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Government Internet Surveillance Up
Harvey Manfrenjensenton writes "According to this story at Newhouse News Service, the assault on Americans' rights known as the Patriot Act, passed by Congress in October, has produced results that are as disturbing -- and rampant -- as could have been anticipated. Law enforcement used to need a court order to tap your phone, read your mail, etc. Now they just need a whim. ISP's and Telcos can barely keep up with the volume of requests by Feds wanting to read your email." EFF's analysis of the Patriot Act is good reading.
Lookie the troll!
This bill or whatchacallit is never going to be repealed. It is and will continue to be yet another heartstring connected to the american public. Compare to the following idea. How many laws are passed "in the interest of protecting our children"? While helping to ensure the well being of those we love and protect, laws that are marketed on the basis of bait and switch have the potential for going too far morally and perhaps constitutionally. And that it what IMO we could be seeing.
Because everybody has inherent human dignity. And part of that dignity is a right to keep your affairs your own. Also, I feel obligated to point out that the Bill of Rights and Constitution were written a *tad* before there was an internet. Oh, and let's not forget, a small group of people called the Supreme Court say we have a right to privacy. For some reason I trust them over an anonymous coward. If you fear terrorists so much that you'd let the government read your email, than truly you are a coward. We still live in an era where human life should have some meaning or value. Get used to it. Fascist. "Those who would sacrifice their liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." That's from your founding father. Why don't you read the Constitution before you start thumping it.
There was oposition if i remember... but also much unscruplous use of the "terrorist fear"...
Now USA will have some more police state laws to overrule! And we all know how "easy" is that...
AC comments get piped to
They have been able to push each and every pet policy of theirs in the name of "homeland security" and patriotism.
Quoting Samuel Johnson, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
S
Quoting Ambrose Bierce, "with respect to Mr. Johnson, I submit that it is the first."
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
That's an important point, there almost wasn't a Bill of Rights. When you make a list, even if you disclaim it with an entry that says that it isn't all inclusive, people will assume that the other rights just aren't as important. Part of the group that wrote the consitution didn't want a list, but the other part that eventually won, knew that if things were left to ambigous, it would be taken as license to do whatever the government wanted to do.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Why the hell is there a space? If it's an acroynm, shouldn't it be written "USAPATRIOT"?
A few things I found noteworthy...
The amount of subpoenas that carriers receive today is roughly doubling every month -- we're talking about hundreds of thousands of subpoenas for customer records
...HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS!!! There are hundreds of thousands of suspected terrorists or people with involvement in terrorist activities in the US each month??
"The war on terrorism is basically a war of intelligence," Scowcroft said. "Every time they move, every time they get money or spend money, there's a trace, somewhere. What we need to do is get as many of those traces as we can and put them together into a mosaic which will allow us to uncover the al-Qaida network."
It seems to me that the full power of the US intelligence community has had more than enough time to uncover terrorist organizations operating in the US. I understand that it is much, much more difficult to conduct investigations in other countries, but the domestic investigations are getting ridiculous. What is really disturbing, is the way that the "al-Qaida network" is turning into a real-life Immanuel Goldstein....and we must take any and all measures to find him, no matter what it takes.
Quoting from the article:
"The problem that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face is not insufficient information -- "they are choking on information," Dempsey said. The deficiency is in targeting and analysis. The Patriot Act was based on "the assumption if you pour more data into the system, then the picture would become clearer, and I think that's a false presumption," Dempsey said."
Not only are ISPs and others having a hard time dealing with the flood of requests, but it seems Uncle Sam doesn't have the resources to crunch the data it's currently getting. This might be good in so far as it may someday make law enforcement more selective of the information they collect, or perhaps we'll all just be on file indefinately. Someday when they dig up Indiana's Arc from the storage they'll find thousands of hard drives full of emails and chat sessions.
Just my $.02
This is just an excuse for spying on the US public (gee I'm glad I live in oztraya where similar legislation won't b passed for another couple of weeks). Serious terrorists use encryption, and hide their tracks. They have fake names. I'm not suggesting they can't be caught, but not that easily. The main thing the USA PATRIOT act will do will deter wannabe luser terrorists (the script-kiddies of the terrorist world), and depressed high schools from blowing things up. For a little while at least.
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
Um, yeah, I do. A warrant is not just some hoop to be passed through. It is a requirement that the FBI convince an independent judge that they have sufficient grounds to eavesdrop (or whatever). They don't have to prove a crime is being committed, but rather, that there's good reason to believe one is. If the owner of a computer asks the FBI to monitor it, I'm pretty sure the judge would immediately grant the warrant.
People seem to ask, "Well, if it's so trivial, why bother with a warrant?" I ask, "Well, if it's so trivial, why aren't you confident enough to try getting a warrant?" The Fourth Amendment is more than a hurdle, a hoop, or a technicality. It is the linchpin of an effective, independent judiciary. And if the FBI is "not some huge govt. agency listening in on everyones phone calls and reading everyones email", that is at least in part because they haven't been allowed to be.
Our guarantees of civil liberties are not hinderances on an otherwise effective and respect law enforcement system. They are the root causes as to why that system is effective and respected.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The problem is that the government has to waste several hours tracking down the judge to get the warrant signed.
This addition allows the government to get the permission of the owner of the computer to listen in on what someone is saying. I do not doubt that the FBI would be able to get the warrant. But why should they? If someone breaks into your house, and you see them snooping around, do you want the FBI to have to get a warrant to go into your house? Or should they just get your permission?
I think that way to many people have no idea how law enforcement actually works most of the time, and they just get blinded by the few times that stupid people in the govt. do stupid things.
I agree that law enforcement should have limits on what they can do, but I don't think that they should have artificial barriers put in place that prevent them from doing their job, while only protecting non-existant rights.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
Makes you wonder what slashdot's disclosure policy on its users and blogs, no?
I'm not doing anything illegal, so no big deal, but i should expect my emails not to be read by the FBI without sufficient probable cause. Your analogy of someone breaking into your house is silly. The situation is actually reversed, the analogy is better stated: If you were doing something that you didn't want the world to see (illegal or not) in your own house do you want the FBI to have to get a warrant or can they just come in?
Now, should i have that same expectation of privacy when my signals leave my house? For years the courts have upheld that my mail can't be read without a warrant, that my phone can't be tapped without a warrant (these are based on the 4th ammendment) so why should it be any different for my email or other signals that i send?
No argument there; I got over my rampant paranoia many years ago, and realized that at the bottom, the TLAs of the world are just people, nothing more. But this does nothing to alleviate my fears.
You read the PATRIOT USA act; good on you -- you're one up on me. But did you read the article? It's claimed that the number of subpoenas to telcos is doubling every month. That is insane. There are reports of law enforcement agencies insinuating that asking for subpoenas is un-patriotic. That is also insane. I am reminded of every police state that will get me modded down as flamebait for mentioning.
No, I don't think they're gonna start rounding people up for the ovens any time soon. But will any good come out of this huge, overweening invasion of privacy? You can argue that these are relatively small steps, and I'd be hard pressed to come up with a good rejoinder. But so many small steps, in such a short time (seven months! seven!) are frightening. I can't be the only one afraid that people -- ordinary people like you and me -- are trying to wade through a morass of data, trying to pick out The Bad Guys, pressured more and more to come up with Results, and being given, in contrast with the pre-September 11th culture, virtual carte blanche to grab whatever they want, and browbeat into submission everyone who dares disagree..
I'm Canadian. I'm not one of those gung-ho idiots in beer commercials (watch some Cdn. TV some time, you'll see what I mean); I've kept a relatively critical eye on my nation and my government, and gotten over a juvenile dislike of Americans, and I'm comfortable with the idea of moving away from Canada at some point, probably permanently. My wife would like nothing better than to move to Chicago; she loves the city, loves the idea of the city. This article makes me afraid to go there for a visit, let alone to live. I'm starting to wonder how you folks down there do it, or put up with it.
I understand that trusting people works, mostly. But this quote really resonated with me:
"We endow government with tremendous power -- power to arrest you, take away your property, take away your life, destroy your reputation, take your children away from you," Dempsey said. "I think those powers in the hands of human beings, acting under pressure, with the best of intentions, facing time deadlines in a world of limited resources, those kinds of powers need to be surrounded with a thicket of rules."
I could not possibly have said it better.
Carousel is a lie!
And ... obviously to start a flamewar
Happy to oblige...
What would have Clinton, Gore, and Reno done?
WTF does one group of crooks have to do with another?
Why is it that when someone comments on the lack of virtue in one half of the republicrat party, people think they can distract from the issue by pointing out how corrupt the other half is?
Get this into your head: in the big picture, Bush and Clinton are basically the same guy. Reno and Ashcroft are the same person. Gore and Chaney are the same person. There's no distracting contrast here. You didn't get Bush off the hook by reminding us that his buddy Clinton is a crook.
It is quite surprising for me to see that America seems to follow the path that was pioneered by the Soviet Union's government in 1930s.
As you may know, in 1934 Stalin simulated a terrorist act and killed his only rival in the power struggle Kirov. After that it was mandated that terrorist investigations should be given the maximum priority due to danger that terrorist acts pose for the state and the society. The law enforcement got extra power in controlling the citizens' activities and obtaining information to speed up the terrorist investigations. (Potentially all telephone conversations were tapped and all mail was opened). Also the police and the secret police got the authority to use special methods (or torture) to get 'confessions' of alleged criminals. In addition to that special tribunal system was established to speed up trials of terrorist suspects and prevent 'state secret' information from becoming the public knowledge. All that was done in the atmosphere of spy and terrorist paranoia propagated by the state-controlled media.
The results and the price that the people had to pay for such a state system are quite well-known today.
Of course, the situation in the present-day America is very different from that of the Soviet Union many decades ago. And the danger of terrorism is real and should be taken seriously. But the tendencies in development are quite disturbing. The only way to prevent abuses and keep existing freedoms and traditions is to provide accountability of the law enforcement before the general public and shed as much light as possible on the law enforcement activity.
The answer is yes of they have "reasonable" grounds to suspect you have or will commit a criminal act.
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Actuaaallly. . .
Law enforcement agents have to do ONE thing and ONE thing only.
That is CATCH criminals AFTER they commit a crime. Let me repeat that for everybody.
Catch criminals AFTER they commit a crime.
Technically law enforcement catches people ahead of the game as a matter of common courtesy, they don't have to do so, and giving them too MANY powers to do so seems just plain wrong to me.
They are Law ENFORCEMENT Agencies, _NOT_ Crime Prevention Taskforces or any other such lame moniker
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It's such obvious doublespeak that I'd have cast a vote against it on general principle, or at the very least floated an amendment (on reading the bill and deciding that I liked it, which I don't) to change the name.
Every time I hear that Act mentioned, I cringe.