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FBI Investigates Open Records Request
GrooveMoose writes "A university student at the University of Texas
makes an open
records request for information on the underground tunnel system at the school.
A few months later the FBI and Secret Service come knocking on his door to see
if he's a terrorist. He's still under investigation by the federal government
regarding a completely open request."
Clearly, some paper-pusher at the university office freaked that somebody was using The Freedom of Information Act to force them to release information about their underground tunnels... most likely because the feds told universities to call them if anybody makes requests for information about campus infrastructure.
And, let's face it... even though it's perfectly legal to file a Freedom of Information Act request, doing so for topics like this totally out of the blue is certainly suspicious activity.
One thing to point out is that the agents called and said they wanted to speak with the student, but it doesn't appear they ever arrested him. That means he could have told them that he wasn't interested in meeting with them, or he could have walked out of the room at any time. He also could have at any time brought in a lawyer.
The moral of the story is that if you ask for some creepy information, and it's not exactly clear why you asked for it, then the FBI and Secret Service are going to have some questions to ask you, and they'll open a file on it. They won't deprive you of any of your freedoms over that alone... being confronted by men with badges who are looking for you may be a scary thing, but he could have just as well told them to leave him alone and they would have had to. He agreed to meet with them, so that's that.
The US goverment can not secure our borders, yet they are going after people that file FOIA requests.
Someone please explain to me how in the hell that make sense.
Consider what people would say if a terrorist requested the information for a tunnel system under a school, and the FBI didn't investigate it? It's not like they were tracking this guy's every move. He requested someone rather unusual, and they checked it out as they should.
This story may be related to Austin's Anti-Terrorism Force, but they have a saying at UT that may be apropos: You can't spell stupid without UTPD
A little learning never hurt anyone.
So now everytime someone requests info through the FOIA they will be questioned by the FBI or CIA? Is the government trying to discourage this?
Its kinda usless to have a right if you are harassed every time you use it.
The Daily Texan asking for the location of security cameras to be published is at least a request that makes logical sense... the student newspaper is of course in the business of making Freedom of Information Act requests on issues that the school would rather keep under wraps.
But, assuming he's not a terrorist, why did this student want to know about the underground tunnels? He clearly isn't going to get authorized access to them. So, what value was that information to him?... that's a point that the article totally neglects. Without this kid being willing to give that explanation, no wonder he's being presumed a terrorist.
If he's got a perfectly legit reason to want to know, then he should tell us. Otherwise, I don't mind him being given extra attention every time he walks by airport security. He should have known that'd happen for making such a request without a clear reason for doing so.
I guess the supposition was that everyone should know what it is, especially when it was mentioned along with the ACLU. I don't, though, but I guess it has something to do with the UT camera system they mentioned?
This is downright CREEPY. Since when does it make you suspect to file a request under the FOIA?
This isn't tinfoil hat stuff folks, this is for real.
...University? Anyone else less than convinced by this scenario? Sounds like Americans are so crazy, they'd suspect anyone. Hey I have a bomb... ... and a big hello to my new FBI fans and admirers,
xx ben.
Doesn't the secret service deal strictly with the president himself ? Could this mean that there is some sort of connection between the President and these tunnels ? Is this standard policy for the secret service to visit domestic terrorist threats ? It seems kind of strange to me.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
I know the guy (Mark A Miller) being described in this article. I use IRC mostly as a contact list, and have a channel for users of my unremarkable non-profit server. Mark has been a regular in my small (under 20 people) channel for months. I know this is the same guy as the Mark Miller in this article because the user in my channel talked incessantly about these freedom of information act requests, months ago.
[04/13 00:16] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Ah.
[04/13 00:17] <@Mirell[Mobile]> District Attorney Office. Forgot to go by that.
[04/13 00:17] <@dyfrgi> Why do you want/need to?
[04/13 00:17] <@Mirell[Mobile]> To file a writ of mandumus against UT Austin.
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> They are ignoring one of my open records request.
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> To find out how much they pay for their Internet service.
[04/13 00:18] <@mspencer> "one of"?
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Okay, several of.
[04/13 00:18] <@Mirell[Mobile]> They initiall complied.
[04/13 00:19] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Now they're ignoring me hoping I'll go away.
[04/13 00:19] <@mspencer> I'm surprised you've filed even one open records request, let alone several.
[04/13 00:19] <@mspencer> What are you using the data for?
[04/13 00:19] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Er?
[04/13 00:19] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Why are you suprised?
[04/13 00:20] <@mspencer> I mean, as long as you're being adult about it, and making sure your need for the data is worth the time they need to put into filling those requests.
[04/13 00:20] <@dyfrgi> Writ of Mandumus?
[04/13 00:20] <@Mirell[Mobile]> mspencer,
[04/13 00:20] <@mspencer> So what are you using the data for?
[04/13 00:20] <@Mirell[Mobile]> To satiate my curiousity.
[04/13 00:21] <@Mirell[Mobile]> I'm not sure if that's how you spell it, dyfrgi.
[04/13 00:21] <@mspencer> Do you think those requests are having any kind of negative effect on the University or its staff?
[04/13 00:21] <@dyfrgi> I'm just wondering what it is.
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Let's see...I requested initially any contracts or invoices detailing the cost the University entails in gaining Internet connectivity.
[04/13 00:22] <@dyfrgi> Mm. I assume you want to file a petition for a writ of madamus.
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then I filed another one for something they withheld on an invoice.
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then another one for another thing they left out..
[04/13 00:22] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then one about the UT Classroom Web Cams they deny knowledge of
[04/13 00:23] <@Mirell[Mobile]> Then one about the UT Information Security Council briefs, since we had the Social Security Number scare.
[04/13 00:24] <@Mirell[Mobile]> And I'm not at all sure what you are trying to say by "Negative Affect" when they have a position who's sole purpose is to manage Open Records Requests.
[04/13 00:25] <@dyfrgi> I think he is implying that you should not ask, because it costs money for them to tell you.
[04/13 00:25] <@mspencer> I was deliberately vague: any effect, emotional or financial or otherwise, that is more significant than the benefit you get from satisfying your curiosity.
[04/13 00:26] <@Mirell[Mobile]> No.
[04/13 00:26] <@mspencer> hopefully there isn't one, but if there is, I'd like to think you considered that.
[04/13 00:26] <@bl0d> i dunno, i'd really be curious about the Webcam one...that's just fucked up...
[04/13 00:26] <@mspencer> Ah, OK then.
[04/13 00:26] <@Mirell[Mobile]> http://www.dailytexanonline.com/main.cfm?include=d etail&storyid=620962
[04/13 00:27] <@Mirell[Mobile]> They pull crap like this as well.
[04/13 00:27] <@Mirell[Mobile]> And this: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/main.cfm?include=d etail&storyid=657367
[04/13 00:27] <@Mirell[
Due to unwarranted disclosure of information of how the FBI has investigated this case, you are ALL under surveillance now, and labeled as potential terrorists until proven by the FBI. Thank you and have a nice day.
Who moved my sig?
Where can I file to get blueprints of the tunnels under the MPAA, RIAA, SCO, MS, FBI, CIA, White House, Pentago, NAACP, Disney, AOL, RedHat, and Frito-Lay headquarters? Did I ask for enough to warrant government attention???
FOIA = government honey pot?
Think about it.
You know I'm right.
I'm an undergrad at Caltech and here at least it's really popular to illegally enter the underground tunnel system for various reasons. There are all sorts of reasons for it -- you can get to classes when it's raining, you can get into buildings that would normally be locked at odd hours to turn in homework, etc. Also, some of our parties and other events have components in the tunnels and there's a bit of a cultural legacy associated with them as well -- people who attend the school are often given midnight tours highlighting various murals and the like. I've heard that this is popular at Carnegie Mellon as well.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
This case is never going to close. It's going straight to the cold case bin where it's going to sit forever.
The agents were called in to investigate if this kid was a threat based on one suspicious, yet not illegal, thing that he actually did. The key question was of course why he made a request for such sensitive info about tunnels he would never be allowed to access anyway. Well, the only way to answer that question is to ask the kid...
So they requested a meeting. They got the meeting. They asked him about every reason they could brainstorm about why he made the request, and didn't walk out knowing much more than they knew walking in. The question's now more-or-less impossible to answer.
And that's the end of the story. Unless he does something else to reactivate his file, this will always be an unsolved case. They'll likely never bother to do anything more, but should he ever come up again in their sights the Feds will at least have the records from this case to remind them of what he did in the past.
Just another example of the American reality, no different than the old Soviet Union. Remember to vote Democrat in November! At least we'll end the mandate of power by the GOP
the word "Terrorist" is REALLY overused.
"Are you a terrorist?" "No, I'm going to blow up my school for purely non-political reasons"
Then pee on them.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Baylor Has simmilar tunnels running under its campus that link all the buildings. They are pretty much for utilities, and maintanence of such. A couple years back they realized that everyone was useing em to sneak around (includeing the secret noze brotherhood) and decided to lock them up. Unless you have a pair of bolt cutters you can't get down there, but then again they are hot nasty, and all the exits are locked so its kinda pointless. If i asked the university about them, they would probebly give me a blank stare also though.
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
Sadly, scared people can make life hell for regular people.
I always carry a gun, and have permits to do so in 30 states.
In Maine, my home state, I am not required to actually conceal it, so I carry a revolver in a western holster.
Usually I have no problems, as most everyone in Maine is comfortable with guns. But every now and then someone will call the police when they see me walking around, and I ger harassed by the cops for 20 minutes while they check my ID with the state.
99% of the people out there, and even the cops, don't care that I'm carrying, it's old news, but that one person that's scared of a little gun ruins my day, and takes the cops away from real problems.
I attend UT, and the explanation I got during orientation was that UT was, at least during the cold war, the custodian of the backup computer for various defense systems. In the event that the primary computer in who-knows-where was destroyed, the computer at our school was supposed to take over.
That's what I'd expect. Maybe anal rape, too. Seems to be the normal procedure.
I really wish Mark Miller had not filed the open records request. That may give Osama bin Laden ideas. Because we all know that's how terrorists work. Something like this:
TO: UT
FROM: Osama bin Laden
SUBJECT: Open Records Request
MAIL TO: Mountains of Afghanistan, Cave 23.
During the war on Vietnam, the FBI was used as a way of suppressing dissent. FBI agents would visit the neighbors of non-violent protesters. Often that would be enough to cause suspicion toward the protesters. (He must have done something wrong, otherwise why would the FBI be investigating him.)
--
He lied. They died.
1) Get an anonymous proxy manager like EarthStation5. Tell it to exclude proxies from the U.S, Britain, Australia and any other country that gives a shit about this kind of stuff. 2) Using said anonymous proxies, go to hotmail and get an email account. 3) Only browse using the anonymous proxies, and only use the web via proxies to get your email at hotmail. You will be protected from this kind of bullshit. If you don't do this, don't whine and moan if you get harrassed. Technology is always many steps ahead of the MAN who wants to run your life but it cannot protect you if you don't use it.
Only certain requests, like those for information on infrastructure, would get this attention. Kids investigating bridges in the past have triggered the exact same thing. Once they find out why someone wants the information, the matter is generally cleared up.
So are these underground tunnels how college coed shower cams that I keep seeing advertised get installed? Or maybe the government didn't want people to find out about their dorm room cam racket :)
This is one time someone requested information about apparently sensitive information.
It's an abnormal request - a student doesn't have an obvious need for information about the tunnels at his school. If you went and bought 10x the amount of ammonia-based fertilizer that anyone would need, they'd investigate that too. Not because owning a lot of fertilizer is illegal, but because purchasing that amount of fertilizer is a decent sign that you may be about to do something illegal.
I'd much rather have the FBI taking the time to ask some intelligent questions when confronted with suspicious activity than letting universities be blown up.
paintball
Shortly after 9/11, I and a group of friends were discussing possible soft targets for a terrorist attack. Dorm move-in was just a couple weeks earlier, and to us it made a perfect target:
Tons of new people, including international students, so no one looks out of the ordinary.
Lots of moving vans parked right next to builds.
Chance to kill hundreds or thousands of young students.
Scene: Interview
Interviewer "So have you ever been convicted of a felony"
Mark "No"
Interviewer "Have you ever been investigated for terrorist activites?"
Mark "well.. there was this one time in college..."
Interviewer "OK thanks we'll call you" (calls security)
I've seen comments saying "he could have denied the meeting or walked away". I'm sure that wouldn't inflame the agents curiosity even more. The question about the ACLU was really out of line. Personally I think he should join the ACLU before making any other requests and then pull the card out if any other agents stop by.
the sentiment that I have to agree with is American citizens making FOIA requests should NOT trigger investigations.
People should only be investigated after they are proven guilty?
That's gonna work real well!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I'm graduating in two weeks and its a big deal that GWB will *not* be in attendance at neither Jenna nor Barbara's graduations...because they'd make life a nightmare here and in texas. Perhaps (wild rampant speculation) UT itself is under more scrutiny because one of the first daughters is there?
You could be in legal trouble for keeping that log if you are.
I go to utexas.edu. I can vouch for the administrative craziness that all too often plagues this school. :)
;)
;)
This is the same place where the suits did everything they could to keep the FOIA and other legal mechanisms from revealing information about the post-9/11 surveillance system. UT even went after our state attorney general over this. A friend of mine said it best: "Never sue someone when they have a law school."
The whole reference to UTWatch in the article creeped me out. UTWatch is a student-run organization which follows up on what the regents and other suits do. Like Ralph Nader in the 70s, its a mere watchdog organization checking if proposed policies will adversely affect the student body at large. Recently they have been very vocal speaking out concerning tuitition deregulation and the involvement of UT managing the Los Alamos laboratories. Not simply fact checkers, UTWatch does get involved when it smells something fishy.
I applaud what Mark Miller did. There is all sorts of cool things under the ground here at UT. Under ENS and RLM you can find a retired tokamak! More than just he are interested in whats buried. Simply put, what UT did (assuming it did something to spur this) simply lacked honor.
And now if he applies for a job that requires some kind of security clearance, someone might just notice that he's got a red flag on his file because he was investigated. And the reason he was investigated? Because he asked a fucking question.
I can't say I'm surprised. The university isn't exactly forthcoming when this kind of thing is concerned. You should have seen what it took just to get the location of SOME of their security cameras around campus. For those interested, it should be in the Daily Texan archives somewhere.
I have to kinda agree with parent - I wouldn't be surprised if this is being used in some way to the effect of "sure, you can have access to this information, but we're going to screw with you and make a fuss every time you ask for it." The end goal being that your average citizen won't use it for fear of the hassle. Imagine these guys came to your job and started asking your boss questions about your possible terrorists links, because you requsted info on a local clock-tower structure or something (maybe for a private graphics project, etc). This would probably affect how your boss, or the employer as a whole, would look at you, whether you were "Guilty" or not. Soon, the only people who would make such requests would be the "damn-it's-my-right-you-HAVE-to-give-me-that-info" people, who would then probably be considered "activists" (and therefor, risky) by the government, so that the FOIA and the like could presumably be dropped with the explaination of "well, look, the ONLY people who really want this information are troublemakers - we should really lock this stuff down to protect the country from terrorists...".
Anyway, the main point I was trying to make is that there are SO many ways that the kid could have gotten this info, besides doing it the proper way. He could have explored some/most of those areas himself, MIT style, learning how to "access" locks and the like in the process, and no one would have been the wiser. This blanket "we've got to protect people from terrorists" crap is getting to be an excessive excuse for anything the current administration doesn't like. Yes, there are bad people in the world who don't like us, and some are already inside the US, but come ON. And I'm saying this as a member of the US Armed Forces, protecting their right to use this excuse. Go figure.
The thing that I found most ironic after 911:
Up here in Canada we were apologizing to the Japanese-Canadians who were interned during World War two. We said that such a thing should never happen again. One month later, the Japanese were forgotten and we were threatening to treat arab looking people the same way. Sigh
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
I enjoyed this part:
"The Joint Terrorism Task Force probably would look into something like that. [Miller] could be a terrorist. He could be planning a plot."
Planning a plot? That's only the tip of the iceberg! What if he is plotting a scheme or scheming a plan?
I see no problem with such a request being investigated. It does sound like they asked the guy some pretty stupid questions though (do they really think that long hair is significant when it comes to identifying terrorists? or membership of the ACLU?) OTOH, those questions may well have been filler to pad out the real questions they wanted to ask.
If they find no evidence during their investigation, they really should grant his further information requests though. Once they are satisfied that he's not a terrorist, they'll have no reason not to let him see all the files relating to his case, surely?
Dan.
A close friend (cough) has been in the tunnels at my old university, it's actually pretty interesting and they used to be open. It is very dangerous as poorly shielded high voltage lines run through them, though, amoung other hazards.
Why? Why not. Tunnels were one of / the main motivators behind the now imfamous MIT Guide to Lockpicking, and it's not that far of a stretch to see why someone would be interested in getting a map. Maybe the kid just wanted to read them, but come on, if you REALLY wanted to know, those tunnels are ventilated above ground and it would take all of 15 seconds to gain entry and map it out that way, with string if need be.
Maybe this isn't that big a deal, but it's on the top of a damp moss covered slope. You better be careful, because there are worse things than being eaten by a grue.
..don't panic
I can see why they might be a little cautious... ;-)
...A network of underground utility tunnels connects campus buildings to provide water, steam, coaxial tables, compressed air and fiber optics...
;)
I wonder what those are ? and maybe they'll upgrade soon to TwistedPair Tables or Fiber Tables
Proofreading, anyone ?
I don't have a problem with law enforcement looking into someone who put in this type of request. Its true that it might involve something fishy, and there's no harm in checking it out. It would be legitimate to see if the guy had a criminal record, had made threats, had been buying explosives, etc. The problem I see is with the questions they asked him. It would be reasonable to ask him why he wanted to know about the tunnels, but it was totally inappropriate to ask him whether he was working with the ACLU or whether he belonged to UT Watch. That's political harassment. It isn't relevant to checking out potential terrorists and it isn't any of their business.
...to design new levels for Quake.
But c'mon. Where does the line get drawn? If I want the structural plans for the underground areas near FED banks, does that warrant a possible investigation? Or maybe river system topo maps with nuclear cooling intake pipes? Stop crying and suck it up...so the guy gets investigated. Big fucking deal. Tell your boss you needed these plans for your "new graphic project" and so you requested them and the FBI came. Everybody at your job gets a little excitement and we can all sleep a little better knowing that you're not planning to bomb the hell out of us tonite.
You'll have that sometimes...
... the agents, from Austin's Joint Terrorism Task Force
No WAY! *I* was investigated by the North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force, too, back in 98 or 99. They were just curious why we were transporting a bunch of guns from El Paso to Austin in a rental car that was paid for with cash.
Ah, the fun times we had...
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Two words: Charles Whitman.
A Citizen making a FOIA request might trigger an investigation. SO WHAT???
You'd be the same ones whining (armchair-QB style) if "real" terrorist agents requested questionable materials and used such information to assist in carrying out an attack. Boo hoo! The government did nothing! boo hoo!
You make me sick. I'm pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of posts here don't agree with you. Its not as if every FOIA request warrants an investigation. Grow up.
you should *** NEVER *** consent to give any information to the police if they ask you. Only if they arrest you, and then, only in the presence of a lawyer.
For Mark Miller, this is a winning situation however it turns out.
1
Ask for Information, get information, go public about how easy it was and how FBI etc.. are slipping
2
Ask for information, get questioned, go public about how fascist the FBI etc.. are acting
3
Ask for information, get denied, go public with FOI being overturned by FBI etc...
This is not news, it's a public troll.....
See:
http://homepage.mac.com/happywaffle/tunnels.html
So he filed the request Dec. 16, 2003. Agents called him Jan. 30, 2004.
That's 45 days. During those 45 days, he was probably gone for 2-3 weeks for holiday break, and it does take time for any request to be processed.
I know that if someone told me my school had an underground system of tunnels, I'd be pretty interested in learning about them.
Maybe he asked around and no one would talk?
Setec Astronomy
Sure. I understand why he might be curious. It does seem like a way to draw attention to oneself. And I don't see why the university wouldn't just deny the request with a perfectly reasonable comment about security.
Okay: Someone is asking for information on infrastructure that could be exploited in a terrorist attack. I do wonder why they didn't just call the police/sheriff, but perhaps they naturally pass potential terrorist threats to the FBI.
I don't much like this. Are they saying that UT Watch might be planning terrorist attacks? If they are, then does it make sense to let the organization know that they know? (If this guy had been with UT Watch, pow, they know they're being tracked; if not, why wouldn't he mention the questioning to others?) Or are they just idly trying to find out if there might be a connections? Or are they completely clueless because they are a national law enforcement unit trying to follow up on a local group?
This is odd, too: The obvious answer is "We hand suspicious requests for infrastructure information to the police for further investigation, and they're free to share that with other law enforcement agencies." I'd HOPE that's what they'd do, in fact, and would feel more comfortable if that was their answer. But "I dunno"?
Overall, I'd call it disconcerting, but not really that big a deal. Am I in the minority here?
TSG
I used to be a resident of the UT system and heard all about the tunnels - even got to pass through one between ENS and RLM on a tour once. Would have loved to have gotten a big map of the tunnels to overlay the standard UT map just to see how quickly I COULD get from RLM to anywhere else but never thought to file a FOIA request ... Duh!
.. not surprised the SS got involved ... Y'all know one of the Bush twins attends UT right ... The SS has been all over UT since summer of 2000. They're discrete but not exactly in hiding.
But
what do folks here think of the likelyhood for the US freedom of information act being passed by congress and signed into law in today's political climate?
Well, I'm sure glad that CMU dosn't have any tunnels..........
Mak'tal shree lok'tak mek'ta sa'tak Oz! - Daniel Jackson
The Freedom of Information Act has NOTHING to do with campus security. Good luck in court. Nothing like profiling yourself for the rest of your life.
... of Information. ;)
:)
In regards to those others that replied to your posting of logs... any irony in the fact that they're whinging about your posting public conversations about his quest to make private/government information public?
Didn't think so. Carry on.
I don't get it, you have an organization with some of the brightest and powerfull people, and they jump on some kid going to school??
You would think that the situation could have been handled by the FBI in 1 of 2 ways.
1) Allow the information, apply surveillance. using the ample US budget they should be able to determine without a reasonable doubt what this kid is upto and take him under coustody and let the legal system do what it does best.
2) Disallow the information and the surveillancething.
Why would they freak out on the kid and come up with nothing?
That doesn't seem right to me are they panicing? Do they know what they are doing? Being much more powerful then a post-secondary grad, you would hope that US would have a better idea of what is going on.
We always bitch about all of our rights taken away for Homeland Security but what are they really doing?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
I read the article, albeit quickly. I understand the pro-and-con arguments on this topic, but did he or did he not end up with the info requested?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Now if he is denied the right to board an airplane from this point forward and put on one of the terrorist watch lists the government wishes to share with private industry and hence potential employers, then yes, I would see a VERY SERIOUS issue here.
In fact, it's very conceivable that FBI will go to Canada to find suspected terrorist, given the current Prime Minister has improved relationship with the US.
First of all, my government's power would not be the product of my people, but rather would be the product of myself. Freedom would be a priveledge extended by the state, not by the Almighty Creator. In fact, if any religious propaganda, such as a plaque of the Ten Commandments, be found anywhere, said propaganda would immediately be removed.
Second, everybody would be my slave. Nobody would be allowed to do anything without government approval in the form of licenses (from driver licenses to business permits to rental unit occupation permits), because otherwise they would be considered terrorists and would have all of their property seized for my use.
Third, a tax system would be put into effect to steal half of everybody's income, from a numeric standpoint. I would pass legislation to make it extremely difficult to purchase and own property, and renters would be affected by high prices because their landlords would similarly have to make ends meet. Thus, with this tax system and property ownership legislation, both parents would have to work very hard to feed their children, and would be so concerned with making ends meet that they would ignore the above, because there are more pressing matters (food) to worry about. (The same tax system would further benefit me by providing detailed information, down to the finest detail, of everybody's business, because they would need to detail the source of every penny of income, and back it up with evidence. Failure to do this would constitute a felony, and would be selectively enforced to strike fear into peoples' hearts.) To steal the other half of everybody's money, the money itself would not be backed by anything of value. Thus it would be easy to continuously print money, thereby constantly increasing the total amount in circulation. This way, my government would steal the peoples' money, without reducing the amount they have from a numeric standpoint, by stealing the value of their money.
Fourth, the educational system would basically turn out people who can barely read, so they won't be smart enough to figure out what I'm doing to them.
Fifth, there would be propaganda all over the place telling people how free they are, etc.
That's how I'd run a government, if I were the king of my own country.
Now of course the FBI etc have an obligation to check things out. They get their power from people's fears so of course they are likely to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I probably should....but does anyone remember the Good Times episode where the younger son was doing reasearch on the USSR. The feds started questioning everyone he knew, his father lost his job so on and so forth.
Bring back McCarthy! In so many ways I feel like the Govt is acting like a cornered badger, and I am honestly not sure who is more scared, us or Govt.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
Hey. I heard Sadam has crazy tunnels under the sand over there.
Texas.
Tunnels.
See where I'm going? Mebbee Dubya dont want nobody messing with his mushroom farm. Bug off hippee - I'm tryin ta snort sum coke down here.
If an Agent Knocks - Federal Investigators and Your Rights
People opposing U.S. policies in Central America, giving sanctuary to refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador, struggling for Black liberation, and against nuclear weapons, are today more than ever likely to receive visits from FBI agents or other federal investigators. Increasingly, agents are also visiting the families, friends, and employers of these activists.
This pamphlet is designed to answer the most frequent questions asked by people and groups experiencing government scrutiny, and to help them develop practical responses.
What is political intelligence?
Political intelligence is information collected by the government about individuals and groups. Files secured under the Freedom of Information Act disclose that government officials have long been interested in all forms of data. Information gathered by government agents ranges from the most personal data about sexual liaisons and preferences to estimates of the strength of groups opposing U.S. policies. Over the years, groups and individuals have developed various ways of limiting the collection of information and preventing such intelligence gathering from harming their work.
Do I have to talk to the FBI?
No. The FBI does not have the authority to make anyone answer questions (other than name and address see errata), to permit a search without a warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with an investigation. Agents are usually lawyers, and they are always trained as investigators; they have learned the power of persuasion, the ability to make a person feel scared, guilty, or impolite for refusing their requests for information. So remember, they have no legal authority to force people to do anything -- unless they have obtained an arrest or search warrant. Even when agents do have warrants, you still don't have to answer their questions.
Under what laws do the agents operate?
In 1976, FBI guidelines regulating the investigation of political activities were issued by Attorney General Edward H. Levi. Criticized by liberals and conservatives alike, the guidelines were issued in the wake of a Congressional committee's report of highly questionable activities by the FBI, monitoring the activities of domestic political groups seeking to effect change. The report exposed the FBI's counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) under which the agency infiltrated groups, compiled dossiers on, and directly interfered with individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and association.
The FBI COINTELPRO program was initiated in 1956. Its purpose, as described later by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, was "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize activities" of those individuals and organizations whose ideas or goals he opposed. Tactics included: falsely labelling individuals as informants; infiltrating groups with persons instructed to disrupt the group; sending anonymous or forged letters designed to promote strife between groups; initiating politically motivated IRS investigations; carrying out burglaries of offices and unlawful wiretaps; and disseminating to other government agencies and to the media unlawfully obtained derogatory information on individuals and groups.
In 1983, Attorney General William French Smith issued superseding guidelines that authorized "domestic security/ terrorism" investigations against political organizations whenever the FBI had a reasonable belief that these groups might violate a law. The new guidelines permitted the same intrusive techniques the FBI used against organized crime.
The Smith guidelines were justified by the Attorney General's observation that "our citizens are no less threatened by groups which engage in criminal violence for political... purposes that by those which operate lawlessly for financial gain." He concluded: "we must ensure that criminal intelligence resources that have been brought to bear
I can understand them asking why he wanted to know this information, but the questions concerning if he belongs to perfectly legal organizations are really troubling (if he is to be believed). Should belonging to a watchdog group (UT Watch) or communicating with the ACLU make any difference at all in the investigation of a Joint Terrorism Task Force? How is that relevant? There has been an ongoing trend of using new powers granted to "fight terrorism" to harass people and squelch dissent.
The feds should never have been visibly involved in something so trivial unless there was an indication of something else.
It seems that without another cause, this would constitute coersion in order to deny access to information which is otherwise not secret. Even if they "approve" the request, there is a chilling effect on other requests. Probably the intent.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
"Without a subpoena, without any clear evidence that this person is up to no good, I think this is chilling, and this could have a very adverse impact on people who are requesting information," Woodford said.
the article -> "One of the provisions of the infamous USA PATRIOT Act is the ability for the government to force companies that hold personal information, specifically in this case, ISPs, to turn over their records without a court order."
I'm glad i'm not living in a country with a justice system going out of control. I'm not saying security is obsolete. It's not, but these kind of measures are ridiculous and out of control.
If you don't like these measures it would be possible to go and request a lot of 'sensitive' information with many different people. It would give them a hell of a job investigating everybody.
It also makes me think of the secret (Stasi; STFI) files in eastern Germany. They had thousands of files on the whole population (image). It makes you wonder if and what THEY have investigated on you.
Privacy is terrorism.
If you are a terrorist organization and you are wanting to research potential targets for an attack it would stand to reason that, especially in these times, you wouldn't use someone with even a hint of a criminal record or known ties to a terrorist organization. You're going to plant people who are your "upstanding citizens" that can operate under the radar.
Really, when you think about it, college students are excellent recruits. They need money, they tend to be idealists, they tend to be socially liberal, and they tend to be blank slates politically. With all this going for them, they should be at the top of the list as far as "potential terrorists".
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
"It would not be normal for us in this office, but [Jones] is not assigned to this office," [Perry] said. "The Joint Terrorism Task Force probably would look into something like that. [Miller] could be a terrorist. He could be planning a plot."
Considering how deeply penetrated the FBI has been in the past, how do we know that she isn't planning something?
This is the problem with government agencies. Governmental functionaries always presume that they are immune to the power that fear creates. They also never suspect their own ranks.
Fucking dorks.
The US government continually needs to be reminded that the Constitution limits governmental power, not individual liberty.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
How many misguided Xianist Western infidels could be be burned alive if the tunnels were filled with napalm? Praise be to Allah.
True story.
This reminds me of a kid I knew when he was in high school, back in the Vietnam War era (when the internal security systems of the various levels of government in the US had gotten 'WAY out of control).
..."
His use of a university's computer while a high school student (something he got started on as a guinea pig in a University program doing research on learning and teaching) had attracted the attention of the FBI.
A couple years later he decided to use the shiny-new FOIA to see what records the FBI and the state and local cops had on him. And while he was at it, he sent FOIA requests to several other agencies.
The first one he sent to the CIA was a classic self-referential hack: He requested their internal document describing their procedure for responding to FOIA requests. B-) (Obviously useful for generating the next round of requests, too.)
Needless to say the agencies involved didn't respond as required by the law. So with the aid of a Libertarian lawyer he started suing them. He won, and they eventually were ordered to give him what he asked for. Then they flaked on that, too, and he got a contempt citation and more court orders. Eventually he got much of his info (with big chunks blacked out). Then he sued them for his lawyer's fees and won that, too.
After a few iterations of this he was sitting on quite a number of interesting documents. So he started a newspaper to give them wider circulation and created a business of generating FOIA requests and publishing the results. This became quite popular with the CIA watcher, privacy advocate, private detective, and tinfoil-hat sets. Advertising revenue flowed in from such folk as buging and debugging equipment manufacturers.
At one point he got the petty cash records from a New York area CIA office. Items he found in it charged to one project (air compressor, flit guns, briefcase, auto exhaust system, washing a car) led to blowing the lid off a project to obtain information on how a biowarfare plague might spread in an urban environment by exposing the citizens of New York City to a "mostly harmless" bug that caused severe enough respiratory system symptoms that it could be tracked by hospital admissions. (Spread techniques included spraying subways with the bug from the gimmicked briefcase and spraying commuter traffic via the car's exhaust system.)
He also got hold of and published one year's version of the IRS procedures manual. And put out a pamphlet on how to use the FOIA. (Eventually he was enjoined from distributing either of these.)
Eventually the FOIA was modified to give the security agencies some loopholes against such requests.
Bob Dylan had something to say about this: "You have to pay to keep from going through these things twice." Also Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of Liberty must be watered, from time to time
He's still out there doing stuff like this, by the way. Last time he looked he had a web site dedicated to exposing personal information trading in the information age.
The above-mentioned kid was part of the Boomer's round. I guess now it's Generation X's (or maybe Y's) turn to pay some dues. (Sigh.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
steam tunnel-ing. Brings back memories...
We used to do that at U of I UC (I was there 1976-1983)
Never asked anybody--just did it.
I guess things are different now...
C'mon, asking for his student affiliations? Why he wears long hair?
This is a case of bureaucratic stupidity.
...he is likely going to become one of those left-wing "investigative reporter" busybodies that'll end up going to work later on for some liberal media outfit that likes to stir up controversy which irritates the hell out of the establishment/government, and the feds would like to try and nip that in the bud and put the fear of the right into him while he's still young and impressionable.
Step 1. Apply for information which someone thinks is suspicious.
Step 2. Your noted on a government database as having requested that information. (You're the only one most likely). The reason is because of likely crime or terrorist activity associated with that information, otherwise no one would bother adding you to the database. You are initially interviewed by authorities.
Step 3. Someone commits crime/terrorist act related to the information. Because they were a criminal/terrorist, they got the required information from other sources.
Step 4. You are detained without warrant and held without charge. You disappear. No one knows where you are. You are not allowed to make a phone call.
Step 5. Further investigation yields no clues. Law enforcement officials with an average IQ of 100 are under pressure to make an arrest, and charge someone.
Step 6. Based on your comments under (mild) mental torture and previous slashdot posts, you are arrested and charged. The circumstantial evidence of your having asked for the information without a valid reason otherwise may be enough to convict you. More recently, they can also hold you without charge or communication until you confess too now.
Step 7. You are convicted.
That's why this kind of stuff is scary. It does happen. All too often. After all, there is a real chance of the crime/terror incident happening or otherwise you wouldn't have been questioned in the first place.
Bottom line, if you don't want to face the risk of being interrogated/charged for something you didn't do, then be careful what you ask for and how you draw attention to yourself. Even comments in forums like this can be use against you, and they are kept for a very long time... Everyone who reads slashdot is probably considered a potential terrorist/criminal by anyone who doesn't understand what geeks are. Some people feel threatended by geeks. Especially hackers - white or black hat - and those sort of people are the most likely content of a jury.
It is a bit chilling. And it's not recent legislation or the US. Check the history of academic dissidents throughout recent history. This is a common theme.
GrpA.
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
Yeah, and I suppose they think their clock tower is secure too...
There is a massive amount of 'appearence of impropriety' in this White House.
There should be multiple investigative probes poking into of every Gucci-suit-covered orifice of each and every GOP motherfucker in this pathetic, incompetent administration.
But what always seems to happen to them?
The 911 commission had the Bush Gang by their balls. They could have insisted that Bush sit alone, answer questions under oath, and do it all in public.
He should have done all of the above, because the buck (supposedly) should be stopping at his desk. He should be held accountable.
He should be held responsible.
He should asked, and he should answer.
He had a job to do, (he wanted this job so badly he was willing to take it under the most questionable of circumstances!) and he was getting paid to do it. And it is the right of the American people to demand that he prove to us he has done his job, and has earned his pay.
So, the 911 commission had this dumbass bastard BY THE FREAKING BALLS. The longer he delayed and played for time, the worse the heat was going to get for him. He would have had to do as the commission had asked. All they had to do was stand their ground.
Then.
What does this softball, lily-livered commission do?
THEY FUCKING WIMP-OUT!!!!
Bush is let off the hook again.
America has been hijacked, by its own worst
hypocritical scumbags.
This isn't so difficult to understand. You live in a society, which is trading liberty for security. You give up certain things you would otherwise be free to do (Run rampant and kill people) for the security that no one will do the same thing to you (run rampant and kill you).
I'm not sure why this bogus maxim comes up so frequently. The student made an extremely abnormal request. Was he within his legal right to do so? Of course he was. Did he have a reason, other than to get some hidden info? Nope.
We know this *after the fact*. *After the fact* security is the only type there is: if you're already dead from someone on a murderous rampage (see paragraph one), your forfeitsure of liberty does no good whatsoever. That's why we've got folks like the police, who make sure that these sorts of things can't happen.
I saw Viet Dinh speak at Tufts University (author of the Patriot Act, in case you were wondering), and the ACLU person who was suppposed to be speaking Against him openly said (quote): "Mr. Dinh, I hereby declare you an honorary Civil Libertarian".
While you may have the right to much information, there is a good deal of informaiton that should be protected for the sake of protecting other people. This is a case where the information was given and the motive was questioned. I have difficulty believing anyone finds anything wrong with that.
Go to your local library and find the book The Trial by Franz Kafka.
Honourable though his intentions may be, he also demonstrates a lack of knowledge on how corporate politics works. He gave true reasons for his actions.
In the chat log, he gives a reason for an investigation thus: "To satiate my curiousity." This is the wrong thing to say. If you are up to anything that is remotely dubious, never give the exact *real* reason you are doing anything. Instead, make up another reason that is plausible and legitimate and always give that reason instead. Never divulge the real reason to anyone you don't trust. If you cannot think up a plausible reason then you may need to rethink your actions.
In the example given, he should have said that he was gathering information in the public interest. (This reason is even true and therefore irrefutable: he's a member of the public and he's interested, therefore it must be in the public interest.) Another thing one could say is anything using corporate doublespeak. The eyes of thine listener shall glazeth over: and thou shalt be as slippery as an eel in thy escape from unwelcome scrutiny.
Concealing real reasons is commonplace. The leaders of the MPAA and RIAA do this. Politicians do this. Corporate CEO's do this. And we know what fine, upstanding citizens these people are. *cough*. So if it's okay for them to do it, why can't the masses?
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
The term you're looking for is "chilling effect". Hostile interrogation (the kind where you ask somebody about ACLU membership or why they wear their hair long, for instance) of people who make FOIA requests... dissuades others from making FOIA requests. Handy, that.
Freedom: "I won't!"
From what has been posted so far, it looks like the information was already available, and the request was pretty aimless in intent - to not investigate could have potential security problems. But like one poster said - students at some universities frequently use tunnels for all manner of reasons - weren't cables strung on campus by individuals this way before the present state of affairs? The problem is those days are gone, and many places simply will never allow that degree of freedom - for access to places - or information - anymore.
/. could actually agree on something to file massive FOI requests for a single item - what type of response that would bring. I'm sure it would be a total cog in the system. The point is that when an individual who is fanatically devoted to some cause - they may have lived for years building a *clean* life just to act on that one moment - and in fact plans on not living through the time of carrying it out - if they can slip something though - they may have just what they need.
My brother is an ex-pat - works all over the world - and a few years before 9/11, on a visit home he said *people in this country have no idea how loose our security is viewed worldwide. Something big will happen and the attitudes in the country will change forever*. That was about the time of the Oklahoma City bombings, when - if you were watching the first reports and speculations - everyone believed it *had* to an international organization. Palestine got the first blame - then nobody really woke up to the idea that people in our country could be every bit as extremist as is *others* are portayed in a xenophobic cultural lens.
I am generally very suspicious of all these government investigations - they make me uneasy in too many ways because the Patriot Act has been too loosely applied in ways that have already been well reported - and in fact have become good sport - as they should be in an open and free society.
Had the request had some intent - like the student was an architecture major - technically - not that he had to be to make the request, I think this would have just faded away very quickly.
I wonder though if a large group of individuals - say if a group as large as that as subscribe to
In the chat log, he gives a reason for an investigation thus: "To satiate my curiousity." This is the wrong thing to say. If you are up to anything that is remotely dubious, never give the exact *real* reason you are doing anything. Instead, make up another reason that is plausible and legitimate and always give that reason instead. Never divulge the real reason to anyone you don't trust. If you cannot think up a plausible reason then you may need to rethink your actions.
---
Umm...dude, I don't care enough to fight it. It was IRC, I did not think I would get Slashdotted.
In the example given, he should have said that he was gathering information in the public interest. (This reason is even true and therefore irrefutable: he's a member of the public and he's interested, therefore it must be in the public interest.) Another thing one could say is anything using corporate doublespeak. The eyes of thine listener shall glazeth over: and thou shalt be as slippery as an eel in thy escape from unwelcome scrutiny.
---
No...I just wanted to know how flippin' big the tunnels were. That's all.
We have so much time, and so little to do - strike that! Reverse it. Tryn Mirell
...FBI interrogates the an operator on #bushsucks for conspiracy to kill the president
And he if he is not a terrorist, then he should not be concerned.
Filling your gas tank a lot is an indicator that you do a lot of driving; it's not an indicator as to how FAST you drive.
paintball
Hey man... did anyone come by and want to talk? I thought you'd enjoy being able to share your cause with others, and all that. Didn't mean any harm by posting the log. I think that was a pretty favorable thing to post: you summarized your observations about UT pretty clearly, and linked several good articles about their BS.
:-)
With channel permissions set the way they are, I'm half expecting to come home in 2 hours and find myself banned from my own channel. heh
See you in a few, Mark!
--Spence (AC because this is essentially a private message and all of slashdot doesn't need to see it)
Interesting to note that folks [like Martha] are being bagged these days for lying to federal officers, rather than for some primary crime. In short, if someone with a badge shows up, you can keep silent [not often a good option] or tell the truth. What you can't do -- without risking a trip to the slammer -- is lie, even if you are completely innocent of any other crime. And don't think your lies are protected by the Fifth Amendment; they aren't.
In fact, I wonder what sort of security the White House has. I'm going to go file a FOIA request to know what all of the White House security is.
If I do this, and the government DOESN'T come asking questions, I'd be both surprised and alarmed, regardless of my intentions.
paintball
btw, i ran the first website about college tunnels, first started around '94.. tunnels.tripod.com .. no longer maintained, but the info is up there for prosperity if anyone wants tunnel plans. :)
-Ben
That would be our computer that you're playing 2nd fiddle to.
paintball
you do relize there is such a thing as coaxial tables, right?..right?
now it probably is a typo, but don't go off half cocked.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The FBI should really be investigating potential hackers.
You know, anti social young men with computer experience and leftist tendencies.
Hello?.....Hello?.............
Long hair and being a member of the ACLU isn't an indicator that you're a terrorist, it's an indicator that you're NOT a terrorist.
If I were an investigator, and it was my job to determine whether you posed a terrorist threat or not, finding out that you were a garden-variety student activist would be a pretty good indication that you were NOT a terrorist and I could move onto investigating more important things.
paintball
...we'd like to talk to you about your homepage...
If they knock at your doors at night although you meant no harm,
If they torture soldiers and do not get punished for it,
If they invade other countries and destroy our freedom back home
Then it's time for a regime change at home.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Nope, she's right, there are no tunnels at CMU. Nothing. Not at all. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Mak'tal shree lok'tak mek'ta sa'tak Oz! - Daniel Jackson
UT pulls this kind of shit all the time. An open records request for information regarding the on campus security cameras was submitted by the Daily Texan; UT denied it. The Texan appealed to AG Abbott, who ruled in their favor; the University appealed and it continues to fester in the legal system.
Would they also have asked a woman why she wears short hair? Men today are at the point women were a hundred years ago.. at best.
In my day, he would have been hanged just for looking at the nice young government men strangely.
And he would have been thankful for the lesson too, and thanked them politely whilst he was climbing the gallows.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen
Although it is possible.
What I'm wondering about is why TWO agents had to meet with this guy to discuss this.
For everyone who does NOT understand, there are a limited number of agents (FBI, CIA, SS, etc). The more agents handling what are BLATANTLY obvious cases of non-terrorist activity, the FEWER agents doing any actual anti-terrorist work.
You are correct. If any investigation was done, it should have been done quickly and quietly. They can find his major. They can find what classes he's taken. They can find if he has any police record. They do not need to waste the time of two agents.
..., I mean, just this minute as I was reading this thread finished listening to a recording made from an NBC broadcast early in the morning of 9-11. In it the reporter is relating a quick interview he had with the head honcho fire chief, who relates to him reports he was getting from his firemen about secondary bombs going off in the towers, which jibes with other eyewirtness accounts, and the observations of how the building fell and the "poofs" you can see, ie, controlled demolitions planted inside the building. It was clear, unambiguous what was being said.
OH, if you never heard of it, that they had "no clue", google for "project bojinka", read up on that, see what you think if they had "no clue anyone would attack the US". Then there's Putin himself warning them, David Schippers trying to get to ashcroft for weeks to warn him, and some others. A lot really, this subject is a major interest of mine, but this is just a short post.
As to FBI investigation, there are several now involved in lawsuits against the government, whistleblower agents who refused to go along with the coverup,because they were ordered OFF the cases by higher ups (it gets vague how far up the food chain the orders came down from obviously, but far enough up it represents serious juice), agents who were hot on the trail of some of the alleged terrorist hijackers, and got pulled when they got close. This happened multiple times so it wasn't a coincidence, it was on-purpose orders to back-off the cases. That's serious clue-age there. Norad not scrambling when at least 4 airliners hijacked for a record l-o-n-g time. please....
Oh man, there's SO much out there now, where to start...
There's lots more unanswered questions now on a huge variety of websites, just TONS of evidence. Just a post with links would be huge now. Google is your friend.
The FBI is being "cute", they aren't investigating the *real* terrorists, they are investigating the lower level patsies. The *real* crime IS some shadowy cartel/gang inside government using this event are actually having a part in it.
9-11 REEKS of coverup and guys in business suits and uniforms involvement, it is a reichstagg fire event IMO, a serious, coordinated gamble of a complete coup d'etat.
this guy has filed for a lot of information under the FOIA about the school. Things like "How much does the University pay for there internet connect?"
They probably alerted the FBI in hopes it would shut this guy up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Seems to me that this kind of investigation should fall under the term unreasonable search, no? Obviously, the FBI/Dept. of Homeland Security wouldn't agree, but is this even possible to bring to court?
Yes, I think I do know a bit about what I think. As for what they should be doing - I think it is safe to say that they would not be visible about a real investigation:
they: "we're the fuzz, come to interrogate ya'"
he: "fckoff"
they: "we think you're a terrorist, why ya' askin' questions?"
he: "'cause i'm gonna do bad stuff!"
If they were really looking at this guy, don't you think they'd be somewhat more more careful about tipping their hand. It's about the unsaid public statement that we will look at you if you ask questions.
--Insert obligatory "In Soviet Russia" line here--
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
PERHAPS FBI agents work in PAIRS ala MULDER and SCULLY. HENCE the TWO agents instead of just ONE.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Before I was at Caltech (see tunneling thread above or below or wherever it is) I was at the University of Oklahoma. As I recall we broke in and ate y'all guys' mascot a few times, which tells you about how good UT security is.
(For those unacquainted with the OU/Texas rivalry, it's nuts. And their mascot is Bevo the bull.)
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
They are using terrorism as an smoke-screen for the true evil that cannot be named, concealed in those tunnels, waiting for the appointed time.
Terrorists have been attacking other countries for years.
It isn't even Islamic extremism. Look at the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
But the reason that al Queda attacked us is not because we're doing better then their country. It's because they want us OUT of their country (Saudi Arabia).
Check out Bush's connections with the House of Saud. Check out our history of interference and supporting them despite the will of the majority over there.
The way the US seems to be these days, he's really lucky they knocked instead of broke down the door with an armed squad.
;-)
I guess it's because he's not a script kiddie^W^W"Hacker"
These are the same tunnels that law enforcement "officials" used to enter the UT Tower on August 1, 1966 to get at Charles Whitman, the sniper.
Had it not been for this covert entry, he'd probably still be up there. Well..., I guess he would have ordered out for pizza at some point.
g
If you buy a Ryder truck or so full, you're probably not a planter, as buying that much would be a waste of money.
paintball
Five (or was it six?) pages of comments and no one mentions Dungeons and Dragons? Used to be a semi-popular pasttime - and one for which it would be useful to have the tunnel information.
My other Slashdot ID is much lower.
September 11 could have been prevented with the information that was available at the time, before the patriot act or any other recent erosions of civil liberties had taken place. The problem, according to most of the evidence at the inquiry and a lot of analysis and commentary, both official and unofficial, was not that the police/FBI/CIA didn't have the information, but that they were unable to put it together due to cross-institutional barriers and a general lack of cooperation and coordination.
Read Pynchon.
I worked a job once, running pipe through the tunnel system at a western University. When classes started in the fall of '81, we were amazed at the number of coeds wearing dresses with nothing under them. Storm grates serve many purposes. I guess we all perved out a bit at the free show.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
But if all they did was ask and he volentarily answered then not a big deal as far as I'm concerned.
The problem there is that we no longer have any real rights. Now, before you dismiss me for taking some kind of extremist view, think of it this way:
The governemt currently can, at its option, declare you an "enemy combatant", with no due process or judicial review. Then they can detain these "enemy combatants" indefinitely. Hence, if he told them to bugger off when they questioned him, they may see that as being suspicious, and decide he'd make a good Enemy Combatant.
Rights that can be arbitrarily taken away at any time aren't rights at all. They're an illusion. What it boils down to is that you have a right to due process, except when the government says you don't.
they'll watch you for quite a while now, and you'll always be in a database someplace. A "person of interest". Whether or not they'll let you fly won't be answered until you try to board the plane, and even if they don't let you fly, you should check on "refund" status. Heh, try a short cheap trip first as a test!
Dumb question but I'm gonna ask it anyway, I mean, you KNEW you were gonna rattle cages with that request, correct? I don't care one way or the other, why you asked is your business, I don't get a sense from what you have written or are quoted on you were doing more than being curious,perhaps pushing the envelope a tad, but surely you must have thought of the ramifications of it beforehand? Either way, now you know for sure you are dealing with a paranoid government who hires paranoids, and I mean both delusions of grandeur and persecution types. The more you find out about power politics, the more you will find out there are no rules, no limits, no one plays fair, lies are more common than truths, and they are usually always mixed together anyway, and there's no such thing as the constitution or born-with rights. None. Zee-ro. That went buh bye decades ago, but now they are *serious* about it.
Anyway, interesting story,welcome to the being on the lists club, Good Luck, have a good time in yurrpe if you get there!
Repeat after me, "There are no X-Files. It was only a TV show."
It would only take ONE agent a few minutes to make the calls to find out the information they needed (police record, major, classes taken, etc). That one agent could then move on to other, more important activities.
Instead, there are TWO agents talking to this kid.
There are TWO agents wasting their time.
This is fine if there are an unlimited number of agents. But there aren't. Therefore, the agents need to spend their time in the wisest fashion.
Travelling to that kid's dorm, waiting for him to show up and then talking to him does NOT sound like the best usage of their time to me.
Don't worry. Everything is ok for now.... You'll know you are in a totalitarian state when the government shows up WITHOUT you requesting the information. USA isn't there yet... :(
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Look, there's going after terrorism, and there's being a fucker. The government should make clear what information is out of bound, the ACLU should fight it, and we should arrive at a reasonable decision. If any American wants to partake in legal, free activity, let them do it without harrassment. Harrass them, and suffer the wrath of the people and look like the fuckers they are.
You'll have trouble convincing people because most of them are reacting emotionally.
The fertilizer bomb was a unique instance. Every day, millions of people go about their lives in the US without building a fertilizer bomb.
Yet that single instance is used by people who feel threatened to justify any amount of governmental "protection".
If you live in the US and are NOT in a combat zone, you are STATISTICALLY more likely to be killed by someone in your own family than by a terrorist.
What you're seeing is a fear reaction. Fear does NOT understand statistics. Fear does NOT take reasonable precautions.
If I want information about public structures I have to prove I'm not a terrorist? They can't just deny the information to everybody but they actually should assume that we are terrorists. Yea freedom. And on the subject of 9/11 prevention, yes, they had all the information they needed. And it didn't involve FOIA, NSA questions about long hair, or what would have been illegal domestic survelliance at the time (though we all know they did it anyway; I can only assume the intelligence they are not telling us about because it was gathered illegally was much more detailed than what we knew about). The flap over prevention was more about being unconcerned about terrorism. I don't think anyone wants the Secret Service to visit everyone's house to make sure they should be allowed to stay in the country. But overlooking solid information which was already legally collected and processed because of politics is just stupid.
Even Bush was briefed on it.
2 00 4Apr10?language=printer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2285-
Known terrorists.
Living in the US.
Possible hijacking.
Possible attack with explosives.
Nothing was done.
From what we now know about his personal, er, proclivities, J. Edgar Hoover would (have) want (wanted) YOU to give HIM a hard time... But he's dead, you know.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Heh, aparently nobody thats against this has bothered to read the Big U (I think its neal stephensons first book). The Big U Just what are they hidding down there...
The big U
Some people think that the FBI investigation was a bit over zealous. Other think that they are in their rights to investigate a FOIA request. Maybe there was a reason the FBI investigated. I've visited the campus before and have known people who attended the school. There was always rumors that hidden underneath the labrynith of tunnels was a control and command center for SAC NORAD. It was always just rumors but if true the FBI would be negligent if they didn't investigate.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
First, let me say thanks for an interesting analysis, it's always good when people actually apply their brains to this type of debate rather than just yelling 'fascist!' or 'terrorist lover!'.
However, I'm not sure if I agree with your assessment that terrorism and a police state are at different ends of the same spectrum. My reasoning is that terror is terror whether perpetuated by the state or individuals; creating a police state to counter the threat to individuals from non-state terror is an essentially irrational response driven by the myth that the state is inherently trustworthy. A glance at the history books should convince us that this is not the case: far more people have died or spent their lives in fear of persecution due to state terror than have died or been oppressed due to a few extremist nutters fighting against the mainstream of society.
I would suggest that there it is the elements of civil society that are far more useful as a yardstick against which to judge the issue of terrorism and the state. This runs contrary to the 'too much freedom leads to terrorists running wild' theory: instead, it is more important that a society have extremely strong and well defined laws to control the interaction between the state and the individual, and the way the fight against terrorism occurs plays out against this backdrop.
So, for example, Russia has virtually no civil institutions or rule of law, placing it far from the centre of my ideal state. It citizens are threatened by both terrorism and the government's jackbooted (and increasingly uncontrolled) response to terror. See for example, Chechnya, the theatre siege last year, the shutdown of non-state media, and the general consensus that the KGB is basically still operating in new forms in the Kremlin.
By contrast, many European nations such as Germany, Britain and Spain have very strong rule of law and civil legal institutions. Britain has lived with the problem of terrorism for many years thanks to the northern ireland situation, likewise Spain thanks to Eta. Nonetheless, these countries retain a high level of civil liberties (although Britain is certainly wavering in this regard) whilst still having a strong domestic response to terror. Based on my watching of world news I would say there have been more successful terror investigations in the UK and Germany since September 11 than there have been in the USA.
At the moment I place the US somewhere in the middle, not as strong institutionally as Europe (especially because of the lack of true seperation of powers through the judicial appointment process and the strong ties between congress and the president, the president and the military, and the military and the military justice system), but not yet in the zone of corruption occupied by Russia and many South-East Asian nations.
So... in the context of this story, I guess I would ask the following questions:
- was the investigation started through a clearly defined process?
- were records made of the investigation, the reasons for the investigation, and the steps taken, and are those records public (or will they become public at some stage in the reasonably near future)?
- was the kid in question informed of his rights, for example the right to not speak to the investigators if he didn't want to?
- was the interview taped, videod or otherwise recorded and available to him on request?
- is he able to know where and how the information relating to his request was used, stored, or communicated to other agencies?
- was the process free from any element of threat or coercion (e.g. did the FBI rock up wearing dark suits, trenchcoats and overcoats and carrying weapons, or did they come dressed like normal humans and approach him in a friendly manner)?
If the answer to all of these is yes, then things are fine according to my theory. If the answer to any of them is no, there is cause for concern. I would be interested to hear any reasons why there would be any benefit in not doing any of these things in the context of terrorism.
Read Pynchon.
That makes some amount of sense to you and me, but we're geeks. Joe Public isn't curious, he gets up goes to work, comes home and watches TV. Rinse, repeat. So while being curious and wanting to know something for the sake of knowing it is normal here on Slashdot, it's fairly unusual for the masses. However, if you're a paranoid law enforcement officer or politician it's not a legit reason, it's a warning sign.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
UTPD had installed a hidden camera in some staff member's office without their knowledge to find out who was 'vandalizing furniture'
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Well, Jenna Bush attends college at UT Austin, and Barbara attends Yale. I would imagine the SS came into play because of this. Graduation is coming up, and they have to watch her like a hawk. One Could easily imagine a plot to assassinate Bubba Bush's daughter, and use the tunnels as a get out of jail free card. I'm sure the SS has this covered, but you never know....... On a side note, I probably just made my way onto a full gov audit of ever thing I have done in the last 10 years. Oh well, shit happens.
-William
God is everything science has yet to explain.
Well, I live in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Known for being both a port for alcohol during prohibition and for being one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad (Uncle Tom's Cabin is located just outside of town).
It is well known that tunnels from these times exist beneath our roads, lawns and buildings and it would be quite interesting to find out where they are - Not to go explore or to plan a route of attack, but out of pure curiosity.
I see a need for caution on the part of the authorities, but this is, indeed, overkill.
__________________________
Oh yeah, and there is a local myth(?) that there is still some whiskey down there somewhere.
What I wouldn't give for a shot of Al Capone's finest 80 year old blend.
//i have as many lives as people i know.
i believe she graduates with a degree in english on the 22nd or so says CNN.
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Everyone wishes the FBI had investigated why 20 Arab immigrants with student visas were enrolled in flight school in America. How is this situation any different?
I don' t think the grandparent is assuming that at all. The point is not that a student would never bomb their own University, but that this in itself is not terribly suspicious activity. It's not about race or class, it's about what level of suspicious activity constitutes a threat.
If you walk by your house and see someone in a car with a manual to your security system on the dash and notice that blueprints to your house are on their seat do you do nothing?
But you see, this activity you describe is far more suspicious than researching your school's tunnel system. The question is not whether the government has a right to investigate suspicious activity. Clearly they do. The question is, at what point do you consider an activity suspicious enough to investigate?
However, the really insightful part of the mad poster's original point is that this is one of those waste-of-time PR type of things. If someone really wanted to bomb the school, would this investigation stop them? Probably not. Was there any really good reason to consider this a threat? Probably not. Were there other things that those agents could have been doing which would have been much more effective at keeping us safe? Probably.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Ah, but the question is, does all abnormal activity deserve followup? You assume that it does. But it seems to me that this is so incredibly unlikely to be a threat, that there are probably hundreds of other things those agents could have been doing which would have been much more productive.
If you want the FBI to investigate every time someone does something abnormal, you'd better be prepared for some serious budget hikes.
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Perhaps he just wanted to get a nice setting for a live action role play session.
Didn't all those anti-D&D movies have people going into steam tunnels?
For anyone serious about looking at it Here ya go,project bojinka,just data.
I don't buy the "Miller was curious about the dimensions of the network". Er..... If he put that reasoning in his FOIA request as well as just saying that to the press, I'd probably recommend an investigation too.
Tunnels like those are explored by bored college kids with moderate lockpicking skills on every campus I've ever been on, but they're definitely off limits and generally monitored by cameras and/or motion detectors. Hell, there are even organizations dedicated to the sport of exploring them. Any such explorers would love such plans, and that's about the only likely reason I can think of why someone would actually bother with the paperwork (and cash!) for an FOIA request (terrorist bombings aside - I said likely).
From the school's point of view - they don't want any students down there anyway, and could reasonably be expected to come down hard on someone caught in them. A student having the gnads to openly request such information through government channels after being denied it initially, but who isn't smart enough to at least come up with a plausible excuse for needing the information - Well, I think it's reasonable to suspect the person is up to something at least somewhat illicit along with being terminally stupid.
From a computer geek perspective - that's like some prick in a computer lab being surprised and self-righteous saying he wasn't doing anything wrong when you come over and yank his cable 'cause he's been using every known exploit scanner known to man against your server *while you're in the room, sitting at the server console and glaring at him*, along with running a few processes in the background with names like 'crack'.
I write code.
This sounds like the kind of crap that went on back in the 60's and 70's that eventually led to the creation of the FOIA in the first place.
As much as I dislike Kerry and the modern Democratic party, if this is the kind of crap we can expect from the Republicans, I can't see how I can vote for them in good conscience. Expect me to vote for a 3rd party candidate in November. What is the world coming to when a brain-dead jesus-freak holy roller and a neo-bolshevik nimrod communist are our choices for who is going to lead this country?
What I found especially disturbing is the fact that they thought his hair was somehow significant. The level of ignorance that displays is really sickening. This isn't the summer of love, lots of guys have long hair and it's no more a political statement than the color of someone's shoes. I used to have hair down to my ass, and I'm a southern boy and a card carrying member of the NRA, hardly an "activist" who is going to blow up something. Well...nothing bigger than a coke bottle anyway.
In a way I almost wish I'd been the one they were picking on just so I'd have the opportunity to tell them to kiss my ass.
Am I the only one who feels we have more to fear from the abusive power of unchecked law enforcement than we ever will from terrorism?
I'd much prefer to limit my concern to those criminals who DON'T have the power of the state backing them up. It's stuff like this that makes me write checks to the NRA and pray it's enough to make a difference. There are times when I'm tempted to send money to the ACLU as well. Its the leftist propaganda that seems to be their driving philosophy that stops me, but if Ashcroft's goons aren't told to sit down and shut up I might just not care anymore and send them money anyway!
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
People should only be investigated if thay are suspected of breaking the law. It pains me to see that people have so quickly forgotten what "freedom" actually means.
Despite the use of one letter words (uyou) this is right on the money. The last two generations have really dug this country into a hole and pissed off a lot of people by doing so. Unfortunately, the people affected by this won't kill the parties responsible, they'll just kill people from the next generation (aka me, my peers, and my friends... yay). This generation is far more openminded than the last, but the retards are still playing their power games. I can't wait to see what sort of Iran-Contra shit this administration has been doing while we haven't been looking...
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Granted, there's a lot of crazy, or ignorant zealots out there who hate the united states, and their allies.
But there are a lot more out there who are sick of being served puppet dictatorships, having their children, husbands, wives and friends killed, hooked on heroin, sexually abused(?!!), bombed to oblivion, and tortured.
For every afghan, iraqi and former soviet who starves to death or doesn't make it through the winter because of the collapse of their local ecconomy, further enforced by american influence, nevermind things like land mines, undetonated bombs, etc, another few are going to remain everlastingly resentful of america.
For every iraqi, afghan, guatemalan, haitian, phillipino, soviet, Chilean, Nicaraguan, columbian, spaniard, korean, palestinian, vietnamese or cuban killed, one or two people at least are going to live their entire lives with hatred for the united states. We are talking in tens of millions of dead, here, and therefor tens of tens of millions with everlasting, generational hatred for the united states and all those who support them.
'The easiest way to reduce the number of atrocities in the world, is to stop committing them.' Even if the united states stopped pissing the rest of the world off, the hatred against them may never go away. This is the great success of your military industrial congressional complex...due to it's former actions, it's now constantly going to be at war, continually increasing the intensity of 'the cycle of violence'.
There's good reasons for the world to be pissed off at the united states. I'm pissed off because of treaty orginisations influencing laws into my own country(Canada) which make me a terrorist, and tear all the rights away from anyone accused of terrorism. They, alongside with my democratically american supported candidates are responsible for this. Others may be pissed off about (American supported, if not outright run) Genocides effecting them, or further worsening ecconomic conditions due to the resource heavy american style capitalism, Which Australia is at least somewhat of a supporter of. Many many things are going wrong in the world, and not all of them are caused by americans, but many are, and these are the things that if stopped, may reduce the amount of people out there with a valid reason to hate the united states, and therefor you will eventually stop the massive support that those *without* reason to hate the united states are getting from the aforementioned class.
Decrease the amount of oil consumed in your country, and put emphasis on long term goals including efficiency instead of short term production.
Stop sending arms to isreal, turkey, columbia, or anywhere else, for that matter.
Stop your war on drugs, and at least try win the war on terrorism by not supporting terrorist states.
Acknowledge and Abide by International Law.
Tear down guantanamo bay, and give the land back to cuba.
Stop all trade embargo's on cuba.
or if you cannot do any of the above, try at least to not make me add another item to the above list in the future, specifically related to me or my family.
You see, generic hatred is not even a significant part of the story, when you consider the hatred that is not generic. [/rant] As for being a hippocrite, I'm getting some skills which will be applied later on in life. I, for one, feel it better to give yourself tools to help others, and thereby have at least some efficiency in doing so than to help others with no efficiency at all.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
To me, this post in and of itself answers the question of whether or not this sort of thing is cool. It isn't, and belongs to a whole category of uncool things the FBI has been doing since the days of Hoover. Very interesting.
(Aside to FBI: Hi guys. Thanks for watching!)
My site: Free Nature Pictures
If 'radical fundamentalism' was not compatible with western democracy why was the major current threat(mujahadeen/alqaeda) Completely funded by the United States prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union? If radical fundamentalism is so incompatible with western democracy why does the united states harbor so damn many religious christian cults and fanatics which are most definiately radical fundementalists?
By the way, there's a middle ground between isolationism and invading third world countries for oil. Just a little.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Oh, good, that's a load of my mind then! ;-)
My site: Free Nature Pictures
Map
You should check out my journal
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
... a tokamak specifically, underneath RLM.
c le s/view/TT/spt1.html
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/arti
The data center is underground as well.
I can see the initial concern though why they are still going after it seems strange.
To have ambition was my ambition.
Remember; There are only step-forwards, no step-backs in the game of Military Lock-Down.
Anyway, as a student, I would have gotten a huge kick out of using a public access system like FOIA to get maps of underground tunnels!
The 'War on Terrorism' is a manufactured shill game. Anybody who falls for it is a fool.
-FL
Letter Sent to Attorney General Rather funny, really. Tells me more than I ever would have otherwise have found out about the tunnel system. Especially the emergency escape route for the President of the University through the tunnel system.
We have so much time, and so little to do - strike that! Reverse it. Tryn Mirell
You know all those despised, 'Tin Foil Hatters,' out there which the bulk of the Slashdot reflexively ridicules? Well there is certainly a lot of bullshit in the New Age arena, but where do you suppose it all came from and what it might be obscuring? Very few, it seems, have enough guts to risk being laughed at in order to find out.
If you were a character in the Matrix, I bet you'd like to think that you would be smart enough, intuitive enough and brave enough to wake up if given the opportunity. I've met very, very few, however, who have what it takes.
Do some reading on how Project Blue Book worked. Richard M. Dolan did an intensive study of the whole UFO phenomenon from 1941-1973, basing everything on hundreds of military, airforce and police reports, an overpowering picture emerges. We're talking about hundreds upon hundreds of officers, pilots and enlisted men in multiple witness events over the years. It was amazing to see just how deliberately and blatantly the government worked to hush everything up and squash and misdirect public inquiry. This can of worms is enormous, and it leads to many, many different areas, including the current game of 'War on Terrorism'.
-FL
Hmm and we all know that long hair is an automatic sign of a subversive activist.
More likely, if he's too lazy to get his hair cut, he's too lazy to constuct explosives.
paintball
Rediculous just doesn't cut it.
In general, any reply from the guy that the original post is about should be modded up...
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
So is anyone watching Mister G. W. Bush and making sure he is ruling the US truthfully?
You would think subversion, lieing and starting groundless wars based on false intelligence was some sort of offence?
Last I heard, there were some kind of commitee set up to do some sort of investigation, but I really haven't heard anything more.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
Is it just me or is the US turning into a new USSR where everybody watches eachother and the state has unlimited powers? The neocons is roughly the equivalent of the USSR communist party. How ironic this is. While USSR is getting more and more open the US is getting more and more lika a kafka novel.
Vote those rats away while its still time, remember that Hitler was elected too. Many people in the US seems to view Muslims in about the same manner that Hitler germany viewed Jews. I keep reading how the US should "nuke them". How is that any different from death camps? Sure faster but the same end result.
HTTP/1.1 400
"If you are a terrorist organization... You're going to plant people who are your "upstanding citizens" that can operate under the radar."
Oh yeah!
I get it, like many polititions and heads of corporations.
Yup, you're right about that.
Never looked at it that way.
both excellent points.
Having lived near UT and worked their and been in the tunnels pre 911 ... there is nothing there... there is a section that was blocked off long ago that lead to the old breader reactor they had down there but they removed most of that in the 70's and the rest of it got removed in 1999 when they built the new "Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences Building - ACE" they had found that they left the radioactive cememnt housing and had to have it removed before they could continue building due to health codes :).
As Mr. Bush would probably agree, he didn't mean "bad". He ment "evil".
Now, we don't support evildoers do we?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
is that they asked if they guy had ever thought of filing a law suit through the ACLU.
Since I'm a member of the ACLU I guess that makes me automatically suspect. Oh, damn, I have long hair too! Even worse, I once peeked into the room where the air conditioning unit for my apartment sits. And I'm a Democrat! I should be locked up immediately! Wait... someone's at the door...
I don't object to the FBI investigating someone who makes a request for information that might easily be used by terrorists. What I object to is the implications that an interest in civil rights and having long hair means you are more likely to be a terrorist. I doubt that any of the 9/11 attackers were working with the ACLU on suing anyone.
I'm also not sure I agree that such information should be off-limits. If I'm a student on a campus where the buidings are connected by steam-pipe tunnels, shouldn't I have the right to know what kind of access those tunnels give to the campus? What if I'm writing an article for the school paper on potential security problems?
We can't conceal every bit of information that might be useful to a terrorist. It's just not possible. We can't hide dams, water resevoirs, office buildings. It's unlikely we can even keep them from finding out about steam tunnels. There is no security in obscurity, as the popular saying goes.
The chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is far less than that of being hit by lightning. Our fear of terrorism is being used by opportunistic politicians to strip us of our rights and to intimidate us. In a democracy, it's not the government's place to tell the people what they can and cannot do. It's OUR place to tell the government what it can and cannot do. Never forget that. Remember it when you think it doesn't matter if you vote or not.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Except for the bit about education, this is a fairly accurate description of Cuba. Fidel is that you?
Why was he so candidly investigated?
I mean, if he was a credible threat, the FBI would not question him up front, instead, he would be put under secret surveillance.
Maybe FBI employees are just evaluated by the number of investigation files they open and close.
The government (in this case, the FBI and Secret Service agents) are not "damned if they do and damned if they don't". However, they are expected to use good sense when allocating resources.
In THIS particular situation, the mere questions they asked this student demonstrated that they should not have been investigating him.
Let's see. One question was "Are you an activist?" Another question was "Are you a member of the ACLU?" Those are questions which seek to determine whether you exercise your Constitutional rights, not whether you are intending to commit a crime.
From everything we have learned so far, no terrorists have been 1) a member of the ACLU or 2) joining open organizations that monitor government behavior.
Was the request "suspicious"? Even if you think it was, the administration process around the request could make a better determination. A blanket, back channel communication to the FBI or Secret Service is not the appropriate process. That's not how many of us want our government to function. He didn't have the information so there was no risk of actual damage. I am sure that the administration process would have revealed the innocuous nature of the request. Of course, they didn't bother with letting a normal procedure take place. Instead, they sent a couple of agents over to interrogate the guy.
Perhaps they could have put it another more friendly way
"In regards to your recent request for information:
Dear sir, Due to recent events it is now routine that persons requesting certain record types are given a short security interview."
instead of
"Get your fucking ass down here you terrorist traitor you should thank god we dont send you to concentration camp X-ray right now!"
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Ein Volk!
Ein Reich!
Ein Fuehrer!
The conflict with Freedom is highlighted by the question arising from your comment, "Who decides what is 'Normal' and 'Obvious'"?
The catagorization of things into "Normal" or "Obvious" has traditionally been the responsibility of an empanelled Grand Jury. Who determine if the facts of an alleged criminal case require prosecution.
With all the recent (unConstitutional Back Door) Legislation that's gone on recently, the duty of a bunch of your peers is being delegated (unlawfully, btw) to a bunch of Law Enforcement Officers. (and also outsourced to a bunch of Unsworn companies without the same responsibilities and duties of sworn folk, but that's Another Problem.)
Now, in a Free Country, you don't need to justify your actions, or worry about being investigated by the Bundespolizei without committing a crime. That's what Freedom is! We shouldn't be playing such games as "Guess the Intent". Investigations happen AFTER Crimes Occur.
It's crazy to even think about replying "How about an interest in Civil Engineering, or Architecture, or Industrial Design, or maybe he's just a dork who likes looking at Infrastructure?"
I've identified the issue really to be a conflict b/t two groups.
a) Scared People, who believe The Government Can Save Them.
and
b) Confident People, who watch out for Them and Theirs.
No one said there weren't fatal risks associated with living. You may get into a fatal car crash, a fatal fall, or the proverbial "get hit by a bus".
Seems to me, that those saying "We need to DO SOMETHING" should go buy a gun, and be ready to take down a Terrorist, should they need to.
And I'm getting really tired of paying for your Securfare. (as in Welfare)...
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
Part of the problem with this is that by assuming the "Evil Government" approach you already preclude certain reasonable explanations. Have you considered that the "right" answer to the questions, ie the ones the agents were hoping he'd give so they could quit talking to some kid at some school, were that "Yes, I belong to this well known organization that is already known to be safe" so they can say, "Ok he's just inquisitive".
The only question that concerned me was the one about how he knew the law, but that could have been the agent just being vaguely curious.
Never confuse volume with power.
..and never knew there were tunnels under UT. I figured since the water table is so high around here, that wouldn't be possible.
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
Is not to use the 'Official' channels. Somebody's got to do maintenace on the tunnels or at least the contents of such. They needed a schematic to know where to work and get in and out of the tunnels. He could have solicted one of the contractors for the plans and not get on the radar of anyone. That's how a real terrorist would have done it
And now ladies and gentlemen I myself am probably on the list of potential terrorists because I actually thought of a way to circumvent the system. Oh no, he thinks!
I'm a conservative.
Not the "Jesus told me to do that, howard stern is bad, oh my god a tit, the war on drugs, kids these days, rap is bad, we need to attack Iraq" kind of conservative.
More the "government gets out of our lives, but takes reasonable measure to help the helpless, don't worry about culture, educate young people, build parks and roads, and hey its okay if I like sex in a way that you don't approve" kind of conservative.
Bush is a raving lunatic. he's a dummy. An absolute idiot. Cheney is stealing via haliburton. The FCC is giving away the keys to the store and hiding behind censorship. They're throwing American Citizens incommunicado simply by declaring them "enemy combatants". Iraq is an unncessary debacle. I was around for Viet Nam. This, my friend, is vietnam ALL OVER AGAIN.
Wake up. The country is headed towards danger. We're in it. And if Bush wins again, we'll have decades of problems brought to you by Bush.
I voted for him last time. I made a mistake. A bad mistake.
That is what we get for not minding the store, and letting our hired men (the president, the congress, governors, legislators, FBI hierarchy, CIA, etc) have the run of the place, and just do whatever they please. THat is what we get for making them the top of the social hierarchy heap, instead of letting them know that they are just hired help. THey have turned themselves into Kings and The King's Men, and now we are the vassals/serfs.
If you really think we citizens are the owners of America, then we need to vote into office reprsentatives who will take action to let future officeholders know that the citizen is boss. We can do that by indicting, and trying, and then punishing severely the past officeholders and organizational leader for transgressions against citizens, such as this one here, with the tunnels.
Our hired men have clearly stepped over the line with this one. I say we try Bush, Clinton, and the leadership of the FBI for treason on this one. Do it in a court of law. And then punish them appropriately for treason, which in the past has often been death by hanging, firing squad.
You have to let the hired men know who is boss, or otherwise we become their chattel. And you have to do it publicly so as to bring shame down upon the names of those who transgressed.
If a business is jointly owned by multiple owners, who never come in to mind the business, do you think it likely that the hired men will start ripping off the owners? I do, and that is what is happening here. We need to start acting like we own this country, otherwise we will lose it.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
How US citizens are being held without charges by being called an "enemy combatant". This is a guy from Chicago, detained on US soil.
THe administration is going to the Supreme Court and arguing this is "necessary".
Wake up. The country is headed in the wrong direction. Ashcroft is the worst thing to happen to this country since Meese.
"Not all the Bin Ladens are terrorists, asshat."
How do we know that? The Saudis were primarily responsible for 9/11. Their government supports terrorists. They hate the US.
So we give great deference to them.
But a kid in Texas asks for tunnels, and he gets two FBI agents.
If the Saudi Royal Prince asked for it, Bush personally would have delivered it to him. Tell me you aren't that blind to what's going on.
nationstates.net
Dude, chill out.
Go read Robert Anton Wilson's bit about the "INTERNATIONAL COCAINE IMPORTERS, LTD. (Slogan: Everything Goes Better With Coke)" and then come back to this discussion. Your righteous indignation is blinding you to a very important principle of human behavior.
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Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
doing so for topics like this totally out of the blue is certainly suspicious activity.
It only looks suspicious just because of 9/11.
But, independent of 9/11, this is just some student who is intrigued by these underground tunnels (decades ago I wandered through such marvelous tunnels myself).
The problem is that the threshhold of suspicion has been lowered because of an environment of fear following 9/11.
Some fear is healthy, but other fear is just an emotion that can be exploited or used to further other aims. If you don't think fear and uncertainty can be exploited then you haven't seen the profit margins in extended warranties.
The FBI's action shows a wrong approach.
In particular, instead of using hard work, intelligence and making a strong effort to preserving the liberties of American citizens, a path has been laid for what I would term "lazy law enforcement". Put out a total dragnet. Give easy authority to get much more information than ever before.
I don't recall any careful logical study showing that each and every provision of the Patriot Act was needed precisely because it corrects critical and identifiable deficiencies that led to 9/11. As a matter of fact, only now is a commission investigating the root causes of 9/11 and their report won't be due for a couple of months.
Police state measures are cost efficient and easy to implement from a law enforcement perspective, but they carry longer term costs and risks. Most people in America aren't really familiar with police states and are therefore unfamiliar with the nature of these costs and risks.
The big risk is that all of the mechanisms for intrusive surveillance and enforcement can be operated just as well by an untrusted and unscrupulous authority as well as entrusted elected officials.
The other insidious danger is that by dropping a veil of secrecy over government operations (effectively reversing the FOIA) - justified as an advantage to law enforcement going after terrorist and not tipping them off prematurely and potentially compromising the investigation - has risks, too.
Of course, freedom of information means nothing to the functioning of a healthy democratic republic unless reporters seek it out, publish it, and the public reads it.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I've never heard anyone in the US use the term "sand niggers."
No, but I've definitely heard the term "towel-heads" used before. It just blows my mind sometimes how some people see this situation. So yes, I really do feel like perhaps a little more tolerance toward other religions and peoples might have prevented a war in the Middle East.
I think I know something like that, oh, yes, it happens to be presidential election 2004!
"We predicted it," Hart says of Tuesday's horrific events. "We said Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999."
I'm pretty sure Bush wasn't obstructing things in 1999.
Rudman generally agrees with Hart's assessment, but adds: "That's not to say that the administration was obstructing."
"They wanted to try something else, they wanted to put more responsibility with FEMA," Rudman says. "But they didn't get a chance to do very much" before terrorists struck on Tuesday. "
The principals involved don't seem to support your position.
This guy's first mistake was filing a request for the information instead of exploring the system himself.
My university had such a system of tunnels and we thoroughly explored it back in the day. Security was so bad that there was an unlocked door in the basement of one of the buildings that led into the system.
I am a liberal, and I can't stand Bush, but I can't possibly fathom your stance, (poster or moderator,) which I feel actively encourages terrorism.
For Someone who can't stand bush, you already bought into his fear mongering and propaganda.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
This may be the single most short-sighted and ignorant post I have ever seen on Slashdot.
Al Qaeda does not blow shit up for "fun" or because it's "cool." They do it for many reasons, and these reasons are not difficult to comprehend. They attack in protest of America's support of Israel. They despise Israel for both occupying one of their holiest lands (Jerusalem) and for oppressing their brothers (the Palestinians.) Regardless of the political motivations involved in keeping the Palestinians as a stateless people, followers of al Qaeda do consider this a serious issue. Usama bin Laden's biggest stated issue is of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the Muslim holy land. He's said as much time and again.
Of course, the solution is not to give in, because the crimes have already been committed. We have already defiled their holy land, and have already supported Israel, and this will be used as continued justification for their attacks far into the future. There are two main problems, though, in combating terrorists like al Qaeda. The first is that we have no realistic win-win method for dealing with them. If we kill them, they're martyrs, and they only inspire more to join their cause. If we capture them, they don't care if they die or not, so the humiliation of captivity will drive them (more or less) to suicidal acts, and like-minded individuals will see it as further justification for more violence. If we do nothing, they will still seek to destroy us. The second problem is that they are not bound by any "rules of war" we try to observe. Their specialty is asymmetrical warfare. They cannot compete with us on grounds of technology or training, but they absolutely surpass us in the sheer gutsiness and spectacle of their attacks. It is difficult to fight someone who does not share your rules of engagement or care what government you represent. This is a major, major problem that people often fail to understand. Al Qaeda does not simply stand against the USA and our military. They stand against Western civilization itself. They do not want to endure cultural imperialism, and may see violence as the only means to hold it off. This is not as simple as Bush's claim that they "hate freedom." They do not share the same concepts of rights and freedoms as we do, but that does not make them bad people. That they kill civilians to achieve their ends makes them bad people.
Al Qaeda is only the tip of the iceberg as terrorism goes. We will never be able to defeat them or those like them as long as there is a division between Western civilization and the Islamic world. No amount of war will ever unite us, unless we simply kill them all. And if we can't kill them all, maybe it will suffice to conquer and demoralize them. And even that won't work for long.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
So the FBI and other agencies are willing to waste time on frivolous FOIA requests. Wouldn't the terrorists be able to organize a virtual law enforcement Denial of Service just by asking lots of people all over the country that are supporter of their cause to do the same?
These people would probably never plant bombs themselves but they could be willing to run interference.
The level of organization needed to implement such a plan is probably not within the reach of an organization formed mainly by decentralized cells but it's still interesting to ponder about what could happen.
The tunnels at UT are something of a school legend. Nobody's seen them. Everybody's heard of them. A massive steam tunnel network that runs for miles, under campus. (COOL!!) Maybe i'm a freak.. i like old rusty train tracks, abandoned factories and that sort of thing. Industry makes such interesting settings.
Anyhow, the point is that (right or wrong, in terms of this student's rights) the investigation is barking up the wrong tree. There are something like 50,000 students attending UT, and getting information might be daunting. So a student gets curious about the tunnels (WELL, THEY ARE A MYSTERY-LEGEND). ALERT! WAIT A FULL YEAR, and Send in a SWAT team? Sigh.
911 has not made terrorism any more likely than it ever was. Has the invasion of Iraq?
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Unless that smirking frat boy is kicked out of the Oral Orifice, things are going to get worse.
Bush et al. WANTED something to happen, because then they got much more power because of it.
In this way they have entered "the permanent war state" known from Orwell's 1984.
prosperity? i do not think it means what you think it means.
If me signing a book about explosives out of the library wastes resources, it's not me doing it. It's policy makers who allow/advocate/fund that type of investigation. For every smartass doing it to rock the boat, there are many people that have legitimate reasons for it, or maybe they're just curious. The FBI et al is wasting resources on them too.
The answer is not to shut up and cooperate. The answer is to change policy such that resources aren't being wasted anymore.
Signing books out of the library shouldn't be a form of expression. It should be private. If someone expressing themselves by doing things that should be completely private, and that can not possibly cause anyone to come to harm is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
Thanks to everyone that still has a sense of humor. Yes, I was kidding. Barely.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
The FOIA and its state-level counterparts, like the Texas Open Records Act, exist to allow people to have access to unclassified information created at the taxpayers' expense. It keeps many people from simply calling up and asking for unreasonable things, and it gives a means for legitimate requests.
My problem is that actions such as these could easily have been undertaken with more finese if they intended to find a real terrorist. Austin, Texas, and particularly UT, has plenty of people that find joy in perplexing the authorities - more so that the usual college. This is primarily because UT fosters an environment of thought and questioning (think U of Texas Berkeley).
If I were them, I would make sure the story got to the media, so more people would think twice before making FOIA/TORA requests, simply to reduce my workload on these goose chases. But this defeats the purpose of these acts and reduces public access to legitimate information.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
I think is safe to say that there is plenty of basis for a federal police force (but not being a constitutional scholar, I could be wrong). I have no problem with enforcing laws. I do have a problem with Congress, Ashcroft, et al being allowed to erode our liberty in the name of security - (nothing original here, Ben Franklin covered it quite well.)
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
Let's face it folks. We are in a war. The suicide bombing, baby killing Muslims are out to get us. This guy wanted to flout this in the face of authority. So now he is complaining that he is being investigated. He got what he deserved. The liberal communist left has yet to understand that we are headed into a world war with these Muslims and that we better prepare and get our act together. He's got to understand that he is responsible for his actions. He deserves to spend a little time in jail. Just like a person who files a false accident report for insurance. He had no reason to have this information. He is not bidding on laying new cable, or maintaining it. He just wanted to piss the authorities off. Well he did that and now he's complaining? Serves him right.
Just my 2 cents. - Burning some karma.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
purty please?
Everybody is bitching that the FBI didn't investigate why people wanted to know about crop dusters and 727s, but god forbid they DO investigate something odd.
It's an investigation. They showed up and asked him a couple of questions. Ooooh, what fascists. Next thing you know, they'll be doing something REALLY outrageous, like asking him THREE questions.
Just like the original poo-poo'd reports on torture in Iraq, this story is just the tip of the iceberg.
The postings here interested me in looking around for more info.
Unfortunately, it led to this horrendous rant!
In similar news . . . Photographer arrested for taking pictures of vice president's hotel
The Patriot act, Secret Courts and Homeland Security
It only gets worse. The new Patriot Act extension recomendations by Ashcroft includes:
The Patriot act, linked with the Homeland Security Act, has gutted the Freedom of Information Act.
In other News from the press: everything is classified now, and won't be released anytime soon. (See "Amendment To Executive Order No. 12958")
How much is this being used now?
How much abuse has been identified?
Does this mean if i go to Home Depot and buy some pipe to fix a plumbing leak and wires to fix a ceiling fan one weekend, ill be investigated for trying to build a bomb?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
And the sad part about this all, is that there is going to be a sizable population within USA that won't be the least bit disgusted by these pictures, and will probably feel that this is what those 'sand-niggers' deserve. local1415@aol.com feels just that way. If anyone would like to talk to an American with a heart full of hatred and blood-lust, send him an email.
I wonder what these "co-axial tables" are in those tunnels. (Typo I assume, but still funny.)
--- It's not my fault this post looks redundant. I just type too slow.
Yes, we have a tunnel system too, but most of the year it's full of rancid steam, and I bet there's nothing down there except new forms of fungal and bacterial life.
:-) Anyway, long story short, I found the right building and the right department, and had to give a reason for having the blueprints. I told the first guy I asked "I want them to have them out of curiosity", and he said they weren't allowed to give them out except for school projects. Then he asked if I was sure it wasn't for a school project, so I said "yeah, it's for my homework". He passed me up, and two more people forced me to say the magical phrase "for homework" before they'd cooperate. None of them acted like they wanted to be convinced... they just needed to hear the words.
I once had a hankering to make a map of my dorm out of the architectural blueprints. Initially I wanted it so I could get wiring details for a complicated prank, but I couldn't find them.
I think that was this guy's problem. Sure, he has a legal RIGHT to the documents, but we live in the real world... people just want to hear the words that make them happy, and then they'll be cheerfully cooperative. He just needed to know how to play ball.
Austin is more fun than Dallas.
He has a lot of nice videos out, and he lets folks copy them free for giving away purposes, so I imagine they might be on some of the P2P networks, if you got broadband and an interst in looking for them. I am not setup for that so I never looked. If you go to his main page you can find the link to the titles. I have "9-11, road to tyranny" here on VHS, it's quite good, I heard that the DVD version is better and longer. He has some other stuff at prisonplanet.tv, for cheap download "officially". Basically he's trying to cover bandwith and his other expenses as far as he has said on his talk show.
My pet theory is it is basically the same guys and their progeny and advocates who whacked kennedy, keep getting us into wars, stick dictators in, smuggle drugs using US assets, etc. Same guys or their handlers. Eisenhower in his address to the nation on retiring as president warned us about them,the goons in the military/industrial complex, the "profits at any cost" crowd as I like to think of them, it is QUITE chilling taken in the context of when he said it and what he was privy to, being both the allied supreme comander of ww2 and also US prez. He wouldn't have said that unless he had a good reason to do so.
Gets complex, I've been a real enthusiast of this stuff since way back when, I know enough to know I don't have all the answers, but I DO know they rarely tell the truth on anything important, so I always look for the angles whenever something weird goes down. 9-11 qualifies as weird, in spades. Kennedy getting whacked got me going (I was a young teen then but it was obvious to me it wasn't just oswald, especially after ruby whacked him), then I had an uncle who was a spook,he told me stuff I know he wasn't supposed to, but he was an honest guy & a patriot, didn't like some of what he was seeing. He still thought all in all what he was doing was "right" (cold war years basically), but he knew some wasn't, and that a lot of it got lied about and the people manipulated into believing it, media propoganda is old "news" to those guys...
He's gone now so I can reference it, I kept my mouth shut while he was still alive in deference to his wishes. but since then,it's been a major interest and I have followed through with just dozens of sources, a lot of them very well connected, plus what I can research on my own,and it all boils down and all points (more or less) to basically a shadow government, out to ownz and control the whole shebang as much as possible.
You'll have to pardon me for knee-jerking. These days whenever I see somebody tossing 'reasonable' doubts around for the wrong side in FBI v.s. Lone Student type issues, I get quite peeved. The FBI doesn't need anybody's help these days, and I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, (of which I don't actually have any in this case) to the kid with student debts rather than the billion dollar funded G-men with badges, guns and the legal 'right' to throw you in jail for looking shifty.
But it's clear now that you're not a moron, so I apologize. You just sounded like one for a moment there.
-FL
What region and events are the constant source of unstability in the Middle East? Hint: the area in question has at its Western border the Mediterranean, and in the South there's the Red Sea.
I could write a book in response to this, but I will focus on one point--why Iraq and not North Korea? Because of the incredible population density in the area, and because the entire peninsula is rigged with demolitions and booby traps, the civilian death toll would be astronomical and there wouldn't be much left of anything when the smoke (and nuclear isotopes) clears. Also, we have a real diplomatic effort by many nations to try to resolve the issue there, not countries being bribed by the leader to oppose the war like Saddam did in the UN Oil for Food scandal. China, SK and Japan are vigorously working to defuse the situation, and China has more pull with NK than any country had with Iraq prior to the war.
Mutually Assured Destruction, the cornerstone of strategic nuclear defense during the Cold War will not work with NK, but other countermeasures are being worked, like the Airborne Laser.
In short, we are able to handle the NK situation through technological means, whereas the expeditionary campaign being carried on by terrorists require a different approach.