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The Pentagon Wants Your Secrets
Teknogeek was one of the many readers to point out today's New York Times report on what one submitter dubbed "Son of Carnivore." "This should scare you: Vice Admiral John Poindexter wants to create a supercomputer capable of hunting through electronic databases all over the world, looking for suspected terrorists. According to the article, Poindexter outlines a need to '"break down the stovepipes' that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.'" Update: 11/10 16:15 GMT by T : Here's an updated link to the (no-registration) Arizona Star. Update: 11/24 17:42 GMT by T : Thanks to expiring links, here's another updated link to the NYTimes story.
I don't even get to see the black helicopters and they get to read my e-mail? Aww, not fair!
Banaaaana!
WAR ON TERRORISM
Anti-terror computer system plans wide, warrantless access
By John Markoff
THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Pentagon is constructing a computer system that could create a vast electronic dragnet, searching personal information as part of the hunt for terrorists around the world - including the United States.
The program director, Vice Adm. John Poindexter, says the system would provide intelligence analysts and law enforcement with instant access to information from e-mail and calling records to credit card, banking transactions and travel records - without a search warrant.
Historically, military and intelligence agencies have not been allowed to spy on Americans without legal authorization. But Poindexter, national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has said the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of electronic details of life in the United States.
Poindexter, who has described the plan in public documents and speeches but declined to be interviewed, has said the government needs to "break down the stovepipes" that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.
"We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge and create actionable options," he said in a speech in California earlier this year.
Poindexter quietly returned to the government in January to take charge of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Office of Information Awareness, charged with developing new surveillance technologies in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
To deploy such a system, known as Total Information Awareness, new legislation would be needed, some of which has been proposed by the Bush administration in the Homeland Security Act now before Congress. That legislation would amend the Privacy Act of 1974, which was intended to limit what government agencies could do with private information.
The possibility that the system might be deployed domestically to let intelligence officials look into commercial transactions worried civil liberties proponents.
"This could be the Perfect Storm for civil liberties in America," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "The vehicle is the Homeland Security Act, the technology is DARPA and the agency is the FBI. The outcome is a system of national surveillance of the American public."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been briefed on the project by Poindexter, according to a Pentagon spokesman.
Does he think that AlQaeda has a web-enabled database of current members and operational schedules? That's about as sensible as the FBI having back door keys to encryption technologies that crims will steer far clear of.
"break down the stovepipes' that separate commercial and government databases, allowing teams of intelligence analysts to hunt for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.'"
I think they probably mean all your data belong to us.
I doubt it would be a two way deal allowing teams of private "intelligence analysts" to search the governments databases.
Bad Religion knew it all along. Listen to Bad Religion, and you'll be able to predict Slashdot's next article. Good luck, and may the force be with you.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
But Poindexter, national security adviser in the Reagan administration, has said the government needs broad new powers to process, store and mine billions of electronic details of life in the United States.
I have no doubt that Bush will persuade congress to give federal departments these powers.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
... I should be ther first to say "POINDEXTER" LOLOLOL
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
You could probably get unlimited power by hooking Orwell's grave up to a turbine nowdays.
I mod down anyone who uses M$ in their posts. I like to live on the edge.
Does this meen Hughe Jackmans 1337 H4X0R1N in Swordfish was all a hoax? damn, an i honestly believed that he knew how to work a keyboard!
wasnt this guy guilty in Iran-Contra?
We as voters have given up essential liberty. We hoped to purchase a little temporary safety. We in fact deserve neither
When you operate above the law, there's really nothing stopping you, except from being giving the privilage in the first place.
just my 2cents.
Look dumbshit. We all know they're going to use this for their holy, tax and spend war on pot, and not against rag-heads. If we could trust these Poindexters with surveilance technology, they wouldn't be such, well...Poindexters!
me
Just think how much fun this would have been had it been possible during the commie hunting McCarthy era?
I'm wondering if the US is about to enter another one, except with "terrorists" instead of "commies".
With modern information databases, that can get very very scary indeed.
- Muggins the Mad
This guy still has a job? Wasn't he implicated in some Reagan scandals way back in the day? Shouldn't he have resigned in disgrace by now?
The original link cited in this article points to an truncated version of the original NYT story. For a more COMPLETE version, use this link:
M P. html
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09CO
(it's more than twice as long, with much more information)
Just how do they plan to identify these so called "Terrorists" of commercial databases ?
... what do they think terrorists do ? use the internet for their purchases ? that Al Quaeda has an online site where they secretly login by clinking on the left nipple of a certain pic in a porn site ? (and if they did, do they think they'll be able to access that db with this computer ?)
... stop invading the whole world's privacy just on the slim chance that you may catch an amateur discomformist doing stupid things, Cos this is surely NOT the way to catch real ones
How can you possibly identify terrorists by searching thru say, Amazon purchases or ubid or ebay ?
If you bought a 101 explosives book, and purchased some potassium chlorate from ebay you are surely on their list, but c'mon
C'mon
...does the Pentagon or the US in general have to read data from other sovereign nations? And if they did find something outside their borders, what are they supposed to do with (or about) it? Invade every suspect country?
Karma: Good. I'm hoping in the same way as pizza is 'good'...
...an NSA scientist ponders; "We need another one?"
Anybody care to hazard a guess on whether or not this admiral has checked to see how much this would cost or even if it's remotely feasible? Sometimes officers should consult w/ the enlisted before shooting off their mouths...
Officer "I'd like to monitor and index EVERYTHING on the Internet so we can hunt down terrorists."
Enlisted "Sir, how do you want to go about doing that? Won't it cost a lot?"
Officer "Errr.... Do it immediately! I don't care how! And issue a press release about how I'm protecting the US against terrorism"
This guy is way out there
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was created to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web. EFF is the first to identify threats to our basic rights online and to advocate on behalf of free expression in the digital age.
Other than bitching about it on /., you can take action, and join this organization which will help fight against this type of privacy invasion.
I saw parts of this guy's testimony on Bill Moyers (yes, I watch PBS). Sounded like a total and complete criminal, especially with Bill Moyers' unforgiving yet true commentary.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Yes, Yes, No.
Poindexter was convicted during the Iran-Contra debacle. His conviction was overturned. Regardless, there's little reason any of that should preclude him from working in this area -- he has a PhD from Caltech, and has been working in the DARPA research arena for many years. He also has a deep understanding of the nature of intelligence gathering and what needs to be done to make it better.
If the Pentagon actually did affiliate themselves with spyware programs, or create one of their own somehow, it would be able to collect all kinds of information on each and every person out there, even overseas.
The problem is that it would be detected and outed quickly, so it would have to have clandestine links to the Pentagon -- though that could be going on now -- plus it would need something akin to a supercomputer to make sense of all the data.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Is it still the land of the free ?
Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these.
But seriously, this is not funny at all. This is a big step towards a 1984-like the government controlls everything society. I'd really like to hear what this can do that would improve security besides collect everyone's credit card numbers and e-mails. And even that won't do much good if they are encrypted with Elliptic Curve Cryptography.
Seeing how the US treats mere suspects of terrorism in Cuba, seeing what little respect the US has for due process, I don't think they should be given more help in suspecting people.
They're so busy looking for some reason to suspect it won't take much for person X to paint person Y bad enough to have them carted off.
Sound like East Germany, Russia?
Capitalism is the new communism, all subcontracted out for profit.
Free America is the new oppressive prison state, it's big and you are not encouraged to see the walls.
Hope you are comfy.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Once systems like this are in place and capture a few terrorists, why not use them to nab dead beat dads, or to make sure that your parking tickets are paid, or better yet, introduce some statistical programs to raise little red flags at the pentagon whenever certain triggers are tripped.
I can see it now, subject buys copy of Mein Kampf, visits a Nazi website, and in come the agents to find a 18 year old writing a history freshman paper.
But what do YOU have to worry about? you aren't hiding anything, ARE YOU?
Next thing you know, they'll take my thoughts away... --Dave Mustaine
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
Of course this goes far beyond terrorist hunting. Data mining like that would only be the logical consequence of events that have been taken place in legislature and executive for many months now. The outcome of those efforts would be the proverbial "glass citizen" who makes no move without being thoroughly profiled. The government (and the big corporations if you like) know more about the Glass Citizen's state of mind than he himself. Every little crime or disobedience will be found and punished. Science fiction yesterday, hard reality today (and cheered by the masses, too).
Only in the real 1984 almost everyone enjoys being big brothered like that. Everyone cheering the government on should think about the fact that terrorists (short of a grand nuclear attack) have a minimal actual physical effect on the population (speaking of cold hard percent figures). The damage they do results not from the deaths they leave behind but from the fear they create. And this damage has been immense in the US. It is due to that damage, that we allow our government to watch and eventually control us like that. Those terrorists have been incredibly successfull.
Langdon Winner argued that Nuclear power would lead to a possible infringement of our civil rights and the growth of the state due to claims to dangers from Terrorism and Nuclear dangers and thus the government suggested fix being bigger more authoritarian government...
It seems that instead of Nuclear power, the Internet is becoming danger to modern society and a hotbed seething with evil-doers..
Rather than spending billions on these systems that will become white elephants and probably never work. Political action is required in terms of Nation building (eg Afghanistan) and working with the UN to proceduralise feelings of anger toward the US and engender a feeling of equity and fairness.
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Mr. Poindexter could convince my mother that there are little green men lurking on her hard disk and that these evil creatures could be revealed by hunting for hidden patterns of activity with powerful computers.
In other news, the US Government has just purchased the Earth Simulator Supercomputer.
Details at eleven...
I would create a sig, if only something of value could be said with just 120 chars.
It's a good thing you still have free speech in the US. Looks like you're going to need it.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
What percentage of the Slashdot readership do you think is American?
OK.
And what percentage of these comments do you think will cane this idea?
Right.
It's not just xenophobia/jealously/yadda yadda yaddda. Those who haven't contracted patriotism to a blinding degree can appreciate how daft this idea is.
"If being a geek means being passionate about something, then I pity those who aren't geeks." - Pike65
They probably do more to "invade our privacy" than you think, already. I doubt they always go by the book hnting for terrorists..
It doesn't really bother me, however. It's not like "oh my god, they found out I just bought a jacket at J Crew by tracing my credit card... maybe they'll link that to the purchase my grandmother made for my birthday of a Sears coat and alert her that i did not really appreciate her gift!" It's not really a big deal (to me at least), and I honestly don't think you need to worry unless you're doing something illegal anyway.
Suprise! Terrorists only attack us because our Government pays them to! They both win, and we all lose. Don't believe me? Do some reading.
Since he was released from his sentence, Poindexter has been working in private industry for a military consulting firm on EXACTLY the technology being proposed here. Setting aside the ethics of using your position to bebefit your former employer, is poindexter the man to decide what to do?
if we take admiral P at his word, that he never told ronny he was commiting crimes then we know he's a yahoo that cant be trusted to follow orders, laws or safegaurds on private information.
This is in keeping with the Bush admin's policy of appointing inappropriate people.
Sec DOE: Abrahams, only former experience was proposing in congress to eleminate the DOE.
Sec Interior: Gail norton, fromer mining industry lobbist
SEC head: former lobiest/lawyer for big 5 accounting firms.
Sec EPA: Christie Whitman, former govenor of NJ, reportedly accepts donations for chem industry.
Sec Labor: Can you even name the sec labor, do we still have one?
Sec Army: Former Enron top official, accepts free ski vacations from ENRON, then proposes to outsource the Utilities on Military bases to enron.
and so on....
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Yes, this is the same Iran-Contra Poindexter. He was found guilty, but his conviction was conveniently overturned -- he testified to Congress, and was given clemency.
'The road to hell is paved in good intentions.'
The problem with these programs is that they open up a large possibility of abuse. I do think that if the government wants to enact these decisions there should be a way to invoke a "Right to privacy" act. And making it only possible to supercede such an act would have to be okayed by a judge. That way if you don't want your porn memberships to be public knowledge they don't have to be.
I say let the government do what they want, god knows they will anyways, but create a new "Citizens of Patriotism Act" protecting the right to privacy and safety.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
that being complicit in the trafficking of TONS of cocaine which was smuggled into the US and sold to American citizens in order to fund a dirty little covert war should've spelled permanent loss of freedom for Mr Poindexter and co. Instead he gets to play havoc with our freedoms. That's real justice for you.
You're using her as bait, Master!
We also have very strong laws against misuse of computer databases, you need a license of sorts to keep information directly attributable to a certain person in a database if it is for any other use than personal. Doing a database crosscheck is also forbidden unless you have permission. It is not a given that any agency or organization who wants to do that gets a license. We are pretty strict when it comes to issues of personal integrity and computers.
The swedish principle of public scrutiny, "offentlighetsprincipen" also requires that any government,county or regional adminstartions or agencies have to make publicly available all information that is not a threat to national security. Even then, the fact that it has been classified is public.
You need more openness and less paranoia .
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Really, with all the money they have, you'd think they could get their own pr0n. Hell, they could probably hire the actresses to come over and give all the generals a personal lapdance and/or BJ.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
This is what happens when there is a Bush in the white house and a fear of dark skin is on the rise. Beware you terrorists, dubya is coming to get ya, with his new supercomputer! So don't buy explosives from online bidding!!!
Well, no, of course he doesn't think that. Just who do you think the target of this legislation is, anyway?
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Let me get this straight: *VICE* Admiral *POINDEXTER* wants to build a *supercomputer* to search, among other things, *porn databases*?
;-)
Sounds like a geeky, sinful venture to me.
(Quotes are patented by Dr. Evil and used without permission).
There's more than one problem here. First, who gets to define "terrorist"? One man's freedom figher is another man's terrorist. Find out what Reagan had to say about the Mujahadeen in the 80s, then think about what Bush said about the Taliban (one of the components of the Mujahadeen) in 2001.
Second "the Pentagon" is nominally prevented from law enforcement. If "the Pentagon" goes trawling for terrorists in the US civilian population a principle that has served the US very well goes by the wayside: the military and the navy get used against US citizens. The old USSR shows us the dangers of that path.
Thirdly, we risk a new McCarthyism: do we really want to reinstate guilt by association? There's an extra danger in what Poindexter proposes, too. Do we want the association made by buggy computer programs?
Fouth, we risk giving up an almost sacred principle, that of due process.
-- Thomas Jefferson.Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Isn't that what has caused most, if not all, wars throughout human history? ;-)
This is the best post I have read in a long long time.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
What are the odds that the Supreme Court would also let this go through if the other two branches managed to slide it through somehow? I don't know the answer, and I'm not naive enough to believe that it would be shot down with 100% guarantee, but I do believe that there are enough angles with which to attack this type of legislation that it would be very hard to have a package that matched up the Poindexter's liking.
Incidentally, any attempt to turn this into a some kind of anti-Republican rant will be easily refuted with the long list of politicians on BOTH sides of the aisle who favor a stronger government and weaker individual liberties.
We already are in that 'era'..
:(
Just look around, its pretty obvious
---- Booth was a patriot ----
because (ignoring the finacial side), that's all they know how to do. The human side of spying we no longer want to do. It's all about hardware and automation. God forbid someone should actually want to go into the field and get their hands dirty.
I demand the Government stop all future terrorist attacks,
Actually, no I don't. I don't demand the government stop all terrorism. I don't demand the government stop all crime. I don't demand the government stop all war. I don't demand the government try to make life fair and perfect because the ONLY way that would happen is if the government could somehow minutely control every action of every citizen. I prefer NOT to live in such a police state.
Somehow, somewhere, someone thought that we should have both freedom and life should be fair. I'm sorry, but you have to pick one of the two and personally, I would rather have freedom, even if it means freedom for some idiot to shoot me. And I am perfectly willing to accept the consequences of freedom and not complain about it. Freedom means things won't be fair. Freedom means there will be abuses of rights and atrocities. However, I think the greater atrocity would be to live in a "safe" society where freedom is replaced by control. That's the only way the government could stop all terrorism or whatever other vice you pick.
That said, there should always be a balance between freedom and the stability that 'fairness' or 'security' brings. Choosing that balance is not trivial. However, just because you don't mind an instrusive government "protecting" you from terrorism doesn't mean others would rather risk violence in order to perserve certain freedoms.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Its funny how our government thinks or re4fuses to think when spouting garabage..
Here are the characteristics of a terroris as paraphrazed directy from FBI stuff:
1 Disenfranchisement with society..ie doens;t fit in..
2 Social and economically doesn't contribute to society..may be on low economic ladder or both low social and economic ladder
3 Unstable mental state or lacking in analytical and critical thinking skills to process or analyze information..ie a sucker as Barnum and Baily Circus woudl say
any trained socialogist or mental doctor can point out to the fbi which grousp of people fit this category..you infiltrate these grousp and then whne the terrorist groups show up to recruit nab them.. simple!
Rather than take awy our rights the government should get educated on how world dominance and eploitation produces these set gorups of people in the first place!
But I don't expect Bush's oil frineds to understand this..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
Will this machine be powered by the burning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights??
Best not to forget the Declaration of Independence.
http://www.Slaveway.com
It doesn't matter if we're about to enter such an era. The next round of government paranoia an abuse could even be decades off. But once we have systems like this in place and accepted as a legitimate tool of government, the key ingredients will be ready and waiting for the proper catalyst.
Ponder Poindexter's world here. The logo is red meat for the conspiracy guys. Lots of interesting programs too.
"Don't Follow Leaders." Bob Dylan
www.talibanreunited.com
M.S., Physics, California Institute of Technology, 1961
B.S., Engineering, U.S. Naval Academy, 1958 Experience Summary
Brings a unique blend of experience to problems from the highest levels of government to the laboratory. Demonstrated exceptional management and command ability ranging from naval operations to the national security of the United States. Noted for creative solutions to difficult issues and ability to quickly grasp the essence of new tasks. Goal oriented. Professional Background DARPA Information Awareness Office, Director 2002 - Present
The mission of the Information Awareness Office (IAO) is to imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components, and prototype closed-loop information systems that will counter asymmetric threats (most notably, terrorist threats) by achieving total information awareness: enabling preemption; national security warning; and, national security decision making.
SYNTEK Technologies, Senior Vice President 1996 - 2002
SYNTEK is a small high technology firm with contracts in domestic and international defense and commercial business. Poindexter was responsible for high-level advice on management and direction of information systems projects (for example Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Project Genoa).
TP Systems, Inc., Co-founder 1990 - 1996
TP Systems was a software development firm specializing in commercial software for the IBM PC's and compatibles. Poindexter was the chief designer and programmer. Development included a symbolic debugger for multi-tasking environments, a BBS communications program plus numerous utility programs.
Elkins Group, Consultant 1993 - 1996
Elkins was a business alliance with Electronic Data Systems (EDS), has developed Elkins Interactive Training Network (EITN), a satellite based training delivery system that has world-wide marketing potential. Poindexter was the Chairman of the Maritime Advisory Committee and a member of the Board of Directors. He also provided advice on strategic planning.
Presearch, Inc., Senior Scientist 1988 - 1989 Presearch had primarily been involved with defense studies and analysis. Faced with anticipated defense budget reductions, Poindexter joined the firm to develop new
and so on. No where does he mention his crimes.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Trial lawyer Dan K. Webb represented him during Iran-Contra. Microsoft hired Webb during the remedy phase of the antitrust case. Hmmmm
So, if you are willing to stand up for the Bill of Rights--the 4th Amendment in this case--that makes you a pinko sympathizer?
People like you represent the rule of men, not the rule of law. I bet you couldn't even paraphrase the Bill of Rights in glowing generalities, let alone verbatim, and I would wager you've never even bothered to read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers.
Linking all commercial and government systems? Ha! Making that work would be the equivalent of making a big electronic communist party.
No chance, keep dreaming poindexter (how can someone like this have such a geeky name?)
If a computer can search through all electronic documents on computers attached to the internet, isn't it just the same as searching through the entire world's paper documents? You would need a search warrent to do the latter - yet the Pentagon can do the former without further questioning?
What if our tax dollars/pounds/yen/euros went to a great big supercomputer we could all data mine through?
Lets have less privacy, not more of it!
Webcams in *every* toilet please.
Record all phone calls and have them made publicly available.
A URL for every email and a record of all my shopping would be a great help too.
Think of the possibilities.
Let's Open Source Our Lives, we've got nothing to hide.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Lets see, Im a member of the NRA, i bought a book on survival techniques ( im a camper ), involved in an 'alternative energy' news group, and i downloaded a file via P2P..
/me waits on the black helicopters.. and wonders what happened to freedom.
Currently all legal activites, but depending on how they 'search' it comes up ' potential terrorist' and i get investigated. with no true probable cause.
Guess that puts me in the wrong catagory..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
later convicted for his role in the Iran-Contra diversion of monies and coverup. Poindexter's conviction was overturned on appeal -- but don't let that fool you into thinking the appeal court cleared him. Instead of dismissing the conviction, they ordered a new trial. Luckily for the Admiral, President Bush the First pardoned him, obviating the retrial.
This is the sort of shady character we want implementing any sort of information system?? Have we decided that the only way to beat felons, thugs, and barbarians is to hire some of our own?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
>> ...who gets to define "terrorist"?
If you attack me, I do. The gap between U.S. support of the Afghan mujahedin and al-Qaeda's propping up of the Taliban regime is the same as the time between the end of WWII and the rise of Japan and Germany as democratic economic powers. Times change, so do friends and enemies. Ignoring that and making high school debating points about alleged government inconsistencies is infantile.
BTW, due process applies if you fall under the protection of the U.S. Constitution. People who are at war with the U.S. (including U.S. citizens who go over to the other side) aren't entitled to it.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Oh, don't worry, you're about to find out! Just watch, this will be followed and accompanied by a huge hype about cyber-terrorism, and will pass without a glitch. Haxors are the next target (by whatever name you want to call them).
My site: Free Nature Pictures
In deed one of his recent employments was to create a bulliten Board System. His last employer SYNTEK was working on exactly such an information awareness system.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Great idea. Poindexter's name would probably top the list though: international arms dealer, convicted felon (http://www.hpoindexter.com/jmarlan.htm)... Just the kind of guy who you want to trust with all your secrets. Easy enough to fix:
if (guy ~= m/poindexter/i) {
score = -score;
}
My little contribution to making the world a safer place. Patent Pending.
Is the real problem that the public information is being used to the point of discovering trends about a person, or that said information is public to start with? And if you are willing to allow said information to be public then you are allowing for the opportunity that someone might just piece together what you don't want them to know.
So where is the real problem?
The mentallity that the proposed project hopes to use against people is very similar to a way that the government manages it's information at time. Information A, B, and C may not be classified individually, but if say a document mentions A, B, and C it could be classified because putting the three together reveals too much.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
They'd be triangulating more than just credit card purchases at amazon.com, of course -- all of that marketing data, all those mailing/purchasing lists, credit records, etc., etc.
These marketing groups pay billions of dollars in research every year to learn how to control our behavior. Anywhere they can find to track us, they'll pay for, because (demographically) they can use the information to make us do what they want us to do. I no longer talk about my beer in a commercial -- by watching you, I've learned you'll buy more of my beer if I show you a blonde with tight clothing.
A database of this magnitude would give the government an unprecedented tool for designing and implementing propaganda.
While I don't like the notion of amending U.S. law to allow access to private data wihout a search warrant, it is worth remembering just how much information is available publically. In terms of the Internet, information located on a server addressed by a URL is public and fair game, regardless of where the server is located.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I knew that name sounded familiar... Oh, thats it! He's the director of the I.A.O., or Information Awareness Office, the agency with the scariest name/logo combination in the entire pentagon! (shouldn't the be a link to the IAO along with this story? *ahem* update:)
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
...of individual liberties being trashed?
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
This will violate the Posse Commitatus Act of 1878.
s /T rebilcock.htm
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1385.html
Sec. 1385. - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both
Now if Congress allows this, it's perfectly legal. I doubt it will happen, there are some privacy activists in the Senate and House.
http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/article
"The original 1878 Posse Comitatus Act was indeed passed with the intent of removing the Army from domestic law enforcement. Posse comitatus means "the power of the county," reflecting the inherent power of the old West county sheriff to call upon a posse of able-bodied men to supplement law enforcement assets and thereby maintain the peace. Following the Civil War, the Army had been used extensively throughout the South to maintain civil order, to enforce the policies of the Reconstruction era, and to ensure that any lingering sentiments of rebellion were crushed. However, in reaching those goals, the Army necessarily became involved in traditional police roles and in enforcing politically volatile Reconstruction-era policies. The stationing of federal troops at political events and polling places under the justification of maintaining domestic order became of increasing concern to Congress, which felt that the Army was becoming politicized and straying from its original national defense mission. The Posse Comitatus Act was passed to remove the Army from civilian law enforcement and to return it to its role of defending the borders of the United States."
http://www.dojgov.net/posse_comitatus_act.htm
http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-2/752-10.html
While this is quite a scary concept... we need to remember...
The guy's name is Poindexter.
I mean, come on, Poindexter!
It's funny, laugh.
"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it" -- Winston Churchill
Speaking of Posse Comitus (sp?, the Civil War era law prohibiting the use of the military against US citizens), did anyone else notice the small blurb in Thursday and Friday's news that one of the accused terrorists killed by our drone in Yemen was a US citizen. It might be worth noting that citizens are entitled to trial by jury. Somehow I don't think an Unmanned aircraft half way across the continent counts as a jury of ones peers. That man may have been the most vile killer born since Hitler, but that does not justify what the US becomes when it starts to defy national and international law.
Good. It's about time that real media started paying attention to this. Want to scare yourself silly? Check out the details of what Poindexter is working on at http://www.darpa.mil/iao/ (see link in my sig).
