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Wired interview with Steinhardt
mlknowle writes "Wired has just posted a great interview with former EFF president and ACLU associate director Barry Steinhardt. In the interview, Steinhardt expresses concern that next year will be an even worse year for civil liberties. He does offer tips on what to do to help, however."
Donate money to the EFF. For your Bday, ask that people donate money in your name.
Bringing irony to the Slash-masses
Although there is no universally accepted definition of cyberstalking, the term is used in this report to refer to the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person. Stalking generally involves harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person's home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person's property. Most stalking laws require that the perpetrator make a credible threat of violence against the victim; others include threats against the victim's immediate family; and still others require only that the alleged stalker's course of conduct constitute an implied threat.
...unfortunately no one follows up. Really, how many Slashdot articles are posted here, and each time everyone says the same thing- "WRITE, fax, call you members, donate money, get other people involved, etc."?
And how many times do people follow through on this? We certainly have the power of numbers. If people would just practice what they preach, even in small amounts, we'd likely start to see things swing pretty well. The Skylarov rallies and press was good, and similar actions against RIAAssholes, but just one or two per year isn't good enough?
Seriously, how does the NRA do so well? They make sure people know they're still around at least once or twice per month. They flaunt it, without being holier-than-thou about it (most of the time.) And in numbers of greater than 50 at a time. If we can stop being anti-MS, and get to work, God only knows what we can do. The more public you are, the more people will start to see our side and work with us. And of course, the more MS will go after us (kinda like the NRA and anti-gun people..)
I'm not the best at practicing what I preach, but damnit, at least I do something. To those who already do too, great, keep it up. The rest of you who talk had best put some action behind those words, and the people who've stayed silent until now are certainly welcome to help out.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
That was not Offtopic! You know, right now we may be so upset over September 11th that we think we should blindly follow everything our leaders say if it will lead to victory over terrorism, but remember this: if we give up our freedoms to destroy terrorism, the terrorists will have won.
Custer's Revenge: The greatest video
I don't think you can reverse this sort of trend until people start acting like they give a damn -- the various opposition forces have way too much motivation. At best, the ACLU and EFF can only drag their feet while Ashcroft and the MPAA and Disney work to strip us of our rights.
You figure out how to make people give a damn, you let me know. The fact is that people are ignoring even the really outragous stuff, say, secret trials, indefinate detentions, eternal copyrights, limits to free expression, etc. Mindshare, I suppose -- that's what really, really matters.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Anything that he says is bad...is good.
The ACLU will fight to keep porn in and any concept of God out of any part of our society.
Sure they will fight for free speech for all, except those who disagree with the liberal ideology in which case they are obviously racist right wing fundamentalist anti-choice homophobes!
So if he thinks it will be bad next year then I say it will be a banner year for the rest of us normal folks.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Most of the topics he discusses have been covered in depth and ad nauseum here. Write your representatives to express your well-informed dissent, and encrypt everything to express your liberty.
Here's a patriotic article about the topic to counter this drivel. It was originally at the onion but it doesn't appear to be archived there.
Note for the sarcastically challenged: read the link.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
I'm talking with very little knowledge here, but I've got a gut feeling. As the situation for free speech and other civil liberties gets worse in the United States, it seems there's a counter-force occuring in other western countries.
I believe (and indeed hope), that these people in Europe and elsewhere are understanding the situation in States and the things that lead to it. And thus make the necessary initiatives which guarantee that things will not go wrong in their own countries also. Sometimes we learn from good example, sometimes from bad example.
Therefore, I believe the situation globally isn't worsening, but instead holds in a sort of status quo.
Hopefully, after this situation is over, the politicians in the States will feel both the internal and external pressure to bring things back to a more international standard level.
__
Zarathustra.fi
Modern man has no goal, no aim, no ideals.
Just after 9-11, when the Patriot Act bill sailed through congress despite glaring problems, I wrote a letter to Larry Combest, my representitive, detailing what I thought the problems were with the act and my general displeasure with the erosion of civil liberties in the name of war.
Now, the return letter was delayed until just a few days ago simply because congressmen couldn't use DC mail facilities because of the Anthrax scare (My letter was sent before the first anthrax case...), but in the form-letter reply, the congressman claims that he and his comrades are doing their best to balance civil liberties with the rigors of war.
This should tell us a few things:
Our congressmen have had the shit scared out of them. That a form letter directly addresses my complaints about the erosion of civil liberties means that I am one of many who has written in complaint. I live in a *very* conservative part of the country and Combest is a very typical representative of the luddite mindset around here. If he is admitting there is a problem, then you can bet that *every* congressman knows there is a problem wether he will admit it or not. They know that the people are upset and are making noise, and are in the process of trying to quiet that noise.
There is already massive distrust in Washington for George Bush and John Aschroft-- at least toward their war-time policies. If people who are concerned about their rights being taken away continue to hound their congressmen about it, the problems do have a good chance of being addressed rather than being ignored.
Remember that a lot of your congressmen are simply scared, afraid to go against the flow because of the reprecussions. If you show them (with massive amounts of mail) that you want positive change rather than negative change, it might strengthen their spirits a little.
The best part of this is that most congresspeople now prefer email to snail mail because there is no chance of contracting anthrax from Outlook. Of course they could always get Nimda, but I'll give my congressman the benifit of the doubt and assume he patches.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
There was an article a few days ago on
I'd like to see the FBI come up with something (short of TEMPEST) to 'log' that.
> Yes, yes, yes, I agree that the government is
> doing all those "bad" things -- but for heavens
> sake, HOW ELSE can the government bring to
> justice those who commit crimes in the worse
> imaginable form?
The problem here is not the fact that they're being detained. It's that they're being detained *without counsel* and *in secret*; also, many of these detainees are being selected for being Arab foreigners, not for any crime they may have committed.
We give our criminals the right to an attorney, as well as a trial. Hell, convicted felons have been set free when that right is violated. We should give these detainees the same rights.
desperance.net - ride the walrus.
I would argue that our 2nd amendment rights have been violated and destroyed more than any other civil liberties, with waiting periods, background checks, and other nutty gun control laws.
Shouldn't the ACLU be doing something about this, and not leave just the NRA to defend us?
I can't belive that people will post complaining about the ACLU becase of who it has represented ... guess what - freedom needs to apply to everyone - even people you don't like (otherwise we wouldn't really need it...)
"BTW: many of those detained are here 'illegally' -- why is it considered injustice to hold them if they broke the law of the land?!!!"
What of those who were here legally who were detained simply because they were of Arab lineage? Have we not learned from the mistakes made when hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans were detained in WWII?
Surely we should have detained more angry white men after Oklahoma City.
Hitler kept his money in American banks owned by GWB-666's grandfather, Prescott.
Or is this it
"Stuff we steal from Wired"
:-)
Actually, it might not be all that useful, since it would include 50% of the all the stuff on Slashdot anyway
I will NOT donate money to organizations supporting spam and spamming as "free speech". EFF and ACLU are two such organizations.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
has already worsened. The parliament enacted laws that allow police forces to arrest any person that may be related to terrorist activities without any legal mandate.
Three of my friends have already been arrested. One of them was caught with a bag full of flour and was accused of possessing Anthrax powder. He has been in jail since the beginning of december and I don't know when he will be released.
Both of the others were arrested because they wanted to organize a gathering in front of the Israel Embassie to protest against attacks in Palestine. Unfortunately, it seems that some people misunderstood them and they were accused of "Wanting to organize a riot". They have been in jail for 2 weeks and I don't know when I will hear from them.
So, situation in Canada is now dangerously worsening and I think that we must wake (In USA and Canada) and protest against this step toward dictatorship.
On one hand, American cultural mores dictate at least an appearance of privacy and security in one's person and one's papers. In many ways, Americans define themselves by the degree of privacy that they have been able to acquire.
On the other hand, we expect our government to protect us from attack and wrongful injury. We expect it to be proactive in discovering and analyzing any threats to its citizens, and become irate when it is unable to predict such a threat, even when such a prediction would have required violations of privacy.
On the gripping hand, though, analyses that would bear useful results in most times might not do so now. We are in the cusp of a sea change from a peacetime to a wartime footing. We look at war-based policy changes through a peace-shaped perspective.
There are a couple of old definitions that come to mind:
- Conservative: A liberal who has been mugged.
- Liberal: A conservative who has been arrested.
How would we now define a Post-9/11 American? How will our existing knowledge that we can be die anytime, anywhere—coupled with the new awareness that a small but significant fraction of the world's population is willing (and increasingly able) to do make that happen—affect our perception of civil rights issues? I would predict that a shift of equilibrium is occurring, and it'll take another couple of years before the new balance point is reached. It will be interesting then to look back on Your Rights Online posts from this period and see how drastically our own positions have been altered by time and events.Of course, some believe that the government sees the situation as simply an opportunity to curb civil rights (some even think they orchestrated the whole thing). Personally, I think most people just want as much information as they can get, that can possibly let them achieve their goals more effectively. That goes for everyone from DIRNSA to my network administrator. Heck, even the Slashdot editors can read the IP's of anonymous posters.
My theory is this:
- Privacy will continue to erode.
- The more we grouse about privacy, the more secretive the 'eroders' will be.
- The best we can hope for is a future where monitoring is directly observable, so surveillance will come at some cost to the perpetrator.
This must be a hot topic, as it's the second time today that I've commented on it, and I don't have that much free time today.The congresswoman I wrote to was Deborah Pryce, a Republican from the 15th district of Ohio. It's just to the west of Columbus, Ohio (I live in the suburbs). She's a very nice lady, and really does a remarkable job in my opinion. She's also the highest-ranking Republican woman in the House currently, too. I'm not sure that gives her a huge amount of power... but she does seem to carry more weight than some of the other congresspersons.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
The socks will keep you warm in the patriot labor camps.
Remember though, 'it's for the children'(TM) so that makes the years of working in sub zero temperatures for a thought crime worth it.
they don't.
Both organizations are on the side of the consumer in this respect.
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
Flamebait? Flamebait?! How can it be flamebait when its TRUE!
You _do_ know that the KKK is made up entirely of christian conservatives, right?
I mean, afterall, you really don't see very many zen liberals at the rallies, y'know.
(Gay scoutmasters in the boy scouts being one of them).
Errr, what will having a Gay Scoutmaster do? Are you afraid that the Gay Man will Molest the children? Sorry, most pediphiles are heterosexual.
Are you afraid of having a strong role gay role type will make children gay? Sorry, this doesn't happen either. People are born sexually attracted to either men and/or women, and environment has absolutely no effect on this.
In fact, I understand that there are gay people that come out of 100% christian, conservative households that have never even met an openly gay person their whole lives.
It's people like you that promote the strange things in our society. An example of this is that it is wrong for two people to have a passionate kiss on TV, but it is quite alright to kill 100 people in horrible discusting ways in the same tv show. Love is wrong, but hate is quite acceptable.
In fact, you probably wouldn't have felt all that bad if someone had beaten that gay scoutmaster to death, after all, he was asking for it by just being gay.
For the record, I'm not even a little bit attracted to guys. It's all females for me, especially the ones that let me tie them up and flog them. But I have some gay friends and it discusts me to see how much hatred they have to get from people like you every day.
In order for the US to be at war, it takes an act of congress. That act never occurred, and President Bush is violating the law by waging war on a foreign country without such an act.
This is an impeachable offense. Killing hundreds of innocent women and children is a lot worse than getting your knob polished by an intern. So, where is the outrage?
Wow, this hits the nail right on the head.
A war on terrorism will never end. So very true.
As someone who has occassionally carried an ACLU card, my reaction to this sort of fluff is to continue to put off rejoining. Vacuous political correctness has become confused with the defense of true liberty. True liberty means that the KKK can march in Indiana, but also means that the police should pay special attention to white guys wearing sheets after there's been a church burning or lynching. True liberty means professors are welcome to make silly "We must understand why they hate us" speaches, but it also means the feds should pay special attention to Muslim males of extremist persuasion - especially those on overstayed visas - after the WTC.
All the fund raising mailings I've received from the ACLU in the last five years are cliched and without the sort of substance whose bedrock is documented events. If our liberties are at threat - and I'm quite ready to believe they are - this is not the way to present an effective defense. Rather than preach to the converted, civil liberties leaders need to convert those who believe they believe in liberty, but don't see the contradiction in support our current leaders, who mention 'defense of freedom' in every other breath.
That's hard work, but it's real work. By contrast, this jerk, in this interview, is just playing a part from central casting. A fun job if you can get it, but I'm not about to pay him for this sorry performance through donation, time, or even lip service.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I cannot support people who believe that giving money to political campaigns is free speech, yet giving money to Usama Bin Ladin is terrorism! Vote Libertarian, because the best thing you can do to stop DC from taking away our civil liberties is to stop them from getting into DC all together. Repubs/Dems both want the same thing, they just take a different approach.
While I agree that it is vitial that people contact their representatives with their concerns and support organizations like the ACLU and the EFF, another thing you can do to defy mass survailance efforts like Carnivore is to use encryption whenever possible online. I'm sure there are other /.ers out there who know a lot more about the subject (please speak up!), but I wanted to add what information I can for those who might not already know. Here are a few suggestions of ways I know to use encryption:
You can encrypt your email communications with others who are also willing to get the right tools. Probably the easies tool is PGP (there's also an international page), or for the free software crowd GPG. PGP makes this pretty easy to use under windows with almost any program with its encrypt clipboard contents feature, but there are also plugins for verious email programs.
Most people probably know about it, but there's ssh, openssh, and if you're using Windows check out Tera Term and its ssh extension.
My appologies to the *nix crowd, but I don't yet know much about instant messaging on those platforms (soon); however, if you use windows I have seen several instant messaging clients that support encrypted chatting. I suggest Trillian, which is awsome anyway, free, and has encryption features. As far as *nix goes, I'd check out the big ones (e.g. Jabber) and if it isn't in there by default, look for plugins.
This certainly doesn't solve all the problems. The biggest is web browsing. You can use anonymous web browsing tools such as Anonymizer, but that is admittedly kind of a pain. I don't have any good suggestions there. I'd be interested in any other ways others have found to incorperate encryption into their online communications.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Man, some moderators just are idiots. Mod the parent back up someone.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The ACLU will fight to keep porn in and any concept of God out of any part of our society.
His use of porn and God in this context imply that he believes porn is bad (or at least not worthy of defending) and God is good (and therefore deserving of being part of society). He neglects to mention that the ACLU doesn't actually try to keep God out of every part of our society. They just try to keep God out of our government and public institutions, as that is not the proper place for the Christian (or any other) God.
Sure they will fight for free speech for all, except those who disagree with the liberal ideology in which case they are obviously racist right wing fundamentalist anti-choice homophobes!
This happens to just be an outright lie. The ACLU does defend "racist right wing fundamentalist anti-choice homophobes." See their defense of the KKK.
So if he thinks it will be bad next year then I say it will be a banner year for the rest of us normal folks.
By this he is saying that he against what the ACLU stands for, and implies that those who agree with the ACLU are not "normal folks."
Thank you for your time, idiot.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The US never accepted the Taleban as the official government of Afghanistan. Attacking them is thus not a war. It's more like an operation against criminals in foreign territory, with the approval of the government (the Northern Alliance in this case).
Personally I would rather have that you would get upset about the stranglehold the US is placing on the International Court of Justice. In this way you abandon every man locked up for political reasons, every woman being raped and tortured and every victim of genocide. Why? Because American soldiers may be tried. Americans that commit crimes against humanity could be tried the same as every other criminal. Isn't that bad?
Well, sorry for the rant. But it's pretty undemocratic when one country tries to force it's will on the many countries who do support the ICJ (by taking on laws that allow the US to 'liberate' people that are charged with crimes and disallowing aid to countries who support the ICJ). How upset would you be if one man-one vote would be abandoned and wealthy companies could buy political support (a similar form of using 'force' to achieve your goals). Ehhh, nevermind.
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
yet now you have relegated yourself to the same status quo mongering hypocrites that once where your enemies. Down with individuality and free choice, up with political corectness and all its associated restrictions on freedom and liberties.
They are being detained to determine if they are foriegn national infiltrators sent to kill people in the US. Of course they are Arab, the planes weren't hijacked by the Japanese terrorist groups. The attacks weren't planned by the Russian mafia. It was the work of Arabs.
And I have said it before. There are probably some of the Arab foreigners who simply disappeared. Not that they escaped and are in hiding. The FBI was tracking many of the hijackers beforehand. I'm sure others were picked up immediately after the attacks, and were questioned intensely. And I mean tortured, not just slapped around. When they finally spilled everything they knew, they were killed and disposed of. The phrases *without counsel* and *in secret* have no meaning in this case. Not that I am a conspiracy theory buff, but who would believe otherwise.
IMHO,The most important change in the last months has not been summary detentions based on ethnicity,but the establishment of Secret Military Tribunals to try Foreign nationals without a right to appeal,to examine evidence against them,the right to counsel .
From a moral viewpoint,its nauseating,while the Taliban were a bunch of fundies,to expect any sort of Human behaviour from them is a fantasy, the premier democracy in the world,founded on the principal of individual rights and human dignity has taken this very very retrograde step.I mean if they are going to put a bullet in someone's brains what distinguishes them from the taliban & company????
From a practical point of view,remember what can be misused will be,after all Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Wanted : A Signature.
Each year, there are numerous cases where the ACLU sides with intolerant bigots in censorship cases where the censorship involves "religious" expression.
The ACLU is a strong fighter for racial discrimination. The most famous example was the California civil rights act. The ACLU fought against civil rights, arguing that it was OK to punish people for their skin color as long as it was to promote "diversity". Here, they side with the left-wing party line, even if it means denying civil rights/civil liberties.
I'd never give money to an organization that is racist and supports censorship in any form, even if they do do great things some of the time.
And those choices are narrowing especially in the face of being called Anti-American for daring to use my Constitutional Rights of Dissent and Free Speech
That is exactly the problem. The rights of dissent and political speech are the cornerstone of our Constitution, what our citizens of old regarded as one of the defining characteristics of being American. And now in the face of this new "war", these rights are silenced by the doublethink that exercising them is anti-American. I say (and I know well that I'm preaching to the choir) the reverse is true; suppressing such speech is anti-American. Freely espousing such views is the pinnacle of what it is to be American, so if someone should ever attempt to shame you by stating that your contrary views are anti-American, then i would go so far to state that they are the ones who are truly anti-American, and those who are critical of our government at every step are the true patriots. Sorry for that rant. I'll get off my soapbox now.
I do not oppose the ACLU because it sometimes defends the freedoms and rights of the "indefensible". I oppose it because it sometimes fights to take away people's rights (as in the "religion" cases where it sides with the censors, and the ACLU support of quotes and preferences designed to punish people for having the wrong skin color).
Is our Constitution so flawed, and our Bill of Rights so wrongheaded, that we cannot convict the guilty unless we throw out the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
I'm presently meta-modd'ing down the "troll" label -- that post was insightful if anything.