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Total Information Awareness still Running
gordm writes "National Journal reports that, instead of being shut down 2 years ago, the Total Information Awareness program is still datamining away. Must be effective. What else could explain Morrissey's latest adventure?" Just posting this story probably puts me on their radar.
Inch by inch, we're getting closer to living in a massive panopticon.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
"They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government, and similarly in England. But it didn't take them very long to realise that I'm not."
Bogus. They can determine that from a distance. They just made him an example of what happens when you call fraud a fraud; when you say the king has no clothes.
Go check previos stories about when they shut down TIA. Your humble hero AC revealed that this was just their ploy all along. Finally I am vindicated.
If black projects cant get funding in public view, they work behind the scenes and find money elsewhere.
The FBI/CIA/MI5 interview an outspoken singer. They didn't exactly need any datamining to find him did they? He's not exactly keeping his opinions secret is he? If they'd been datamining, they would already have known if he had terrorist connections, they wouldn't have had to ask him.
If they ask you anything, that answers the whole question...
the tinfoil hat was a GOOD idea!!!!
I leave you with the wisdom of Mr. Eisenhower from 1961.
I wouldnt be suprised if at some point the government will start selling off 'de-classifed' data to the highest bidder. Such as what kind of socks you buy.. or your food habits..
the rest of the data ( like your friends, or what street corner you stopped too long at last saturday at 12am ) wont be sold off. Instead it will be used against you when your turn to be directly invesigated comes. Remember, we are all criminals to 'the system'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
come on now... something this "good" was never gonna die
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I have wrote on subject of the Surveillance Society many times - including here on Slashdot.
d =8554109
e.g. this is snippet from one post:
Quote from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: "The goal of the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program is to revolutionize the ability of the United States to detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists -- and decipher their plans -- and thereby enable the U.S. to take timely action to successfully preempt and defeat terrorist acts."
The declared GOAL is to, quote: "identify foreign terrorists" - what rubbish. They know you are American citizen, not even a suspect foreigner - yet want to know what you buy, where you travel - everything. They want to profile you, like a criminal. I find it hard to believe that U.S. politicians are that dumb to go along with this violation of the American Peoples Rights. Looks like TIA initials stand for Totally Ignorant Acceptance (for their propaganda).
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100317&ci
Morrissey is involved with this, too?? How does he find time between cutting albums?
GITI - Global Infotek - is the company still in control of a lot of this tech.
http://www.globalinfotek.com/
when I was working there a few years ago they had a half dozen projects that they specifically told me were the next iteration of TIA, and that TIA had not been shut down, but simply renamed and split up.
I didn't have a security clearance, and nothing they said was confidential, but they threatened my job if I told anyone about it while I was there. Needless to say, I left fairly quickly.
Over a period of decades, the U.S. government paid to kill Arabs and interfere with their politics. The U.S. government also paid to train Arabs in terrorism to fight in Afghanistan.
Is it surprising that a small percentage of Arabs eventually decided to react to violence with more violence? Is it surprising that Arabs don't like being killed?
Now, those who wanted violence have what they want. They can claim that there is a threat, and can make billions in largely hidden contracts for weapons and contracts for war.
The U.S. government is more corrupt now than ever before. Here are some short reviews of books about the corruption. The article is old and needs revision and additions, but gives a small view of a very extensive subject: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War Two and former U.S. President General Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a famous speech that we should beware of the "military-industrial complex". Here's a quote:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
Another quote:
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."
--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
I wonder if Alberto Gonzales had a hand in naming Total Information Awareness. In the small town where I grew up, Tias knew everything going on, the comings and goings, motivations, credit balances and who was seeing who.
The West is under violent attack from folks who wish to institute a system of law much more hostile to YRO. Data-mining is a couple of orders of magnitude more benign than State removal of your typing hand, especially since many Slashdot readers are apparently one-handed surfers...
yeah, get out your tinfoil hats people. and tinfoil RFID-deflecting wallets to stop the Illuminati from scanning your bus pass. because we all know the government (just controlled by the Illuminati, I'm sure) cares greatly what J. Edgar Randomslashbot does every day.
("Hm, looks like this guy likes the hot lesbian porn!")
The danger with TIA, as with any collection of information with or without the consent of the subjects of the information, is that the power will eventually fall into the hands of someone who will abuse it. Not "might", not "will unless we're careful" -- WILL, as inevitably and certainly as death. The failure to understand this certainty is what enables this kind of creeping infringement of power. Every generation thinks that it has the savvy and the tools to prevent the abuses -- when in reality prevention of abuse is impossible.
/.'ers -- The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist -- apply to more than just the "military-industrial complex". Any power will be "misplaced" as soon as just one unethical person gets his hands on it.
Eisenhower's words, quoted by several other
The only way to limit (not prevent) abuses is to severely curtail the amount of power out there to be abused.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
The best explanation is that he needed some press, and figured that "I'm being hassled by The Man" was a good tack for his audience.
Will be the last of the famous international detainees?
bomb bomb allah president kill bush cheney islam iraq bomb nuke nuclear batmobile taliban saddam osama afghanistan nuke china nuke bomb allah terrorist wtc
Last I checked this whole "War on Terror" was in defense of our way of life against those that wish to harm it. In my years and experience (albeit limited) I would not describe our way of life as untrusting, deceptive and down right "bullyish". Our Fore Fathers framed this nation on the belief of frieedoms and equality for all, the lady just south of NYC welcome all to our shores with promise of opportunity and acceptance.
It seems that today's atmosphere is frought with anger, frustration and distrust. I don't feel that the actions of the government are aleviating the situation, but infact they are enraging the current feelings. As I see it, and feel free to call me a flaming liberal, this war will never be won by troops or missles but its a war of ideas and ways of life. To draw a crude analogy we did not "beat" communism by invading korea or vietnam we "beat" them because our way of life was accepted and won the war of ideas.
If you ask me (I'll agree that no-one is) we need to pull the Mohamed Ali ropa-dope on our enemies. Let them keep hitting us and hitting us and smile back and let them hit us again. When they realize our resolve of ideas remains, that is when we would have won and not before.
When I hear stories about stuff like TIA and Echelon, I start to worry that the gubment is going to be all-seeing and all-knowing. Then, I hear a news story about how our leaders didn't even know a Arab country had bought an entire US port, then I relax a little bit. Incompetence trumps diabolical planning every time.
If you are at all interested in this topic, and have the time, I strongly urge you to read Thomas Powers' article "The Biggest Secret" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18730 in the New York Review of Books.
OoO
Please do not publish outside of
Orwell had the concept right, but the language wrong
Looking into the US from a long way off, articles like this consistently give the impression that the US is out of control; at least out of the control or ordinary hard working citizens. What has happened to accountability? How does the average citizen take a stand and agitate for real change if it takes umpteen million dollars or ownership of a great chunk of popular media to get elected to office?
How far from the ideal can you go and still call it a democracy? Maybe you still get to vote (If you are willing to stand in line for hours on end on polling day, and you haven't been taken off the electoral roll by your political opponents for some unknown reason) but if the political establishment has pre-filtered or sanitised or heavily biased (with little regard for impartial analysis of the facts) all the information available to help you make your choice can you still claim to be making an informed choice?
If the practical realities of electioneering mean you only get to choose from those with very large bank balances, can you really claim ultimate political authority still comes from the people? If only the very rich can stand for office with any expectation of being elected, don't they have considerably more political authority than the average citizen?
While the US does still sometimes present a shining beacon for the world, it increasingly looks dimmer and less frequent. The darker episodes also seem to be more frequent. With luck, this will come to be seen as an aberration, but from where I stand I don't like the downward direction the US looks to be heading in.
What makes this scary is
Yes, of course it contains information about incidents and people in the United States, including U.S. Citizens.
What do make of that?
Granted, it's been twenty years, but this guy did release an album (with the Smiths) titled "The Queen is Dead". Contained a number of amusing lyrics such as "Her very lowness with her head in a sling.." and so on. Good record, btw.
Then of course, he's not only a homosexual but a vegetarian as well - strikes two and three, as it were.
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
Don't worry, Halliburton already has the contract to build detention centers. The company should be better, anyway.
Bigmouth strikes again!
With all the other stories that've been breaking in the past few months of the NSA wholesale spying on American civilians, the real news here isn't just that the TIA is around. It's that the Senate ordered it shut down, and it wasn't.
Lets look at the past couple of years. The Executive branch has claimed the powers to: declare people including American citizens "enemy combatants" and hold them incommunicado overseas for however long they wish with no access to the US court system, wiretap American citizens within the United States without a court order or indeed any judicial review. Recently the Vice President has also claimed to power to unilaterally declassify anything that he wants.
The CIA has been caught running torture flights through allied countries without their apparent knowledge, running secret prisons in EU member states without EU knowledge, and to top it off, they were caught kidnapping people on the streets of Milan without the knowledge of the Italian government.
The Pentagon, the FBI and the California National Guard have all been caught spying on peaceful protesters on American soil, in spite of a law that specifically forbids this.
A few months ago... Congress passed a law banning torture. The President grudgingly signed this into law, but reiterated his belief that he wasn't personally bound by the ban.
Now we find out that while the Senate ordered a domestic surveillance operation shut down years ago because it was a threat to the privacy of the average American... the Executive branch has decided to keep it going anyhow, without anyone's knowledge.
What's the point of even having a Legislative or Judicial branch anymore? They have no real powers at this point.
The Executive branch can just arbitrarily declare people outside the judicial branch's jurisdiction to keep them out of the courts, and the whole notion of getting a court order for federal law enforcement action is now considered "obsolete".
The Legislature still theoretically gets to pass laws, but the executive branch can basically break them at will... and since the power of enforcing those laws falls within the executive branch's domain, is it any wonder that all these overt violations of the laws of Congress never amount to any meaningful charges?
In fact, we don't even know how far the executive branch's power goes at this point... nobody new the President had the power to wiretap without warrants. The Constitution never mentions it... in fact, federal law specifically prohibits it. Indeed, when the press first found out about this power, they were pressured to keep it a secret (which they did for over a year), and when the existance of this power was revealed to thew general public, members of the executive branch denounced the revelation of the power itself as unlawful.
The Rosicrucian (Iluminati?) pyrmaid w/ all seeing eye, with a beam of light (luciferian reference?) shooting out of the eye and encircling the planet earth. In Latin, the phrase "Knowledge is Power".
If that's not a little over-the-top, I don't know what is.
did someone say skynet?
AOL MSN and Yahoo fell over themselves to hand over search data without a warrant. Yahoo executive refused to answer if he had or would hand over data to the NSA without a warrant.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6040129.html
I wouldn't be surprised if there is a McCarthy style list you can get your name on from these people.
My view is that neither England or America are democratic societies. You can't really speak your mind and if you do you're investigated.
The Brit is a famous critic of the US-led war in Iraq and has dubbed President GEORGE W BUSH a "terrorist" - but he was baffled to be hauled in by authorities.
Heh. Am I the only one who thinks this guy is an idiot?
It seems it's getting more and more popular to criticize the US and accuse them of being a totalitarian faschist state, yet any time they do anything even remotely in line with those accusations the critics act shocked and distraught. Here's a tip: pick your viewpoint and stick with it. As any Chinses citizen will tell you, if you live under a totalitarian state it's usualy not a good idea to publicaly criticize them. They have a nasty way of making you dissapear. So if you truly beleive that the US has become one, it might behoove you to either STFU, or move away and criticize them from a distance.
On the other hand, if the US is still a free and open democratic society, you sure would be an asshole if you went around making accusations that even you don't really beleive in.
What the heck. Ridicule or not, I'll take /. as the forum to say that I'm an outspoken person against the current government on blogs and reveal that I have had the "Philip K. Dick experience".
/.ers probably know, PKD wasn't in a good state when he died. He said that his house was ransacked and, although he said he didn't know who did it, he suspected the FBI or local sheriff. Some people think he might have done it himself at that point in his life.
As a large percentage of
You have to visualize my apartment storage. Since I hoard books and some amateur radio equipment, it is much like a solid 8x8x6 cube of heavy boxes. One night I got broken into and _every_ box inspected. Other building occupants were coming down over the HOURS I was repacking and marveling how my stuff had exploded into the aisles of the space.
Yet, here's the thing. As far as I can tell, NOTHING and I emphasize NOTHING was taken. Screw the amateur radio equipment -- where are you going to hock an old HF transceiver quietly? But it seems to me if I were some young punk(s) who went to that much trouble I would have either taken something like the window air conditioner, the few 1950s comic books, or the like for slight compensation of the night or maybe just destroyed some stuff out of anger and frustration.
The local police station told me, "Nothing stolen or destroyed, no crime." So who has that discipline? Maybe info thieves looking for cancelled checks and credit cards (_old_ ones in my storage space?) or someone else who wanted to know who I was and what I was holding. You give me your guess who you think that would be.
If nothing else, when a government demonstrates that it thinks it can make and break the law and work in the dark, paranoia is going to rise. That's not necessarily a bad attitude for a citizen either but, then, when is enough enough? The first casualty of a lawless government is peace of mind.
Well, at least they interviewed him before they decide rather to kill him or not.
As far as I know, that opportunity was never extended to John Lennon.
I'm hoping that the Fourth Reich is at least as flexible as the Third Reich was; back then, they at least gave all of the bitchy artists and dissidents time to leave the country (if they had the financial means to do so, of course) before the scheisse hit the fan.
Here's to hoping!
Long Live Sig Vicious.
How depressing a song Morrissey will write about the experience.
I'm soaking my cutting blades in alcohol right now...
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Is it surprising that a small percentage of Arabs eventually decided to react to violence with more violence? Is it surprising that Arabs don't like being killed?
Only the simpleminded could simplify such a complex situation into such a simplistic statement.
Yes, that's right, I'm calling you simple.
Backing one group against another is only a problem when you back the losing side. When the US backed one group of Europeans against another group of Europeans in WW2, it turned out fine because they backed the winning side. Ditto for when they backed South Korea against North Korea and China. Unfortiunately, the Middle East situation is a wee bit more complex, and the approach that they took was half-assed, all over the place, and therefore ineffective. There have as yet been no clear victors, and since US policy in the middle east has been flopping around like a fish out of water they've managed to piss off the majority of militant groups.
In short, it has nothing to do with "arabs not liking to be killed". It has to do with decades of a weak and inefficient foreign policy.
"I find it very telling that so many Americans and Brits complain all fucking day long about how Hitlered out their countries are, yet they still get up and go to work and post to blogs and dance at night and do 100% of the shit they used to do,"
At first I wasn't going to answer to this inane rambling but this gives me an opportunity to once again dismantle this stupid argument, the one being: "You can still criticise without being dragged to a death camp and executed, therefore we can't be approaching fascism."
Here is a clue: Smart oppressive regimes don't execute people just for some criticism, only stupid ones do. Smart regimes weigh their response on how much you are threatening their power. Criticism of the regime by just regular people on the street often is ignored or at best, you get a visit by some gorillas who will "ask a few questions" in an attempt to intimidate you. You only get time in jail or an execution if you start to become a real threat, for example by running an organization that criticizes or otherwise threatens the regime.
As for dancing and such: Except for the Taliban, oppressive regimes ALWAYS try to offer ample entertainment. It's a strategy of appeasing the population and keeping them too distracted to start attempts to overthrow said regime.
In conclusio: You have no idea how oppressive regimes work.
The article, a troll, was posted to Slashdot, as others are to other forums, to elicit responses that can be added to the secret data bases and correlated with the user's email, other postings, cell phone calls, etc. with the idea of fingering anyone who is disloyal (to the present regime at least). If it's determined that the person is not a security threat he or she can be picked up for questioning (intimidation) or other intimidating actions taken. Or if there might, possibly, be a threat sterner methods may be in store.
Ah, this couldn't be true, I need my morning coffee. Wait who's at the door at this hour?
Nate
Nate
Unaware of the 4th Amendment
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Bear with me for a moment
TIA - Spanish for Aunt & Tias knew everything going on
Now... where's the closest large scale repository of Tias?
If you said Mexico, you'd be right!
Guess who Bush wants to allow easy access to in the U.S. of A.?
If you said Mexicans, you'd be right!
His immigration and naturalization drive for illegal Mexicans is merely a secret attempt to bring in more Tias, so that he can increase the U.S.'s human intelligence gathering powers.
Importing Mexican Aunts to spy on American citizens... not even your tinfoil hat will save you now.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
When Total Information Awareness was first let out of the skunkworks, it had a logo: An Illuminati pyramid bathing the earth with a glowing searchlight:
2 0awareness
http://www.cafepress.com/buy/total%20information%
(I have absolutely no association with the Cafepress "store" linked to above. Just pointing it out because I had the link and knew there was a picture of the old logo there.)
I miss that logo. It really laid things on the table. The fact that they not only chose that design, but put it on their web page suggested an arrogance so deep it wrapped around into cluelessness. When they pulled the plug, you almost had to feel sorry for the creepy ivory-dungeon darkside academic creeps involved.
Well, we still have TIA, but no cool logo. I guess they learned their lesson.
Hey! Maybe we'll get a chance to see the new, secret logo when they drag us into the local Halliburton-run Reeducation Center after the post-2006 election coup^H^H^H^H Patriotic Values Revolution.
Stefan
As someone who lives in far-away, safe and quiet Sweden it also makes me wonder what these people are at. Are they diligently uncovering evidence for some sort of super-Watergate or are they the usual fringe mob of conspiracy theorists? Any Yanks out there who care to comment on this? I know for one that if these accusations were levelled at the Swedish or Dutch government they would be either dispelled with fact or pursued in court and parliament.
--frank[at]unternet.org
Yes, it's still running. /. Opinion.
There is a federal program, budget dollars authorized against the project, and it would be a black eye for all of the contracting and management people, not to mention a severe hardship on the actual project staff, if they didn't strive to meet 100% of the goals of the project.
Whether or not this is a variation of the Nuremberg defense is left up to the Court of
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Effective at what? Poindexter's 1980s project, Iran/Contra, wasn't effective at deposing the Communist Nicaraguan government - that happened years after Iran/Contra folded, a result of other covert ops run by different spooks. It was effective in arming Iran, robbing Savings and Loans, arming cocaine gangs, funding arms dealers, pumping cocaine into America, killing thousands of people, and violating all kinds of laws. And putting traitor^WOliver North on TV.
I expect Poindexter's TIA is effective in finding blackmail content to protect Poindexter. But the Congressional act that killed TIA also outlawed its successors, which this current program clearly is. Poindexter and his minions should get the book thrown at them. And Poindexter should hang for sedition, a repeat traitor with obviously no chance of rehabilitation. Stop him before he spies again.
--
make install -not war
There are plenty of ways to explain Morrisey's experience. First, he's a goddamn loudmouth attention whore.
While I do not agree with you totally I must say that Morrisey is a total bore. I can't believe that people are still listening to his endless moanings about how bad he feels about either being male or being gay... Pretty much every Smiths song is about how much he wants to die because of his not so secret shame...
Why would people listen to such crap? Either they're just as depressed as Morrisey is or they feel that suffering is a means of communication. Either way it's simply pathetic. Infact it's plainly neurotic.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Morrissey got the title of his last album wrong. It should have been 'I Am The Quarry'.
You must think in Russian.
Did you really believe that they would ever voluntarily slow the march toward a complete surveillance society where everything that you buy, everywhere you go and even every conversation that you have is ruthlessly cataloged by the state. This is why they are pushing the RFID chips in products, the RFID chips in people, the cashless society, the national ID card (see HR418, the "Real ID" act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.418 : ), the NSA domestic spying, and the patriot act.
Did you know that under the PATRIOT act (HR3162 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.0 3162: ) all of your property can be seized and the burden will be on you to prove that you are not a terrorist so that you can get your property back. What is the definition of a terrorist? Under section 802 of the PATRIOT act, a terrorist is anyone who is involved in "dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State" is a terrorist. So literally if you jay-walk you are a terrorist. Any one of us is in danger of being declared a terrorist at any time. When the government considers its entire population to be the enemy there is a term for that -- a police state.
None of this stuff is a coincidence. Start getting informed about this stuff so that you know how to protect yourself.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
While on one level, I see the validity of your post, on another, I know there is another alternative. What we need to do is recognize how they have achieved this. They have divided us along as many lines as they can. Athiests hate believers, believers hate athiests and you get large segments on each side of that coin thinking the other is the big threat. Then you move to abortion, which is an even more powerful split. The pro-choice and pro-life camps hate each other, and large segments on each side have construed the other to be the big threat. Then there is the gun debate, two sides hating each other seeing the other as the big threat. Then there is the classic left right BS, where both sides think they are supporting real change, etc... both sides hating each other as "the big threat".
The list goes on and on and on. How hard is it to let go of such surface shallowness to work together for the common goal of reclamation of our government? All these issues are all secondary to what is going on now. These politicians have exploited these issues and encouraged the divisions for a very very specific reason. It takes peoples eyes off of what they are working towards. I've said this so many times around the net and I'll say it again, read the Pentagon Papers. It tells the story of two political parties working towards the same goal, while using these other shallow "issues" to keep peoples eyes off of what was really going on.
And by the time a democrat or republican is done reading something like I just typed, instead of actually doing some info into the Pentagon Papers, they are going with their programming, and thinking about justifications for how their party is somehow better. And that's bullshit. That's how we got here. That's how we're in this mess.
Abortion is a non-issue. Gun ownership is a non-issue. Everything other than government corruption and politician ownership by special interest is a non-issue, until these other things are addressed. Who the fuck cares if abortion is legal or not, if your every move is monitored? Who the fuck cares if you can own a gun or not, if the government begins questioning you every time you crticize it? At that point, which is where we are heading, these other things will be like complaining about a fly in the soup when the base of the soup is urine!
People have to be shown clearly, that it isn't one or the other party, that both parties need to removed from office, and that we need to put people in office who don't owe their political careers to political head giving. It really is not that hard. It's a lot easier than a violent revolution.
maybe more people need to start using emacs for email and ending everything with esc x spook
even the magic 8 ball has an opinion on email clients: Outlook not so good.
I don't care if the Fed is running a project to profile terrorists based off financial transactions, purchases, telecommunications, all that jazz. Many private industries like choicepoint already gathered information close to that previously, not to mention the phone records etc.
What is scary though, is that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger identified members of the 9-11 terrorist group prior to their attack, yet the wall of seperation between the military and law enforcement created by Jamie Gorelick was sufficient to deter that information sharing to the FBI (Able Danger was a SOCOM project).
We in the US already know we don't have half the consumer protections our european cousins have. That is why companies share our information all the time, for cash. While it isn't something I like, it isn't something I can stop either. If those companies are exploiting my personal info for cash, why can't the US govt use that same kind of info to protect us?
All the slashdot conspiracy theorists need to wake up and smell the coffee. This is not 1960. The US now has very real enemies seeking to get here and slaughter innocents. Get off your stupid America hating, "we caused this" retarded platform too.
I'm all for TIA, and I'd love to see a biometric national ID card next.
FTA:
We will be describing this new effort as "Basketball"
Basketball??? Does this remind anyone else of Rumsfeld's assertion that we should no longer refer to the insurgents as "insurgents?" And the subsequent joke that W. would rename the deficit "cake." Because, really, who doesn't like cake?
It's as though Orwell suddenly took an absurd turn... next, we'll see the Department of Tennis, the Department of Impressionist Paintings, &c. &c.; the former will run Guantanamo Bay, the latter, Abu Ghraib.
If you watch the video on google seven or eight minutes into the movie at least in firefox 1501 the video will be on hold while asking to accept new intercepting connection from video.google.com with a legal certificate?
Anyone know what this is?
Thank you! You just described the reason I love The Smiths.
Infact it's plainly neurotic.
Do healthy, happy, successful people enjoy music at all? If so, should I blame them for the new Toto record?
If anyone cares to remember, Morrissey is that whiney lead singer of the Smiths. Eventually, I think he found out what Zoloft was and started to make a few good songs. (The Cure > The Smiths)
Reguardless, TIA is clueless. Apparently, the establishment seems to be more interested in interrigating some guy in some gothic punk rock band than actually going after...oh...let me think...OSAMA BIN LADEN!
Keep in mind that ever since 1999, post-Columbine to be exact, the government has been spying on just about every 13 year old whose ever walked into a Hot Topic or been to a Marylin Manson concert. They just might "shoot up the school" or "explode a bomb during a high school assembly". To which, TIA has just about every LiveJournal and MySpace account monitored.
What the government does not see is that it is not the spooky kids with their esoteric lifestyle or the geeky kids with their knowledge of computer networks who are a threat to national security, It's those perky, happy mainstream kids who are the threat! especially the ones who are part of some high school religious organization.
At this point, the FBI is wasting there time with Morrissey. And those British Intellegence agents, shouldn't they be finding the chavs that executed Britans largest bank heist a few days ago rather than questioning this guy. Who are they going to interview next? Nick Cave? Siouxsie Sioux? Adam Ant?
Total Information Awareness is an experiment that is DOOMED TO FAIL!
BTW, Hi, TIA! You guys suck!
/Plays David Bowie f/ Trent Reznor - I'm Afraid of Americans
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
"Just posting this story probably puts me on their radar."
You're missing the point - with TIA, everyone is always on the radar.
I love it when little nobody nothings think the gummint is watching them.
Absolutely LOL!
In the 90's he was accused of racism and showing at least tacit support for far right politcal groups.
Personally I think the allegations were very overblown, but but some of his lyrics, interviews and the imagery that he has used seems to flirt with racism and nationalism. Songs like 'National Front Disco' (the NF being a british far right group) and 'Bengali in Platforms' can be interpreted as racist even if that wasn't their original intent, as can many of the mans public comments e.g.
"Reggae is vile."
"Obviously to get on Top Of The Pops these days one had to be, by law, black. I think something political has happened and there has been a hefty pushing of all these black artists and all this discofied nonsense into the Top 40... In essence, this music doesn't say anything whatsoever "
Saying stuff like this whilst wandering round draped in a Union Jack along with his apparent fascination with skinheads, is bound to raise a few eybrows.
Perhpas Morrissey's history has to do with his recent 'interview', that coupled with his recent comments may have been enough to cause a blip on government radars. As I say, I don't think the man really is a facist as some would have it (actually Im a big fan, seen him live many times) but there may be more to this than just his anti bush comments. Everyone here has assumed that it's some sort of liberal, left wing viewpoint that has landed him in trouble, just because he's anti bush doesn't mean that he's also a liberal. They may have thought he was involved with the far right.
"I don't want to be European. I want England to remain an island. I think part of the greatness of the past has been the fact that England has been an island." (Morrissey, August 1992)
sounds similar to the BNPs view. There's a good page about his nineties nationalist controversy here
I do belive that the current regime here in the UK and in the USA has gone way top far in eroding our liberties, and that pulling Moz in was unjustified, but at the same time groups and their supporters that seek to damage society and disrupt the democratic process do need watching. I'd hate to think that no one was paying attention.
An American can not be a foreign agent? An American does not want to murder other Americans and foreigners? If someone is American all of a sudden they are better and should not be scrutinize as much as a foreigner? Americans are not humans and foreigners are? Privacy and Information dont have to be interdependent on each other. Who knows about you is one things, how they use that information is another thing. You private information gets showned seen by thousands of people and given by to your doctors (and the people who copy the files, file the files, transfer your files), lawyers (and all the staff that works with it),to a cable repair person who enters your house etc,etc. You have trust in them, but when it comes to YOUR OWN GOV'T ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE some people all of a sudden scuff at the idea, and paranoia takes over - over the evils of what they might do.
It IS GOV'T jobs to protect its citizens, it is its jobs to protect the rights from which it existence takes place. So when you hear your bank, your social security, or maybe your doctors information get lost, misplaced, or unscrupulously used to you scream conspiracy, do you never go to another bank again or see a doctor anymore? It is no different with our gov't - they goof it up not because of some organized conspiracy (the OJ Simpson's defence "They are bungling idiots who dont know how to collect evidence, but super smart conspirators who are framing OJ for the murder event) that everyone loves to believe (or wants) but most likely due to negligence of the minds.
Each country must protect ITS citizens interests, and in democratic societies, we are the ones who GIVE the power to our gov't to do those things in the first place. You dont like it, vote, you dont like the how the vote turns out, welcome to democracy 101. It doesnt mean it doesnt work.
You cant have your cake and eat it too.
WWMMS
"Backing one group against another is only a problem when you back the losing side. When the US backed one group of Europeans against another group of Europeans in WW2, it turned out fine because they backed the winning side."
Another way of looking at that is when you decide to "back" individual people instead of principles of government, you inevitably end up backing people that do things against your own principles sooner or later, then what do you do?
It happens in all spheres I suppose, should you be loyal to the president the man or to the country? To your boss or to your company? To your family or your community? Being loyal to just principles means you will sometimes have to drop support of individuals that you previously supported, but it always comes as a consequence of their actions that violate those principles.
Sure there are reasons to form mutual aid compacts such that you allow them to do what they want and they allow you to do what you want. To support eachother as individuals without regard to conduct. Thieves, murderers, and other miscreants do it all the time and benefit enormously. But the just must resist the temptation, and hold themselves to the same rule of law they hold others to.
Seriously, if you had your eyes open to our reality, to our history, to everything that has made humanity shine in the darkest hours, then the title of my subject shouldn't need explanation.
But since you are clearly blind to those things, I will explain line by line:
No, it's basically impossible.
And many thought that when our founding fathers(I don't know if you're in the US or not, and I don't care, I'm talking "our founding fathers" in the sense of me being an American, if you're not, good for you) dared to challenge the sovereignty of the British Crown, that they were doing what was "basically impossible". You don't shake the world by walking around thinking everything is impossible.
The reason it's impossible is that people make their decisions based on what they know, and even now what they know is determined primarily by what the mass media tells them.
I'm aware of that and I'm also aware of a growing shift of where people get their info from. If you can convince people that they are getting shoddy info, they will stop listening. The problem is, the people who have been trying to do the convincing only attack one source. The "left" attacks Fox, the "right" attacks CNN. Giving up these partisan allegiances by people on the left and right who know what is going on to work towards a focused, partisan free explanation of what these media outlets are doing and how they wield their influence, would create an extreme disruption in the reality distortion fields of the major media outlets. Or, everyone can roll over like you've decided to do.
Until the information people receive comes primarily from some other source, election of someone who belongs to neither party (or, more precisely, who doesn't answer to the people who control the media) will remain effectively impossible.
Right, and that's where your focus is wrong. You expect this type of shift to happen magically? I expect people who are ready to do something real about these problems to shake themselves out of their stupidity and their own limited sight, and start looking down the road and recognize that it is in everyone's best interest to ditch partisanship, and create a unified front against these 2 parties. This includes having people who were formally left and right and explaining to people what is wrong with their media outlets. It is not impossible to shake people's faith in the media, the problem is the attempts so far have been made by partisan drones who want people to believe in their favorite outlets. That has to end. It simply has to end. And ending it is not impossible, unless of course, you already believe its impossible, then you won't even try.
Better get used to living in a totalitarian state. It's going to be with us for a very, very long time.
The PTBs love your ass, I'll tell you that much. 90 percent of their control of us is in our heads. IN OUR HEADS. Their control is already in your head.
Is he 'out'?
I had thought that, like Cliff Richard, he is homosexual only inasmuch as he is sexually attracted only to himself (a person of the same sex), and noone else.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
That the US government could possibly be the perpetrators of public lies and secret spying?
a genoa jib is a headail that extends beyond the mast, (the rigid structure that holds the sails up) and and now it's topsail? a sail that is above the mast.
am I reaching too far to see the mast as a metaphor for law?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
Just posting this story probably puts me on their radar.
with out a doubt. All it really takes is to visit the Huffington Post 3 days in a row.
I just looked through all the comments rated 4 and above...
/. is so automatic as to make it painful.
Every single one of them contained what has become the Slashdot canonical response to any action the government takes on the war on terror... the paranoid cry...
'they're spying on me'
'they're evil'
'they are sending evil rays to control my thoughts'
(alright - I made up the last one)
While there may be something to criticise in this program (part of which was able to spot the 9-11 terrorists before the act, but was prohibited from using the information), the response on
Does anyone out there ever consider that there might be people in government that might actually be trying to protect us? Does anyone consider that some programs are not as bad as described in the main stream press (i.e. spying on international phone calls to terrorist suspects has been morphed into "wholesale domestic wiretaps")?
Has anyone considered that liberty can never be absolute in a world of real human beings, and that the issue is not *whether* you give up some privacy, but *when* giving it up is appropriate and when it is not?
I'd just like to see a slight bit of balance here. The monotone is becoming boring.
Oh, and to hopefully forestall some canonical responses....
Ben Franklin's quote about protection and liberty is absolutist, and he himself, by being involved in a government which provided protection at the cost of liberty proved that, so please don't raise that old quote as a response.
Yes, the measures might be abused. The same logic applies to all government powers - so the simple assertion that they may be abused and therefore are wrong is without value. It applies just as well to prosecutors, police departments and DOD. An argument based on this assertion has to be a lot more specific - it needs to show the cost of the abuses vs the cost of not implementing the program, or make an alternative recommendation.
If it were not for some perhaps over-zealous protections enacted by civil libertarian fundamentalists, the World Trade Center towers might still be standing. Of course, if it were not for perhaps over-zealous protections enacted by civil libertarian fundamentalists, we might all now be wearing GPS ankle bracelets. Go figure.
This program may be evil. Or it may have good and bad components. Or it may be very good. Remember, the evil department of defense, during the time of the Vietnam War, created the internet. Bad... oh how bad.... look how it could be abused... how it could help the government keep track of people! Obviously, people should have been alert at the time and prevented its creation.
Finally, I love the word canonical.
The only good weather is bad weather.
...and as for you / in your uniform
your smelly uniform
and so you think you can be rude to me
because you wear a uniform
a smelly uniform
and so you think you can be rude to me
but even I / as sick as I am
I would never be you
even I / as sick as I am
I would never be you
even I / sick and depraved
a traveler to the grave
I would never be you
-"How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel?" (2004)
The sad thing is that it appears to be as he's quoted as saying in the article - he's been investigated and has a file open on him and has been interviewed, FFS!, because he wrote a lyric expressing disdain and contempt for.... petty hitler jumped up jobsworths who feel a uniform entitles them to act out their own personal psychological issues on the unfortunates they encounter professionally. Sad, sad, sad. And I'm gonna post this AC but I have no illusions that that will prevent this comment going into my file. Sympathiser for a known subject of a terrorist investigation, doncha know?
Even if TIA were so well-tuned that it could screen out 99% of the population as being not potential terrorists, that leaves 2.9 million people to investigate. That's a huge pool. Many false positives will come of it, and meanwhile actual terrorists will be missed, with great resources spent chasing false leads.
There is no substitute for on-the-ground investigation and detective work. If you look to pre-911 investigations of the 19 hijackers, they were well-known to our investigators. Very well known.
Undocumented immigrant-terrorists will be the most diffcult to locate - under the ICE radar and not using electronic money, I imagine. In the end, foreign policy trumps large-scale security efforts, which ultimately fail due to the net not being fine enough.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
They've all been toned down or discontinued in the last decade, but other companies also had the pyramid/eyeball logo: AOL, Logitech, and Fidelity.
And of course the all-seeing eye pyramid is being taken off of US currency.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
that coupled with his recent comments may have been enough to cause a blip on government radars. As I say, I don't think the man really is a facist as some would have it
You're under some sort of impression that this individual citizen, exercising his right to freedom of speech and opinion, and being investigated (secretly or openly) by his government for that, is the fascist?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I guess we just have to assume that everything we transmit electronically on any channel is being recorded and analyzed. The natural instinct if you don't want to be spied on is "use encryption," but I just have to take it on faith that key-based encryption hasn't been secretly broken by someone wicked smart at the NSA since I don't remotely have the math.
Is it known for a fact that PGP doesn't have backdoors for the FBI, or that nobody's got a quantum computer in some underground lab calmly ripping though 2048-bit keys? Who do we believe? And should we also assume that using encryption at all raise your "snoopability score" with the gov't spooks and subject you to more intensive surveillance?
-- http://frobnosticate.com
(1) They haven't ticketed me. (2) Everyone in America knows that the custom is for cops to allow a measure of grace of 5 (in some places 10) mph above the "speed limit" before writing tickets. (3) That's certainly the custom throughout Vermont and New Hampshire -- in practice cops stop nobody not going at least 5 over, and we've all driven through speed traps enough to know that that's the social contract about speed limits. Signs mean nothing outside of context; and in context these signs mean "not more than 5 mph over." It would be nice to impose literalism and raise all speed limits 5 mph while actually enforcing that -- but too many people wouldn't get the word and would drive too fast during the transition period. It's sort of like metric conversion: makes sense; won't happen.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I happened to be sitting next to Vernor Vinge at a convention a few years back, listening to a presentation on trends in monitoring technology. We passed a few notes back and forth, but the one that really stuck in my mind was this one (paraphrased, 'cause I don't have the paper handy): --MarkusQ
Yeah, I voted for GWB because he said some of the right things. He said it was wrong that the Federal Government, in a time of peace, was taking in as much of the GDP as it did in WWII. He also thought the Federal Government was too invasive and should be scaled back. How clever of him to have justified it all with endless warfare in a few short years.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Personal pet peeve here: Totalitarian vs Authoritarian.
Authoritarian is probably a more correct label for the brave new United States.
Authoritarian governments don't care what you believe as long as you do what you're told and don't make a fuss about it. They may demand loyalty, but really only care that you go through all the actions and pretend more-or-less convincingly that you're loyal, etc. Totalitarian governments demand true loyalty. Pretending convincingly isn't good enough. They will try to look within your heart, and if you don't love the Dear Leader, shoot you in the head as a defective. This isn't a terribly subtle difference if you think about it.
North Korea is a totalitarian country. You must truly love the Dear Leader from the depths of your heart. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was totalitarian.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein was authoritarian. There was a big show of devotion to the leader, but in fact, you could learn to play the game and get by in life. Of course, if you let your true feelings slip then you were considered a threat and taken out behind the barn and shot in the head. Whether or not you actually loved Saddam didn't matter as long as you were too scared to say you didn't like him.
Authoritarian governments are simply in it for their own gain. They want wealth, control, and absolute power over the events that take place in their sphere of influence. The end always justifies the means, and "the end" is the subservience to the will of the government.
Totalitarian governments want absolute power as well, but they also want to reform society in to an image of abosolute perfection under their twisted narrow ideology. There are purges to get rid of people who are tainted or defective in this view. The end aways justifies the means, but "the end" is a pure and perfect society that conforms without deviation from the ideologically pure endmember.
Totalitarian governments are more dangerous because in the end nothing matters but what They perceive in is your heart.
Authoritarian governments can be very dangerous, but people learn to play the game. They can get on with their lives to a degree: they can aspire to own a bigger television, get a raise, have a kid who'll become a major leaguer, etc... as long as they don't speak out against the government in the process.
The US is headed towards authoritarianism, not totalitarianism.
Bush honestly doesn't give a fuck if you love him or Dick Cheney. They just don't want you interfering in their ability to make themselves, and their best friends, wealthy and powerful beyond all worldly measure. Their actions and policies will almost always make sense in the context of coalescing either capital or power.
TIA was under DARPA, making it military. Prior to 1981, The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prevented all the military from being used in domestic policing. In 1981, however, we saw the rules eroded so that the military can actually use its surveillance assets to enforce domestic laws (ie "The War on Drugs").
IANAL, but while the military was permitted to engage in "surveillance," they were NOT permitted to engage in "search." To my semi-educated ear, that sounds like they can monitor public and international spaces, but not personal or private spaces. As far as I can tell, internet traffic goes through private spaces, making internet spying "search" with these definitions.
As far as I can tell, these "searches" still need warrants. Though certain individuals are currently pushing for the cessation of warrants for searches involving any international element, I find it hard to believe this can be accepted by Congress for more than an election cycle. Use of military assets as a posse comitatus is a crime, and Congress has the power to enforce this upon the Executive.
Do healthy, happy, successful people enjoy music at all?
Certainly. And certainly these people aren't happy all the time but it's nothing like the endless moanings of Morrisey. There's nothing wrong with having a good time every now and then and there's nothing wrong about listening to music that isn't endless depressive noise.
If so, should I blame them for the new Toto record?
Never even knew there was a new Toto album. There are 6 billion people who roam the face of this planet and my guess is that about half of them buy music on a regular basis at some point in their lives. That leaves a lot of room for various artists to get ahead.
And it's not that I mind the occasional Smiths song but Morrisey is still a bore.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
We simply can not pay for domain experts to be teaching our kids, even if the cost wouldn't skyrocket as demand went up. Swiping such experts from industry would cause serious problems for industry, so there goes the economy. Besides, most of these people don't have the patience and clarity required to teach well.
We have 2 serious obstacles:
1. The teacher's union blocks reform. It would be great if we could reward teachers who make students learn. Instead, we reward teachers for years of experience.
2. Normal and dim-witted people don't like seeing most of the money go to where it will do the most good. Bright kids are bored out of their mind while the teacher struggles to control the idiots. We can't give special treatment to the bright kids, kick out the dumb kids, or effectively punish the troublemakers.
Honestly, I've watched "Loose Change, 2nd Edition" and wasn't really very impressed. They start off stating some very interesting (and probably true) facts, but then things start to go awry. By the time that they get to the story of the twin towers they are far off into lala-land with supposed facts that are completely unsupported, and arguments against theories that noone in authority actually advocated.
As an example, they thoroughly debunk the "official line" that the steel in the trade centers melted... only problem is that's not the official line at all! In fact their debunking of the trade center collapse disproves a theory that none of the structural engineers ever advocated!
They don't bother to disprove the real theory as it's quite sensible (heat weakening steel beams with dramatic variations in temperature causing warping and ultimate free-fall like collapse).
The pile of eye-witness reports doesn't help their credibility much either (doesn't everyone know by now that any air accident always has at least one witness that "saw a missile").
Anyway, these guys are definitely fringe at this point. If the loose change guys had a point, it was lost in all the half-truths.
Here in the states we have the "Baldwins".
They are a bunch of bad actors who fancy themselves authoritEYEs on left politics.
Actually they are left politicians who fancy themselves actors.Too bad for all of us,BUT....
I figure last time Morrissey toured the U.S. he dropped by the Baldwins and absorbed some of their DNA....
well....that WOULD explain MOrrissey!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
As you say later, in addition to the above:
4 6.php and http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cache:www.iwm. at/publ-jvc/jc-11-04.pdf+author:%22Bailey%22
> They're setting up considerable precedent in the future that the President doesn't have to abide by Congressional edicts, high court rulings, or indeed, international human rights treaties.
This is not surprising though, since ratified treaties carry the same/similar weight as the words of the Constitution itself (provided no part of the treaty is contrary to our Federal laws or Constitution (Article 6 and 1836's New Orleans v. U.S.? I'm sure someone will correct me)). If Bush can't be bothered to abide the Constitution he surely isn't going to be hung up over treaty obligations.
However, the President is not above the law. Ever. As Jefferson argued[1], if a President feels obliged (morally) to break the law in order to uphold his oath of office he must submit to the penalty of law (it is noble to fall on one's own sword in defense of the republic). If Bush has to (apparently) violate FISA and Amendment 4 to save the republic (from the terrorists!) then he must be willing to submit to us, under our laws. I might even go as far as claiming that if George Bush is not impeached, he must be arrested and tried in January of 2009. Don't worry though, innocent men are arrested all the time, even jailed pending trial (arguably in every case as they have not yet been proven guilty).
[1]http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/0030
I wonder when CATO will run one of these on Bush.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
When did this become the Daily Kos?
This is what the FBI SHOULD be doing. Hassling suck-ass "musicians." I just hope Celine Dion is next.
Panopticons! Transform and roll out!
"kick out the dumb kids"
Ummm, the idea of universal eductaion is that it is, well, universal. (ie: everyone gets a BASIC education.) What you do with those basics during adulthood is entirely up to you.
"Normal and dim-witted people don't like seeing most of the money go to where it will do the most good."
Thankfully that translates into: the majority of people dissagree with you.
You can add me to that majority for the following reason: If you are "smart" you have a greater ability to educate yourself. Therefore, I would rather a few "smart" people feel ripped-off by the education system than rip-off the majority by focusing on prima-dona's. Not to mention the fact that the prima-dona's would be left facing a larger, more ignorant and more dominant mob mentality as adults.
BTW: I am not from the US but paying teachers for experince would seem to be designed to lower the turnover of teachers, thus providing some consitency and expertise. Wether you like it or not, childeren will emotionally bind to thier teachers.
I myself have 26yrs of experience raising my own kids, I find that an underlying consistency of environment for a child greatly enhances the chances of creating a well balanced adult. Me thinks you simply don't like the word "Union", paying a premium for experienced teachers is a perfectly "sane" thing to do with the taxpayers money.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"While there may be something to criticise in this program (part of which was able to spot the 9-11 terrorists before the act, but was prohibited from using the information), the response on /. is so automatic as to make it painful."
... everything he eats, etc. Having good intentions doesn't always translate to sound actions to that end.
... we have carefully considered it ... thus the posts. The fact that there is a general concensus should clue you in to the fact that many people, much more informed, educated, and smarter than you, understand the issue and universally agree that this is a BadThing(tm.)
... I see where you are going with this. It's like the Copernicus slant on reality. Everyone agrees that the Earth is round and revolves around the sun. This indicates that people have not thought about it very well, and it would be much better if half the population of Slashdot would contend that it is Flat and stationary ;-)
... how will we solve this problem? OH! I have an idea! Maybe we can invent some sort of system of checks and balances! Nah ... forget it. That will never work, and besides that is exactly what terrorists are trying to get to happen. They would not be happy if they knew we had systems in place to check abuse of
There was already a report in the White House containing all necessary information. It was ignored because there was already too much information through which to sift. Slashdot is frequented by a lot of well educated people who understand technology. They are aware of how it can be beneficial, and how it can be abused. They also understand goverment enough to know what about the system of checks and balances, what principles were conveyed by the founding fathers when they penned the US constitution, and how far off track today's government is from what those in power claim it is.
"Does anyone out there ever consider that there might be people in government that might actually be trying to protect us? Does anyone consider that some programs are not as bad as described in the main stream press (i.e. spying on international phone calls to terrorist suspects has been morphed into "wholesale domestic wiretaps")?"
We have little doubt that many are trying to protect us. One way to protect a child is to lock him in a cellar and control his every move
"Has anyone considered that liberty can never be absolute in a world of real human beings, and that the issue is not *whether* you give up some privacy, but *when* giving it up is appropriate and when it is not?
Yes
"I'd just like to see a slight bit of balance here. The monotone is becoming boring."
Oh
"Ben Franklin's quote about protection and liberty is absolutist, and he himself, by being involved in a government which provided protection at the cost of liberty proved that, so please don't raise that old quote as a response."
If you knew what the definition of proof was, you probably wouldn't have an issue with the quote, and I am certain you would understand the problem. A pedophile may claim that the Earth is spherical. The fact that he is a pedophile does not prove that the earth is flat. Your logic fails you.
"Yes, the measures might be abused. The same logic applies to all government powers - so the simple assertion that they may be abused and therefore are wrong is without value. It applies just as well to prosecutors, police departments and DOD. An argument based on this assertion has to be a lot more specific - it needs to show the cost of the abuses vs the cost of not implementing the program, or make an alternative recommendation."
So in other words, it applies to members of the executive branch, members of the executive branch, and memebers of the executive branch. Hmmm
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Ooh, that's going in the quotefile. Thanks!
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Google 'attrs'
In WW2 and the Korean War it was defending largely democratic countries against vicious dictatorships. In the Middle East it's been backing one tyrant against another or propping up the very badly managed and intransigent Israeli governments.
You probably have simulated middle click on press of both mouse buttons -- Try it in a text editor and see if it pastes.
Pasting a url into firefox will load it, and I guess / parsed into the url for it.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Some target they picked to make an example of. It is fairly well-known that Morrissey is completely out of touch with reality and sort of a joke to anyone but the most obnoxious hipsters. Take, for example, the time when the Smiths put out "Meat is Murder" and he swore up and down to the press that all of the band's members were vegetarians despite photographic evidence to the contrary (He was the only actual vegetarian).
He seems like a really lame target if you're looking to make veiled threats against people's anti-establishment-oriented speech. Perhaps that's actually the point. You can do this to Morrissey knowing he can't make any sort of coherent statement about it or create a movement against it. What he going to do, rally his legions of college kids in corduruoy sportcoats drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon? I think not.
Comparing denying someone naptime to keeping somebody up for days to weeks (past the point of sleep deprivation induced hallucinations and on toward major organ failure) is a little sleazy. You can really fuck people up with some of this psychological torture. And keep in mind that this isn't "punishment" for people convicted of crimes. In many cases the treatment is intended to provide the means to convict the person. I bet it's pretty easy for you to dismiss this as not that bad, when you haven't ever been exposed to anything like it.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Regardless of your personal musical tastes, The Smiths were actually a little bit more than a band which "made a few good songs". They were probably one of the most important British rock acts of the 1980s, featuring one of the most accomplished guitarists. They were certainly not "gothic punk rock"!?!?!?!
What facts am I missing? I, too, have functioned for long periods with extremely little sleep. It is my experience that led me to rebuke you for comparing extended sleep deprivation to missing nap-time. I see that you were trying to say that the bill would not allow someone to be deprived of nap-time, but that is simply not true. While it is somewhat vague in its wording at times, it is certainly not that vague.
Bear in mind, of course, that what is happening right now between us is what is known as a "discussion". It is in no way a personal attack on you or your ideals or whatever. It seems unnecessary to have to spell it out so plainly, but perhaps I'm just seeing this from a simpleton's point of view.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.