Americans Not Bothered by NSA Spying

Snap E Tom writes "According to a Washington Post poll, a majority (63%) of Americans 'said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism.' A slightly higher majority would not be bothered if the NSA collected personal calls that they made. Even though the program has received bi-partisan criticism from Congress, it appears that the public values security over privacy."

Comments

Done by Phone?

[eldavojohn]

Let me guess, these polls were done by phone?

Washington Post: Hello, do you have a minute to take a survey?
Citizen: Of course I do!
Washington Post: Great! We were just wondering whether you're concerned with the recent news of the NSA?
Citizen: You mean the fact that they are collecting the phone call records made and recieved by each citizen of the United States?
Washington Post: Yes, probably even this very phone call right now ... how do you feel about that?
Citizen: I'm fuckin' pissed!
Washington Post: So you're conncerned? You know, on our last poll about the NSA, the one where we covered them routing and recording phone calls, people sure answered differently.
Citizen: Wait a second ... you mean they can record transcripts of phone calls?
Washington Post: Yes, probably even this very phone call right now ... we do use AT&T.
Citizen: Ah, I've changed my mine. I am completely fine with this acceptable form of combating terrorism. Sic Heil Bush & all that jazz. I love my country and would sacrifice every bit of privacy for it. Goodbye!

Re:Done by Phone?

[ozmanjusri]

Let me guess, these polls were done by phone?

No, they used a Diebold AccuVote-TSX touch screen system...

security over privacy

[Rob T Firefly]

it appears that the public values security over privacy

Then they'll have neither.

Re:security over privacy

[boldtbanan]

But Liberty is supposed to be secure by design

Not true at all and the nation's founders knew it. Liberty is meant to inhibit the government's ability to outright restrict freedom, but it is inevitable that governments progressively chip away at citizen's rights over time. One of the founders (I forget which one off hand, I think Benjamin Franklin) was asked -- and I'm paraphrasing -- "Do we have freedom now?" and replied "Yes, for as long as we can keep it."

The masses almost always value security over freedom until they have so little of either a revolution is born.

Re:security over privacy

[slashdotnickname]

It seems that American's are, indeed, no longer anything like their forefathers that they speak so highly of.

I would hope not. Our forefathers owned slaves and wore tights.

Re:security over privacy

[renderhead]

Yes, it all sounds very bad until you realize that "the public values security over privacy" is a false statement, or at least very misleading.

The truth is that the public values a certain amount of security over a certain amount of security. Everyone has their threshhold, and it's different from person to person.

For example, I'd object greatly to having surveillance cameras mounted in my home if the conditions were "the cameras are a permanent fixture so the government can better protect our nation from terrorists". On the other hand, I wouldn't object at all to the same cameras if the conditions were "they are a temporary fixture so that we can track down and arrest a serial killer who was recently spotted entering your house." Heck, I'd help them install the things!

In that case, the security issue (my life was in immediate danger from a murderer) outweighed the privacy issue (I might get caught picking my nose on camera).

In the case of the phone record issue, the 63% cited have weighed the loss of privacy in this case (the government knows who you've called, when, and how many times, but not what you said) against the perceived security threat (the chances of averting a terrorist attack are improved by the government having this data).

Disagree if you want - observe that 37% of those surveyed did. But don't accuse the other 63% of being stupid sheep unless you know what reasoning they applied to their opinion. What are they personally giving up (in more specific terms than just "privacy")? What are they personally gaining?

Re:security over privacy

[badmammajamma]

This is, unforuntately, very true. I get extremely pissed off when I have to explain to a fellow American why this shit is important. When people say they don't care about the NSA monitoring them because they have nothing to hide I just cringe. (And people wonder why history repeats itself. ) Perhaps our education system is in a complete state of failure.

Bin Laden has kicked our ass in a way that is so much better than mere body counts. He has cost us hundreds of billions in dollars and, more importantly, managed to shift our entire belief structure. As far as I'm concerned, the terrorists have won. I'm sure this turned out better than Bin Laden ever imagined.

Re:security over privacy

[Buran]

Well, if they don't value their security sufficiently, their privacy will be moot because they will be dead. So this 63% are not stupid, as the liberal left constantly alleges, but happy for the powers that be to use one of the few tools they have to give us some small protection from suicidal, religiously deranged nihilists.

So let me get this straight. You think the government should be able to just basically ignore laws requiring warrants and oversight and just do whatever it wants without any assurance to the people (and "we're protecting your privacy" sound bites don't count)? You think that the hundreds of years of laws that exist to protect the people from government abuses aren't there for a reason? If you really think governments don't abuse their people to get richer and more powerful at their expense, open your eyes and look around. IT HAPPENS.

