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DOJ Already Monitoring Cable Internet Traffic
According to this Wired News article, the Justice Department is already using its new powers under the USA Patriot Act to obtain subscribers' identities and other information from cable operators without judicial oversight under Section 211 of the new legislation. Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff also says that the act has allowed police to obtain IP addresses of cable subscribers and has enabled DOJ to obtain court orders for ISP logs outside a court's traditional jurisdiction. The Senate Judiciary Committee has convened hearings to review the impact of the Bush administration's actions on civil liberties, but A.G. Ashcroft is not scheduled to appear until December 6. One wonders what effect the upcoming cable failure will have on government surveilance of the potentially criminal citizenry.
The important, and difficult, job is to fight the temptation to give up, and keep on fighting for our rights.
Nurse! More coffee!
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
The silly, and scary, thing about this, is that the worlds population would kick up seven shades of shit if the authorities said "we're opening ALL your post before you receive it AND after you send it, and shove your rights right up your ass" - which is precisely what is happening with our internet data - they are basically opening the envelope and inspecting every packet.
The "powers that be" are meant to be working FOR us are they not? Not being paranoid ABOUT us? Oh sorry, I thought the UK (R.I.P. Bill) and the US (Whatever you lot have got) were "democracies". Seems like the definition of democracy has changed to "you can do whatever you like so long as we know what it is and that it's not harmfull to the "government"...
:(
--jrd
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Better buy your accelerator cards, before they become illegal.
The sea of red white and blue made me nervous from the start.
It's a problem of scale. In Europe, you get bombs in supermarkets or subway stations, car bombs near the roadside, some minor politicians shot or stabbed, but nothing really serious.
Glad to see you think an attempt to blow up the Canary Wharf tower was not really serious. I also bet all those who have lost loved ones as a result of terrorism in Europe are happy that their loss is nothing serious.
In Europe, most acts of terrorism have a death toll of 1 or 2 per incident, and maybe 10 wounded. In the US, you get 4000 deaths plus a very high-profile landmark destroyed. Not really the same scale.
In Europe we have had 30 years and many many terrorist attacks, including the deaths of public figures. In the US you get one attack. Not really the same scale. Can you see the fault in the logic?
The US, confronted with some of its first terrorist attacks imediatly goes into panic, ignoring the spirit of its consitution.
No, the White House went into a panic, not the entire country. I'm not usually prone to paranoia, but I've begun thinking the massive crackdown on civil liberties is being done intentionally in order to goad Democrats into responding. At which point the Republican party will start screeching about how the Democrats are soft on terrorism and don't care about the security of your children etc. The Republicans really were hurt by the shift rightward of the nation, with Democrats moving to the center and getting a lot of voters who they'd missed out on the previous few elections.
If his goal was to destroy the American way of life, there is no doubt he has succeeded. Alas, our conduct in defending this nation has had the effect of making a nation less worthy of defending.
It would be more tolerable if these acts truly were focused in a good faith effort to stop terrorism. They are not -- just a naked broadening of executive and investigatory power, cynically and wrongfully executed simply because the "time was right." The selfishness of corporate "citizens" with their hands out for "patriotic" retroactive tax breaks only adds to the cynicism.
This is just selfishness wrapped up in a flag. It sucks.
Calm down everyone.
A couple of points:
1. There had to be legislation that dealt with government eavesdropping and the Internet sometime in history regardless of September 11 or not. The ACLU and others will press court cases that arise from abuses from these laws and some of these new powers will be curtailed. It's evolution, it's growing pains. It's law meets new technology and no one gets it perfect the first time around. A lot of people here laugh at the less technophilic portions of our society, the luddites who look at every new innovation with suspicion and distrust. Hey- guess what y'all sound like when it comes to this legislation? Legal luddites, to coin a phrase.
2. The police need to wire tap phones, they need to bounce lasers off glass windows, they need to spy on portions of society to protect us from the bad guys, ok? Yes Virginia, there are bad guys out there and you need some of this legislation to deal with them. That is a perfectly valid impulse. This is not Freemasons in smokey rooms plotting the destruction of your constitutional freedoms just for the fun of it. This is just good people trying to do some good from a bad situation. Imagine that! Of course there will be abuses- haven't there always been!? Have some simple faith please in the maturity of our society: the abuses will be curtailed. There are many ways it can be done. Maybe a future Rodney King of the Internet incident will happen and someone with the net traffic version of a camcorder will capture it all and cause an uproar. Or- brace yourself, a good judge on a bench somewhere will smack down the spooks who get out of line. Or, get this: has anyone here ever heard of the free press? Inconceivable! We're all going to hell in a handbasket... yeah right, give me a break.
