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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.
A friend of mine had sent out a mass email about the ATA telling all of his friends to "Sign this, we have to protect our kids!", yet it did not mention the actual text of the Act at all. Our government is using fear to pass laws, simple as that. The question really comes down to: Do you want to feel safe, or do you want to be free? Personally, I stand by Patrick Henry "Give me liberty, or give me death."
The sad thing about it, most Americans don't care enough to read up on the acts they are signing petitions to support.
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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?
Only Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) did not vote for this... and he tried last ditch efforts to include privacy.
Even my own, Sen Tom Daschale (D-South Dakota) voted for this, and I too wrote him a letter.
Sigh, I wonder what 'unintended' consequences this will bring about... how it will be abused...
And, I wonder how it will HELP... this is an anti-terrorism bill. I'd like to see some follow up someday that shows specifically how these new laws HELPED fight terrorism.
I hate the comparision, but this 'war on terrorism' is starting to feel a lot like the 'war on drugs'... and open-ended, make it up as you go sort of deal with no clear goals and lots of shady undercurrents.
And no one defined moment where we can say, there we've won, it's over...
Hatch is quoted "current law perversely gives the terrorist privacy rights.... We should not tie the hands of our law enforcement and help hackers and cyber-terrorists to get away"
First off, obviously Hatch doesn't know the differences between a hacker and a cracker.
Then the comment about giving the terrorist privacy rights... unfortunately terrorists are a subset of people... and this legislation is going to hammer PEOPLE's privacy rights - at least in the US.
Sorry to see this happening, and I sure am glad to be a Canadian right now.
Come on! It's called the "USA Act"* -- you'd have to be some kind of pinko commie terrorist bastard to vote against it, wouldn't you?!
* Yes really -- it's the "Uniting and Strengthening America Act."
"Despite my misgivings, I have acquiesced in some of the administration's proposals because it is important to preserve national unity in this time of crisis and to move the legislative process forward," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.
Translation: I'm scared shitless to vote against any bill with "anti-terrorism" in the title. You really have to admire the lone dissenter, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, for having the sack to vote against it. Too bad he'll be lucky if the voters of Wisconsin don't hold an emergency election to kick him out, nevermind re-election. You know your in trouble when CNN is singling you out in the second paragraph.
My family lives in New York City. My sister was telling me that she had to submit to a full body search when she went to a concert at Madison Square Garden earlier this week, and I expressed a concern for her civil liberties. She told me that she didn't, of course, enjoy submitting to a full body search, but that she would gladly give up some of her freedoms in these "terrifying times" if it would even potentially be a deterrent to terrorists. The thing that she (and many other Americans) do not realize is that the laws that are being enacted to enable the authorities to infringe on her freedoms in these terrifying times are a slippery slope-- as stated in the Washington Post article, there is no "sunset," or expiration, date on these laws. I sent her a funny article from the Onion this week, and she was offended: this is not something to joke about, she said. "I'm scared right now. I see soldiers on the street corners and it makes me feel awful, but if that causes one potential terrorist to think twice about attacking me or mine, I'm glad to have them there." I don't know how to respond-- I'm glad, as well, if they're a deterrent, but it's really a question of how imminent the danger is, and whether we can ever really know how imminent danger of terrorist strikes is. If we don't know (and how could we?) I'd rather have the civil liberties. Failing that, I'd rather know that, when the fear dies down, we'll be able to restore all that we've lost.
I think that the real issue is not that these bills are passing, but that they're passing without expiration dates; that they're potentially part of a much longer-term loss of our civil liberties. That is a slippery slope that we cannot afford to start down.
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Ita erat quando hic adveni.
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)!
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ is the address to go to if you want to send a quick email. Letters are best but the vote is today.
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USA Act
Now I think you Americans have also given up the right to call your country 'Land of the free'.
Someone will probably mod this as funny but really it's sad.
US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says she foresees unprecedented restrictions on democratic rights in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. She declared flatly, "We're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country." Read the article here, or find it on yahoo etc - it was widely reported.
Do you see a check or balance anywhere in sight? I see a big blank check being handed to Congress by one of the justices on the Supreme Court, but besides that...
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
but nobody even seems to care about the fact that Anthrax has been confirmed in New York City
So how will these laws prevent someone from putting some Anthrax spores in an envelope and mailing them to you? This is how the NBC reporter supposedly got the disease in case you didn't know.
Ok, we'll get them back after all this is over. Most of these provisions (the one the Senate passed in particular) has a SUNSET clause. Nobody seems to mention that. These are temporary restrictions to aid in the keeping the people safe.
This is incorrect. Read the Reuters article about the bill passing or any other major news story about the USA act. The Senate voted for No SUNSET on their version of the bill. That's right, congress believes ecret searches of the homes of suspects and treating people like the US is soviet Russia should become the new American way of life.
The House is pressing for sunset provisions to this law but the Senate is trying to convince them otherwise and according to the current slashdot article (you read the links right?), it looks like the House may have been convinced to throw out their objections except for a token disagreement about the wiretap sections expiring in 2004 but even that has provisions that allow it to be overruled if the government feels that it violates "national security".
We can expect precisely the same behavior over here in the States. Power needs to control. The government will never willingly return power to the populace -- such an act is simply not in its nature. It is only returned by massive, sustained acts of civil disobedience, for instance, in the legal viewpoint, the 60's were a reaction to the laws passed during the World Wars. It took an entire generation to restore some liberties lost during the previous decades of crisis. With this bill, we have just plotted a course for our children to follow.
Other posters rebutted you, but I should reiterate: civil liberties are in fact endowed, natural rights -- read the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, freedom and security are not polar opposities. It is largely because of our freedoms that America has developed into a vibrant, productive society capable of providing for everyone and thus removing the desperate incentives that drive terrorism. There are many places in the world far less free, with far less safety.
Oh, and I'm not worried about anthrax -- the infection rate is too low to be effective in the face of our fully mobilized medical resources. But there are other, simpler bateriums that can be spread in other fashions. My advice to you -- drink filtered water.
Right now, the USA Act says that system administrators should be able to monitor anyone they deem a "computer trespasser." ...the USA Act still allows police to conduct Internet eavesdropping without a court order in some circumstances. [amemdments would have] Preseved the privacy of sensitive records -- such as medical or educational data -- by requiring police to convince a judge that viewing them is necessary. Without that amendment, the USA Act expands police's ability to access any type of stored or "tangible" information.
It's almost too much to belive. Agents of my government may now view all records related to me without warrent. Those records will now contain anything any "system admin" decides to collect about me. If enough computer records can be collected to convince a judge that my house should be searched, I might not ever be informed.
How long before the "system admin" is required to collect information? Might my competitors and enemies create false records for me? I'm sure the FBI will now be equiped with M$'s most secure tools. How can anyone be secure in their house and possesions knowing that their government may have bugged it? Do I have to sit behind a bookshelf to write this?
The potential for abuse is unlimited. Such observation can easily be used to harrass. By posting the comment, "Israel is unjust for driving the Palestinians out of their land and keeping them as slaves in concentration camps that lack plumbing, sewerage, power, medical facilities, and schools. It is beyond my comprehension that a people who suffered such things at the hands of others two generations ago could behave this way.", do I become a suspected terroist? Does the FBI then dig into my wife's medical records?
The terrorists have won. We are swiftly becoming the enemy we defeated in the cold war. Rights of free speech, publication and privacy are being stripped away faster and more permenatly than I had ever thought possible. You don't think encryption and the web as a collection of peers will survive digital rights managment do you? Say good bye to the free press of the digital era. With such massive ability to harrass, you don't think people will dare speak their minds about controverial subjects, do you? Say good bye to rational public debate. Our government will soon make the UK's privacy invading cameras and other Orwellian nightmares look like child's play. YOU WILL CONFORM AND CALL IT FREE WILL.
This legislation is perminant. God help the supreme court see it for what it is.
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Authorization of "roving wiretaps," so that law enforcement officials can get court order to wiretap any phone a suspected terrorist would use. Current law requires a court order for each phone number, which most say is outdated with the advent of cellular and disposable phones.
Allows the federal government to detain non-U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism for up to seven days without specific charges. The administration originally wanted to hold them indefinitely.
Allows law enforcement officials greater subpoena power for e-mail records of terrorist suspects.
Relaxes restrictions on information sharing between U.S. law enforcement and intelligence
officers about suspected terrorists.
Makes it illegal to knowingly harbor a terrorist.
Triples the number of Border Patrol, Customs Service Inspectors and Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors at the northern border of the United States, and provides $100 million to improve technology and equipment on the U.S. border with Canada.
Expands current measures against money laundering by requiring additional record keeping and reports for certain transactions and requiring identification of account holders.
Eliminates the statute of limitations for prosecuting the most egregious terrorist acts, but maintains the statute of limitation on most crimes at five to eight years.
/. fear so much?
I don't feel any safer, but I don't feel any less free either! Exactly what is it about more border guards do all the
> 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.
Federal law enforcement, given shape and purpose by Ashcroft, an old Nixon/Reagan/Bush man, is grabbing everything they can off of the shelves, throwing it into a sack, and running for the exit before the spell wears off and the storeowners notice that they've been robbed.
I mention the Nixon/Reagan/Bush connection, not as a flame, but as a real indicator. Nixon, Reagan, and other very right-wing leaders hated the "liberal" press, believed that freedom was too free, and that law enforcement was hamstrung by civil liberties.
Let us not forget that Hoover, the chief of Fed law enforcement for almost a half-century, ran a despotic organization that nailed people he didn't like, blackmailed presidents and congressmen and citizens with information he obtained from spying, and was himself a security risk par excellence because of his secret homosexuality and cross-dressing.
Nixon used the CIA to spy on and destroy his "enemies", which he saw as threats to his admin and by extension the country. The "enemies" were the press, members of congress, and a hell of a lot of citizens.
The FBI and the CIA were limited BECAUSE of the actions of the leaders that championed more power granted to law enforcement. Too many of you are too young to remember why those laws were passed. The law was abused by quasi-dictators who wanted power, naked and brutal, over their enemies. And such power is never enough for those types of personalities.
Today, the beginnings of such power is being given back to the very people it was taken from 30 years ago. Literally. They didn't deserve it then, they don't deserve it now. no one does -- but they especially do not.
Additionally -- not a single thing would have been changed on September 11th had this series of powers been granted prior to the attack. Nothing.
The agencies responsible have all the power now needed to track and capture terrorists. They were doing so prior to the attack. The Feds just weren't mind readers, and the men struck simutaneously, and there was no chance to stop them.
Finally, it amazes me that people who hate government in our lives have no problem with the current admin making a naked power grab under the cover of "fighting terrorism".
They aren't going to wind up controlling terrorism. They are eventually going to wind up terrorizing us.
A democracy would be no better than what we have, and has the potential to be far worse.
If the Sept. 11 attacks had happened to a direct democracy, the majority would probably have voted to go bomb every village in Afghanistan or Palestine they can find, require mandatory searches of Arabs and/or Muslims upon entering a public place, ban flight simulators with accurate depictions of cities, regulate the sale of box cutters, etc.
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Are these the right preventive measurements we should be taking?
There are three vague aspects of criminal law. They split them up into the classic criminal, the socio-behavioral criminal and the conflict criminal.
Now the theory behind the classic criminal is that he/she/they think out the crime before they commit it. Think about it in advance, look at the reprecussions, weigh the benefits and the detriments and make the decision.
To combat these criminals, a process known as target hardening and situational prevention. Make it harder to commit the crime, catch 'em in the act, make examples and make punishments harsh enough to scare them off.
But then you get to the other criminals. Socio-behavioral and conflict criminals.
Socio-behavioral criminals are affected by factors just as social pressure, social interaction, social dysfunction, behavior dysfunction and social moral development.
The general concept of preventing socio-behavioral criminals from emerging is to find the flaws in their society and environment and work on them.
A similar concept behind the conflict criminology.
A conflict criminal is suppose to be one who commits "crime" (crime by our definition may be rebellion by theirs) because of situations of oppression, injustice or inequality.
A conflict criminologist would also most likely disagree with the anti-terrorism package proposal set forth as one would believe that this would just increase the injustice, inequality and oppression, at least in the eyes of the "criminal". For them, the real prevention methods would be to set forth to equalize the people and lift any oppression.
Now of course, lets apply this to our own time. Osama bin Laden personally declares Palestine as a reasoning for America being devoid of safety.
My personal opinion is that this won't work, because Osama bin Laden is more a conflict criminal, or a socio-behavioral criminal, then anything. So are most of these terrorists. Whether we agree with it or not, the guns and tanks and other support we give to Israel is being used to occupy Palestine and expand Israeli land. Palestenian people are being killed by our bullets. Palestenian kids are standing in front of our tanks and throwing rocks (as a kid of 16 years old, I find it a bit crazy and a bit admirable for a kid of my age to throw rocks at a tank coming torwards them. It requires either alot of balls or so much anger as an injustice that you simply don't care).
So even if these changes to American privacy go through, how much good can they do before they're just being used against American people? Not only will the terrorists find other ways, but when someone is willing to give their lives to do something, it's very hard to stop them.
Perhaps we should look torwards our foreign policy before we jump the gun and "declare war". The relatives and friends of the innocent "callataral" people who may get harmed by our bombings are potential terrorists, and so are the relatives and friends of the terorrists we imprison. Punishment is necessary, I agree, but so is prevention.
Wrong. I watched the entire amendment debate last night on CSPAN. I saw the lack of logic. I saw people openly admit that this bill was un-constitutional (I swear). They are trying to trash the forth. They really don't care.
Feingold was very well spoken. He was very direct. No one gave a single valid objection to any of his amendments. They simply tabled them. Something wierd is going down. There is more to this than just a knee-jerk reaction to the bombings. And for once, Slashdot is not being inflammatory.
I hate resoning by example (people always choose extreme ones either way), but Feingold reasoned that this bill would allow the Feds to wiretap you w/o a warrant if you use the Library's or a work computer in a way other then directed. In other words using your work computer to look at monster.com causes you to fall under the definition of a terrorist and thus you give up all forth amendment protections when dealing w/ and work computer indefinetly. This is not good. The senators understood this example. They did not disagree with it. They went ahead and tabled the amendments anyway. The fix was in. I don't know why but the whole attitude on the floor was wierd. ( I watch alot of CSPAN, things were out of place )
It is important to note that, at the time of the Constitution, the legal fiction of the "corporation" was a completely different animal than we see today. The first known European corporations were founded in the 17th century, and had both the power to form lasting trade arrangements as well as make war on behalf of their respective countries against their competitors. U.S. Corporations were tightly controlled entities, with their principal shareholders held personally responsible for the conduct of the corporation. Corporate charters were regularly revoked by state judiciaries against monopoly or abusive corporations.
In 1886, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that corporations are "real persons". This idea, combined with the 14th amendment's declaration that all "persons" are entitled to equal rights under the constitution, did away with that delicate balance upon which the founding fathers depended. A Corporation, previously an entity subservient to the people who controlled it, now existed in its own right to use its assets in whatever amoral way it would.
This is a case where the judiciary has made an overreaching determination, and by so doing created, by judicial fiat, binding legislation on the rest of us. There is no check nor balance against judicial legislation. We have simply relied on the integrity of the judges in that institution to support sanity and right-thinking. In this case, that long-dead judiciary could never have foreseen the horror they created.
However, there is a straightforward solution to modern-day corporatism. Revoke that expectation that corporations are "real persons". Again make the principals of a corporation criminally responsible for the conduct of their organization. Bring the power of the corporation back to the hands of the *people*! We can prevent this vacuous kowtowing to the siren's song of profit, which preys upon the greed of both our elected officials and corporate shareholders, and we can reign in this horrifying beast we have created.
Revoke the judicial legislation of 1886, and we can win. Otherwise, a corporation remains a "person" of obscene wealth and privilege, against whom no normal person can compete.
But right now, there exists no way to do this within U.S. law. The only entity which can reverse the decision of the Supreme Court *is* the Supreme Court. Figure out how we can change that, and you've figured out an important piece of the puzzle of how to reign in global corporatism...
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
Moderators, please recognize that what Archfeld said, in the parent post, is true.
Archfeld says, "in the middle east for ONE purpose ONLY, oil as we all know it..."
"REALITY says people do not just become SUICIDE bombers for NO REASON."
and
"IF our government had not systematically SCREWED everyone they've ever dealt with in the Middle East maybe things would be different."
This is a quote from the official testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives of Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca, on February 12, 1998. He said, in part, "CentGas cannot begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place."
For a link to this document on the House of Representatives government web site, and a document about the pipeline route, search on the word Unocal in: What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were