Slashdot Mirror
Exception Expands Domestic Surveillance
drDugan writes "The Washington Post is reporting the next phase of American progress authorizing intelligence agencies to spy on law-abiding citizens without oversight. Primarily, new legislation allows an 'intelligence exception' to the privacy act 'allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.'"
Don't like your neighbor getting high? Start a war on drugs. Three thousand people get killed in a terrorist action? Take everyone's civil liberties away.
No, that's not the case... Your questions are more in line as such:
1. Don't like people medicating with drugs made by groups that don't bribe politicians?
2. Three thousand people get killed because the politicians before you killed millions of non-citizens?
Surveillance will always be pitched in the guise of protecting lives.
Which is why we need to show this for what it really is: extending the financial income of those voting for the bill.
Isn't it ironic that the Chinese government is helping to fund the War in Iraq AND the eradication of US civil liberties?
Not really. The Chinese government has been culpable for a decade by continually buying our counterfeit dollars that Greenspan has been printing in high speed. What surprises me more is that I meet people every day who still have a love for government.
He has systematically worked to centralize the federal government on a scale not seen since FDR, has worked to make the military an active component of civil government, instituted a much more massive welfare state and has found no shortage of reasons to give the government sweeping power to spy on us, deny us our basic rights and all that goes with that. Our border is still open during a "state of war," or is that a battle against violent extremism? I really wish that the Bush supporters and administration would get together and decide whether this is open war, thus justifying some war powers, or just an ideological battle that our enemies can simply wait until 2008 for it to end.
If there is another attack, especially a WMD attack, on our soil while he's still in office, the Congress should impeach him for failure to uphold Article IV, Section 4 which guarantees the states the protection of the federal government from invasion. We have wide open borders, MS-13 is actively working with several terrorist groups to smuggle people and materials in and yet Mr. "See no evil, hear no evil on the borders" calls the Minutemen vigilantes and extremists. The President won't even use his basic legal powers to take common sense precautions like clamping down on both borders so that people cannot easily sneak through, yet we need sweeping new surveillance powers?
Were he an engineer, not a politician, people would be demanding that Bush serve 10 years to life for his systematic failures. If his policies were judged by the same standards that our government judges the work of certified professionals, he'd be lucky if life in prison was the only thing he'd get in the face of a nuclear attack on our soil given how much he has actively undermined the core of our national security policies.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
You seem to presume that if murder weren't illegal people would run about doing it all the time.
If murder weren't illegal you'd just kill the murderer yourself if they had taken the life of somebody you cared about.
You might actually see a -decrease- in murders. Hard to say.
Until they make what you're not hiding illegal.
"The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage."
Isn't Bush guilty of at least two of the four crimes mentioned here?
If you think that's a good thing (or that ignoring it is a good thing), then we probably won't see eye to eye...
I was in the midst of doing an investigation on a piece of rural farm land for a property transaction in Southern Idaho. Part of that investigation required that I go to the local courthouse and look up records attached to that particular parcel. As I was scanning through the record books, I came across a whole section of records that all started and ended in roughly the same language. They were filed around the time of the McCarthy Army investigations. All of the people who filed these documents were doing so because they feared being labeled as Communists by a local demogogue who was riding along on the Red Scare. They were oaths of allegiance to the United States.
The thing that pisses me off about that whole record set is that all of these people were in fear of their OWN FUCKING GOVERNMENT. Not one spy would have missed an opportunity to follow the herd and file their own oath. So what did that exerise do in improving the security of the US? Not one fucking thing.
You are right: If you think that making people fear their government in order to MAYBE catch some spies is a good thing, they we will definately not 'see eye to eye".
I mean, if you shouldn't try to stop people who are paid by your national enemies,
You know I never said that, so beat your strawman by yourself.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
The problem with the current manner of these things, particularly when the the magic words "National Security" are used, there is truly trustworthy oversight. The only trustworthy oversight is public oversight.
Thats what freedom of the press is all about.
Of course, it has always been my personal opinion that no matter what it is, crime prevention runs entirely counter to civil liberties. Until a criminal act is actually committed, any police activity to prevent that act violates at the very least the freedom of speech and freedom of association. There are probably a few others in there, depending on the situation.
What?
the south had won/draw the civil war. Call this flamebait cause of the slavery issue But, the war was also about a state's right to supercede federal law.
And you would find out the identity of the murderer in most cases how? By seeing if they weigh the same as a duck?
Trial by Fire?
Trial by Combat?
And if the murderer is a member of a gang, you are going to get to them how?
This is the real world, not Quake.
Actually, we elected Al Gore the first time around, by majority vote. Bush appealed the vote and was later appointed by the US Supreme Court.
The second time around, I'm pretty sure that significantly fewer people voted, as they had become disenchanted with the system they had originally put so much trust in.
Me, I wrote in "Harrison Ford" both times, because frankly, I didn't like any of the options available to me. I wish we had a "none of the above" option which, if in the majority, would preclude any of the candidates from filling the position as well as prevent them from running again for a certain period of time, and would force an emergency election with new candidates, kind of like the election which saw Arnie get elected in California.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
A few months ago I thought people who use PGP and GPG are just a bunch of paranoid freaks. Maybe they are paranoid freaks, but now I understand that there's a good reason to be paranoid. I've briefly considered using GPG myself. Then, at least the FBI would have to put a keystroke logger on my computer in order to read my mail.
Penny - plain text accounting
We had an authority over a large central government: the States. Until the 17th Amendment destroyed the State guardians, that is.
The War Between States (aka Lincoln's Civil War) was not about slavery, it was about getting away from the tyranny of Clay and Hamilton's American System of Mercantilism.
Lincoln hated blacks. He wrote the Illinois law barring blacks from his State. Google Dilorenzo real lincoln to read some sickening Lincoln facts.
Good post, btw.
The witholding of tax dollars is one of the most fundamental methods the people can use to regain control of a runaway government. When/If there are enough people willing to refuse to pay taxes despite prosecution or incarceration, the effect would probably be more effective than either a vote or a gun in this day and age.