3. We are in a very emotional time right now. We are all human, we overreact when someone jumps out from behind a tree at us. We are in knee-jerk reaction territory right now as a society: a nation at peace just had the equivalent of 3 ICBMs launched at it successfully, killing thousands of its citizens and destroying a major landmark, compliments of a bunch of religious fundamentalist lunatics. You can forgive a little backlash. It's been less than 3 months since September 11. Take a deep breath, wait a year, have the press run a few exposes on some rights abuses, and watch how the tide of popular opinion runs then. Forgive the tide of popular opinion at this particular point in time for running into the scary nether regions it seems to be running. Let everyone calm down and contemplate reality with a little distance between themselves and September 11, whenever that may be.
4. This a tempest in a teapot. Think about how much hot air will be wasted over these kinds of net tapping efforts when no one has really stopped to think about what kind of people we are really dealing with. Remember Star Wars of the Reagan era? Remember the missile defense shield of recent history? Billions of dollars spent on orbiting gigawatt lasers, and what the heck did that do? Less than 2 dozen guys board planes with box cutters fer chrissake and a few hours flight training. A lot of good all that tech did, or will do, if these guys ever get their hands on one of those 50 or so nuclear suitcases the Russians seem to have misplaced. And a lot of good all these Echelons and Magic Lanterns will do against the kind of enemy we are dealing with. Do you really wants to fight the Feds on their new net snooping initiatives? Forget about talking about fundamental rights- talk efficacy, talk utility, talk results- the Feds ain't gonna get any hanging around on the net. Tell them to go hang around the box cutter aisle at Home Depot instead if they want to catch terrorists- that is as high tech as the enemy seems to get.
6. And finally, forgive me for spreading some of my own FUD at this moment about nuclear suitcases and such, but there you go: I think that's where the FUD properly belongs. Think about it. These guys really hate us. They want to kill us. All of us. Why are you worried about your government? So blow hours of your life fretting over what your government is doing photographing you when you run a red light on your way to 7-11 at 3 am to buy some Cheetos... Go ahead, drive yourself crazy about the government knowing who everyone is on your AOL buddy list. Is that the real problem? These fruitcakes want to put ricin in your watersupply and smallpox in your local McDonalds. So go ahead, wail and bemoan that the feds can see your pr0n downloads... the terrorists could care less about the Internet and Microsoft versus Linux and the RIAA and your damn TiVo viewing records... the terrorists are over at the local dam, planting dynamite. Sure, this is FUD, but post-September 11, it is rather convincing FUD!
This post about cable Internet traffic tapping has very, very little to do with cyberspace, really... as I said before, if you really want to make a good point about trampling on our electronic rights to the Feds, tell them that they are just wasting their time looking for terrorists in cyberspace. Tell them to go hang out at the reservoir.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why the previous post is marked "Insightful" - I have no idea.
For starters: the secret tribunals where pres. Bush will pick who's on trial and who's not is similar to every 3rd world dictatorship out there, yet I have to see 1 single message from mainstream USA newsstations critizising this IMHO shocking development. Thankfully the EU isn't co-operating with Bush on this: f.e. spain is not handing over al-quaida suspects
We've been hearing about this "tribunal" issue on CNN/Fox/etc all week long. I won't be so naive as to say that the media is not covering this issue from a patriotic point of view - however, when I hear the EU is against the death penalty for these criminals, it makes me want to puke. Maybe Europeans see this as just another terrorist act, but in the US, they've seriously pissed americans off with this. We don't need propaganda from the media to keep up support. I was at the World Trade Center towers on September 9th, marvelling at how tall they were, people taking pictures, having to lay down on the ground to get a good enough angle to fit them in 1 image. In the end, the buildings don't really matter of course, it's the 4,000+ people that died that day. So when the Europeans cry about the death penalty for these bastards, just think about the thousands of children who no longer have parents because of these criminals and the potential for this to happen again. That's the only "propaganda" I need.
I thought that it was China who was meant to be improving its human rights record based on examples from the USA, not the other way around. Or am I missing something here?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Arrrgh. First off: I'm Canadian, and have a different perpective on this whole mess. Canada just passed our own version of this nightmare legislation, albeit with a little more dissent from the opposition parties. Hopefully something will be done after the next election. I doubt it. That said, there are a number of problems with your logic and I need to raise a few points:
A lot of people here laugh at the less technophilic portions of our society, the luddites who look at every new innovation with suspicion and distrust. Hey- guess what y'all sound like when it comes to this legislation? Legal luddites, to coin a phrase.
The problem is that the people passing these laws either don't understand what they're doing, or they understand FULL WELL what they're doing. Any way you cut it, a citizen's right to privacy has been greatly reduced. Download hard encryption tools while you still can. Not that it matters much, since you can now be arrested, detained, given a "trial" and the keys likely beaten out of you without a soul ever knowing. Freedom of speech and a right to privacy mean that yes, even the bad guys (tm) get those rights as citizens of the country. If you're not a citzen, of course, all bets are off. Letting the government decide who is a bad guy (tm) without oversight is a very dangerous thing from a historical perspective. I wonder if this is where a lack of knowledge about history in the general populace shows itself.
orgive the tide of popular opinion at this particular point in time for running into the scary nether regions it seems to be running. Let everyone calm down and contemplate reality with a little distance between themselves and September 11, whenever that may be.
You calm down BEFORE you act, not after. History also shows us that once given extraordinary powers, they will almost never be willingly given up. Action is required, but there has not been enough (or, depending on how you look at it, ANY) debate on the topic. Think about what makes the western world different than China or the prior communist Soviet Union. Freedom of expression. A expectation of privacy. A justice system that is open to public inspection and review. Tribunals? What?
Billions of dollars spent on orbiting gigawatt lasers, and what the heck did that do? Less than 2 dozen guys board planes with box cutters fer chrissake and a few hours flight training. A lot of good all that tech did, or will do, if these guys ever get their hands on one of those 50 or so nuclear suitcases the Russians seem to have misplaced.
This one really drives me insane. It should illustrate to you the futility of trading away freedom of expression and privacy, along with due process, for some ILLUSION of safety. Now, all the lunatics would have to do is hijack a plane and the US government will blow it out of the sky for them. Do you think that massive wiretapping, secret-police style arrests, and disinformation will change anything? I have news for you, buddy. Engineering schools are open, and we are VERY LUCKY in North America that these people were not more educated and fanatical than they were. Anyone with rudimentary intelligence could cause widespread disruption of electrical, water, and communications systems and there isn't a DAMN THING anyone could do about it.
Some other clues, for the clueless - The government cannot completely control people in prison. Do you think granting them power to track "subversives" is going to help?
What does make sense is EDUCATING the public. Let them know their freedom is not without responsibility. Show them how to take down a hijacker. Have them watch water resvoirs and electrical substations. Have people get involved with their neighbours. Encourage open debate! This is what makes north america great. Weakening the freedoms we have paid a bloody price for does nobody any good. (hint: a hell of a lot more people died in WW2 than did in NYC).
And finally, forgive me for spreading some of my own FUD at this moment about nuclear suitcases and such, but there you go: I think that's where the FUD properly belongs. Think about it. These guys really hate us. They want to kill us. All of us. Why are you worried about your government?
Nobody will play the nuclear card. Any nation who deployed a nuclear weapon on US soil would be nuked off the face of the earth. I would be far more worried about biological attacks on the water supply. There is a price that comes with freedom, my friend. It is called responsibility. Nothing a government will do can eliminate terrorism. Granting obscene powers is not the way to go about this. Government already had exessive power before 9/11. Ceeding freedom and responsibility to the government will not help; In a way, we have given up what infuriates the fanatics the most: Our freedom to express and do what we want, how we want, when we want, so long as no one is harmed.
This post about cable Internet traffic tapping has very, very little to do with cyberspace, really... as I said before, if you really want to make a good point about trampling on our electronic rights to the Feds, tell them that they are just wasting their time looking for terrorists in cyberspace.
The government is full aware of that. Look at their definition of terrorist, if you were provided with one, that is. Funny how newspeak works like that, eh? Would someone working against the FTAA be a terrorist? Would someone who was seeking to change the political system? What about someone who held fundamentally communist or marxist views? What about the author of this post?
What's really sad is I don't feel comfortable posting this under my nick. That makes me worry. Alot.
Of course Hillary--it's another VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY!!!
You are being paranoid. Our elected officials, after their (everyone's) initial reaction to 9/11, took this as an opportunity to "do something" even though what they did was wrong. (It makes a nice bullet point on the campaign literature.) Only a few (Bob Barr, et al) had the guts to stand up and say, "this is wrong, govt. has enough power as is." And no one had the guts to say, "You live in a free country, and people will occasionally abuse those freedoms. Deal with it."
The crackdown on non-citizens I can deal with....
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I would have to agree entirely on this one. Why is the government really monitoring net traffic anyways? Is it to actually persue criminal activity, or is it just another excuse to try and justify our privacy being invaded. Why doesn't the government spend more time and effort catching the REAL criminals? Not that there isn't any criminals on the net, but I think the government needs to get their priorites straight.
Monitor my usage all you want, the simple fact is you are wasting valuable time that you could've been spending persueing the criminals on the street.
*waves @ DOJ*
but I've begun thinking the massive crackdown on civil liberties is being done intentionally in order to goad Democrats into responding. At which point the Republican party will start screeching about how the Democrats are soft on terrorism and don't care about the security of your children etc.
Yup it's another vast right wing conspiracy. Just like that time they were accusing that nice Mr. Clinton of lying in a court of law; he would never do such a thing.
This is not a Democrat/Republican issue the entire government is to blame, Democrats included
Let's look at what this prick has done in the last 2 months:
- Sped through the patriot act, which has us on the road to a police state, allowing for secret searches of property and seizure of information, urinating directly on the 4th amendment.
- Trashed our system of justice by authorizing secret trials, using secret evidence, and even allowing secret executinos. The "evidence"will not be avaiable for the accused to refute, with no opportunity for the accused to appeal. In doing so he has invoked the divine right of kings, not even asking for congress's approval.
- Carrying out acts of war without declaring war(declaring war against a tactic doesn't count, war is by definition a conflict between 2 nations, not some open ended crusade). Only congress can declare war(or approve a declaration of war), and so far it has not done so. In addition, he has justified all these invasions of civil liberties by claiming that we are indeed at war.
- Deciding which american citizens will be protected by the constitution, claiming, "you don't deserve protection if you are hiding and committing acts of terror"(Ed note: or are suspected of doing so)
I dunno about you, but this is a hell of a lot more serious than clinton getting his dick sucked by some slut and then lying about it.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
In the US you get one attack.
Um, you're so wrong it's incredible.
Someone brought a bomb into the US Capitol in 1915. Going back to WWII, there were German agents that set a harbor on fire which contained an ammo depot. In 1954, Puerto Rican seperatists opened fire in the House chambers. There was another Capitol bombing in 1971. We had the SLA back in the seventies who robbed banks and planned to place bombs under police cars. There was a rash of skyjackings in the early 70s which lead to the original sky marshal program. There was the Oklahoma City bombing perpetrated by local nutjob Timothy McVeigh. Someone took a machine gun into the Capitol building a couple years ago. Someone tried to fly a light plane into the White House a few years ago but missed and hit the lawn (was that inspiration for the terrorists of 9/11?) Another person opened fire on the White House with an automatic weapon about a couple years ago. We've also had the Unabomber who sent bombs through the mail and the Army of God who like to blow up abortion clinics, and who may be responsible for the Atlanta Olympics bombings.
If you count overseas bombings, there was the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the Khobar Towers in Africa, the African Embassies and the USS Cole.
Political assassinations are as old as history. We've had three presidents assassinated (by my count) and a couple others shot at. Not to mention the civil rights leaders killed during the 60's.
And this is all just off the top of my head. Looks like ignorance isn't just an American phenomenon.
This
I've been reading the Patriot Act and I cannot find a clear definitions of the word "terrorist" which aren't self-referential -- ie: "someone who commits an act of terrorism", and so forth.
Am I reading the section correctly? Because if so, it would seem to me that, without a clear definition, it's open to interpretation at various points along the way from suspicion to arrest and detainment to trial to sentencing...
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Bush and his father share friends, attitudes, money and methods. Bush's father is on record as saying that aetheists should have their citizenship revoked because, by definition, they can't even be patriots.
We have fundamental disagreement about the road we're on. I say that the past year has seen the disappearance of America and the emergence of MERIKA, the new theocratic state, after the coup of the election of 2000.
Nobody here should be trying to calm down.