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U.S. Government Demands ISP Data Retention
dlc3007 writes to mention an article in the New York Times discussing data privacy. The article expands on the U.S. Government's 'request' last Friday at a meeting between Robert S. Mueller III, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, and the executives of several Internet Service Providers. The ISPs were required to retain data on users, for trials if subpoenaed. Right now they're asking companies to do this. The threat is that, if they don't comply, legislation will follow. From the article: "The Justice Department is not asking the Internet companies to give it data about users, but rather to retain information that could be subpoenaed through existing laws and procedures, Mr. Roehrkasse said. While initial proposals were vague, executives from companies that attended the meeting said they gathered that the department was interested in records that would allow them to identify which individuals visited certain Web sites and possibly conducted searches using certain terms." We originally covered this last Sunday, but more details have been released on the meeting since then.
Edwards: George W. Bush is the "worst president of our lifetime".
The U.S. government is becoming involved in a culture of all war, all the time, and all surveillance, all the time.
Most people don't realize that former presidents have access to CIA and NSA data. So, if voters in the U.S. elect a president who has family and friends and business associates heavily invested in oil and weapons companies, that president will be able to use the data to spy on competitors. It's not so crude as that; it's much more sneaky, but that's the result.
The main purpose of the Iraq war was to arrange that the Iraq oil profits would go to Americans. Other purposes: 1) Saddam Hussein of Iraq was upsetting the planned artificial scarcity of oil, and oil companies wanted oil prices to go up. (Yes, there is real scarcity, too.) 2) The oil was being sold by Saddam Hussein for euros. If other countries began selling their oil for euros, the dollar, weakened by unprecedented debt, could crash. Instead, the value is going down slowly, making everything more expensive for people in the United States. The weakening of the dollar is equivalent to stealing the value of people's savings. 3) The U.S. government gives perhaps $5 billion each year to Israel; the money is used to kill Arabs. Saddam Hussein had made threatening statements about that, and Paul Wolfowitz arranged that the U.S. would pay for Israel's security, serving his culture against the best interests of his country. (They call it "doctrine" to give it a kind of religious importance.)
There's nothing "conservative" about Republicans. Some Republicans are responsible leaders, but others have formed a kind of crime syndicate to sell the U.S. government to whomever can use influence to make money. See U.S. Federal Deficit by Political Party.
U.S. Vice-president Cheney, whose friends and family and business associates are invested in oil and weapons, had a secret meeting with oil executives. A few months later, the price of gas rose enormously. Coincidence?
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Taxpayer Karma: If you give money to kill people, expect your own quality of life to diminish.