Slashdot Mirror
Surveillance in Washington DC And At Bookstores
dioscaido writes: "From reuters: 'Washington police are building what will be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.'" Aragorn_2002 writes "I found this new article on Salon.com about how feds are subpoenaing book-purchasing records. Just imaging if they start to use DMCA and the new Anti-terrorist bill to subpoena someone buying books on breaking encryption." If you've ever ordered from Amazon, this might concern you. Update: 02/13 21:30 GMT by M : The full WSJ article is available on MSNBC.
Isn't this a violation of privacy rights?
I don't know what the standards/practices are in the US concerning this, but in Canada, privacy is one of our fundamental rights (not that it is necessarily respected)
The rabid hordes of soccer moms won't stop until everything that MIGHT hurt their kids or be used by the kids to hurt themselves is banned.
The owls are not what they seem
They should team up with Comcast to get some more pointers on how to invade privacy.
Prohibition and the "War on Drugs" have pretty much killed the 4th Amendment for those in their cars and just walking on the street. The "War on Terror" will kill the 4th Amendment protection while you are in your home.
I heard that somewhere in Europe they were putting in cameras all over the place. I Think it was England, in high crime areas. One guy ended up getting busted cause he LOOKED like one of the criminals on camera.
I'm told I look like a lot of poeple. I guess I am just your average 'joe'. This is kinda scary.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Okay, maybe that won't actually happen, but it does make one feel just a bit paranoid knowing that our choice of books might be monitored... perhaps that will disuade some from buying books. What do the book publishers have to say about this, which may reduce their sales?
I read the Salon piece, and I thought about it all.
Well since Amazon and Borders and everyone else is prbly selling records of what you buy to marketers, and if you buy with a credit card or debit card theres a record that can be sold or gotten by a court, is this news?
I'm trying to be paranoid here, but for craps sake, all these records are already tossed out in the public domain. Now the Feds are getting involved, that will last until it makes it to the Supreme Court, and in a more conservative court, this will get slapped down just like the IR survilance of dwellings did last year.
I just can't get upset about it. But then I don't buy my High Times or 2600 or booze related books and mags with plastic. The whole thing about not leaving a record for the Man is to use cash.
Military History, computer books, Car that's all plastic-able, "sensitive" things are for cash.
Well, I guess that's why they released info about a potential terrorist attack - it was to get the ignorant public to think this was a good idea.
[ot] Am I the only one who's read so many dumb and irrelevant Slashdot references to the DMCA that now even appropriate uses seem redundant?
We've had a number of high profile cases where surveillance cameras have been instrumental in solving crimes, and I really don't have a problem with that - in fact, I'm pretty pleased with the results.
Having closed-circuit cameras all over hell is possibly the greatest threat to our (American citizens) freedom I can imagine. At least as bad as tracking what books you check out. Oh wait, they're doing that. (shakes head) How come we're letting the police have so much power over our lives? I don't care about the arguments that say we need these things in order to protect ourselves against terrorists. A few cameras around public monuments, fine, these are crediblly threatened. It sounds like they want to setup a system similar to the ones in Britain. Have you seen how ubiquitious cameras are over there? You can barely fart without it being noticed. Yet people think they're being protected. I say it's tantamount to a dictatorship. 1984, if you will. I certainly hope the midwest never gets this crazy.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
"War is Peace"
"Freedom is Slavery"
"Ignorance is Strength"
Oh brave new world...
-
What if each of us goes to Tattered Cover and orders a book on pot growing (admit it, you want one anyway! :-) - we'll swamp the Feds with thousands of false leads and give the bookstore some cash for legal expenses.
Any fool can criticize... And many do.
Now I have to careful not to pick my nose, when I think nobody is looking.. I might be caught on camera...
You know, between the War on Terrorism and the decades-old War on Drugs, I am deeply concerned about the direction we are going in respect to our civil liberties. There have always been those who fervently believe that increased power for law enforcement officials are necessary to achieve their goals, whether it is abolishing marijuana or killing bin Laden. In the process, though, they tend to propose things that interfere with the freedoms of the general population.
I don't think the curtailing of freedoms is done on purpose, it is just a side-effect. But that hardly makes it any less egregious. I strenuously hope that bin Laden is dead, dead, DEAD and that we can begin to move forward again.
I am beginning to believe that the DEA and the ONDCP should simply be abolished. Leave the war on drugs up to the states; the federal government has NEVER been successful in fighting the drug war, and the means needed to make it successful are unacceptable to those who cherish liberty.
- Rev.J. Ashcroft
United States Attorney General and Executioner at Large
Perhaps it was a mistake to get that subscription to "high times" and buy "terrorism for dummies" thru Amazon...
One of the biggest things the framers of the constitution left out was a check of how far the police can go to enforce the law. Judges don't seem to sufficiently Check the Police power at times. I doubt they intended anyone to monitored 24-7 when they used the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
According to amazon.com readers, at least. "The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories" by Jack B. Nimble got 4 1/2 stars, while "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic & Amphetamine Manufacture" by Uncle Fester got 3 stars.
Now that you have read this post, the highly sensitive combination of those two book names has gone into your computer. This fact has been duly recorded by Carnivore.
Former coworkers. One also tells me that he pities anyone trying to use 802.11b in DC as they are beating the hell out that frequency range with the boosted-output transceivers this gear uses.
Tastes Like Chicken
Don't buy a copy of _Catcher in the Rye_!
IIRC, that's the book from Conspiracy Theory. Apparently, a couple of famous assassins (Lee Harvey, and someone else?) read that book before their assassinations.
Anyway, the same thing happened in the movie (FBI checking out who buys certain books). Freaky.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
As people were saying in an earlier story last night, everything in moderation.
Say hello to zMac.
I work in a university library, which is where I learned that, in fact, it is illegal for law enforcement to come in and ask questions like, "Who has "the anarchist's cookbook cheked out?" or "Can you tell me what books Mr. Smith has checked out right now?" Those kinds of questions were asked during the McCarthy-era, when FBI, etc. were looking for Communists under every rock, eventually, the courts held up the librarian's right to answer "I'm sorry, I can't tell you that," to those law enforcement officials. I imagine that bookstore will start answering the same way, using that same precedent to back them up.
my pet machine
Unfortunately, privacy is not a right that is explicitly enshrined in the Constitution. It is, however, the basis (on the grounds that it's an implicit right) of Roe v Wade. Which is why I support the "pro-choice" crowd.
Best Slashdot Co
I found this new article on Salon.com about how feds are subpoenaing book-purchasing records.
Actually, the article says the records have not been turned over after more than 2 years because lawyers got involved. According to the article, "Through the years, the protections accorded materials covered by the First Amendment, such as books and newspapers, have evolved to protect the institutions that provide those materials as well."
I think this article is more about how the rights are being successfully upheld rather than taken away.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Alright, I'm not fond of security cameras all over the friggin' place. It's pretty annoying at the post office now when at any given moment you're being monitored on no less than three cameras. It sorta feels like you can't go anywhere without being monitored.
Then again, we all learn to cope. Sure, I've been recorded all over town and guess how many times the police have come to my door? Never. How many times have they investigated me? Never. We all know that the NSA and CIA collect all kinds of information--but the real problem is in interpretation. I may be on a lot of magnetic tape; but my guess is that few (if any) people have actually reviewed that or done anything about it.
People go to DC to see the museums, monuments, etc. They may also go to case out a future terrorist act. That's all fine and legal. When you go into buildings in DC, they already make you go through metal detectors and some even ask for your ID. Yes, that information can be tracked just like everything else. But so long as you're not doing anything that provokes attention, you're fine.
I actually would like to know that if someone places a bomb near the Washington Monument we could review the tapes of past and potentially catch any of the main suspect's helpers. I wouldn't mind a police officer monitoring what's going on in the Navy Square (or whatever it's called) and so when I get mugged and thrown in the fountain there's a police car on it's way to pick up my attacker and help me out. In London, this sort of thing has just become a way of life. People there actually prefer having the cameras.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
I fully expected this day would come. I always pay cash for my 2600 magazine and any other material that is even slightly controversial. It just seems like common sense to me not to use my credit card or my bookstore bonus card when buying Noam Chomsky, Karl Marx, Ayn Rand, or any book or magazine on atheism. (Was it Bush or his daddy that said he doesn't consider atheists to be citizens?)
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/2002/02/13/comc ast.html
"Comcast Corp., the nation's third-largest cable company, has begun recording the Web browsing activities of its 1 million high-speed Internet subscribers without notifying them of the change."
They've been doing this in England for a while. I saw a show about it on TV last year and among other things, it showed the police tracking down a bank robber. A bank clerk noticed that the robber asked them to put the money in a new shopping bag that had just been designed, and that he was wearing a brand new jacket. So they went to the surveillance tapes of the store where the bag came from, and saw the guy buy the jacket, and then saw him going to the bank on some of the outside cameras. They caught him from the credit card receipt used to buy the jacket. I'm glad he was caught, but damn that's really frightening. I sure as hell don't want my whole life on surveillance tapes.
I guess if you have purchased this book, you are now suspect!
-DOH
I always, always, always.... buy my books and electronic equipment with CA$H... Preferably old, beat-up stuff from the gas station.
I cannot believe this stuff even has to be discussed!!!!
wrong. wrong. wrong. wrong. wrong!
I think everybody needs to read 1984 again. This reminds me of a story I heard about. A guy in an apartment building noticed that a recently installed street camera was pointed in his window. So he gets a predator costume and goes outdoors late at nite and acts alien like... about 5 minutes later the cops were on him.
Build a man a fire and you warm him for a day. Set a man on fire and you warm him for the rest of his life.
However, in times of war and for purposes of national security (which are subject to the whim of the president, atty general (hatchet man), or sec'y of defense (axe wielder) various or all rights may be suspended. It's up to citizens to challenge this in court and have it thrown out, but they get away with the dirty deed between the proclamation and suspension thereof.
Freedom indeed has it's price.
Other exciting unconstitutional behaviour, this morning I read that W. has decided to eliminate Saddam. Very nice, particularly since this is in violation of the constitution and harkens back to the bloody 50's and 60's when U.S. administrations toppled governments which didn't suit them without so much as declaring war. I have no love for Hussein, but this wrankles me, particularly because it's public information.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Hum. Guess it might not be all that illeal in the future, eh?
If you really want no one to have records of you, but bank, use cash. Surely they will know when you bought a book, but not who you are and what is going on. Cameras too were proven deterrent of crime many times.
I would be getting weary if they decide to do a database archive of all videos and do indexing on time and location, but sheer size of the data will make it impossible to be used on daily basis by police/feds, thus impractical to implement.
There maybe honey pot experements where they put books into stores on bomb making and how to expunge bush out of his seat, but thats too far of a long shot, I may as well wear tin foil hat!
salut!
nope, you seem to have it a little wrong there. bush wants to be a dictator. the acts he has proposed may seem like something of the sort, but he still has most of the American public supporting him. until that wanes he can do whatever he wants...
Right now they're subpoenaing purchase records regarding a specific customer, how long before they demand a list of customers who have bought a certain book or books from a certain author?
And does anyone really think they're not already doing that?
Paranoia yes, but I'll just keep paying cash thank you
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Why should this worry me? Don't get me wrong, I'm not thrilled, and I do think this is a violation of my privacy. But why should I worry if I've ever purchased books from Amazon? It seems to me I should worry about future freedoms, not what I've done in my past. Why? Because I've done nothing wrong and I have nothing to hide. No, I'm not happy about this. I intend to write letters. But I'm not going to move south of the border to keep myself from being caught for a book I purchased. Yes, let's worry about this. But let's worry for the right reasons.
I live in Washington. The cameras are here to protect us. You must love and obey the cameras.
So, under FOIA the content of the tapes of all these cameras is public property right? That' will be very useful to future in-the-beltway memoirs-writers.
Travis
Well, I'm boned.
I confess to also having read Kafka's The Trial , and as I have no particular desire to go through that, I'm submitting the following "Ask Slashdot" question:
"I read literature. Should I shoot myself or hang myself before they come for me?"
(Yeah, I know I could just order a copy of Final Exit , but I probably wouldn't be able to afford the resulting increase in my health insurance premiums ;-)
The surveillance is bad enough; but, with the current political climate it will probably be hard to stop the implementation. What needs to be pushed for is open access to the surveillance.
Surveillance of itself is not good or evil. But when only the government has access to the surveillance video then a small group of people get to decided on what to keep and what to discard and peoples' motives should always be suspect.
If law enforcement wants surveillance on every street corner then fine let it be. However, the citizens need to DEMAND free access to the surveilance cameras and not just after the costly legal process of a subpoena (i.e. display the images over the web). This technology already exists, the infastructure can be installed right along with the cameras. Then every citizen can see unadulterated the actual events taking place in a location and draw their own conclusions and not have to rely on the molested interpretation of the involved parties.
If law enforcment can surveil the citizens, the citizens should be able to surveil law enforcment.
don't care. They see this as a good thing. I believe it goes along the lines of this:
"Hey, I am doing nothing wrong, and if it helps catch people that are, so much the better."
Well, the problem starts when innocent people are accused of doing something by mistake.
Remember, right now there are (apparently) a lot of people out there that are still scared by Sept 11. So, anything like this will be seen as a good thing. Maybe (and this is a HUGE MAYBE) the government is doing this without the intent to gain power over the average citizen. I seriously doubt it, but it could happen. Either way, the people here that are freaking out over this need to understand one thing: You are a minute majority. Even if everyone on slashdot agreed, how many does that make? 750,000? Peanuts to the government.
The only way to stop this type of legislature is to tell people about it, not bitch on slashdot.
btw, I am totally against this type of behavior, I am disgusted that the government would use this time to gain a lot of ground in their invasion of our privacy.
Sent from your iPad.
Yeah, I wonder who else will be "worried". Here's a quick list off the top of my head. Car Jackers, Drunks, Drug Addicts, Shoplifters, Vagrants, Gang-Bangers and Terrorists.
They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. That's how I like to judge these so-called civil libertarians. They seem to keep company with some strange people. Like the ACLU and the KKK.
When they took the 4th Amendment away
I was quiet because I didn't deal in drugs...
When they took the 6th Amendment away
I was quiet because I had never been arrested...
When they took the 2nd Amendment away
I was quiet because I didn't own a gun...
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment away
and all I can do is be quiet...
I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
I guess it's a good thing I have credit so bad I can't get a credit card... I tend to pay cash for everything, with the added bonus that it's harder to trace.
Except for those metal strips in $20 bills... but I don't go through metal detectors, so I can't be tracked that way.
What're those helecopters doing outside my apartment?
Still got Amazon.com gift certificates you haven't taken advantage of yet? Why, here's an opportunity to protest this invasion of your privacy and even acquire some interesting midnight reading to boot. Choose from among these exciting titles:
Remember to support your local bookstores.
Disclaimer: US government lackeys tend to be humorless, so I'll make it clear now that I've not read any of these books. I love America more than sliced bread itself. Yeah! Nuke their ass! Take their gas! GOD BLESS AMERICA! Wooo!
To quote:
"Ammendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
-- Cerebus
>> If you've ever ordered from Amazon, this might concern you.
Oh please! If they want to know what you've ordered from Amazon, its easier and more subtle to hack your password and look at your history than to start sending out subpoenas.
I'm not too worried about it. I think it's stupid to worry about what books people buy - especially the oft-mentioned "loophole" that people will use cash for secure purchases, but I'm not worried in the least about cameras.
How many cameras are there going to be? How many people monitoring them? I expect the answers are "lots" and "zero", respectively. The tapes will be looked at after a crime is committed - either to identify a criminal or to use as evidence. I might worry about mis-identification for people who look like other people, but how is that different/worse than the mis-identifications that go on all the time by eyewitnesses?
Last post!
Just imaging if they start to use DMCA and the new Anti-terrorist bill to subpoena someone buying books on breaking encryption.
Just because you buy a book on breaking encryption does not mean you'll automatically get your purchasing reacords subpoenad, or find the police at your door. It just means they have another avenue to catch you, if you're already a suspect.
I don't think the casual reader (curious about it, not actually a practitioner) of such books would set off any red flags.
We need to be a little less paranoid here.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
Buy books in person with cash so there is no record of what you purchased.
I imagine the large booksellers are most upset about this because
- It will make their customers aware of just how much information the stores collect (and sell)
- Why should direct marketing companies buy customer info from the booksellers when the government gets it for free?
- It will cost Amazon more than anyone else if people stop providing personal info when making book purchases
The best part is that this isn't going to stop a determined criminal who is probably already taking precautions against this, such as paying with cash or using stolen credit card info.In other news, the Virginia Attorney General has subpoenaed a list of all public school students who borrowed Harry Potter novels from libraries. "We will catch these heathens; In God We Trust!"
Most Americans in a recent survey said that they are willing to give up certain freedoms for the sake of being safe. The question is what is consider safe and what is considered private?
Observe the pattern:
"War is Peace", war is the opposite of peace.
"Freedom is Slavery", same thing.
"Ignorance is Strength" Sort of the same.
So, "Bush is a Dictator" would be incorrect. You'd want to write would be something such as, "Bush is a Dove".
"Those who are willing to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
Thomas Jefferson
I am not American and i see you leaving your very roots.
I just ordered my copies of "The Seven Secrets of Highly Effective International Terrorist Networks", "Chicken Soup for the International Terrorist" and "What Color is Your International Terrorist Parachute."
Do you think this will be a problem?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is commonly thought to be from the Constitution, but this is not the case.
..there were some Brits that commented on survalence(sp) cameras in public places in the UK. They said that for the most part, they were useless in that they never really picked up any relevant video.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I usually read Yahoo and the Washington Post for news about the Supreme Court decisions. It's hardly as gloomy a situation as you imply.
I would accept the installation of cameras to monitor public spaces if - and only if - the public has full access to that network.
1> These are your tax dollars that are going to pay for it. You have a right to the information these cameras provide.
2> If the assertion is true that these cameras are in public, and only public spaces; then there is no expectation of privacy - and all should be able to access the data.
These cameras are going in whether we want them or not. The real danger here is that the access to their data may be restricted to an "elite" few. Sure, exposure of this network to everyone might be "bad" in that it would allow someone who has a vendetta to track down someone. But I would balance that danger against restricted access to "authorities" any day of the week.
- Woodie
the problem with subpoenaing book orders is ... how do you know I didn't get that book on terrorist methods so I could know my enemy? how do you know I didn't get a book on breaking into phone companies so I could protect my billing servers? an American should never have to defend their reading habits.
remember the secret service agent that wasn't allowed on the plane cuz he was middle eastern? the part about that story that really got me: The flight attendant rifled through his bag after he was escorted off the aircraft. in it, she found a book on middle eastern history... and he had to defend the nature of the book publicly. that is wrong.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
I do not see how having cameras in public places really hurts anybody anyways. If you are in public, there is a good chance somebody can see what you are doing anyways. Consider people who happen to live in a large apartment building who could be looking down out of the window at you, and you wouldn't even know it. Consider it equivlent to having that many extra police officers just sitting there looking around for a lot less tax dollars.
/. crowd is a bit on the paranoid side of things. I'm not saying that the police should have free reign to do whatever they damn well please, but I don't think cameras in public places are a great invasion to privacy that people think it is.
Personally, I think the
As for getting the list of books somebody has purchased, this is all information that bookstores have been selling for years. If you don't like it, don't use your 'discount card' and pay in cash.
Perhaps the most wide-ranging request for customer information of this kind came in the summer of 2000, when Ohio authorities subpoenaed Amazon.com. They requested records of all the people in a large part of Ohio who had purchased the "Cyborgasm I" and "Cyborgasm II" audio CDs, trying to identify a stalking suspect who had sent the CDs to his victims.
Holy shit! I bought Cyborgasm #1 from Amazon.com a few years ago. I'm not from Ohio, but that is downright creepy.
Check those records kids..let's see, judging by the handful of random books and CDs I've bought from Amazon, I'm a pot-smoking accountant who listens to new age music, writes cryptography software with "vi", and has a fascination with women's health...
there wasn't a thing as police back in that day. the people policed themselves. in england, if you witnesses a crime and did not attempt to help, you yourself could be charged with a crime. it was quit common for someone to commit a crime in public, then run for their lives because 20 gentlemen would be persuing them.
What is happening now is simply the culmination of the long ongoing process to surveil society totally.
Since its inevitable, you might as well look at the good side - retinal scanners may cut lines at airports from four hours to one hour. Would you rather stand in line four times as long to protect the sanctity of your retinal image?
This would be the fourth Recht?
note to moderators: if you don't get this slightly off color joke, you may want to read the #&@#% article!
i don't know about you, but amazon scares me just as much as the feds. i bought a book about anger management and the next time i went to search for a book on an entirely different topic, amazon was suggesting all kinds of books about mental health, as if their computers know what's wrong with me. and who have they sold my profile to?
"Just imaging if they start to use DMCA and the new Anti-terrorist bill to subpoena someone buying books on breaking encryption"
:-( One cannot fight for Rights if one does not have a clue about them. Then again, it's typical slashdot fare... "help me, my software/information/music is being oppressed!"
How completely irrelevant to the real issues
Get real.
... is that it gives prejudice in prosecution that much more power. A selective reading of the evil things that any person has done in their lives can make them seem like a villan, and it is these selective readings that are created in court to support an assesment of a person's character. Those who go against the powers that be can be monitored till they make a mistake (as all humans do) and dragged through the muck for it. Clinton got access to his opponent's FBI files. Bush Senior was head of the CIA, for crying out loud. 'Intelligence' is getting to be somthing that american corporations and politians conduct against one another.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I wasn't sure if privacy is really mentioned in the
human rights. To safe others the work of looking it
up:
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
How can someone expect PRIVACY when they are walking down a PUBLIC street? By definition, privacy doesn't exist. How can you expect to have privacy when you are out there for all the world to see? Am I allowed to walk around naked in my house? Yes, because I am in the PRIVACY of my own home. Am I allowed to walk around naked on the streets of Baltimore? No, because I am out in PUBLIC. I am all for privacy rights. I don't believe the government should tap my phone. I don't believe they should track my purchases. I don't believe they should outlaw software that allows me to encrypt my e-mail. However, if I am out in public and there are cameras watching me it's no more of an invasion of my privacy than someone sitting on a bench watching me.
The travesty here is not that we HAVE security cameras everywhere. It's that we live in a society where we NEED security cameras everywhere.
My complaint about John Ashcroft:
May I be cynical for a bit? I hope you don't mind,
but with Ashcroft's latest barrage of
malodorous notions, I can't resist the urge to make a
few cynical comments. To get right
down to it, some of the facts I'm about
to present may seem shocking. This
they certainly are. However, it's time that a few
facts had a chance to slip through the fusillade of hype.
What's my problem, then? Allow me to present it
in the form of a question: Where are the people
who are willing to stand up and acknowledge
that Ashcroft, in his infinite wisdom, has decided
to destroy the natural beauty of our parks and forests?
On the surface, it would seem to have something to do
with the way that his whole approach is repugnant.
But upon further investigation, one will find that
by allowing Ashcroft to put mephitic thoughts in our
children's minds, we are allowing him to play puppet master.
As for the lies and exaggerations, Ashcroft's
epigrams are rife with contradictions
and difficulties; they're entirely maladroit,
meet no objective criteria, and are unsuited
for a supposedly educated population.
And as if that weren't enough, if Ashcroft is going to
obstruct important things, then he should at least have
the self-respect to remind himself of a few things: First, a
true enemy is better than a false friend. And
second, many people respond to his debauched vituperations
in much the same way that they respond to television
dramas. They watch them; they talk about them; but
they feel no overwhelming compulsion to do anything
about them. That's why I insist we pronounce the truth
and renounce the lies.
Even people who consider themselves scornful
foolhardy-types generally agree that Ashcroft's slurs
symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion
-- extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us
lose more than a little freedom. One might conclude
that Ashcroft is incapable of writing a letter without using
such phrases as "crapulous pop psychologists", "loquacious
exhibitionists", "oppressive personae non gratae", or
some combination thereof. Alternatively, one might conclude
that Ashcroft has a different view of reality from the rest of us.
In either case, if you're not part of the solution,
then you're part of the problem. His historical record of
fickle pleas is clearer than the muddled pronouncements
of his apple-polishers for a variety of reasons. For
instance, the worst sorts of inconsiderate Neanderthals there
are must be treated with political justice, not with
civil justice, as they are sincerely not real citizens. Let me
rephrase that: I wonder if he really believes the
things he says. He knows they're not true, doesn't he?
A complete answer to that question would
take more space than I can afford, so I'll have to give
you a simplified answer. For starters, if
we let him cause riots in the streets, then greed,
corruption, and tribalism will characterize the government.
Oppressive measures will be directed against citizens.
And lies and deceit will be the stock and trade of the
media and educational institutions.
Even Ashcroft's bedfellows couldn't deal with the full impact of
Ashcroft's refrains. That's why they created "Ashcroft-ism," which is
just a garrulous excuse to force square
pegs into round holes. He plans to drag everything
that is truly great into the gutter. He has instructed
his votaries not to discuss this or even admit to his
plan's existence. Obviously, Ashcroft knows he has
something to hide. Most of you reading this letter
have your hearts in the right place. Now
follow your hearts with actions. I have traveled the length and
breadth of this country and talked with the best people. I can
therefore assure you that Ashcroft's artifices cannot stand on
their own merit. That's why they're dependent on elaborate
artifices and explanatory stories to convince us that Ashcroft's
warnings can give us deeper insights into the nature of
reality. We can and we must protect ourselves by any means
necessary against the unrestrained bestiality
of stupid, quasi-macabre paper-pushers. And that's the honest truth.
Doesn't this kind of remind anyone of the movie Seven? In the movie Seven Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman eventually track down the murderer by using FBI data from the library system.
Freeman tells Pitt that it is a secret and it is a "gray" area, but for years the Feds have been monitoring reading habits. If people take out certain flagged books, for example a book about nuclear weapons, their library records are fed to the FBI computer. Since you need to have some form of ID and residence to get a library card, they have access to your name and address too. Nice and convenient.
While this movie is a work of fiction, I would not be suprised if it were true. Over the last 20 years the Federal government has spent billions on wiring up the libraries and replacing the card catalogs with computers that can be used to both search for books and Internet research. It would be pretty conveneint for the FBI to say, "Hey, we are already putting computers into the libraries. Why don't we add a little something to them to give them value to us."
Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?
--Jon
Personally, I'm more interested in how many minor violations that can be handled with this. One of the main problems with quality of life in the DC area is the traffic. With a few cameras in strategic places, the police can respond better to traffic issues, such as accidents, traffic lights out, gridlocking [I hate K street], people parking in the 'no parking 4:30pm-6:30pm' zones (17th NW), or people double parking on both sides of the street, creating a slolom on F St NW, between 17th & 19th.
Oh...and there's a rather large number of buildings which don't require going through metal detectors. The feds may have 'em, but I know the private buildings don't. I haven't been to the Smithsonian or any of the museums, so I don't know they've reacted so far.
If the cameras are used right, I'm all for 'em, and I come into DC every weekday, and some weekends. For those who aren't in the area, and are bitching about the cameras, don't come to DC. The traffic's bad enough without you here.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Most people then lived in rural areas with little or no contact with government of any kind on a regular basis. Self-reliance wasn't a virtue, it was a way of life. Isolation was the norm, not the exception.
If Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson lived in a world where technologies presented instant and grave dangers to random individuals, you can be assured their writings would reflect that.
On DC surveillance:
"You are building in a surveillance infrastructure, and how it's used now is not likely how it's going to be used two years from now or five years from now."
A very telling statement. A lot of people here in the US trust that their government and all of its agencies will always do 'the right thing' in the end, and that no one in our government is out there to turn the world into a 1984esque police state. Although I don't think that the government will transition to this dystopia in one clear cut step, it will reach a police state if it continues making tiny steps towards this ultimate goal.
Building a surveillance infrastructure is one of those steps -- not necessarily a huge deal in and of itself, but it sets the stage for misuse. Maybe the people using it ARE only using it to get the bad guys, but what happens when they think YOU are the bad guy. I, for one, don't trust every government employee to not be corrupt, nor do I think that this is necessarily a tool that we want any agency to have.
On Book record subpoenaing
"It's a business record, a single business record," he said. "We're not exploring the reading habits of the suspect. We're not asking [them] to tell us everyone they sold the book to. The warrant only seeks to know if the suspect bought books about manufacturing of methamphetamine at meth labs."
Where does it stop after that? Giving away ANY information impinges on my First Amendment rights. I don't want to base my book purchases on what other people think I should or should not read. People shouldn't have to worry about what books they read or what movies they watch because they fear what would happen if it came to public light. Here again, certain agencies within the government are trying to create an infrastructure which allows them to discover information to which they should not have access. I realize that this could expedite certain legal cases (a few were listed in the article), but the potential for misuse in the future is not a risk that I think the American people should be willing to take.
I drink to prepare for a fight; tonight I'm very prepared. -Soda Popinksi
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Welcome to the 21st century! I'm leaving the planet when the government starts burning books.........The Management reserves to right to collect information
on your purchases and reading habits AND share that information
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If you do not agree to this, please leave the store now.
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Karma: Bad (but who really cares anyway?)