Serving the people by keeping them safe is a function of the government. Violating their rights and not being accountable to those same people is not. The government must carry out its protection function while at the same time obeying the laws and making itself accountable and carry out the function of not abusing the people.

Why do you hate America?

Re:security over privacy

[Spaceman40]

Bravo. I wonder when people like the GP will understand that the Constitution's only a piece of paper. It's just like money; only worth something because people think it's worth something.

Take a group with no respect for the principles behind it (and no checks and balances on their power), and it's worthless. The founders wanted to make sure it was really difficult to get around the checks on power for each branch of government, but these checks have been slowly eroding for over 200 years now.

What's to stop a law being passed that restricts free speech? The president's veto power, the bicameral legislature, and the courts. If none of these are used, the bill of rights is useless.

It's a piece of paper - why can't people understand that it doesn't magically bind anyone to anything?

Re:security over privacy

[KlomDark]

Oh bullshit. Come on. You've got to be kidding.

I've got a better chance of being hit by lightning that being killed by the (boogeyman) Terrorists. This whole 'terrorists are going to get you' nonsense has gone way too far. Yes, it's a risk, but no reason to go belly up to the threat. Be a man about it. You WILL die someday. It probably (nearly definitely) won't be terrorists. Are you giving up all your privacy and other rights to avoid it?

Yes, you will die. Think beyond yourself. Your children will live on for a while after you are gone, and your grandchildren after that. Think fourth dimensionally - what kind of a world are you building for them? You want them to be slaves with no freedom of thought, unable to speak their mind because they are being monitored 100% of the day? Just so the fucking boogieman terrorists can't get you?

Terrorists are a lame red herring. There's always been terrorists, there always will be unhappy people in this world. Take appropriate measures against the risk, but don't become OCD about it and go into a sheep spasm.

Re:security over privacy

[Spaceman40]

"their privacy will be moot because they will be dead."

Have you taken a look at death statistics? Deaths by terrorism in 2005 (around the world) number somewhere between 10,000 to 15,000 (reports vary). Deaths by car accident? 42,636, in the US alone. Don't talk about terrorism as if it's the biggest threat to life in the world today. We'd have better luck sending the NSA against cancer, for example, or using the money to purchase portable defibrillators.

So use some other argument for this - "They're attacking our country, we must defend ourselves," perhaps. Just don't use FUD.

(by the way: I know a bunch of smart people on the right. In fact, they generally have very compelling arguments for smaller government. This sort of thing, though, is not smaller government - why is it conservative?)

Yay! For the USA!

[jawtheshark]

Benjamin Franklin must be spinning in his grave...

Re:Yay! For the USA!

[jawtheshark]

what is the point of privacy [...] if you are dead.

Well, I think that Franklin implied something in that statement: you have to be willing to die to protect your freedoms. Don't forget he signed the declaration of independence and that was essentially the same as signing his own death warrant. After all, it made him essentially a traitor to the power-in-place at that moment.
His quote has to be seen in that context. These days nobody seems to want to die for freedom anymore and hence the freedom is taken away piecemeal...

Look, I'm not even American, but I do think I understand the historical context. I think that Benjamin Franklin was indeed a wise man and I am only a pinko-commie-euro-bastard.

Re:Yay! For the USA!

[lucabrasi999]

Benjamin Franklin must be spinning in his grave...

This morning on NPR, they interviewed a guy from the CATO institute (not exacty a bastion of left-wing liberalism) who said that while the NSA program, on initial review, appeared to meet the letter of the law, it certainly wasn't implemented in the "spirit" of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.

I completely agree with this thought. It may or may not be a legal program, but whatever the legality, it is wrong on so many levels.

Re:Yay! For the USA!

[JDevers]

Many times more people die from car wrecks, preventable heart attacks, etc than die from terrorism. 20,000 people in the US alone die every year from influenza and influenza related pneumonia(1), that is about seven times as many as died in the worst terrorist attack this country has ever suffered. (2) Don't misunderstand, I think radical Islam is a developing problem, but I don't think rooting out terrorists will really stop the problem. The way to stop the problem is to basically do the opposite of what we've done in the Middle East, not spy on every citizen in this country building a giant database of phone calls, emails, and snail mail packages. While the average person doesn't care about this now because they think the "terrists is gonna get me" if the same sort of monitoring was proposed in the mid-90s they would be pretty upset. This database is being built using the MOMENTUM of terrorism, not FOR terrorism. While they might actually catch a terrorist using this database, that doesn't make it worth it. If police came to everyone's house every day and searched them for weapons or plans, there would be virtually no violence in this country, there also would be no freedom, no independence, no innovation, and eventually no money. There is a fine line between protecting one's rights and preventing violence, that line shifts depending on the immediate threat. Terrorism doesn't constitute enough of a threat to justify this sort of action. What America really needs is a good "McCarthyism red scare" like event to take place for us to take back our government, my only fear of that is with a big enough database it might be fairly easy to link ANYONE to a terrorist organization...especially when THEY get to define what is a terrorist.

