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Surveillance Update
Several things occurred within the past few days on the privacy/surveillance frontier. First, the EU Parliament decision we mentioned yesterday is being widely reported as an assault on privacy (the European press barely mentions the spam angle we covered yesterday). As far as I can tell, this decision will loosen the EU's protections against surveillance, but does not implement any spying itself - national governments are free to NOT spy on their citizens, in the (perhaps unlikely) event that they don't want to do so. In the U.S., the FBI will be increasing their general surveillance - that is, they'll be doing more surveillance unrelated to any suspected crime, using commercial databases, etc. We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur. The NYT has an interesting analysis. Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc.
I say we all flee to Mars to escape persecution. It's not so bad; I hear they have water there now...
As a British Citizen, I'd like to say sorry for the part the UK played in this. I quote:
Despite opposition from civil liberties groups worldwide, the European parliament bowed to pressure from individual governments, led by Britain...
In my defence, I voted Lib-Dem in the last General Election, so the current bunch of clowns are nothing to do with me...
Syllable : It's an Operating System
As far as I can tell, this decision will loosen the EU's protections against surveillance, but does not implement any spying itself - national governments are free to NOT spy on their citizens, in the (perhaps unlikely) event that they don't want to do so.
A government is like a small child--give it an inch, and it will take a mile. A good case in point is Carnivore, here in the United States, which we already know intercepts non-suspects' e-mails despite FBI promises to the contrary.
Really, I'm surprised. Slashdot editors are usually the first ones I can count on to sound the alarm when this kind of blatant Big-Brotherism is passed into law. Maybe it doesn't matter to them because it's not happening in the U.S., yet?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
http://esales.iinet.net.au/cryptome/bank-data.htm
Don't want to be branded a carmawhore, so posting AC, but the Google cache is here
This sounds like the RIP (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) Act we've been subjected to in the UK. We were informed that the Government had these rights, but no amount of correspondance with politicians would get us a concrete answer as to what exactly 'necessary' and 'appropriate' were defined as in the Government's eyes. It might be 'necessary' to violate our privacy to monitor all of our communications to safeguard National Security, for instance. And the less said about Echelon the better.
Get with it. Being masturbated by my wife is one of the highlights of our relationship. Especially if it happens while I'm playing Q3... Explosive orgasms! Riding the rocket! Orgasmic fuel cells! The sky is the limit.
Jynx
Where do you want to shag today?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
I know my reaction was just about par for the course, chanting "surveillance bad" along with all of the other slasheepbots. But before you mod me down, I suggest actually following the links in the article, and reading them carefully (revolutionary idea for /. I know!). I did, and I can say I'm starting to be convinced.
First of all, we have to recognize that the global political landscape has undergone some serious changes in the last few decades. This is not your father's intelligence community. It used to be about people: spies, informants, narcs. Now it is about information, and more often than not that information is digital, available on-line. Surveillance is nothing new, but it is changing shape.
Furthermore, look at what they're up against. There is a huge amount of information out there. Even the humble Linux kernel source represents more data than can be digested in a week by a single person (although egcs(1) doesn't appear to have any trouble with it!). As part of my career I am responsible for filtering valid email addresses from gigabytes of online data, and I can testify that this kind of data mining is arduous and thankless.
Finally, the American intelligence community is well within its Constitutional rights to create these databases and monitor our transmissions. It is the price we pay for freedom. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I will gladly give up a little privacy in exchange for a lot of security.
Just give this a chance.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
But really... wouldn't a free big-screen high-definition plasma television in exchange for allowing the goverment to plant a camera behind the screen be great?! I want my Phillips Telescreen!
Learn to Play Go
This is getting nauseating. More and more life in the 'Free World' is going the way that life is under an oppressive regime - think living under Communism during the cold war years. Speak up or think differently than the Government sanctioned norm and you will be marked.
The BBC's article on the matter:2 016000/2016848.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_
also points to the sections which could mean the end of SPAM in Europe. Now if only they could do something about the Asian porn pedlars....
Exert from BBC:
Spam stopped
The wide-ranging directive also contains new
rules on the sending of unsolicited commercial
e-mail and the use of net-based data files or "cookies".
Now firms will only be able to send out e-mail
adverts if people agree in advance that they want to receive them. The directive
effectively bans the sending of unsolicited e-mail or spam.
Early drafts of the directive worried net
advertisers because they threatened to impose
the same conditions on the use of internet cookies.
Many websites use these small data files to
identify repeat visitors, maintain records of
what someone wants to buy while they are at the site and to tailor what visitors see.
Angela Mills-Wade, spokeswoman for the
Interactive Advertising Bureau, welcomed the
decision by the parliament on cookies.
"They realised it was disproportionate to impose
such stiff requirements and it was much better to have
something more practical," she said.
Officials said they believe that terrorists unknown to the FBI have taken advantage of such policies by meeting in mosques or Internet chat rooms where agents were unlikely to be watching. That was the case with most of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, officials said.
But the NY Times article only says they were meeting in mosques, and I've heard no other proof of Internet chat rooms being a contributer to 9/11.
So that justifies placing agents in chat rooms for the sole purpose of developing leads?
In addition, from NY Times:
Among other changes, the new guidelines let agents search Web sites and online chat rooms for evidence of terrorists' planning or other criminal activities.
It's that "other criminal activities" that has me worried. If someone is talking about drugs (regardless of whether or not they actually use them), does Uncle Sam track 'em down and start a file? And "terrorist activities"...seems that they could possibly keep pushing that one until anything that criticizes "Our Great Country" could lead to an investigation.
Seems to me the Thought Police can't be far behind.
We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur.
.... Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover enjoy a final, hearty laugh.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Just try and criticize a woman's "right" to abortion-on-demand on any college campus.
Yup, looks like lib-dems are the way to go.
The uk seems to be taking on the worst ideas from all over the world at the moment.
no sig.
I've started carrying Orwell's 1984 around in my pocket with me now so that I can show people the parallels between it and what's going on in America today. I may have to buy more copies so I can start lending them out. This is absolutely ludicrous. Did Ashcroft ever consider that there were valid reasons for having those limitation on there in the first place??
The NRA's slogan "Vote Freedom First" seems kind of ludicrous when you consider that it was used in support of this administration. Mod me as flamebait if you must, but increased FBI powers and freedom are not in any way compatible.
On all fronts our freedom is being assaulted. Technological and now social. We don't even have a Congressman to write to and complain in this cse; where are the checks and balances on the FBI? Oh yes, in the hands of the man who just gave them broader powers. And, given their track record for reporting the information they receive to their superiors...
These are scary times.
That's ridiculous. Chat rooms are public places. Why should government agents be prohibited from doing what any other member of the public could do?
I agree that the FBI is being given too much power. This is probably the one issue I will agree with the editors of Slashdot (I am a conservative). However, we will probably disagree on why the FBI was given braod surveillance powers. I believe it has to do with political correctness running out of control.
We have the ACLU who will sue the government if it ever tried to profile an ethnic group. So now the FBI says that we won't target any particular group, we'll target everyone. Now the ACLU says it doesn't like that either. So what's the FBI supposed to do? Believe all these soothsayers who say they predicted September 11th (just a few months too late)?
Now before everyone calls me a racist or slanders me in other ways, I am not just targeting Middle Eastern people. When we had the church bombers in African-American churches, I don't think we should have looked at everyone. We could probably profile the bombers as white males in their 20-40's. That's profiling. That's what the FBI needed and still needs to do.
Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you!
However, that's not directly what I wanted to say. I'd instead like to point out the two main reasons we got to this point:
And you do it too. Every time you say, "I wish the federal government would just regulate <foo>" or "I can't believe those ball players/lawyers/neurosurgeons make so much money," you're demonstrating envy and righteousness. Realize that if you think someone you don't know owes you something just because of your circumstances or his, someone else thinks the same about you. Realize that if you have the power to take away another's liberties, he has the power to take away yours. The only way to combat this is to deny government the power to forcibly take away any of our liberties.
If you're not voting Libertarian, donating to the EFF, the ACLU or the Institute for Justice, and the NRA, your complaints about big government taking away all your freedoms one-by-one is pointless blather.
