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Circuit Boards + Soldering Iron == Terrorist?
Search and Seizure asks: "This week, the local police contacted one of my co-workers and informed him that they had been contacted by the FBI who requested that they investigate his apartment. According to the police, while his apartment repair staff were checking his smoke alarm, they had noticed suspicious looking items in his kitchen and had called the FBI because they suspected that he might be a terrorist. What do you do when your landlord suspects that you might be a terrorist and reports you to the FBI?" If the law comes a-knocking, always remember that you can politely ask for a warrant.
"The police officer went on to explain that my co-worker had two choices:
1) Let the local police take a look and explain what the 'suspicious' items were for.
2) Don't let the local police in. The police will let the FBI know, and they will use 'Homeland Security' to come in and do a full search.
He opted for the less drastic choice, and showed the officer the digital camera guts, his in-progress circuitry to take automatic pictures, the tethered balloon that he was going to hook them up to so he could take overhead pictures, and the beer keg that he used to store his beer.
The police officer accepted his explanations and it appears to have turned out okay, but the whole situation is a little disturbing.
What rights do we have to experiment and create in this age of paranoia?"
1) Let the local police take a look and explain what the 'suspicious' items were for.
2) Don't let the local police in. The police will let the FBI know, and they will use 'Homeland Security' to come in and do a full search.
He opted for the less drastic choice, and showed the officer the digital camera guts, his in-progress circuitry to take automatic pictures, the tethered balloon that he was going to hook them up to so he could take overhead pictures, and the beer keg that he used to store his beer.
The police officer accepted his explanations and it appears to have turned out okay, but the whole situation is a little disturbing.
What rights do we have to experiment and create in this age of paranoia?"
Well, the guy was still able to carry on "experimenting and creating", so his rights to do so weren't violated. This rights haven't changed.
Privacy rights however are obviously something completely different, and 'in this age of paranoia', your right to privacy is one of the first victims.
People have no balls. We all know this homeland security BS is totally unconstitutional, its not even a question. Here's what I would have done in the guys situation.
1) I would have taken advantage of my rights to the fullest extent forcing them to use the patriot act.
2) Gone to court eventually and claimed that the patriot act was unconstitutional.
3) Next year or the year after I would be in the supreme court with my lawyer, it would be US vs. Me and the patriot act would be declared unconstitutional making the world a better place for everybody.
Sure it would be a pain in the ass. Sure it would be a lot more work than that. And sure it would probably "ruin" my life. But this stuff wont go away on its own. Somebody has to fight it. I'm just waiting for my chance. The rest of the people around are all wusses who wont sacrifice anything for the common good. I can't wait until the day big brother comes to get me. I want to have a digital camera take a picture of the looks on their faces when I give them the double deuce.
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What is intetersting about this is that the FBI asked him anything. They have the ability to perform a sneak-and-peek search without the need to show a warrant beforehand and they can also have the search happen and show the warrant much later. It seems strange that they would call ahead of time and give the suspect time to dispose of any incriminating evidence. The whole thing is odd.
A coworker was on a plane recently where a aged, somewhat dark skinned Italian man pulled out a rosary and began praying. The young woman across the aisle was obviously distrubed, called the stewardess and had a whispered conversation. The stewardess started coming by and taling to the man asking questions like was he nervous about flying. On the next leg of the flight the flight crew got a burly, surly "steward", who was obviously an air marshal.
In the end, this incident just wasted some public servant's time. Same as the circuit board incident. Unless or until people get good at recognizing what a bomb detonator really looks like, things like this are bound to happen. I'd say a friendly show and tell with a local cop isn't so bad in the scheme of thigns. What I don't know is how muslims manage to live in this country given the climate of hysteria, having to pray five times a day. Imagine coming under suspicion of preparing yourself for a suicide bombing several times every day.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Just like zero-tolerance policies in schools, when a person puts themselves into a situation where they are governed by idiots (in this case, an idiot landlord or idiot repair people), just living their ordinary life becomes a risk.
E.g.: "Oh dear, little Johnny boy brought nail clippers or Advil to school, so we just have to punish and expel the bastard for his evil deeds. May little Johnny boy burn in eternal hell for wanting to be well groomed."
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
They could have forgone the more polite visit, and just gone with the 'Homeland Security' route from the start.
At which point, your friend would probably have had to deal with a much more invasive search, had all the suspicious items confiscated at not necessarily all returned (or returned in the same condition), and have spent a lot more time explaining things than he did.
Shitty situation to be put in? Yeah, it is. But from the sounds of it, law enforcement handled it just about perfectly by not going overboard, and it's the repair crew you should be complaining about.
If "your friend" hasn't done anything, "he" shouldn't have anything to worry about. BTW, why are all these stories about someone's friend??? Maybe they're really about you and you just won't admit that you're one of the terrorists. Screw the Patriot Act, track down his IP address and arrest him.
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It's not to clear from the writeup whether this guy let the police in to search his house, or just to explain the situation.
If it's the former, it raises alarm bells. The fact that the officers went down their without a warrant means this kind of thing happens often enough that they expected to get away with it. This is probably because people routinely submit to searches without warrants. If people always refused unwarranted searches, those officers would have made sure they got one before going down there.
In this case, as there was obviously little reason to be suspicious, the warrant would probably have been refused, and that would have saved this guy being hassled by the police.
If, on the other hand, the police just came in the talk to the guy, I think that is kind of reasonable. Somone reported something to them, and they were following it up. The fault is with the paranoid person that made the original complaint.
I think if I had been in this situation, I would have tried to explain to them on the doorstep what the equipment was really for. If they were unsatisfied with my explanation and wanted to search my house, I would have made them go get the warrant. And I would have explained to the police that this was because I believed the process of obtaining a warrant is there to protect innocent people from unecessary searches.
Unless innocent people refuse searches, the police will always believe that people who refuse searches are guilty.
Slashdot Is Not A Law Firm. ;>
.. pointed at me, was when I walked across the Peace Arch crossing from Canada to the US.
The US is a rogue state, with a military police mentality running everything, along with paranoia and hysteria rampant. The terrorists won a long time ago, and all that's happening now is that the US has to live in the bed it's made by not going through resistance to the crazy, right-wing that dominates everything.
If this example shows anything, it's that there needs to be another American revolution, one which breaks up the Union into a set of smaller unions where the federal government isn't so separated from the people as to allow these constant abuses of the original US constitution. I like a strong federal government as much as the next person, but only in the cases where it makes sense (such as actually instituting proper public health care), not in cases where people have their landlord call the fucking FBI on them.
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As a bomb making terrorist I've decided to develop a history of electrical repairs to cover.
Thanks slashdot
the people here aren't keeped in fear by the mass media that much.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
Carefully document it, and bill him for time, any phone calls involved, and note that it is not necessarily complete should other costs arrise.
Now, you are unlikely to get paid. Make sure you call and complain about not getting paid, and send follow up invoices with late fees. Then drop it.
And rest secure that no more calls to the police will be made. The threat of having to pay a couple of hundred dollars is all that is necessary to stop some bored worker from amusing himself with fantasies.
An interesting question struck me while reading this article, and since I'm not all that familiar with the relevant laws, I don't know the answer. Perhaps one of the law buffs (lawyer or no) can help me out.
Let's say a police officer were to appear at my door without a warrant, wanting to search my house. If I allow him to enter, can he use anything incriminating that he finds as evidence, even though he conducted the search without a warrant?
A slightly more complicated situation, what if instead of simply consenting to the search, I stated "well, you can come in, and I'm not going to stop you from doing whatever." What then?
Freedom is the freedom to say that 2 + 2 = 4
There are lots of people that don't have the 3 things to battle in courts. They pay the parking tickets, they take plea bargains, they can't miss work, the list goes on.
You are too busy to your life to worry about your rights. Sad when you realize you don't have those rights at the end of the day.
I've hoped technology could correct this, e-voting, instant polls, communications with elected officials, but it hasn't.
Sad.
I am 26 years old, have lived in the US my entire life, and have never had a firearm of any kind pointed at me. That said, were I crossing a border into another nation, say mexico, there is an understanding that firearms might be present.
As for having the rifle pointed *at* you, I strongly suspect that you are exagerating, or made one of those hilarious jokes that security folk love so much, like "Look out for the bomb in my luggage."
If you're curious why America is so "militant", it's because not too long ago, over 3 thousand people died in an attack that destroyed more commercial space then exists in all of San Francisco. Ask yourself how you might feel if, oh, say, downtown Ottowa was utterly leveled.
I'm no fan of certain clauses of the patriot act, including the allowance for feds to search property without presenting a warrant. But to suggest that there is no reason for this, other than to create a militant police state ignores facts which are fully in evidence.
But I forgot, that I'm not allowed to cite the events of September 11th, because doing so makes me a Jingoist. Curse our surly, greedy, unrefined society!
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
In such a blasphemous scenario, would it be possible to sue the 'stoolie' for harassment ? He pretty much abused police and FBI resources in order to harass someone over a rather weak and ignorant suspicion.
What if someone from the boonies had never seen a compact disc, if they thought it was a saw blade or other potentially dangerous device, they might overreact the same way this idiot landlord did, and label me a manufacturer of weapons of mass cutting.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Don't talk to cops
point a loaded weapon at me.
I'm in no way exagerating. I was walking across the grass field under the peace arch with my then girlfriend. We were travelling from Vancouver to Seattle to catch a plane at Seatac. As I didn't feel like spending 400$ on a cab between Vancouver and Seattle, I arranged to have a friend from the US pick me up at the border crossing, and took a (less expensive 80$) cab from Vancouver to the arch.
We apparently chose the cars-only side to walk up to, because a solier inspecting a car snapped up from his work, aimed his automatic rifle at us, and yelled at us to go around to the other side. When I tried to talk to him, to ask him to put the gun down among other things, he just screamed harder at me.
When we did go inside, the US military guys tried to play good cop/bad cop on why I felt the need to enter the United States. It was complete BS, and an example of exactly how silly US customs is. On the way back, the Canadian border guard was nothing but courtieous to us. I don't even think they had M-16s!
As for Sept 11, Canada had the whole FLQ thing in the 1970s. Trudeau invoked the war measures act. However, once the situation was taken care of, the war measures act went away. Why isn't the patriot act going away? Why must the US continue to militarize and occupy foreign nations not related to the terrorist attack?
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Why must the US continue to militarize and occupy foreign nations not related to the terrorist attack?
Because the US populace is a bunch of ignorant sheep, who will go with whatever someone in their local group hears on the news and passes on to those who think the news is morbid or uninteresting. But then, that's how it is in most countries. The US is really no different, it just happens to be the big dog on the block right now.
Like all would-be (or actual) empires, the US populace and leadership will get theirs. No empire in our recorded history has stood the test of time, and the US won't either. It will either fall easily (and relatively peacefully) like the British Empire, from the inside under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption like the USSR, or to near annihilation via nuclear/chemical/biological attacks from external locations. It just depends on the course of history and the choices of its leadership and populace in general which one becomes a reality.
I wish I had mod points.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
I'm against seatbelt laws and helmet laws for adults not because I have any desire to not wear my seatbelt. Heck, I wear a helmet when I ride my bicycle.
However, the conceptual basis for laws in our country is to protect your rights to personal freedom, until they interfere with the rights of others. For example, I'm allowed to swing a baseball bat, but not if I'm swinging it at your head.
Under this concept, the government should be able to say I have to drive with headlights on at dark, and that I can't drive drunk. But why does the government want to say I can't decide for myself whether or not to wear a seatbelt? It has no relevence on anyone else's rights but mine.
(Now, minors are a different issue... we have a lot of laws that take away parents' rights under the assumption they're too stupid to protect their children properly. I won't go into that one...)
-jupo
It was Frankfurt airport and I was getting on a plane to JFK. I was only 17 years old, but I was wanded, my carry-on was searched, and I had to identify my bags on the tarmack before they were loaded and I was able to board the plane. You know how many other people had to do the same? All of them.
Three years earlier I flew into Brussels from London without any such searches. That time I missed seeing a car bomb detonated in Belgium by 30 minutes. It is very strange to see the alley side of two building ripped open.
The point is that when someone has declared war against you... like the socialist/communist terrorist groups did in Germany during the 70s and 80s and islamic terrist have against the US in the 80s 90s and 00s. There are going to be times when in public places and entry and exit points you have to deal with security.
The same does not apply in your home. If the cops do not have a warrant, only can give up your right. That doesn't mean you need to be an asshole, but you certainly do not need to give into the the 'if you don't have anything to hide' mind game.
couldn't do, posted a comment myself already.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
I keep reading "If they didn't have a warrant, why did you let them in?"
Let me tell you something about the FBI. They are the FBI. They can do whatever the hell they want.
I had 2 computers (well past obsolete now) that they took almost 3 years ago. I was supposed to get them back in 6-8 weeks.
Call them up...."We don't have anything on record for you"
"Uh, I have the #'s from the papers they left me"
"hrmmm, those numbers aren't coming up"
*click*
They don't have to follow rules. They'll lock you up without an attorney or anything like that. Ever hear of a guy named Kevin Mitnick?
22cc
So far as I know, this is because there are different kinds of warrants. A CHP officer has can issue a warrant for you to appear in court. That is within his authority. A warrant to search your property requires a judge to sign off on it, much like a warrant to wiretap your premesis. These are more rare.
If a Police officer asks to search your car, you ask him for a warrant, he holds up a stack of warrants that he can really only use to take you to court, or to arrest you should you, say, punch him in the face, hoping you then agree to let him search your trunk. It's strictly a gambit on the cops part that you will agree to the search because he happens to have a sheet of paper that says warrant. But IANAL.
Really, no big deal. I've got all kinds of electronic equipment all over the place and if some ignorant repair man called the FBI, I am sure I would be in the exact same position.
I have an electronics workshop with various tools such as soldering irons, circuit board making equipment, spare parts, oscilloscopes, drill press, etc.
It was probably the large balloon and keg that made the repair man nervous. Really, if it was a bomb shop you would see many of the same tools and certainly electronics.
I would let the Police, FBI, etc. take a look and explain what it all was. It would not bother me in the slightest unless it was rather early in the morning.
We as geeks are bound to have tons of bizarre electronics and workshops. You watch Hollywood movies and you see shops like ours in bomb factories all the time. The difference is we don't have explosives (well unless you are involved in Geeks and Guns and load your own rounds).
Just don't be a Middle Eastern Geek with a home based gun shop, chemistry lab, and electronics lab. That would set off alarm bells for almost anyone who wasn't familiar with it.
Yeah I know it sucks but this is the world in which we live today.
Now, I don't want to come off as anti-american (though it is fairly easy to feel that way these days), but do you US citizens realise that this sort of stuff is starting to flow on to the rest of the world? Many of us live in countries not governed by religious, paranoid, low-iq, war-fetishists. We like that we don't need to go around pretending there are terrorists everywhere in order to "exact vengeance" for ONE incident (which, lets face it, PALES next to some of the things that the US have done to other countries) 3 years ago.
Because the US is so influential on the western political stage though, we almost have to fall in line with your head lunatic. PLEASE get rid of this fucker. PLEASE vote for someone with some intelligence. And also, if you know your neighbours or friends are morons who will vote for any asshole who can wave a flag and spout some jingoistic bollocks, please have them killed. Cheers.
Prisoner #655321
Look at it like this. If the police really thought your friend was a terrorist, there's no way they would have given him a warning. They would have just called Homeland and his house would have been searched while your friend was away from home.
The fact that they turned up, asked nicely, and gave him a choice, means that they thought your friend was innocent but they were under an obligation to investigate all reports.
Annoying, yes. But when I was a youngster I once got stopped by the police at 2am while I was walking home. They asked me who I was, where I was going, asked to search my backpack (and I let them), etc. I fumed and thought "fascist pigs" at the time but in hindsight, they did the right thing. Here was me wandering around suburbia at 2am with a big backpack and computer gear under my arm. Suspicious? I think so. The police would have been remiss if they hadn't asked nicely. They probably thought "he's too dorky to be a thief, but we better check anyway, because THAT IS OUR DUTY".
Same here with your friend. Somebody reported him. It's not up to the police to ignore reports from the public. They _should_ investigate. That is their purpose.
If "your friend" hasn't done anything, "he" shouldn't have anything to worry about.
What a ridiculous argument. Here's a near-future scenario to run through your "logic"...
When digital cameras and flash memory become cheap enough, and law enforcement wants to install a video camera in every room of every residence and business and vehicle in the USA to very cheaply gather evidence for later use -IF- a crime gets committed there, will you have anything to worry about? Will you freely greet that sort of progress? It would seem only those committing or planning to commit crimes would have something to worry about.
I think a video recorder in every room of every residence and business and vehicle could be a fantastic aid to prosecuting real criminals. Seriously. Think about it: nearly every moment recorded for law enforcement to review later only if necessary... Fantastic! And for those of us who aren't criminals, we'll have nothing to worry about.
Untwist your panties! This isn't about Homeland Security or the PATRIOT Act or Ashcroft or any of your other "Bush is sooo evil" conspiracies. This is normal everyday US fear-induced authortarianism that's been around for quite a few decades. And this attitude is hardly limited to the US. Imagining this scenario happening in enlightened Europe or Asia is easy to do. Of course I'll be modded down by the last sentence, but I don't care anymore.
I'll give you an extremely accurate analogy, but one that doesn't involve your hated demons in the Bush administration. Instead, imagine during the peace and civil-rights loving Clinton administration, sometime after the Oklahoma City bombing, a landlord doing some routine inspection of a house. The landlord discovers in the garage sections of iron pipe, a bag of nails, a can of diesel fuel, and a bag of lawn fertilizer. OMG the renter is going to build a bomb! Call the police! Call the FBI! Call Janet Reno!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
nobody even mentioned filing a complaint with the apartment management for invasion of privacy and stupidity of maintenance personnel. might even be a civil lawsuit in there somewhere for causing you problems with the law that they had no right to even stir up. and no, I don't think any kind of "reasonable doubt" would be covered
I'm good with numbers -
Someone reported that a crime might be taking place. The police are OBLIGATED to investigate that. The man was given a choice of letting the police in for a search, or making other legal channels come into play. He let the police search. He explained the misunderstanding. They leave. Nobody loses anything, no one is hurt...what's the problem??
some retard modded the parent post down as "flamebait". someone with mod points please fix it.
Crossing the border the wrong way does give a guard the right to aim his weapon at you. Telling a guard who is doing his duty to lower his weapon is just going to make him more nervous.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
I was going to reply to this thread, but parent poster hit the nail on the head. Seatbelt laws are to save the taxpayers money at public hospitals, nothing more or less sinister than that really. That and the whole saving lives thing...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
you have the right to ask for a warrant, and we will come back using some national security law and turn your house inside out.
Or you can just let us in now voluntarily without a warrant.
Doesn't that sort of remove the point of having a system of needing warrants?
I was still a good 5 metres from the building, on the grass in the big field under the Peace Arch. I didn't walk into some secret compound or anything, I was walking across an open fucking field!
I didn't have a chance to ask him to put the gun down because his yelling cut me off.
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"Hitler was elected by Europeans" He was never democratically elected by the Germans, never mind all Europeans. http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitlerdemo.htm
I worry about my own circumstances as a photographer. For the last 30 years, I've made photo prints using antiquated photographic processes. Many "alternative processes" use highly toxic chemical compounds that include cyanide, chromium, etc. and some of these toxic processes like Cyanotype are quite common, I remember learning how to make Cyanotypes in High School.
I bought large stocks of chemicals about 30 years ago, because it was almost impossible to buy them in smaller quantities. And by "large stocks," I mean like a small bottle of about 500 grams, which I've used about half of in 30 years.. So if the FBI ever decides to turn my house upside down, they'd probably find enough toxics to kill a small city full of people. I hope I don't ever run out, I can buy the chemicals from places like Photographer's Formulary, but I'm sure that the FBI gets a look at all their hazardous chemical purchases.
Not to mention, fucktard, that over 80% of the German soldiers killed in WWII were killed in the invasion of the Soviet Union.
They're not allowed to pull stunts like that here.
Sounds to me like a good time to re-watch JFK and listen to Garrison's closing arguments to the jury---just to remind yourself of what we're dealing with.
I could be completely wrong here, but isn't the detonator the metal tube with mercury fulminate in it? Isn't the part with the 555 the fuse? In any case, if you are a terrorist with anything resembling a brain, you would use a CD4029 to multply the timing pulses. Most of us aren't terrorists though. Just engineers, and teenagers with a lot of free time. We should all know too, but meh... A 555 is cheaper than an Op-Amp by the way.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There aren't any busses or trains between Vancouver and Seattle?
The 24hr busride deposited us at the Vancouver bus station right after the last train and busses had left. The next ones wouldn't have been in time for the outgoing plane the next morning, so I had to improvise.
It all worked out, although I also had to go through 3 separate security checks at Seatac. CHAPS thinks I'm bad, I guess.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Some claim that Hitler's rise was nonetheless legal under the German system. The problem is that what was "legal" under the German system would not be considered legal under a truer and better-working democracy. In a democracy along the lines of the United States or Great Britain, Hitler could have never risen to power.
This article is a lot of song and dance. The fact of the matter is Hitler got more votes than anybody else in a system which had "back room deals" built into it. It was a lousy system, but that doesn't excuse the 37% of Germans who voted for the Nazis.
And I didn't imply other Europeans voted for the Nazis. They simply tried to ignore him in hopes he would go away. This is very similar to today's European, who , despite all experience to the contrary, still thinks accomodation will deter a bully.
You all live in democracies, you can vote for whichever appeaser strikes your fancy at the moment. But don't tell me who to elect in my country.
You say he is one of your co-workers. Okay, fine. But where is he from? Is he from South Carolina or Saudi Arabia? From what you've written one would assume he's an American Joe Blow, in which case his landlord's paranoia is pretty far fetched. If he's an arab on the other hand then that paranoia just got a whole lot more reasonable.
If he is an arab from some other middle-eastern ethnic group, then he can thank his cousins back home for his predicament and thank Allah that he didn't get deported.
If he's a native american (and no, I don't mean an American Indian) then he has every right to be angry. Lets just pray his landlord hasn't polluted the gene pool by reproducing.
I think if I were him I would have:
1) Gotten a lawyer
2) Littered the apartment with promo from the ACLU to piss off the gestapo
3) Made the gestapo work for its donuts. The more time they spend on me, the less time they have to cause problems for others.
4) Filmed or taped every single thing that happened, or at least as much as I could. Especially if this is a state that doesn't require both parties to agree to audio and video taping.
5) Posted the video files to the internet
But then again I'm someone for whom resentment of authority isn't just a pastime, its a religion. I can understand why some people would be good little Germans. Just remember that if you don't stand up for yourself in the face of bullshit like this, no one else is going to. You may not win the confronation, but forcing the enemy to expend some of its limited resources in fighting you is a victory in and of itself.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Officially, Finland has an immigration policy of some sort. In practice, everybody is discouraged from putting down an application for a residence permit in the first place and then whenever someone dares apply anyhow, they get a refusal on shady basis that contradict several of this country's laws. The point is that they build a wall of hopelessness, betting on the idea that someone facing a refusal after waiting for a decision over a year willl not bother with appealing and will instead try their luck in another country. That assumption usually proves correct; few bother appealing, instead leaving full of bitterness and hatered against a country that advertises itself as being civilised and based on equal rights. Liars!
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
Actually it was the furnace repair guy who spotted my AR-15, ammo, case of KINEPAK (binary explosive) and all my electronic gear. Next morning there was a knock at the door, I peek out to see my old buddy from the bomb squad followed by the swat team. He looks at me and says "Figures it was you!!" I invited them in and gave them a cup of coffee.Everything was legal and I showed them the paperwork. The furnace guy got the shaft for ripping off some of the Kinepak and his buddy the seargent who thought this might make him LT. got a reprimand for not checking it out first.
You wont win that fight, in this day and age no one sitting on a court of law would dear declare the patriot act unconstitutional.
The personal fall out of being 'unpatriotic' would prevent this.
Meanwhile , you will be treated like a terrorist for the rest of your life. You will be in 'detention' for a long time, and your entire life savings will be depleted, with little hope of ever being productive again due to the 'records' that will be kept.
But please, go ahead and be the martyr we need.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
DONT LIVE IN AN APARTMENT.
Every apartment I lived in before buying a house had reasons to frequently enter your apartment: smoke alarms, pest control, safety inspection, maintenance, etc.
Anything suspicious (god forbid you leave a bag of weed on the kitchen table) will get reported to the apartment owners and then to the police/fbi/gestapo/etc and you will get the third degree until they clear you or take you away.
Most of this is due to drug confiscation laws forcing landlords to be more proactive in ensuring that their tenants arent selling or using narcotics. Part of this is legal CYA but it is based off of a very real fear of heavy handed anti-drug law enforcement. The war on terror is more of the same, only more invasive, less well defined and more heavy handed.
The war on drugs/terror/kazaa/the next big thing is really a war against non-conformist or anticapitalist behavior in the working class. Once you live on your own property, a lot of these privacy issues suddenly tilt way into your favor unless you are a loudmouth and draw attention to yourself.
Uh. Keep up. The PATRIOT act, is expiring. Odds are a lot of what was passed will not be reauthorzied.
well, in my house, i have everything one would need to make a fairly good bomb; batteries, suitcase, rat poison (anti-coagulitive), various nails and bits of metal, a few household chemicals that make a nice eplosive when mixed, wire, timer, gunpowder(starter charge), and thats about all you need. make a few of those, place them liberaly around an area (say, the olympic games) then set them off remotely. boom, the whole world is freaked.
also more on the topic, the specific things he's setting up could be "a threat to homeland security" as, who knows that he is planning to take pics of? an air force base? some other high-security area?
times like these can make people parinoid. things can be done simply without people noticing, apearing to be ligitimate activies.
just my $0.02
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
The police are far from obligated to respond to every kook, wacko, and paranoid delusional that reports a major crime going on. There's such a thing as discretion. Otherwise they would be chasing all over the place on bogus reports.
Do you have any idea how the Peace Arch is laid out? The "Unauthorized Location" is a big fucking open field between two lanes of traffic, one going to the US, one to Canada, with a nice arch symbolizing the world's longest undefended border. Following that southward, the US customs building has car traffic that goes on both sides of it, rather like a McDonalds with 4 lanes on either side. If I was walking up to it for the first time, I'd have no idea which side to go to either.
Interestingly, as the site says, it's a monument to world peace. How ironic is it that you can get screamed at by a neanderthal with a rifle barely 100 years from this monument to peace?
still thinks accomodation will deter a bully
So, Saddam thought that as well? Showed him, eh?
Somehow i get the impression that the term Nation-state has not penetrated into a lot of people's mental awarness.
That Term means something! you are a member of your Nation-state. last I heard Canada had amongst the most liberal immigration policies(open door for Terrorist) in the Free world.
Catch a clue here.-- Al- Quida and What's his name are not kidding or playing games.
THey mean to destroy every american institution they can reach with explosives or a hijacked jet.
United States (Nation-State) is not going to allow a bunch of half baked, ingorant, rag heads with some kind of religious and historical nonsence for a philosophy - to Do That!
If that means that some soldier points an M-16 at you at an air port or border crossing. Then i would take seriously the United States intention to defend itself from all Enemies foreign and domestic.
so Suck it up! this is not a perament situation, so for the next 60 months or so get use to people with Guns pointing them at you at U.S. border crossings.
Also expect for the identification process at the border to get more invovled and exacting.
This does not mean that War has broken out between Canada and the U.S. or that it is a good situation
but see remark about Terrorist Rag heads and be a little more grown up about the Whole thing. Ok?
The justification for all possible invasions of freedom.
I challenge you to find me a single law that strips people of freedom, which can't be justified by a similar argument to the one you just made.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
According to the article link to @ /. ,hmmm, today.
"How The Government Spies On Your Internet Use", they can even detain you without contacting a judge.
I'm alittle confused, you?
Beware The leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor,
for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword.
It both emboldens the blood, just it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a
fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in
seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism,
will offer up all of their rights unto their leader and gladly so.
How Do I know ?
For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.
Julius Caesar
Look up Christian Reconstructionism. Look up Rushdoony. Google is your friend. Christian Reconstrutionism is the core of the mass movement you couldn't find. The exoteric term for this is "the Religious Right". I presume you've heard of them? How far have they gotten in the past 20 years?
"All these atrocities continue in spite of the fact that we now have the 'right' people in places of power. Indeed, the occupant of the White House is a professing Christian. The U.S. Attorney General is believed to be a devout Christian. 'Conservatives' control both Houses of Congress, and Republican presidents appointed seven of the nine Supreme Court justices. Christian activists placed the right party in power, but are we now witnessing the return to moral and constitutional government that we have demanded for so long?"
This is from Christian Exodus explaining why they want to take over a state because they've effectively taken over the national government and the New Millenium hasn't started yet, i.e. the nation hasn't converted to an Old Testament legal regime comparable to sharia law quite yet. Their problem of their political leadership is that little things like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights have been standing in their way, though the work of dismantling is in progress. In the above, "conservative" and Christian mean "Religious Right"... those are the only people the Christian Reconstructionists recognize as real fellow Christians. Every one of the last several Presidents, Democratic and Republican have been "professing Christians". But except for George W Bush, not their kind of Christian.
For more information:
Tech Public Policy stuff
"Vigilante executions aren't unconstitutional -- maybe the part where you actually kill person is, but the whole thing is not."
Sounds stupid? That's what I thought, jack-ass.
Rather than opposing the PATRIOT Act outright on obvious civil liberties grounds, and thus giving the Republicans the opportunity to question their patriotism in "a time of war" (note carefully that Congress has not declared war), the Democrats did the next best thing:
The PATRIOT Act has a 5 year sunset clause.
This means that unless it is explicitly renewed by Congress, it goes away. President Bush made it clear that he wants the Act renewed/made permanent in his State of the Union address of 2004.
So, sometime in the next year or so, after the national elections I bet, Congressional hearings on the effectiveness of PATRIOT Act will begin, and the Executive Branch will have to rejustify the Act, and its effectiveness to the Congress.
If we're really lucky, Ashcroft will be out of office, and the new AG will allow the Act to quietly expire.
Failing that, it is up to all U.S. Citizens to make it clear to their elected representatives that unless the Act is allowed to expire or is explicitly repealed, they will be voted out of office in the next general election (every 2 years for Representatives and every 6 years for U.S. Senators).
There is always the possibility for any system designed by man to become corrupt, abused, or broken down beyond the point of saving or repair. It doesn't take much for the "right hands" to become the "wrong hands".
Now I certainly don't believe this is the current case with your government or legal system, but none the less, the possibility exists. And then what? All those helpful little facts can be easily turned against you.
How many false positives would it take to add up to one "true" positive in a corrupt system? How many times are you allowed to look suspicious before being deemed a threat, even if you've done nothing but toy with electronics in your own home?
To be free, we really do need enough breathing room for the threat of terrorism, criminal activity, and dissent to exist. If we don't have it, then what action can we take when the system fails and is used against the population?
If not for crime and terrorism, there would have been no American revolution.
When I was 12, I took a vacation to Sault Ste. Marie (on both sides of the border w/Michigan) with my family and some friends of the family. On day, we decided to go to the other side of the border for the hell of it. One car had my father and some friends, and the other car had a friend of the family, me, and my brother.
The first car gets through, but, when they find out that I'm not related to the driver of my car, they detain us on suspicion of child abduction. We're taken to a room for interrogation. For 15 minutes, a 5'0" woman with a Napoleon complex grills us as though each one of us was a suspect. She then leaves the room to get another officer--we wait. We get bored. We walk right out of the station unnoticed to our unlocked, unimpounded vehicle. After that we spent a couple of minutes in Canada and went right back into the States through the same checkpoint.
So, if you are a sexual predator who likes to smuggle young boys out of the country, Sault Ste. Marie is the place to go.
As for me, British Columbia is a much kinder place, IMHO.
I've had a total of 4 firearms pointed at me in my entire life.
;-)
1) Photographing a blood-red moon setting behind a school. Great shot. Cop pulls up behind my car about 500 yards away (hazards on flash). I head over so he won't give me a ticket.... and end up getting the business end of a riot gun aimed at me. Apparently someonecalled in a 'peeping tom' and he thought I was a suspect (uhh, yeah. leave my car outside with flashing lights... right.)
2) Trying to cross the road in France a sub machine gun aimed at me. Apparently the officer was saying 'you may not cross the road' in french, but that wasn't in my limited vocabulary... but seeing a jet black automatic aimed at you certainly was. The Prime Minister of Vietnam? (not even sure now) was traveling in the tunnels and they didn't want anything dropped on him (from my friends conversation afterwards)
3) Random search by airport security. I'd forgotten to put my steel toes on the conveyor. Legit concern
4) Cleaning a disassembled pistol. Idiotic to do such a thing, EVEN broken down, EVEN non-fireable (I had both clips in my hand). Still not funny.
Anyways, thats been my experience. In each case (save the first) it's been avoidable.
fact, and then assumption. I don't have much indication of how much of it will be renewed.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
You don't have privacy rights in SOMEONE ELSES'S BUILDING. Buy a house.
ref Lionel Hutz, The Simpsons.
The problem is that these days it's not just your country. Whoever you elect gets to fuck (or not) the rest of us over, and we have no say in that. In the UK and Australia among many others, there is no party willing to say, "vote for us and we'll tell the US where to stick it", so those who think Bush and co. are the worst things to happen to planet Earth in a long time are currently totally disenfranchised. And of course "they" want to keep it that way, no matter what the cost.
Next time, just stay the fuck out of our country. I hate it when Americans act like this (i.e., ugly), and I hate it just as much when people from other countries (especially fucking Canadians) get all snooty about things here in the U.S.
I hate it even more when the snooty Canadian has some sort of Asian fetish.
=)
If you don't like guns, stay the fuck away from borders. And stay the hell out of Mexico (where I now live). The cops there are armed to the fucking teeth. (Actually, if you want to visit Mexico, look me up in Guanajuato. The cops there are pretty nice about not pointing their guns at you, and there are a fair amount of Japanese students and tourists. You Asian freak.)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Most people don't have a clue about circuit boards and soldering irons
Very true :-)
I used my soldering iron as a hash vaporisor when at uni. One of our smoking friends was an arts student who from then on, honstly thought soldering irons were ment for smoking hash and was a bit concerned when he first stepped into an undergaduate hardware lab
:-)
The problem with your political theory is that people love war. I mean, obviously you don't, but most people do. As long as it's not their own kids getting sent to Afghanistan, and as long as they personally aren't being drafted - hey, I just described the majority of voters, didn't I?
I get pretty tired of all this ivory tower "people don't really want war" nonsense. Spend 40 hours a week on any construction job, you'll find out that most Americans absolutely love the idea of our soldiers heroically killing foreigners for some nebulous, poorly specified ideal.
Hell, read slashdot for that matter. What do geeks do for amusement? Wargames! People love war.
If the shrub gets defeated it will be because he wrecked the economy (not that he did, necessarily, but he certainly hasn't fixed it), he's hell-bent on destroying all environmental protections, his educational plans are completely unworkable, and because he is personally unscrupulous and amoral (although that didn't seem to hurt Clinton much, so don't count on that making any difference).
Being a US citizen doesn't matter any more; you have no rights they don't choose to give you.
Luckily for us, there are currently more people that the oppressors would like to oppress than there are oppressors available to do the job.
But I understand a whole lot of experienced torturers are going to be on the job market in two years or less, and they already have been well conditioned to hate olive-skinned people, so I'm sure the three-letter agencies and local police departments will be able to hire more "ideologically correct" people.
You might think about relocating to Canada at your earliest opportunity.
According to the Selective Service website, these articles are false.
Sure, in a perfect world it would be nice to stand up for your rights but unless you find some lawyer that will work pro bono then you'll looking at some serious legal fee's.
Its easier just to show the police what your doing, that is, unless your up to no good.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Man, you've sure bought what the Fedguv is selling, haven't you? Let me try some, pass that crack pipe over here.
Obviously, brown foreigners hate our freedoms, and envy us because we are the best. They are so consumed by their need to take freedom away from people on the other side of the planet that they will never meet, they are willing to give up their lives to make ineffectual bombings that kill less people than cigarettes, alcohol or car accidents.
Sure, it's all clear to me now. How could I be so blind! All this has nothing to do with the US-funded invasion of Palestine and the increasing levels of slaughter there, or the US-funded government of Saudi Arabia's cruelty and tribal oppression, or the unprovoked destruction of the only secular state in the Middle East by the US.
It's all 'bout a bunch of half-baked, ingorant, rag heads with some kind of religious and historical nonsence for a philosophy!!!
Behold, I am enlightened!
Aaaaaah.... that's some good stuff you got there.
Let's go deport some Canadians to Syria. It'll be fun.
Dear Medievalist,
you are an Arab and and a someone under 14 years old?
yours truly,
Stanleverlock
People over 40 probably got it... never mind.
I just find the way people are lining up to throw out every remaining vestige of freedom and individuality in the USA these days bleakly amusing. Add your little racist diatribe and it becomes hysterically funny.
Do you always use the word "raghead" to refer to Arabs, or do you like to use "sand-nigger" too?