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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?"
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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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.
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Or how about the complete insult to freedom of religion when they started banning Muslim head scarves in our schools?
Every nation, including the US, imposes limits on what is acceptable under freedom of religion. France imposed a minimal dress code in schools and they banned all religious symbols. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
Furthermore, keep in mind that this is a pretty recent phenomenon, brough on by significant immigration into France. But people who come to France know what kind of culture they are getting into, namely a mostly secular culture with Catholic roots. France is not, and never pretended to be, an American-style multicultural society and it draws its lines differently. France's choice may well speed up integration and help Muslims assimilate culturally, while they develop new traditions for their religion in a French cultural context.
Besides, head scarves are more cultural symbols rather than religious symbols anyway. They are supposed to express modesty, but in a different cultural context, they achieve the opposite effect. Just because people claim that they are religious symbols doesn't make it so.
Not to mention the extrordinary stupidity of when they required the characters in Contra to be changed from people into robots because it seemed to violent for the children.
Well, and what about the extraordinary stupidity of banning nudity and sex in US media? Every culture has its sensitive spots. Banning violence seems no less reasonable than banning sex and nudity.
I mean, the way that the government has surveillance cameras in public places is just creepy.
In the US, the only difference is that it is private companies that do it. The US government can get the same information out of that, but they aren't even subject to the same kind of public oversight as the UK government.
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.
Really? A quick quiz then: Which portions of the PATRIOT Act, had they been in force in early 2001, would have prevented the 9/11 attack?