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Carnivore Update
A reader writes: "Yahoo has a news item about the continued use of DCS-1000 AKA Carnivore. Looks like it's being used more than ever, and some privacy groups are still fighting in court for more disclosure about its use."
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"Carnivore is not deployed on our network," Shaw said. "We certainly do comply with law enforcement, but we do so in a way that does not compromise our users' privacy."
How does that work, exactly? Does Earthlink force you to use military-grade encryption prior to subscribing?
I'm heading an OpenSource project thats grown to a fair size...
.tar.gz file... or a .zip file. I, later on, get an e-mail asking if I got the file... I hadn't. He re-sends. I soon get both in my e-mail later that day.
Therefore I have people send me files, etc to my e-mail address often.
I'm using AT&T Broadband internet (http://www.attbi.com), Some one sends me a
Now I'm not much of a conspiracy person, but... since when do we get e-mails sent second, first?
Why are e-mails with attachments taking so much longer to get to me, then e-mails without attachments? Anyone else notice this?
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
Carnivore is not here to 'keep us safe'. It's here to keep us quiet. Thank you John Asscroft, for making sure no one speaks out without repercussions.
BTW: The terrorists have already won...the election.
...when computers were not hooked up to one another, let alone to a wall socket? Back in those days, 'snooping' was limited to a select half doen people around the globe and necessitated the keys to get to the actual computer.
Nowadays, creating software (napster, IE, Kazaa, Blizzard games...), let alone using it, is an issue that often ends up in the courts...
Technology sure is'nt the fun it used to be.
how does one change his
Speaking of Carnivore: for 3 months, just after September 11th. I noticed that all of my traffic was being routed through Arlington VA. This stopped about two months ago. Now my packets travel normally, (no Arlington node in every traceorute). Was that Carnivore? If it was, doesn't that violate Free Speech?
Even with the recent evolution in factoring, there's no match for a properly set-up pgp/gpg.
Why bother to rely on their niceness when you can easily be rather sure nobody reads your important mails?
I guess everyone is under investigation for possible crimes then, huh? :P
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
"While EarthLink had resisted Carnivore deployment on its network prior to the attacks, an EarthLink spokesperson told NewsFactor shortly afterward that he assumed every large ISP in the country had been contacted by the FBI and that all of them were cooperating."
"Carnivore is not deployed on our network," Shaw said. "We certainly do comply with law enforcement, but we do so in a way that does not compromise our users' privacy."
I have to wonder if "cooperating" with law enforcement means not only allowing access to the FBI and Carnivore but also making the public statement "Carnivore is not deployed on our network".
I wouldn't make any assumptions of privacy no matter what ISP you use.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
It was probably the NSA, until they put you into the category of "Mostly Harmless"
Which is what I think they did with most the geek community.
Classify it as "Mostly Harmless"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"Still, SecurityFocus incident analyst Ryan Russell said the events of September 11th changed many citizens' minds.
"I think there is a lot less concern from the majority of people that they're going to be monitored," Russell told NewsFactor."
OK, now prove it. No one likes their communications being monitored. Has anyone actually gone out and ASKED people if they mind being monitored? Or is this more of the well, they don't seem to mind because they aren't bitching about it type of logic?
This cop-out crap about 9-11 changing the way everyone thinks of privacy is beginning to get extremely old. 9-11 was a national tragedy. Don't use it to slam dunk crap legislation down our throats...once you have gathered the wraith of enough people, then maybe you will listen. Most Americans are UN-EDUCATED on these matters. They also probably think that in order to be caught up in this, you need to be some militia-type with a bunch of ammo and automatic weapons to be investigated. Sad, really....
Sent from your iPad.
Just use ROT13 to encrypt your messages and your messages will be safe from prying eyes...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
You know... just to let ya know... yahoo gets more traffic in one hour than slashdot gets in a day. I wouldn't be too concerned about the /. effect on freakin YAHOO!. :-)
FBI Headquarters, Director's Office, Present:
DATA ANALYST: Good Afternoon, Sir. Here is the latest report from Carnivore.
FBI DIRECTOR: Who the fuck is this Bernard Shifman?
DATA ANALYST: He's a moron spammer, sir. We're trying to get his e-mails excluded as we speak.
Mail covers have been used by law enforcement for quite a while - it's a practice that allows them to scan/look at the front of an envelope to determine where it has been addressed to and from. Grabbing email headers is no different, and even the subject line may fall under this jurisdiction.
now i know that carnivore is no doubt being used to dig into message body and such, but please be aware that there is a precedent for certain functions of this system
-shpoffo
The thing I don't understand is this - it seems the people who get angriest about Carnivore are people like me, who have absolutely nothing to hide. I am not involved in any sort of criminal activity, and my "secrets" wouldn't earn an R rating if they were made into a movie. Yet this story makes me furious.
The people I know who DO have things to hide, who actually deal with sensitive corporate stuff, who do drugs and have affairs, these people tend to be very blase about privacy issues.
Why?
God is real unless declared integer
You may not be familiar with SMTP servers like sendmail, postfix, etc. Mails that are sent from clients go into a queue. In the case of larger ISPs with many many users, the mail servers handle quite a bit of mail, so messages may sit in queue for longer.
The order that they are sent out of the queue in is determined by settings set by the administrator. Some SMTP servers are actually setup so that small-sized messages get priority over bigger messages. Since most e-mails are small, your larger messages with attachments may sit in the queue longer, waiting for a bunch of smaller messages to be sent.
This queueing depends on the mostly on the *senders* mail server. The receivers mail server will generally put messages from the receive queue into the users mailboxes in the order they came in, but not always.
Have your mail client display all headers...these show where the mail was along its route and typically have date/time stamps on them. This will help you determine where the hold up is (on the sender's mail server, on your mail server, etc.) Look for the length of time between timestamps. If one is unusually longer than the rest, that's where the hold up is. I'm not saying it's not Carnivore, but what you describe is a fairly common occurrence.
My journal has hot
Since the 70s both US and former USSR used to monitor all of our phone calls... Im not surprised that US is now trying to monitor our e-mails... :))
Im really starting to believe that those pigeons used on India are the best sollution for our privacy needs!!!
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
You said "If this is what it takes in this modern day and age for the law enforcement agencies to protect us, so be it. "
As Ben Franklin said ->"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Perhaps this will help you understand why it is important to stop this now.
"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing -- when you let the small evils pass, larger ones follow." Edmund Burke.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster." - Nietzsche
Or try this on for size
"First they 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 Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me."
by Rev. Martin Niemoeller, 1945
Perhaps I'm not so likely to jump back on the bandwagon because the situations that existed before 9/11 that brought about the events of 9/11 are for the most part unchanged.
- There's a good deal of moneyed hate for all that is Western culture. Don't think those in the EU get a pass. It's only a matter of irrational fortune that the London Stock Exchange or the Eiffel Tower didn't get nailed. What was the plan...50 airplanes all over the world? Something along those lines.
- Theocratic warfare is still quite prevalent in the middle east. Theocratic states don't play along national lines or rules. If God says it, screw your Geneva Convention, buddy.
- We haven't disproved the efficiency of non-state based warfare. In fact, all we've done is hope it goes away before something else happens. Of course, EVERYONE is worried about the unstated concern that the international organizations are really just fronts for foreign governments. It doesn't take a genius to figure out a half dozen methods for causing billions of dollars worth of damage in ANY major metropolitan area around the world with no possibility of being stopped.
- We don't know what was planned to go off, where it was planned to go off, and with whom it is to go off. If the terrorists had any forethought at all, they would've allowed for the possibility of a communications crackdown after the first strike. Carnivore is based on the hope that the terrorists weren't this prepared. Given that the people who carried out the hijackings were in the U.S. for years, this isn't something to count on. Then again, Richard Reid was so butt-loving stupid(he missed his first flight for crying out loud!) we may yet snap up the idiot in the enemy ranks.
To sum up: we don't know who the enemy exactly is, but we do know that the enemy does exist. To pretend the enemy doesn't exist is insanely moronic and, in the end, suicidal. Get over the concept that any inconvenience is a victory for the enemy, and at least allow for the possibility that the government may just be trying to save your pampered ass.Maybe all you do is check hockey scores, but some of us do real work on the Internet. Think about this, for example: What if I wanted John Ashcroft's job, and I was using email on the Internet to plan my campaign strategy. Maybe we can trust John Ashcroft not to take advantage of his position to protect his own interests, but what about the rest of the people in his organization? Do you want to bet your democracy on it? As a rule, in the US, we don't grant this level of inherent trust to our elected officials; we've found it unnecessary because we've created a government based on a set of checks and balances. A lot of people made a lot of sacrifices to bring you the democracy your enjoy today. You disrespect their memory to abandon what they've built just to make your own ass a bit safer for a while.
Carnivore allows one branch to "snoop" on the other two (and every citizen as well). Carnivore is root access to the email system.
Maybe we can trust John Ashcroft, but ask yourself this: Why is this administration demanding the ability to look at the inner workings of all other organizations (Carnivore), and simultaneously blocking requests by other organixations to find out about the administrations inner workings (energy policy scandal)?
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I still haven't gotten my friends to use GPG for everything, but I figured I could solve half of the problem, by having my email hosted overseas and then use an SSL connection to retrieve it (and also SMTP over SSL for outbound mail). That way, if someone's just snooping my side, then it's still hard to read mail that isn't GPGed. Right?
Nope. As far as I can tell, the client I have been playing with, doesn't show me certs or let me store the server's cert somewhere. Therefore, all my SSL connections could be going through a Man In The Middle and I would never know. SSL is practically useless.
When it comes to email, encryption really does have to be done at the application level, and PGP/GPG is The Way.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Ever heard of a mail cover? According to Law.com:
A mail cover consists of recording the information on the outside of all the mail delivered to the target home or business. It is done by the post office at the request of a local, state or federal law enforcement agency and lasts for one or more 30-day periods.
<snip>
... a mail cover doesn't need a judge's approval. Nor, as in wiretaps, are the targets of a mail cover eventually notified of the practice. The only way to learn about it is through discovery in a legal proceeding, if the lawyer asks the right questions.
And of course:
Its use has risen by more than half since the mid-1980s.
It's time people realized that surveillence isn't just about Carnivore and face recognition.
Nope, no sig
Even if you use pgp/gpg, the adresses of the recipients are NOT encrypted.
/var/log/maillog of a corporate mailserver? It is really interesting. You can learn a lot just by analysing the addresses.
I don't send messages to any known terrorists, but have you ever looked at a
To sum up: we don't know who the enemy exactly is, but we do know that the enemy does exist. To pretend the enemy doesn't exist is insanely moronic and, in the end, suicidal. Get over the concept that any inconvenience is a victory for the enemy, and at least allow for the possibility that the government may just be trying to save your pampered ass.
Ohhh. Of course, it all makes sense to me now, the government NEEDS to read my e-mail to save me from terrorists... Of course. And the fact that this system was in place BEFORE a handful of people with boxcutters (Sweet zombie jesus how do you take over a plane with a fucking boxcutter?!) hijacked and crashed 4 planes is meaningless. Maybe, JUST maybe, we should stop training our citizens to be mindless drones who follow the whims of anyone around them, hmmm? The reason those planes crashed into the WTC is that the people one the plane believed OUR Governments bullshit about the best way not to die in a hijacking. Just like hundreds of people are raped and killed each year because the cops teach them not to resist. I say fuck that! If you're in a hostage situation you should ASSUME you are going to die anyways! If someone is trying to rape you, you should ASSUME they are going to kill you afterwards. FIGHT BACK PEOPLE!!! Stand up for yourselves and your rights! You don't need the government to do it for you!
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
If this is what it takes in this modern day and age for the law enforcement agencies to protect us, so be it.
I'm gonna let you in on a little secret here, Law enforcement is not here to 'protect' you. Law enforcement is here to clean up the mess after someone sprays your brains all over your apartment. They are trying to safeguard their jobs and government officials. For the same reason they don't give a flying fuck about what you write in your e-mail, they don't give a flying fuck if some militant islamist strolls into your house and kills you. They'll investigate afterwards, but they're more likely to just bug your house to get the killing on tape, THEN arrest the guy to make sure they get a conviction. They aren't interested in protecting you, and the sooner you realize that the better off you'll be. Protect yourself, stop whining for other people to do it for you.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I've suggested before that invoking Communism or major communistic leaders like Stalin should be an argument losing tactic as well. How many of you are sick of crap like this:
That GPL stuff is just communism anyway. Yur just out to put 'leet programmers like me out of work.
Communism is invoked to make cheap talking points in exactly the same way Nazism is invoked; it's yet another cheap rhetorical club whose use should brand anyone using it as just another ignorant 11 year old talking out his hind end.
I don't care for Ashcroft either but the parent poster is right. The guy who compared Ashcroft to Stalin shot himself in the foot.
Communism corollary to Godwin's Law anyone?
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Ben Franklin
$ make work
make: *** No rule to make target `work'. Stop.
The drawback is that requiring encrypted email also blocks all mailing lists, and your clueless aunt in Nebraska who only uses AOL.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
It's called Ameritech's Arlington, VA NAP. If cross-country cross-network traffic doesn't go through there, it goes through one in Chicago or another one in Vienna, VA.
Stop being so damned paranoid.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Here are the folks that make it:
N etDetect or_Data_Sheet.pdf
www.niksun.com
Carnivore is called NetDetector for commercial sales.
http://www.niksun.com/products/pdf_files/
About $20k, runs on BSD.
Given the choice between entrusting my data to the FBI, or to employees who may be $cientologists, I'll take the FBI any day.
(The only distressing part about this article is that it implies the FBI trusts the clams. If I were the FBI, I sure as hell wouldn't.)
I like to use emacs M-x spook to insert "keywords" in my emails. This must really piss off the Carnivore folks...
You can get my comprehensive spook.lines file at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/spook/. They're included below for your terrorist-finding pleasure.
$400 million 1 October 15 May 1600 Pennsylvania Ave 17 November 3rd October 747 757 767 ACLU ADF AES AIDS AIIB AK-47 ALIR ANO ARD ARN ASALA ASG Abu Dis Abu Nidal Abu Sayyaf Aceh Merdeka Aden-Abyan Afghanistan Ahl-e-Hadees Air Force One Al Qaeda Al Quaida Al-Fatah Al-`Asifa Alamo Albanian Alex Boncayao Brigade Alliance of Eritrean National Force Alliance pour la resistance democratique Allied Democratic Forces American American Airlines Amn Araissi Arab Revolutionary Brigades Arab Revolutionary Council Arafat Area 51 Aum Shinrikyo Aum Supreme Truth Avtomat Kalasnikov BATF Babbar Khalsa Baghdad Berlin Bhinderanwala Tiger Force Black September Brigate Rosse CERT CIA CIRA CNDD CNRM CNRT Catholic Reaction Force Cessna China Chukaku-Ha Clinton Cocaine Communist Conseil Cuba DCS1000 DDoS DES DFLP DNA DXM Dal Khalsa Dayak Delta Airlines Delta Force Dev Sol Devrimci Sol DoS EFF ELF-RC ESSA EZLN Eastern Shan State Army Eiffel Tower Ejercito Popular Boricua Ejercito Popular Revolucionario Ellalan Force Eritrean Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna FALINA FALINTIL FALN FBI FMLN FRETILIN FROLINA FSF Farabundo Marti Fatah Force 17 Free Aceh Ft. Bragg Ft. Meade GHB GIA GRAPO George Bush George W Bush Gerakin Aceh Merdeka Grey Wolves H2O2 HAMAS Hague Conference Harakat ul-Ansar Hawari Hitler Hizb-i Wahdat Hizb-i-Islami Hizb-ul-Mujahideen Hizballah Hizbullah Honduras ICBM IIS 5.0 IRA IRA Ikhwan-ul-Mussalmin Interahamwe Iparretarrak Islamic Israel JKLF Jamaat ul-Fuqra Jamat-e-Islami Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees John Dillinger KGB KKK Kach Kahane Chai Kashmir Kennedy Khaddafi Khalistan Khmer Rouge Komala Kosovo Kurdish Kurdistan Kuwait LSD LSD LTTE La Cosa Nostra Lakshar-e-Taiba Lautaro Legion of Doom Lenin Les mongoles MAPU/L MD5 MDMA MI6 MILF MNLF Macheteros Macheteros Mafia Maktab al-Khidamat Mantis Manuel Rodriguez Marxist Maubere Resistance Mayfly Mayi-Mayi Middle-Core Mohajir Qaumi Mong Tai Morazanist Mossad Mothaidda Quami Mujahedin-e Khalq Myanmar NORAD NSA Navy Nazi Nellis Range Noriega North Korea Oklahoma City Ortega Osama Bin Laden PALIPEHUTU PCP PETN PGP PLO Pakistan Panama Pearl Harbor Peking Provos Qaddafi RC5 RDX RENAMO RSA Reno Rijndael Romania Rule Psix SCUBA SDI SEAL Team 6 SHA SWAT Saddam Hussein Saheed Khalsa Scientology Semtex Serbian Shora-e-Jehad Sivi Vukovi South Africa Soviet Steyr Students of the Engineer TATP TEMPEST THC TNT Tal Al Za'atar Talaa' al-Fateh Tamil Eelam Teamsters Terra Lliure Treasury Tupac Amaru U-235 UN US Airways Usama Bin Laden Uzi WTO Waco White House World Trade Center World Trade Organization Zapatistas airframe airport al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya al-Jihad al-Qa'ida algorithm amatol ambush ambush ammo ammunition anonymous anti-tank archives armada armor armor-piercing arms arrangements assassinate assassination assassination assault atomic bomb bank account biological blowfish bomb bomb boobytrap border broken arrow c4 camera carnivore carnivore charcoal chemical child pornography chinese class struggle claymore cocaine cockpit codebook colonel commando composition b conspiracy constitution cordite corporate corrupt council counter-intelligence crack-cocaine cracking cray credit card cryptographic czar d-day data haven defcon defenses democratie detcord detonate detonators dictionary disruption dissent divers doctrine domestic doomsday double agent e-bola echelon ecstasy efnet embassy embassy embassy empire encrypt enigma espionage explosion explosive face recognition faction fertilizer fissionable flight 800 football freedom freemasons fuselage genetic gold bullion government grenades gun gunpowder guns h-bomb hack harbor heroin hijack hostage hostages hydrogen bomb hydrogen peroxide illuminati impulse incendiaries infiltration infosec infrastructure initiators insurgent intel international internet internet worm interpol ireland jihad kamikazi kampuchea ketamine kibo kill kill kill kill launch codes lead azide lead styphante liberate liberation limousine lockpick loyalist main charge man-in-the-middle marijuana martyr massive DDoS maverick mercury fulminate mescaline microfiche microfilm minefield mines motorcade motorola mouvement munitions napalm nationalist negotiation negotiatior nitric acid nitrocellulose nuclear nuclear nukes olympics oppressed orthodox outlook express password picric acid pipe-bomb plague platter charge plutonium plutonium policy political pornography pre-teen president president primers private key propaganda psyops public key pulse detonation engine radar rail gun rebel remailer resistance revolucionario rijndael robotic rocket fuel rockets root-servers.net rubella salt peter sanctions satelliate satellite satellite phone secret secret key secret service secure security sequence shaped charge shoe bomb shotgun smallpox smuggle sniper sniper socialist space station special k spy steganography strategic submarine subsonic suicide suicide bombing suitcase suitcase nuke sulfur supercomputer supersonic surveillance tear gas teflon bullets terminate terrorism terrorist theater missile defense thermite thermonuclear timers triacetone triperoxide tunneling undercover undernet underwater united nations uranium violence virus virus warfare wargames warrant weapons white house white noise generator windows XP wiretap zenith
I am sitting here shaking my Canadian head in complete disbelief that my American neighbours can't seem to remember that same stupidity that gives rise to [blood]'s commentary ruined the lives of countless good and patriotic Americans during the McCarthy nonsense ...
I only studied one year of detailed American history (lived in Chicago for a year) and even my (2-year old) kids can see that [blood] is obviously an idiot with no sense of history and absolutely no understanding of where his "freedom" comes from.
Don't give in to the fear -- you will surrender more than you can possible gain.
If you read the independent report on Carnivore written by IITRI, you would know that Carnivore ran on a Windows NT box. Net Detector may do the same or similar functions, but it is not Carnivore. I was part of that team that evaluated Carnivore, but I have no idea if the DCS-1000 is the same product, or if they have changed to something different. I also do not know if they incorporated the many suggestions we made. The Justice Department never asked us to look at any follow-on products. For various reasons (none involving Carnivore that I know of), just about all of the evaluation team has left IITRI.
Just the fact that they can log all my in- and outgoing email, and use it against me or my friends if we were ever to cause any trouble in the future is bad enough.
Just imagine if you or someone you know were running for office at some point in the future.
One of the most interesting trends when any sort of privacy issue comes up on Slashdot is the rather large number of trolls - excuse me, 'folks with alternate viewpoints' - who come out of the woodwork to proudly proclaim that *they* have nothing to hide and therefore aren't concerned. And, as *they* aren't concerned, neither should you be - unless you're doing something illegal, immoral, or socially deviant, that is.
Rather intriguing that folks who aren't concerned about their privacy insist that everyone else not be concerned as well. In fact, they practically rant about it, insinuating that everyone who doesn't agree with them is either paranoid or involved in some dark, nefarious scheme against All That Is Good And Right(TM).
If they were so bloody unconcerned they should be perfectly ready to accept the fact that others might have more stringent views, and accept them - but they aren't. No, they *demand* that you conform to their views on the matter - which indicates that they are indeed concerned: they want your life to be as open to inspection as their own boring little existence is.
Why? For the same reason that the halfwit readers of the Enquirer insist that public figures have no right to privacy: so that they at least have the chance to snoop on the life of someone more interesting. And participate in their destruction if they prove to be someone socially undesirable, like a bisexual or an atheist, or a bisexual atheist, or whatever is on today's hit-list parade.
In fact, the perverts who insist that they don't need privacy, and therefore neither do you (and they'll spend a great deal of energy making sure you don't get it), are nothing more than malicious little peeping toms hoping that legislation stripping away what little privacy we have left will provide them with the same sort of vicarious thrills that the Enquirer does now.
Make no bones about it: the truly unconcerned don't even bother to comment. They are, after all, *unconcerned*. Those that *do* make a point of commenting and then arguing about it are just plain shits - shits who want to first tell you you *can't* have something or do something, just to give themselves a false sense of power in their otherwise pathetic lives; and second, in the hopes of spying on you, either directly or through the government, in order to experience a real life second hand. Or better yet, in the hopes that your more interesting existence will be targeted and destroyed in a public fashion, malicious revenge for the ennui of their own useless, unimportant existence.
The people who argue against privacy aren't just expressing a viewpoint; they're lobbying to actively invade your life and try to extend some control over it. They aren't satisfied unless they know *everyone's* business and have the opportunity to rain all over the parade of people more interesting than themselves.
Make no mistake: these folks are just plain evil (with the small 'e'; they don't have the balls for the bigger one). Nothing more, nothing less. They are the enemy; a repulsive, squalling enemy, a mostly ineffectual, impotent enemy, but still an enemy. Bitch-slap the buggers whenever you can, for that's all that they deserve.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The government should be worried if some geeks ever got a hold of these.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well, it is a shame no one will see your comment. Obviously, I can't mod it up as you're replying to me. So, I'll just do my best to engage you in conversation.
You raise good historical points, and, for that matter, conveniently ignore the nastier episodes in U.S. history concerning our dealings with others in favor of the more recent. I will be the first to not admit, but proclaim that international policy is almost always a choice of evils. What makes such policy even more morally ambiguous is that we know we are dealing with people every bit as vicious and authoritarian in order to suppress what we at that point consider the more immediate and dangerous evil. Of course, I would be a naive and colonial apologist if I didn't point out that this is nothing new. In fact, such choices have been present since the dawn of inter-civilization communication.
In our dealings with Panama, Libya, Iraq, Al Qaida and the like, every decision made between 1942 and 1992 was made with the Sovient Union in mind. Why? Well, they were the only true complete threat. While it is true that states with chemical weapons such as Iraq can kill thousands or possibly millions within the U.S. with coordinated strikes, and while its true that organizations such as Al Qaida could bring the world economy to its knees and possibly a recession with enough coordinated strikes, both threats absolutely vanish in the face of a true nuclear holocaust. Thus, we dealt with the less immediate evil.
The U.S. is not special with regards to its international policy. While we generally do pretty well with regards to human rights, there are atrocities with our names on them. This could be said about just about every country with an international agenda. In fact, the attitude of impunity is not special. Every country throughout history that has held such a strong position has held exactly that attitude, until their day in the sun finally ended.
I do recognize that the U.S. is a threat to theocrats everywhere. Consumerism doesn't work without the individual consumer, and we are the consummate consumerist society. Don't forget it's the reason we have the billions to spend on our military budget.
Once a person is capable of seeing that these issues are this large, that they concern not aspects of individual societies but the conflict between two very potent and robust societies, hopefully that person is capable of seeing that knee jerk reactions(such as those present in the posts that inspired my original comment, not your's) are inappropriate.
Ah. Makes sense. I think the one I use is .3%. I suppose that means I could just boil the water off and make rocket fuel. Cool.
-no broken link