1. http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:rbUOIN2Yy8sJ:w ww.nfid.org/library/influenza/acknowledgements/inf luenza.pdf+influenza+deaths+2001+united+states&hl= en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3
2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_at tacks

Re:Yay! For the USA!

[Garse Janacek]

You're making it sound like everyone who opposes the wiretapping is in this monolithic block of people that all have the exact same extreme opinion. That's not really accurate, and I don't know why you'd pick that up from occasional Ben Franklin references, since there is at least some variety of opinion even in the relatively-polarized slashdot forums.

You want a rational argument: The information the NSA is getting is illegal. There is a very specific legal process for obtaining wiretaps, and they aren't using it. If they want to be able to do this, they should use the existing legal procedures, or the law should be changed to accomodate the new ones. If they can't obtain this ability through legitimate legislation, why should they be able to do it? Of course there is some degree of tradeoff between privacy and security, but large-scale wiretaps have not turned the tide in the war on terror, and they are illegal.

You seem to be convinced they're okay because stupid people are opposing them, which seems strange to me since there are plenty of stupid people in any large group, which includes both sides of most political debates, and often stupid arguments get the most airtime (and/or their proponents are the most vocal). For examples of stupid arguments in favor of the wiretapping, how about the government officials who keep insisting that their actions are not illegal? I don't know if you can call it "stupid" when it's just a blatant and easily checked falsehood, but come on. This is the best they can do?

There are checks and balances built into our system for a reason. The executive branch should not be able to disregard that in the name of security, because it is illegal, and any legitimate trade-off between privacy and security should be made in full view of the public and according to a democratic process. Why are we so insistent on spreading democracy to the rest of the world if we're so willing to bypass it ourselves when it's expedient?

Re:Yay! For the USA!

[bennomatic]

> You forgot to mention that in 2009, Bush leaves office,
> unlike Hitler who wasn't bothered by electoral process.

You forgot to mention that there are no guarantees. Think:

• Bush is the only president to be elected *twice* without winning the popular vote.
• The first time, the deciding factor was a state where his brother was governor and his former campaign manager was state controller. There were many, many questions raised about the tactics used.
• The second time, the deciding factor was Ohio, where Diebold, the maker of the closed-source-no-audit-trail voting boxes is headquartered. Let's not forget that Diebold's CEO was a major contributor, and essentially promised Bush the victory.
• Bush has railed against the two-term limit, and has a history of manipulating presidential powers to get what he wants. Patriot act, war in Iraq over non-existant WMD, suspension of environmental laws, tax breaks for the richest people in the world, the list goes on.
• Bush himself has been quoted as saying, "There's nothing wrong with a dictatorship, so long as I'm the dictator." Yes, I'm sure he was joking, but for a president to say that publicly, he's either the world's biggest idiot, or there's a grain of sentimental truth to it.

You read it here first; Bush is going to try to get a 3rd term. Maybe Iran will attack Pearl Harbor. Keep your eye on the remaining "axis of evil" countries... right now, the only thing that would surprize me is if there were no surprizes.

Re:Yay! For the USA!

[general_re]

Bush is the only president to be elected *twice* without winning the popular vote.

Ummm, what?

Thinking is all well and good, but it wouldn't hurt to complement the thinking with a bit of research.

Phonesex

[WebfishUK]

...A slightly higher majority would not be bothered if the NSA collected personal calls that they made...

Just so long as they spoke dirty and pretended to be a girl

"Hi my name is Agent Sexbitch and I'm not wearing my regulation black suit. I'm a naughty agent...."

Of course.

[Sj0]

We're talking about Americans here. They're much better at rhetoric about how great and free they are than actually getting upset when their leaders turn out to be blatantly trampling rights enshrined in the constitution.

Re:Of course.

[ScentCone]

We're talking about Americans here. They're much better at rhetoric about how great and free they are than actually getting upset when their leaders turn out to be blatantly trampling rights enshrined in the constitution.

No, they're much better at using pundits on TV to bitch at the administration for not "connecting the dots" about people sitting in the country gearing up to kill a few thousand people, and using phones to chat with each other, keep their finances flowing, call their flight schools after getting off the phone with their buddy in Jordan (who just talked to his buddy in Germany, who earlier that day was talking to his buddy in Boston about renting that car that they left in the parking lot when they got on the plane).