A lot of this was started under the guise of catching commie traitors. I think that we should have another amendment to the constitution. The freedom to 'read' without being tagged. Of course this will never happen with the anti-terrorism fervor that has gripped the nation. Are those that feed the terror for their own political ends any better than those who commit the acts?
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
Check the history of US censorship. Publishers are more than happy to avoid controversial materials, and publish something else, which will sell.
Paragons like SF's City Lights excepted, of course.
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/en tries/05/s0920500.html
As much as the British seem to get along with their cameras, I can not help but feel that we are heading down a long, dark road to a totalitarian state. How long before some executive official makes a decree shutting down democracy as we know it in the interest of national security? How long will it take before voicing dissention toward federal policy becomes a federal crime? How many of you actually think anyone can or will do anything to stop it?
Interesting times here, people. One day the system will fall, and we might just be around to see it happen.
You want spies with that?!?
This may have already been mentioned, and is a bit off topic but:
... It really very funny stuff.
Does anyone remember the Simpsons where you see the feds monitoring book buying habits?
Ok mod me off topic now I feel better.
man
No manual entry for
The best part about this is that it is happening under a Conservative Republician presidency.
You know, the Republician party?
The one who is for less big government.
And preserving the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Yeah that one.
- Nothing is true, everything is permitted
It'll wane; I just hope it wanes enough before the next election.
My prediction; Bush will probably hold onto popularity long enough for a second term. Unless he vetoes campaign finance reform, in which case I think McCain will very publicly not endorse him, costing him the few percentage points he needs to win.
Now I have to remember to check this old post in 3 year.
If i am not mistaken, we ARE in a recession, and I can find thousands of better uses for our tax money than to setup cameras.
Sure the constitutional implications make me mad, but in immediate future the excess spending because of "national security" makes me furious, especially when it is getting harder and harder to put food on my family's plate.
This is also why third world countries will eventually have more freedom than Americans....the government cannot afford to be Big Brother.
The British have cameras everywhere. And the reason is because of their long-running terrorism experiences with the IRA. I think a lot of British society likes the security. And I think there was a lot of handwringing going on in the UK when the cameras went up. But I don't think the majority in Britain wants to take them down now. Interesting, isn't it? Can any parallels be drawn between the British experience then and our American experience now? All of this screaming foul at these gradual eating away of our rights seems to be somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction to me.
;-P
The post is Slashdot FUD. FUD from Slashdot.
I think we live in a continuum. We could have a society where we were completely anonymous, total privacy in every aspect of modern life. But terrorists could get away with the most unbelievable bullshit without being detected. Or we could live in a ridiculously intrusive society where we could not so much as take a dump in a public restroom without being retinal scanned. But then, terrorists would be hard pressed to pull off a really destructive attack.
If you are saying privacy restrictions do nothing to fight terror I think you are being a little peremptory. Of course you could have a lot of your rights curtailed and terrorists could still get away with something terrible, but there are no guarantees in life, so you have proved nothing by saying that. But you are being quite ridiculous if you say curtailing our rights somewhat does nothing to fight terror. Of course it does.
Look, be pragmatic folks. We lose some of our rights, but gain some security. Pre-September 11th I would see no reason to even consider that. But there's no use denying reality. There are people out there who are not really interested in our best interests and use our rights against us. Our allegiance to privacy is admirable, but I would also say in todays world, somewhat naive.
Ok, ok! Scream about how curtailing some of our rights means the terrorists win! I HEAR YOU. Guess what? They did win something on September 11th. Drop the emotional passion a notch, please? The voraciousness of your passion is admirable. But take a deep breath, be a little less emotional, and a little more pragmatic. The prevailing winds of today, 2002, post-Sept. 11th, with evil people bent on our destruction still running around, means simply we should be a little more intrusive into our rights in order to protect ourselves. Relax, there is nothing wrong with that, it is being prudent, it is being pragmatic, that is all, end of story.
For those of you who think CIA spooks have some secret agenda and privacy rights-curtailing has nothing to do with our security but is instead a conspiracy to rob us of our rights... or that they are bumbling fools and they mean well but they can't really protect us, just waste a lot of our money and remove some of our rights, then fine. I can not argue with you. Go watch the X-Files or talk about the Freemasons and JFK and scream bloody murder about historical parallels with Stalin, McCarthy, I don't care, take your pick. Whatever...
Is it possible the government is made of up of a bunch of common folk who are just looking out for our common good and doing simple steps to increase our security from madmen? No! Whodathunkit! IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE! It just can't be! That scenario seems like no Hollywood movie I've ever seen!
And one more thing: Won't someone please think of the children!
pfffttt...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's nothing new.
"In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me -
and by that time no one was left to speak up. "
-- Pastor Martin Niemöller
imagine somebody would have told you five years ago about carnivore, large-scale camera survaillance, them checking what books you buy, what would you have said?
honestly, i'd really like to know.
--
making up good sigs is a hard thing to do.
While things have gotten better in DC (we used to be murder capital of the world) crime is still a big problem. I challenge any of you who are opposed to this to take a drive after dark in some of our worst neighborhoods in Washington and then see how you support these cameras. There's a difference between putting cameras at an intersection, a metro station, or overlooking a street lined with shops and putting a camera to survey private property. All these cameras are in public spaces and there is strong evidence that they deter crime. One of the cameras -- at the interesection of M and Wisconsin in Georgetown, is in a area notorious for theft, muggings and rapings that are never solved (a woman was killed down the street from there.. BEFORE SUNSET.. a couple of years ago and they still haven't found the killer.) Besides, there are many privately owned cameras working already around America, in ATMs, stores etc. I can't see how this is any different if they are not targeting groups or private property.
The Federal system was originally put in so that Al Gore could be notified whenever a copy of his book sold.
"Celebrate good times, come on!" "I will!"
normal(adj)- people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots [DECS]
All you have to do is order from outside the US. If you want a book that's on the List of Evil* then all you do is order it from Canada or Europe or Australia or... and pay for shipping.
When your own government is out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking...
*(c) and TM Axis of Evil enterprises, created by a grant from the US government.
Look, records have to be tied to something, if you buy your books in person, with cash, and dispose of your recept, then you cant be traced, there is no link. Simple as that.
When I say Car, I mean the UK mag, Car, playboy for cars, so I'm reading about cars that I can't even get in the States, and the Computer books, they'll know I'm not a threat, it's all Mac OS and OS X stuff ;).
But yea, I'm failing Paranoia 101, but I have alot of stuff on Nazi and Aerospace consperiacy, so I'm doing better in Area 51 Paranoia 337.
ohh, the irony...:-)
what the heck where they thinking???
photo of orwell plaza surveillance
well, they were good in more ways than one. they wrote the constitution. good deed #1. but the current gummint taketh it away. bummer. but the founding father on the green piece of paper is doing his good deed #2. buy with cash. no trace back to you. 'cept for the eye in the sky maybe. but without a name or some form of number to get back to you, it'd be hard. go George W. no not that lame three finger 'W', the real George W -- George Washington.
I agree that court subpoenas shouldn't allow fishing expeditions on the part of law enforcement, and some of the cases mentioned sound precisely like fishing expeditions. But I think think they should have every right to subpoena records of booksellers and libraries when there are indications that the sale, ownership, or lending of a book is material evidence to a crime, and the Tattered Covers case seems to be exactly such a case. I think most people wouldn't have any problems with subpoenas on records of, for example, the sale of a knife used in the commission of a crime, and most people would similarly agree that this would not have a "chilling effect" on knife ownership.
One attorney is quoted in the article as saying "Book readers need to be confident that the government will not know what they buy and read." Does this mean that if the police are granted a search warrant for my house, that I can tell them I have the 1st amendment right to prevent them from searching my personal library?
People who are under reasonable suspicion of criminal behavior necessarily must give up their rights to privacy in matters related to the criminal investigation. That is the very purpose of a search warrant. As the Miranda warning states, "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law," but you don't hear people complaining about the chilling effect this has on the freedom of speech.
I don't understand that.
Think about about all these hot sex scenes.
I, for one, am waiting with baited breath for the CO Supreme Court to rule on Tattered Cover v. Thornton. In fact, I will probably head down the court the day the decision is handed down.
What I loved was that the oral arguments for this case were held at Brighton High School in a sort of civics demonstration for the students. They got to see a couple cases being heard.
Also, it is impressive to look at the large number of organizations that filed amicus curiae briefs for Tattered Cover. It's a who's who of rights orgs.
Fortran programmer...oh yeah. Array math for life!
Wonder if My "Catcher in the Rye" purchases sparked any attention.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
See .sig ...
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Second, no monitoring or tracking using live data, this should be used to get proof or see what hapened afterwards, not used to track citizens
Provided these two conditions are respected, I have no problems with cameras everywhere. :-(
But guess what, there is no way these two conditions will be respected
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
Since the constitution was written by terrorists, why are you so surprised that it's getting eroded as part of the war on terror ?
For those who want to argue that they weren't terrorists: get a grip - they would certainly fall under Ashcroft's definition if they tried similar things today, and would have been branded terrorists by the (British) government at the time had the word been in vogue then.
The constitution was written by people who understood that over time power gradually shifts away from the shareholders (people) into the hands of the management (politicians). They understood that monarchy and tyranny didn't arise overnight. Do you think people just one day decided to be ruled over by kings. You start off with a leader, chosen on merit who leads with consent of his people and you end up with heriditary tyrants. It's funny how far along this road you can get without anybody noticing. Do you really think that King Bush II got there on merit ? He inherited the position from his father with the help of his brother, Prince Jed. The fact that he lost Florida is interpreted with Orwellian brilliance as "results vindicate bush".
The writers of the consitituion understood this, and did their best to minimize the tendancy, but they knew that eventually another revolution would be necessary. What they didn't forsee was that technology would evolve that would make future revolutions virtually impossible. The technology for keeping a population under surveillance was unimaginable at the time.
The other thing they couldn't forsee was the level of propoganda and willful ignorance that is achievable with a TV nation.
It would cause too much friction to revoke the consititution. Instead they will just reinterpret the phrases until the document means something else entirely.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
After all, we are setting a precedent. Isn't that what it's all about? Building a little staircase into that great Ministry of Truth?
Then it'll know what show's we watch from our digital television and video rentals, and what we do online from our ISP's and Carnivore, precedent built on precedent.
Frankly it doesn't have to go that far for me to be concerned, it doesn't have to take one step further than it already has. There is a man who drives around in a car and watches what I do at night, sometimes I think he is following me, if I act strangely he may even pull me over and ask what I'm up to. If it happens often enough I get to know his name, recognize his face, the police officer.
Stores have security cameras, malls have cameras, there are microphones everywhere, and how much further do we need to go? Should there be someone, something, assigned to you 24 hours a day? Something that knows everything you know because it has seen, viewed, scrutinized, censored every piece of information that has come to your doorstep and passed through your possession?
How long until you can't go for a walk in the woods without hearing the whir of a motion tracking camera taking a bead on you while some distant operator notices you out at 3 in the morning, strolling through what used to be a vacant forest with nothing but the occasional skunk to worry about.
I think the smell has wafted its way into DC. I don't know who best serves to oppose this kind of action, movement, but give me the name of an organization, give me the name of someone, and I'll sign up, while I still can, while I'm still free to do so.
I suppose if they keep credit card receipts there might be records of WHO bought, but its unlikely to track exactly WHAT they bought. And since I pay with cash, there is no identifing information provided when I buy. Who cares about book purchasing anyways? True, the movie Seven showed a possible use of such records, although even there (and its all fiction mind you) they clearly stated there was absolutely no legal grounds for using that information against someone.
How much do you want to bet that after 9-11, there was a significant increases in purchases of "The Koran"?? I know Barnes&Nobel had that book prominantly displayed. And why not? I'm quite sure that most of the purchases weren't by potential terrorists but by citizens looking to understand their motives. But those people could be unfairly targeted for pure curiosity in a perfectly legal book.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Shortly after the FBI released the names and last known locations of those involved in the 9-11 terrorist attack I went to amazon on a hunch. What better way for terrorists to let their needs be known than online wishlists which are publicly available - an easy way to order your supplies with no money in hand and no direct communication?
Entering the terrorists' names I found a wish list for one name that was a single letter off (common variation of the name) with a florida location matching that listed on the FBI page. What was in the list? A single book - a guide to the various airports in the USA.
A fluke? Maybe, but I reported it anyway. I often wonder if the wish list belonged to the terrorist or if some innocent guy is sitting in custody because his name, location, and interest matched a terrorist's.
this is very bad. it starts out this way but as we have seen it WILL progress into something more and more until we have no rights or privacy left.
i am just wondering howlong it will be until they come knocking at my door as I have ordered several dozen books on crypto from amazon.....
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
Women were granted the right to vote in the USA and europe because the commies let it be known that if they didnt the commies would be more than happy to help them. The Communist victory in Viet Nam scared the Supreme Court into freeing US women.
Let them see me pick my nose. Let them see me stain my shirt with coffee. Let them see me with my zipper unzipped. I live a legal life ... I have nothing to worry about. What happens in public should be public. Voyerists unite! Voyerism rocks!
:).
I am watching you, with my camera, telescope, and binoculars too! I like to look. I like to see what I looked at. Here's lOOking at you
Anyone want to fund the ACLU setting up cameras all over DC to be able to examine questionable police activity? It's the David Brin solution; if you can't outlaw cameras, give them to everyone.
It has to be. Washington, DC is run by Democrats, the guardians of our liberties.
a few things to consider:
This case was in the local Denver paper awhile back and from the reporting and headline, I said "Go Tattered Cover!". However, as I've read about it, I'm not sure. The authorities are seeking evidence to support a crime (manfacturing speed). This is to support a case, NOT PROVE that this person made or sold speed. Of course, the fact that materials were in his house would seem to be enough evidence, IMHO, but that's another story.
They are also not asking for records of who else purchased these books. And they should not be. If they suspect that a specific person has engaged in illegal activity, I would support them getting specific information about this person. Like purchase records that deal with manufacturing speed.
Another interesting thing in many of the comments is that we should use cash, not allow our activities to be tracked, etc. However a few weeks ago there was a story about profiling where many people suppported the profiling of different people on the same plane with more consonants than vowels in their name.
Now I understand profiling. It helps law enforcement find criminals and be proactive and prevent crimes. HOWEVER, it is being used by human beings and is open to tremendous abuse. I am of middle eastern descent. I was born in this country and was in high school when the Iranian's took US hostages. Despite my US name, the color of my skin in my native Virginia subjected me to plenty of bigotry and predjudice. Not that I'm Iranian, but the good ol' boys in VA didn't care. You can imagine the joy and good lucks I've seen in airports over the last few months.
The same things happen to blacks. In fact, many of those same things happened to my father-in-law who grew up in Texas, was educated at Morehouse, and saw more than his fair share of "profiling".
So should we profile? I'm in favor of limited profiling. With controls and oversight. And accountability. We need law enforcement, but we need law enforcement that keeps our rights in place. I hate laws that give too much protection to criminals, but there is a purpose to many of these laws. US society tends to favor allowing some criminals to go free to ensure very few innocent people are caught. Something not protected by many governments around the world.
Personally, IMHO, we need to both be careful about what information we allow companies or the government to access or disclose. But we ALSO NEED to be less judgemental about this information. Is someone a criminal because he buys a book about drugs? No. Is someone a terrorist because they buy a book about encryption? No. In the US, we say people are innocent until proven guilty, but all too often we jump to conclusions about someone, often because of some journalist's story. Just because it is in the newspaper doesn't mean it's true. In fact, newspapers are businesses and need to get readers. Sensational stories sell and too often people believe they are true. A little skepticism is helpful to all of us.
I'm getting slightly offtopic, but while protecting the First Amendment, we should not blanketly protect all criminals either. Assist the US lawmakers, but force them to be accountable and controlled. Just MHO, and I welcome a debate.
The confidentiality of library records (like what books you've checked out) is one of the most staunchly defended rights in the recent history of librarianship (anther being freedom to access library materials, such as the Satanic-inducing Harry Potter or Internet sans censorware).
It goes back to the MaCarthy era inquisitions of practices such as FBI requests of who had "dangerous" materials checked out. Thankfully we now have 48 states with laws prohibiting the disclosure of library records.
In most cases, nobody - not your parents, police, or spouse - can access your circulation record without a specific court order. Remember that Florida librarian who phoned the police to say she recognized the hijacking terrorists as library users? Well she broke the law in doing so.
This statement by the American Library Association addresses their continued vigilance in protecting privacy in light of current events.
Actually, it's about both. It mentions that the first (widely known) attempt to obtain customer records occurred as recently as 1998, when Ken Starr attempted to subpeona a bookstore in DC. A court agreed with the bookstore on 1st amendment grounds, but didn't quash the subpeona... Opening a gateway for a number of requests over the past few years-- requests that might not previously have been made.
Does that count as attempting to "take away" a right? I'd need to know a lot more about the case history to be precise, but on the surface, it seems that there's a definite movement to challenge something that's at very least an assumed right/protection.
Also notice that in a number of the cases mentioned, the courts did not actually find in favor of the bookstore. In a number of these cases, either the case was dropped, or the purchaser voluntarily cooperated. The Tattered Cover lawsuit is still on appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court, with the most recent decision still in favor of enforcing the subpeona. If you're forced to appeal to the State Supreme Court in order to have your rights upheld, then you clearly haven't had your rights successfully upheld by the rest of the legal system.
How exactly is this 'patently unconstitutional'?
t ut ion.overview.html)
The US isn't supposed to assasinate foreign leaders because of Executive Order 11905, courtesy of Gerald Ford in 1976 (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/eo11905.htm).
Cameras monitering public places is mentioned nowhere in the Constitution.
The closest they come to dealing with this subject is in the 4th amendment, which does not restrict monitering public areas but rather private property:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
(http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/consti
So what I'm saying is, while both are patently objectionable, and perhaps should be illegal, neither is unconstitutional.
A: None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master merely stays out of the way.
It is the databases behind those cameras...
Someday, if not today - behind every camera will be software and a database that can pick out faces, and store those faces in a database. Should one of those faces belong to a criminal, that individual could be flagged, and tracked, from camera to camera - wherever he or she goes.
You may say to yourself "Well, hey, that sounds like a good thing" - and you would be DEAD WRONG. Why?
Imagine that individual had did a crime - something heinous, something petty - but they did their time, paid their debt to society, and are truely sorry for it. Maybe they even make amends, in whatever way is possible, to the victims of their crime. However, in federal databases, they are marked as a former criminal - no mention in the databases of their current activities or amends - no flags to show how they feel. Only that they once did a crime, and thus should be tracked, and watched - and made paranoid. Why not simply have a cop follow them around instead? They paid their debt, but they should never be trusted again? What is the purpose of prison and sentencing then? If it isn't reform, why let someone out who shoplifted? Hell, why keep them alive at all?
Or, imagine this scenario:
There is a database containing all of these faces of criminals - the matching software is looking through the cameras, looking at past faces, and current faces, trying to find a match - and one is spotted - your face! But you haven't done anything! But now your face is in the system, and the system is tracking you. Why did the match occur? Well, maybe the software was simplified using an eigenface system or something, and your face closely matches the reference key for a particular eigenface, and that key also matches that for a known criminal face - maybe something happened in your past long ago when you were a kid, and they took your picture, then let you go to your parents - but a record exists, and it was added to the database as a possible hit - there are tons of scenarios to draw upon - but when the cops come up, drag you out of the crowd for matching a face that the computer says is you, wastes a hell of a lot of time (hey, you might even be put in a holding cell for a day or two while things are straightened out) - there is the possibility.
Then, of course, there is the fact that the cameras do nothing to stop crime, they merely record the crime as is progresses, and do nothing to deter the crime after the fact (ie, I bet you'll feel real secure in a camera recording you being stabbed to death by a psycho serial killer wearing a ski mask)...
Think this is babble? Read Database Nation, and open your eyes...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
"Catcher in the Rye" is about a young man who doesn't fit into society, and who realizes that his strong moral sense is disjointed with the values of society-at-large. This is why Holden Caulfield wants to rub out all the "fuck you" grafitti in the world, why he fantasizes about being the catcher on a rye-covered cliff who saves everyone from falling to their deaths (continuing with their mass madness), and why his former english teacher says that Holden will "die valiantly for some highly unworthy cause." "Taxi Driver" is very, very similar (and drove Hinkley to shoot Ronald Reagan); through Travis Bickle's (De Niro's) eyes we see an amoral world, with politicians and pimps right at the center of it (even though, like Caulfield, Bickle is himself totally confused and lost.)
Why do mass killers connect with these literary element and not those of, say, "Emma"? Look at all those kids who did school shootings; think back to some time in high school when you felt like going postal; imagine what life is like for the solitary, ignored folks who tend to assassinate and spree-kill. Their lives are out of whack with society at large, which they (usually correctly) see to be flawed. They don't have any idea what to do to change the world, but they have a strong sense that it needs to be changed. Their malcontent and isolation drive them to action, but their social immaturity means that action will be ham-fisted. Hence, high-profile killing.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
I think buying a $10 book in cash isn't doesn't so much warrant notice, as does, say buying a $1000 ticket in cash. Most people do not care that sort of money on their person, so it is worth investigating.
WTF?!
Why should you think that? What right is it of you or the government to suspect me of wrongdoing simply because I want to PAY FOR SOMETHING IN WHATEVER MANNER I CHOOSE?
Has cash become illegal to use? Am I not allowed to barter for my goods or services, should I so wish? Why do these actions mark me as a criminal?
The simple fact of the matter is I may want to use cash for MY PRIVACY! If I want to go to the bank, withdraw $1000 dollars cash, then use that cash to pay for a plane ticket - I damn well better be able to! It should not matter who I am, who I know, who I speak to or congregate with, or where I am from, what language I speak, what religion I practice, what political leanings I hold, or what color my skin is, or which way I sexually swing - that IS NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S, NOR ANYONE ELSES BUSINESS IN MY PERSONAL DEALINGS.
In America, I AM INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY BY A JURY OF MY PEERS. Not before. Our society has seem to forgotten this basic tenet. Should I use that ticket to get on a mode of transportation and do something nefarious and heinous, then once it is apparent my actions and motives, I should be arrested and tried, then sentenced - AS IS PROVIDED BY OUR CONSTITUTION AND LAW.
But if I only want to take a train to enjoy the scenery passing by, and maybe start a new life somewhere else - WHY SHOULD ANYONE GIVE A FLYING F---? Because of what I may do?
Bug off.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I think it's obvious that these systems aren't meant to catch the criminals. They are meant to keep tabs on what the intelligence agencies consider to be enemies of the state, which include:
1) terrorists
2) anti-globalisation protesters
and
3) anybody else who gets too in the way of big business
I know where I live, anti-globalisation protests have been filmed by the police, not because of any potential of violence, but most likely to have these peoples' faces on record.
Once a person is on tape, that recording can be kept on supercomputer. Think about what this means, and how the intelligence agencies can use face-recognition technology matched up with drivers license photos and the like.
I always thought Washington, D.C. was the nation's Capitol.
This does make me nervous at first, but the articles do have a few good points. For example, one says that people give up their privacy when they enter public places. I agree with that. What's the difference between posting a few hundred cameras in public places in a city and posting several hundred police around the areas? Lets be realistic, nobody cares that there are hundreds of military monitoring security at the Olympics..
You can not like Amazon for other reasons, but this was just a cheap shot.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
If this ends up like DC's other camera programs I'm not so sure it would be a good idea. Recently DC started a program with red light cameras and more recently cameras linked to radar systems, some that are installed in cars and moved to different locations daily. In fact the speeding radar systems are forcasted as a major revenue stream for the city. This becomes a problem when streets speed limits are set artificially low (anybody who drives on western ave b/t river and conneticut ave knows what Im talking about), or the grace period that you have till you are running a red light is decreased. This Article from Car and Driver magazine details how the red light cameras in one small town were tweaked to produce more revenue. I'm wondering if next they would start using the surveilance systems to target people for jaywalking, littering, loitering, and who knows what.
Porn, Movies, TV shows, Blueprints for buildings... and now we'll get digitized books on gnutella to clug the bandwidth even more... Brilliant, "if we can't kill them pirates, let's drown them"
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
What privacy should a person have in public? Its not like they are tapping your phone, spying on you in your house, or invading your privacy.
In my honest opinion, in public you should have NO privacy. Cameras should be everywhere once you walk outside, your every movement watched, i mean to stop terrorism, crime, etc this is what is needed.
Do police invade on your privacy when they watch you to protect laws? They have been doing this for years and years from police cars, technology is better, why not let police use cameras to catch criminals and terrorists?
In your house, sure you have privacy, outside screw privacy, I'll choose safety and security over privacy when it comes to being outside in a public place.
I dont care about what privacy advocates say, hey i'm a privacy advocate too, but i know when things are taken out of context, taken too far.
Kinda like saying people should have the freedom to kill, thats taking freedom a bit too far in my opinion, but i dont make the laws.
Freedom is important, Privacy is important, and yes you should have complete freedom and privacy in your house, but outside, you should have complete security.
Theres no one to protect you if theres no law enforcement, and police cant be everywhere. Do you want your privacy and your freedom to die privately in the next 911, or do you want to be able to walk outside anywhere and know you are completely safe, know if someone tries to rob you they will bee caught, women will be able to walk outside alone at night again without worrying about being raped and children will be able to play alone in the streets without parents having to watch them.
Think of it this way, if you were a child, would you want privacy or security? A child is protected by their parents. Who protects the parents? Protecting yourself wont work much longer, technology is so great that one person can kill thousands, maybe even millions soon.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If you want your privacy, why don't you just pay with cash?
Who's going to track you then? It's not like the library, where they know everything you took out, and where you live...
I live near D.C. and go into town often enough to encounter one of these cameras. Which bothers me. I mean I'm no scofflaw, but I have been to traffic court and seen the "machinery" at work. I can envision the judge & paralegal laughing hysterically in his quarters after I've demanded to face my accusors.
Which makes me think, even though I'm not planning on anything illegal, how do I protect my privacy?
Do I take on an "offensive" strategy with some sort of jamming or "herf" technology?
Do I emply "good defense" and cover/obfuscate myself, my car and everything else with various array sof prophylactic devices ?
Or do I go dysfuncational either by living in a state of denial, or by becoming a hermit/prisoner in my own home ?
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
You arent losing freedom from this kinda security. I agree some other laws they are trying to pass take freedom, but thats deliberate.
Security via surviellance is one of the few ways to have security without losing any freedom and stupid freedom fighters are against that even.
What do you want? You NEED security, this isnt debateable, after 911 its a fact, security is NEEDED. How do you want to get it? Surviellance, National ID card, or should we turn into Nazi Germany and start losing our freedom entirely.
Something must bee done, I say we use Surviellance, if that doesnt work we may have to increase efforts.
Whats more important, survival or your privacy, would you want to die right now, or ide 50-60 years from now?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I've ordered from Amazon before. If "The Feds" (oooooh, scary) want to find out that I buy books like Programming Perl and Ender's Game, I don't care. I'm not buying books entitled, "How to Build Bombs to Blow Up Your Favorite National Monument" or something like that. Most people aren't.
Now, I'm not necessarily saying that Federal Law Enforcement Agencies simply being able to find out whatever books any random person is buying is a good thing -- that is bad. But that's obviously not how they're going to approach this. They're not just saying "Ok, we need a record of every book ever purchased by every person ever from you, Amazon (or B&N, etc)."
I don't know; this sensationalistic crap just gets old.
This will be so useful, since all terrorists here with false ID have credit cards in their real names, right? Or credit cards at all? Or perhaps magic cash that can be traced back to the original owner AND the books that were bought? :)
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Unless I'm in a small town (see the essay below), I can expect to go about in public all day without telling anyone who I am, where I'm going, or what I'm doing. I can avoid people or places where I'm known. Others only get a snapshot of my life, with no personally identifiable information and only some quickly fading memories of my appearance and actions.
With these cameras I'm now wearing the equivalent of a machine readable nametag- with a little work they'll know who I am and everything I've been doing ("little work" averaged over the next 15 years: right now it's hard to immediately link face scans to names, in 5-10 years it'll be trivial. Darn You, Moore's Law! (And with cheap storage what will keep them from retroactively datamining what they've been storing for years? It may already be too late, and 'P-Day' has already arrived- a day where most camera info is stored, not deleted, so that when the technology catches up they'll be able to follow you around from that day onward. Concept heard from Brad Templeon) That is a significant change in the amount of privacy I have in public.
Brad has a great essay "A Watched Populace Never Boils" on why this type of surveillance is dangerous:
"People often ask why a loss of privacy -- as would come from increased surveillance, TV cameras on all the street corners and a national ID card -- is a restriction on freedom.
"Some wonder it because they have fallen for the old fallacy that if you are innocent, you have nothing to hide. Some wonder it because there is already a lot of monitoring in society, particularly in our credit card transactions, and the walls have not come tumbling down.
"Some welcome it, feeling that the extra surveillance will cut down on crime, and provide some increased level of safety or imagined safety.
"But the truth is that invasions of privacy invade our freedoms quite directly. This is true even if the surveillance isn't abused by the watchers, even though history shows that it always is.
"When we feel watched, we feel less free. We censor ourselves and our actions. Sometimes in little ways, sometimes in big ones.
"We all know this. We all know the exhilarating freedom we felt when we first left home, out from under the watchful eye of our parents. Alone, unwatched, we could finally be ourselves, or even be new selves. Some people experience this even when they move to a new town. Some feel themselves reducing to their old, censored self during Thanksgiving dinner.
"Yet the mainstream will never fear monitoring that much, just as it is more comfortable with censorship. What civil rights protect is not the majority, but the fringe. The fringe is usually feared by the majority, and most subject to its oppression.
essay continues...
American middle class is filed, stamped mutilated.
"The man" knows everything: where you live,
phone number, credit history, health condition,
what you buy, where you went to school. Meanwhile,
illegal immigrants smash jetliners into buildings.
"The man" needs a kick in the teeth.
"During a raid of a methamphetamine lab in a trailer park in suburban Denver, authorities had found an empty Tattered Cover shipping envelope addressed to one of the suspects in an outside trashcan, and two nearly new books, "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture," by Uncle Fester, and "The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories," by Jack B. Nimble, inside the trailer. "
And I gotta ask myself: are we picking our fights wisely?
Seeking information about everyone who bought a certain thing is wrong. Seeking information about everything a certain person bought is wrong. But getting a warrant to confirm a single, relevant purchase by a certain individual under investigation? I'm not sure it's wrong. I'm sensitive to the slippery slope argument. But this alleged dillhole allegedly ordered a couple of books on amking meth THROUGH THE MAIL and then used them to allegedly set up an alleged meth lab.
I mean, the purpose of search warrants is to selectively restrict 4th amendment rights. Whether the combined evidence of the shipping envelope and the "almost new" books constitutes credible evidence for their purchase is up to a judge to decide, but I don't agree with the blanket assumption that authorites should not ever make the attempt to determine someone's consumption of media, provided it is sufficiently relevant.
The whole thing about not leaving a record for the Man is to use cash.
Maybe you didn't know it, but they're outlawing cash transactions too. Many administrative laws were enacted by "Crime Bill" Clinton back in the early 1990's which made many cash illegal. If you deposit more than $3000 in cash to a bank account you're automatically guilty of laundering drug money and the bank is required by law to report the transaction to the feds. If you make deposits totalling over $10K to any one bank account spread out over 6 to 12 months timeframe you are money laundering. This makes basically everyone in the US a federal felon, if they want to push the charges. You cannot purchase a new automobile with cash either, or the dealership must report you to the feds. Pretty soon you'll see that all firearm purchases by cash will be made outright illegal, only traceable transactions (check, credit card) will be legal means to purchase a firearm or a vehicle, new or used. Eventually all forms of cash and checks too will disappear and you will be forced to use only traceable monies for all purchases, even buying a hamburger at McDonalds will become a traceable transaction.
And you should be too, I tell everyone I know about how are rights as citizens are eroding more and more every day. But, no one listens to me? "Ignorance is bliss" I suppose. I try to tell people but everyone either doesn't care at all or shrugs and says that we need to give up freedoms to stop terrorism. All of this is utter bullcrap and has been implanted into peoples minds by the propaganda machine. I am going to write an essay on the whole topic matter now...
This reminds me of that movie I saw: Enemy of the State.
The agents requested to look in his bags...if the dude just would have done that, none of that movie would have ever happened. Instead, he started on some privacy nonsense.
I'm an honest person...I have nothing to fear from a system such as this.
I think we're forgetting something...the innocent have nothing to hide.
I've been purchasing my 2600 with cash for as long as I've been reading it. Any time I buy anything that might be viewed as "subversive" I buy it with cash. I even buy my copies of "Catcher in the Rye" with cash! ;-)
My name fits again.
Add this to sophisticated face regognition and pattern matching software that can trace clothing and you are bound to have some problems.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
As long as there is the possibility of a person learning, there is the possiblilty of a person committing a crime. With decent college (or maybe even high school) level texbooks on chemistry, physics and electronics one has all they need to create a bomb and know how to effectively use it. Does that mean we should not allow students to learn chemistry, physics or electronics?
Crime comes from human nature, there are always some people who will commit them at whatever expense, so is it worth it to penalize the rest of us for the few? That is what this argument boils down to.
The only way to ensure a crime-free world is to destroy it.
Buy local, pay cash.
There were VIOLENT anti-war protests, put
down and banned -- IN NY.
There was an illegal draft -- in the North.
The US Government took over the duely elected
government -- in MD.
It's an old problem and with the "war on drugs" has been getting worse.
OK, OK, enough of this freedom of expression. Please remember to starch and iron your party uniforms for the next bookburning. Anyone not present for the fulfilling their patriotic duty will be sent to a tribunal for sentencing.
Our yardstick for doing these things should be whether it would have stopped the 9/11 attacks, either while it was in action or during any of the planning.
The same could be said for prostitution, or for underage drinking. Just because there's money to be made on something doesn't make it right.
Do not read this sig.
If you've ever ordered from Amazon, this might concern you.
Damn. I *knew* I shouldn't have bought that Britney Spears biography!
No really, I just bought it for the articles...
-- D
Just because it's done in Britain doesn't mean we have to like it or accept it.
I personally do not fear that purchasing subversive books will get me an interview with the FBI. If it does cool, hell I personnally think we need more martyrs (spelling?).
If there are enough people to get whacked by the inane, liberty stipping totalitarianistic powerhungry bullshit, we might actually get the change we want.
It's never to late to change the world. Sure it might take a revolution, lots of blood, sweat and tears.
But hell, if it means that I or my kids can walk down the street, and not be treated as criminals, I'm all for it. All I want are my freedoms.
All bin Laden did was touch the dominoes. But that set in motion end to our normal free life.
He actually was brilliant. I hate to say it, but he was...I still hope he's dead, though.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Does anyone else remember a post from october 29th where someone asked about storing 8+TB/day from 1000+ cameras for an indefinite amount of time? This is the article
The same thing can be said for prostitution and underage drinking. They shouldn't be illegal either.
I'm young. I'll put that out there first.
Thing is... I don't care so much about privacy. Instead, what worries me is the inequity of information distribution.
Like this: If police put cameras in malls to view the public, I want cameras in police stations and cars to view what happens after a member of the public is taken into captivity. There should be enough of these that any one could be seen by another.
Feasable now? Perhaps not, but soon will be, financially.
The point is simply that we lose nothing but hypocracy when every action, taken by every man, becomes public knowledge.
Oh my, they might think you're violating the DMCA. At least then you get a trial and some meager apology if it's a mistake. Falsely accused terrorists, on the other hand, get four months of jail without trial before being released without a word from the government (or killed without apology as in Afghanistan in the last couple weeks). Not to mention that people have been already been denied flight simply because of the book they brought along to read (A college student going home brought along a book about populist farmer 'terrorist-esque' tactics in sabotaging corporate farms that had a picture of some sort of explosive device on the cover - after returning with a different book, a Harry Potter book in fact, he was denied flying once again). There is definitely a precident here in judging one's intended malice against the country based solely on the literature they read (indeed, people questioned by the secret service regarding anti-american activity are always asked whether they have pro-taliban, anti-US literature, etc). Giving the government access to our libraries will make this mental-profiling even easier.
I heard it was Sirhan Sirhan, RFK's assassin. That was a pretty weird case, and not as wrapped up in idiocy as JFK's.
--hongpong.com
"If we allow law enforcement access to customer records whenever they think it's convenient, customers won't feel secure purchasing books and magazines that are their constitutional right to buy," said Chris Finan, president of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. "
-Is buying books really a right protected under the constitution?
Since the constitution was written by terrorists, why are you so surprised that it's getting eroded as part of the war on terror?
Nice quote there. However, I must take issue with...
Do you really think that King Bush II got there on merit ? He inherited the position from his father with the help of his brother, Prince Jed. The fact that he lost Florida is interpreted with Orwellian brilliance as "results vindicate bush"
Riiiiight. The fact that Al Gore ran one of the most lackluster presidential campaigns since Walter Mondale, squandered a 15-point lead and stood around with his thumb up his ass while the Bush supporters flooded the streets in Florida had nothing at all do to with it.
The Florida results were, by any sane statistical viewpoint, a tie. The victor was not going to be determined by the act of counting the votes, but by deciding which standard would be applied to that count. The Bush team out-hustled the Gore team, and their view prevailed. Call them ruthless, unethical opportunists if you will, but spare us the nonsense about GWB being "appointed" by his father: if Gore had run an even half-decent campaign, the margin would never have been close enough for any of this to matter.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I'd like to see them try to subpeona the records of Loompanics Unlimited. They've got the best selection of underground/subversive books I've ever seen, and have been around more than 20 years.
When they came for the mute, I didn't speak up because...well...
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
Someone needs to remind the DC police that all 19 of the Hijackers were taped walking into the airport (and some into a Wall Mart), Mc Veigh was videoed slowing down to light the fuse, and who knows how many robberies in the US are taped. Sure video can help AFTER the 3000 people are dead, not before. I'm willing to bet good ol fashioned forensics and already existing video (every store, ATM, and Joe on the street has a camera now) will do the same exact thing, without being anywhere near as creepy.
It's little more than an expensive feel good toy.
Burn Hollywood Burn
In response to your argument that privacy outside the home is meaningless, let me ask you a few questions that your "highly intelligent" discussion fails to touch upon.
Here's my first question. What happens when the police officer who's using the surveillance equipment doesn't have your best interests in mind? What happens if the person using the gear uses it for something less than the greater good of the public?
Your argument fails to consider corruption, which by my measure is a bit stupid.
Here's another question. What happens when the person using the system isn't authorized to use it? I know a fellow who works in a public office (I won't say which one to protect the guilty) who regularly looks up criminal records and DMV information on people he knows, even though it's illegal, because he can, not because he should. When the signals from these cameras is sent to police cars, what exactly guarantees that it can't be intercepted or otherwise compromised?
Your argument fails to consider invasion, which by my measure is a bit more stupid.
Here's a third question. How many terrorists would have been caught on September 11 if the systems that were already in place and in use were actually used correctly? The answer is turning out to be many of them. There are video pictures of two of the the terrorists walking through the metal detectors in the Maine airport en route to hijacking a plane with metal box cutters. How would more cameras have made any difference in how the terrorists that acted on 9/11 did their deeds?
Your argument fails to consider utilization, which by my measure is a lot more stupid.
Here's my last question. Since these systems are subject to corruption and error, and are underutilized in their present state, how exactly is adding to the system going to give me complete security? What is more likely is that it will make it easier for corruption and invasion to work against me, and under- and misutilization will prevent any effective increase in my security.
Your argument fails to consider escalation, which by my measure is truly stupid.
Virg
You are certainly correct about our founders being terrorists. It's all about your perspective. Bin Laden is a "liberator" to those who follow him. Our founders liberated us from British oppression. Sounds rather familiar, and you're competely correct in that.
I take issue with the idea of the Bush family being a type of monarchy. The Kennedy's have a much longer history, and at their height had much more power than the Bush family. I suppose since they are all Democrates, it's an okay thing. I won't attempt to pretend that George HW Bush didn't have anything to do with his son getting elected. Personally--it meant a lot to me as a voter because I actually liked GHWB (one of the few, probably). Besides, Gore never appealed to me as a voter--and I think that was a lot of other people's opinion as well. Gore could have easily won--but he didn't because he did a bad job on the campaign trail.
But I digress. I would say that the founders did have in mind a state that could monitor its citizens at all times. Why else would the 4th Ammendment exist? Why build in so many checks and balances to power? It is the executive branch that historically wields the most power to be exerted over the citezenry. It was always believed that a President could simply assign his "secret police" to monitor an individual and potentially cause harm or havok. But, Congress can make it so that those secret police can't get funding. The Supreme Court can throw out any cases in which evidence was obtained illegally and thus set an innocent (or guilty) man free.
The idea of revolution was built into the Constitution. At any point, we (the citizens) can ammend the basic laws. Sure, it has to go through Congress--but if 75% of the population supports the measure you can be certain that it will pass Congress. The problem is that most citizens don't have a real problem with what's going on right now. Most citizens don't want to worry about such matters right now.
Now, once the main threat of terror passes (and it will), things will return to a more "normal" state. And if the government won't shed it's new found powers, the citizens will revolt by way of their votes. It's the way it's always been.
And before someone replies to me saying that maybe Bush will hold onto this power and it will result in a tyrannical rule... go hang yourself. Our country has been through times much worse than this in the past, and we've always come out stronger in the end. Never have we had a time when the government wouldn't volunrarily limit its own power when that's what the people desire.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Sounds like the perfect time to start a bookselling business that guarantees the privacy of the purchaser! Keep no records of who buys what...(that's always bothered me about B&N and the others)...then you have nothing to turn over when your records are subpoenaed.
I was also curious why used book sellers would even keep track of who purchased what...
While this movie is a work of fiction, I would not be suprised if it were true. Over the last 20 years the Federal government has spent billions on wiring up the libraries and replacing the card catalogs with computers that can be used to both search for books and Internet research. It would be pretty conveneint for the FBI to say, "Hey, we are already putting computers into the libraries. Why don't we add a little something to them to give them value to us."
I'm the system admin for my city's public library (a city of 100,000 population in Texas). We do indeed have video surveillance cameras, but I can assure you that they are only used to catch book thieves. Neither our own police department, nor any other law enforcement agency will ever get to use those tapes for seeing what books library patrons read. They are degaussed daily.
Our computer network is soley for use by library patrons and staff. I know *everything* about this network since I designed and built it myself. There is no "nefarious" surveillance software running anywhere on it. Internet access on the public access PCs is wholly unrestricted and uncensored. There are no logs kept whatsoever. You can even surf porn on them, but be forewarned, the "display of pornography" in a public place is a crime and we'll nail you for that if another library patron complains. Each morning and afternoon, and sometimes more often than that, we reload those PC's entire hard drives from a master "Ghost" image and re-create them from scratch to help ensure against viruses, trojans, etc, getting installed on them. Our card catalog system automatically expunges it's history of who checked out what books after the books are checked back in. No long-running accumulation of such history is stored at all. We keep it that way on purpose.
Indymedia has made false claims before. For example, IMC carried a claim that the videos CNN aired about dancing Palestinians after the WTC attack were fake. Of course, they turned out to be absolutely true, and IMC looked even more like Palestinian propaganda after it turned out the PA had tried to suppress videos of huge pro-bin Laden demonstrations.
IMC was forced to link to a retraction, after highlighting the false claim against CNN. So much for the credibility of independent media.
Anyone who believes a word printed on an IMC is an idiot.
Or "Ariel Sharon is a peace-loving hippie".
Depressing. I was driving home from work today when I encountered two automated speed traps "cleverly" disguised as abandoned cars (the flash that went off every time a car passed kind of gave it away). I'm worried that it's too late to do anything about our government-gone-mad. All we can hope (?) for are lots of people who are sick and tired of pointless audits, raids, wiretappings, and harassment that will eventually result from all of this, not too mention the tax burden. Don't worry, all you law-and-order types. It's coming. I hope you bear the brunt of it.
Just pay cash. That's totally untraceable.
Wrong, not terrorists, they didn't go around killing civilians to further their cause. Nor did they espouse hatred that could be used for fanatical suicide bombers killing off civilians. They declared their independence from tyranny and fought against military targets to secure it. You are deluding yourself through ignorance of the true meaning of words in todays real world. I suggest you correct yourself before someone else does it for you.
This really has absolutely nothing to do with copyright. Has "DMCA" become a catchall phrase for every law that people don't like?
what a brilliant response. This should be +5
The cure for 1984 is 1776.
Different social conditions in 1776? How about the fact that the economy was built on the forced labor of human beings who were belittled and considered property because of their race? Slavery existed before and almost a century after 1776. Here's to enlightened leadership. Power to the people!:-9
Our founding fathers were good people, no doubt... and I'm sure that the people putting this surveillance system into place have the best intentions at heart. But the fact is, whether this country is ruled by mob, oligarchy, or autocrat, someone's going to get screwed in the interest of the enfranchised. And in a society where dishonesty and ruthlessness is rewarded in the economic realm, how do people expect such a great tool of oppression to stay in the hands of altruistic, civil-minded humanitarians?
I don't. I think a Big Brother-like society is more or less inevitable... Unfortunately, revolutions in the future will probably have more in common with slave revolts (revolters with next-to-nil resources vs. masters that control the economy and arms production), which always ended in massacres, than they will with the American Revolution (revolters with resources, production, foreign military and economic support vs. masters trying to enforce rule from thousands of miles away).
I really don't want to trust the content on a website marked fear.org...
But there is a large amount of truth in the statement that the other poster marked as hyperbole. They can take on suspicion. And they don't have to give back at all. I know. I am a newsman and have seen the worst of this terrible law. It is truly one of the most dispicable violations of basic property laws in US history.
Bin Laden is a "liberator" to those who follow him.
If you consider your idea of liberation to be murdering people over oppressive rules infractions, making women dress up like pup-tents, desecrating the graves of the dead, outlawing other religions, and plotting and attacking another nation with nefarious intent...
Well then, I think your definition of liberator is a little lax. Try again.
Websters says:
liberate Pronunciation Key (lb-rt)
tr.v. liberated, liberating, liberates
To set free, as from oppression, confinement, or foreign control.
Chemistry. To release (a gas, for example) from combination.
Slang. To obtain by illegal or stealthy action: tried to sell appliances that were liberated during the riot.
See, that was a movie. Where you are is reality. Please note the difference next time.
Don't you realize this is about the Monica Lewinski - Clinton affair and checking gifts exchanged between them right?
It's not about checking what she read at all, it's about establishing an exchange of gifts to reinforce a charge of perjury or even uncover her possible deception, this was about checking out her story. It could have been a ham sandwitch allegedly purchased, it had nothing to do with the content of what she was reading.
In 1999, a disturbed gentleman of right-wing views planted three nail-bombs targeting obvious communities in London.
The first went off in Brixton, a buzzy area known for West Indians and street markets, about 50 yards and a couple of hours from where I'd taken my marathon training partner, her first-born son and smallest daughter for a thank-you pizza, which slightly spoiled the impression I'd been trying to make.
This one didn't kill anyone (the third and last one killed a man, a mother and an unborn child at a gay pub), just left adults and children with nails in their bodies and faces.
Brixton has a bit of a street crime problem and is quite heavily CCTV-ed, and the pictures shown on TV were, while fuzzy, accurate enough for someone to have recognized the bomber in the hours before the third bomb, and he was picked up almost immediately afterwards.
I'd say it's possible to live with mass CCTV. There will be problems and abuses, I'm sure, but I think we need to find a way of making it work.
Don't look too deep into it. Just think "fighting for what you believe is right."
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
You make it illegal to spy on people from within their home.
but it should be legal for the intelligence agencies to watch people, its their job.
Now if you are in your house, yes you are losing privacy
What privacy do you have outside? anyone can watch you, take pictures of you, police have been doing it for years and you cant do shit about it.
Theres no loss of freedom because its a freedom you never had to begin with.
Something has to be done, freedom is good, but if you want extreme freedom what you have is anarchy, freedom must be a controlled freedom, there has to be order, laws and so on.
The world isnt filled with people intelligent enough to handle complete freedom, and it wont bee intelligent enough to handle it when our kids grow up, face it, if we dont increase our security, our kids wont grow up at all.
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There's a big difference between spotting someone in a mall/bank/7-11 and being able to track someones every move. What happens when Ashcroft's cameras spot you among people thought to be a "national threat" (tm). What's to stop them from following you, and possibly harassing you, even though your only crime was having questionable associates. And if you trust the Bush admin not to step over the line, will you have similar confidence in 2004 when (God forbid) we get Hillary Clinton in there?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.
--Martin Niemöller
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
Public = Public.
Its that simple. You have no privacy in public.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac