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."

Comments

Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[some2]

The issue with allowing this is that terrorist organizations, who are generally well funded, may be able to check associates against the list and verify they are not listed. They can also get creative and monitor the list to find the leaks of information, such as when a new person in their organization is introduced to one of their existing associates (the leak), and then the new member suddenly shows up on the list. People don't have to be terrorists when they join organizations either (initial screening), they can choose to go that way after they have joined.

Besides, this list has been around for ages, and has been circulated among financial institutions for years. It's not really anything new, it's just more public now.

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[ehack]

I wonder what the blacklist equivalent of a googlebomb is ?
How much do you have to pay to get your favorite "friend " listed ?

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[Ralph JH Nader]

Somehow, I think if you're on the list, the FBI will be a little more discrete than just return the list to the company and tell the company which people are suspected of being terrorsts. I would expect, instead, that the FBI would probably handle it in a more discrete way. They might do further investigation on suspected terrorists that are attending the event, and might even attend the event and follow them around. I'll leave it up to you to decide if the FBI's secrecy is for reasons of common sense or for evil, but I'd bet that's how they handle it.

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[Ralph JH Nader]

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.

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[saforrest]

Somehow, I think if you're on the list, the FBI will be a little more discrete than just return the list to the company and tell the company which people are suspected of being terrorsts.

As humorous as it is to think of the FBI being discrete (not continuous?):

s/discrete/discreet/g

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[WNight]

Just get a low-end job doing something for an airline. Have your terrorists take a flight every now and then. If they're flagged you can find out when the screeners haul them off for a fruitless check (of course on these flights they'd be as clean as a newborn babe) and you remove them from any position they have in your organization. If they aren't on the list they merely establish a background as someone who flies frequently making it even easier to bypass security in the future.

They won't release the list, but if you can watch the use of the list you can figure out who is on it by who gets hassled. If they don't do extra checks based on the list it's not going to stop you from flying with a bomb and won't inconvenience you much.

But the whole idea is pretty lame. Criminals use fake ID. The current crop of religious idiots also uses suicide bombers who only have to sneak past security once, the first and last time.

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[cas2000]

> The issue with allowing this is that terrorist
> organizations, who are generally well funded, may
> be able to check associates against the list and
> verify they are not listed.?

yes, that's one of the problems with it.

another problem is "what is the definition of a terrorist?", and the related issue of "who gets to decide?"

will, say, greenpeace be classified as a terrorist organisation because they "cause economic harm" to US interests? what level of dissent, membership of which political and/or protest organisations will cause someone to be classified as a terrorist?

(this is not as ridiculous as it sounds - i've already heard several oil & forestry industry representatives refer stridently to environmental activists as "terrorists")

what happens to an individual who is a member of so-called terrorist organisations like Greenpeace or the Sierra Club or some other moderate activist group? will they be able to get a job? will they be able to buy a plane ticket or a train ticket? will they be able to go to public events, e.g. purchase tickets to a concert? will they be refused a bank account because the govt checks says "Yes -- they are associated with terrorist groups"?

say goodbye to the right to dissent. going, going....gone.

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[Zeinfeld]

another problem is "what is the definition of a terrorist?", and the related issue of "who gets to decide?" will, say, greenpeace be classified as a terrorist organisation because they "cause economic harm" to US interests?

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.

Re:Easy to abuse.. but not a new list anyway.

[mpe]

another problem is "what is the definition of a terrorist?", and the related issue of "who gets to decide?"

There can also be time factors involved. e.g. The US was quite happy with Bin Laden and co when they were attacking the USSR in Afghanistan. The definition the US Government uses means that "friends" are never "terrorists". (But they can be if they stop being "friends".)

Do You Remember?

[ackthpt]

Remember that off-the-cuff troll you fired off on some blog or newsgroup years ago?

The one where you joked about blowing something up, poisoning the town watersupply or leaving a flaming bag of poop on the mayor's doorstep? It was just a youthful indiscretion, which anyone could make after a few beers or a blunt. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously. There were not pipe bombs under your bed or fatigues and a gun in your closet. You'd rather be shooting the shit with friends at the mall than shooting people from the trunk of a parked car. Years pass and you have met that special someone and settled down to a mortgage, a couple auto loans, putting some money away for college funds and that sporty little red "mid-life crisis" Then one day you're called into the Human Resources department. There are a couple serious looking men in suits waiting there to meet you. It seems on a routine check your name came up. You had started or participated in a thread that someone else did. That someone else just blew up a bus in Tel Aviv.

Remember that off-the-cuff troll you fired off on some blog or newsgroup years ago? Someone did.

Re:Do You Remember?

[mantera]

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...

Re:Do You Remember?

[Liselle]

Time for a Karma-flush. On the one side, we have people scaring the hell out of everyone talking about terrorists, making you paranoid about your next-door neighbor, frightened to take public transportation, nervous in broad daylight.

On the other side, we have people wielding Orwell. Big Brother is watching you, the government is evil and corrupt, you can't take a piss off-center without a dozen people knowing about it. Here's a hypothetical story I made up, complete with a series of lottery-scale unlikely events, leading to a conclusion that mostly just serves make you scared of your own shadow. That's my evidence.

It really sucks to be caught in the middle of those camps. One of these days I'm just going to tear off into the woods and live Thoreau-style, because it seems like the radicals are the only people having fun these days.

Re:Do You Remember?

[Liselle]

Careful, that's how Ted Kaczynski got started.

