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Florida's Version Of TIA May Spread To Other States
Annoying Cowwart writes "Looks like TIA is coming back, this time through the by-the States-but-all-together backdoor. Now called M.A.T.R.I.X. ('Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange'). See the
Washington Post article for details. I wonder: do they have to try hard to find such apt names for their projects or does it come naturally? (For German speakers, there is another article about this in Der Spiegel.)"
When you spend public money, you can afford consulting for name.. which is actually pretty expensive..
I'm not the devil.. just his advocate.
The Skynet funding bill just passed.
Next time someone says "The Matrix has you", they probably won't be lying. Of course, you'll know all too well, when the CIA goons come crashing through the front door.
Considering that this is coming around "through the back door" I'd suggest a change from "the over-your-shoulder dept."...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Flomp
Flimp
When I use the first letter of each word, I get M.A.T.I.X.
Where is the "R"?
Any surprise that the state that the Bush family currently runs would be the one that's getting this off the ground?
The FL legislature has been battling all year about medical malpractice suit caps on awards from juries, with the senate holding strong (so far) against them. However, at this point, no matter how anti-common-man the proposal's coming through this state I remain unamazed, I just chalk another one up to the Bush family. Was FL the head of the serpent that Nostradamus predicted?
Multistatee
Anti
Terrorism
Information
Exchang
Now, how the hell do you get MATRIX out of that?
More like MATIE, as in:
"ARR MATIE, we be getting the blackmail goods on the serfs, arrr!"
www.eFax.com are spammers
Melchior-1, Balthasar-2, and Casper-3 just entered QA testing. It's expected that when all 3 systems are deployed to production, the M.A.T.R.I.X system will use the MAGI computers to determine if the citizen in question should be eliminated.
At least, naming such a monster "the Matrix" is honest. Or, at least, kind of.
Matrix takes domestic surveillance TO THE EXTREME!
TAKE THE RED PILL!!!
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
"We'll call it Matrix, that way all those geeks that oppose tyrrany will thank it's cool."
"But Boss, wasn't the Matrix an evil, tyrranical computer that wanted to subjugate and/or destroy humanity and free thought?"
***VOIP***
You get a nickle if you get the reference. And, I don't mean the generic The Matrix reference.
Dang, I found this on Der Spiegel and was about to post it, but I had to track down the English version first.
Matrix is short for Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange.
Only the begining . . .
FYI, TIA = Total Information Awareness
Frankly, I'd be surprised if this tool is actually used in terrorist-related investigations more than a small percentage of the time.
That said, as long as the statement holds true that "it includes information that has always been available to investigators but brings it together and enables police to access it with extraordinary speed", I really don't have too much of a problem with it. It doesn't represent an encroachment on privacy rights so much as an improvement in investigatory tools. What needs to develop alongside these tools, of course, are strict guidelines on the manner in which they should be used.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
...for a poorly conceived plan that makes less sense the more you think about it.
Oh crap. Ahmed - get the goats...we're leaving!
Things like this seem to me to only hurt the innocent. I mean, given that everyone can now read about this existing, any half-witted criminal would get a haircut, steal a new car and do something far away from home, right? I mean, if someone didn't take precautions such as these given this system, then they would probably be the type of criminal who would leave other evidence everywhere. This seems to have a ton of privacy implications and would target a lot of innocent people who, just say, happened to own red trucks or whatever the case may be, without targetting the actual criminals. What a waste. And they used my tax dollars to pay for a stupid, incorrect acronym, too. Grrr...
In soviet russia, the Matrix jokes about you!
(I can feel my karma dropping.)
In other news, the high in Miami is expected to reach 92; please drink more Powerade. Thank you for your cooperation.
Whatever happened to the grandaddy of all govt information systems, SCMODS = State County Municipal Offender Data System?
Honestly, you need not look very hard to find the correlation between current administration's family ties, and crazy stuff gotting backdoored through state legislation as opposed to national. Conspirists will have a field day!
But the ID cards should not be cards, but those big "HELLO My Name Is [your name here]" tags.
Not Zeus, dumbass. Zion. If your going to make a funny Matrix comment, at least get the names right!
Welcome to Microsoft passport, where would you like to go...flee today?
Tell me Mr. Anderson, what good is your privacy if you're considered a terrorist in your state ?
Obama 2012: our incompetent asshole is slightly less of an incompetent asshole than the other incompetent asshole !
Information wants to be free.
Oh, except to law enforcement.
You are all hypocrites.
This shit already exists, this is no different from existing systems like NIBRS or MILES. Everyone's out to either reinvent the wheel or bitch about it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I thought TIA (transitorisk ischemisk attack) was the thing you got when you ate to much fat food..
Elwood: "I bet those cops have got SCMODS."
Jake: "SCMODS?"
Elwood: "State. County. Municipal. Offender. Data. System."
At least Florida didn't infringe on the copyright.
And, hey, isn't Jeb Bush the governor of that cesspool of a state? No concidence there. No...
Morpheus was considered a dangerous terrorist, wasn't he?
And the legal status of the agents (as "citizens" of the world simulated by The Matrix) was something like CIA or FBI, wasn't it?
Wake up, neo! The MATRIX has you!
We should feel obligated to oppose it!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Many states give their officers down to the individual department level access to all sorts of information...types of information on people that have committed absolutely no crime that would make the hardest-line reactionary cringe. They give them mobile data terminals and allow them to view this whenever they want, and for whatever reason they want. Even though there are "laws" against using it against innocent people, it is a minute-by-minute occurence. I know people in the police force that check people just because they don't like them, or think it's funny to spread dirt around on them.
Putting it that extreme way is short sighted, to be polite.
Having not total control over every citizen almost certainly leads to more crime by the people, but that is the cost of more freedom. More control to the government and you have almost certainly more crimes by the government/and or companies.
And they will probably hurt us citizens more in the long term. Want examples? Google for yourself, or ask. But I'm too lazy to write them all down here.
IMHO law enforcement should be more effective and should not work by gathering information about everyone and then doing some data mining.
do they have to try hard to find such apt names for their projects or does it come naturally?
S.L.A.S.H.D.O.T ---->
simple linux appreciation site - have dicey open talk
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
I don't know the procedure to get permission to find all brown haired people that own Fords within 50 miles, but I would think there has to be some kind of safeguards to prevent random lookups without reason. For example, to look up this information the police would need to get authorization from the Chief, the Sheriff, and Judge. Combine it with fingerprints, eye scans, smart cards, whatever.
If anyone can go to a computer, type in their search criteria, and come up with that info, it will be abused. If more then 1 person has to authorize it in a way that cuts down on the chances of abuse, then I'm all for such a system.
In 1999, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI suspended information service contracts with an earlier Asher-run company because of concerns about his past, according to law enforcement sources. The Chicago Tribune reported in 1987 that court documents in a federal drug case said defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, who identified Asher as a pilot and onetime smuggler, offered him as an informant.
Jennie Khoen, a spokeswoman for the Florida department, said yesterday that the agency knew about Asher's "history with drug smuggling," including his work as an informant. Moore said his department "knew about Mr. Asher's past."
Maybe Asher can watch the fox guarding the hen house while he's at it....
How exactly do they get MATRIX from Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange? There are about twenty things wrong with that.
For starters, it stands for MATIE. Which, if you think about it, would make peoples reactions to the project all the more apt sounding (Argh! MATIE!). Which brings me to yet another interesting point, where on earth did they get the "R" in matrix. I can kinda see taking the second character of exchange as the "x", making it x-change or something equally stupid, but I can't for the life of me figure out where they snagged an "R" from.
Second of all, shouldn't multi-state be hyphonated like anti-terrorism is? This seeems like a conveinant misuses of punctuation. Would it really have ruined their day just to call it MSATIE instead of MATRIX? Did they truly need that extra layer of irony built into the name?
Isn't this the same Florida that is currently ruled by Jeb Bush, the president's brother? Why do I get images of late-night meetings between Ashcroft, Tenet, and the Bushes in a cigar-smoke filled room?
Be afraid, folks. History is full of examples of the feds trying to pass hideous legislation, facing public backlash, and then sneaking it into law anyway by going through the states. If you think this is all Florida's initiative and there has been no pressure from the feds, you're more than a little bit naive.
Another Big Brother system conceived by a criminal.
I think its time for Congress to shut down the Department of Homeland Security, nevermind just TIA.
Look at my karma - I'm bad, just like Michael Jackson!
TIA == The Internet Adapter, popular about ten years ago.
Although I hate to say it, I have to say that they have a good point here. The need for a tool to help law enforcement is unquestioned. The only problem that most of us seem to have is the use of this tool.
The states already have access to all this data. The only difference now is that they will be able to access it more quickly. I cannot see how that will be any worse than what we already have.
Unfortunately, what we already have is proof that this tool will not be used in the utopian manner than the designers intend. Instead, it will be used by police forces to highlight people that they feel are suspects (because they meet some predetermined criteria). They will then seek to examine these folks to determine if they are associated with the crime they are investigating. Of course, if they happen to stumble across some other "crime" while they investigate they can get two for the price of one.
Is it needed in the short term? Yes, I hate to say it, but I think that it is.
Is it the correct solution in the long run? Perhaps, but not right now. Not with the "Big Brother" mentality that seems to be gripping the law enforcement community.
We are Pentium of Borg. Division is futile. You will be approximated.
It would let authorities, for instance, instantly find the name and address of every brown-haired owner of a red Ford pickup truck in a 20-mile radius of a suspicious event ...and we all know that terrorists would *never* consider wearing a wig when they decide to poison our water supply.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Calling this thing MATRIX *DOES* show a particular level of incompetence behind it.
Seriously. They chose a name guaranteed to provoke the most adverse reactions in many people, especially geeks. This indicates either a level of insensitivity or ignorance of popular culture that isn't reassuring.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I won't join any organizations like the ACLU to protect my freedoms! NO! I'm going to be an armchair critic and let the government erode my freedoms!
Karma whorin' since 1999
Acronym
Main Entry: acronym
Pronunciation: 'a-kr&-"nim
Function: noun
Etymology: acr- + -onym
Date: 1943
: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term.
(emphasis mine).
M.A.T.R.I.X is not an acronym.
www.eFax.com are spammers
7. Profit!
www.wavefront-av.com
Will you all feel better if they promise to use Open Source Free-as-in-Willy software?
MySQL is robust enough now that they could track at least 3 dozen people, give or take.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Guess who is developing this system ?
Seisint
guess who is the number 12 campaign contributer to the republicans ? who just got awarded 1.6million (with more to follow)
Seisint
im not American but it looks like your goverment is doomed to failure with all this corruption, and people wonder why the dollar aint worth shit
enjoy cos you aint gonna do anything about it, oh except get poor while Bush and his buddies ensure they will never have to work again in their lives EVER
i want to feel sorry but i can't
So if shared by computer would they call it CompTIA? (okay, that was bad.) JAV
We dont spel to good
Last week the news said airlines were looking at the credit agency and medical insurance reports of every passenger. People with low credit scroes were flagged for additional scrutiny. I guess because these are easy databases to access, not because they are informative.
There aren't too many 8-year-old Cuban refugees...
And you have to fail it.
The US (and other western nations) are slowly, but surely, relieving the average citizen of their privacy rights in the interests of 'the war on terror' (such as it is). And of course, it's is our very freedoms (in many things) that the terrorists want to take away - to make us afraid...
I don't know what the future holds, but worlds such as those portrayed in films like 'Minority Report' don't seem so far fetched anymore..
What really bothers me about all these "let's build a big database and magically query it to find the terrorists" is a) terrorist events are not normal occurences so it's hard to build query to find them while trying to formulate the inverse query doesn't work (from table=not_normal_triggers is broad enough as to be useless) and b) queries you can construct are the ones that push toward civil liberties violations (from table=religion select muslim).
You cannot know the unknown. You cannot protect against the unknown unless you want to live in a fall out shelter. Get over it.
Anybody have any numbers estimating the dollar cost of the people waiting at security check points to get into gov buildings? How does that compare with the damage of 9/11 including say 5m for each death? This is like buying insurance; you only insure what you can't afford to lose. Using TIA to insure safety will cost significantly more socioeconomically than the gains to be had.
Excuse me? I would have to say that whimsically is not the correct word in this case. Considering the difference in the acronym from MATRIX, I'd have to say that it was chosen Intentionally.
Alas, it appears that the enforcement officer failed to interperet the meaning behind that name correctly. It was not meant as a message of empowerment to law-enforcement...
This is not a sig.
I just use SLIP through my shell account instead of spending another $20 for PPP access!
The tracking abilities inherent in RFID will fall neatly alongside TIA programs. Another piece of a puzzle that is fascism.
For German speakers, there is another article about this in Der Spiegel.
Didn't help...I can speak but not read german, you insensitive clod!
Looking at the (supposed) past of the guy, and knowing he offered freely its service, I would really search for all kind of backdoor in the source code, If I wear florida official...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
This side up.
Sure, there's some data in federal databases that isn't in private ones, but there's a lot of companies that already have databases like this put together, listing every possible bit of credit and consumer information about you they know or can buy.
Those databases are unregulated, and they don't have to tell anyone they have assembled that information. Zero accountability. Raise your hand if you think the government doesn't have access to that information on a rental basis.
Once the government gets this system assembled, there will finally be a concrete reason to work out some legislation governing what can be done with large scale assemblies of data about the public in general, and lawmakers will finally have a reason to draw a line somewhere to mark the point where assembly and correlation of data becomes an invasion of privacy.
Yeah, it's gonna be painful. But I'd rather have this battle be fought on a battlefield I understand and can control than with guns, knives, and bombs. Just think of how many accounts with access to this database there will be... and how many chances to shoulder surf, social engineer, stack smash, and otherwise access and corrupt the data?
ObPaRaNoIa: I'm nearly certain that the fed somewhere is harvesting slashdot pages with a web spider and doing a full text index and cross-correlation with other known "hacker" web blogs... it's a great way to keep track of those "criminals". How many hackers can give up reading slashdot, even when they're running from the law?
Erik
As a taxpayer, can I see my information that floats around in these 'public' databases? The information in the M.A.T.R.I.X? Like reviewing my own credit report?
I suspect not, which then brings up the flip side, how do I protect my privacy and get my information removed from these 'public' databases?
I am not a criminal, but I feel I have no control over my privacy anymore.
-- sed s/liberty/profit/g US.Constitution
"Unforunately no one can be told what the Matrix is.....well....actually, we could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you.......o wait....you're a terrorist, we'll just kill you anyway."
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Welcome to the wonderful world of acronym-driven development.
Oh, and the "R" is probably from TeRrorism, and (naturally) the X is from eXchange. You pick your letters up where you can find 'em folks -- it's a time-honored tradition.
Before you get all hot and bothered about that not "really" being an acronym, remember that 'cp' is for 'CoPy', 'ls' is for 'LiSt', 'rm' is for 'ReMove', etc. etc.
Goddamnit, just when i thought I had the right pill picked they changing the whole system on me. I just don't think i'm going to be able to win this.
...turns out to be our national microscope.
Florida still sucks!
God, what is this, a comic book? Every government agency has to have some stupid acryonym? Or even better, one from a sci-fi film full of sex-symbol actors?
Well, why not. Here are some other suggestions:
Antiterrorist Reactive Security Entity (ARSE)
Compendium Linking Investigations To Open Records or Information Systems (CLITORIS)
Security Council of Republics Opposed to Terrorist and Uberterrorist Masterplans (SCROTUM)
Or maybe this is a bad idea...
At least they picked a name that should strike the proper level of fear into joe citizen. When it was TIA no one had a clue, it was almost as good as the PATRIOT Act (who could vote against being a patriot right?). But with a name like MATRIX thanks to the media machine people will naturally associate it with total helpless control and loss of basic rights.
This program will be quickly dropped, the politicians will say it was all that guys idea *point long finger* and it'll come up again under the name "USA FLUFFY BUNNIES AND PEACE ON EARTH FOR EVERYONE Act"
Vote no on USA FLUFFY BUNNIES AND PEACE ON EARTH FOR EVERYONE!
try:
"Aye Matey, we'll have our passage through the backdoor, then share the spoils. Florida has shown us the Bunghole. Make ready, arrrrrgh!"
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Not reading all of the posts to see if this has been pointed out yet, but George W's brother, Jeb, is the governor of FL.
Coincidence that a federally funded project that they really want is popping up the the Prez's brothers front yard??
J
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
I would bet that this is NOT open source. Asher has a shady past.
Could this program, just happen to miss HIS shady past whenever it is used?
Some of those sources required a court order to look at, now it just requires a horny cop.
No, for some reason people think beter of audatious evil than they do of cringing evil. You never know though, the officer who came up with the name might have wanted to send a warning.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
States Archive of Terrorist Actions Network
OR
S.A.T.A.N
Yeah... that's it
Guess who is developing this system ?
Seisint
guess who is the number 12 campaign contributer to the republicans ? who just got awarded
1.6million (with more to follow)
Seisint
enjoy because its not like anyone will do anything about it, oh except vote them in again
The cabin boy, the cabin boy,
The dirty little nipper,
Packed his ass with Broken Glass,
And Circumcised the Skipper!
Hic!
On the one hand, anything that helps law enforcement officers track down and lock up criminal types is a Good Thing, and anything that helps them identify something dangerous in progress is also Good.
BUT,
On the other hand, there are a wide range of different kinds of cops, and at least half of them aren't the sort of people who should BE cops. They're like the dickhead who used to cruise around my neighborhood on the fourth of july, "confiscating" everyone's fireworks and bringing them home to his own kids, or the cop who keeps a "drop gun" handy in case he fucks up and shoots the wrong person, or the cops who you hear about from time to time, who shake down hookers and drug dealers for their own piece of the pie (pardon the pun).
The problem is, cops are people. And, like all people, some are good and some are bad. Some are REALLY bad. Put a tool like this in their hands, without sufficient top-down control (and you know, they're just going to give that lip service) and at least some of the cops entrusted with this will misuse it. Regularly. Perhaps often.
Another problem is, there's a real "us vs. them" mentality among cops, so even if one cop finds out another cop is, say, digging around in his ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend's records, it's unlikely anything will be done about it. Cops don't "rat" each other out, ok? They just don't. Do you really think a bunch of good old boys are going to keep an eye on each other? What'll really happen is, "Joe won't snitch on Bob for fucking with the guy who 'stole' Bob's girl, if Bob doesn't snitch on Joe for checking up on the hot babe who lives in his building". And, Joe and Bob will keep on misusing their power, as has happened throughout history.
For that reason, I'm against this utterly.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
On the one hand, the use of computers to consolidate information already available to law enforcement is inevitable. It's great that it's happening (relatively) in the open, where some (relatively) accountable people will be setting the regulations. BUT just the fact that this sort of database EXISTS scares the hell outta me. realize that this will be the NUMBER ONE hack target in the world. Detailed information about every citizen and visitor of the United States, from their home address to their shopping habits. terrorists aren't the only ones who will be willing to pay out the *ss for this! And all it takes is ONE bribe-able officer. And we aren't just talking small, hundred thousand dollar bribes, either... many many people would pay in the hundreds of millions of dollars for access to this. And to top it all off, the guy developing it has a suspicious history, and a tendency to volunteer himself for projects involving sensitive government information. But he's trustworthy, right? I hope they have a team of monkeys working around the clock to check for backdoors, 'cause I'D put one in if i was writing this system...
**** You never REALLY learn to swear until you own a computer. ****
I know that everyone is scared about the TIA initiative, and we all pretty much agree that it's a bad thing. But please RTFA, and think about this a little bit:
They are using information that has ALWAYS been available to Law Enforcement. Now, granted, the question we all ask is "How do we know that it will be restricted to use by Law Enforcement?" and "How do we know it won't be abused?", but really, you don't -- and you never did. People always abuse systems, and sometimes they get caught and sometimes they don't, but this particular initiative is not inherently evil.
It is just technology, and to combat it is Luddite.
Hell, this system could be enormously beneficial, especially if it lets citizens check what info the system has on them! You know how hard it is to track down black marks and shit on your record right now? The paperwork is insane. This system brings it all together.
It's just technology. The technology is inevitable. What people should be concerned with is, not trying to cripple or deny funding to these initiatives. They are truly inevitable. Instead, embrace them and try to make sure that the RIGHT laws get passed.
I think that as long as laws are passed -- ironclad laws -- that specify EXACTLY who can use this system and when, everything will be ok. Really, if it is restricted to traditional Law Enforcement agencies (within the state), I don't see a problem. Now when they start tracking our travel and our purchases, like TIA wanted, I worry. But stuff like what car you drive (DMV), your picture (driver's license, DMV), where you live (anywhere), your criminal history (same ol' same ol') -- none of this is new, and it's not particularly sinister. In fact, it kicks ass.
This would be a great system if we lived in a perfect world and nobody would be tempted by evil to misuse the system. But then again, in a perfect world there wouldn't be any bad guys to catch either.
It's not the fact that someone can determine my age, where I live, what color my hair is, my favorite toothpaste, etc that scares me. Anyone who is dedicated enough can find all that info now anyway.
I fear that the developer in this case may sell off back-door info to the highest bidding criminals. This way hackers or criminals/future criminals wishing to commit a premeditated crime can gain the list of suspects that would be given to law enforcement officers before they even commit the crime. Great way to pick an innocent person to frame.
so are these the new dept. of homeland surveillence m$ machines that this will be running on?
not only are they tracking me, they're making it easy for anyone to break into the tracking system?!?!?!
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
Who's with me to get off the network? I got it all figured out. We live in RVs, pay in cash, and use public libraries. And work as freelance technical support using prepaid cellphones. mmwahh hahahah
Paul S. Cameron: The
Matrix has YOU!
Asher has also donated services to the FBI, the Secret Service and other agencies. And authorities credit Seisint with helping to turn up links among the hijackers who slammed planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and to some of their associates.
1) If this statement is indeed true, then my first question is "Were the links apparent before, or after the terrorist attacks".
a) If the answer is "before", then why didn't these paragons of virtue say something and save ~3000 lives?
b) If the answer is "after", then the system is worthless as an intelligence tool. The bits and pieces of any conspiracy are always out in the public before an incident occurs. The value of intelligence analysis is the ability to merge these apparently unrelated pieces of information to reach a conclusion. If their system is only capable of making a link after an event, then Florida residents better keep an eye on their wallets.
Here, I'll do the same thing without their database: 'The Japanese were responsible for
bombing Pearl Harbor.'
Pretty neat, huh?
2) Who goes to jail if the system is used for political surveillance?
a) Considering the system can be abused (a point that even supporters admit is possible), who will be responsible for rouge elements within a state government that use the system to collect information on political activists who disagree with a sitting administration?
b) Does anyone really believe that Nixon DIDN'T use the IRS and FBI to spy on anti-war activists during Viet Nam?
This system, however worthy it is in stopping potential violent acts, is too dangerous a tool to be placed in the hands of politicians.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Cops are always honest and unbribe-able (sp?). Besides the US government has never abused any of its powers.
And the government needs to know your credit rating. Because if you are poor you are a criminal in America today. If you are poor you might have motivation to commit a crime, rich people don't commit crimes because they're already rich.
Vote Quimby!
Does anyone know if the government agencies have access to the source code, and are using internally compiled and configured versions of the software and hardware? This software has been donated for free to the state of Florida, and it seems as though this guy has also donated software to other government agencies. This would be a great way for someone to get backdoors into some of the most sensitive information systems in the U.S.
The problem is the commercial databases that are for sale. I'm more concerned about getting my info off these databases. I want my privacy, actually I demand my privacy.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
No. What you're told is that you can't coerce my children to participate in the practice of your religion -- or, rather, your sect's abuse of religion. Of course, I suppose that I could ask the new Bishop from my branch of the Church to come speak on the tradition of biblical misinterpretation regarding homosexuality to your kids school, if you really want people's religion in the public sphere.
My freedom from your religion is the same right as your protection from mine. If you won't accept the first, then you don't get the second.
I've done lots of privacy work, especially concerning driver's license privacy.
About a year and a half ago, a well known local school board member (known for being very troublesome to other school board members, but extremely well respected and liked by the voters in his community) had an article printed about him in the newspaper saying that he had two driver's licenses.
The question was, how did they find out he had two licenses, since license data is protected by both state and national law. Unless the DMV actually had decided to take action against him (which they had not) someone with access to the database must have called up the paper.
So I called him up, and he said a few days before the article came out, he and his daughter were pulled over. His daughter was driving, but they were in a rented car, so the officer wanted to see his license, because he rented the car. The officer recognized who he was, talked about their military records, and let them on their way. So the hypothesis was that this officer then scanned through the computer, and found the two licenses, and called up the newspaper--which is where the violation of law occurred.
(With regard to the two licenses, the person claimed that it was an error on the part of the DMV. The two records had two different SSNs.)
Anyway, so I did the obvious. Based on freedom of information act, we asked the DMV and the state highway patrol (who runs the computer that the cops use in this state) to give us the data on who accessed the license records and when (a simple record request.)
The DMV cooperated immediately...and nothing of consequence there...they checked his license(s) records when the local newspaper called, to confirm whether or not he did have two licenses (an act which may have violated DPPA (driver's privacy protection act) but that hasn't been determined yet.)
The state highway patrol said that they didn't have to give up their records. Well, I checked through everything I could, but I couldn't find a single place which gave them that authority (though they claimed it.) They said they would perform an internal investigation, and give us the results of that investigation, but would redact the information concerning whom actually looked at his license(s) records.
The story ends there, more or less. The school board member decided that this issue wasn't worth pursuing, given time and resources. And he felt that he already caused enough trouble.
(Actually the story ends this way...two agents of the DMV came to his house and told him that if he gives up the two licenses, they will just reissue him one license at the DMV and that will be that. I don't need to tell you that this is pretty irregular behavior by the DMV (they didn't even charge him) but even with all the time I spend researching the DMV, I can't figure out why they did it.)
I guess the point is, the ability to get auditing records of such a database is vital for making sure it's being used correctly. When a state agency refuses to give up auditing records on yourself, it implies that a need for greater oversight on how they operate.
(My signature talks about my current driver's license privacy project in New Jersey...I wanted yall to know that it didn't happen in NJ, but in Ohio.)
Well, at least a drug-smuggling-pilot-turned-snitch is a somewhat better person to have in charge of all of our personal information than Disgraced Iran-Contra Felon John Poindexter (as El Reg tends to call him... or something similar).
Anyone who can remember back to the year 2000 knows that the State of Florida can certainly be trusted to handle millions of documents in an appropriate fashion.
Insightful post, mod him up, I have allready used my points.
I've worked in companies and so have colleages which have had some military contracts and in my experience with army, navy, air force, et al, the project leaders don't feel good about starting ANYthing until they have a cool acronym for it. No lie, until the acronym is set, no other work is done. The acronym is job #1 for the military planners.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
Anyone ever heard the song "Regaining Unconsciousness" by NOFX?
First they put away the dealers
Keep our kids safe and off the streets
Then they put away the prostitutes
Keep married men cloistered at home
Then they shooed away the bums
and they beat and bashed the queers
Turned away asylum seekers
Fed us suspicions and fears
(We didn't raise our voice)
We didn't make a fuss
It's funny there was no one left to notice
When they came for us
Looks like witches are in season
You better fly your flag and be aware
Of anyone who might fit the descripiton
Diversity is now our biggest fear
Now with our conversations tapped
and our differences exposed
How are you supposed to love your neighbor
With our minds and curtains closed
We had to worry about big brother
Now we gotta big father and an even bigger mother
and you still believe this aristocracy gives a fuck about you
They put the mock in Demockracy and you swallowed every hook
The sad truth is you'd rather follow the school into the net
Cuz swimming in the sea is not the kinda freedom that you actually want
So go back to your crib and suck on a tit
Go back the warmth of your diaper, you're sitting in shit
and piss while sucking on a giant pacifier
A country of adult infants
A legion of mental midgets
A country of adult infants
A country of adult infants
All regaining their unconsciousness
The same way you get Armani Exchange out of A|X
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
"Ass pirates off the starboard bow, ARRRRR!"
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
If this database is as reliable as the one used to purge the voter list in Florida (before the last Presidential election) then most of the people in the country will be "known terrorists".
Liberty is dead. Americans want ZERO risk. Such a people are destined for slavery under an Iron Fist.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
My state's IT people are too incompetent and/or mismanaged to get a single decent IT project completed. I'd say 90% of IT and software design is a total waste in state gov't.
Even if they could get their act together, the house and senate can't sustain funding for them even when there's plenty of money, much less when they are Billions in the red.
Using outside firms, known for cashing in on lucrative cushy government contracts while producing virtually nothing, only compounds the problem.
What makes you think they can make this work?
What will result is a system that will track law abiding people while clever "grifters" and "criminals" short circuit the system, or worse, use the system as a means to further their agenda.
When an incompetent but well-intentioned government spies on their own, they end up exposing to danger the very people they are sworn to protect.
In the U.S., not much talent gravitates to the government sector when fortunes can be made elsewhere.
"Tia" is spanish for "Aunt".
You know, as in the overbearing, meddling aunt who's always gossiping and trying to interfere in your life?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Does anyone remember back a few weeks to this post? Basically by collecting a whole lot of public available information, This guys guy created a great tool. The MATRIX is such a tool, only instead of mapping out Fiberoptic cables, It maps out every details about every ones private lives.
The point i am trying to make is that when the data is scatterd between various sources, It is much more difficult for that data to be abused. As this guys masters thesis could be used by terrorists to attack our national infrastructure, the MATRIX could easily be abused to harm each an individual.
-Windchill2001 The One, The Only, The Cold...
Hail America, the new police state :-(
Time to buy the tinfoil with CASH, and don't use the store discount card. That way they won't know that their mind-control projectors in the van by the street will be totally ineffective. They will be completely unprepared for my overmodulated frobazz directional emitter.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Also I rememebr that nowadays most new cellphones keep precise track of the users location! So if the system were tottally abused, they could Have picture of you, Everyone you have ever spoken with, everything you have read, and even your current location.
Scary...
Benjamin Franklin, who wrote that "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I don't know about you, but I don't feel any safer than I did on September 10, 2001, or September 12, or whatever day you choose to pick. And yet Ashcroft seems intent on tearing down the Constitution piece by piece.
This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
As we all know, eyewitnesses are *terrible* at reporting facts. (Google it if you don't believe me).
So, if you're looking for an Arab male, 20-30, in the LA area, driving a red pick-up truck, this database will turn up 20 matches. Found your guy, right?
Wrong. While you're rounding up innocents for heat-lamp questioning, the 25-year-old Phillipino has ditched the stolen truck and is hightailing it to another state.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
How about People Against Normalcy and Goodness?
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
No it doesn't, I'm afraid. I wish it did, but this is in fact quite deliberate.
By seeing something as overt as this but letting it go, the public is subconsciously, (and not even very subconsciously at that), chosing to accept subserviance. The level of overt control is raised slowly, and the public lets it go at each level, until they have attained a completly defeated slave mentality.
The aim of the current war being waged by government against Americans is not to overtly defeat the populace. It's to lead the populace into a state of self-defeat.
That's how it works. --If they push too far with one attack, (Like this MATRIX shit), and the people start getting rowdy, then they'll immediately pull back and say, "Sorry, Sorry. Didn't mean it, we won't do it. --Well, except for maybe these little parts here and here." And then they'll try again in two weeks with something else. You cannot get them to stop, and you will not be able to find a rational agreement through legislation, because the enemy is not seeking balance; it is seeking total domination and it will not stop pushing and pecking until it has achieved its ends. The public, though dull-witted, is for the most part 'good and reasonable' which means that it will continue to act in good faith. Psychopaths, like Bush are not human and so they will never act in good faith. It's like a diode. The current goes in one direction only. You don't play cards with psychos.
There are exactly three responses one can take to this kind of tactic:
So of those three. . , which are you going to do?
-FL
Colin Powell: "Looks like we are so totally fucking over the american public with another awesome backdoor program."
George Bush: "Backdoor program? What is our excuse this time?"
Colin Powell: "Osama Bin Ladin."
George Bush: "Whoaaaa terrorism! Heheh But what are we really spending the money on."
Colin Powell: "A little of this, a little of that, some for Area 51, but mostly drugs and porno."
Both: "Excellent!"
*Both high five and play guitar*
Why does that not surprise me.
This crap has got to stop.
Read, L
Having had their hands slapped on that one, they instead resort to the lovely "Matrix" acronym -- perhaps (you think?) thinking that it'd be catchy with all those kids who saw the movie... Note to spooks: to the kids who saw the movie, this acronym will not seem cool, it'll just seem unbelievably scary. Criminy.
Best stick to "Patriot" something-or-other. That's always good. Red white and blue for the logo this time... With the people in the image depicted in nifty flight suits. Ah, soothes the worry.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
the MATRIX has us
run for the exit(Canada)!
This reminds me of local police, a tv/radio campaign. "Lock away your valuables so thieves dont take them." Granted, one is stupid for leaving a CD player etc in plain view in their car, however we should not have to suffer just because people steal things from cars - the police should be taking care of the thieves, not the victims. Then again, I'm sure they're out busy catching people for speeding down a hill at only 10k over the limit (or miles or whatever unit other people use!)
The MATRIX is likely written in Clarion for Windows, which would be a real joke on Oracle.
But why does a suspected drug dealer consistently show up in upper management of firms that mine personal data and why does law enforcement work with him?
The problem with the system proposed is that it no longer relies on the the probability of committing a crime. It now relies on the fact that you fit a set of criteria typed into the search engine. Like so:
1. Blonde hair
2. Blue eyes
3. Jeep Grand Cherokee
4. Lives in [insert relevent locality]
Now, instead of looking for a potential criminal by back tracking, we are now looking for everyone that fits that the search criteria.
"Good evening, Chrystoph. Where were you...."
I see this as a great way to a) spend more money investigating innocent people b) generate more false positives c)waste more citizens' private funds protecting themselves from wrongful incriminatation.
If you wanted to control the application, the way to do it is through a central data center that records all transactions and is subject to audit and review as part of the legal process.
-------------------------
As easy as herding cats!
Why is it that "they" are always trying to collect more information when it is evident that the problem isn't insufficient information, but INABILITY to process collected information?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Funny...in Florida they don't want felons (or anyone with a name similar to a felon) to vote, but felons sure as hell can "donate" a Big Brother system to the state. Maybe Asher can help with the state's "felon purge" list too.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
They tried to be cool by cashing in on the whole Matrix thing, but their acronym is really M.A.T.I.E, which fits in better with Pirates of the Caribbean.
Aaaarrrrr....
M.A.T.R.I.X. ('Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange'). where is the fucking R?
when you teach me kung fu
I attended a presentation the chief of police for Delray Beach, FL gave. He showed everyone a traffic ticket for a stopped man in August of 2001. The man was one of the 9/11 hijackers. He was wanted by the next door county about 6 miles away and his record in that county's system had him marked as dangerous.
The officer that worked for Delray Beach put his driver's license in and saw everything as all clear. He gave the guy a citation and he drove off. The two counties' systems weren't linked, so he didn't know better.
Now things are better; there's a federal system they're linked to, etc. But problems like this, where you hear it and you say 'how could that happen? What do you mean they're not linked?' in hindsight can point how we take for granted our government's ability to put 2 and 2 together.
People don't want to admit it but we truly need a national ID whose authenticity can be verified in a better manner than 'yeah you look like the picture here' and we need a centralized repository through which every single criminal act passed through. The government isn't some huge evil organization, it's a gigantic group of mediocre employees who are just doing the best they can. If we don't give them the tools to do their jobs we're putting our safety in the hands of beaurocracy.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
This is great news, Florida's got some pretty good T&A.
--It's Pimptastic!--
>>Seems to me that such a system really works best on people with nothing to hide - which contradicts the very purpose for which it is intended.
Agreed. However, the system fulfills it's purpose well -- it does precisely what it was designed to do. Those objectives are simply different from the stated goals. "Law enforcement" learned (from TIA) not to tell the public the real purpose of privacy-invading projects such as this unless they wished to suffer the wrath of elected officials threatened with voter backlash.
How is this thing so powerful? Can somoene explain this to me?
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Today's print Wall Street Journal (no free web version) mentions how one's medical history "leaks" into a credit report. If you havent paid a medical institution in full, on time, then your payment history goes on your report. The size of the payment and the recipient can indicate if you have something cancer or AIDS, etc. Plus, there have been cases where medical info has been entered directly into the credit report by a creditor. But claims some credit agencies try to eliminate these. (Like yeah).
So some life insurance companies will now obtain your credit history to look for these clues. The WSJ article mentions a 1993 court case over a mortgage company denying a mortgage over medical info on a credit report. The complaintant had a life threatening condition.
With credit cards, mortgages, auto insurance, life insurance, medical insurance, car rental agencies, and airlines and the government now looking at these databases, it can make me a bit paranoid.
I assume that FL and any other states reaching an agreement on this datbase sharing have reached an accord that is blessed by Congress, et al as required in the Constitution? Agreements and treaties between states require Federal approval. If they wanted to, Commerce could probably stop out-of-FL-state data providers from providing data to the state government. Should be interesting.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Hopefully either the brothers Wachowski or Warner will jump on this and put a stop to it before it can get off the ground.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
US Today says a Lockheed janitor was denied a security clearance to clean a sensitive factory area, solely because of a bad credit history. He didnt pay all of his medical bills.
On the comment of M.A.T.R.I.X. being produced by a drug smuggler: who else would know the holes in the system better? This is how countless of my hacker friends have become System Admins or Security Experts for large and small organizations alike. Why? Because they have experience with it. I'm sure you'd sh!t bricks if you found out that your email is hosted on a server administered by none other than someone who used to *read* your emails for fun! But now that he's gainfully employed, he either has less time to hack, or doesn't do it any more.
I am for unified information. However, I'm not enthusiastic about the kind of information that is being unified.
The core issue with this kind of technology and the designers behind it, is who forgives. Who can forgive you of a five-finger discount in Maryland if it prevents you from obtaining a job in Washington -- strictly because it was on your criminal history? If the answer is "nobody", then it's back to the five-finger discounts to feed yourself.
Thank you for reading One Man's Opinion. No participation necessary. Offer void where deemed by law or PATRIOT Act.
The constitutional issue wasn't as clear as you're imagining. We're talking about Dale vs. the BSA? That case got to the Supreme Court. It was a 5-4 ruling there, too, split down the usual schism on the court. They overturned a New Jersey ruling that had gone the other way. How "clearly" constitutional was that? Closer than "clearly," surely.
As for the attempted "destruction" of the BSA, the BSA put me and a lot of other decent people in a real hot seat, and they got what they let themselves in for. If they didn't want to take heat from me, they could avoid humiliating my kids' friends and their parents in order to appease big, conservative funding sources like the Mormon church. How should I explain to two little "tiger scouts" that their parents aren't allowed to be leaders because, while they're much more willing (and able) than the alternatives, they're morally wrong because of the sorts of people they are? These are churchgoing people, in a big way. Next to the ACLU in that case, the BSA were rank yellow cowards. They had a threat to their funding and they wet themselves over it. "Morally straight" organizations have more backbone than that, in my book.
I prefer a little more control since the ACLU is so broad.
Okay, I'll accept that -- but as I said, it's a tough thing: the ACLU is by definition going to be backing points of view that are far afield from anything popular, right? And sometimes it's going to be protecting those against "common sense" positions that are much more popular. If you "target" donations you run the risk of slanting the organization's activity toward much softer cases. I'll accept the risk you're worried about.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
yeah... try swapping the goodness and the normalcy there chum...
How, exactly, could law enforcement be made more effective without gathering information and doing data-mining? The only way I can think of is, potentially, even more dangerous: having more police officers with more power. Information gathering isn't dangerous per se, it's the wrong use of that information that's dangerous. My proposal is, let the security agencies gather all the information they need, but also give more freedom to the press. Remember Watergate, even the most powerful man in the world cannot escape from the long arm of a free press.
Knowing the Florida bush country, they will use Microsoft sql software. This will end all their problems with security, any kid in his basement will be able to get at it.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Which is why the CofP for Delray Beach is giving a presentation for it. The same explanation that you give for mediocre employees applies to the CofP. Put yourself in his shoes when the Feds knock on the door and ask "was this citation written by one of your guys?". Doesn't take a lot of imagination or rocket science to get to where he got, in front of an audience pushing for a fed system.
Driver's licenses are issued by state. I would expect any officer in that state to have access to this information. This has nothing to do with nat identification. I can understand wankers moving states may be difficult to track down. It's why we have special agents of the nat to handle this.
If the pole ice in Florida had their shit in order within state, regardless of nat identity, the offender would've had a hard time when he was pulled over. This is where he screwed up.
Apply the right tool for the right purpose and the right context. A NatID might be useful for programs that are provided by nat.
If a little leg work and some phonecalls are necessary to put together recs from state and fed, then so be it. It's what we pay these guys for.
Linking them all together makes it too easy a tool to be abused for other purposes. The whole point is that the reason you go after someone's information arises from a particular case or issue. Just like this man who has a record. Not, "since we have a tool now that can put these correlations together lets throw a net out there and see what we catch.". You'll end up with alot of dolphins in your net. This is what most people are fearing. If I had a system like this you bet I'll be running queries.
I haven't even gotten into the fact that the nat system they plan to create will incorporate information from unofficial and commercial sources. How would you like your local pole ice to pull you over to check if you've been dwi? It says so on my terminal that you buy a lot of alcohol. Is that your child in your vehicle? Your subscription to Pl@yboy has run out. Are you sure you don't have any weapons on you? Guns and ammo website appears to have your creditcard on file.
The gubment isn't some huge evil organization, it's just a huge organization. There are some people in it that may act evil. it's a gigantic group of mediocre employees who are just doing the best they can, to cover their asses and climb the ladder, just like corporate. The difference between gubment and corporate is gubment has authority and enforcement and jails and guns.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
This is my uninformed opinion, so someone tell me if I'm wrong, but it's for that reason that the Matrix seems a little scarier than the TIA program. TIA, I thought, was at least controlled by the FBI. I opposed it for slippery slope reasons, but I figured it would pretty much be used for its intended purpose.
...
This, on the other hand, would be in the hands of every local police station. That's way more access points, in the control of much less qualified officials. I don't know how accurate the parent post's stereotypes are -- I suspect that most cops are basically just trying to do their job -- but I would certainly not trust the Matrix in the hands of my local police force.
Let's all say that again, by the way. We're all gonna be in a database called the Matrix. Who has you? That's right -- the Matrix has you! Yay!
Oooh, they screwed up this time. Bring on the PR
If the Pentagon won't offer a market, I will:
Cheney seeks asylum in France by Nov. 2004 120.00 +2.30
Blair hosts Do You Want To Be A Millionaire by Jan. 2004 98.65 -3.05
G. W. Bush indicted for tax fraud by Oct. 2003 111.45 +0.34
Saddam Hussein disovered in Cheney's bunker by Sept. 2004 99.00 +0.89
Cheney seeks asymlum in Afghanistan by Sept. 2004 101.23 -0.67
Rumsfeld plays Dr. Strangelove in Dr. Strangelove II 100.00 -0.93
Florida, what does Bush's war on terror have to do with Florida....thinking...? Oh yes. That is where his brother is governor. And that is the state that fucked it all up for the rest of us. Thanks Florida and the supremely lame court. Hopefully this matrix thing is a one-off example from a me-too state.
Don't you need a driver's license to drive the R.V.s?
Who said drive? He said live.
I'm sure you can be left quite alone if you become a hermit in the mountains, and while there are certain advantages to that lifestyle, I think I'll pass
I'm sure you can be left quite alone if you become a citizen of another country. While there are certain advantges to each, I suggest you find out all of them.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
***** TOP SECRET *** LEVEL OMEGA *****
****** DESTROY BEFORE READING ******
.
.
--- ROUTED VIA: USA/UK Echelon Network ---
.
.
FROM: Jeb Bush, Satrap of Florida
TO: George Bush II, Emperor of Amerika and Scourge of Liberty
CC: Carl "Grima Wormtongue" Rove; "Tricky Dickie" Cheney; Donald "Shrug" Rumsfeld; John "Hang 'Em High" Ashcroft; Tom "Gestapo" Ridge; Condoleezza "I Didn't Say That!" Rice
BCC: The Eye of Sauron; Lux Ferre, First of The Fallen; The Illuminated Seers of Bavaria; Baba Yaga; the Fenris-Wolf Who Shalt Devour the Sun; He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named c/o Slytherin House; the Hungry Shades of Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot.
RE: T.I.A. (HomeSec Censor: Please, "Terrorist"! We've warned you before, Sir!) Information Awareness Project
.
.
Bro,
How's it hanging? (So, can I borrow your padded flight suit and the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan next month or not? I got a thing scheduled...)
Now that you've got the nation focused on the federal-level T.I.A. and PATRIOT Act hearings and our good buddy Poindexter is doing the fall guy thing for P.A.M. (not to mention our highly publicised "spat" over Cuban returnees having lowered everyone's sights from me. Brilliant! Thank Rove again for coming up with *that* one. Heheheh.), I'm going ahead with Phase One our real plan of slipping in Operation Eye in the Pyramid state-by-state under the media and federal oversee committee radar.
Full details to follow later: Got me a press feeding to conduct in a few minutes.
You'll love the code name for this one: M.A.T.R.I.X. !!! Boy-o-boy, *that's* almost as good a name as the FBI's CARNIVORE Phone/Net intercept operation (yeah, yeah -- I heard some bleeding-heart convinced some wuss in the J. Edgar. Hoover Building downtown to change it to "DCS1000". As if the average Joe even cares to look behind *any* curtain in Oz...)
Love to Pops. Don't forget to up his drugs again : I'm a bit worried after that last "no comment" thing in response to media queries to his opinion of you a few months ago...
Novus Ordo Seclorum! (Or as you like to say, "Bring It On!")
Affectionately,
Jeb
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
"A senior official overseeing the project acknowledged it could be intrusive and pledged to use it with restraint"
Perhaps this will be the great defense to the subjugation of our liberties: "But we used restraint!"
I feel better already, after all they're going to use restraint.
Before you get all hot and bothered about that not "really" being an acronym, remember that 'cp' is for 'CoPy', 'ls' is for 'LiSt', 'rm' is for 'ReMove', etc. etc.
cp ls and rm are not "really" acronyms either. Unlike most acronyms that are used in the english language to shorten very long combination of words to abbreviations easy to remember, speak or type, these unix commands are not very long or very difficult to remember, in full form. GREP maybe.
I'm not sure why copy list and remove were shortened, perhaps punchcards or something to do with $/character costs, but if anyone's got an explanation or even a theory, I'd like to know.
"Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp
What a bunch of poo. I WORK at Grissom ARB (not AFB anymore) and it IS closed down except for a small - pathetically small - core section dedicated to the Reserves. Air Force Reserves (Tanker Squadron, just reduced in size by half a dozen aircraft due to force restructuring - the aircraft have moved to another Reserve unit, don't recall which) is the main host. Other tenet units include very small Navy and Army Reserve units - I work in the shared building with the Navy. The rest of the base is a ghost town; run down bunch of 50's era buildings, some being used by small businesses. The old base housing area is now a fully open civilian housing development. Former military building from Grissom's heyday are now restaurants, VFW posts, and the like.
The state penitentiary is down the road on what USED to be Grissom AFB property. It is a STATE PEN, not a FEMA/Government "detention center" as members of the "Patriot Movement" seem to want to believe. Sheesh.
The base itself, what's left of it, is in danger of being closed down all the way. At that point, like every other closed military base derived from the force reductions after Desert Storm, it would be "sold" to civilian concerns to be used as industrial parks, housing, etc, perhaps even small civil airports.
Your links are nice, paranoid, Deus Ex-inspired cowflops. Some people, bored by the way their lives really are, feel the need to dress up their boring, dreary reality with "exciting" fantasy where they can pretend to be one of the select few "in the know" and may be the hero of the hour with their silly fatigues, toy guns (vs real military hardware), toy "training" (actually gripe/paranoia-spreading meetings about the evil, so-90's, New Word Order where the uneducated "educate" the less educated).
Nothing to see here (or anywhere in the links provided) folks, just fantasizing and paranoia.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Oh yeah...a suggestion for the mouth breathers that go for all this FEMA/New World Order/UN takeover/detention center crap. Flit about the woods in Oregon (wont say where) and you might well stumble on a PRISON CAMP that isn't on ANY maps that is run by the US GOVERNMENT! Actually, run by the military (wont say which branch). You will see barbed wire, American citizens being required to do hard labor year 'round, with armed military guards WEARING BLACK NONDESCRIPT UNIFORMS!
I've been there, I know. I did labor in that camp. It rather sucked in a cool way. It is used to teach SURVIVAL and escape and evasion tactics to military personnel that require it. That's right, they (the guv'mnt) create these "labor camps" and man them with evil military instructors to teach military personnel what to expect if captured during wartime, what sort of interrogations to expect, and how to resist. They also give you training on how to escape and evade.
Go out there as some ya-hoo with a camera and you could produce a spiffy New World Order warning website complete with pictures depicting a "secret" and operational prison camp for Americans. A little (or a lot) of ignorance could be nicely focused into a totally moronic direction and some paranoid delusion about FEMA, etc, could be promulgated based on totally disjointed, out of context photos. Sounds ripe for some "Patriot" to pluck. What say you...have a go? It would be just as good as the links above, and just as valid and "confirmatory" of some paranoid fantasy.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Government coders all over the country marvelled at the cutting edge technology used
select user_name from everyone where last_purchase = 'box cutter';
So when is the US government going to start making every Muslim war a crescent moon badge on their outer clothing?
I'm as anti TIA call up pictures of my mom on a whim as anyone. But I'm pro-technology. In other discussions (p2p, for example) I often argue that the luddites should get out of the way. Technology is progress! If you're not with us, then you are a candlemaker in the age of electricity. Too bad for you.
/. about how people how post statements to /. are idiots. Those people truly are. But come on. I don't think the issue or answers here are at all obvious. They are worthy of deep thoughtful discussion. So screw on your thinking caps, and the next time this topic comes up (probably within the next 24 hours) try to add some depth to the conversation. This is a great forum in which to do so. Slashdot is read by millions. Take advantage. Get some good ideas out there. God knows we need them.
I think the same argument applies here. Like it or not, using databases to correlate huge repositories of information is just not that difficult. It's going to happen. How can it be stopped?
Are there any constitutional provisions protecting us from such technology? Not that I know of. Quite frankly, the constitution is rather ambiguous on the subject of your privacy. Witness the recent bruhaha vis-a-vis sodomy in Texas for example. In that case the Supreme court came down on the side of privacy. How the supremes feel about your medical records, your social security number, your photograph, your fingerprints, your school record, your criminal record, your address, etc. has yet to be determined. It's not so clear that anything in the US constitution protects you from the potential abuses inherent to correlating all that information. The constitution proper primarily concerns itself with what the goverment can do. The Bill of Rights primarily concerns itself with what the government cannot do. As far as I know, there's nothing in there that says the government can't make a database. Funny, it probably never occured to them.
On the other hand, the constitution doesn't protect you from the abuses inherent to giving everyone ready access to gasoline, either. Are you afraid of gasoline?
So here's an idea. If the government is going to create vast databases of information about its citizens - fine. But make those databases public. The problem is one of power. If only a few people have access, they have too much power. Give *everyone* access. It's not o.k for John Poindexter to look up pictures of my mom on a whim. But it's o.k. if anyone in the world can do so.
The truth is the truth. Who's afraid of the truth? The biggest lotto winner who gave millions to churches just had hundreds of thousands of dollars recovered behind the dumpster of the brothel he was visiting. That's the truth. You can read it in the papers. Throw open the bathroom doors! What you do with yourself is the Truth! Let it show, baby!
Yeah, whatever. I want to poop in private. I believe its my right to do so. I want to fuck in private too. And talk to my doctor about my vascectomy in private. I want my school records to remain private. I want my criminal record, meager as it may be, to remain private also. But I want to know if my neighbor is a child molester.
My main point is - this is goddamn complicated issue. And I'm getting pretty sick of the typical slashdot rhetoric. I'm not one to post statements to
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
I value and protect my privacy as much as anyone, maybe more. But, opposition to government collection and correlation of public data is not opposition to decreased privacy. It's opposition to using information that is already public. Frankly, I'd rather the government did that themselves, rather than let some unaccountable corporation in the private sector do the job.
(If you're in the U.S.: Quick, tell me the names of the corporations that track your financial transactions and determine your credit rating, and then tell me if you're really comfortable with that.)
To paraphrase, get over it. The only way to be private is to avoid being public. Got a job? Got a driver's license? A bank account? Buying a house? Renting an apartment? Go to a public school? Use the mail? Ever take a commercial flight? Get married? Get divorced? Ever take out a loan...
You get the idea. Threats to our privacy do not from improved access to information that's already in the public domain.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I don't suppose these assholes would be kind enough to limit data to citizens of participating states....
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
... this sound more like SKYNET to me!
I actually think this system can work, but it needs three major adjustments:
1) Anyone who wants to access information from this system, for whatever reason, must get a search warrant from a judge before doing so.
2) People must be allowed to retrieve their own records at will and be permitted to submit corrections to incorrect data.
3) Public oversight in the form of a third-party's review of the system should be enforced in the form of an annual report to congress or some such body detailing the usage of the system (times it was accessed, by who, for what info, whether a conviction or arrest was ever obtained on the suspect.)
All in all, I think that enormous databases of information for law enforcement purposes are inevitable, but they need to have appropriate checks and balances in place before they become safe to implement IMHO. None of the current systems or proposals would meet my standards for this, and anyone who thinks that these safeguards would cripple the system with buerocratic inefficiency should go watch the excellent movie Enemy of the State for a quick hollywood-style remider of the consequences of failing to implement appropriate safeguards.
That kind of thing only happens to Arabs. Just Arabs. Okay, just Arabs and Jose Padilla. Even John Walker got a fair trial. I think.
Anyway, just Arabs, Jose Padilla and John walker. Like I said, nothing to worry about, you're more like to get hit by a bus or something.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Yes, pretty much that's true.
Totalitarian conditions do little to reduce crime anyway. Communist (ahem) Russia has a remarkably high crime rate, a world-class Mafia second-to-none, a thriving black market, and a government bureaucracy that is corrupt to the core.
There is a difference between being able to abuse a citizen whenever desired (think men in suits knocking on your door at 3 am) and having total control over said citizen, meaning that the citizen will always do what his government wants/expects. Abusive governments abound, but people still find ways to do what they want to do anyway. They just have to learn to hide it better.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
FEMA is a real agency. Indeed, they were the ones in charge of New York during the 9-11 circus. Between them and the Patriot act, and various other creepy laws, (some of which are discussed breifly here ) once a crisis has been declared, it will be entirely 'legal' to put virtually anybody in prison for whatever reason some chump in a uniform decides is good enough for him.
If the sliver of perspective you have leads you to feel safe and secure, then that's fine. That's your choice. But don't describe my concerns as "Fantasy" and "Paranoia".
Not when the current government is filled with liars, who through their lies send kids off to war against nations which posed no threat, and who do it for no other reason than Greed. There is no argument here. None. If you give me one, it had better be good, because I've heard all the bullshit there is so far, and it all comes from people who don't think and who don't read anything but the state and Zionist-owned idiot media. Bush and his gang are LIARS, plain and simple. --And if you bothered to look at some of the information which is freely available, you would not only recognize this, but also the fact that those lies are directly responsible for the current miserable state of the economy, and of War against straw-man villains.
When the axe falls, and it WILL, you sound like you're a ripe candidate for the 4th option, (the one I specifically decided not to mention last post); and that is, "Be one of the assholes shooting civilians."
How was it put. . . "The people would rather believe a simple lie than a complex truth."
-FL
Is it at all surprising that this has originated in a fiefdom of the Bush Junta?? Do they really think this will succeed? Hell if the average American can download Spectre Gunship footage, AND Coeds Gone Crazy with impunity, what is the NSA/CIA/FBI/AFU, really going to find? Not a whole hell of a lot I bet. This too shall pass, just like yesterdays Taco Bell; it stinks and maybe burns a little but you get over it.
" My next house will have no kitchen - just vending machines and a large trash can. "
Yes, thank GAWD for FEMA. They were there recently (near Grissom by the way) after the flooding that occurred in the county. Lots of lost and damaged homes - people are still recovering.
I was on duty at Grissom right in the middle of it. I ran into a couple fo the "evil" FEMA dudes at a local hotel. Evil schmucks - all regular guys and gals like my neighbors. No doubt, under their pullover FEMA t-shirts they had body armor and enough firepower to make Duke Nukem envious.
You honestly don't know word one about what your are talking about. FEMA exists, yes, because they are NEEDED. Who else is going to respond (and respond quickly) to a disaster to make sure that people have shelter, food, medical treatment, and that resources are made available for cleanup and rebuilding? Think that "just happens" on its own? Nope. The guvmnt is DOING ITS JOB when it sends in FEMA and the Guard after a disaster of some type.
Under Natl Guard rule (after hurricanes, flooding, etc) they are there to provide aid but also to keep order, prevent looting, etc. Their rules for dealing with such are quite a bit different than normal cops. Get over it. It has ALWAYS been that way (and you will welcome FEMA and the Guard if ever you are caught up in the midst of a huge disaster, whether it is a massive tornado wiping out EVERYTHING you own, monstrous hurricans, or a terrorist attack - you would prefer nothing happen when some terror group - perhaps a "Patriot Movement" group - releases sarin or plague in your area? Or perhaps someone sets off a dirty bomb...FEMA has no place? The Guard has no place? Federal Emergency Management Administration. Their job is to manage recovery after disasters/emergency situations. Under the most extreme situations, the Prez can CONSTITUTIONALLY declare martial law - that's built in by design for good reason - to prevent chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, and to aid in rapid recovery to normal. Get over it and grow up.
I suppose all state pennitentiaries or federal prisons are actually "evil" prison camps intended to imprison general citizenry...and they should all therefore be eliminated. No more prisons. Yeah, that sounds good.
Naturally, I am wasting breath here. Some people are determined to live a fantasy out of a video game, and pretend they're some kind of Rambo-like hero waiting to save the day. Go back to your boring, quiet job at the gas station or with the sanitation department. My trash is ready to be taken to the dump.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
As it was explained to me recently, the problem with a TIA system is the problem of false positives....let's say:
population : 250,000,000
TIA is 99% likely to match a "bad guy"
lets assume there are 1000 bad guys in the population (ok lets say "really really bad guys" then)
the system finds 99%of them : 990 positive profiles
But let's say the TIA is 0.1% likely to falsely finger someone:
the system produces 250,000 false positives...
So now you have 990 + 250,000 = 250,990 profiles to examine and in fact, only 0.25% of them are geniuine. The rest get their doors kicked in after midnight as the suede-denim secret police blithely take the algorithm to its logical conclusion.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
(Here's another with site with some photos, --one including a shot of a placard with a date stamp, reading "Jun 00", presumably indicating a construction date shortly after Shrub's election. This particular set of photos is of an un-manned camp, hence the ability to take photos).
It's also not in Mississippi as the site claims. Look further down the list of photos: there's a STOP sign with with lettering STANI. There's also a mile-marker sign showing 17.4 km to Srebrenica, and 0.5 km to Kadanj.
This camp is in Bosnia-Herzegovina, not Mississippi.
Edith Keeler Must Die
You are probably right if you are considering "effective" in the pure economic way. I meant effective as "to catch as many criminals as possible whilst being as most non-intrusive as possible."
Bush is still a liar. The laws on the books still allow FEMA to incarcerate people without any hope of their being redressed in a civilian court under constitutional law.
And yes, I already agreed that these agencies exist on (semi)-logical grounds and that there is a reason for it being so. But you seem not to have read that either.
You are clearly only listening to the things you want to hear. --As for your glib comment about the US prison system. . , has it never occurred to you as strange that the prison population of the U.S. is higher per capita than it has EVER been before in the history of the U.S.? --And not just by a couple of small percentage points either. Tacitus once warned us, "The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws."
And as for Dirty Bombs and such going off in my neighborhood. . , well, I suspect that such things would be the result of the same people who engineered 9-11. Which, if you examine the mountain of evidence available, you would soon realize was none other than parts of your own government.
But maybe you'll only laugh at that rather than do any reading. --Heck, as evidenced here, you seem reluctant to read a basic post on Slashdot properly.
You also seem to think that it is impossible for the fine, regular men and women in FEMA, (and other agencies), to do dastardly things. Let me ask you this: Would you put me in a pen if your CO told you I was a terrorist but furnished no proof? (They don't give evidence to soldiers, do they?)
There's your answer.
And by the way, if you want to make single carriage returns between your paragraphs rather than leave those big oaf-spaces, you should put a 'BR' between the greater/less-than signs rather than a 'P'. --Not that I'd expect you to know such a detail. Research would have been required for that!
Are you catching my drift here. . ?
-FL
That won't work. You've got to be able to make a neat abbreviation out of it.