, and ignorant, to understand the freedoms that they are giving up, the implications of what they are doing for future generations and the current world, and to undertake rational risk analysis of the current, tiny, threat of the bin Laden nutcases.
Americans scare me.
Yeah, really. I WANT to be upset about violations of liberty, but I've been reading what it states, and I see no violation. Nothing about backdoors in crypto, nothing curtailing speech. Hell, the Brady handgun bill was a bigger blow to the Bill of Rights than this garbage.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Prospects for a Post-Taliban Afghanistan:
The above article appeared yesterday at www.janes.com
"It now appears certain that any effort to
regenerate Afghanistan is predicated upon
the removal of the Taliban, and the terrorist
attacks upon New York and Washington
have given the US a perfect opportunity to
legitimise its plan to do just that (which
existed well before 11 September). "
The link for this discussion is :
www.janes.com
You draw your own conclusions in conjunction with the Caspian Sea Region oil link at the U.S. Department of Energy:
Caspian Sea Region
Ironically, that attitude is part of the reason that the US is in this mess. The US government has this tendency to support whatever foreign government appears works to it's best interest, without regard for that government's human rights record. Often, it is easier for the US to work with a totalitarian power since that power can ensure cooperation with the US, rather than be swayed by the opinion of the populace. The US helps them stay in power so that they can supress anti-US sentiment (at least on the surface) and other more useful favors. In the meantime, those being surpressed become quite angry at the US. Over time, they can grow to truly hate the US because the life the US has provided for them is the antithesis of what the US likes to portray itself as promoting (freedom and democracy).
Curtailing civil liberties may be a good solution in the short term to reduce the likelihood of another attack, but it does not address the root of the problem. I wouldn't mind these restrictions if they were temporary and if the US actually began doing something meaningful to help establish some freedom and democracy, even if it meant that those receiving this expressed anti-US sentiment. But I don't expect to ever see that.
Sadly, the US citizens tend to be too wrapped up in their own lives to learn about this situation. Not that it's incredibly obivious. The media is often a little more interested in letting us know about 's problems than reporting about US supported regimes oppressing their populaces. Besides, who wants to hear about all of that terrible stuff when you feel like you can't do anything about it.
I'm reminded of a Churchill quote. During WWII, one of his advisors suggested closing down museums, etc. to reduce spending. He responded, "Good God man! What the hell are we fighting for?" Seems even more appropriate today.
-Jennifer
Seriously. Look at the attack and what they are finding out from the investigation. None of their stupid laws would have prevented 9-11.
Those terrorists commited the biggest social hack the world has ever seen. They got themselves into the country, blended in extremely well and got all of their training and information from our institutions. They then counted on complete cooperation of the crew and passengers because for the past 30 years we've been running under the asumption that this was the SOP for dealing with highjackings.
There doesn't appear to be any high-tech, superspy secret communications between the terrorists. More than likely they hooked up at the nudie bar and transmitted info between lap dances.
What parts of the ATA/USA/PATRIOT bills are going to protect us from that? None. But I see a lot of parts of those bills that will allow law enforcement to harrass innocent people because they are kinda "Arabic looking" or because somebody is a "hacker."
We need more human intelligence. Not more laws. Not more toys like Carnivore. Information is useless without interpretation.
And that is what bit us on 9-11.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie