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How The Government Spies On Your Internet Use
intnsred writes "In explaining the recent PATRIOT act ACLU lawsuit, a D.C. civil rights lawyer writes, "I am sure that many of you reading this (and I, likely) have the government in our computers....Until now, we did not know much about how the government goes about this procedure. Now we do." Fascinating details of the case and how easy it is for the gov't to get warrantless access to you through your ISP. This clarifies and expands a previous /. article."
i guess if you keep repeating "but we are free" enough people will believe it
50% of USA still think Saddam and Al-Queda are connected so it shows psy-ops works
What's the point of an 'internet wiretap' when anything important to law enforcement is probably encrypted with a key long enough to take years to crack?
Am I the only person who has 4096-bit RSA?
Can someone please explain to me how this is indicative of the principles on which the USA was founded ? On where John Hancock and his mates saw a US goverment with the ability to spy on its own citizens, and on how this all makes sure we have a goverment "of the people, by the people and for the people" ?
I might be a bit depressed having just re-read 1984, but with the US and Airstrip 1... I mean Britain, working together on a strategy underpinned by propoganda and the continual spying on its citizens by the US Goverment you have to ask whether Orwell was just out by 20 years.
Jeb's Big Brother is in the Whitehouse folks, trouble is he kind of looks likes everyones Big Brother right now.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
In other words, the Patriot act is being used to stifle dissent against the act itself.
They are (supposedly) elected representatives of the people, its in your power to sack them if you are unhappy with what they are doing. Start explaining vociferously to you CongressPerson/Senator what the issue is and act with your ballot.
That aside, I am surprised at how strongly I feel about the by passing of legal stewardship in these issues. Normally I dont have alot of time for them but they do have their uses in a checks and bounds system. Obviously secrecy is required to carry out these operations but whats so hard about going to a judge if you have a valid case ? I think the recent statements by Ashcroft are indicative though. After Sept 11 all Arabic young men were potential terrorists. Now this has been expanded to include all young/middle aged/fathers/European looking Arabic men. No doubt Europeans and Asians will soon be included based on this logic.
Its becoming a concern that the US its leaders and institutions are becoming more and more isolated from the people they are supposed to represent and serve.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
What the hell are you talking about?
First of all, there should be a -1: Tin-foil hat option. Anyway, in Canada the government can seize your property without any kind of warrant, or even notification. Next. look up the Notwithstanding Clause. Finally, Canada also recently psased "anti-terrorism" laws similar to what you're complaining about.
All in all, neither country is perfect, and neither is heading down a slippery slope toward having "neither liberty or safety" (all right, please stop bashing us over the head with that quote, I know it's not just you but all of Slashdot). You've got plenty of liberties in both countries, and pretty incontestably more in the U.S. Now put down your George Orwell and enjoy the good life.
Fuck it
I thought it was pretty common knowledge that posting as AC while still being logged into /. as your username was a pretty transparent beard to the editors. Also, one of the editors mentioned in IRC once that every comment was trackable by IP records in their logs, but no gov't agency had (as yet) cause to request them.
Which brings us to this Reality Check: There is no anonymity on the Net, period, full stop, end of story.
Was there ever supposed to be? (Did I miss a meeting?) Is there some constitutional sub-text granting us anonymity on privately-owned Internet bulletin boards/communities? I don't believe there is... Should there be? Maybe, maybe not, but that's a topic for a different thread.
If you wanna be happy for the rest of the your life (to paraphrase the old song), never post anything "anonymously" on the Net that you would be uncomfortable scribing on your T-Shirt or your bumper sticker. Obviously, the owners of the boards you frequent don't stress the traceability of their membership's rants because they are in the business of _attracting_ posters, not scaring them away.
I see this less as an Evil, "They're Taking Our Rights Away, Big Brother is the SuXXor!" thing as I do a testimony to the naivete of so many people raised on the Internet thinking it is some kind of Magic Utopian Prometheus-Provided Happy Cyber-Town Forum and not the built-by-the-military and run-by-businss entity it really is.