I should be okay, I'm not much for huge dark sunglasses or hoodies. My vanity will keep me on the Light side.

Re:Do You Remember?

[AndroidCat]

Tear off into the woods Thoreau-style? Man, Walden wasn't exactly the wilderness back-woods. It wasn't a major trip into Concord for groceries and partying.

Re:Do You Remember?

[ackthpt]

a 16 year old mtv-styled greenpeace-enthausiast

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.

Re:Do You Remember?

[Jadrano]

One of these days I'm just going to tear off into the woods and live Thoreau-style, because it seems like the radicals are the only people having fun these days.

There is probably a database of people who do so, at least if they are as thorough as the police in Switzerland during the cold war. Apart from members of leftwing parties and environmentalists, etc. they also had a special file with all dairymen and shepherds in the mountains. There were of course "harmless" people in Alpine dairies, which had grown up there and continued what their families had been doing for generations, but there were also people who went there in order to opt out of mainstream civilization, and they were considered a potential threat. To be on the safe side, the police collected data on everyone living in Alpine dairy huts (the files were discovered in the end of the eighties together with the others during a parliamentary investigation).

What I am really afraid of......

[Dr Reducto]

I am not that worried about companies being able to find out who may be a terror threat. I don't think that the government will give them a dossier on whomever they ask for.

What I am worried about is the government collecting and keeping this data. They may just be using this program as a honeypot to get companies to give them data. They get to know your location on a precise time and date. They also may be able to do some basic hypothesising based on this data. For instance, people who are often found at the same events could be grouped together, and rudimentary sosical networks could be strung together. You could end up under investigation if you turn up at too many events that have "terrorist suspects" at them. Maybe even if they started collecting names of those at political rallies, and started adding those to the databases. Maybe the cities will say: You can have your protest, if you supply a list of names of people who will be there. And BAM! You have lost your privacy and freedom to associate.

I hope they give us similar rights as with credit

[realdpk]

A free terrorist report any time you're turned down for a job? Perhaps some states will require one free terrorist report per year for anyone who asks?

I hate the idea, but I am curious to see what they have on file for me.

Got it backwards, chief

[Gizzmonic]

Private companies will make their lists available to the department of homeland security! Even your own writeup says this!

It's not like Coca-coka is gonna be getting dirt from you by calling up the feds.

Re:Got it backwards, chief

[Blue Stone]

>It's not like Coca-co[l]a is gonna be getting dirt [on] you by calling up the feds.

You're right, Coca-Cola mostly deals with the CIA.

movie industry "Reds"

[planckscale]

Didn't they already try this in the 60's with the movie industry and its blacklists? Me thinks this stinks.

Re:movie industry "Reds"

[dogfart]

It was the late 1940's/early 1950's. A lot of very talented folks ended up in janitorial jobs for years as a result. You didn't have to be a flaming "I love Joe Stalin" Commie either - briefly joining an organization while in college during the 1930's could come back to haunt you 15 apolitical years later. See Article in Salon

Re:movie industry "Reds"

[Simonetta]

The Hollywood blacklist was started in the late 1940's and continued roughly until the late 1950's.
It basically started when the president of the Screen Actor's Guild at the time, an over-the-hill actor named Ronald Reagan, decided to get on the good side of the House Committee on Un-American Activies by volunteering to turn over to them the names of all the people that he suspected of having Communist tendencies in the film industry.
The willingness of this actor to be a total asshole and his enthusiasm in destroying the lives of the other actors that he was supposed to be defending as SAG president caught the attention of the dormant conservative Republicans, who financed his California governor's race in the mid 1960's.

Sharing Intel is like sharing needles!

[Bombcar]

although France and UK are reluctant to share intel

I know how that is! I'm an AMD guy myself, and "Friends don't let friends use Intel." :)

Re:Sharing Intel is like sharing needles!

[Tackhead]

> > although France and UK are reluctant to share intel
>
> I know how that is! I'm an AMD guy myself, and "Friends don't let friends use Intel." :)

"When you run SETI@Home on an Athlon, you hunt for aliens with Osama! Only the paranoid survive!"
- Andy Grove

Anti-globalisation peeps are next.

[TempusMagus]

This really scares me. I am confident that such technologies, as soon as they are entrenched, will start being used against anti-corp, anti free-trade groups rather quickly. Once they run out of Arab's with H-1 visas they are going to go after people with subscriptions to ADBUSTERS. What's the criteria for 'connection' or proximity to a "nexus of terrorism"?

Look at it this way: they are going to rate people the same way good spam-filters rate incoming email to determine if they are spam. They'll probably be more right than wrong - but heaven help you if you fall through the cracks. No ability to fly. No ability to attend large gatherings. The ability to literally clip the wings of dissenting voices becomes a heck of lot easier.

Lets look at who gets access:
operators of critical infrastructure facilities - with the right lobbyist this could mean just about any large corporation. Microsoft would certainly qualify. Would about Coke? Ford motor company? Nike? They keep America financially strong - and what's good for Microsoft is good for American by golly!

organizers of large events - such as political conventions? Concerts with bands whose message may contain material not suitable for fundamentalist ears?

Re:Anti-globalisation peeps are next.

[Elias Israel]

This really scares me. I am confident that such technologies, as soon as they are entrenched, will start being used against anti-corp, anti free-trade groups rather quickly.

This is a misdirected search for self-confidence, relevance, and meaning disguising itself as paranoia.

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.

But it feeds the egos of those involved to imagine that but for the presence of shadowy conspiracies and underhanded tactics, their "movement" would take over the world, instead of just leaving a bunch of litter on Main street and giving the nightly news a few seconds of colorful video to run.

Trust me. You're safe. Hold your marches.

The people don't care about you, and the government doesn't see you as an existential threat, just an occasional traffic control problem.

Can we say McCarthyism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, a little bit of history repeating.

Re:Can we say McCarthyism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't be knocking my man McCarthy. He was a true American patriot whose only concern was the safety of our country.

Re:Can we say McCarthyism?

[dogfart]

He was a thug, who intimidated witnesses in private, selecting for public humiliation only those he knew he could break

In other words, truly an American icon.

You'd be amazed at how loose procedures are

[Operating Thetan]

I've got political friends who've had their closed email lists monitored by police after the heinous crimes of organising benefit gigs and leafletting GAP. They've been stopped by police photographers in London who knew their names, the group they were with, the colleges they went to and the pub they'd be going to after the demonstration. Don't think you have to be a terrorist to get on a state list and be monitored-ANY kind of attention will get you on there, and once you're on, you'll stay on.

Re:I hope they give us similar rights as with cred

[FooAtWFU]

Good lord. Does this mean I'll be spammed with Get your "free" terrorism assment report now!!! to complement the Credit Report ones? =b

Re:Britain

[Operating Thetan]

Is the U.K. in the E.U.?

In the EU, but not using the Euro.

Happy, happy, joy, joy

[Supp0rtLinux]

So now I can sit at work and tell the FBI and HS guys that all the co-workers and annoying sales people I don't like are suspected terrorists. Yaaaay!

Re:Happy, happy, joy, joy

[Roger Keith Barrett]

supposed to be funny, but I worry about this exact problem.

Organizations don't always get along like happy families. I can easily see people getting put on a list because they pissed someone off or they rub someone the wrong way. Anyone that has a huge ego (including CEOs) might use it as a way to get people on their own personal enemy list in trouble.

History Repeating Itself

[osobear]

I read this kind of hoping that it was all a joke or someone being a little excited in their summing up of a news story, but now, it's true.
I can't believe something like this could come to existance so soon after the whole McCarthy communism scandal. People will be able to submit lists of people and find out if any of them are Filthy Reds ...er, I mean, terrorists. This is just the newest and latest in state-supported prejudice.

Woody Allen's The Front just become recommended viewing for the entire nation.

Re:What I am really afraid of......

[Ralph JH Nader]

Maybe the cities will say: You can have your protest, if you supply a list of names of people who will be there.

Perhaps, although doing so would be a clear violation of the first amendment's freedom of assembly. I know people will cite the Patriot Act as an example that the government doesn't give a damn about the Constitution. On the other hand, I don't recall any real limitations on freedom of speech (okay, not giving expert advice to terrorists, but the courts struck that part of the Patriot Act down). They've been unwilling so far to touch the first amendment.

They get to know your location on a precise time and date.

Don't forget while you're there to only pay in plain cash. If you use a credit card or a check, then they'll know you were there either. Since this seems to only be used for events, many of the people will probably be buying things with their credit cards. In other words, I don't know that for most people, they'll be getting tracked more than they already are.

Maybe even if they started collecting names of those at political rallies, and started adding those to the databases.

For the most part, I don't see this happening. Both parties have been involved with the Patriot Act and with taking your rights away. Quite frankly, I think they don't want the election system associated with blacklists. It could quite easily backfire, and I'm sure that the opponents of the people in office who passed the Patriot Act would spin it as an attempt to scare voters into voting the incumbent back in.

George Orwell

[igrp]

I just finished reading a book on George Orwell's life. Here are some things Orwell is quoted to have said and written, more than half a decade ago.

"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...

Re:George Orwell

[Anonymous Coward]

"Winston Churchill could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war."

Are you sure you didn't mean Winston Smith?

(I assume you're referring to the novel 1984, and not the former UK politician. I mean, Sir Churchill was quite a smart man and would probably be able to remember the time between the wars he served in and the wars he led :)

Re:George Orwell

[saforrest]

George Orwell's complete works, available online:

http://www.orwell.ru/

Re:I hope they give us similar rights as with cred

[kfg]

I am curious to see what they have on file for me.

Nothing.

But they just started one.

KFG

David Nelsons

[nightsweat]

Sucks even more to be a David Nelson soon, I'll bet. Link.

From Bad Debt to Terrorism: You are the loser

[amigoro]

It's pretty easy to get a bad credit score. One phone company falsely accusing you of not paying the bill on time is enough. And it takes so much time and effort to correct that error on your credit file.

Imagine a similar scenario with your terror file. You neighbour gets pissed off with you and goes and complains about you. She says you have been hanging out with a bearded people. You have made a business trip to Saudi Arabia.

And that's all it takes. Now you are are terrorist on the FBI terror list. You will never get clearance. You will never get a government job other than cleaning public toilets.

If this measure goes through, you will never get clearance to get a job at a private company either.

One mistake, by someone else, and you are out.

Thank god I am not in the land of the free!

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let's start on it for them

[Triumph The Insult C]

INSERT into peepstowatch (fname,lname,occupation,nukearea) VALUES ('Darl','McBride','Scumbag','Mormonia');

Re:Meh.

[Roger Keith Barrett]

When you look to get people that have no "problems" in their past, you are looking for people that haven't really done anything. People who have made mistakes are people who have actually learned something.

that and "keywording" resumes pretty much makes the whole H.R. system crap.

Re:A whole lotta cash

[Roger Keith Barrett]

The only growth industry in the U.S.A.!!

It's hard to outsource it overseas, too.

Great

[MAXOMENOS]

Another opportunity for false positives and political agendas to wreak havoc on the American citizen.

"Well Ms. Jones, you're a very strong candidate and we'd like to hire you, but Homeland Security says you gave money to Earth First! at a fundraiser in 1992. We've offered the position to somebody else. Good luck."

It gets worse

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Good.

[rice_burners_suck]

I think the federal government, in cooperation with Microsoft, should put together a database of all known information about every single person in the world, not limited to terror information. This database would be used by governments, as well as public and private companies, to deny services to persons for a variety of reasons. For example, you might find yourself unable to eat at any restaurant in the entire world because you are not a good tipper. Or you might be denied access to all gas stations because you were once seen smoking within 1000 feet of one. Or the government might suddenly burst into your home in the middle of the night, because you thought the president's neck tie was kind of funny in a speech he gave.

Yes, it looks like the world is becoming a better place every day.

If terror = schoolbooks

[manganese4]

At $100 billion/yr they could easily provide a college education for everyone. But it would be better to give to the money to companies so they can hire more H1-B visa holders since they cannot find enough skilled americans (or so they claim).

No Child left behind simply means everyone is left behind since it is easier hobble the quick than train the slow

Well, that's comforting...

[tyler_larson]

I was worried that the government would abuse such an all-inclusive database. Or that perhaps false information that found its way into the this storehouse could tarnish an innocent person's reputation and prevent him from getting the access to important resources (like a job or a house).

It's nice to know that much of the querying will be done by private organizations, and not just the government. Non-government organizations are so much more trustworthy and reliable. Phew. What a relief.

And if you didn't catch the sarcasm, think of the damage that people can currently cause with our existing system in the form of identity theft. Now immagine a parallel system being used to determine how much of a threat you pose to society. Now when you apply for housing in an appartment, they not only call your references, but check this database to see if they should worry about you bombing the place or something absurd like that. Great.

That's a lot of power, by the way. And claims that it will be accurate and reliable only worsen the situation. People wouldn't take such a database seriously if it contained a lot of mistakes. The only reason why you can correct your credit report at all is because there are so many publicised inaccuracies. But if such a database managed to be some 99.95% accurate, or something like that... boy does it suck to be one of the thousands of people who got got an undeserved "black mark" on your record. No one would ever believe you, it would be completely impossible for you to correct it--not because you can't prove you're innocent, but because there's no one you can go to to get it fixed. Everyone believes the database because it's always right. You get turned down for loans, housing, jobs, and can't even travel. Such a database may even wind up admissable in court.

Now immagine the position of those who can anonymously input information into that database (and there will be many). That's too much power, with no accountability. A recipe for a silent disaster. Of course, you'll never hear about it, that's the nature of the thing. The only ones who will know are the abusers and the victims. Wow.

Re:Well, that's comforting...

[RealAlaskan]

But if such a database managed to be some 99.95% accurate ...

If it managed to be that good, it would be a miracle. But still, 0.05(260)10^6=13,000,000 people who are on the list, but aren't terrorists.

Just to make things worse, it doesn't have to be anywhere near that good, as long as people think it's that good. As you pointed out, if people believe it's infallible, they'll drag their own mother out of the nursing home and pack her off to jail when she shows up on the list.

Even if the false positives are far rarer than you proposed, there will still be too many. If good folks are excluded with 99.999% accuracy, that's still 2,600 false positives.

That's the problem of false positives, and it's a serious problem indeed. The problem of false negatives might be even worse. If people (especially law enforcement people) believe that this database has essentially all terrorists in it, we will be less safe with the data base than without.

Say that there are only half a million terrorists in the world; people who are willing and able to do something like the murders in Spain, or the murders on 9/11. On no particular evidence, I think that's a low estimate.

The 9/11 murders seem to have taken less than 50 people to plan and execute. If the database contains 99.99% of the 500,000 genuine terrorists, that leaves 50 who aren't in the database, and can procede freely, because the police effort is being wasted on the 13,499,950 people in the database. That number in the data base is the 0.05% who are wrongly suspected in the U.S., and the 99.99% of terrorists who are rightly suspected.

Even if there are only 2,600 false positives at any given moment, that still dilutes law enforcement efforts. More seriously, law enforcement is quite likely to believe that all they have to do is watch the ones they know about, and they'll be easily blindsided by the ones they haven't yet found. The mess at Columbine highschool a few years ago shows that the only way to stop all murders is to lock up every one. We'd better lock up the cops too ... some of them might go bad.

I'd say that all we can accomplish with this sort of thing (except making things difficult for the current administration's detractors[1]) is provide some excellent cover for hundreds of really dangerous terrorists, at the expense of everyone's freedom.

[1] Every administration in modern times has been accused, with considerable justification, of abusing the FBI and IRS to that end.

Worse than that

[dogfart]

You would just be turned down for the job. They wouldn't (and wouldn't be permitted) to tell you it was because you were on the homeland security hit list. The reason you were put on the list would be unknown to all be a few individuals in the department of homeland security.

Intel

[BillsPetMonkey]

France and UK are reluctant to share intel

I didn't know Intel was France or the UK's to share

Re:Wow, that's a surprise.

[morelife]

..put the list up on the fucking Internet..

Realize the truth in your jest -- there's about a fifty fifty chance, guessing from news about leaks this year alone, that the newly aggregated data

a) will be compromised and fall into enemy hands due to bad IT security practices, or,

b) sold or lent to third parties or government contractors

c) used for purposes other than originally intended

or d) all of the above

Re:What I am really afraid of......

[zurab]

Maybe the cities will say: You can have your protest, if you supply a list of names of people who will be there.

Perhaps, although doing so would be a clear violation of the first amendment's freedom of assembly.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Cities already require their advance approval of any demonstration. They have their own criteria what can be allowed and what cannot. I don't see anything in the 1st amendment that can keep them from requiring organizers and attendants lists to check against terrorist databases to the list of their criteria.

I know people will cite the Patriot Act as an example that the government doesn't give a damn about the Constitution.

Nothing of the sort is happening. In fact, Bush and Ashcroft are proud of having passed the US PATRIOT Act and regard it as a plus in their fight against terrorism. Needless to say, most people are blind to principles and could care less if the government is able to listen into their telephone conversations with their friends without a warrant, or tap into their OnStar or a similar device to track them or listen to their in-car conversations. Or detain suspects for extended periods of time, if not forever, without charging them with anything, giving them access to a lawyer, family, etc. All they do is talk to family and friends over the phone and drive kids around anyway - they have nothing to hide; do you? Principles go down the drain when government uses scare tactics.

On the other hand, I don't recall any real limitations on freedom of speech (okay, not giving expert advice to terrorists, but the courts struck that part of the Patriot Act down). They've been unwilling so far to touch the first amendment.

You are making it sound like it's OK to violate the Constitution as long as you don't violate the 1st amendment. The US PATRIOT Act and government's actions based thereon, violate 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments, among other things. i.e., courts will uphold the 1st amendment, but not care at all about others? How is this justified?

Safe? Excuse me?

[TempusMagus]

"Trust me. You're safe. Hold your marches."

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?

Get blacklisted, loose your career

[nurb432]

If you get on that list by accident, or by 'expanding classifications' you can kiss your career good bye.

Hell, you wont even be able to flip burgers at the local burger-doodle to support your family.

Expect a lot of criminals to be created by this.

Next stop, 1984...

4, 5, and 6, all down the drain

[lone_marauder]

Amendments, that is. Because this is doubtlessly a reporting mechanism as well as an information gathering one, your employer can now violate your fourth amendment rights to unreasonable search and seizure. Now, if this database comes to contain nefarious information about you, the FBI can prevent you from getting a job, thus violating your rights to due process and to be punished only as the result of a lawful trial. That is covered under number five. For the grand finale, by allowing private organizations to submit data about you which will (as previously mentioned) be used to your detriment, the protections granted under the sixth amendment, the right to face your accuser, is also circumvented.

All this AND the government makes money off of it! It's a win-win scenario!

RE: Snipers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a tidbit from 'Operation Northwoods' (http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/northwoods. pdf):

"...and wounding civilians in Miami, Florida and Washington, DC using paramilitary sniper teams."

Operation Northwoods is a 1962 plan of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff concocted to justify a US military response in Cuba. Among other wonderful things, the US Special Forces would arrange for two-and-three-man "freelance" sniper teams to roam and randomly shoot people at will in order to cause panic and permit the use of the United States military in civilian jurisdictions in clear violation of the United States Constitution (see Posse Commitatus).

Luckily it never happened so...oh...no...wait...

Why the panic?

[Kohath]

Why is it that this type of discussion starts with panic?

They seem to eventually evolve to near-panic as hints of rationality get applied.

Why can't they start out rational and lead to a well supported factual basis to make a decision?

Is is a slashdot problem or is everyone incapable of cool-headed, reality-based decision making?

It CAN happen here. Because it HAS happened here.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

On the other side, we have people wielding Orwell. Big Brother is watching you, the government is evil and corrupt, you can't take a piss off-center without a dozen people knowing about it. Here's a hypothetical story I made up, complete with a series of lottery-scale unlikely events, leading to a conclusion that mostly just serves make you scared of your own shadow.

Rent a clue.

The Orwellian scenarios sound like a bunch of pipe-dreaming by paranoids to you because they haven't happened to you.

Yet.

But trust me. They do happen. They happen a lot.

They've happened to me. They've happened to lots of my friends. They've happened to my wife. They've happened to a number of our ancestors. (On her side, at least one per generation for the last three, and that's just counting the ones on the DIRECT line.)

They happened to opposition political figures big time, over and over. Not just in countries "over there" - but right here at home. (Look up the FBI's "COINTELPRO" just for starters.) Every twenty years or so the stuff that happened twenty years back comes to light. And the story is always the same: "That was THEN. That COULDN'T happen NOW." And twenty years later you find out that it WAS happening now, too.

j'accuse is alive and well, as is stereotyping, as is guilt-by-association, and so on.

The conspiracy-theory tinfoil-hat stereotype is VERY convenient for the people who are actually running such operations. It discredits their victims's cries for help, as well as the warnings of those who haven't yet been vicitmized (as far as they can tell) but who understand the dynamics and can thus read the writing on the wall.

The biggest trouble with these things is that, by the time they come for YOU, it's too late. So you have to head them off while they're still being formed up, or still going after just the genuine scumbags (and the people the operators honestly mistake for genuine scumbags), rather than waiting until the machine is well oiled, armored, and compeletely out of control.

ugh, More Carnival Barkers

[sPaKr]

Uh.. Ya.. thats what the Carnival Algorithem needed, Cheaper, Easier, Faster ways to test potential terrorist. I mean hey buying a 6 plane tickets from Boston to Washington DC is just to damn expensive. We need to allow these guys to apply for a job as a janoitor, get rejected...and move on to the next canidate. At least we have a war over seas, and we are trying to pick our fights there. The deptarment of Homeland insecurity coudlnt protect its own cherry on prom night.

Re:What I am really afraid of......

[Ungrounded Lightning]

They get to know your location on a precise time and date.

Don't forget while you're there to only pay in plain cash. If you use a credit card or a check, then they'll know you were there either.

Don't forget to take the battery out of your cell phone. Otherwise it will tell them (about every five minutes if they don't explicitly ask it for more reports), exactly where you are.

France & Britain

[Petronius]

I don't know about Britain but France has a government agency that enforces strict laws when it comes to their citizens' right to electronic privacy, anonymity, removal from databases, etc.
Interesting to note that the main law (1978) was passed under Giscard D'Estaing - a moderate republican, by U.S. standards.

Re:France & Britain

[BigBadBri]

Yep - we've got the Information Commissioner (it used to be called the Data Protection Registrar, but since RIPA allowed anyone from the Security Services to the dog pound supervisor at your local council to ride roughshod over the Data Protection Act, perhaps the change in title is a rare glimpse of honesty from the Bliar junta.

OK - so maybe dog pound supervisor is perhaps hyperbole, but the list of people able to access your information does extend as far as, for example, any local authority, any health service trust, even the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

So yes, we have a law, and even an authority set up to protect citizens from the misuse of data, but at the same time we have RIPA, which drives a coach and horses through any privacy we may have felt entitled to under the Data Protection Act.

Be assured, under RIPA the Home Secretary can add whoever he wishes to the list of people authorised to access information about citizens, and if the current atmosphere is anything to go by, business will be allowed to check the database for any of their employees.

An example of gov't keeping us safe

[Zathras26]

A few months ago, I applied for and received a job as a network engineer at the Pentagon. One of the job requirements was that I had to get a "Secret" security clearance. The company hired me after I told them I was eligible for such a clearance. I started working there while the oh-so sensible and efficient federal government did a background check on me. Two months later, they turned me down, saying that I was a risk to national security because I had my name legally changed thirteen years ago. I therefore lost my job six weeks ago because I went thru a perfectly legal (and public) process that meant nothing more than that I didn't have to have my asshole father's last name anymore. This in spite of the fact that others have received Secret clearances -- and even Top Secret clearances -- after having histories of drug use, mental illness, and even prison sentences, among other things.

This is the same government that says it's going to protect us from Yamir Shitzak blowing us up in the name of Allah. Do you feel any safer? 'Cuz I sure as hell don't.

Re:An example of gov't keeping us safe

[user no. 590291]

That sounds like bullshit. Maybe that's why they told you you didn't get the clearance. A SECRET is a slam dunk unless you're a professing Al Quaeda member, Communist, bed wetter, or baby raper.

This is all, of course, assuming you disclosed your name change when going through the process--given that, I would bet there's some other reason they wanted you to not pass.

Re:An example of gov't keeping us safe

[Zathras26]

I disclosed everything they asked for, including the name change. They told me that the name change was the reason I was turned down.

I don't blame you for being skeptical -- if it hadn't happened to me, I don't think I would have believed it, either. But it's true.

My now-ex employer told me he wasn't surprised, and that since 9/11 Secrets are a lot harder to get than they used to be. A friend of his who currently has a Secret is now in danger of losing it because his wife is French. Again -- government keeping its priorities straight.

Re:An example of gov't keeping us safe

[bcbkhalision]

Join the club. I am a PhD Candidate studying Arabic and Computational Linguistics at Georgetown university. You would think that someone like me might be of great use to my country and government - remember that the government's lack of linguistic talent plays a large role in its failure in the war on terrorism and in the occupation of Iraq. Oh, also I speak Farsi, Spanish, and Chinese. I was turned down for a Top Secret Clearance because in the past I had smoked marijuana a few times - I got a letter saying that this was done in the interests of national security. Before this happened, the phone was ringing off the hook with offers. Now, I'm lucky if I can even get scumbag recruiters who might call every few months to return my calls after the first conversation - and this when I am the only person qualified for the job. I had a roomate who had a TSC. He is a high school dropout, he has habitually used drugs in the past, associated with drug dealers, attempted to commit credit card fraud on my landlord, and he threatened to kill me several times. The government trusts him, but I am a threat to national security. My experience has taught me that this administration and the intelligence community do not want to catch terrorists, and they do not want to protect American lives. They want to fight a culture war, in which civil liberties are eroded, homosexuals and foreigners are persecuted, and ordinary citizens live in fear of having their lives destroyed through a poorly designed database that has a high rate of "collateral damage." When I was getting the Clearance, I naively believed that it was my skills, abilities and accomplishments which would determine my eligibility. I only pray that this experience will not get in the way elsewhere. Do not trust these people. They do not care about you, and they do not want to protect you.

Re:An example of gov't keeping us safe

[user no. 590291]

Not that it'll help out with the job stuff, but I'd send off to the investigating agency for a copy of the investigation (IIRC, both the Privacy Act and FOIA apply, but the PA entitles you to more of the investigation). It will be redacted, but unless things are more corrupt than I hope in government, you will see what was actually considered. Sounds like it was the agency's loss in this case.

Re:It CAN happen here. Because it HAS happened her

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Um, but what if we don't trust you?

Then make your own choices and take your chances with the fallout from them. Just don't expect me to take the consequences of your choices, too.

And don't say I didn't warn you.

We wouldn't have to rent a clue if you'd provide some real indication that you were offering us one for free. Please provide us that indication. I, for one, would like to get it right.

What you appear to be doing is asking me to identify myself, my family, my friends, and my acquaintences, on a very large and very open forum, and tell you - and everybody listening, potentially including exactly the totally-information-aware security agencies in question - all of our stories about every time some authority figure dumped on us and/or got a bee in his bonnet about one or more of us being the bad guys.

Given that the subject at hand is the way such authority has been used (especially MISused) historically, I trust you'll understand if I decline to hand out such anaecdotal data on a platter. (If nothing else, it wouldn't be consistent with my argument to do so, would it? B-) )

So you'll have to make your own judgements about MY judgement and/or about the underlying problem.

Regarding my judgement: I've made over 1900 slashdot postings under this handle. Look up a few and see what you think.

Regarding external evidence: Follow some of the leads I've given you (like COINTELPRO), or consult any person who has taken postgraduate courses in history.

(Meanwhile, I WILL mention that my handle {Ungrounded Lightning Rod} is a reference to this very issue - and a previous employer's request that his employees, while posting to Usenet, try to avoid becoming lightning rods for controversy that might reflect poorly {sideflash?} on the company. B-) I'm willing to talk about it in person, and I'm not blackmailable by threats to expose a connection between my personal identity and some handle. And I don't encrypt or obfuscate routing on the traffic I use to post, so security agencies can identify me easily if they ever feel like it. I simply make it a policy, when posting under a handle, not to identify myself, or confirm or deny speculation, in an online setting.)

McCarthyism

[tacocat]

Thank you George Bush Junior for pushing us back into one of the worst chapters of recent American History.

The damage this will do...

• Of course every Indian programmer will be a terrorist according to slashdot.
• Microsoft will declare every name on every sourceforge/freshmeat project to be a terrorist.
• Microsoft will also list the EU leaders as terrorists since they levied their fine and are having their lacky US-DOJ put up a bitch about it.
• Random acts of accusation will be pretty damn common.

Please, study history so we don't repeat it. I wasn't any good at it in school, but I've seen enough repeats in my years to know it's worth learning and remembering.

Re:What I am really afraid of......

[demachina]

"Perhaps, although doing so would be a clear violation of the first amendment's freedom of assembly"

Perhaps you should read about the governments response to an antiwar conference at Drake Univertsity after which a few people committed an act of peaceful civil disobedience. The DOJ swept in and wanted to know everyone who attended and everything that was said, they placed a gag order on the Univertisty prohibiting the University from telling anyone about the massive investigation because they wanted to keep it secret, a grand jury was impaneled etc.

http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo02102004.html
http://www.mapm.org/drake.htm

The DOJ backed off when their investigation became public, it was so massive they couldn't keep it secret, and it was starting to get embarassing how massively they'd overreacted and how much they were treading on basic civil liberties. But they no doubt have cataloged everyone who'd attended the conference and have them all on file as potential troublemakers. There is also no telling how far they would have gone if they'd kept the investigation secret.

The fact is Al Queda wins as much by the massive bureaucratic overreaction to try and prevent terrorism, as by the original act.

First off the Bush Administration keeps saying terrorists hate us for our "Freedom and Democracy" but it is double speak because the fact is the Bush administration is using Terrorism to dismantle freedom and democracy. Big corpratist government want a bunch of docile workers reporting to their cubes everyday, and NEVER doing anything that would resemble protest, dissent, disagreement with wrong doing(something the Bush administration is apparently rich in) or antisocial behavior. To achieve this they just need a database with detailed histories of everyone, and for every employer to check this database as a condition of employment and soon enough you either:

A. Never protest, dissent, or engage in antisocial behaviour
B. Never work again unless you can scrape together self employment.

Someone will, no doubt argue, how "Free" America is. It does kind of look free on the surface but in most respects its really not unless you are willing to be homeless and starving and then you might get arrested for vagrancy.

It should be noted that the U.S now has the highest per capita prison population in the world (though China and North Korea might be higher they just dont report accurately). This honor used to belong to the Soviet Union's gulags but the U.S. now leads Russia who is a close second. How did this happen, primarily by the "War on Drugs" which first and foremost punishes people for recreational drug use and drug addiction which is decidely antisocial behavior. Its also due to 3 strikes laws that pass down life sentances for things like shoplifting.

The economic damage thats also being done to the U.S. by this overreaction will eclipse the direct damage done by 9/11. Hundreds of billions on databases and computers to track everyone in the U.S. or who passes through, a constant push to equip every local fire and police department, no matter how small, with a complete bio and chem warfare capability, a nationwide sensor grid to spot the first hint of a biochem cloud, laser missile defense systems in every airplane, continuing pressure to inspect every bit of cargo entering the U.S. through every port, airport or truck.

Stop the insanity. All this stuff does produce economic activity, often to the benefit of companies who are benefactors of the administration, but its also contributing to massive budget deficits and its pure economic waste because every countermeasure costs billions and the terrorist will just switch to a mode of attack that circumvents the countermeasures, leading to more countermeasures and more economic damage. This is a key objective of the doctrine of guerilla warfare, bleed the target white economicly trying to stop you. You can't win against terrorism by never ending escalation of repres

117

[trainsnpep]

Yes, 117. What's that? The number of people who die each DAY due to automobile accidents, averaged over the past 5 years.

Now, 3. What's that? Approximately the number of people who die each day due to terrorist attacks.

Let me ask, where's the problem here? I absolutely am not belittling September 11th (in fact, I feel people who call it 'nine-eleven' are the ones doing just that), but there are obviously problems causing more deaths. My uncle lost his best friend that day, and nearly his own life -- he had a meeting in the North Tower at the World Trade Center, but he missed his train that day, and was late. However three people in my school died in automobile accidents in the last three years.

Oh, yeah. Don't forget, the auto number doesn't include the nearly 1500 a day severly injured in an accident. I won't even start on smoking...

I think the money's headed in the wrong direction....

Washington Times owned by Sun Myung Moon (Moonies)

[zettix]

Sun Myung Moon is a megalomaniac nutball. Maybe I shouldn't point fingers, but if you read something in The Washington Times, you should know the "whole" story. Here it is " Moon's chosen tactic, which has been highly effective, is to purchase his legitimacy outright. In addition to United Press International (UPI), Moon is the owner of the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper devoted to right-wing causes. Every operating year, the Times loses tens of millions of dollars, but profitability has never been a priority. Its intended purpose was made clear when, during Watergate, the paper ran an endless stream of pro-Nixon editorials urging the American people to forgive and forget." Now then, I have some Moonie friends, and I've had some Hare Krishna friends, and the fact is, members are usually as normal as you or me. Leaders are a different story all together. Which is to say, I have nothing against Unification Church members, or any other religion. But The Washington Times is a propaganda newspaper, nothing more.

My advice: stop being afraid

[bigberk]

My personal advice to you: don't be afraid. You see, America is getting caught up in mass hysteria. Be brave and sensible... there are not terrorists lurking behind every corner.

Why do I bother posting this? Am I drunk? No. I want to encourage you to consider your civil responsibility/duty to keep America sane: encourage your fellow Americans to relax. Don't get so wound up; don't reach for your gun. Let's get the population calmed down... turn OFF the TV news channel, go outside and get some fresh air, and think sensibly about what kind of America you want to live in.

I'll wager that you want your country to be strong and free. So do I! If everyone can calm down a bit, we can avoid doing some stupid things that are going to hurt Freedom.

I'd like to see ...

[elronxenu]

... if this database could detect that 16-year-old Palestinian kid. Not even his mother knew that he was about to become a suicide bomber!

The sad reality is that this database will be used to intrude upon the privacy of the 99.9999999% of people who are not terrorists.

Reparations

[maximilln]

Say you irritate someone in a fairly elevated position and say that person is fairly well connected with someone who can add people to the terror list. So they add your name to the terror list.

So some FBI agent wants to know why you're on the terror list. He gives your name to the local PD as "just check on this guy". The local PD, being fairly bored with nothing better to do, happily and eagerly complies with the new system of checking on potential terrorists. You start to wonder why all of your friends leave the bar about 15 minutes after you show up. They say you're paranoid but everyone keeps looking over your shoulder. You start to get pulled over because your brake lights looked funny, or you were doing 65.2 mph in a 65 zone.

Your boss starts to take a lot more interest in your personal life and becomes offended when you don't open up your life to him. Other managers at work also begin poking and prodding your work. You start to challenge all the extra-special attentin and ask what the purpose of the seeming harassment is. Everyone's eyes glaze over and they accuse of you of being paranoid.

Eventually the FBI agent wears you down with all of this clandestine poking and prodding and investigating. Perhaps you even start to come apart at the seams. The intense scrutiny leaves your nerves on edge and your character becomes more antagonistic.

Where are the reparations? Where's the control on this system? At what point is the initial name-submitter responsible for starting a witch hunt?

Other than that consideration... fine, make your lists. Who gives a good cat's backside?

Re:As (not) seen on TV

[Elias Israel]

To me, this link proves little or nothing.

Some of these "protesters" don't know the difference between the right to peaceable assembly and run-amok vandalism.

Read the reports there. The "protesters" say that they came "to shut down" a private facility, based on some kind of tenuous logic linking it to military efforts of which they did not approve.

One of the marchers refers to himself as part of a group of "reinforcements" meant to attack a particular gate. Union dock workers, according to another one of those same reports you linked to, were sent home because of the danger posed by the "protesters."

Another marcher writing there remarks on the generally light, even "friendly" treatment received from police just a few days before. Hmm. What was missing from the prior event? Could it be breaking and entering, trespassing, and vandalism?

The truth is that most of the airheads who get involved with these marches haven't the vaguest idea what oppression is. Rubber bullets and flash bangs against an unruly mob, and they play it up like they were mowed down with gun fire and buried in landfill, like the victims of a certain recently-eliminated tyrant we know of.

Clearly, everyone should guard their freedoms diligently, and speak up when they think those freedoms are infringed. But if you squawk "ooh, I'm bein' oppressed ovah heah!" and "see the violence inherent in the system!" when the cops are simply protecting the peace against your assaults on it, then you're not going to win many friends, to say nothing of winning arguments on their logcal merits.

Ahem Ashcroft and Pres Bush

[linuxislandsucks]

Nto all teorrists are outsiders..ever here of Terry Nichols?

Why should us tax payers pay for an ineffecive boondoggle?