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HomeSec Blacklist to be Available to Private Companies
unassimilatible writes "The Washington Times reports that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are developing a database that will allow private companies to submit lists of individuals to be screened for a connection to terrorism. The database will eventually allow private-sector entities, such as operators of critical infrastructure facilities or organizers of large events, to submit a list of persons associated with those events to the U.S. government to be screened for any nexus to terrorism. All of this won't be cheap either; total terror-related IT spending by US federal and state governments will run past $100 billion in 2004. But don't feel left out Europeans, since the EU is considering a terror database as well, although France and UK are reluctant to share intel."
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."
"The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history."
and, probably my favorite one,
"Winston Churchill could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war."
Just thought I'd share...
Sucks even more to be a David Nelson soon, I'll bet. Link.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
you're not kidding... this stuff is for real... i know someone whose step-daughter is a 16 year old mtv-styled greenpeace-enthausiast white kid with a website... and on account of this he's been put on some list and it showed up when he failed to get clearance from the government for a job he was applying to...
I doubt they will tell you that they're on the list. The FBI handles investigation into terrorists just like they investigate drug operations. They're not just interested in causing a single person to stop their plans, as a terrorist would do if they found they're on the list. They're interested in following the person around, finding out as much as they can, and then taking down the entire operation.
What this all means is they can't tell terrorists that they're on the list. As such, they would probably have to give false reports of innocence to people who were on the list and did a background check on themselves.
You'll never know you're on their list. It's difficult to find out if you're being watched now, anyways. For example, if your phone was being tapped, the phone company and law enforcement won't let you know you're being watched. And they don't tell you that you're not being watched. They just won't tell you anything. Just the same, you would never be able to find out if you're on the list or you're not.
Company security guard with nothing to do at 4am spots a screensaver dumping the Zippy the Pinhead fortune file to my CRT. Something to the effect of "I want to blow everyone up with a cute, colorful hydrogen bomb!" He writes it up, 24 hours later they call me into a 9am meeting (I have to drive 85 miles to get there) and start treating me like a mental patient "Is there something bothering you?" I explain to them that the screensaver was from a corporate approved Linux Distro installed and configured by their corporate IT guy, and I never touched it. They start screaming at me, accusing me of not cooperating, and saying things like "It was on your computer, therefore you are responsible! You are creating a hostile workplace!" as if their screaming at me doesn't create a hostile workplace. They then confiscate my badge, suspend me and send me back home again. Gee thanks, for making me drive 3 hours just so you could yell at me! Sound too ridiculous to be true? No, this actually happened to me as a contractor at HP!
Years ago, when I lived in the home city of a large multi-national corporation, there was a Green Peace protest. A few GP folk set up shop in town to protest various past and/or present activities of the giant. Seems a local sheriff and the corporation shared some intelligence information while investigating these people. Who they were, who the were known to sleep with, what they ate, etc. A serious gaffe. Heads rolled (probably a few just for appearances) and Green Peace brought their lawyers in (who are no strangers to this sort of thing.) Suits filed, etc. Terribly ugly stuff.
That was then, 20 years ago or so. Now business and government are unabashed about doing something like this. How far we've come.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Reality doesnt gibe with your charactarization.
You say:
"The so-called "anti-globalization" drummings of a few highly-motivated but ultimately uninformed marchers is neither as significant, nor as threating to "the man" as to warrant the kind of Gestapo tactics you're talking about."
You are wrong and here are my facts to support it. You may or may not be aware of this but during the Miami Free Trade summit they really did use Gestapo tactics and the "the man" certainly felt that the event was threatening.
Here are just a few highlights from the FT summit in Miami:
- Use of undercover "snatch squads". There were groups of plainclothes officers who mingled with the crowd to arrest people without warning.
- Reporters with the corporate news sources were kept behind police lines. Reporters were decked out in full riot gear, like embedded journalists in a war zone.
- Independant journalists, and particularly indymedia reporters, were frequently arrested, or had their video cameras, film, and notepads seized.
- Even the permitted labor march did not escape harassment, as the police turned away several busses full of retired union members from the Alliance of Retired Americans who were trying to travel to the march.
The federal government gave the city of Miami $8.5 million for "anti-terrorism" security at the talks, as part of an $87 billion appropriations bill for the rebuilding of Iraq.Now let me be clear. They used money for the war in Iraq to quash protesters in Miami. I'm a reasonable person and I'm concerned. What on earth makes you think they wouldnt use a system like the one described here to monitor folks with such political views?
-_-
No it is not such a bad question because some groups such as Earth First, some of the anti-abortion activists and some anti-vivisectionists crossed the line long ago. Earth First does things which are very likely to kill people, like spike trees.
There certainly are radical terrorists who champion those causes, the problem is that the line is usually abused. The current UK foreign secretary was under MI5 surveillance when he was a student. So Blair's number one man in the war on terra was once on a blacklist.
I have seen this happen personally in the UK. A group associated with the UK conservative party called the Economic League maintained a blacklist of 'left wing sympathizers' that they sold to an undisclosed list of employers. I got listed for saying that there was no way I was going to have anything to do with any group that used those tactics. In case people are wondering how privately educated sons of the establishment like myself turn on the tory party like I did, well that was the Damascus moment for me.
You can easily verify this claim further with a small amount of Googling. The list itself collapsed in irrelevance after Bob Maxwell bought a copy and set up a stand at the Labour party conference. There were more Tories on it than left wing radicals. They used to list each other when they got into faction fights.
Given the treatment meeted out to Richard Clarke in the past few days, there is no way that John Ashcroft or George Bush can be trusted with such a power. They are now talking of selectively declassifying intelligence for the sole purpose of being able to punish Clarke with a specious perjury prosecution. They went after Wilson by illegally uncovering the fact that his wife was a covert CIA operative. The continued to threaten O'Niel with prosecutions even after it was admitted that the Whitehouse had cleared all his documents for release.
And you know what? At this point I'm not really sure that Ashcroft's excuse for holding Padilla without indictment or trial is going to turn out to be valid when we find out what it is.
In the past few days Bush has shown more energy and passion in his efforts to crush Clarke than he ever has in his pro-forma attempts to track down and eliminate al Qaeda. I simply cannot believe that any other major party candidate in that race on either side would not have invaded Afghanistan to destroy al Qaeda and stayed there focused on that single task until it was complete. Forbes, Keyes, Gore, Bradley, I can't believe a single one would not have invaded (they would have been impeached anyway so it would not matter) and I can't believe any other candidate would have finished the job.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/