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The pentagon wants me secrets? Sure no problem. When I was in school, I use to laugh at the geeks! And I enjoyed it, on a strange primitive level. But guess what, here I am; a bigger geek then they are I would have to guess. Oh, and this one time.. I killed a kitten! And I enjoyed it! How's that for a secret! Come get me Washington!
There is no spork.
In testimony before Congress, Poindexter took full responsibility for arranging the arms-for-hostages-and-funding-of-Rebels transactions that made up the core of the Iran Contra Affair. He also admitted that he had withheld information and outright lied to Congress in the past, and displayed no particular remorse for his actions.
He's free today because he was granted immunity for his testimony. Prosecutors tried and convicted him anyway, but he managed to have the conviction reversed upon appeal based on this immunity agreement.
I don't wish to libel the distinguished gentelman, so I'll phrase this delicately. Many people are of the opinion that Mr. Poindexter occupies a government office today solely because he demonstrated intense loyalty to President Reagan, essentially falling on his sword and lying to protect the President from being implicated. Although other individuals involved in the Scandal testified that they had notified the President of their activities, Poindexter contradicted them all. In his testimony, Poindexter claimed that he'd initiated those actions to give the President deniability (although why the President would need deniability for actions he didn't authorize struck many as unusual.) That such an extremely disciplined military man would take it upon himself to arrange these actions without the President's approval is almost beyond belief. But with noone to counter Poindexter's testimony, the President avoided impeachment, a fact that most certainly wasn't forgotten in certain circles.
So this is the man who now occupies this extremely sensitive position, and is essentially building the most sophisticated surveillance network ever unleashed upon the people of the United States.
> There's more than one problem here. First, who gets to define "terrorist"? One man's freedom figher is another man's terrorist.
Yes: exactly. Mr. Bush has really opened a can of worms by declaring a nebulous war on "terrorists" wherever they might be. Other governments are already following suit. I noted China has jumped on the anti-terrorist bandwagon by branding the Falun Gong "terrorists." Now Beijing is free to act lawlessly against them...after all, we can't be soft on terrorists, can we?
Who among us is "for" the "terrorists"? Bring them forward! They should be made accountable! We don't tolerate "enemy combatants" in these here parts!
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Remember, this is America, not Japan.
Most of our leaders (yes, both sides of the aisle) have no sense of shame and apparently, no conscience. This is clearly visible from their recent and current actions.
"Resign in disgrace"? No such thing here in the US. A phrase you'd be more likely to hear from these people would be "You will pry this job and this power from my cold, dead hands."
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
The only thing we can try to do is put them under a magnifying glass, so we know, that they know, what we know... The best possible outcome (I'm not saying this is a good one) is a citizens' data base where each access is justified and scrupulously logged. Each person can check their own information, there will be a clear correction process, and citizens will be able to know who has asked to see "their" information. Unfortunately, this doesn't really work in a criminal or espionage investigation. But for things like Income Tax, Drivers licenses, medical records, Biometics, etc... It needs to happen.
If a database is not created with the above controls, it will be created without them, probably by private companies that have no worries about being voted out of office, and who will have a long list of customers.
The solution is more information, not less
Is Google part of the CIA ?
Yep.
l
http://www.solai.com/forum/articles/tnoah-1.htm
First, it is impossible to go through databases without risking damaging somebody's piravicy. Second, it is very hard if not impossible to catch up with the expansion of information available electronically. Third, and maybe most important, this doesn't solve the problem.
The solution to terorism is not hunting terorists down. It should be done of course, but more resources should be allocated to remove the fundamental reasons why people become terorists, why they become pawns of other people. You cannot get rid of malaria just by vaccinating people, you have to dry the swamp. But, again, of course, vaccination should continue in the meanwhile. I just don't think it logical not to spend any resources on swamp drying, while so much money goes to smart bombs etc.
ato
What right does anyone have to do this. I mean, you americans can issue all the laws you want violating your own privacies. But when you try and plan to spy on citizens of other countries it starts to bother me...
That's what Al-Qaeda probably does..
... is there also, complete with flowchart...."Planned Accomplishments: TBA"
How big an electronic trai do you think you leave on the "terrorist" countries ?
Not many shops take amex/mc/visa in Irak / Afghanistan. Not many places have computers for registering customers, airplane tickets are still made by hand.
mod up the parent, its a great primary source.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Doesn't this sound like a lot as "hunting witches"?, like say back in the 1430-1530 years, when someone said someone was a witch, and the mere accusation was enough, and we burnt them at the stake; contrary to what the facts showed?
ok, now it isn't witches, we call them "terrorists". Soon even then faintest wispher of the word "terrorist" and you'll get hunted down and shot to death (in contrary to burnt at the stake)
Maybe we aren't there yet, but it sure looks like we are hedding towards that direction. Reading a post a while ago (to lazy to find the url, but it was about "how people that look the remotest arabic got pull a side or the like after 9/11, crossing borders, driving their cars...etc etc") sure makes you think scenarios like this.
Haven't we learned anything?
Well, it appears as we haven't; history repeats itself again. Kind of makes you think if history/time is recursive on itself, that we all live in a big "loop-of-some-kind".
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
First, who gets to define "terrorist"? One man's freedom figher is another man's terrorist.
Another relativist...
A terrorist is one who engages in terrorism. Terrorism involves the intentional targeting of noncombatants, for the purpose of inciting terror. It doesn't matter what the cause.
Most of the BS rhetoric thrown around in this area is because many movements have terrorists in their fringes, and then one side says
NYA NYA They are terrorists
and the other side says
NYA NYA No they aren't.
It is terrorism when it is policy to engage in it. The Viet Cong in Vietnam engaged in terrorism - killing the village chieftan and his family if he didn't support them. This was policy, so they were terrorists.
Various Palestinian groups are engaged in terrorism. They may *also* be freedom fighters, but that is irrelevant. They are terrorists.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Here's a big American f#(| you to that last comment.
It's people like you that have eroded the rights in this country to the point we actually have to worry about our rights being taken away from us.
This country has NEVER garaunteed a citizens safety, but only freedom. The freedom to be our own masters. The freedom to keep ourself safe. If you don't like it and your not an American you can kiss my a$$, if you are an American move to another country and revoke your citizenship. Here is a warning to anyone who will try take my freedoms away. I will gladly pay for freedom with my blood. I will have good company...
Stupid things kids do.
The Pentagon wants to be able to sit on their ass and control the world. That's the ultimate goal.
Toss your wireless devices...
that is one way to get people to pay cash again.
~~ What's stopping you?
The thing people are *still* largely missing is that these issues aren't even "party-centric" anymore! Pay attention! Just as much B.S. taking away our privacy rights came into being under the Clinton administration as what's coming down the pike now, with Republicans in the driver's (and co-pilot's) seats.
The drive for "broad new govt. powers" often comes straight from the FBI, NSA, military, or other "arms" of government that perform the same functions no matter who is in Congress or in the "big chair" in the White House.
Remember the old line, "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"? It's quite true. This won't stop until government is shrunken back down to a manageable size again.
When Americans were overcharged for govt. services (AKA. tax surplus), did you see *either* party clamoring to figure out how to quickly refund citizens the incorrectly charged fees? Heck no! Both sides were endlessly debating on how they should spend (they prefer the term "appropriate") the excess, instead.
If you're still hung up on arguing whether or not a "Republican president" or "Republican Congress" will push for these new powers, you're wasting everyone's time and helping their larger politcal agenda.
Both "sides" aren't really so far apart anymore. They're both looking out for themselves, first and foremost. After that, they both envision a big, powerful government that they can steer to victory, fame and glory.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans are ready to concede that *less* government is what this country sorely needs!
Presumably the good admiral needs a security clearance of some sort for his new job. How did he get one? It's not just a technical question about the status of his felony conviction, it's what he did to earn that conviction: lie to Congress and obstruct a Congressional investigation.
Loyalty. Loyalty to the United States of America. I'd say it's the first and essential requirement for a job like Poindexter's. But when push came to shove in Iran-Contra, where did his loyalty lie? To himself and Ronald Reagan, not the American people and their democratically chosen representatives.
If Poindexter's behavior in Iran-Contra demonstrated nothing else, it demonstrated that he lacks loyalty to America and its democratic principles. And yet someone decided this unloyal convict merited the necessary clearances for the job.
Who?
...sing it with me:
O Canada
Our home and native land
True patriot love
In all thy sons' command
I work with Americans every day. I have a ton of respect for them. But American politics continue to scare the living shit outta me...
Vice Adm. John Poindexter's wife was my den mother for WEBELOS circa 1978. Prior to meeting the Poindexters I was a big scouting enthusiast. After being forced to spend time with those two, I was out of scouting forever.
Both Vice Adm. Poindexter and his horrible shrew of a wife are bland uninsightful drones. He has made a career out of mediocraty. Never willing to put himself or his career at risk for 'what's right', he's always done 'what's popular'. He is a perfect political animal.
Having many heros who served faithfully in the United States Navy, I am disgusted that this SOB has continued to hold positions of leadership in the modern Navy. I'm not sure how deep his level of involvement was with the Iran-Contra affair, but it wouldn't suprise me in the least to learn he lied and schemed to protect his own ass at the expense of honor and country. To beleive that he would head such a program and as the leader of the department have the integrity to protect the rights of Joe Citizen is something I can't even begin to imagine.
All your secrets are belong to us.
They already exist. Financial institutions already are required to run their databases against the Office of Foriegn Asset Control's list of Specially Designated Nationals and groups, using soundex to look for aliases. Technically they are supposed to run it nightly and report any matches (since our database software only allows us to access the data through a poorly designed reporting language, which allows very little optimization, we only run it monthly and when the list is changed... though that is sometimes 3 or 4 times in a week... a couple of times it was twice in one day). They are also required to run matches on any wire transfers and on new accounts when they are opened. Also, the regulatory agencies, FDIC for banks and NCUA for credit unions, have their own lists which also must be run.
In addition, another govt. department (can't remember the name off the top of my head) provides a quarterly file containing dead-beat dads, which we must also run against our database and provide the matches to the government.
Finally, on our Visas and Check Cards, we run a system called Falcon which can detect potential fraud in real time. We don't report that to the government, but it'd be a small change to do so it did. It also would be trivial to add rules to the expert system to report other trends than possible fraud.
Now, these are not all real time, but still there are already steps in place to get there.
Privacy act, my ass. The new legislation required is a repeal or negation of the fouth amendment. There are many good reasons the government must obtain a warrent by presenting reasonable evidence of wrongdoing in a public court to be able to search your personal effects and property. The FBI just had two agents busted for manipulating stock prices with information they obtained "terrorist hunting." Am I now going to believe that Uncle Sam will keep all my data confidential when any old clerk can get at it thanks to these broken "stove pipes"? There's not supposed to be ANY connection between my information or my company's information and the governement. Yet here's this bozo saying "All your base are belong to Uncle Sam". Chalk one more up for the errosion of the bill of rights. People without rights, who are stripped of the fruits of their labor (think income taxes) are also known as slaves.
Folks like Poindexter make me worry that my own government might actually set off a few small nukes to get their way. George Orwell predicted nuclear and civil wars would bring on the hyseria to build his nightmare society. Where is the conclusive proof indicating exactly who was responsible for September 11th? Why have we not seen it all presented and well documented? I'm getting sick of "security reasons" being used as an excuse for people to do whatever they want with out accountability. I don't care if that idiot, Ossoma Bin Laden, was happy to claim guilt. There must have been 1,000 others happy to do the same. I want public proof and the guilty punnished, not scape goats, censorship and loss of rights.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The intelligence failure that occured last year was not due to lack of information. On the contrary, there was too much information--so much that they couldn't sift through the "noise". Having the ability to look and spy into normal people's data will only add to that noise. If the government can't sift through the amount of information they already have, how can they handle that much more?
a secret governmental org developing an "innocent" application that can act as spyware...hmmm..whut a concept,.hmmm. now what was the story on (insert name of a certain chat program developed in middle east) again? Oh ya, a group of unemployed stoontz invented it and served it up to millions for *free* for years, gratis, uh huh. yep.
The votes of a small portion of our society is useless to most politicians... Here's a better formula for the bigger politicians.
1)Kiss Corporate America's Ass
2)Collect Donations from Corporate America
3)Campaign with money
4)Capture the masses
5)Profit!!!!!!! or in this case get elected!!!
Hmmm... Pie...
"They already exist. Financial institutions already are required to run their databases against the Office of Foriegn Asset Control's list of Specially Designated Nationals and groups, using soundex to look for aliases."
Uhh, that's cool. really. You do this all the time huh, and it's all on the up and up? cool. would you please to reveal the actual for-real names and addys of the people who knew about 9-11 ahead of time enough to put in all those "put options"? Ya know, one of those stories the mass media just seems to love to forget about and act like it never happened. The "magic bullet" of 9-11. Whoops, so sorry, I forgot we are supposed to forget that little detail. Oh what's that you say? Oh, the owner of the brokerage where the bulk of the puts were placed is the ex-#2 guy at the CIA? wow, whut_a_coincidence, I'm sure. Oh ya, excuse me, I thought we were looking for the al queda "terrorists" financiers and assorted hangers on. Connected fatcat western white guys in suits with titles don't count, do they? In fact, letting the cat outta the bag that they had a hand in it for a seriously dangerous political agenda, but got a little greedy and they thought they could slide by and skim a little off the top might be considered a "bad idea", correct? OK-We'll just forget about it then, it's just an embarrasing little incident. Nothing to see here now, move along.....
While the Feds are trying to discover or invent the kind of data mining tools needed to use this for its intended real purpose, whether it's to attack terrorists, political dissidents (as an anti-globalization), or simply to figure out whose votes shouldn't be counted in the 2004 elections, in the meantime, this is one-stop online information shopping for the foriegn enemies of the USA.
A BIG honking distributed network supercomputer this big and as insecure as one can reasonably expect it to be will become a favorite terrorist tool as soon as the back doors are discovered and the how-to information is in the browser caches of every script kiddie in the whole world. Basically, this would become the biggest h4xx0r target in the world. Any vulnerability it's got will be found. Zero-day exploits won't be theoretical problems, they'll be used on discovery.
This will save terrorist organizations the trouble of doing any in-person research on targets. Building plans? Personnel records? Which personnel are vulnerable to blackmail based on ... unusual online purchases? What information would you want if you wanted to take down a military base or an oil refinery? No matter what it is, the Poindexter Machine will get you there.
While this may save the lives and increase the effectiveness of terrorists, I don't really think that's a good reason to give the Jihads of today or tomorrow easy access to everybody's secrets.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Anyone remember the Ministry of Peace from Babylon 5? Sounds like it's comming, and fast at that, to the US.
Didn't you guys learn anything from the 50s?
- Ost
---- Sig. gone.
Why should a people trust their government if their government does not trust them? I am a pretty conservative person politically speaking but I am also a defender of liberty. The founding fathers didn't trust one another, that is why they created such a complicated system of checks and balances in our Constitution. Allowing any part of our government to have such power will most certainly corrupt it (yea, I know it's corrupt already). There is to much potential for abuse here. Even if we were to trust the current administration (and I understand that many of you do not) it does not hold that the next administration will not abuse such power. Nixon has an enemies list. Clinton had FBI information on Republicans in the White House. Who knows what else has been done that we just don't know about.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
While I agree that this issue does not divide cleanly between party line, let's not forget which party has its hold on the lever of power right now. So whatever executive decision and legislation are made in the next 2 years is squarely according to the wishes of the Repulicans. There's nobody else to blame this time around.
That's a nice, pure ideology there. Thank you for pointing that out. I should have been less rhetorical. Let me try again.
Clearly the Pentagon will have to define "terrorist" in some machine-understandable fashion. The Pentagon programmers might use key-word recognition, they might use Bayesian statistical analysis. We just don't know.
Since we're talking about a massive data-mining application, the application doesn't have the luxury of executing a stored procedure that can actually determine whether the writer of a particular piece of text intentionally targetted noncombatants for the purpose of inciting terror. The application only has massive piles of text to sieve through. I don't think I've made any statements up to this point that a rational human can disagree with.
The current US government has made it clear that (Jose Padilla) it's not going to take the rights of citizens, much less the rights of non-citizens (Predator attack in Yemen) too seriously in it's War Against Terrorism.
Therefore, one of the issues that every human must be concerned about having the Pentagon mine all the data in the US to find "terrorists" is what criteria the Pentagon applies to data to decide "terrorist" or "not-terrorist". Who gets to make the decision about what key-words or statistics or algorthmic value make the writer a "terrorist"? What oversight is there of the decision or criteria?
I think that's a less relativist way to ask the question.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
My aunt's father was called a terrorist for refusing to go work in german factories during WWII. He had to go underground. His group got ambushed by the nazis and most were killed. He and the other survivor took the corpses to the nearest church -- the priest told them, "I don't bury terrorists."
(Insert your usual french/WWII joke here if you manage to find it amusing in this context.)
As a technologist, computer nerd, and person that likes to promote technology for the sake of technology. I would like to step forward and shout, "More Technology is not the Solution to Terrorism". Osama's terrorist network used sneakernet to move bits of paper and some cash around via courier. Until we develop a computer capabable of monitoring sneakernet, we aren't going to catch guys like Osama.
In the end, you amass so much data that it is impossible to analyze. Just like in movie Office Space, you can generate graphs, statistics, and reports, but who is going to read them all?
Imagine if we invested the same amount of money into anti-terrorism training for people instead of harddrives, computers, and paper. The best supercomputer in which to invest money to stop terrorism is the human mind. Also, the human supercomputer does a must better job with face recognition.
We ALL know that Big Brother likes to watch...
Hey Taco and Cowboy, you should see if we could get a question and answer with Mr. Poindexter. It says in the article that he declines interviews, let's be the first!
I want to know what this cold war security advisor has to say for himself...
I'm getting out the ol' paper and pen to write this man.
"We must become much more efficient and more clever in the ways we find new sources of data, mine information from the new and old, generate information, make it available for analysis, convert it to knowledge and create actionable options,"
As they analyse the information they have gathered on a shady character known as Fractux:
-New Source of Data Found: IGA cycber market
-New Information Gathered: Ordered a substantial amount of beer and pretzels.
-Old Information Gathered: Always orders a substantial amount of beer and pretzels.
-Information generated: Fractux has ordered a large amount of beer and pretzels from an online shopping market, has paid for it with an overdrawn credit card, and shipped it to his home located no more than 2 blocks away from the store.
-Analysis: Fractux is displaying all the signs of a lazy, irresponsible University Student who is well on his way to financial ruin.
-Actionable options: AA
"Remember, no matter where you go, there you are."
All dead when the terrorists get you. I'd prefer to enjoy life knowing that the government is protecting me.
-BrentWere the Germans or the priest using the definition given in the posting you were responding to? No, they were duped by propaganda or were engaged in the spreading of that propaganda.
Then that poster made his point, and I think his definition is a reasonable one.
When people saw Muslim fundamentalists flying planes into buildings for the sole intent of wanton destruction of innocent human life, I think most rational human beings had what is called a moment of moral clarity...it didn't take long for some people to forget that moment, though.
...make one of those little pissing Clavin stickers, but with either John Ashcroft or Adm. Poindexter pissing on the Constitution...
But, seriously, once some Congressmonkey with a bad porn/stripper/prostitute habit realises that this would include databased info on his nefarious activites it will be a different story.
That's it. I'm leaving the country. (I was anyway...)
- I am made of meat.
A little personal slant on a slashdot .sig I saw.
"When things turn corrupt, the corrupt turn pro."
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
I wasn't singling Bush out for being a republican, actually. He's just the man in the White House right now. I agree completely with you on what you said.
Bush would boldly ask for these powers, and claim that they are needed to fight terrorists.
A Democrat president would probably find a way to weasle these same powers in or ask for them with a different excuse. The end result is no different.
I'm well aware that a lot of the stuff we're dealing with now was passed in Clinton's era.
Clinton just didn't have as convenient of an excuse as Bush (and probably future presidents). Unfortunately, The president can now ask for just about anything like this and say they need it to fight terrorists.
So I'm just stating that Bush will probably ask for similar powers sooner or later. It has nothing to do with his party.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
http://tinyurl.com/2k4f
Where do you want to be, What are you doing to get there.
Too bad; they can't have them! =P
Poindexter's conviction was overturned in 1990. He was not guilty. Federation of American Scientists
See the Independent Counsel's Report on Iran-Contra: "Poindexter in April 1990 was convicted by a jury on five felony counts of conspiracy, false statements, destruction and removal of records and obstruction of Congress. The Court of Appeals reversed his conviction in November 1991 on the immunized testimony issue."
The White House has defended Poindexter's current role. When asked in a February 25 press conference about the new appointment, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, "Admiral Poindexter is somebody who this administration thinks is an outstanding American, an outstanding citizen, who has done a very good job in what he has done for our country, serving the military." He was then asked by veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas, "How can you say that, when he told Colonel [Oliver] North to lie?" Fleischer disagreed and said, "I understand. The president thinks that Admiral Poindexter has served our nation very well."
This is a real worry. It hasn't appeared much in the mainstream press, either.
>> Terrorism involves the intentional targeting of noncombatants, for the purpose of inciting terror. It doesn't matter what the cause.
One of the few rational statements made here, amid all the parroting.
It is behavior that counts, not motive. If you target the innocent simply to terrorize them, of what relevance is your motivation? Someone who engages in terror may actually believe his actions are just and honorable. Many others may agree. But, so what? Does that mean the victims of terror forfeit their right to fight back simply because their attackers think they were right to attack? Presumably, Hitler thought his actions were honorable and justified. Should his victims, then, have meekly walked away?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I used to work at a company that was involved in customer data mining. During orientation, they have someone come out whose job it is to convince all the new employees that the company is not evil and is providing a valuable service.
See, everyone in the room is freaked out when they learn the company has over 300 pieces of data (including things like name, SSN, birth date, address, marital status, kids, cars, salary, credit history, home value, pets, etc.) on over 150 million people in the United States. I watched a room full of people all look at each other with a slight amount of fear and uncertainty in their eyes. Then out came the propaganda machine to try to set us at ease.
Now, current law prohibits this company from using marketing data in any kind of legal procedings, but that could easily change. The company uses extremely complex algorithms to consolidate data from different sources (which source for birthdate should we believe? how about home value?) into a single record. Client companies (such as stores, banks, etc.) can then take their own customer databases and match them up with the huge store of information that my former employer could provide.
The government could easily have major companies (like banks, car dealers, mortgage companies, grocery stores, gas stations, utility companies, etc.) tie their customer databases to the "master" database my ex-company provided. Tracking the daily activities of almost any given individual from that point would be depressingly simple.
Just thought I should warn you.
By the way, last I heard when I was still working there, that company is the only consumer data tracking company allowed to combine disparate data sources into a single "view" of an individual. Normally datamining companies are legally barred from doing this. If they get a data element from a particular source, then they must sell ALL the data elements from that source together. The place I worked at began the process before the law took effect, so the company was grandfathered in, so they can take income from one place, name and SSN from another, address from yet another, etc.
Be afraid.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Maybe what we need is NO PRIVACY.
Everyone knows what everyone else is doing.
Once again, we geeks *post a good game*, but one has to wonder why we can't back it up with a powerful lobby. If monosyllabic, rumdum rednecks can create one of the most feared and respected orgs in the U.S.(read:the NRA), why can't we? Shit, we know how to use the Internet better than anyone else. Why can't we come up with an effective lobbying voice. Because we haven't backed up our protestations with cash - it's a simple equation. Guess we don't feel that threatened yet. Famous last words there. IMOH, now is the time to act, before the situation gets really bad.
I'm not sure what it's more disturbing, the fact the military is going to spy on the domestic population or the frivilous attitude of posters to this dangerous development.
Since the September 11 attacks, our government has been intent on rapidly erasing nearly 250 years of freedom and democracy in the name of public safety, a reason often used throughout history to justify widescale imprisonment and murder and other human rights abuses.
The Bill of Rights does not prevent law enforcement from doing their job. The Bill of Rights prevents them from overstepping their boundaries while doing their job. No one can feel safe once these fragile rights are lost.
It's naive to believe that just because you haven't done anything illegal that this system is harmless simply because the definition of what is illegal can rapidly change. The books that you check out the library today may not be banned, but in the future they may be considered highly subversive. Once the collection of individual data become widespread and systematic, your data history can easily be reviewed, interpreted, and evaluated according the current regime's needs, desires, and whim.
You can lose everything in a very short time. The people of Nazi Germany were not all brainwashed by Hitler. A great deal of them had serious misgivings about what was happening, but by the time the gravity of the situation became clear, they were already trapped. Rights erosion is slow at first, but the growth is exponential.
Already I feel an early warning of fear, I've read too much history and psychology to be optimistic about the current situation. Populations are very predictible and manipulatable, especially in times of crisis.
I hope I'm wrong.
For further information, you may want to read Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism".
For a while I didn't concern myself with some perceived losses of privacy, since (a) I had nothing to hide and (b) if it meant staying more secure, then I'd make the trade-off.
Now I'm second guessing my wisdom.
There is a difference between "nothing to hide" and "privacy". The argument has been made that the Constitution doesn't guarantee the right to privacy, and from what I have read and remember, this is true; there is no explicit right to privacy. However, there is the Fourth Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Seems to me that this electronic dragnet is unconstitutional: no probable cause, and nothing "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
First celebrities had The Inquirer, now common folk have this.
So, to get around the fourth amendment, the government simply needs to take your tax dollars and buy databases from every company willing to accept a big, fat government contract. Granted, this won't help them find terrorists, but you don't really believe that's the point do you?
President Reagan had alzheimers disease while he was in office. I'm not too sure to when it started to kick in, but something must have happened. Also, Bush Sr used to the the CIA director...
Poindexter was also the creator of the classification "sensitive but unclassified" that was discussed here on Slashdot a few weeks ago. It's clear that while he supports the government's right to privacy he doesn't support a corresponding right for citizens.
Don't forget about "Magic Lantern":
n toff.ph p
"Once installed, the Magic Lantern creates a record of every time you press a key on the computer. It's all saved in plain text, and during the FBI's next secret visit to your home or office, that information is downloaded as the agents also pick up whatever other records and papers they find of interest."
A good article about it here:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0222/he
Is it just me, or has privacy gone to hell in a handbasket?
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
Being called a terrorist often has no relationship to whether or not you are a terrorist.
The only good weather is bad weather.
why can't they be both terrorists and commies? Maybe with just a smattering of pinko in there too. Then we could go out and hunt those bastard pinko-commie-terrorists! Dude! I am so there...when's the next Rambo movie?
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Don't you think it would be a lot easier, and more successful, to run large corporation's finances through an advanced version of turbotax to find corporate fraud?
You're just being paranoid.
Terrorism is a real problem and if we can catch a few of them bastards in exchange for causing you to hallucinate black helicopters, then I'm all for it.
Now I know you're protective of your rights and we all should be. But there is always an exchange between a certain about of security and a certain amount of privacy and the question shouldn't be wholly one-sided, a proposition that seems to thrill the slashdot audience. We must ask where's the balance.
Now let me attempt to toss away the rubish and rhetoric so common to politics that throws around words like "freedom" as if they mean anything outside of context and spiffy quotes by gentlemen we admire and I'll attempt to enter the light of clear thinking. To you and each one of you "freedom" seems synonymous with distrust or, even worse, you forget you are speaking about people altogether. That every three-letter acronym in the USA is run by our government which in turn are elected by us Americans and this must position some trust on their behalf. That the professionals that we, in effect, hire may be trusted and at some level are trying to do their jobs well and care about what they do enough to do a good job of it. Don't you think recent troubles with terrorism weigh more heavily on them than anyone else?
Otherwise, read my sig and take to heart. And let me know when the black helicopters come your way.
Yeah but they more over pinned most of the stuff on good Ol Oli North.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
I am sure they can read great secrets from my skidmarks.
I want it back washed, dried and ironed!
--- Eat my sig.
I joined the EFF today, this morning in fact... I just had a feeling it was time. Then what happens 12hrs later? I log on to /. and find this article.
Pure serendipidy? Divinely inspired? Coincidence? Maybe I should offer free psychic readings.
Cmon ya cheapskates... pony up some cash. It Looks like EFF is gonna need it.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
All they have to do to board a plane is not carry a fucking bomb, yet they complain when security gives them a pass with a metal detector. All they haveto do to cross the border from Canada to the US is not be going to the US to kill people.
Okay, first off these are two very different issues. Screening for bombs in airports should primary be the responsibility of the airline company, not the government. The government could decide to set standards and even perhaps help support such standards, but in the end, it's the airline company that must answer to the customers (and their families) about their security.
Border issues are different. In this case it is the responsibility of the government to 'secure our borders.' However, your arguement fails in this case. How is a border official to know if I want to kill people when I enter the country? Huh? Read my mind? You know that the highjackers of 9/11 were in the USA LEGALLY.
My point is, the ONLY way one can achieve the type of security you are asking for is to live in a police state and have ALL actions monitored by the government. Of course, even if that was possible, it's still not foolproof and crimes would still occur. But let's just say that somehow we have such technology and capability to do such monitoring. So now we have a perfectly safe society. But at what cost? And who is to decide what is safe and what is not? At what point do we stop protecting ourselves from ourselves?
I would rather live with the risk of crime and evil than live without freedom. Does that mean anarchy? No, not really. Like I said in my earlier post, there must always be a balance between security (fairness and protection) and freedom. But without freedom, an individual, a society, cannot properly learn, grow, or live.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
SELECT * FROM internet WHERE pr0n > 0
C|N>K
Where do you draw the line between what is necessary to protect "the people" without becoming too invasive on privacy? When Larry Ellison suggested that privacy was an antiquated idea, and that privacy does not exist anymore, someone should have asked him what he considered necessary privacy. Should Uncle Sam have information on how many times daily I use the commode? It might be helpful to determine whether I'm a terrorist if someone were to suggest that terrorists tend to use the restroom 1.4 times daily... Bottom line: Every inch you give on privacy issues is one more inch they take. If your average citizen cared about privacy, they would be sure to understand their chosen politicians' stance on individual privacy before they vote for them. Obviously, with the passage of bills like the USA Patriot Act, plenty of people just don't care and are willing to give up some privacy for supposed safety. And when the safety legislation doesn't come through as promised, they'll say it was because they didn't have enough information to protect us... Some in government will never be happy until they have a chip attached to your optic nerve.(cheesy sci-fi movie anyone?)
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
By the way, with regard to links between Iraq and terrorism, read the earlier CIA report, which stated that there was no significant evidence linking Iraq to groups like al quada (dammit I can't spell).
Iraq may be a threat for its own reasons, but don't make the mistake of lumping all our potiental enemies under one label.
This is something that I've been pondering over for a while now. Is Israel or Palestine the terrorist? One of them has to be, while the other has to be in the "right". If one of them isn't, then, well, everything falls apart. The Chechnyans wouldn't be terrorists anymore either. Or what about the IRA? The American revolutionaries in 1776? Los Zapatos?
::looks for more stupid people::
Obviously, the U.S. had better bomb either the Israeli or Palestinian government, to free the other from oppression and establish a democracy.
The surest sign that the US has gone to hell is that in the past when someone said "they're monitoring all our communications" you would call him a crackpot.
Now you can at best reply "I'm not sure".
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Foucault, Michel, Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison (NY: Vintage Books 1995) pp. 195-228:
"Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers. To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so. In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow, Bentham envisaged not only venetian blinds on the windows of the central observation hall, but, on the inside, partitions that intersected the hall at right angles and, in order to pass from one quarter to the other, not doors but zig-zag openings; for the slightest noise, a gleam of light, a brightness in a half-opened door would betray the presence of the guardian. The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen."
That's right! If you just read the truncated version, the Terrorist will have won!
I mean, what about the children? Think about it! All your base are belong to them!!!
(:-P for the (:-P-impaired..
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
Who will protect you from the government?
Stupid things kids do.
What ever happened to privacy and innocent until proven guily and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures?
I wanted to post a updated link for this... was under the 'today' section... ;-)
The party goal was perpetual and absolute power maintianed by constant vigilence of thought word and deed of citizens, fear intimidation, hatred of the enemy, distrust of all but the party, and distruction of all emotion and loyalties exept towards the state. The Soviet Union came close to this ideal, but failed to develop the needed technology in time and failed to keep their subject from knowing that other societies had relatively better standards of living.
The remaining superpowers will take advantage of such technology as they can. Orwell bassed his predictions on carful study of human behavior exibited in India, UK, Spain and elsewhere. It is this nature he bassed his predictions on, not the technology. When the technology becomes available, it will be abused. That such abuses can openly be considered in the United States by high government officials and researchers is a tremendous blow to anyone who would argue that the US has special laws or attitudes that will protect us from human nature and Orwell's nighmare. The only thing that made the US any different was a relatively limitless frontier. Without such a frontier, the world will fall back to it's usual ways. With new technology, those ways will be more oppresive than you or I can really imagine.
Orwell also predicted that the superpowers would routinely bomb (non nuclear) their own population to maintain their hyseria. Indeed people do that kind of thing.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Expect more attacks soon, against supertankers and civil common-carrier aircraft.
(Reposted, account some moron moderated it into "flamebait")
The following artical explains:
"11/7/2002 5:00:00 PM - Privacy experts explain why widespread surveillance of online communication won't prevent another tragedy like Sept. 11. Plus: The implications of Lawful Access"
Interesting reading, and relevent.
Hmmm I think I can trust the CIA more than 22 (they reported a link between Sadam and the Taliban back when the Taliban wasn't a threat)
But given more recent credability Of the news media I'm inclined to take it back.
FYI: I can't spell eather.
I don't actually exist.
For most American's it is like this: One is a little to the left, one is a little to the right. Both are standing in a field about three miles away from your daily lives cutting deals with their interests... waving at you to please vote for them.
Many people refer to all politicians now as "Republicrats."
Evidence? The last election. 50-50 baby. The political parties are not sticking out their necks, and they now get the lawyers to decide who wins. In Tennessee (my current state) the Republican party was trying to set reps at all of the poles that would try to invalidate other voters for the other side due to technicalities. That is right. Fucking over and throwing out citizens ballots for the betterment of political parties. Sorry to say this, America (after all, we were the real champions of this for so very long), but the system has gome belly up over here. But it is working for the Republicrats, I mean republicans. Keep them in contant threat of war and they will keep voting for the percieved "tough" party. And why not? Its working for the presidency. Well, the fucking lawyers and a skewed election board didn't hurt him either.
The candidates are literally merging the parties to avoid heat, and winning by parlor tricks. After all, it is about winning for candidates and no longer party platfoms, because as anyone astute has noticed, there ARE NO MORE PLATFORMS. The reason that the American people couldn't decide between the main candidates in the last election was because they didn't say anything. So we had NO IDEA WHO TO VOTE FOR. Also in America, you'll notice precious few referendum votes out on poll days... why? The politicians have to vote in a referendum to let the public decide, and why let the voters decide? There is no profit in that. Like I said, It is all pear shaped over here.
Now, because of all of this we now have a one party control of ALL branches of the government, and it is going to be a huge and terrible two years coming. There will be war.
Why do you think that after our political majority passed to one pary all over the USA, AND THEN the UN caved on the Iraq issue two days later? Because the power base here is now is going into Iraq. No matter what. You can pretty much take that as fact now.
Don't blame me. I tried to stop it. Nobody thought deep enough to prevent it. I did, but few else really thought about what it is like to have a government with no dissenting opinion. Well, as you can see, the system allows precious few dissenting opinions now, or the public to respond, only vote for "Thing1 or Thing2."
The most interesting thing is that I think if we stuck a microphone in Thoms Jefferson's grave right now (the old rebel that started this democracy, liberty, Bill of Rights thingee), I bet we could hear him say things that would make a sailor blush with shame.
see here
Usually the subject is the rottenness of both of them :) I can't imagine that when a diversity of opinions is represented in a two party system, that the parties represent much of an ideology, but there are some differences of style.
This interview with George Lakoff is about the difference between the perceptions of conservatives and liberals. I think it's insightful. Consider a crude mapping of conservative to republican and liberal to democrat.
If you look at the history of Sudam Hussan you will realize that the united states governmnet could be considered to be terrorists in the eyes of other countries. The way that Suddam came into power was helped by the United States government. All you have to do is look into the past and realized that the US has done this to themselves.
r /pol/not so.html
I have included some important reads that will help you to understand the back ground of the WHOLE story.
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/fur
and
http://www.sit-rep.com/forum.asp?ar=4538&rn=0
This type of thing has happend before in Afganastan if you recal. It seems that the United States needs to make a policy where they stay the hell out of other people buisness.
... "All your database are belong to us"
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
I'd say just as long as we've waited for Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories they occupied in the 60's. FYI, those UN security council resolutions are more like 35 years old, but still ignored by the fascists of Israel (who are supported in this by the USA).
______________
OTTERS RULE.
SELECT bad_guys FROM everywhere ORDER BY nastyness DESC
You fool! You've given cheese to a lactose intolerant volcano god! Do you know what that means?
As a citizen, I am fed up to the gills with this type of crap. The primary culprit here seems to be the CIA. I don't hear about the NSA, FBI, or even just the straight DoD doing this stuff; just the CIA.
It's getting very, very old having the whole world thinking we're evil just because this bunch of jerks likes to play god with other countries. Any well meaning intention or action they make is undoubtedly founded entirely on fear. Everything else they do is for their own job security. I mean hey, now that Saddam is a threat, now we need to be *saved* from him.
It's pretty sickening...
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
Below is an article I made up. Whadya thinkin????
Erik
U.S. Surveillance Bill of Rights
from:
PREFACE
The purpose of the following document is to make an agreement with ourselves and government concerning the levels of surveillance (SV), freedom, privacy and other areas of imminent importance due primarily to technological innovation and weapons of mass destruction availability. Since there are new disruptive evolutionary forces at work in our society, we will need to adapt many of our systems, taking what is most important or pragmatic and shedding others.
The most important belief that we want to carry forward is Freedom. To be American is to be free. This freedom must be protected but tempered too - there are practical limits. We may sacrifice some privacy, but in exchange gain more freedom. We believe this to be a pragmatic and implementable solution for most of our society.
In order to stop individuals from acting as cancerous growths in our society by acting in terroristic ways, setting off chaos and mass destruction, we will have to utilize increasing SV. However, we want to maintain a lifestyle with maximum personal freedoms -- even more freedoms than are currently guaranteed in 2002. Individuals have freedoms in areas like religion, freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The NEW rights protect against persecutions of individuals based on lifestyle choices - what we call Victimless Crimes. These may be defined as behaviors between consenting adults which do not harm any outside parties. Current laws dictate legal behavior based upon outdated and restrictive moral values and mainly are directed at actions related to Sex, Drugs and gambling. In the new paradigm, sexual orientation (straight, bi, homo, trysexual, etc) and drug use are not treated in any way as crimes. Drug abuse is treated as a medical condition. Sexual crimes (rape) are treated just as seriously as always.
We must legally protect lifestyle choices as rights for an obvious and practial reason. Law enforcement agencies are increasingly using techniques of surveillance as these technologies grow ever more powerful and invisible. We see a trend towards all-pervasive surveillance as virtually inevitable. If we as a democracy accept this emergence of SV in the black and white terms of contemporary debate and simply agitate for privacy, we may find that one way or another we will be surveilled - it will simply be with our consent and knowledge (ie Transparency) or without. If we agree that surveillance is necessary to protect our society against the unlimited potential for individuals and small groups to wreak havoc on us (as demonstrated on 9/11), then we come against the reality that any attempt to implement surveillance today,would find that nearly half of our society would be considered criminals (mainly from lifestyle choices involving sex, drugs or gambling -- at some point in each citizen's life). Thus we may see a battle against surveillance that divides this nation right down the middle, with attempts to hamstring it in court or even engage in radical opposition. In either case, we would be inadvertently allowing terrorists to hide in the shadows and plot against us. So, do we want to make 50% of our own society enemies in our war, or just the real 1% of terrorists and violent criminals out there?.
SV is done in all directions. Government can watch the people and people can watch the government and everyone can watch the media. Top-down, Bottom-up and Horizontally. What has made America great is that we have believed in our system and participated in all levels and have increased its transparency. There is no reason to stop now, we must gain even more control over government by eliminating as many walls as possible.
Assumptions: There are at least 3 levels of crime: misdemeanors, felonies and chaos (weapons of mass destruction, 10 deaths or more) There are at least three levels of surveillance, high (1, camera mounted insects), medium (2, telephone listening) and low (3, ear level listening). In exchange for allowing the government to watch citizens with ever increasing surveillance, we provide the following articles:
ARTICLES:
1) SV of all types is primarily used to watch for chaos or the planning of chaos.
2) SV is never to be used for misdemeanors of any type.
3) Sex, Drug and Gambling laws are repealed as the cost of enforcement to our society is too great
4) SV can be used for violent felonies and chaos only
5) SV of any type cannot be used for competitive business reasons
6) Anonymity must be guaranteed periodically for elections, whistelblowing and other specified areas.
7) SV is not used to enforce granular non violent personal choices. - kill yourself but no others!
8) Religion can be practiced until it incites chaos, genocide or war.
A question that does not get raised below is that what happens to the other 99.9% of information that is not about terrorists? What about the majority of society that does victimless crimes? Will they choose not to look at sex, drugs, gambling, tax cheats, and other similar people with these tools? Ahhhh sweet temptation on both sides......... Currently there are two major camps of thought. The Government wants to watch everyone and not be watched. Privacy advocates want everyone to have massive encryption in order to hide and have privacy. The majority of the public has yet to enter the debate. A concern is that after more terrorism happens, people will ask the government to implement surveillance - to watch us to find the terrorists in our midst. By thinking today about the fair and effective implementation of surveillance, we can bring forward a debate about a third solution; Universal Transparency. Here, the government watches us, but we also watch the government, and everyone watches everyone! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/universaltransparenc y
is the group to debate at.
He and his kind can kiss my cyber a55. People like him don't deserve to work for this country and need to be deported!!! This government doesn't have the right to spy, Al-Qaida and the US seem to be one and the same now...
Not yet, but it may happen. The US has analogous power, but it is still a democratic and free nation at its core. But that is slowly changing: religious and political extremists are moving more and more into the mainstream in the US and the population is accepting more and more restrictions on free speech and freedom of association.
Wait,
Kevin Bacon is only six degrees away from Bin Laden ???
We better keep an eye on him.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni