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Bush Wants Right to ISP Customer Data
bryan8m writes "Wired is reporting that the Bush administration wants back the ability to make ISPs turn over information on their customers. The U.S. Court of Appeals is handling the case and of course the feds want to hide details of it from the public. The law giving the government the power to seize communications records from 1986 was strengthened in 2001 by the Patriot Act and struck down after the ACLU challenged it."
When did the Bush administration become concerned about legality? Their previous stances on issues including torture, sovereign right of nations, and the role of Article 2 power has been done without discussing it with anyone.
Now all of the sudden they are getting a read from the courts?
Fucking facists.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
The most important thing is to make sure that with any additional powers granted there is enough oversight from a disinterested third party to insure said powers are used only within their intended scope for their intended purpose.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
and of course the feds want to hide details of it from the public
I have read of this before, but it is very strange that in a democracy (?) laws for the popluation can be discussed/made by not letting the population know about them.
Does'nt this seem *too* close to a dictatorship - not that the US is one, but it increasingly is seeming that certain aspects are going in that direction
It's not about getting information on terrorists when they email each other.
It's about getting blackmail data on government officials to force them to do what the Administration wants.
...that no one will want to live here anymore.
I'm not a bush basher generally. I'm not totally against the RIAA and MPAA.
But I must say, that this initiative is truely diabolical. My freedoms to surf the internet privately is clearly being breached here.
Are we going to see them applying the same interpretationist polcies that they use on television to the internet. I mean whos to say what constituits a "terrorist" website?
Goodbye my friends. I think 1984 has truely, and finally come alive, and its time for some of us to go underground.
Execute order 66
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Does'nt this seem *too* close to a dictatorship
Hell yeah, it does.
not that the US is one, b
Give it a little more time... These things don't happen overnight.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
the, "if you've got nothing to hide, why worry?" argument will probably win this one. but guys, c'mon. This descision will quash terrorism... don't you see...?
sudo killall humans
Yer all a bunch of commie pinko liberal America-haters. Our President is doing the BEST HE CAN to protect us from terrorism, and he NEEDS these powers.
I'm so glad that the "keep-the-government-out-of-people's-lives" party is in power.
After a quick browsing of the ISP records they could know a lot about us... It seems that you have been living two lives. In one life, you are Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, you pay your taxes and you help your land lady carry out her garbage. In the other you are an annoying slashdot troll under the alias "Anonymous Coward" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for, including extreme comparisons of the Bush administration to fictional works such as The Matrix or 1984. One of these lives has a future... In all seriousness, though, I can't see how giving the government access to ISP records is going to beneficial to the people. Guess the Department of Homeland Security is getting bored and needs something to do.
Seriously, if things keep on going on the way they are, I can see a lot of personals like this popping up:
"Single, white 22-year old Canadian male willing to `marry' American female fleeing fascist regime. Must be intelligent and conversational. Preferably aged 19-25, ethnicity unimportant."
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Wow talk about a mis-leading head line. If you read the article in Wired it says congress is debating this. This article just starts off biased and just gets worse fromt here. It is obviouse where the writer stands on this issue and what side of the political fense the writer stands on, but last time I checked the Patiot Act didn't pass with a narrow margin and it doesn't look like it is going to pass with a narrow margin again this time.
So for all you liberal's out there that say my guy would never vote for this, and Bush is evil because he did. Check the vote records for this back in 2001. It's all posted on the Library of Congress website.
In some ways it's worse than a dictatorship, if you think about it. Most people in nasty dictatorships have an all-to-clear a picture of exactly what kind of behaviors will get them 'disappeared.' It's not a guarantee or anything (you may be a government-critic's brother, for instance), but at least you have a sense of your position on the terrain.
In the United States the law is so hopelessly complex, the enforcement so arbitrary, and adherence to the concept of checks and balances is such a farce that very few people are entirely sure of the legality of all their actions. Or what the consequences would be. We have developed a culture of lawyers for precisely this purpose - we walk on pins and needles hoping to God we aren't crossing some local, state, or federal ordinance without realizing it.
To live in the United States without having a law degree or the money to employ someone with one full-time is to be a second-class citizen.
--Ryv
In my opinion it is worse than you say.
Here are reviews of 35 books and 3 movies that discuss how bad it really is: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Background information: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories. The U.S. government declared war on Arabs long before there was Arab terrorism against the U.S.: New York Governor Pataki's statements are equivalent to a declaration of war.
The U.S. government is bankrupt. The value of the U.S. dollar is dropping fast because the Bush administration is rapidly borrowing money. Who is doing the borrowing? These people: U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party. If you are a U.S. citizen, you owe: $26,289.01, even if you are only 1 year old.
I'm sorry mods, but I can't see how that's insightful.
What does one thing have to do with the other?
It seems many of us are simply predisposed to attack anyone whose ideology is different from ours. Without thought.
Sadly, I think this is what our political leaders have taught us: shrill reponses to just about anything proposed by our enemies (those who don't align with our politics.) It is a scary, scary practice and one that is getting worse.
Disclaimer: I'm not saying I advocate the war or the topic. In fact, I've not even RTFA.
How would people react if the Bush, or any, administration claimed the right to be able to tap anyone's phone for any reason?
From the article:
The legal filing with the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New York comes amid a debate in Congress over renewal of the Patriot Act and whether to expand the FBI's power to seek records without the approval of a judge or grand jury.
And will they also seek the entitlement to search domestic residences without a warrant approved by an authority figure? Would I be far off in this seeming to be about the same? For those who lost their short term memory, and those who like repetition:
without the approval or a judge or grand jury
How do you respect a law like that?
Congress creates the bills, the President merely signs them into law.
Where is all the uproar about the Congressmen who voted for these laws? I see plenty of anti-Bush sentiment here, but where's the outrage towards *your* representatives who approve of this?
Get angry all you want at the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, but don't give a free pass to the occupants of both the Hart and Russell Senate Office Buildings, they typically stick around a lot longer than a President.
In Argentina we've recently had a similar law proposal. Fortunately there was enough people who cared to at least stop it for a while. One of the many rumours we had flying around at that time was that the Bush administration was behind all that as part of a deal to relieve some of the pressure regarding our current economical problems.
I personally believe that these are just rumors... but I can't stop to notice that we were in exactly the same situation just two months ago.
What the hell is going on with our so called democracies? Do they really deserve that name?
diegoT
What do I think? All I know is that it certainly feels like whatever any corporation wants they get, but whatever I want (and others like me want), even when it's constitutional freedoms, I don't get it because it would inconvenience some corporation. So I'd have to say we're well down that road to control by corporations and I wouldn't be surprised to see congress and the courts dissolved and the presidency turned into a dictatorship in my lifetime.
In the United States the law is so hopelessly complex, the enforcement so arbitrary, and adherence to the concept of checks and balances is such a farce that very few people are entirely sure of the legality of all their actions. Or what the consequences would be. Actually it's getting easier to figure it out, all you have to ask is "Will this make some corporation mad?" if the answer is yes then it's probably against the law or soon will be. Also the consequences will be quite dire, you'd be better off murdering someone. To live in the United States without having a law degree or the money to employ someone with one full-time is to be a second-class citizen. Frankly I think we're below second-class, we're tolerated as necessary only because we buy the products the corporations make. If it wasn't for that we'd probably be in deep shit.
why don't you think that it will soon *be* law that you keep logs for all activity for say six months or a year? If you don't "have the capacity" then get out of the ISP business - the big boys will have the capacity ...
I worry that your head is in the sand on this.
Unlike past wars, this is one that isn't really going to end. The global war on terrorism's ultimate goal is to stop terrorist threats from attacking the United States.
No matter what we do, the threat will always be there, and as such, the war will continue to go on. Granted, a government should be granted special permissions during wartime, with the understanding that when the conflict is over the population can rest easy that things will return to normal.
Only now, any permissions granted to the government won't be temporary. We are setting ourselves up for a government that can violate the principals on which this nation was founded indefinitely.
I for one don't want to live in a country where the government can violate my privacy. I don't want to live in a country where at whim any action can redefined as "terrorist", and I could be labeled a criminal for doing nothing wrong. We've gone past the point where "only guilty people have to worry", and are approaching "innocent people have to worry too."
So kudos to the ACLU. Kudos to any person or group who wants to limit the powers of government. The war just isn't in Iraq, the war is here too. Like the war against terrorism, our domestic war is between those who value liberty and freedom above all else, and those who want to limit it.
The current administration may have the best of intentions, but I can see Bush saying "It is better that the rights of 1,000 innocent Americans should perish at the hands of their own government so that the rights of one American won't be taken by a terrorist."
The Internet is generally stupid
That is so true. It points up the obvious that Bush people are neocons and an insult to true conservatives. Bush backers are more fascist than conservative but fascist is a tough label to sell in Oklahoma. So they call themselves conservative.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The secretary of state, I think.
And here's the definition of terrorism. Think "direct action activism".
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
What the hell are you talking about, Anonymous paranoid Coward? Your insane rant might be at least more *specific* if you declared an actual subject, instead of talking about some undefined "that" in your first sentence, then frothing about it for a paragraph. But maybe you're not up to it - you're invoking some kind of imagined AC posts by me that don't exist, but seem to provoke your shadowy paranoia.
What "tenuous implication"? That fascist Nazis posed as socialists to grab power from people who knew fascists were bad, as I explicitly stated in the post that triggered your delusions? Or the explicit statement that Bush poses as a "compassionate conservative", while denying the unnecessary pain and death he creates? Which parallel to the Nazis you expanded further, with your tales of a politician who takes over a credulous party by assuming labels like "conservative" or "socialist", depending on the preference of their targeted constituencies.
Sure, I learned in preschool (too scary to call it "kindergarten", eh?) to recognize an insane bully. Like Hitler, like Bush, and like you, Anonymous raving Coward. Fancy the fascism yourself, eh? Why not be strong enough to come out and strut it?
--
make install -not war
An open letter on this memorial day. A time to remember our countrymen and the sacrifices they made for our freedom. Consider the price of freedom, and how fleeting it is. What must be taken with mighty armies can be given away with the stroke of the pen...
I've read that congress is considering revisions to the Patriot Act, and that President Bush is pushing for more powers to intrude in secret into lives of Americans. Please don't let our nation go down this road. I am asking people to discuss this issue and contact your congress person and senator to let them know how you feel. Freedom is not free, it must fought for and held close dearly, in the statehouse and on the battlefield.
In America a battle is raging that is threatening our freedom in the name of terrorism. It used to be "drugs", then it was "the children", and now its "terrorists". The government doesn't care who the bogeyman is, it simply wants more power, and it will use any excuse possible to get it.
When the events of 9/11 occurred, everyone-- the politicians, the President, the newscasters, and the people everywhere-- said "We must go on with our lives, if we change who we are as a result of the trajedy then the terrorists have won..." I hate to say it then, because that's exactly what we did. We allowed our government to put in all these draconian measures that would have scared the pants off us if we had seen it in a hollywood movie on September 10th. We have fundamentally altered our country in response to what the terrorists did, and our freedom and liberty is at stake.
We are no longer as free as we were. We are no longer as kind to each other as before. We run around the world acting like the bully, and we've even lost the respect for ourselves-- our own moral compass and lamp of righteousness. We used to be the shining beacon of freedom and liberty for all the world to see. Now we're reviled and hated in many parts of the world and shunned by our friends and allies.
We've changed a lot since 9/11. Government agents can search your home and seize your property without anybody ever knowing what happened. They have even made talking about it a "national security" crime. These are things are supposed to happen in Cuba. These are things that happen in China. These are things that are supposed to happen only in the farthest, darkest, most oppressive corners of the world-- not in America, "the land of the free".
It has been said that people who give up their liberty for safety have neither. It would seem that since 9/11, Americans have looked away while lawmakers stripped away fundamental freedoms that are guaranteed to us under our constitution. Since the birth of this nation we have championed against tyranny, oppression, and the subjugation of humanity all around the world. What an irony that we must now remind ourselves of these very principles and warn our politicians to step lightly to avoid leading us into the abyss.
Step away from that edge! Guide us back into the light and liberty. America was great before, and shall be great again. All that is required is the wisdom and the courage to stand up and speak against what we all know is wrong. America has a mighty weapon, and its not our tanks, its not our ships, its not our weapons of mass destruction-- America's mightiest weaspon is ourselves. Our love for humanity, our reaching out to stop the oppressors of the world, our zest for life and our yearning to be free.
The terrorists who aim to defeat us can never win because they simply can't understand our spirit. But the politicians who govern us can defeat us. They are charged with protecting our spirit and keeping the beacon of liberty lit for all the generations that come. It is not the terrorists I fear. We have mighty armies and very smart people that will eventually defeat them, of this I am ce