People watch endless news and popular entertainment that involves cross referencing dumped telco records to see who someone talked to, the better to bust up a criminal relationship or follow some other money trail. Of course it's a lot harder when you have to dig up disparate data from multiple providers, but it's there, whenever prosecutors need it - always has been. The difference, right now, is that when some twit in, say, Madrid, decides to blow up his apartment rather than be caught... and one of the scraps of paper left over includes a phone number assigned to disposable phone bought near the Mexico border... well, there's a certain amount of urgency in having a quick way to at least see if there's a red-hot pattern of calls swirling around the related numbers.

I'm all for the privacy that requires judicial oversight on doing anything with that information. But what I don't want to hear is a bunch of witless complaining (from the same "We're talking about Americans here") about how the FBI (on Bush's watch! that lazy bastard!) didn't see an attack, an arms shipment, etc., coming ... just like on 9/11! Because the phone records are going to be there. After-the-fact quarterbacking is always going to show that there were obvious signs of coordination between the groups of people it takes import/export mayhem. Pattern detection is a pretty damn obvious tool - it's what you DO with it that matters. I wonder how the people who bitch about this feel about the cops they're driving next to surfing their license plate numbers on their dash-mounted laptops in traffic. You know - the people that say that's intrusive, and then shout scathing complaints when they hear that someone wanted for something heinous has been driving through toll booths every day for a year.

Can't have it both ways, and while I'm inclined to err on the side of collecting and only judiciously (and judicially) using information, I'm really dis-inclined to later agree with anyone who complains that law enformcement didn't do enough to stop something that's otherise only obvious after the fact.

Yes, it was

[GillBates0]

From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/poll s/postpoll_nsa_051206.htm:

This Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone May 11, 2006 among 502 randomly selected adults.

Re:Yes, it was

[GigsVT]

There is no such thing as a random telephone poll.

Here's a statistic for you, 100% of people polled by telephone said they were "willing to participate in telephone polls"!

This is especially relevant here, since those that value their privacy are less likely to participate in telephone polls.

Re:Yes, it was

[Ohreally_factor]

You've hit on what I think is the real issue: oversight.

Where is the oversight? It would be one thing if the administration was doing this with congressional and judicial oversight. That would afford us at least a minimal protection of our civil liberties. However, the Bush Administration is determined to increase the power of the Presidency under the cover of post 9/11 security. They effectively wish to suspend the Constitution for the duration of the War on Terror, i.e., forever.

Re:Yes, it was

[natoochtoniket]

There is no such thing as a random telephone poll.

Here's a statistic for you, 100% of people polled by telephone said they were "willing to participate in telephone polls"!

Here's another statistic for you: 100% of those people were also "willing to have the call recorded"!

So, the only people who were asked if the approved of the NSA recording phone calls were the people who were both willing to have the phone call recorded, and willing to participate in a telephone poll. The people who objected to having the phone call recorded were not asked the third question.

This isn't funny. It is just an abuse of statistics.

Re:Yes, it was

[gobbo]

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

You, sir, and your fellow slashdotters, are representative of the only paltry, disempowered, cranky and nearly ineffective oversight we have left. When a trillion are spent on the military, 25 times more than Russia alone, many billions of that going into 'black' projects that even the president isn't allowed to know about; when there are over 700 military bases on foreign soil and no admission of imperial designs; when 'the Brotherhood' operates in the open, yet no-one really knows about them; when the PNAC is honest about their designs, and now has power but there isn't panic; then you know that complaining about things is of little use, however necessary.

Not to be a pessimist, or anything. There is a groundswell of dissent. But few, if any, really can grasp the entirety of global geopolitics, and just how many long-running unjust plans are well under way.

Zbigniw Brzezinski is one of those in the know, like Kissinger: "as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."

Re:It's not an OK/Not OK question...

[GroinWeasel]

"It's might be OK for the NSA to use who you call to establish close ties to a terrorist."

You just said its OK for the government to consider ALL CITIZENS as potential terrorists AT ALL TIMES.

Are you SURE thats "might be OK"?

You just threw presumprion of innocence out the window, without even realising what you did, didn't you?

another quote

[flynt]

Those who attempt to gain karma by trying to summarize a complex issue with a one-line quote will have have done neither.

I propose a new law:

[Peter Trepan]

Anyone who utters the words: "If you've done nothing wrong, then what are you afraid of?" should immediately be put on the no-fly list.

In other news...

[sparkz]

In other news, a survey found that the majority of Americans don't understand why the rest of the world view them as dumb, mindless sheep.

Re:In other news...

[lbrandy]

.....and another survey found out that the majority of Europeans don't understand why Americans view them as elitist pricks with a smug sense of superiority

What I've always found curious in these discussions where Europeans start babbling on about the ignorance-filled American dystopia. America, despite the NSA wiretapping and call database, is still eons ahead of most of Europe in terms of government intrusion. The UK, for instance, does incredible stuff that would get people crucified here.

In my industry, we work with people from many countries... and I can see with absolute certainty that if you do not want the government snooping in your life, America is generally a far better place to be than Europe. Omnipresent video surveillance, automatic liscense plate recognition, and a central database of liscense plates, their locations, and the times. That's reality in parts of western Europe. They don't even lie and say it's for terrorism... it's for dealing with normal criminal activity. They are actively trying to acquire face detection/recognition software to start tracking individuals throughout the community, as well.

I have no problem with Europeons mocking America for not living up to their stated values. However, let's not get self-righteous... kettles and pots will reign supreme.

This is really getting old

[porkThreeWays]

Scaring Americans into giving up their privacy is really getting old. A large scale terrorism attack is still very much possible today. Mistake after mistake has shown this. It's a dog and pony show. The presentation has changed, but gaping holes still exist. Amercians somehow believe losing their rights is helping terrorism, but in reality its not. Before 9/11 terrorism was almost non-existant in America. After 9/11 it's almost non-existant. Looking at raw numbers, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of things you should be more worried about killing you than a terrorist. Statistically I'd be more worried about being killed by a shark in the US.

And I can't believe people are actually fooled into thinking somehow terrorism is a major threat. If you want to save the most amount of lives with the least amount of effort, fight obesity. It accounts for most of the top killers in America today.

But obesity isn't patriotic. You can't hang a flag outside your house supporting the war on fat.

Get a fucking clue people. Terrorism isn't a threat to your daily lives. If you actually think it is, then you've been emotionally manipulated by people who want your money and/or votes.

Re:This is really getting old

[iggymanz]

no, only about 10% of what Bush has done has kept us from further attack, and the other 90% is about turning the U.S. into a police state. And the bungled war on Iraq was a huge side-track to continued efforts to exterminate those who attacked us, we have woefully few of our armed forces pursuing the masterminds of the 9/11 attack. Bush caling the Iraq war part of the "war on terror" either means he's a liar and/or a complete shit head.

Re:This is really getting old

[HairyCanary]

What is especially sad to me is that we have allowed the terrorists to win. What they did directly caused a statistically insignificant amount of damage to this country.

What we did to ourselves in response, however, is far more impressive.

6 degrees of Bin laden?

[ghostlibrary]

Okay, the NSA is just making correlations between calls. However, if any actor can be tied to Kevin Bacon in 6 steps, and any person to the President in 6 steps, doesn't this mean the NSA can tie any phone user to a terrorist at will in 6 steps or less?

"I called my auto mechanic, who called a customer, who once called a lawyer friend, who represented a terrorist. So now I'm flagged as 'communicating with a terrorist'".

Worse, the only way to weed out such 'spurious connections' is, of course, to get more detailed records of exactly who was called, and why, and what was said. So the concept is inherently flawed and can only be fixed by further privacy violations.

Re:6 degrees of Bin laden?

[lawpoop]

I think it's a little more sophisticated than that.

If you have a list of how has called who, when, and for how long, you can diagram out connections between people and see who are the most influential. Have a look at this image.

My guess is that they are looking for people who have influence, who are at the center of social hubs. These people are leader-like; they are charismatic and people want to listen to them. They have a lot of connections. They aren't consciouly trying to build an organization or influence people; they are just popular and social.

If you want to put the kabash on any fomenting organization, or group of people that are causing your problems, just 'take out' the few charismatic leaders. If you look at the image above, if you put 'Ron' and 'Patti' under house arrest, you would pretty much kill any communication between the red and green groups.

It's a way of keeping information from tavelling between people, so then people must rely on official news sources.

What about regular crime?

[stinerman]

As we all know "terrorism" is the root password to the Constitution. This question asks only about terrorism. I wonder what their answers would be if the question was:

"Do you find the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate drug use?"

or

"Do you find the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate copyright infringment?"

We all know these programs will not be used for only terrorism, but for everyday crimes. Will people care then?

Re:What about regular crime?

[typical]

As we all know "terrorism" is the root password to the Constitution.

As can be seen by the Reichstag fire, it works nicely to bypass the governmental safeguards of other countries too.

Correction

[digitaldc]

Americans who have given up on caring about anything truthful being discussed in today's world are not bothered by NSA spying.

Seriously, if the NSA will not give security clearances (thereby stopping the investigation) to the Federal Prosecutors trying to investigate this alleged spying on Americans, does the US actually have ANY checks and balances on uncontrolled power?

More importantly, does anyone even care?

Untapped power source?

[Myrrh]

I've come up with a way to reduce—perhaps even eliminate—our dependence on foreign oil as an energy source.

As more and more civil liberties are trampled upon, faster and faster will the Founding Fathers spin in their respective graves.

