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Thirty-Three States Contributed to the MATRIX
lexbaby writes "The Salt Lake Tribune has an article claiming that at least 33 states have released government and commercial records on residents to the controversial MATRIX (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) network instead of the originally claimed 13." Don't worry, there's plenty of RAM for all 50 and the territories too.
Mouth shut, eyes forward, do what you're told. Don't question authority.
Smile for the cameras. They're everywhere and they're watching you.
Secure all zippers, buttons, tie clips, etc. Wardrobe Malfunction isn't funny anymore, it's subversive.
Turn in your neighbors on the slightest hint they're trouble makers. You won't get a pair a blue jeans, but you help keep your country safe.
Pokemon: Catch 'em all, otherwise you never know where they are or what they are up to.
Cover your mouth when coughing or sneezing to avoid Germ Warfare Terrorist label.
Vote for the most patriotic sounding politician, no matter what their platform.
Remember, we're all in this together.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Once this MATRIX is proven to be useless, either by failing to catch terrorists or not predicting the next attack, will the government kill the program? Of course not.
Fear has always been a great method to let government erode privacy and rights.
Trolling is a art,
do you see any tigers? it must work
I am guessing Mr. Ashcroft pay this out of his own pcoket. So this tax payer's money.
Is this going to make you any safer? Doubtful.
Is this going to make you poorer? Yes, Indirectly.
Is this going to make Seisinit richer? Sure.
Is this going to violate your privacy? Most Definitely.
So you are basically paying Seisinit to take away your privacy. This is a bit like this story here. But that one is a bit more believable.
Nothing to see here
I don't have to present burden of proof since I'm not the one making outlandish statements in the first place...nor am I making those statements on the front page of a "news" site and alluding to them being true.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Darpa with a new Internet for more control, more MATRIX states. I am starting to get scared. I am Canadian and the only hope we have is that the US has freedom of expression that we can emulate. Please rise up and fight this demon that justifies itself with the "think of the children argument". The end does not justify the means.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Enough with the MATRIX puns, look at the issue seriously. I live in France and had never heard of this project before, but it sure looks scary, or at least, the government not saying everything about it is.
Can be read in the article: "We don't want our information floating out there when we don't know what's on the database or who has access to it," said Sen. Ron Allen, D-Stansbury Park. It seems the people actually involved in this do not know very much what information will be withheld, let alone the people whose information is withheld. I mean, how can you be sure what you're being told is the truth when you see that the people involved with the project do not know that much about it themselves?
The representatives say that the MATRIX is just a way of accessing individuals' information faster, but I don't really see how this could help them to predict where and when the next terrorist attack will be -- it will only really help them once the acts are actually done, I should think.
I'm not stating that the government are surely up to something dodgy here, and after all, perhaps they might not be lying when they say that this will allow them to get hold of currently available information faster. But I just cannot read this without an ounce of doubt that a few privacy breaches might help them to fulfill their task.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval
This is true because, as Authority Figures, our exalted leaders and police officials can be trusted completely to act diligently and with only the public interest in mind. Abuses of power for political or personal reasons are quite impossible, now and evermore. Liberals foolishly fail to understand this simple fact that every Good Dog knows.
The really cool thing about this is that they'll always be able to round up a good number of plausible suspects for anything that might happen, without all the hassle and expense of identifying the actual perpetrator or - what's worse - having to actually prove guilt. That way Ashcroft et.al. get to look like heroes whether any real justice is done or not. We the People insist on no more than that somebody be apprehended. I'd like to have a job like that. I could say, "Lookee here, Mr. Boss-Man, sir. I wrote you a hunnert lines o' code," and Mr. Boss-Man wouldn't even care if it compiled, much less did anything useful.
I dunno about you, but I didn't enjoy the Spain incident.
You're taking a big leap of faith here if you're suggesting that the liberty/safety trade-off is real. Under Hitler, Stalin and Mao, nobody was safe. Don't expect any better here if we hand absolute power to Bush and his minions (or anyone else, for that matter).
I fear a state of mind that makes living freely and happily quite cumbersome. I myself will side with the hundreds of thousands of Americans that have died protecting these rights and will accept a certain level of uncertainty pertaining to "terrorists", thank you very much...
In other words, "Live free or die". For those that may want to reconstruct this sentiment to form something like "you will die OR live free", remember what that quote means. It means, "I would rather die than to NOT live free". And I would agree. You see, I am an American, and I understand what freedom means, and therefore when I see it being eroded for unseemly ends I must, in a working democracy that is, rise up and fight. It is my duty as an American, and as a patriot.
Vote these bastards out of office... our freedom depends on it...
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Read, L
I would also assert that this "if you don't like it, leave" mentality is unAmerican. The proper attitude should be "if you don't like it, vote and change it." Certainly, if there were a mass exodous of citizens from the country, that would change things because there would be not enough workforce to keep the infrastructure running. However, short of that mass exodous, leaving the country will not change anything. Voting, however, has changed much.
For all those people who love to say "if you don't like it here, leave," I'm considering turning them in to homeland security as terrorists because they are trying to undermine the American way. I'm not going to do it, but it's a fun idea.
"I swear I won't break you if you let me take you where the willows never weep" -- Switchblade Symphony
Funny how Dems decry the media as the puppets of multi-national conglomerates owned by frat buddies of high-ranking pubblies, while pubbies decry the liberal hippie media as a bunch of commie-loving bastards.
What's even funnier is that Oliver Stone, probably one of the most hated (by right-wingers) directors in Hollywood once made a film about how aweful and terrible the media is. It was called, "Natural Born Killers".
The media doesn't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican. The media doesn't care what your position is. The media doesn't care if you're alive, dead, growing mushrooms out of your eyelids, or bleeding to death in the back of a city cab. What they do care about are the ratings you and your story may bring to them. What the media does care about is reporting the things that will keep them employed and successful.
There's a concept that's lost on most people these days, and it's something that would solve probably 80% of the problems plaguing us at this point: personal responsibility.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
"Upon being asked if you are a terrorist, make relevant portions of this record avaliable."
I read your post right the first time - you just made up that "legitimate authority" requirement when you saw how flimsy your proposal looks. Who's a "legitimate authority"? That's not for you, a private citizen, to decide. The courts already have lots of ways to extract your life record from you, based on due process. And that "white married christian male" fetish you've got tends to protect Aryan Nation people from scrutiny, too, now doesn't it? I don't know why you've got any complaints at all with the current procedures, given your apparent satisfaction with faith based government.
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make install -not war