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Bruce Sterling On Total Information Awareness
securitas writes "Declan McCullagh interviews Bruce Sterling about Total Information Awareness (renamed Terrorist Information Awareness and raising concerns) or 'Poindexter's nutty scheme' as Sterling thinks of it. He predicts TIA will destabilize the government and lead to internal KGB-style coups. Whether you agree with him or not it makes for thought-provoking reading."
jungle wa itsumo hale nochi guu
That's all well and good but I think what we all want to know is what William Gibson thinks about T.I.A.
(Feel Free to Insert another Author's Name, or the people I turn to for public policy, Hollywood Actors.)
Also in the interview, he mentions that Bruce Sterling is not his real name. With talk of "coups inside the Republican Party" and the KGB, I think that Bruce Sterling is Tom Clancy's pseudonym.
BTW, when he says "Poindexter" he is not refering to us computer nerds, he means John Poindexter, programmer, Navy Admiral, National Security Advisor, etc.
internal KGB-style coups
In Soviet Russia... oh, forget it.
Do you like German cars?
Nuclear weapons don't kill people, people kill people.
Support citizens rights to use nuclear weapons for hunting and home defense!
is that TIA will be a good program for which researchers can get money to do work in data mining, data management, voice processsing technology, etc. Innovations will be made, etc. We all can mostly agree that these are good things.
But what the Pentagon expects to get out of the system will be of little use because of the sheer complexity of it all. I think we can all agree that getting everything together and working in a useful manner. note that I said useful, not correctly. It might work "right" but generate little useful info under all the incoming data.
Total Information Technology.
(with apologies to Robin Williams)
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
We have emarked full tilt into the arena of socialism.
Its been slow in coming, but since 9/11 we have raced towards it as fast as we can, with the publics support. There is still a ways to go, but the momentum is there.. its a matter of ( short ) time.
Its sickening. Looks like the terrorists won, their goal was to elimate the way of life we had here here, and they sure as hell did.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm all for public involvement in the political process, but I guess the best we can hope for now is that this somehow leads to Slim Pickens riding a descending hydrogen bomb...
That was a very interesting article, however I do not like some of Bruce's answers. Whether or not I am allowed to approve, well...thats for someone else to decide. However, I want to give attention to one comment:
Just because it's the atom age, it doesn't mean we'll all have a private atom-powered helicopter. Just because it's the information age, it doesn't mean we're all going to profit or be made happier. It has secondary and tertiary effects that cannot be predicted. You don't envision a phone answering machine and predict the Lewinsky scandal--even though one is impossible without the other.
I personally believe that the efforts individuals make to better understand things, like computer technology, then living in the "information age" will leave that individual with a greater sense of security--And wouldnt that individual be in a greater position to lead the rest of society toward whatever might be better? Like a security expert speaking out against TIA with a solid argument?
He predicts TIA will destabilize the government and lead to internal KGB-style coups. Boy, it's a good thing that Bruce Sterling is not paranoid or anything. Otherwise, he'd come up with some really whacky theories.
Gathering information on people before they have done anything wrong is always a problem, especially if these people know that it is being collected. It makes poisioning the data pool attractive, even if it's only something as stupid as magazine subscriptions, email account names, aliases (which are legal as long as they're not used to deceive for nefarious purposes), and credit transactions.
The government is most likely to be able to track transactions that occur digitally, or require storage of information on computers that are not under the control of the individual whose data is being collected. Do you think that it's likely that terrorists will use these means, now that it's been announced that the government is collecting it? I'd think that they're more likely to buy guns from someone who has switched from running drugs into the country to running guns, to contact their fellow agents through 'chance' encounters, and to transact whatever seemingly legitimate business they use either with cash or through legitimate electronic transactions, which will make them blend into the electronic noise just like everyone else. How is this going to help matters?
The government already knows when one buys a new handgun through legitimate channels, through the Brady Law. They already should know about most of those who have explosives experience, since that is usually military training based to begin with, and demolitions companies, mining companies, and anyone else legitimately using explosives has to get their employees licensed. "Cyberterrorism" is an absolute joke of a term as long as easily broken-into OSes like anything Microsoft has ever put out is still in the mainstream and is still being used as a server, and there are probably dozens, if not hundreds of other examples like these.
I don't see how collecting all of this data is going to help.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I don't think that Sterling is right when he argues that Total Information Awareness will bring on some new rash of "KGB style coups." Some of you might remember that the NSA has been evesdropping on Congressmen for years (even on the staunchly pro-Defense-Military congressmen) and the CIA regularly keeps full files on all Congressmen with all of their dirty little secrets. The reason that there hasn't been a series of coups yet (well, ignore the 9-11 coup for now...) is that its far easier to blackmail people into having them do _your_ dirty work than to rat them out entirely. The only thing TIA will do is increase the leverage of the executive branch over the rest of society.
Lewinsky, Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich's book deal, David Dinkins lack of tax returns.
Data Mining is here. While the Republicans are more astute in the practical applications of tech and the Democrats tend toward the hip useless gadgets, Both sides are gearing up and will be using data mining against each other.
I have always said that KGB agents must have wept when they realised the information your typical marketing or credit card company have on the american citizen.
Poindexter may be a criminal and a boob American Express isnt.
Technology has a way of making the world feel smaller: Trains, Steamships, automobiles, airplanes and now googling (ridiculously easy and efficient datat-mining).
If you live in a small enough town, everyone knows everyone elses business...
When you remove the distance that geography or caste once maintained you are left with a very small planet where everyone may not know everyone else...but if they need to they can dig up any amount of dirt on you they want.
TIA is an initial step towards a decentralized type of always on information about anyone you could ever want...
And the only people who will be safe will be those without govt assigned ID (which means no CC's no ID's no Bank statements etc..) and the insanely wealthy...those who can afford to keep their sins a secret.
Much like it would be in a small town.
I hate small towns.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
A militia is constituted of *private citizens*, so *I* am part of the militia, as defined and intended by the founders of this country. It is the rights of the individual that the constitution is deigned to protect, not the 'professional military' or the 'government' in general. So yes, I do understand the *entire* amendment, and am curious of your point.
Related to your first comment, isn't that what I said.. that we re heading to the arena of socialism?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonalbe 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."
but that seems to have been forgotten, along with.."Congress shall make no law....abridging the freedom of speech or of the press."