If we attach magnets to each Founding Father, then wrap copper wire around each of them, we should have a potentially unlimited energy source. Well, at least until the Libertarians get elected in significant numbers—so yeah, come to think of it, it truly is unlimited.

The AC frequency, of course, might be unpredictable. In fact, I'd suspect it will be ever-increasing, which could create some technical issues to overcome. But we're smart people, I'm sure we can figure it out.

What do you all say? Shall we write up a grant proposal?

Re:It's not an OK/Not OK question...

[TripMaster Monkey]

At this point, the current administration has basically said (without using so many words) that they are above the law.

I agree with your entire post except the part above within the parentheses. Since taking office in 2001, President Bush has issued signing statements on more than 750 new laws, declaring that he has the power to set aside the laws when they conflict with his legal interpretation of the Constitution.

This is by very definition holding yourself 'above the law'.

So you don't have to wait to load the link...

[cybercobra]

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

When you don't teach people about the importance of civil liberties, it's no wonder they don't defend them. Bring back civics classes!

Re:Sic?

[renderhead]

Don't get bent out of shape. Just remember to quote it like so:
"Sic Heil Bush" [sieg]

MOD PARENT UP!

[mrchaotica]

It is important that we be reminded of the proper course of action when our system starts to fail (as it seems to be doing now):

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[hackstraw]

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

To make this like a meeting and have an action item to leave with, this translates into

1) Openly speak out. Yes, Bush should be impeached. Removed from office? Dunno, but impeachment is the first step to figure this stuff out.

2) Join the NRA and learn how to protect yourself and your family _AND_ buy at least 20-30,000 rounds of ammo.

Americans have become such lazy pussies over the years, I guess because they don't think too much, and times have been good for a while, but that is changing, and we need to change in turn.

We need to be outraged about the BS this government is doing nowadays. No, its not OK to tap my phone. Worried about terrorism, protect our borders thank you. You have the personnel and equipment, now go do your job. With the millions of people walking into our country every year, and the tons of "illegal" goods coming by boat, airplane, tunnels, car, and tractor trailer, its trivial to do a substitute on the cargo for "terrorist" goods and services.

We run this country, not the government. The government works for us, remember?

The "Psyops" the government has waged against people in the US and abroad has worked very well on the weak minded people. These manipulations of the government by citing the "War on terror" and the "Save the children" campaigns are clever, and have worked for a while on stupid people, but those days are over.

Also every time this wiretap nonsense gets mentioned, remember that al Queda (according to the 9/11/01 report) got away with the attacks because _they did NOT use any electronic form of communication_.

Tapping phones and all of the other illegal shit the government is doing is only a form of terrorism against the people of this country. None of these current efforts will affect the "bad guys".

Re:It's not an OK/Not OK question...

[tassii]

What you are missing here is the basic concept of our government. The Executive Branch (President) enforces the laws, the Legistative Branch (Congress) makes the laws and the Judicial Branch (Supreme Court) intreprets the laws.

Equal, but Separate. Checks and Balances. Remember those terms from grade school? What you have here is an Executive Branch that has set itself above all the others. We call that a Dictatorship.

Is it beyond redemption? Absolutely not. All that is needed is for Congress to get a spine and conduct some oversight like they are supposed to. Which, unfortunately, will never happen as long as the Party Line is more important than the Nation. I hate to say "I told you so", but the moment the GOP made public their "Contract For America", I could see that the GOP would no longer be able to vote their conscience, but will be required to vote according to some hidden GOP agenda.

In other words, they would no longer be Our Representatives , as was intended.

It's about perspective, you fuckwit.

[foreverdisillusioned]

Statistics from 2002: * Heart Disease: 696,947
* Cancer: 557,271
* Stroke: 162,672
* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,816
* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 106,742
* Diabetes: 73,249
* Influenza/pneumonia: 65,681
* Alzheimer's disease: 58,866
* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 40,974
* Septicemia: 33,865
* Suicide: 30,622
* Murder: 16,110

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that our "war on terrorism" has costed us more than we spend on all of these other problems combined... maybe even by an order of magnitude. There's a difference between "We were attacked! Let's do nothing." and "We were attacked! Let's get our intelligence agencies to talk to start talking to each other and let's increase airline security." And there's a huge difference between the latter and "We were attacked! Let's spend close to a trillion dollars on wars and homeland security and allow the government to do unlimited search and seizures without warrants, force protesters into Free Speech Zones because they're (supposedly) a security risk, allow indefinite imprisonment without trial, allow the government to strip anyone of their USA citizenship without trial, and allow the NSA to monitor every single USA citizen when none of the terrorists on 9/11 were actually USA citizens.