What are our options? First of all, the PATRIOT act was passed almost unanimously, and we only pick at best one senator and one representative every vote cycle. It would take at least 4 years to replace everyone that's currently in Congress to fix this thing.
This brings up the second issue. Who would fix it? Democrats and Republicans sided with the bill. It isn't a matter of changing out one group of people for another, because it won't improve things. We need honest politians, but that's an oxymoron.
Learn something new.
One could argue that the government is using unfettered powers to protect the people by finding out who could be potential 'terrorists'.
Now the problem is, who is a 'terrorist'?? Who defines the term 'terrorist'?
For instance take this ridiculous example (only to make a point, and makes silly assumptions that does not reflect their true nature):
Say, in a Democrat controlled (assume that they are all pro-Abortion etc.) government, would I be a terrorist if I advocated avoidance of abortion and extolled the virtues of abstinance?
Say, in a Republican controlled (assume that they are all xenophobic and White only), would a person be a terrorist if he/she were of Middle-Eastern descent.
Say, in a Stallmanist regime, would Bill Gates be a terrorist for advocating non-free software :-)
Another irritating point is the use of fancy words to which you cannot say anything near 'no' or 'I object' without the danger of being attacked, like 'Pro-Choice', 'Pro-Life', 'USA Patriot Act', 'Homeland Security', 'Intellectual Property' without looking like a bigot, one-who-condones-murder, unpatriotic, one who does not care for their patriotic duties to protect their homeland and one who condones thieving, respectively..
I have leaned to view everything with such names with suspicion.
Disgusting, these people are like cockroaches. Watch them scurry when you shine the light on them. This level of secrecy is unwarrented by any part of the government. Any power that can be abused will be abused, our only defence is eternal vigilance, which requires transparency.
At least in the case of phone taps you need a warrent. It's not hard to get, granted, but at least there's a record. With secrecy like this the government can get at your computer and your records and your communication without any evidence and risks nothing should nothing turn up. This kind of situation just breeds fishing expiditions.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I know that the legal community wouldn't agree with me since there's no way to actually make a move based on it...
But isn't this the core of terrorism? Where a government has threatened a citizen to the point where they seek anonymity and are afraid to talk about the current topics of the day? When they're constantly looking over their shoulders to check and see if they might be breaching an "approved topic".
Sure it's just one person but the implication is, well, enough to make me ill.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
By the time you get a "National Security Letter", it's too late to complain on Slashdot about it, because you'll be under a gag order.
;-)
So instead, today you should make up a webpage stating basically what you've just said above: "I have never seen any requests for passwords or email from any law enforcement agency in my time working here." and post a link to it for us. That way, if you ever do get a NSL, then you don't have to violate your gag order and tell anyone about it, you just need to take down the webpage telling them the opposite and wait for people to notice.
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
I'm pretty sure we're right in around the apathy phase...
I'm sorry, but if you put Osama Bin-Laden and Saddam Hussein in a room together, Osama would rip Saddam's throat out in under two minutes.
These two entities, Al-Qaeda and the B'ath Party, were as far from each other on the spectrum as Timothy Leary and John Ashcroft. Hussein was a secular aristocratic illegitimate leader, while Osama is a fundamentalist populist exile.
In Osama's dreams Saddam gets deposed right after the US stops funding Israel and the House of Saud. We just gave him his wish early.
Are there 'links?' between the B'ath Party and Al-Qaeda? Not NEARLY as credible or numerous as there are 'links' between the current administration and Osama, or the current administration and the B'ath party. Who do you think gave intelligence to Saddam for his 'ruthless murder of innocents with WMDs'? Who do you think trained and armed the first incarnations of Al-Qaeda?
I'll tell you: the USA did, because our leaders' vision is limited to a MAXIMUM of eight years. I and all Americans have to take the full responsibility for the sins of our previous leaders. We could reduce terrorism a whole lot better if we stopped using our economic and millitary power to foist up terrible governments around the world and developed reasonable long-term foreign policy.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails