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NSA Director, Congress and Monitoring
Thanks to Bruce Schneier for pointing out the testimony from NSA Director Michael Hayden, in which he talks about how the NSA worked pre-9/11 and post. And, as Bruce pointed out "...[he] tells Congress that they can best help him by going back to their constituents and finding out where the public wants to draw the line between liberty and safety."
that the average American would want the line between liberty and safety drawn right at the national borders of the USA.
Ie the rest of the world is unsafe and the USA has liberty.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I know that violating people's civil liberties including taking away their right to speech, privacy and due process makes it easier for law enforcement, but aside from being unconstitutional, it's also bad policework.
If you racially profile your suspects, then the Timothy McVeighs slip through. If you tap everyone's phone, then you become bogged down in terabytes of data -- most of which is useless. If you suppress the speech of the hate mongers and racists, then you don't know who is a hate monger or racist.
Civil liberties aren't just respectful of constitutional and human rights, they also help law enforcement do their job right. So don't ask for a line to be drawn. Try playing by the rules instead.
CAN we draw a line distinguishing safety and liberty?
Through liberty.. there will always be safety.. in the sense that.. someone (the government) will always control our liberty.. and at the same time a government will do all it can to protect its country, even if it includes hindering our liberty.
If one were to go around chanting anti-american remarks and burning the flag, by the Constitutional law.. they have every right to do that, but our government will see it as a threat and most likely arrest the individual.
Unfortunately, freedom and safety are both two very strenuous issues when being discussed together, but as far as "the line" goes.. I personally don't think a line can be drawn..
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
They crossed it about 5 minutes later when the Patriot Act passed. And don't kid yourselves, it has been said the patriot act is supposed to be somewhat limited and a temp measure....Yeah Right a Temp measure like the Federal Income Tax was supposed to be when it passed...
Honestly I scared...of all of the things going on...Homeland Security is a term that scares the hell out of me....
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I voted. I voted for Libertarian candidates because I, like many people here, believe that the less intrusive government is, the better.
Writing letters and making phone calls only goes so far. No matter how many letters or phone calls legislators receive, it's still the same person who ignores them. The real solution is to get these people out of office and elect people who are more likely to give our concerns a voice.
So the next time you feel that our legislators truly aren't looking out for our interests, get your ass out of your chair and vote.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
I choose Maximum Liberty. Please draw the line there.
As a former paratrooper I thank you kindly. Many americans (military and civilian) traded their safety and even their lives for our continued freedom. The war on terrorism promotes the heroism of cowardice "I boldly tell the FBI what my neighbor says in confidence....because I am scared of the roughly couple dozen Al Qaeda reps that the President says MIGHT be in our country." That is a sad, sad statement.
"During that session I even said without exaggeration on my part or complaint on yours that if Usama bin Laden crossed the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York, U.S. law would give him certain protections that I would have to accommodate in the conduct of my mission. And now the third open session for the Director of NSA: I am here explaining what my Agency did or did not know with regard to 19 hijackers who were in this country legally."
It seems then, that the safest place for a terrorist to hide would be in US.
Is it not possible that, having already made the decision for security over liberty back in the 1970's when the tools of self defense were banned from aircraft (and post offices, and schools, I might add), these formerly free United States had become a haven for terrorists without any help from the NSA?
Didn't anybody ever watch "Red Dawn?"
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
First we should start by questioning the assumption that loss of liberty even will buy us safety.
This needs to be done, on a point-by-point basis for each and every liberty that is being compromised. In engineering decisions there's always 'nice to have' and 'must have'. There are also times when the customer is asking for the wrong thing, and you can give a different solution that satisifes him even better than what he'd asked for. As far as I can see, current liberty/security tradeoffs appear to be a shopping list, without effectiveness review or modifications.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.