[ home ]
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc.
I searched the article and didn't even find the word wife or global. Where did this summary come from? Wife beaters? Why would you even make up a lie that a bank is profiling wife beaters? Is that suppose to add sensationalism to the article? Because I don't think many computer geeks are wife beaters...
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
In a masterful spin, Bush said:
"The FBI needed to change," said the president. "It was an organization full of fine people who loved America but the organization didn't meet the times."
Excuse me, but I don't see how increasing their monitoring capabilities has anything to do with a reorganization of the FBI.
The organization is broken, so we'll fix it by giving it more powers. Argh.
Of course, the Lib Dems were very vocal in their opposition to this, weren't they. They're always berrating the government for it's authoritarian decisions.
Not at all sitting there like lumps, collecting their salaries and uttering the odd, feeble objection.
Okay, who else read the Washington Post article about the "criminal database" and thought "oooh...fun place to insert records...of, say....John Ashcroft..."
Of course, I'm not advocating that...that would be illegal....
the Washington Post reports
The full EFA briefing is found here, and I sure as heck don't like the idea of it.
Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
The problem with the intelligence communbity is lack of communication. They all report to the president but the president can't filter and remeber all the intelligence information that is passed his way. From what I understand the FBI handles all domestic crimes(i.e. kidnapping, bank robberies, inter-state crimes. ) The CIA gathers intelligence about foriegn powers. The NSA is electronic surveillance. And the NIS handles Illegal immigrants. These groups (some or all i don't remember) report the National Security Advisor to the President. What has been happening is that all the information the organizations gather get lost in the mix because of the large scale that they are. What needs to happen is that every report that the lowliest field agent files regardless of classification needs to be submitted to an independent but small group of experts with both clearence and access to all this information. Obviously this is alot of information so I believe they need to set up some sort of small and secure network to file and review all this info. Like I said I earlier I always believed this to be the job of the National Security advisor but I believe this has now been passed to the Office of Homeland Defense. What has been happening is shameful rather than try to improve communication between these agencies, the government tries to tighten up on our rights. Which happens to fall right in to step with what the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA want: A very monitored and restricted internet. Of course like most /. ers this is my antichrist. I only hope some one in this administration has enough balls and/or knowledge to see what is going on.
Semper Fidelis
It's all Politics
Spackler likes the FBI. Spackler is a good guy. Spackler thinks you are doing a great job. Spackler will be happy to give up all the rights his forefathers fought for so you can get off finding out if I masturbate or not. Spackler is your friend. Don't investigate Spackler.
2 days later: Sir, here is that report on that subversive Slashdot thing.
Everyone but Spackler is a commie.
Anyway, it seems that at some point, our subversive dialogues and challenging viewpoints may make us targets in the (near) future.
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
Time to wake up, boys n girls. The legacy philosophies we've suckled on for so long have finally been whipped out from under us like some magician's tablecloth. No more the unharrassed, laissez-faire, self-regulated, sensical approach. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy for letting it go.
And yet all is not lost. This is the net, a place driven by evolution and change and progress. It evolved from one organisation's needs to an unpredictable beast that panders to the needs of anyone and everyone, a panacaea for a sick society dependent on simple variety. And now it's being tamed.
Look around. Netspace has grown stale and bloated. Development, the slave of investment and capital, galumphs towards stationary anguish, a victim of its own success, the energy required to organise its own grotesque matter turning it into a turgid lump feeding off the ideas and technologies that made it so successful all those years ago.
But all is not lost. Much as the limitations and restrictions imposed upon content distribution begat the rise of distributed systems, just as the advances of surveillance gave birth to fresh, simpler waves of viruses, so the need now is for infrastructures that take back what was previously reigned by an absence of crumbling politics. The technology means anything's possible, the forces driving us towards necessity are gathering and rumbling. Time to change the net again.
Now, I could possibly see your point if you only referred to terrorists (though then there's the slippery slope of defining terrorism) and wife-beaters but ANTI-GLOBALIZATION PROTESTERS? Aren't you US-citizens supposed to stand on your back haunches now, howling "Freedom of speeeeeeeech! Freedom of speeeeeeech!"?
We're not talking about a criminal but about somebody with differing political ideas.
At least Cold War Commies were obvious in their oppression...
agent package spores president activate terminate Allah plastique stegonography
Is this yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, or is it an illustration of how futile it is to try and filter out the overwhelming false positives generated by free speech?
While you're deciding, remember that intelligence agencies are spending your taxes to monitor you. Free speech might become a very expensive priviledge.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Worse, the proles seem to think it's a great idea: to them, Big Brother is nothing more than a TV concept. Watch any vox pops show on the subject and all you hear are variations of lines like "Those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear". It's the one thing Orwell missed: that the proles would be manipulated to actively welcome 1984.
Of course, this message will soon be placed in my thought-crime file....
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
Leading financial services firms here have formed a private database company that will compile information about criminals, terrorists and other suspicious people, for use in screening new customers and weeding out those who may pose a risk.
Obviously, that's the catch-all phrase for anti-globalization wife beaters who make intricate gadgets from tropical bamboo and powered by cocnut cream pies.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Any post that puts the NRA and ACLU in the same boat is a bit weird.
Clowns to the political left of us Jokers to the right Here we are Stuck in the middle with EU . Sorry......
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Ahem. Just to introduce some complication here, there was just a news release about this where the (Libertarian) Cato Institute has "no serious problems":
(this is not false, it's honest-to-god what they said)
There's been quite a trend about this generally, with many hardcore, cap-L Libertarian pundits. saying similar things overall. It's been almost amusing to watch. No atheists in foxholes, and no paens to personal responsibility in the face of suicide terrorists (not all have had "foxhole conversions", but quite a few).
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Have the folks trying to force the second coming taken over the government?
Mary Culnan, a business professor and information technology specialist, said she believes the database will eventually mistakenly identify people who have similar names, or prompt financial services officials to incorrectly spurn some customers.
The current system mistakenly identifys people!
I'm in the process of getting a mortgage, so I got a copy of my credit report. I was so supprised to find out that about 40% of the accounts on the report are not my own. Most are my fathers, we have the same name, I'm a Jr. Anyway the information on there is so badly maintained it is scarry.
For example there is somthing on the report from '78, I was born in '77. Aparently I was buying diapers for my self with a VISA. In '89 there was a credit card opend with a limit of $11K, I was in 6th grade at the time, I bought lots of candy for my friends with that Mastercard!
All joking aside. The system is broken now, the new system will be just as broken. I'm guessing that it will be "more broken" because it will be in the name of finding the terrorists to protect the children, or some such crap! This war on terror is now way out of hand in the political arena, our poloticians are using it to accumulate power.
The day "Emergency Powers" are granted to the president of the USA is the day I head for the hills. I fear that day is soon approaching!
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur. Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc. (emphasis mine)
I hope I don't have to point out the logical fallacies in the above argument - the above train of thought is so poorly constructed and hate-filled that it can't even begin to be taken seriously.
Michael, there's a reason you're not a journalist for anything more than Slashdot, and it isn't because you're too good, or there's a conservative conspiracy against your liberal views, etc. etc., it's because you are a horrible "journalist."
Michael writes stories like this every so often; he writes stories and headlines claiming far-out conspiracy angles as fact and generally spewing hatred and venom towards those he disagrees with.
It's unfortunate, because I agree with most [of the objective parts] of what Michael said, but he does it in such a silly, infantile manner that it's unbearable to read. Please, Michael, spare us the melodrama; this isn't the end of the world yet.
I have some unfortunate news for you, Michael: the "freedom" and "democracy" you no doubt feel you're trying to protect by [rightly] informing the citizenry does not approve of or recognize slander, hatred, or general whinyness as legitament forms of political discourse. You have done nothing, I repeat NOTHING to make your conspiracy angles and ranting seem credible. All you have done is stoop down to the level of those you're fighting against, and then gone lower.
In conclusion, I would like to resubmit my original suggestion to CmdrTaco and the Slashdot editorial board: fire Michael. He's detrimental to the credibility of this site, and his hatred and name-calling should not be given such a place of prominence. Please show him the door and strongly encourage him never to return.
Go ahead and mod me to oblivion, oh unthinking moderators: my karma can take a hit for the truth.
-- Apologies for American rant --
/bin/laden too. We know John ain't going to do it (Binny's his anti-Constitutional gold mine), put someone in who will!
I find it deplorable that when I criticize my government, I'm told how the other governments of the world are worse. That's not good enough by my account. They're worse 'cause they're worse. The comparison alone is disgusting. The USA doesn't deserve to be weighed against other countries; we just know we're the best and that all we should ever do is get better in the endless quest of perfection that our country should never waver from.
--
That said, it's deplorable that John Ashcroft is permitted to do such a thing. This guy's unelected and has a known record of racism for god sakes, and here he is in this position that seems to have greater power than the president. He hates euthanasia in Oregon? Fine, der fuherer's word squishes the populus. Der fuherer ist all controlling and obeys no one. This evil man is so corrupt I'd even suspect (and that alone, having no proof) that he masterminded the destruction of the WTC just to advance his organization. Wow, now he can just wipe his ass with our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the excess of 200 years of history showing why these men cannot be allowed to have this power and flush it all down the crapper.
If it weren't obvious in the banter, I just hate this man's ability to just make these decisions - big decisions affecting the American way - barely checked by Congress or the Courts (in a timely fashion) or even the electorate. By the time the repairs can be made the damage is done.
Sack Ashcroft Now.
rm -rf
And a big sorry to everyone who got a headache reading this, except for der fuhrer.
Freedom in America is dying. You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the future of freedom in America. The hand writing is on the wall: America faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for it because freedom in America is dying. Things are looking very bad for liberty. As many of us are already aware, Ashcroft continues to fuck us over. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur. Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc. (emphasis mine)
I hope I don't have to point out the logical fallacies in the above argument - the above train of thought is so poorly constructed and hate-filled that it can't even begin to be taken seriously.
Michael, there's a reason you're not a journalist for anything more than Slashdot, and it isn't because you're too good, or there's a conservative conspiracy against your liberal views, etc. etc., it's because you are a horrible "journalist."
Michael writes stories like this every so often; he writes stories and headlines claiming far-out conspiracy angles as fact and generally spewing hatred and venom towards those he disagrees with.
It's unfortunate, because I agree with most [of the objective parts] of what Michael said, but he does it in such a silly, infantile manner that it's unbearable to read. Please, Michael, spare us the melodrama; this isn't the end of the world yet.
I have some unfortunate news for you, Michael: the "freedom" and "democracy" you no doubt feel you're trying to protect by [rightly] informing the citizenry does not approve of or recognize slander, hatred, or general whinyness as legitament forms of political discourse. You have done nothing, I repeat NOTHING to make your conspiracy angles and ranting seem credible. All you have done is stoop down to the level of those you're fighting against, and then gone lower.
In conclusion, I would like to resubmit my original suggestion to CmdrTaco and the Slashdot editorial board: fire Michael. He's detrimental to the credibility of this site, and his hatred and name-calling should not be given such a place of prominence. Please show him the door and strongly encourage him never to return.
Go ahead and mod me to oblivion, oh unthinking moderators: my karma can take a hit for the truth.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
I really cannot understand where demagogy ends and real interest in security starts...
/. reports news about this.
Cyclicaly goverments announce they're going to use "strict measures" to apply "zero tolerance", burning money, making some people happy and some bad; newspapers fill pages telling us how the goverment will do this and that.
And really often
So one may think that somethig is really going on, things are changing... the final weapon against crime is loading... again and again... but I've never seen a news like "crime lowered by x% with law".
Chances are that stopping all this demagogy stuff, and giving saved money to criminals would reduce criminality much more.
:dikappa
And when I thought credit bureaus were bad, now along comes this?? I thought I was free in this country to wander unmonitored daily... I think it's time I moved to a less repressive regime, like Saudi Arabia or something. As least they know they're being repressed.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
some sort of jargon filter should be standard equipment on this site: WTF is YHBT?
my copy of the infamous ANARCHISTS
COOKBOOK
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
I tried for FIVE years to get them to unmerge our credit records, without success. And, thanks to the protections congress has given the credit bureaus (that is, it seems I can't sue them for defamation) I have no recourse other than bad credit since my credit report shows all my mother's bad debts.
Wonder how long it will be before they decide that I'm really the well-known russian terrorist Ivan Narkinsky.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
"It's the search for the perfect database on bad guys. What they might not realize is there is so much bad information out there." - IT Guy
"Before taking any action, they will dig deeper to be sure of a customer's identity and attempt to confirm any allegations and reports" - Bank Guy
Pardon my cynicism, but, YEAAAAH, RIIIIIGHT. I'm sure that when I attempt to open a new account with $5,000, and my name pops up as a terrorist, they're going to spend an extra $1000 of company resources to investigate further, just like they do now if my name tilts a TRW report. Never mind the fact that it means they will have spent more money acquiring my account than they hope to profit from it - as my brother (a banker) has explained to me, profits don't matter to banks, they just want to provide liquidity to markets and make their account holders happy. If they make some money along the way that's a happy side effect. It's not like profitability is their sole driving motivation. It's not as if it's a deep, almost spiritual, belief verified in each potential new employee above janitor.</sarcasm>
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Your mother is called Johnny? You Americans are weird.
Post-September 11th American concerns about liberty and safety are very different from the pre-September 11th concerns. I see a lot of arguments here that do not take this into account. A lot people here are talking about liberty first, safety later. You are not talking to the converted, folks, you are talking to a mob scared about covering their respective asses. So to them, the vast majority of the American public, y'all sound a little hollow, hear?
I'm sure Slashdot would love to be an esoteric forum of quaint thoughts about the exciting rarefied air of liberty for its own sake. I'm sure Slashdot would love it even more if the words that are spoken here had more to do with the common man and woman. TO do that, some of you have to get your heads out of your Ivory Towers and talk about the real world rather than some grand libertarian utopia we should really be living in. I'm glad it sounds like cotton candy. So can you talk about your concerns in a way that the folks living in Paramus, New Jersey and Pasadena, California can relate to? They are SCARED.
A herd of buffalo, once it starts charging, has no intelligence, and will trample the fields that feed it just because somebody fired a few rounds by their flanks. Many decades hence, if we remove a lot of our own rights, there may be a lot of regret about our reaction to September 11th, but right now, we are in the thick of it. People are afraid.
So what am I saying? Y'all sound rather hollow, ok? Because you offer no protection from the kind of folks who committed September 11th. You invoke theories and possibilities of a police state, but the democratic tradition in this country is strong and deep, and the terrorists are REAL and in our midst, plotting our doom. You stand in the way of a herd of trampling buffalo, and you shout slogans that mean nothing to the mob before you, running over their own rights.
Folks, if you want to protect our freedoms, you have to find new arguments, and here is the kicker- you have to invoke those arguments that address the real problem: not our freedom, but our safety! I am with y'all, but I'm just saying: NO ONE IS LISTENING TO YOU. YOU SOUND TIRED AND SHRILL. I agree with you that our rights are in jeopardy, and they need to be saved, but you are doing nothing to appease the approaching mob who will trample our freedom in the name of our safety, get it? THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR FREEDOM THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR SAFETY. YOU MUST ADDRESS THIS.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Gee what a wonderful quote. Any volunteers to write this on a big banner and hold it up in front of a herd of charging buffalo? I didn't think so.
People are scared. They are covering their asses, they are not listening with their ears wide open and their minds in full-tilt. They are scared. You must invoke arguments that include their safety, because none of you do, and safety is what the herd of buffalo is worried most about right now.
Hear me now or regret it later when you are really out of touch with a reality we all dislike, when we REALLY get our rights bitten into. Fight the good fight but fight it with your feet on the ground and your eyes on the mud in front of you, not the glorious utopian fantasies of a world where liberty exists for liberty's sake with no concern at all for real world problems. The world needs the good fight for liberty, but ain't nobody gonna care about liberty if their DEAD.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Welcome to the deep south my friend.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
It's like, you guys want your privacy, but you also want full disclosure of everyone else.
Get on with it. Polititians are like lawyers, it doesn't matter who wins, or who is in power, they will still be making a profit off your fears and complaints.
Have you guys ever noticed that polititians do the opposite of what they say? So why waste your time voting based on what you find out? Just vote for who you DON'T agree with, and get on with life. Besides, all the elections are rigged, or have some sort of cheating in them anyways.
I'm surprised you guys don't all have ulcers and hemherroids from constant worrying. The rest of the country just goes back to whatever they were doing the day before.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
It appears that the FBI and the "Justice" Department , for as poorly as they performed for YEARS leading up to the big day in Septermber, are walking away with more power than they know what to do with.
Of course they didn't tell Bush... he has plausible deniability. Except he isn't firing the people who kept things from him. I guess he is only following SOME of the Reagan playbook.
Is it strange that Chandra's body shows up just in time to squeeze into the headlines for all of this?
As someone pointed out, it is incompetance (supposedly, anyway) that kept the FBI, CIA, etc from putting the pieces they had together ahead of time, and now they feel they can solve it with ubiquitous power... sounds good to them!
Will there be such a thing as "Anonymous Coward" anymore?
You know, I didn't find your sig nearly so annoying until I turned off signatures; every real signature vanished, but yours remained.
If you're going to stick that at the bottom of every post, be honest and make it your real sig. rather than appending it on manually.
Although it's more likely that by viewing my food purchases, instead of being regarded as a terrorist, big brother will see me as a health risk and want to put up my health insurance premiums!
All of these companies except Citigroup are under SEC and 30 state investigation for fraud and insider trading. Merrill Lynch just bought their way out of a crime. This is current news from the last two weeks.
Are these companies going to add their names to the database of criminials and suspicious activity?
Over here (NL), the UK is known as the "53d state".
So it's no suprise.
At the time of its demise, the East German government held dossiers on about one-third of its citizenry. Yet in spite of this database, they failed to forsee the mass protest that culminated in the destruction of the Berlin Wall.
The uk seems to be taking on the worst ideas from all over the world at the moment.
Not all over the world, just from Seattle.
New Labour has an ongoing relationship with our friends.
Quote
The UK government's increasing reliance on Microsoft software has been demonstrated yet again with leaked documents regarding its new email encryption system.
...
And then during the election, Blair decided to launch his business manifesto at Microsoft's UK HQ in Reading. (He was usurped by MS using the event to publicise Windows XP.)
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Yeah, all of a sudden you'll have people disagreeing with you and arguing with you, and next thing you know, you'll be considered an asshole.
Perish the thought that someone with an opinion unpopular with those who surround him/her find out how unpopular it is!
You need a thicker skin.
finklestein..... finklestein........ ace ventura................ brain melt.
. . . that I live in Missouri and there is a reason we did not elect Ashcroft to the Senate in the first place.
No more shrubbery in office! They've done enough damage. Yeah, I know my state "elected" him, but I sure as hell didn't vote that way.
-r
Just because something is free does not mean you have to take it.
However, the uncomfortable fact remains that a group of martyr-minded people came up with a new terrorist method and succeeded in using it, with devastating consequences. Whether or not increased surveillance of the general population (in combination with a less SNAFU-d domestic intelligence organisation) would have prevented their success in this instance isn't clear. But - and this is a point that I wish the Franklin-quoting libertarian tendence showed more signs of appreciating - it might be able to reduce the likelihood of a similarly-creative group succeeding in some future endevour. The hard questions are to estimate (and maximise) any extra margin of safety that giving up some personal privacy will buy, and how to minimise the risk of misuse of additional data that is collected. Who watches the watchmen, indeed?
A few things that would make me a lot less unhappy about these sorts of abusable powers:
(Hits 'Submit' and leans back. Thinks "I wonder how many -1 Troll marks this will collect?")
#welcome to the ozamab1nl@den channel ..... ?
#abbadabba has joined the room
abbadabba : Wassup to all my arab homeys
#l33tEfBeeEye@gent has joined the room
abbadabba : Hey l33t!
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : Hello
abbadabba : don't you hate this government?
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : Maybe, why do YOU hate it?
abbadabba : because
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : because
abbadabba : because I do . Man, you acting weird
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : Me, Weird? Nah, Just doing my job. Well, not my job. Just surfing for Info. Well, not info. Just hanging out... yeah, that's it. Just hanging out. So, why do YOU hate this government again?
So yesterday, we're talking about blacklists of spammers, and the Slashdot party line is: a black ist is only advisory; each individual subscriber to the blacklist makes their own decision to shun the blacklistees; the only people who have to worry about blacklists are evil spammers, who are all liars and thieves; and if you don't want to be blacklisted, don't be a spammer.
... that's how much some people hate terrorists. And they are willing to profile and blacklist terrorists.
Which is all fine with me.
But everybody gets to play at this game. As much as you hate spammers
So stop and think about what kinds of protection you want in a blacklist. At a minimum, if anyone in the world is telling large numbers of people that I'm an undesirable (terrorist | spammer | anti-globalization protester), I want easy access to copies of what they say about me, and I want legal accountability if they disseminate false information about me.
With the current 'probable cause' requirements about nill, encrypting would just give them 'cause' to come to your house physcially
.. thats not the point..
or at least stick you on one of the 'lists'.
"but i have nothing to hide, let them come to my house"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Now that's an interesting concept. The FBI gets more power over you, while you get less power in your own life. And you defend the rights of the FBI, rather than your own? The government is quickly taking a stance that treats everyone as a suspect that is need of careful scrutiny. Personally, I don't find that sort of thing very endearing, even if I don't have anything to hide.
Human beings get nasty when they know they have power over others. Hence the Constitution, and it's very clear limitiations on the powers of government.
Look at it this way. You have to follow the law. Shouldn't the government have to do the same thing? The Constituion is the law! Are you really satisfied that the government gets to operate in near anarchy while, you are expected to toe the line? It's simply unjust.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020531- 888741. htm
If these things are indeed here in the US, how the hell else is their use to commit more mass murder going to be stopped?
You're Jon Katz posting under another user id, aren't you? Come on, admit it!
---dragoness
I'm tired of hearing people complain about privacy and security and how they can't trust anyone.
If you can't trust your own democratic government, who can you trust?
Is the real issue here that there's something broken with the form of government we in the U.S. live under? If so, what's the solution?!
Anyone can throw darts and identify problems, but I want to see someone with SOLUTIONS.
Send your congressman/woman a copy of 1984 along with a letter explaining your point of view. The book itself will only run you $7 from bn, and will probably at least get your represenative thinking (if that's at all possible).
Monday is a horrible way to spend 1/7 of your life.
It's been my experience that women are rarely concerned about incursions into their freedoms. The explanation rarely strays from this line: They have nothing to hide, so therefore the government is justified for those incursions.
I've heard this so many times, I cringe in anticipation of hearing it whenever a woman starts talking about politics. And if I try to explain why I value my freedoms, they either look at me with glazed eyes, or lecture me about how it's ok to lose your freedoms if you have nothing to hide. I find this profoundly depressing and try to avoid talking politics with women if I can help it. Anyone else notice this?
Hey! Don't jump the gun here and mod me down. Is this not a significant diffrence of opinion between the sexes and worthy of discussion? Or have I just been talking to the wrong women?
how very Orwellian....
those who are willing to give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom not security
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I recommend that Slashdot replace the icons normally used for YRO articles (binoculars, Lady Justice, etc) with one single old-fashioned toilet. It's be more fitting, after all that's where all our rights are going anyway.
From: John Ashcroft
Subject: Time to make new friends
As many of you are aware, our righteous pursuit of organized crime in Boston has led to unwarranted criticism since our agents had to become one with the Mob in order to fully develop our intelligence sources within it. We will henceforth improve our public relations posture by returning to the policy of J. Edgar 'There-Is-No-Mob-in-America' Hoover, and refocus on developing intelligence sources within the Islamic Fundamentalist, Catholic Pedophile, and Hippie Treehugging communities.
Pursuant to the new policies, deep cover may require our good agents to occassionally take part in IF and CP activities in order to go after the true heads of those nefarious movements. However, special care must be taken not to go too far.
Get busy! And remember, the sacrifices freedom requires may seem at time distasteful, but to guard the largest number of the American citizenry, we must sometimes prove our trustworthiness to our intelligence sources by aiding in the sacrifice of lesser numbers, such as those jailed and killed to protect our Boston associates. It is a small price to pay.
Remember to wipe the Crisco from your foreheads before undertaking undercover activities. We must not gloat that we are the annointed ones.
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
"Organizers said they have carefully considered the privacy issue with specialists and intend to protect individuals. Before taking any action, they will dig deeper to be sure of a customer's identity and attempt to confirm any allegations and reports"... Why is it that so often there are detailed explanations by government or business as to how these systems will be used "for good", but when a reasonable argument is presented from a privacy advocate, then there are ambiguous answers? Clearly there are no details as to how to prevent misidentification, only an unclear, vague pseudo-commitment.
To put all this hysteria in perspective, about the same number of people as died in the WTC disaster die on U.S. roads each and every month and few seem to mind. If writers want to end a character immediately in a soap opera, they can just say they had a car accident and no one will question it. Yet, U.S. policies still promote cars over other alternatives (mass transit, working from home, mixed use zoning). Millions more middle aged lives are cut short each year from lack of exercise -- where are the walking trails and bicycle trails in every U.S. city and suburb (compared to say, the Netherlands)? So from this point of view, even if a million U.S. citizens are killed a year by terrorists, bicycle paths are still a better investment in American health and safety than more surveillance. So, my starting position is what people care about seems really strange when looked at from the big picture perspective. And fear, and building and economy and tax structure and new laws based directly on short-term fear, have direct negative effects on U.S. society, as U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
The problem is that the ways to safety have all been outlined for the last forty years and ignored. They are essentially summed up in: people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. So, as an action agenda for the most safety:
1. Stop throwing stones.
2. Make houses out of something else than glass.
3. Help others to live in non-glass houses and to stop throwing stones.
I'm not going to talk about stopping throwing stones as that is now considered unpatriotic (although I have done so for a long time in the past). But I can still talk about glass houses, I guess.
Consider this book "Brittle Power" written around 1980: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/art7095.php Federal energy policy continues to promote the most centralized, unforgiving, and vulnerable sources and infrastructures, while ignoring or suppressing the more efficient, diverse, dispersed, localized, and renewable options that could in time make major supply failures impossible by design. At present, the Department of Energy, apparently unwittingly but quite effectively, is undercutting the antiterrorist mission of the Department of Defense.
The problem with the U.S. from a safety perspective is that because the way the economy is set up, the most money can be made by centralizing a service, like Microsoft centralizes the OS, or agribusiness centralizes monocultures, or the oil company centralizes with a few pipelines. All these are the most profitable concerns because they are centralized, and backed by social, legal, political, and financial systems that keep them that way and supress alternatives. And because they are centralized, they are vulnerable.
What are the safe choices?
Consider, for example, a suggestion I read years ago that taking one year of the money spent on maintain the Persian Gulf Deployment, and applying it to insulating U.S. homes, would eliminate U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The figures may have changed since (and may have been optimistic) but do you see the point? Passive solar architecture shouldn't just be an oddity -- it should be the law, if we are serious about building a safer society. Yet, it is more profitable to centralized companies for have the U.S. government subsidize oil costs (some economist say to $60 per barrel) than to consider a decentralized approach like home insulation. Same with resisting the non-brainer of fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.
Another safe choice -- local community supported agriculture, to reduce the length of food supply lines (typically 1500 miles). Other forms of alternative energy (especially wind power) could be developed. Well insulated refrigerators can be 10X more efficient than current ones (that is the major consumer of electricity in many american homes).
Basically, take much of the stuff environmentalists, consumer advocates, small farmers, civil rights leaders, and probably the green party have been saying for years, and do it. But you know what, it isn't "profitable". It's somehow "profitable" to tax Americans a trillion dollars a year to prop up the current system, but somehow talk about doing things that provide true safety, and while we're at it, also compassion, and justice, and humaneness, and fairness, and one will get mostly blank stares. Seems so much easier to just declare a war on terrorists and the problem seems almost solved -- it seems like the president is doing something, instead of providing leadership on home insulation (an effectively impossible thing for an oil man to ever do...)
My own tiny efforts along that line (mostly laughed at or ignored): http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak That, and helping people learn how to grow more of their own food with a garden simulator. The problem is, when the current approaches keep being tried, and they keep not working, any alternative is going to seem laughable. We can spend $300 billion dollars on defense, but suggest spending $100 billion dollars a year on sustainable technology research and that seems laughable.
The ironic thing is, all the people who messed up the system already as far as promoting policies producing an unsafe U.S. are mainly the ones getting rewarded by the new spurt of government funding. And we get solutions like pump more arctic oil when it will take ten years to get it, it will be expensive, and any yahoo with a hunting rifle can shut down the Alaskan pipeline for days or weeks (as recently happened from one shot).
These people are working on a report for Congress that will hopefully show a better way: http://www.nepinitiative.org/ Bet they recommend insulating homes as the number one way to fight terrorism. A laughable idea, or is it?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I'm not sure how the restrictions of electronic communications came about but if Watergate or Hoover's ethical vacuum is any indication, I'd say it was because government was repeatedly proven to be using such resources in a way that harmed innocent people.
Libertarian: They are great allies on many of our issues, but if you look deeper they have some real scarry positions. Like getting rid of the FDA, eliminiating licencing for doctors, and selling off all public land to finance all sorts of radical changes. Not only are they opposed to the Microsoft anti-trust case, they want to eliminate the anti-monopoly laws. [lp.org]
The libertarians equate business (or corporate) freedom with individual freedom, (some even claim that individual freedom is predicated on corporate freedom), so while they want to get rid of unjust drug laws that incarcerate thousands of living, breathing people they also want to get rid of drug regulations to unfetter the pharmaceutical companies from "oppresive" government regulation as well.
This is their fatal flaw: setting individual freedom equal to corporate freedom. The two are often in conflict with one another (e.g. an employer who wants to spy on their employees during off hours), and all but the very smallest of companies is significantly larger, richer, and more powerful than individuals, even indivuduals of means. That of course means that, in a society that sets a human being's rights equal to those of a corporations, the corporation is going to have the advantage in terms of resources, power, and influence, which means whenever said freedoms conflict it is the individual who will almost invariably lose their freedoms as a result.
This is an absolutely fatal flaw in Libertarian thinking, and the reason I am not a libertarian.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The Individual Rights Foundation.
...that's what makes it insightful!
Any organization that is able to collectively express an appeal for universal rights and liberties deserves credit and encouragement!
meh.
That's ridiculous. Chat rooms are public places. Why should government agents be prohibited from doing what any other member of the public could do?
Sounds kinda like the KGB. Gov't shouldn't be spying on its own people. Imagine what will happen once people realize that anyone in the bar could be spying on them. People will suddenly watch what they say alot more (as in, perhaps not question the Pres in public).
"We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur. The NYT has an interesting analysis. Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc"
Wow. Now there's a balanced view of the matter. People like this should be required to mention they know jack about the subject they're submitting. I know it's envogue to hate the increased powers of governemnt agencies, but really, this is the same kind of dumb-ass who will rant and scream the next time another plane lands in a major city because they took his advice and didn't do anything.
Assuming that the author doesn't like planes falling from the sky, what would he suggest we do about it? "Everybody should have full and complete privacy and I expect the Governement to provide for our domestic defense without violating that privacy!" Let me direct you to the definition of Anarchy: 1 a : absence of government b : a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority c : a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government. 2 a : absence or denial of any authority or established order b : absence of order. Go ahead and tell me that's the society you want because it would be darwinistic and you'd likely be dead. The total privacy this person pines for is simply not a reality, or at least not one in which people exist. Obviously he has all the answers. Government is bad. I'd like to see some real suggestions that maintain your saftey against forgien and domestic terrorism while simutaneously safeguarding your privacy, because what we were doing obviously didn't cut it. I want privacy as much as the next guy, but a government without the power to do anything is useless. How am I not surprised it was labelled news when it should have been trolled out of existance?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
What makes you think the state exists to protect individual rights? You exist to serve the interest of the state. Fascism was not defeated in WWII, it simply got a make-over. Fascism is the de-facto ideology of most major states. All other goals are subordinated to national security.
I'd offer to run for the House, although I am not old enough.
Here's the trick folks; if you want a congressman to write to, vote for a congressman that will...
I'm not *too* worried about federal spooks clipping newspapers or going to public meetings. But the following, from the New York Times article, worries me a lot:
I wonder if complaints about the DMCA on----------
Manifesto for the Peoples of the Third Millennium
Exactly. The problem with democracy is that is believes in the lie of human equality - that all people are intelligent, able to articulate their interests, and able to discuss them reasonable to come to a consensus.
In fact, most humans are just a cut above a herd of bison. The elite, intelligent ones will always rule. We should shed this pretense of democracy and recognize the true nature of human society.
True freedom is the freedom to obey those who are destined to lead. Without strong leaders the herd will trample themsleves off a cliff.
Agreed. All I see is people here saying "I want privacy. I have no suggestions on how to guard this country against terrorism. I have no ideas on how the government can take a pro-active stance against the threat. I even believe that terrorist have the right to privacy... At least until they run another plane into my house. In short, I have nothing to offer but a call to privacy for it's own sake, even if it's at the cost of thousands of lives."
Real world suggestions, not mindless privacy prattle, people. Idiots can make vague suggestions to policy all day long, but they can't give you answers to questions like: How will you keep a local terrorist cell from detonating a large bomb (nuclear or otherwise) in my city? Oh, yeah... Privacy.
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So there will be a database against people opening bank accounts in the US- big deal. Open an account in the Bahamas with a fake name and use an ATM card. Back in business.
I get the feeling that some folks in the US think that all of this is like a big game of the Sims where the inhabitants of the game can't come up with a workaround solution.
Don't read between the lines too much, Ace. I'm just sick of people screaming about privacy every time there is an increase in some agencies power. You may have noticed that I mentioned I like privacy, but unlike some people (notably the author of the artical) I realize that with the increase of threat there needs to be an increase in security. Screaming privacy all day long isn't going to stop that terrrorist cell from doing it's work. To clarify, this increase in power should not be a permanent one, but to handcuff them in such an hour is idiocy of the highest order. Where you got the idea that I was advocating a society with no privacy is beyond me.
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THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;) Still, your solution would solve a good many problems.
You have my profuse and unending respect for having suggested that, as I totally and without reservation agree with you. Everybody should be as wise as you, my friend. Except for maybe the Republicrats crack
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Kids still recite the pledge of allegiance in public school and there is no ban on saying god bless america on public property. This is misinformation spread by the christian right in order to push their agenda of propping up their religion with public money. Funny how they don't have a problem with lying when it suits their purpose, like pushing to have their ten commandments posted in every school, or forcing kids to hear christian prayers in school.
My son goes to public school and recites the pledge every day. It would be nice if they restored the pledge to its original pre McCarthyism form. This is supposed to be, after all, a secular government.
Cat
Hey, here's an idea. I think anyone can stand up and speak on the house floor after they're done with business. Go up there every night for a week and read chapters from 1984. Get enough people doing that and it would get on cspan
Good one Michael.
I bet this guy is one of "those" FBI plants to try and "convince" us that the FB"eye"s plan isn't a bad one - sort of like reverse psychology......
Whats the 51st and 52nd? The US only has 50 you know....
and not even the US has as much surveilance as the UK has.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
From the article:
Indeed, the restrictions under which the F.B.I. has operated for three decades were self-imposed. Congressional pressure, lawsuits, scandals and a public outcry played a role in the bureau's vow to limit domestic surveillance to situations in which criminal conduct was suspected. But the restrictions were not enforceable in court and were grounded in what might be called constitutional values, rather than actual law.
WTF?! So again when some entity wants to do something good, maybe along the lines of the intent of what our forefathers wanted, a lawyer comes alongs and picks apart every letter just to f*ck us over. Great.
I hate it when that happens.
Jason
That's it, I've had it, The powers that be have officially lost their minds. I'm moving to the tongan islands and becoming a fisherman, who's with me????
-homiefro
After reading these articles, I'm not at all certain. I know that the abuses under Hoover were pretty bad at times, and while I'd like to think that times are different now, I don't really have any reason to, especially not under Bush/Ashcroft. And I definitely wasn't inspired to confidence by this quote from the article:
But Mary Jo White, who supervised several major terrorism prosecutions as United States attorney in Manhattan, sees things differently.
Even as a reaction to abuses in the 60's and 70's, Ms. White said, the old Justice Department guidelines were misguided.
"I wouldn't have favored them in the old days because they are a barrier to important, legitimate investigative measures," she said. "We're now at war. The public safety concern has to come first. Would that we wouldn't have to pay this price for our own safety and national security. But we do."
Some of us would rather not trade our rights and our freedom for (the illusion of) safety. That price is too high.
-Joe
"As has been pointed out time and time again, you can increase security all you like, lock down men, women and children in their little homes with their little TVs just so they can't be harmed, and bring in all the laws you want. But at the end of the day if someone wants to inflict horrible damage upon you and your population, then they will."
So you're saying we shouldn't even try to stop them? Not even attempt to minimize casulties?
"Privacy and rights are not mindless. It's standing up for what makes the human race so great - individuality, and the ability to think and speak for oneself."
Glad we agree.
"...(which is currently a rarity, thanks to the loss of freedom of speech)..."
Wow... When did this happen? Must be a lot of doctors and psychologists going to jail because of our stringent speech laws that allow people to critize their own government daily without fear of retribution. Oh, that loss of free speech?
"Don't claim that security through obscurity is going to help anything, because it's not"
I never did, Sparky.
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If you don't want then to see what you're doing, don't do it in public.
And if you're going to get all exercised about something, do it about the PATRIOT Act things the Feebies can get at that that aren't public.
My theory is that the original poster is actually a government agent trying to get people caught up in this conspiracy theory, so that they don't have time to follow the real problems.
It's not a bad goal, actually, just one we can't achieve because we haven't really put in the time or effort. It's a good idea if we'd get off our collective butts and make it a reality.
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just watch things get back to being like hoover's fbi.... something like less than 200 files on the KKK, while who even knows how many on abbie hoffman.... the us government, especially when projected through the fbi has a huge history of having a bias towards 'leftist radicals.' in a country where 'freedom', 'democracy', and similar terms are catchphrases that it's known for gets this corporate owned and biased.... it should be obvious that something needs to change....
and reformism doesn't work, either.... look at what the trade unions of the 30's fought and won... look at what we have now.. things have turned back to the same sort of shit. the fbi got fucked over, but it's building itself back up. eventually a revolution's gotta happen...or things will end up like 1984 or brave new world....
wife-beaters? why is this even relevent?
"Government seldom gives up the powers it's given voluntarily" That's not to say they can't be taken back or that the system doesn't work.
Cameras in airports are a bad thing? (debatable, admittedly). Use wisely, young Jedi.
Drivers license to prove your qualified to operate a vehical? That's bad?
Gun databases? The Brady Act that required tracking on a national scale was overturned in a lawsuit by the NRA.
Seatbelts? Granted, you can't beat intelligence into the stupid but how does this in anyway benefit the government? I do agree it doesn't really need to be a law however.
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Excuse me while I sit in the corner and LMAO.
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From the 1970's until yesterday, the ONLY groups that the FBI left alone were left wing.
You both have it right. Security doesn't mean jack if you don't have the freedom to enjoy it and Liberty doesn't mean nothing if you're always living in fear for your life. The two must be balanced otherwise the entire house of cards will collapse. They are mutually supportive. Also, keep in mind it wasn't the masses who fought the Revolutionary war. Only 10% of colonies total population actually participated directly in it...
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Don't worry folks, I run interferance for shit like this. So whenever I'm in the room you can rest assured that I will be the main focus for all government scrutiny with my constant comments on my the progress of my 'Incindiary Projectile Project' and my vacation plans to DC this summer. Not to mention my 'Bush is such a fucking asshole someone should really off him to make room for an intellignent administration' speech and my 'Y'know, I can see why people would want to fly planes into a bunch of buildings in the US, we're all assholes!' speech. So don't worry! Despite the fact that I don't actually have any bomb making equipment, and don't give a flying fuck about Bush, and think that the people who crashed those planes should all burn in hell for eternity, the government agents should hopefully be too busy creaming their jeans over the new 'Terrorist Axis of Evil' they've found in my apartment to bother the rest of you about whether you're smoking a joint or a cigarette. >:) I also make misleading comments on my phone, and in my e-mails. And I'm pretty sure this slashdot post will be archived and editted to take out all of the non-incriminating stuff so they can use it against me some day!
Cheers!
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Do they honestly believe this is going to have any impact at all in preventing future terrorist attacks? All it is likely to do is cause terrorists to hide deeper while causing public resentment (though probably not until 5-10 years down the line when 9/11 is a more distant memory and the surrendering of liberty resulting from the "War on Terror" is seen for the horrible mistake it is by John Q.).
I fear for my country...
That's acutally a really cool idea. Would there be any chance of managing to organize something like that? I'd be willing, if I could find the means to do so (it's not too terribly a long haul from here to D.C.). Would it have any effect, besides earning a place on the FBI's shit list, though? I'd hope so...
I've been trying to put this in words for 5 years. Thanks You!
All criminals/badthinkers won't be on that database. Somehow I don't think that white collar scum like Kenny-Boy Lay and all the other Enron and Anderson thieves will ever be blacklisted. Steal ten dollars, and you go on the list. Steal ten million, and you'll be invited to join the board of directors.
Seriously now. This is without a doubt the worst news I've heard all year, and I've heard a lot. This database will be a tool of very powerful and opinionated people to destroy the financial lives of people that disagree with them. And let's not even think about how Nixonian politicians or well-connected cults will manipulate that database to brand people "terrorists".
That word, "terrorist", mark me here, is the shiboleth of the 21st century. It will be used by very motivated political interests to annihilate "enemies", i.e. anyone who opposes their policies. And opposition will be forever muted, because people will learn not to make waves, else be spied on by the world cops, and marked "verboten" for financial dealings by the financial world.
Paranoid, you say? [bang head on wall].
It's already happening. Democratic party members are already terrified of speaking out because they WILL be branded traitors and terrorist sympathizers. The WTO protesters are already being labelled premptively as violent criminals wherever they show up -- and you can bet that is because of the influence wielded by the those they oppose. Oh, and did you know that protestors against Bush are not allowed within miles of the Great Man? They are bussed to cordoned-off "First Amendment Zones" miles away, and penned there by local cops until the Leader is gone, free of protestor taint. Of course, pro-Bush people are allowed to swarm the Bush -- this is democracy???
And to forestall any more "paranoia" strikes -- the use of lists and secret monitoring against political adversaries was used extensively by Nixon -- and a lot of the same moral-free characters than ran his culture war in their youth are now happily and ruthlessly slamming around the Constitution in pursuit of money for their peers and political control for themselves. I've never seen a press corps so utterly whipped.
Well, perhaps you didn't put them there, but did you shoot them when they got out of control?
Ok, so cameras were invading your privacy in the private sector long before the government stepped up their campaign. And I still don't have a problem with cameras in some public locations. you're never going to see them on every corner (or traffic light), if simply because of the logistics involved. They've been limited to ptential high crime/abuse areas thus far, so take a chill pill.
No, A drivers license is to prove you can operate a vehical. A state ID is the minimum form of identification you are pining after. Woe be it to all those people without cars if what you say is true. And what is wrong with such a form of identification? Some form needs to exist in order to prove your citizenship and participate in governmental process, as opposed to Joe Foriegner walking in and voting on something that is far from our best interest as a nation. How else am I supposed to be identified? My Charm? Because I said so? Some database needs to exist. But I will admit the system is way too flawed right now. Hell, they might as well just give IDs away in cereal boxes right now...
I won't argue the gun issue. Databases exist and they shouldn't have to. I made the point to illustrate that the system does work and BS can be fought.
What do seatbelts have to do with anything? All it means is some special intrest group like MAD capitalized on public sypathy and pushed it to law! Lets stop concentrating on your big word of the day "obtuse" and realize this has doesn't have much to do with survellence of any kind.
I'm done with this thread. You can't hold reasonable discussions with a blithering idiot.
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To be fair, I don't think many of the NRA types are very happy about this either. Bush is a sweet-talker. They got taken.
DNA just wants to be free...
The thing is, if you have no expectations of being left alone in public, your effective world will become your apartment.
With your voice and data communications monitored there, of course.
There will be nowhere left to live free. And our kids will never know what that means, and be happy with their imprisonment.
If you want to live a safe life, live in a prison? Waitaminute -- prisons are pretty bad, aren't they, if the wardens and guards don't like you?
It's even worse than that. Since the agents don't announce their presence or intent, anyone who is unknown to a group could be an agent fishing for leads. Thus the chilling effect occurs even in the absence of an actual agent, and groups are encouraged to be more suspicious of outsiders.
Pretty effective way to push either conformity or paranoia, n'est pas?
I think people sell the resiliance of the American system of government way too short. Back in the day it was Mccarthyism, the Witchunt for Communist and so forth. The technology has changed, but the situation really hasn't. While politics and security may wander to either extreem, the US has always survived and prospered because of it's inherent stability. People have a voice in this government and that's why it works. You can say it's corrupt and all, but if it didn't work, we'd have been well on our way to a dictatorship or monarchy a long time ago. Fight for your rights all you want, but at the same time, have a little faith.
LOL... When has the democratic party ever been terrified to speak? You're too much, man ^__^ If I remember correctly, their accusations that Bush knew of the 9/11 attack before hand were recently all over the news. Oh, wait.. That was a different Democratic party, right? LOL!
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see subject.
You're my hero, Man ^__^
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Look, as US citizen, I understand the fear that people have of new terrorist attacks, but it's a lot easier to clean up after one terrorist attack than it will be to recover power from overzealous security agencies. I would even go so far as to say that it might be impossible for a truly democratic and free society to prevent all terrorist attacks, because that would suggest that it wasn't truly open and free.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I would like to know if anyone on the web has been documenting the transition toward Big Brotherhood (Carnivore, Echelon, public cameras, public databases, DMCA). I think that if there was a well laid out time line, it would be easier to show those less interested how much is really being taken away from the people.
Remember...when the laws change little by little, no one notices until it is to late.
Give it a moment's thought: in public. In other words, if you're doing something out where anyone could see you, the Feebies are allowed to see you.
As I said, there's plenty to get exercised about, including the more "liberal" rules on wiretapping and monitoring. Don't waste effort on this stuff.
Talking in bars and in public is why people are in jail right now, talking in public removes an expectation of privacy. Before this law if the police saw you dealing drugs on the street corner they could still arrest you. The police monitoring public places doesnt really concern me. ITS PUBLIC. not private. Public by nature is not private and your rights are not being infiringed.
I hate spam as much as most people do (wastes bandwidth, disk space, user's time, etc.), but I'm not convinced that legislation is the way to stop the deluge.
How does one define spam - in legal terms? This is something that would seem to be prone to misinterpretation: what types of advertisements count as spam? What about someone stating where they work (or that they're unemployed) in their sig? Could that be defined as spam?
Then there's the whole revenge thing - using the above, if you're receiving email from, say, someone you don't like, you may be able to declare HIM a spammer (even though his messages may not fit the original definition of spam).
I haven't read the text of the bill, nor am I a lawyer, so I can't say what is or isn't possible due to how it's written. However, this seems to be something to seriously consider - when laws try to regulate how the 'net works, they usually tend to make matters worse. Just look at spammers suing spam blacklists and those who put them on the blacklists for an example of things gone horribly wrong.
What do we do? We can't legislate, and we can't regulate on our own (without getting sued by some dumbass who would rather steal money from end-users and ISPs than stopping their own spam activities).
terrorists, wife-beaters, ----anti-globalization protesters----, etc.
Please, make sure the jokes are clear around here, I thought you were serious about anti globalization protesters being flagged.
You can trust John Ashcroft! After all could the man who was caught on film doing this
Ashcroft Sings
be a crazy, sanctimonious, megalomaniacal nutjob?
It warms me down to my tippy-toes to know you care ^__^
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Want to stop terrorists? Want to ensure public safety? Of course. So here's how to do it without trampling civil liberties.. AND it'll increase our quality of living.
1.) Take the steps necessary to cut off ALL dependance on mideast oil, but without finding new sources that may also prove vulnerable (ie. Alaska). That means subsidizing efficient technologies and development: quality public transit, fuel cell based autos, strict requirements on new home / building insulation, subsidies to people with older homes to re-insulate, higher standards for energy efficient appliances, alternative energy research, etc. None of these things infringe upon the rights of the individual--they only regulate inefficient industry in a way that is progressive. The only ones to lose out would be the executives of old energy companies that refuse to adapt to a new market. Some current energy companies "get it." Others do not. Innovate or Die.
If mideast countries lose their oil revenue, out go the terrorists. You can't organize and maintain an international terrorist network with no resources and without supporting foreign governments.
2.) Adopt a no-nonsense mideast policy. Terminate any regime that supports Islamic radicals and foster public support in those countries for democratic rule. This should be exceedingly easy after a few years without oil revenues once the fat cats have died off and any military infrastructure lies in ruins from lack of upkeep. And note I did not say carpet bombing. The Bush admin's push for tactical / precision weapons is good example that some intelligence still exists within.
3.) Strict immigration policy, at least for the time being. That means pretty much blacklisting all countries known to support Islamic radicalism.
And this is your fatal flaw: assuming that a corporation is anything special.
A corporation, strictly speaking, is just an imaginary legal entity. Someone once called them a bunch of files sitting in storage in a state capital somewhere. They are devices for people, actual breathing individuals, to engage in activities, presumably of an commercial nature.
Depending upon how this is gone about, it could very well be an "initiation of force". If it is, laws against it are just. At any rate, you're missing the forest for the trees.
Not true. Incorporating a business is somewhat legally difficult and nominally expensive, but not out of the range of most people who would want to do so. LLCs, which are also "Companies", can be found all over the place and barely require any money or intelligence at all to set up (A 1040-EZ is usually much harder, both on the brain and the wallet). Wisconson will actually let you set up an LLC online for a mere $130, major credit cards accepted: https://www.wdfi.org/corporations/quickstart/llc/
Even if you're very pessimistic and can find thousands of dollars of other expenses (legal fees and taxes come to mind, and these are notable as they are increased by governmental regulation), you'd have great difficulty placing the start-up cost of most such companies beyond the cost of a college education, a home, or a new car.
There are, in fact, probably more Limited Liability Companies in that state than there are large corporations in the entire country (an LCC can be just as large as any household-name corporation, but they probably aren't; certainly I'm not aware of any). See https://www.wdfi.org/corporations/highlighted/ for WI 2001 statistics.
Again, corporations are nothing more than legally organized people with liability protection. It makes no sense to be in favor of a lone individual's rights but not that of an organized group. After all, the US Constitution provides for freedom of association and speech. It doesn't say these rights disappear when money is changing hands between groups.
And what's your grand solution to the dilema of all democracy: how to balance the rights of the majority, or a large and powerful group, against those of the individual, or a smaller group? Getting rid of corporations would not get rid of the people behind those of them that have comitted abuses. At best, it means you might be able to force one or two of them into bankruptcy when you can prove that wrongdoing has actually occured
Bull. If the underdog never won, or at least didn't have a respectable batting average, we'd probably have a world-wide monarchy.
As the rewriting at FBI of AFFADAVITS sworn to by field agents shows, they were actively erasing the dots. Don't you think that altering an agent's affadavit is a misconduct if not an outright crime? Where's the investigation of that? Nobody wants to know. Just give us more power and we PROMISE to reorganize FBI and do better next time. OK sure.
"poor coordination" ain't the half of it.
If they use a crackable device, they cant scream blody murder when somebody manages to crack it.
There is a reason why we have PKI and PGP.
Use the crypto Luke!
bruj0
http://securityportal.com.ar
As I recall, back in 1984, the FBI and CIA identified and tracked terrorists trying to detonate a truck full of explosives at the World Trade Center. The thwarted plot involved toppling one tower into it's twin.
The thing is, as in 2001, the agencies were on the ball, and the messages heeded. In 2001, tho, idiots were in charge.
The chief idiot was on a four week vacation when the warnings were given. Not that he would have heard about them. He insisted on a three-page-a-day synopsis of everything he needed to know. Not a great reader, apparently.
Let's not forget the Osamawatch, meticulously maintained by Clinton, was shut down as a Bad Clinton Idea. And Ashcroft didn't really care much about the terrorist problem up til then -- his staff told a senator(I believe) that he would hear her urgent plea about potential attacks... in six months. Smirk. Get out of our office, liberal.
The communications and intel were absolutely perfect. The failure was at the top level - the White House. The blaming of "communication" and "organization" is nonsense. Everything worked, except the analytical skills of the current boys in charge.
So I guess now Molder and Scully will be lurking on the /. boards looking for terrorist aliens from mars? :P :)
Live to be happy!! OR ELSE!!
I mean, anti-glabalisation like Bush is? :-P
i had a sig, once..
Perhaps it's time to start watching the watchers.
:)
Perhaps a year of organizing 20,000 people to go follow federal workers around with camera, tracking devices, and post all of their information for all of the world to see -- and all that can be culled from database services like nexus would change their mind?
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Unlike the CIA -- the Office of Naval Intelligence has always been able to operate domestic. The ONI has been spying on Americans since it's inception. They may not seem as "spooky" because they don't have the public reputation the CIA does - but they do just as much, and they do it to Americans too.
...And did it all under your eyes without anyone really noticing.
The CIA has long been envious of the ONI's ability to operate domestic, and also envious of their position of already having established bases in 70+ countries of the world...Where the CIA has to create a cover for itself, the ONI can be there as just part of another US Military base. But don't let that fool you, they have their phony businesses, corrupt banks, and all of the other perks as well. Including a budget that makes buying stealth bombers look like federal library funding...
In other news, during the tenure of Ronnie "The Only Good Commie Is A Dead Commie" Reagan - the house & senate passed a bill allowing the NSC to kill Americans and foreign nationals with no accountability except to the NSC. We then proceeded to plant a terrorist style bomb to kill off a suspected Islamic terrorist which failed to kill him, but killed 41 other people (mostly school kids as well).
They also built camps for the detainment of potentially millions of Americans and initiated a disaster plan to be coordinated by FEMA for the continuance of government, compiled list of "those to be arrested"...
Add in the USA Patriot ACT, parts of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (which required all 'landed' communications to be routed to FBI offices so they could spy on communications without having to actually contact anyone at the Telco).
Sure, you think I'm a paranoid conspiracy nut. Believe that if you want to. Unfortunately, all of that really happened.
As we have seen, all of the data being collected by "private" companies for their databases has found ways to fall into the hands of the Feds. In fact, they may be required to turn it over (and keep their mouth shut about doing it) by sections of the USA Patriot act.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
And I'm pretty sure this slashdot post will be archived and editted to take out all of the non-incriminating stuff so they can use it against me some day!
Somewhere in a dark basement, under an obscure FBI building, there's an investigating agent reading what you've just typed, and evaluating your comment using the latest FBI scale...
Moderation: +1 Funny, +1 Terrorist
Citizen #3618112's Karma Total: 27.
Recommend with-holding the arrest until he reaches the Karma Cap.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
I'd have to say that my rights are being infringed if i can get a case file started on me just b/c i might say bush is an ass or something to that effect. I wasn't really arguing from a privacy standpoint, but a free speech one.
Ashcroft did not float the "Democrats should not dare to say we knew about 9/11 in advance" lie -- it was VP Cheney.