Slashdot Mirror
How Has Post-9/11 Legislation Affected You?
goldspider asks: "I hope this is received in the spirit it was intended in. In a recent Reuters article, the Internet as a whole has been referred to as 'collateral damage' of the U.S.-led War on Terrorism, because of the perceived loss in privacy and online rights as a result of post-9/11 legislation. I am curious to hear about some specific examples of how this legislation has personally or professionally affected the everyday lives of Slashdot readers."
...so it hasn't really, sadly enough to say. But I think the even affected everyone on the continent in some way or another.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
So I guess that you could say that what used to just piss people off is now considered domestic terrorism. Some people OBVIOUSLY overreact to situations and play on the emotions. I would really like to seem some legislation against PROFITING on 9/11.
It's even worse when they say "So?"
Like everyone else, there's the delay...
But, unlike most people, I use an insulin pump. Most security people aren't keen on seeing someone with a small mechanical device and tubes attached to their body. Also, the insulin, needles, lancet, etc all get a good look through. I get stopped and have my bags inspected pretty much every time I go through. It's made me use air travel as a last resort.
Though this is a small percentage, it does hurt the people in the recieving end. The economy has made things worse when few people who lose jobs blame it on the H-1Bs.
There was a restructuring in my company and now the message boards are full of hate.
I guess the general hate level of the people has increased and also the economy is not helping.
God Bless America...
But then again, being a foreigner I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything less. However, in reality it has still made me very angry. I have uprooted my entire family to come and make something better for them over in the US and then this comes along and threatens to wipe my future out.
Now if I was some scumbag then that would be OK, but I just want to put in an honest day's work. And for all you people out there saying that there are a bunch of Americans that want jobs as well please read on. I have seen numerous ads on the jobsites looking for somebody with my skills (ABAP programming) so I apply for these jobs. After a couple of days I follow up. Sometimes I get a reply, sometimes not. If I do get a reply then it is always the same. "We don't employ H1's." Now, some of these same ads have been running for more than 8 weeks. So, they have still not managed to find an American to fit the bill, yet I don't get asked to interview. All this is a direct result of 9/11 as I had no problem getting a job prior to that. People are stupidly paranoid of foreigners all of a sudden.
This makes me sad in a way because I grew up in a country filled with terrorism and the one thing I learnt was this:
The minute you change your lifestyle due to fear then they have already succeeded.
These terrorists don't need to drop a single bomb on the US to further their goals. The media and the government are doing a sterling job of terrifying their citizens all on their own.
End of rant. What can I say? I am frustrated as hell that there are jobs out there and I simply cannot get one of them due to people's fear.
By the way, if somebody does feel like employing a foreign ABAP programmer, then please send me an email. Mod me as you wish.
You think internet interests have been hit hard by post 9/11 legislation, trying being a private pilot these days. Despite the fact that this heinous act was conducted with big planes, its the little ones (like the Mooney I own) that are the first ones to be singled out when it comes time to hand down more restrictive measures. Three days after the attacks, the commercial airliners were back in the air. We had to wait a month, and then we were so awash in new and constantly changing regulations that it was impossible to keep up. Imagine taking off for a two hour flight and having the rules change while you're airborn. It was not unusual for a flight to be legal when you took off and illegal by the time it was over. The onslaught of new rules has been so bad that the FAA will run out of 4-digit numbers with which to label them. Yes, we are rapidly approaching federal notam (notice to airman) number 9999, at which point they will have to start numbering them at 0 again.
Remember when they announced they were restricting general aviation flights over nuclear power plants? You know what the official notice from the FAA said? The notice said we were forbidden from flying within 5 miles of a power plant, but then gave us nothing better than a vague description of where those plants were located! So we were told we had to remain clear (and if we didn't we would be intercepted by fighters and possibly shot down) but not told the locations we had to remain clear OF: just city names and vague directions, like "15 miles northwest of Anytown, IL". Even the pilot briefers we called on the phone--the very FAA representatives whose purpose in life is to tell pilots about notams--didn't understand the notices. Depending on who and when you would call you would get a different story about what was legal and what wasn't. And the ATC folks were just as confused. The tower at your departing airport would say your flight is okay, but the one at your destination would declare you in violation of some temporary flight restriction.
Many aviation related business went bankrupt and many more are teetering on the edge as a result of this. The airlines are bad off as we all know, but the small airports are in worse shape. And we are constantly under a cloud of threatened onerous increases in security for our airports: in most cases they are security measures that make no sense at all. Imagine owning property but being subject to a security check before you were allowed to go out to it.
Lots of folks just gave up flying, some temporarily and some permanently. I'm happy to sacrifice for my country, but the sacrifice should have some value. Most of what I've seen in the way of GA restrictions has been meaningless and senseless. And it's not really the restrictions themselves that bother me, but way in which they have been handled.
Mooney Guy N4074H
A couple of weeks ago, a man was arrested for taking pictures of police cars in Philadelphia. You can read about it here.
When I was in highschool 12+ years ago, I had a history teacher that went along as a chaperone on a school-sponsored trip to East Germany and the USSR. He relayed a story about one of the students on the trip starting to photograph a police officer and getting in a lot of trouble because of being perceived as a spy.
We thought that was shocking, then, that a country could be so totalitarian as to prevent photographs of police officers.
Fox News is a balanced alternative to the left-wing media you named (CNN, ABC, NYT).
Sure, Bill O'Reilly is doing his show perched on the edge of the Ground Zero pit, but he is talking about other things of importance.
...a friend of a friend was driving from (Alberta) Canada to the Utah...and one of the guys he was going with was Islamic and wore a turban.
Okay, you should know something. If someone has a turban and he is in America, he is NOT Islamic. There is no possible way. Muslims do not wear turbans out of their home country. I'm willing to bet that the man you are talking about is a Sikh. A Sikh is very, very different than a Muslim (although whites/Amercians generally lump them as one in the same. It's like calling a New Yorker a Frenchman.) Anyway, my point is that I don't understand all this discrimination against people with turbans since they are NOT muslim! They are a peaceloving people called Sikhs. We have nothing to do with Islam. We're not decsended from Abraham, we're decsended from Hinduism. It's the damn media's fault that we're persecuted during this time (yeah, I'm a Sikh--my dad wears a turban.) Anyway, just thought I'd share my thoughts. </rant>
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
Your a godamn fool, it was clinton and his left wing politics that could have locked bin laden up twice and didnt - he was too concerned with gettin his rocks off to be bothered with that.
You dont even see that 1984 is all about whats going on in the public schools in this country, they are progressively dumbing them down - go visit a private school and be amazed at the difference in education - those kids actually still have to read and get tested on the Constitution. Do you really think it's an accident that the top schools in this country are private ? it wasn't always so, but it is now.
All your being taught is how to pull the ballot for Democrats, period. THe sad thing is, now the republicans are into the same give away politics, take from the "MAN" and give it to you, 30 years we still could see that for what it was "vote for me and Ill set you free" dude, they have legislated away your right to think, Im not a racist, but any one used to have the right to say anything they wanted- except for the "fire" in a crowded theater test, all else was allowed, even saying "fu*k you" to a cop - which actually went to the SUpreme court, not anymore, thanks to do-gooder liberals, that's now considered "hate speech" ALL SPEECH IS PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION- unless your a liberal, then you must control it.
AND that, oung man, was what the book 1984 was all about, dumb the masses down so they cannot think critically anymore, reduce their vocabulary and reduce their ability to think, and control their speech, make it "politically/culturally" incorect" to speak your mind, and thus control your thoughts.
You can find it here. One of the things mentioned is how America becomes devided about the measures taken after 9/11, and about their privacy.