Campaing finance reform restrictions on commericals 60 days before elections.
and "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Every law restricting non-criminals from owning certain types of weapons.
Some times I wonder if legislatures even fscking read the constitution any more.
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
...to Big Brother and the Holding Company.
With breakthrough fields like Nanotechnology needing mind-boggling degrees of organization for the field to take root, how does anyone propose we take advantage of the breakthroughs the Internet offers us if we're constantly second-guessing ourselves as to the effectiveness of stuff like standards-based publishing and the simple availability of information?
America may turn into a ruthless police state but TIA may bring down generation after generation of moralizing neocon hypocrites. Itâ(TM)s almost worth it.
And propose we call this effect Bill Bennettizing rather than Trent Lotting
He discussion of a "Community Watch" system, but with a pervasive internet cams and either cheap labour or trade offs (I'll watch your's if you watch mine).
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Total Information Awareness underware is still available
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism
Might I ask what a economic model has to do with TIA?
...
These things can be done in any type of government. In fascism, which you seem to be implying, the people wouldn't have a choice. In a democracy, with the right support from the media, it is also possible.
None of the indicators of socialism are present, by the way. On the contrary, we are moving further away from socialism. College costs are rising, health care costs are rising, companies (ie SCO) are very busy suing each other over IP violations, tax cuts are being made
Please don't use 'socialism' as term for any bad government. Socialism is something very specific, and not what you are talking about.
And why in the world are you saying that 'the terrorists' won? What the US is becoming is the opposite of what terrorists would want. How could a group of terrorists want us to invade their home countries?
It shows that they THINK we're gullable morons.
Just by renaming it to sound anti-terrorist, are we supposed to shut up and stop questioning it?
Instead of making our government BIGGER & MORE INTRUSIVE & STRIPPING AWAY OUR RIGHTS, why don't we investigate how 9/11 was allowed to happen when we had ALL THE INFO REQUIRED to prevent it?!?!?
Oh, I forgot--the investigation into that was quietly squashed without much media attention but we got color-coded alerts to make us feel that something "real" appropriate is being done.
"Hey, lets rename this unpopular law/project/war/etc. so people think it has to do with anti-terrorism, they'll shut up for sure especially if the media makes anyone speaking against it appear stupid, weak, liberal, unpatriotic, etc. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a bunch of unpopular shit done what would've caused riots/impeachments just a few year ago! Best of all, when people start to ask questions about the Pres or VP dealings with Enron or Halliburton again, we can just change the terror alert color so the media can refocus on that without resorting another murder case in California."
"And just in case we don't have any more terrorism in the USA, lets go piss off the Palestinians and make the Middle-eastern countries think we're gonna invade them--that'll stir up enough shit to make at least another group of crazies blow something up here--and we can milk that bombing to our advantage just like 9/11! We'll be silencing our critics and getting unpopular initiatives done for the next 50 years using this strategy!"
I'm obviously exaggerating to make a point but really, don't you think there's a grain of truth to associating unpopular initiatives with anti-terrorism just to get people to stop questioning it?
Its a bit of both, ill give you that much since there are no true absolutes in this sort of thing
I personally believe our country is leaning towards socialism more so then fascism, thus my comments are directed towards that end....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
At some point, you realize you lost, pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and plan for the next one. It's done, there is no chance of the election being reversed or any other outcome. Get over it, and try to get Dubya out of office this upcoming election if you don't like what happened.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
It seems that they can not even perform basic background checks on their own employees: CIO of Department of Homeland Security Suspended. Seems she got her "doctorate in computer information systems" from a phony college.
Yeah, that is the type of thing that inspires confidence.
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Its attitudes and comments like that that made the constitution necessary in the first place.
I think you need to take a step back, put aside your personal biases, and read the documents for what they are at their most fundamental.. a foundation of a country based on INDIVIDUAL rights and freedoms. Not to be 'molded' over time due to 'feelings'. they are absolute and timeless.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Go bad and reread 1984, the point was NOT that socialism is bad, the point is that totalitarianism is bad. Strict government control of the populace is not a defining feature of socialism, look at holland ffor gods sake; it does, however manifest in leninist, stalinist and maoist governments.
A blog about stuff.
We have emarked full tilt into the arena of socialism.
I read the article, I don't see anything about a changing economic model.
Its sickening. Looks like the terrorists won, their goal was to elimate the way of life we had here here, and they sure as hell did.
Yeah, because terrorists just want you to have better health care, right?
You're a moron. 90% of the world's democracies are socialist. And you know what? ALL of them have a higher standard of living than the USA.
Perhaps you should learn the real meanings of words before you start bandying them about.
..but this time you and I get to be in front of the cameras, unasked, and everything will be archived and indexed on permanent storage, including (especially) a complete record of your online and telecommunication activity. Scott McNealy would say "get over it", but government will use this data to protect society against potential threats - and eventually, any kind of dissent may be considered the seed of a potential serious threat to society, as Orwell predicted.
You heard it here first. Poindexter and TIA is the Ministry of Silly Walks.
(And I'm supposed to feel better because they changed "total" to "terrorist"? That's just insulting to everyone's intelligence... grrr.)
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Interesting how "total" became "terrorist." Foreshadowing anyone? ;)
To all appearences, you're full of shit, and probably trolling.
A socialist country has state health care, our health care system is generally regarded as being the worst in the western world, mostly due to the LACK of government intervention and funding.
Ditto for education, wich the neoconservatives are trying to eradacate as fast as they can.
So, what are traits of a socialist country is it you beleive that we have? Point by point, if you would, starting with a CLEAR definition of what you consider socialist.
If you can think that much for yourself, that is [unless G Gordon Liddy is due to come on, in which case I can understand that you would bail out of the conversation].
Thank you for your time and prompt consideration of this matter.
I never said it hasn't happened, I only speak of what the original intent was..
Lots of things happen that shouldn't in this world.
The destruction of our rights ( all of them.. I'm not just speaking of the 2nd amendment here ) is wrong. Though some are more on a personal level to me then others, they are all important, and should be fought for.
Doesn't mean its not going on, but its wrong..
( and we are getting WAY off topic here.. we should take this elsewhere )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
10 seconds my ass. I stick in the search terms "bruce sterling", "real name", & "fiction" (after all we need to separate BS the science fiction writer from BS the plumber), I get 390 hits. After glancing through likely pages, I get the real names to a half dozen different writers, but not Bruce! I even go to vivisimo, get some hits unique to google, but still no real name. Man, the New World Order better not depend on my lame ass skills.
Now I know I could track it down if I spent two hours going through search engines, varying search arguments, but what the hell am I doing wrong??? *sigh*
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Bah. Took me about ten seconds. Just try "Bruce Sterling pseudonym" (not that it's much of one).
Godwin.
Under the U.S. form of government, we are getting decade-record levels of unemployment and crime, but at least the rich are a little richer, if you don't coun't externalities like the crime rate and overall property values.
Just don't count on all those nearly three million newly-unemployed people to vote on election day. I wouldn't put it past Bush to do something "exciting" right before election day. After all, you have a guy who claimed that he didn't tell anyone about his drunk driving conviction because he was trying to protect his daughters, but he doesn't ask the Secret Service to lift a finger to keep them from being caught drinking underage. He simply can not be trusted. How many times did he leave the "have you ever been convicted" question blank on Texas election forms? However, there is still hope.
Personally, I'm not particularly against massive databases, provided they're real-time public access, and the maintainers of the database are also represented in them like everyone else...
Given that the databases will exist - large corporations and government agencies will just not tell you they exist and keep using them if they're made "illegal" - and can only get more powerful and far-reaching, I think that the best choice is to make the database read-accessible to everyone rather than limit access to a powerful and unaccountable elite.
Note that I am NOT asserting that it's particularly nice that the databases exist in the first place - just that the genie's out of the bottle, and that the best way to minimise abuses of power would be to minimise secrecy. Otherwise we'll probably end up with 1984.
It's amusing that personal privacy advocates are often the same ones screaming for government or corporate openness - while privacy (== secrecy) exists, anyone handed power will have a screen to hide behind to hide abuses of said power. Yes, humans like privacy. But privacy, whether for the government or the citizen, may prove fundamentally in opposition to the maximisation of the freedoms a civilised society can provide, while still remaining a civilised society.
This is explored further in David Brin's excellent book: "The Transparent Society: Will Technology force us to choose between Privacy and Freemdom?" As he points out, "people generally seem to want privacy for themselves and accountability for everyone else...".
Choice of masters is not freedom.
My definition of "dumb conservative" is a conservative who earns less than $500,000/year or has a net worth of less than several million dollars.
These poor souls would rather focus on why they (the middle class) have to pay a bit more taxes than the poor instead of focusing on why they have to pay a LOT more taxes than the ultra-wealthy or profitable corporations like Microsoft. You knew Microsoft paid $0 taxes in 1999, right?
These morons also like complaining about things like a minimum wage bill because it raises the minimum wage rather than complaining about the luxury yacht fuel subsidies buried inside that same bill. "To hell with the undernourished child of a single working parent, my taxes shouldn't pay for that! Instead, my hard-earned taxes are gonna help filthy rich bastards play on their yacht because my misguided middle-class ass is too lazy to get informed."
smartest: rich conservatives
average: everyone else
dumbest: middle-class conservatives
I hope to become a rich conservative sometime this decade but until then, it isn't in my best self-interest to be a conservative or liberal right now.
What's your definition of "dumb conservative"?
I'm here to help.TIA won't change anything ever, because data is only as good as the intellect that analyzes it.I'm more likely to be terrorized by the neighbors kids.After all of the dust on this awareness clears, what's the big deal? I went to Tabu on the web. I searched for "Tamara" revivals. I like Tacos.
"T" info awareness.
If Sterling spent more time practicing his writing and less time verbally masturbating on topics he knows very, very little about -- then maybe he'll actually write something above the sixth grade level...
People will never accept the head of CIA as their leader. I don't know what the guy is smoking.
http://whitehouse.org/initiatives/posters/tia_summ er.asp
The day this sucker goes live, you know its going to get the most viscous slashdotting imaginable, not to mention all the spammers, script kiddies, pro microsoft, pro linux, jehovah witnesses, jews for jesus, etc who all are going ddos, port scan, submit fraudalant information, etc etc etc.......
By the time its all over, we'll have Furher Ashcroft annoucing they are searching for a heinous terrorist known as "Heywood jablowme" aka "Al Coholic".
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
And if the Bush administration overcame congressional objections and got a deep data-mining system working?
An insane information-hungry KGB or a relatively open and decent government? Vote with your feet. Get the hell away from those lunatics. Who the hell wants to live in a USA with a TIA in it? Why would you want to invest it that country? The currency would crash. The political elite would annihilate one another.
Mr. Sterling is making a big assumption here: you will always have somewhere that is different to move to. One _conspiracy theory_ I've been harbouring is that the USA's plan is to politically assimilate the rest of the world so that there will not BE another place to go to, in effect. Everyone will have basically the same privacy, human rights, freedom of speech (or lack of it) laws.
Ah, but you fell into the trap. Just because ONE page refers to him as "Michael Bruce Sterling" doesn't necessarily mean his "real" name is "Michael Sterling". Any nut (or intellectually sloppy person) can put up a webpage, but that doesn't mean its contents is the indisputable truth.
Postulating that its likely to be the truth if the names come up on more pages, I did a search on "Bruce Sterling" & "Michael Sterling". What I got was a few pages refering to him as "Bruce Michael Sterling". Who is to say that is perhaps the complete pseudonym he presents, and is unrelated to his real name?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Vincent Omniaveritas
Comment removed based on user account deletion
An "impeachment" is not a conviction or finding of wrongdoing. An impeachment is an accusation.
To "be impeached" is to be accused of a crime by the assembled Congress. Clinton was not convicted: he was not removed.
Impeachment is not a conviction. This confusion of terms was intentional by Clinton's enemies, and has infected the body politic. It is a murder of language, and a calculated one.
Clinton was accused of shading the truth (he didn't lie: he asked for a definition of sex from the judge, who told him intercourse. He'd had oral sex, which gave him an out.
Clinton was simply smarter than the criminals --leaking special prosecutor info is a crime -- who had set him up on a hearing concerning another setup - Paula Jones.
Starr and his elves had found out about Lewinsky the night before the PJ deposition. Clinton knew they knew, so it was a battle of wits with Clinton packing a rocket launcher, and his tormenters armed with a Rush Limbaugh slingshot.
The pieces of work from Starr's office told the judge that Lewinsky's affair with Clinton was pertinent to the Jones deposition. It wasn't. They merely wanted to get Clinton under oath, where he would be forced to make a choice: lie about his sex life, or tell the truth and wreck his personal and public life.
Clinton was smarter than that, and chose the third option: narrow the definition of sex, and then truthfully deny having that kind of sexx described by the judge. He simply was a better lawyer and a better man than the men who lied to the judge about the relevance of Lewinsky to the Jones case.
Of course, Clinton was fined for outsmarting his tormenters. And his witchhunters got away clean with lying to the judge, and got the only real "scandal" they could get after seven long years of trying to find anything other than unsupportable BS from his enemies to charge him with.
The Repubs, and some really stupid f-ing Demos, decided to give this pack of rabid misusers of a tax-paid prosecution the impeachment (accusation) they so achingly wanted.
The combined Congress realized they were being asked to remove a President for getting a blowjob. Sanity broke out.
Flashforward to today: a sitting President fantasized a dire enemy in a ruined country around the world. He lied and lied about the imminent threat to the US. He got his war, killing tens of thousands of men in pickup trucks and T-shirts. He maimed possibly hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children.He wrecked the power grid, cut off food for millions of helpless people.
Evidence for his fantasy was nonexistent both before and after the "war" (attack of Starship Troopers vs. the Flintstones). His people profit handsomely from the occupation.
And no one says "impeachment".
A blow job from an intern is more impeachable than the ideologically based murder of tens of thousands, and the theft of a country.
If the purpose of the "Terrorist" Information Awareness database is to collect information on terrorists, then why would all US citizens be included?
It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to realize that the government is making suspects of us ALL.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Just reading this thread I've noticed that this is the most offtopic story I've seen yet.
The threads spawned by it range from everything from Marxism to gun control.
It's great, there aren't enough OT modpoints in the world to take care of it
people kill nuclear weapons!
--- You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad- Neal (not Cowboy) Boortz
the idea of the global village is very much about how information technology makes the concept of individuality obsolete. as people become more aware of those around them, in the sense that a small tribe is aware of the individual members of the tribe, our society is going to become much more aware of the citizens. good/bad? bad for individuality. but, this also implies something that bush et al are not likely to fathom. with citizenship comes reponsibility to each other. complex economies are not likely to function when our trust is breaking down in the government, corporations, and those around us. as china collapsed economically after the physical wall was built around it, we are likely to not function as well after the ethereal wall is built around us. or, a newly hyper aware citizenship may demand more than the government ever expected. the real problem is that few people are actually concerned about their rights, or about excercising their citizenship. just wait until the baby boomers want to retire!
The modern equivalent would be for you and for me to be required by law to own an M-14 or M-16 capable of fully-automatic fire, although other weapons of equivalent capability, and even decent bolt-action rifles, would probably be OK.
"A Well-regulated militia?" Yes, indeed: you aren't allowed to show up with "non-regulation," outdated weapons or "non-regulation" rifles that fire odd-caliber amminition. That would cause a supply problem and maybe get you killed if you ran out of ammunition. A Well-Regulated militia means "The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." --James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).
Want another quote? "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." - Mahatma Gandhi
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
400B/2300B = 17.4%
Schmuck.
It doesn't work to say, You need to get an amendment passed that does away with that right. I know - wait; I believe - that you're satirizing the issue, but clarity is good: there are certain conditions that are necessary in order to live as a human being (to be able to defend oneself against predators, for example; to speak freely; to assemble; all that stuff) These requirements are just there, like gravity. No amendment, law, ordinance, decree or statute can change what is necessary for one to live as a human being.
The Constitution prohibits our government from violating a number of fundamental human rights, and it provides for the granting of other rights: patents, for instance (no flame war please, we're dancing on the fringes of the Bruce Sterling discussion already).
In a democratically-operated system, one cost is that people will vote for things that cannot work. Let's not help them to do so.
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
TIA (Thanks In Advance).
There are no escape keys!
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
In 2002:
58% - social spending
14% - national debt
13.5% - military spending
9% - administration
3% - transportation
1% - foreign affairs
1.5% - misc
Social spending increased by 9% over the previous year. Military spending increased 7%.
Unless you have a magic crystal ball, any figures for 2003 are incomplete.
If you accept the premise of the article, I don't think there's any doubt that we're close to fascism today. It's still early and we could reverse course in less than 18 months. But I think there's little doubt that history will observe that the US came close to losing WW-II 60 years after the fact.
I'm also sure that many of these people have no idea that they're fascist. Hitler was not Satan incarnate, Nazi Germany did not come into existence overnight, and we must always be on guard against history repeating.
As for the OP's uninformed comments, the proper description for the countries he described as "socialist" is "authoritarian" -- and there's no doubt that this country is shifting towards authoritarism in addition to fascism.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Wanted to post something completely fictional. Because this is ./ of course- nobody believes this stuff you know. /possessed mode 1
/possessed mode 0
Isn't Poindexter one of the documented Majestic members(2nd Gen.)? He shifted to info control about 10 years ago didn't he?
And, no, I'm not making this shit up(see- I'm creating suspension of disbelief!). Read through the news. This guys been globetrotting like he's searching for the cure to explosive hemmoroids. Unfortunately(depending on your POV), I think it's a little too late for what he's attempting to do.
We've all got some major trouble comin down the pipe, and Gen. Poindexter and friends will try and add a little conditioned media K-Y so it doesn't hurt so much when we get to bend over. It's a nice thought, but you can only hold enertia at bay for so long. Btw, on a semi off:off topic- has anyone seen that hollow martian rock called Phobos floatin around lately? I know where it's not, but where did it go? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
OK, I'm better. In short- leave old Mr. Poindexter alone. He's pissin in the wind. Times almost up.
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.
It doesn't take a terribly "liberal interpretation" of the 4th amendment to see a "right to privacy" here. I mean, it would be pretty extreme to claim this prevents surveillence in a public place, but I think TIA, Carnivore, etc. constitute unreasonable searches against people's papers and effects and are certainly done without probable cause.
This isn't as broad a "right to privacy" as some might like, but it's not a stretch at all to claim that it rules out trying to spy on as much of the country as you can manage.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
It's really a stupid idea. If you consider that the guys are white hats (yea yea), then it's just noise that has to be filtered. Law enforcement by database, ubiquitous and just as stupid rather than targetted and accurate.
They are just to damned lazy to get off their dead asses and do the Human Intellegence they are paid to do.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
This slashdot thread is very disappointing. Perhaps the key participants are afraid, but trepidation is unnecessary when simply stating the obvious. The "Total Information Awareness" system already exists. It has existed for years, and it grows more comprehensive each year. Poindexter's so-called "plan" is a trial balloon. He and his group are trying to gauge the public reaction and to prepare people for future adumbration of the truth. Relax this is not really true. It is meant to be "humorous". I think.
I wouldn't be so sure he's paranoid. His "coup" scenario is where someone gets a hold of his opponents' TIA logs and embarrasses them out of any hope for re-election, or even gets them to resign.
This sort of thing has happened many times before, minus the TIA. So with that much data available â" and yes, it's not unreasonable that a Congressman could do this, they have access to a whole lot of classified data â" you don't have to be paranoid to imagine a major "coup."
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer! 'Nuff said. Your country is already a fascist police state. You gave away your freedoms. Your country invaded Iraq for oil. Weapons of mass destruction my ass. They didn't find any. Oh, maybe they found a rocket or two. Maybe they put it there themselves.
There's another reason for this approach, even in an era when the military issues arms to all soldiers.
I was in the Boy Scouts in the early 1970s - I remember leaving for our weekly meetings as Walter Cronkite recited the latest DoD lies on enemy body counts, etc.
My scout master was a retired Marine Drill Instructor. We never trained with arms, but we did practice close quarter drills, followed paramilitary practices on camping trips, etc. We were too young to complain, but we also knew that few troops have Eagle scouts (including myself, eventually) as a full quarter of their active troops, or routinely walk all over all other troops in local competitions.
The reason I mentioned this is that years later I learned that the military cut back on the amount of time spent in basic training in order to get more troops to the field in Vietnam sooner. My Scout Master undoubtably knew this, and knew that he was sending kids to their death because some assholes in the Pentagon decided that a few extra weeks of training wouldn't make any difference in the field.
Sergeant Berhow knew this, and after he left the service he spent much of his spare time giving hundreds of local kids the early training that could save their lives. Probably literally - I'm sure many of the boys he trained served in Vietnam.
So what does this have to do with private possession of guns? Easy - I own a Beretta 9mm precisely because it is the standard sidearm in the military, and if I though there was any change that I would be called to duty I would not hesitate to pick up an AR-15 as well. Not because I'm going into combat with my personal weapons, but because it will give me a chance to learn these tools.
This really shouldn't be surprising - I have this attitude <i>everywhere</i>. For a while I thought it was common to all geeks, but it's not. I now believe it all comes back to a certain former Marine DI, one who taught me you can never be too prepared when lives are at risk.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Instead every citizen of the US should be sent to the world court for crimes against humanity!
Yeah, his real last name is "Omniaveritas". "All truth" in Latin. Heh. Sure it is.
However, you fail to address the issue of *who* has access to the information. It sure won't be you and I with TIA.
I support our President, but Ashcroft is a clown, IMHO. First, "TIPS" and now this.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Bzzt. Ten points deducted from slashdot_commentator for bringing in unrelated subject matter. The issue of Reagan's cronies is unrelated to the issue being debated, which is still unrelated to TIA (The subject of the article).
Parent poster never mentioned Reagan's cronies. Perhaps he was equally outraged then. I personally was too young then to be paying attention to politics, so I don't know what happened (They don't teach it in school, at least not the school I attended).
Note to moderators: there is no need to moderate me off topic; see the OT: in the subject line.
A solution to the problem with music today
Great thought-provoking stuff. Unfortunately the r**e of a country is nothing
-------- Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
Why would daddy want to risk doctor bills for tuberculosis?
I read the Secret Service kept them out of jail, when the law said they were supposed to be there.
TIA has nothing to do with protecting U.S. citizens from terrorism. It is instead part of a hidden political agenda.
Every year, the U.S. government gives between $3.5 billion and $5.5 billion to Jews in Israel. This money is used to kill Arabs. (The Jews call it defense.) The terrorism toward the U.S. was caused by Arabs who feel they have no other way to protest the brutality of moving them from their homeland, and continuing to kill them, to make a new country called Israel. They are sacrificing their lives to try to make a statement. I don't think violence is justified, but the U.S. government thinks violence is justified, the Jews think violence is justified, and it would be illogical to think that violence is okay for politically powerful groups in the U.S., but not for the people they want to kill.
The people who have brought you TIA have also put the U.S. government back into the huge debt it was in during the Reagan-Bush years. The people who want corruption cause the U.S. government to borrow money so that they can spend it (tax cut) to make themselves look good and on high-profit weapons.
Here are a few links that discuss other kinds of corruption:
War Profiteers card deck.
"Speaking to Pentagon reporters in a video teleconference from Iraq, General Conway said, 'What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood.' He added, 'We were simply wrong.'" [last paragraphs]
Secretary of State General Powell believes he may have been lied to about weapons in Iraq: Powell's doubts over CIA intelligence on Iraq prompted him to set up secret review.
"Could be the greatest intelligence hoax of all time."
More about war profiteers and conflict of interest: Lawmaker Questions Scope Of Iraq-Related Contracts.
Questionable accounting practices -- The U.S. government becomes another Enron scam:
Questionable accounting practices in the U.S. government: "The U.S. government is broke." George Bush gave U.S. citizens a tax cut, but it was fraud. The tax cut will be paid by money the U.S. government will borrow.
Questionable accounting practices at Halliburton, Vice President of the U.S. Dick Cheney's company.
Should U.S. President George W. Bush be impeached?
In a CNN article, John Dean asks, "Is lying about the reason for a war an impeachable offense?"
An Associated Press article reports that a retired Department of State analyst says the Bush administration was "not entirely honest".
International reaction is extremely negative. The Hindustan Times mentions that "a former CIA analyst with 25 years' experience"
will kill it, but not before a lot of people end up falsely imprisoned.
Shake hands with Mr. Joseph McCarthy.
Deed poll?
That crap was marked a +4? Don't the damn moderators even read the comments?
> Every law restricting non-criminals from owning certain types of weapons.
Damn illiterate punks. Learn how to read before running your mouth. It says *only* the militia has the right to arms. Since the militia was officially dissolved upon the creation of the National Guard, the right for gun idiots to have weapons of death no longer exists. So, you gun idiots don't have the right to have all those things you love to use to shoot-up school yards with. BTW, why do so many gun owners do that anyway? Stop trolling and go back to school you violent little troll.
One of the most famous "predictions" is that of Orwell's 1984, which (of course) has not exactly come to pass.
Maybe not by 1984, but aren't things becoming more Orwellian every day? The TIA seems to be a perfect example.
and contribute to the campaigns of those who tell those people w/ guns who kick down your door what to do ...
corporations don't have standing armies because they don't need them, they use ours
Under the Sea
Under the sea
There'll be no accusations
Just friendly crustaceans
Under the sea!
Since 112 is the EU emergency number (I think in the UK 999, 911 and 112 all go through to the same number).
One _conspiracy theory_ I've been harbouring is that the USA's plan is to politically assimilate the rest of the world so that there will not BE another place to go to, in effect.
In case you missed it, the US basically said (at least everybody outside the US read it so) that either you're with us, or you're against us in the war against terror. And of course everybody that is against us is terrorists or supporting terrorism, and must be neutralized. Hence, it's not over until all are with the US, either through military force or just falling into line either by carrot or stick.
It's funny how that when one man seeks to control all other men, you call it a dictatorship. When one country seeks to control all other countries, it's "politics". What's the next country that doesn't fall into line, where GWB will find imaginary WMDs?
They went from finding WMDs, to liberating the people, to ensuring that the Iraqi oil would be used for the people. After the oil has paid for all the damages the war caused, and the profit margins of all the US corportations set to administer it, I'm sure the people will get a cut too, assuming they become good little economic pawns of the US.
That has been what the US has been so good at, to attract more bees with honey than with vinegar. Nothing has sold the "American Way" as well as economic prosperity. Compared to communism, it wasn't exactly a bad sell on freedom either. Now, however, people have started to realize that the economic bonds to the US also can act as a leash, not the military kind that the Soviet Union kept but a leash none the less.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Pot, meet kettle :)
I know for a fact that the CEO of Siebel wrote an internal memo to all employees about their complete commitment to fighting terrorism. Siebel is currently in a crisis, I guess they can use the money....
See this project at Siebel's home page.
As far as current evidence is concerned, the Bush administration systematically lied to both the American people and multiple other governments to get this war going, and that should be a huge deal to the American people. How can we trust a government that's prepared to lie to everyone in order to free up some more oil?
It's one of the nice things we humans have that distinguishes us from animals.
...or 'Poindexter's nutty scheme' as Sterling thinks of it.
Huh? What did I do now?
Party Time: Excellent
lie-detector (sic) test You keep using that word (sic), I do not think it means what you think it means.
Just more Republican pffft!
On exactly this same topic (moderator take note--my mother is a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn!), against whom one might ask, has Israel launched the four newest and most stealthy U-boats that cruise the oceans today?
Thanks to Jonathan Pollard and his Straussian guide-philosopher, who lead him straight to a most sensitive file on the methods by which enemy submarines might exploit weaknesses in US Navy sonar technology, and thus avoid detection while attacking the United States. Thus, this Israeli wolfpack--of four, brand new, hydrogen-powered, nuclear-armed, U-boats--is loaded with missiles armed with nuclear and biological and chemical warheads, and much as the drug-dealing mobsters of the Mossad provided ground control guidance for the so-called video-trained single-engine piper-cub pilots who guided their 4-engined jumbo jets into perfect mid-air bull's eyes, while drifting at 350knots through 30-degree bank turns and a 30 knot crosswind, this same gang of mobsters will gladly assassinate whatever President they want, and will gladly blow up whatever city they will, murdering 000.000's of US citizens at will--to wit, 911. The hatred which these Nazi mobsters have for our US Constitution, and our Bill of Rights is legendary. Sadly, these mobsters have now seized power in Israel--and I predict that it will thus be the end of both of us.
When seen in its fullest perspective, the insults of the so-called Patriot Act are like ripened plums sitting on top of a huge Nazi iceberg!!!!
Other than its effective declaration of war against the United States, against whose other naval detection methods did Israel design (thanks to the spy Jonathan Pollard) and launch its wolfpack of four hydrogen-powered, nuclear-armed U-boats? Whose sonar detection methods are these four hydrogen-powered Israeli U-boats intending to evade??
En passent--the main powerplants for these U-boats are hydrogen batteries. Yes, onboard diesels were added, but they are fired up only for rapid acceleration and evasive maneuvers, where stealth is no longer a criteria. By specific design with intent to avoid detection by the United States, these U-boats are able to "slip" through the water, at a design speed of 5-knots, within a nearly perfect laminar flow envelope, thereby leaving no telltale infrared traces nor any tracable vortices in the water. (For those who think that a design speed for maximum stealth of 5 knots--a lumbering 1 rpm with the propellers at a steep pitch--is "slow," think again. The 1200 hrs it took this wolfpack of Israeli U-boats to travel, in a flow envelope totally undetectable by the US Navy, from Haifa to trenches in Block Island Sound, off New York City, is nothing for a submarine today. And once the U-boat is already moving, it takes very little power to sustain a speed at 5 knots.
In a way, the problem is a Democrat v. Republican thing, which is worsened by the love that Republicans have, on the one hand, for the debt-frauds, and compound interest on the debt-frauds, of these drug dealing mobsters, and the denial with which Democrats, on the other hand, weep in their hearts "... because there was a holocaust, and because the holocaust was just terrible, there is therefore no such thing as a jewish mobster."
Indeed, it was the blowjob that brought the nation to its knees!
Government Surveillance
Why do government have no respect for your right to privacy?
Liberty has to be one of the most important things in life. Well up there, behind health and safety of your family, must be the right to go about your daily life without being forced to live it under oppressive surveillance. For it surely is oppression - being spied upon by the authorities in all that you do. Knowing this information could be used against you, for any purpose they see fit. The so-called all-seeing eye of God over you - meant to instil respect of them and fear of authority.
It can be proven they use propaganda to deceive you into believing them. How?
Ask Security Services in the US, UK, Indonesia (Bali) or anywhere for that matter, to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught!
Perhaps using mobile when absolutely essential, saying - Meet you in the pub Monday (meaning, human bomb to target A), or Tuesday (target B) or Sunday (abort).
The Internet has become a tool for government to snoop on their people - 24/7.
The terrorism argument is a dummy - total bull*.
INTERNET SURVEILLANCE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP TERRORISTS - THAT IS SPIN AND PROPAGANDA
This propaganda is for several reasons, including: a) making you feel safer b) to say the government are doing something and c) the more malicious motive of privacy invasion.
Government say about surveillance - you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law
This argument is made to pressure people into acquiescence - else appear guilty of hiding something illegal.
It does not address the real reason why they want this information (which they will deny) - they want a surveillance society.
They wish to invade your basic human right to privacy. This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your personal thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.
This is everything - including phone calls and interactive TV. Quote from ZDNET: Whether you're just accessing a Web site, placing a phone call, watching TV or developing a Web service, sometime in the not to distant future, virtually all such transactions will converge around Internet protocols.
Why should I worry? I do not care if they know what I do in my own home, you may foolishly say. Or, just as dumbly, They will not be interested in anything I do.
This information will be held about you until the authorities need it for anything at all. Like, for example, here in UK when government looked for dirt on individuals of Paddington crash survivors group. It was led by badly injured Pam Warren. She had over 20 operations after the 1999 rail crash (which killed 31 and injured many).
This group had fought for better and safer railways - all by legal means. By all accounts a group of fine outstanding people - with good intent.
So what was their crime, to deserve this
On the radio show This American Life, a segment described how police used the case summary of an FBI profiler as a template for a forced confession. Under pressure to find the killer(s), police used intimidation and duress to coax a suspect to sign a false confession, the conviction since overturned by DNA evidence. The suspect, unaware of case particulars, was given a confession to sign lifted verbatim from an FBI profiler's report. The police used a best guess of how the crime occurred based on the evidence to frame a patsy.
In the not distant future with Total Information Awareness, it will be trivial to find a patsy for any crime. The person murdered attended the same university and you shared a class or two (enrollment database). You enjoy violence and murder (video store database). The murder occured a mile away and within 30 minutes of when you filled up your car at the gas station (credit card database). We have established relationship, motif, and opportunity.
My point is that extremely causal data will be used to make relationships where none exist and to support conclusions which no hard data supports. It will become trivial to gather a group of suspects for any crime, none of which have anything to do with it.
The databases will be used to get tough on crime, which was a euphemism in the 80's for put pressure on police and courts to find a patsy and put them away to make us politically significant. The wave of released prisoners based on evaluation of DNA evidence in recent years is proof of this.
Are you a terrorist? I bet if we look at the proper data points we can make anyone look like one...
"You have liberated me from thought."
Questions Swirl Around WMD Charges
US said to twist its data on Iraq
Some analysts doubt US theory of Iraqi germ trailers: NYT
Intelligence Historian Says CIA 'Buckled' on Iraq
Ex-official: Bush administration distorted intel on Iraq arms
Perhaps the RIAA has the right solution to TIA:
junk. Just as they inject junk content into the
P2P networks, people can inject junk information
about themselves into the information streams
"trawled" by TIA...
- Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
If there is property, there is privacy.
If we're going to interpret rights as only those that we can protect against gov't infringement, there would be no rights at all.
Quite frankly, I'm sick of the way many 'justices' decide to interpret my rights. The Constutition was written in plain, clear English. I'll be the one telling them what my rights are, not the other way around, thank-you.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
You need to work on your cyber-stalking skills.
We know that Bruce lives in Austin, TX.
A search on smartpages.com for 'Bruce Sterling' results in no hits. A search for 'Michael Sterling' results in a match for 'Michael B Sterling'.
Taking that address you can search on the publically available assessed value of the property and find it's registered to Michael B and Nancy Sterling. Nancy is the name of his wife (source edge.org)
When I was in the Boy Scouts (also early 70's), we learned that (Robert?) Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts with an eye toward training boys early in militarily-applicable skills, and he called them Boy Scouts after a famous Army unit called the Selous Scouts (in Rhodesia, I believe). I stayed in the Scouts when we lived in Canada for a few years, and we did train with arms there. My Asst. Scoutmaster was an NCO in the Canadian Forces; he took us to the rifle range. He and my Dad were our shooting instructors. Kids with guns? Sure! Let them do grownup things and require that they act responsibly whenever they're around weapons. It takes a lot of loving effort, patience and clear communication, but that's what parents and Scoutmasters are supposed to do, right?
Think, write, think, edit, think...then post.
And it can be strip searched every time it goes near an airport...
Trouble is with these kind of databases,
garbage in = innocent people in jail.
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Why mod trolls up?
"The US imprisoned completely innocent people..."
Completely innocent? They were fighting to establish a despotic theocratic regime where tribal chieftains meted out medieval justice.
Cut your beard? Go to jail.
Don't wear a veil? Get whipped with a metal cable.
Steal a loaf of bread? Get your hands cut off.
Get accused of adultery? Get buried up to your head and stoned to death.
"Honestly and truly you see nothing wrong with putting people in a concentration camp for two years when they are completely innocent?"
Twice you call Gitmo and foreign bases "concentration camps." Is food restricted there? Do the detainees work 20 hr/day? Are diseases like typhus and cholera promoted to get rid of unwanted people?
You have some twisted sense of right and wrong if you think jailing a al Qaeda soldier captured **on the battlefield** is the same as loading homosexuals, Jews and trade unionists onto a train car, gassing them, and turning their bodies into soap.
the most viscous slashdotting imaginable
Viscous is certainly one way to describe what happens to a slashdotted server...
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
The TIA is scary conceptually, but when coupled with human incompetence it becomes absolutely terrifying. The problem with TIA is not that they collect the data, but that they must at some point make some interpretation and inference on the data.
Those familiar with data mining know that there are very serious problems in turning data into information. This means that some human must make some pronouncement that some types of data mean certain things. If they collect all your emails, what exactly identifies you as a terroist? If they collect your credit card transactions, what do you have to buy to be a terrorist? Etc.
Aside from the technical problems associated with coding and interpreting the data there are other problems associated with detection. Basically, in data mining there are two paths that TIA can take. Supervised algorithms (here's what a terrorist looks like go find others) and unsupervised algorithms (let's clump all people who buy lots of fertilizer together). The problem with supervised algorithms, is that you need examples of what a terrorist looks like. Even, then you need a whole bunch of examples to teach algorithms to identify them. The problem with unsupervised techniques is that once you have grouped everyone together, do you have the right number of groups, and are the groups any good at identifying terroists?
I'm just grazing the technical problems...and there are many many more, but in hte end, the most problematic is that even if it is possible to create some algorithm, no method is 100% accurate. This means that (many) innocent people will get targeted and victimized by the TIA just because they happen to "fit the profile".
The best way I see to beat this is 1) create multiple personae 2) look like everyone else.
My 2 cents.
How leet, a recursive TLA! {:
-uso.
Dreams, dreams, don't doubt dreams, dreaming children's dreaming dreams. Sailor Moon SS
or to paraphrase Dr. Dick Solomon :
Nuclear weapons don't kill people, physics kills people.
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
Note the "among these", an implication that there may be other such rights not listed.
However, the Declaration of Independence, wonderful bit of prose that it is, has absolutely no legal bearing whatever on the United States. legislatures at any level can pass laws that would seem to be prohibited by the Declaration and it matters not a whit.
The bit that follows though, is also worth reading. The question that interests me these days is will someone end up in the ToTal TerrorisT InformaTion LisT (the TTTTITLT) just by quoting it.
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Socialism is the opposite. Discuss...
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Lying about an adulterous relationship isn't a felony, either. But lying about it under oath surely is a felony. It's called "perjury". Trying to get others to lie under oath is a felony too. It's called "suborning perjury". Both of these felonies were committed by Clinton.
On the other hand, to my knowledge no one at the Bush White House has lied under oath about the intelligence data, so lying about it wouldn't quite be a felony. Additionally, it's really tremendously easy for us (that would include me) to be suspicious about the intelligence data, since of course the only way that it will ever be discussed is going to be in executive session in a Senate committee hearing. So of course, it's tremendously easy for the Bush administration's critics - and that too would include me - to criticize them, because the White House can't show us what classified information that they have (if in fact there is any).
Lastly, you are the umpteenth person to commit two or three errors in this thread.
First, you falsely assume that I am a Republican.
Second, you falsely assume that I am a Bush supporter.
Thirdly, and perhaps most damagingly, you fallaciously attempt to change the subject from Clinton's crimes to the (so far only alleged) crimes of George Jr. Let me ask you, as a representative of Bill's defenders: do you have so little faith in Bill's "innocence" that you have to change the subject like this to try and talk about something else instead? Wouldn't it be easier to just admit that he was a perjurer, and that he suborned perjury, and that he really deserved to be thrown out of office for that - the abject failures of the Senate GOP "leadership" notwithstanding? Wouldn't doing so be a lot less embarrassing than trying to rehabilitate an all-but-convicted felon?
Perhaps here would be a good place to point out that while he wasn't impeached, Bill's behavior wasn't entirely unpunished: he was disbarred from the Supreme Court of the US, and his law license was suspended for 5 years. Read all about it here. Now, I ask you: considering that Billy agreed to the Arkansas suspension, should we really pretend that he was innocent?
Fourthly and finally, you have also fallaciously resorted to various ad hominems in your efforts to rehabilitate the perjurer Bill Clinton: you have attacked me (falsely, as it turns out, since I'm not a Republican) and you have attacked Republicans, as though doing so in any way justifies the corrupt acts of Bill Clinton. "Everybody does it" is an argument best left for little kids and adolescents.
I'll try and be as plain as possible: I believe that the war in Iraq was an unjust, immoral, and unconstitutional war, in that it was a) a war of aggression and not self-defense, and b) a war against a "foe" that had never represented a credible threat to the US, and c) a war that was never declared by the US Congress - the only body that may, under the Constitution, declare war. There. Your ad hominem against me was fallacious, and (as I've now demonstrated) also completely false.
Now, if you want to participate in the discussion, please feel free! But please don't evade the present issue, which is Clinton's behavior.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
And that's why the War on Iraq will only create more terrorists.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
His pseudonym is Vincent Omniveritas.
Zionist Jews wanted to start a Jewish state. They didn't care that Arabs had been living on the land for 2,000 years. They said the land was theirs. They have engaged in continuous violence since then. No one disagrees with this assessment. Some Jews say their violence is justified because "God" (the Jewish God) told them the land was theirs.
I made none of those assumptions.
I'm not trying to defend anyone. I was saying, in my clumsy way, that Republicans pointing the finger at Democrats, and vice versa, is like the pot calling the kettle black.
However, it's the Republicans who always appeal to righteousness, so I feel duty bound to point out their hypocrisy.
Your personal political stance had little or nothing to do with it.
Nice use of the b tag, by the way.
I think the U.S.A. Assimilation Progrom goes a long way towards explaining why China is planning (or at least trying for) a perminant human habitation on the Moon by 2016.
If the USA doesn't get thre first some of those nasty {politically useful racial epithet}'s will escape!
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I think terrorist access to this kind of database is an even bigger concern. Given the number of people who will need and the larger number of people who will access to the database, will all of them be security cleared?
I heard security clearance invesigations were 6 months behind before Homeland Security started growing its tentacles.
If I were into serious terror, if I wanted to attack a major target, I'd want to use this kind of database first to find out who worked at the target and after that, what they were into (e.g. drugs, homosexuality, gambling debts, and anything else that can be inferred from buying and websurfing patterns) that their bosses or family or neighbors might be concerned about... i.e. this is a great way to collect blackmail information.
Tech Public Policy stuff
What planet do you live on, chum? On mine, Hitler killed 20,000,000 people, and Stalin killed 30 to 50,000,000
And you're making the argument that they did so because of the absence of private gun ownership laws. Wow. When did you start repeating the NRA's talking points as if you'd thought of them yourself? It's pretty clear which "planet" you're in orbit of, anyway.
Friend, you honestly need to read some more history. Not as ammunition for your juvenile debate points on Usenet and here -- those are just not worth the effort to cultivate, they're just another redundant flame war jolly on the 'net. Read history to get a sense of how complicated the world is.
It may be that the massive, crippling depression that ripped apart the world economy in the early 20th century had something to do with the way things bounced then, you know? Do you recall how Hoover -- the great believer in non-government intervention -- sent MacArthur in to clean up the "Bonus Army" in Washington D.C.? What sorts of Gun laws did we have back then? Why do you suppose all those former soldiers were camping there, anyway? Do you have any patience at all for the complexity of real life?
Pogroms have occurred against Jews in Europe since well before the government had any modern-style monopoly on deadly force, too. Go figure. There might be a little history left out of your NRA pamphlet, there, chum.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Jules Verne?
Edgar Allan Poe? (e.g., here)
Mark Twain? (e.g., here)
Ray Bradbury?