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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
--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.
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.
Well, I can see both sides. First-world cultures have progressed from the naive Victorian view that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail" (from before WWI up through the Chamberlin appeasement of Germany's "National Socialism" between the two big wars) through the hard-headed pragmatism of some very perilous Cold War times, up to the present (which has turned out not to be such a kindler and gentler era as we might once have thought and wished). But then again, there is also The Constitution of the United States, which is our blueprint for Liberty which is not to be lightly ignored and cannot be run over roughshod. If anyone tries it... we do have an armed citizenry.
Oregon has refused to cooperate with the FBI seeking "voluntary" interviews with visa holders from Middle Eastern countries. (I am from Oregon, by the way, and The Oregonian printed my Letter To The Editor when I was 17 supporting our Senator Wayne Morse when he voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that unleashed (Vice) President Johnson's war machine which eventually killed 50,000 of my contemporaries in my generation's unjust war.) I would hope that the authorities in Oregon grow some balls and insist on being present at such "voluntary" interviews, just to make sure that innocent kids from places east of Gibraltar are not rounded up wholesale for political opinions and not contacts, actions, or evidence. The first duty of every citizen is to maintain a healthy skepticism about the motives of governmental minions, at all levels.
But where should the line be drawn with regard to government snooping? This is not an easy question to answer but some guidance is to be found in the Constitution and in the Common Law heritage that provides the foundations for all of our Courts. These include "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause" as well as the citizen Grand Jury.
To the extent the time-honored standards of our justice system might be abridged by the current administration's "emergency" powers extracted from legislators too afraid of being seen as "soft on terrorism" - they are illegitimate and will not stand. We have a (mostly) independent judiciary. They'll sort it out in due time. If not, then revolution.
Jefferson was right: the power to govern is based only upon the consent of the governed, and the power elites in the beltway had better not forget this political fact. And it was Lincoln (a Republican) who said that this "...Government Of the People, By the People, and For the People, Shall Not Perish From The Earth." He was right too, surely.
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
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.
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?