You want a definitive change that will make America safer vs. terrorists? Here ya go, this is the only one that will work: switch to biodiesel/ethenol/hydrogen (with a trillion dollars of spending, we COULD make this happen) and tell Israel they're on their own (sucks to be them, but I would have no sympathy for someone who founded a nation in the Antartic and complained when their toes started falling off... similarly, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the all-too-predictable holy war Israel has been drawn into.)

Or, you and the rest of America can grow some fucking balls and realize that freedom isn't free. The price we pay isn't measured in dollars or even in the lives of our soldiers--it's measured by the lives of you, me, and every other civilian. Every day we put our lives on the line, even though our risk vs. terrorism and murder could be lessened if the government took draconian measures such as tagging us, putting cameras in our houses, and monitoring every single call we make. But that's not a fair tradeoff, not when murder and terrorism represent such a tiny tiny percent of our country's problem. We should not be monitored in any way without a warrant, and you're a damn fool for not seeing how this could be abused.

Re:It's about perspective, you fuckwit.

[foreverdisillusioned]

Oh my fucking god. Our ideology? You actually literally believe that they bomb us because they "hate our freedom"? Lay off the crackpipe. No one flies fucking airplanes into buildings because they "hate freedom."

Yes, I seem to remember getting a mail from the government telling me I need to get RIFD in my arm next time I renew my license.

If you were paying any attention at all, you'd realize I was making a point using a hypothetical scneario. Point is, we *can* gain increases in security if we sacrifice every last one of our freedoms (and yes, I do include the FREEDOM to associate people e.g. by calling them without being ruthlessly tracked), but that doesn't mean we should. The loss of 2,500 lives mandates at best a very small loss of freedom.

Abandon Israel? You are definitely off your rocker now. They're the only thing keeping the Middle East from going completely insane.

Oh yes, I forgot Israel has such a wonderful STABILIZING influence! I think you've got some rat poison in that crack of yours.

Once Iran gets nukes, you can forget safety, regardless of whether or not we're driving cars on foreign or domestic oil-products.

Iran getting nukes is indeed scary. Too bad we don't have enough resources to spare to take them on while simultaneously keeping Iraq from plunging into civil war. Maybe we should of thought of that before, you know, we declared war on a country that did not attack us (9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudi), does not openly support al-Qaeda, and had no WMDs (don't fucking tell me "everyone thought/knew Iraq had them!" because that's bullshit. The only "evidence" we had was classified, and then turned out to be blatantly false) Iran has a *huge* standing army...

'm pretty sure everyone in America agreed that something should be done

Yup, and something WAS done. Flight 93, despite having already given control of the plane to the terrorists, forced them to abort their mission. Any future hijackers will not even get this far (even disregarding the increased security)--they might stab a flight attendant or two before everyone on the plane kicks their fucking asses. On top of this, we made some much-needed changes in the intelligence community (improving inter-agency communication.) That's it; that's all that's needed. If you really want to end terrorism, you must take drastic action like banning all aliens and immigrants from Middle or taking away the things that connect us to them (oil and Israel.) What the hell is this phone monitoring going to do? It's going to show Arabs phoning other Arabs. Likely, every single muslim in this country is only 3-6 'steps' away from al-Qaeda, just like the Kevin Bacon game. If you want to deport all the foriegn muslims then just freaking DO it; don't pretend that monitoring the calling habits of the rest of us is going to make a damn bit of difference.

Furthermore, just about all what you mention there are ISOLATED incidents. You don't have 2500 people dying of cancer in the same building at the same time.

Yes, because 2,500 people dying at once is so much worse than millions dying over the course of one year! Really, your logic is so rational it's almost breathtaking.

Not a member of the debate team, are you?

At least I can say I'm not a member of the sensationalist spin machine.

Most of what you mention is not nearly as preventable. Cancer studies have been going on for years and years and years, same with a lot of the other diseases you mention. We haven't made a lot of progress in a lot of those, just measures to prolong life a bit.

That's just plain ignorant. We've made HUGE strides against many types of cancer, and we've got a slew of new heart disease medicines as well. And I'll wager we haven't spent well over one trillion dollars on research, either (including Afghanistan and Iraq, this figure is acturate.) Who knows what kind of d

Best phrase ever.

[Poromenos1]

The masses almost always value security over freedom until they have so little of either a revolution is born.

This is probably the best phrase I've ever seen. I hadn't thought about this until now, I was just wondering how (since societies apparently eventually seem to self-regulate and converge to some point) it is possible that so many freedoms are continuously chipped away from the people. Now I realise freedom is not a graph that converges somewhere, but one that lowers enough to pass the tolerance threshold, where a revolution brings it back way up, only to get it chipped at again in time.

Lyme Disease - hey, at least it's not AIDS

[chocolatetrumpet]

That would be the "Lyme Disease - hey, at least it's not AIDS!" argument.

Just because the current political climate in the United States "isn't as bad as ______[insert country]" doesn't make it ok.

It's not a new sentiment though...

[maillemaker]

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." - Alexander Tyler

Steve

Re:"Thank you for calling the U.S.A. ...."

[TimothyJones]

On the subject of synthetic females. I lived in Poland back in the 80's (time of a gov't imposed martial law and general civil unrest) and every time you picked up the phone, well there was that syn female "This call will be monitored. This call will be monitored, This...". That was the new dial tone. And they did monitor them too. For quite a few years. For a long while you could not even call abroad and our letters and packages, dometic and definitely otheriwse, more often than not arrived re-sealed with a big "CENSORED" stamp on them. That activity too was labeled as "protecting the country".

Honestly, I never dreamt that I'd be brought back to those scary, communist days. In the US of all places.

CNN Online poll tells different story

[frieko]

The CNN Online poll tells different story. It all depends who you ask: http://edition.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/24900.co ntent.html

Re:Republican == NRA

[hackstraw]

The NRA leans very heavily to the Republican party. It's likely that many (if not most) voted for Bush at least twice. Damn single issue voters, they can't see the forest for the trees.

True, the NRA guys tend to be more Republican vs Democrat, but they also openly state that they will stand by an incumbent regardless of party affiliation.

I'm a Libertarian, and don't see too much of a difference between the dominant two parties, but I will say that I'm more democratic vs republican, but there are little real differences between them today.

The NRA is supposedly the most influential lobby groups in the US. And, yes, we/they are a bunch of narrow minded, cant see the forest for the trees, bunch of people like any extremist group. But I feel more comfortable living in a country that has a NRA like group and a 2nd amendment. The NRA ignores the part about the "well regulated militia", and I'm a little more open to have some form of regulation there.

But when things like the police illegally taking people's firearms in New Orleans after the hurricane when its up to the citizens to protect themselves in such a situation, and then the liberties that we have lost in the name of the "War on Terror". Well, these things need to stop.

I'm not advocating an armed march on the White House (yet :), but its important that the people in the government know that we are aware of our rights and are willing to fight for them.

The US constitution is excellent, and when elected officials that are supposed to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States." Well, its up to us to make sure this happens.

The people in the US military are conscripts.

[aussersterne]

The people in the US military are hardly volunteers. They're forced via leverage into combat through the realities of class difference.

You're born poor. You get a substandard education because all of the educational dollars and community infrastructure are re-routed to wealthy districts since that's where both the lobbyists and the lawmakers are from since they have the resources to affect policy and ability and access to means to vote while the poor can't even afford to take a day off of work to do so.

Because of this substandard education, you have few prospects in an economy in which labor is moving offshore to line the pockets of the very wealthy through the exploitation of cheap labor. To make things worse, there is NO WORK WHATSOEVER because there is no working economy in your part of town, and you can't afford to commute out of it to the other side of town where the rich people do have a working economy in order to land a job (nevermind the fact that they wouldn't hire you anyway--wrong side of the tracks and all).

But it's a problem to have no prospects, since you live in the inner city and there is no social safety net. There is nowhere for you to grow your own food or improvise shelter, but there is also no social infrastructure to feed you and clothe you, much less provide you and/or your children with basic medical care. You . will . die . prematurely, and so will your children.

BUT... The same Uncle Sam who won't guarantee you BASIC healthcare or fund the security force and investment necessary to help your community to feed itself or jumpstart its economy... comes along and says that if you are willing to carry a gun, he will feed both you *and* your children and provide you medical care and a retirement. Otherwise, you and they will suffer and die young. He promises you that it's safe, you won't die, the numbers are in your favor, our military is ultra-strong and ultra-well-equipped, it's like playing a video game, there's absolutely no risk, plus you'll get to travel and work with computers and get a better education and on-the-job-training and you'll finally have respect instead of being seen as a worthless piece of poor trash, and more to the point your . children . will . eat . and . be . healthy.

What choice do you have? After asking your recruiter again and being promised that it's utterly risk-free, and looking around your dive on the south side and out the window at your graffiti-covered neighborhood with boarded up windows everywhere and drug dealers on every corner, and thinking once more about how you never were able to finish high school because the school was so dangerous you were afraid to go and they didn't actually have any *textbooks* for lack of funding anyway, and you'll never amount to anything and your family has a history of heart disease and cancer and you want to be there for your children... you sign on the dotted line.

And then they send you to Iraq and you die.

And Uncle Sam and his gronies even wealthier thanks to you, a poor person, having been forced into labor at gunpoint to force Iraqis into US service at gunpoint.

And some shmuck posts to Slashdot about how you were happy to do it because you were brave and volunteer-minded.

Fake quote...

[monkeyfarm]

While the sentiment of the quote is good and all, it's also most likly made up. http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp