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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.
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.
The question you should really be asking yourself is "Would I gladly give up a lot of privacy for a false impression of security?", because that's what is really happening.
Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
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.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
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.
is too dangerous by far -- how much is a little privacy? Who would you like to determine how much privacy you are allowed to keep versus your security? Unfortunately, we have already seen, in the month of May alone, how many breaches of security within the FBI? Insider trading, Carnivore overstepping its bounds, and the current disaster investigation are only the tip of the iceberg....As far as
...the American intelligence community is well within its Constitutional rights to create these databases and monitor our transmissions
... what Constitutional rights? The rights you allude to are rights of the citizens, not the police/investigative forces created to enforce the law. As much as I crave the feeling of security, the loss of privacy and the rest of my Constitutional rights you offer up in the name of this security will always be too high of a price to pay....we are from the government - we are here to help...
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)
Let's deal with his points though:
- Envy and Rightousness
This one's bizarre. The New Deal was about reconstructing America and preventing a potential revolution that would have destroyed capitalism in the US for good. It was dealing with a time in which most people were have-nots, and they were have-nots not because they, personally, had done any wrong, but because chronic mismanagement of the stock market, until then largely left to market forces, had resulted in a collapse of the American economy, with thousands of employers forced to close, and tens of millions thrown out of work. Savings and other pools of cash that might have saved the economy were wiped out because those who did the right thing, and kept their money in the banks, ceased to keep their assets when the banks were wiped out due to blind panic by others.In such circumstances in other countries, be it Russia, whose economy was crippled in World War One, and Germany, whose economy was crippled by a house-of-cards effect from the US collapse, revolutions are made from. Russia's people went into armed revolt, resulting, evetually, in the Soviet Union and the world's first attempt at Communism. Germany's business leaders twisted the arm of the Kaiser in a "peaceful" revolution that put Hitler and the Fascist Nazi party in power. And in America, as the Hoover administration wound down, Communists began to organise in the US and the US was in serious danger of seeing its own violent and bloody revolution.
Big Government the result of Envious people wanting to steal from the successful? Erm, nope. Government reorganising to place faith back in the capitalist system to prevent people living in poverty through no fault of their own overthrowing the government in favour of a temporary and stupid solution? Yes. Exactly it.
As far as the point about government regulating industry goes, this has been a central plank of government throughout the entirety of the 20th Century and the tail end of the 19th. The railways were regulated. Antitrust legislation, dealing with the abuses of monopolies, were advocated and signed into law by that great Republican hero Theodore Roosevelt. AT&T's president in the early 1900's was quoted as saying that regulation was a necessary burden for any monopoly. FDR's reforms were aimed predominantly at the financial sector, in many cases to ensure dishonest but ungovernable-without-reform practices were wiped out. They worked too - do you have a problem putting your money in a bank? Would you have had the same confidence in 1932?
Further, wanting businesses to be regulated has nothing, zilch, to do with wanting government to spy on private individuals. There is no connection.
- Inaction and voting for the GOP
The GOP is not a civil liberties party, there is no connection between "small government" and civil liberties. The GOP hasn't been pro-liberties since the early part of the 20th Century. In fairness, your respondant admits that the GOP is not the party to vote for to protect civil liberties, but does so using the inane and absurd argument that "smaller government" = "more civil liberties".The party which consistantly avoids "smaller government" tends to be the one that supports restrictions on the behaviour of law enforcement agencies and supports people having control over their own bodies. "Smaller government" doesn't just mean paying lower taxes, but also throwing out the baby with the bathwater - dismantling those institutions and parts of the constitution designed to protect people from those with power, whether that's ensuring that the resources of certain states cannot be used to prevent people of a particular colour from voting in an election to ensuring that the reason someone is convicted of a crime is that they did it, not that they were tricked into a confession.
It gets tiresome to hear the same old crap, that people opposed to government intrusion are natural GOP supporters, despite it being the party of reducing restrictions on government agencies, the party that's trying to use taxation money to fund religion, the party that's most in favour of dictating what people can do with their own bodies (be it through the WoD or the anti-Choice issue.)
It isn't. The GOP is not the civil liberties party. It hasn't been for 70-80 years, and it probably will not be again in our lifetimes.
Rant over.
KMSMA (WWBD?)