Slashdot Mirror
FBI Planning New Net-Tapping Push
Section_Ei8ht writes to tell us CNet is reporting that the FBI is pushing for legislation to allow law enforcement officials free access to networking gear via built in backdoors for eavesdropping. From the article: "Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute and member of a Homeland Security advisory board, said the proposal would 'have a negative impact on Internet users' privacy. People expect their information to be private unless the government meets certain legal standards,' Harper said. 'Right now the Department of Justice is pushing the wrong way on all this.'"
I know you will all hate me for saying this, but with a warrent the officials should be able to get into anywhere they want, including your electronic systems. As far from the article this law isn't about removing the needs for warrents, simply about making it possible for systems to be tapped when needed and when lawful. Denying officials access to these systems would be like denying them access to certain buildings. Although it is true that most buildings will never need to be investigated some will have bodies buried under the basement. Our right to privacy is protected by the need for warrents; making it harder for officials to conduct lawful investigations just helps criminals.
Philosophy.
make me wonder why we just don't encrypt the entire network ? I understand there would be more over-head, but wouldn't that be the same as games pushing hardware?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
I also don't agree with the provision that says that law enforcement officials would not have to publish a yearly "notice of the actual number of communications interceptions." Keeping this information private would not help their investigations. What difference does it make to a terrorist whether the FBI intercepted 12,000 or 120,000 communiques.
- Every conversation I have ever taken part in.
- Every place I have ever gone.
- Every purchase I have ever made.
- Every person I have ever talked to.
- Every book I have ever read.
- Every thought I have ever had.
It is required for the security of America and the World. The only people who resist the adoption of laws to allow the above are the people who have something to hide. Those who have something to hide are terrorists who wish to strip me of my "freedom".There are many ways to implement court-ordered wiretapping. The CALEA debate is not about whether IP networks should be wiretappable but about how it should be done and who should pay for it. Before CALEA, the FBI had to install Carnivore sniffing equipment at ISPs. I guess they think that's too much work, so they want every router at every ISP to be upgraded to have built-in wiretapping, so they don't have to lug any equipment around. And they want the ISPs to pay for these upgrades. And according to the article, now they want the ISPs to also filter the traffic for them, so they get only the traffic they want.
IMO this is an expensive, complex, failure-prone solution to the problem.
People expect their information to be private unless the government meets certain legal standards
I've never expected privacy on the Internet, either from the peering eyes of the government or my neighbors. Maybe because I was in business long before e-mail and instant messaging and the Web became "standard" and still view them as something about which to be wary.
My advice to clients and employees for 15 years has been: Never put something into an e-mail, or download something from a website, that you wouldn't want your mother, your spouse, your boss, George Bush or Hilary Clinton to have access to. You'd be surprised: That little bit of discipline and discretion really doesn't impact one's quality of life all that much.
*Should* I be expecting privacy? As a point of law? As a courtesy? [shrug] Never much thought about it. There's always *somebody* on top of a raised floor somewhere in the organization who is going to have access to my stuff, and it never fails that he's the shiftiest/scariest guy in the building, so I've just never got into the habit of growing any low-hanging fruit worth plucking.
Frankly, I really don't want any new laws "protecting my privacy," at least so far as this interwebs thing goes; I can protect myself just fine, thanks for asking...
I don't think so. . .
Within 4 days of this stuff getting installed, hackers around the world turn millions of computers into zombie machines via this backdoor and DDOS their favorite government networks. I'm getting this mental image of a cartoon: A german WW2 officer tosses a boomerang-shaped grenade at an allied soldier.
I am.
Let the FBI push that stuff and all the script kiddies, terrorists, corporate spies and rogue nations will be delighted to find those backdoors. How stupid can they possibly be? All that money for lobbying backdoors against the democratic will of the people would be better spent on basic IT classes for FBI personel, lawmakers, and the ones in charge of IT related decisions.
Next week legislation will be introduced that will require everyone to submit to mandatory daily body cavity searches. You can never be sure where evil is lurking.
And while we're at, should we just install cameras in our house? Might as well do it now, before they become expensive.
Dreamhost 20gb space 1tb bandwidth. savings with promo code bigmoney
...but this legislation or something very similar to it will pass. The fbi/U.S. government has discovered just how easy and effective it is to monitor citizens over the internet. Since so much of our daily life now occurs over the "tubes" of the internet (banking, purchasing, social-networking, entertainment, phone-calls, etc.), it makes it all too simple for the government to assemble detailed files on citizens just by eavesdropping on their net connection.
Sure, at first the feds/police will need to get warrants, but eventually that requirement too will fade away. The eye of Big Brother in every room will be present in the form of our internet connections. It is so pathetically easy for the government to get monitoring power over our online lives; all they have to do is repeat three words over and over again. Terrorism, child porn. Terrorism, child porn. Terrorism, child porn. That's it. If they keep repeating those three words, any legislation they want will glide right through Congress.
This is just adding another way for bad people to get into places they're not supposed to be....i mean, if the government can monitor me while on the internet, whats to stop "the bad guys" from using the same thing thats built right into the router? Also, would this even stop anything? I mean, with the encription technologies out there now, whats to stop the terrorists from encripting the data with practically uncrackable algroithms? To me this seems like spending a bunch of money to add a security hole, that only makes terrorists take one simple step to avoid.
It seems that thinking ahead is awfully difficult for some people. Sure, you may trust your current goverment and as such also see not much risk in introducing extended rights to it so that it can maintain homeland security. However, this isn't the issue. The current goverment won't stay in office for the rest of your life (even though Mr. Bush is trying to keep it in the family). So what happens when the next administration comes strawling in? What if this wasn't the administration you voted for and as such wouldn't trust with all these extended liberties to spy on you ?
That is the real issue, has always been, but thinking ahead like that really seems to be impossible for some people. To put this into a geekish perspective: even Palpatine was distrusted by the Jedi from the moment that he was granted emergency powers, which doubled when he managed to stay in office longer than the normal term.
So, you run your own business, eh? Do you expect that your business will never be robbed?
If you expect to be robbed, then why do we need any laws protecting your property rights?
Of course you can. Provided that you never need a credit history. But most businesses operate on net 30 or similar. So you'd need some protection and "privacy". You might want to look up "fraud" and "identity theft".
Maybe. You may be right. Or
RobotRunAmok
(email not shown publicly)
Well, it does seem that you DO value this "privacy" thing to some degree. You're using a 'nym and you've chosen to not reveal you email address. Why is that?
You're posting
With the way warrants work now, abuse is fairly hard, at least at the individual level. Some pissed off or nosy cop or FBI agent can't simply search your house or tap your net connection and so on. If the cop shows up at an ISP with the tap equipment, and so warrant, it's not likely he'll get it in there and it's pretty likely he'll get caught. Same idea as if you come home, and there's a cop rifling through your shit. You ask for a warrant and one isn't forthcomming, he's in a lot of trouble.
Well the problem here is that this can all be activated remotely, silently. A similar idea would be for the government to put cameras in your home. I have a feeling nearly everyone would object to this, regardless of the justification. The problem is that with something like this, an individual can spy on you at random, with almost no accountability. They just turn tapping on and go. There's no oversight.
Between the cost and the abuse potential, I can't possibly see this as a good thing. All power you give the government has potential for abuse, and you need to weigh that against what it gets you. This gets them nothing but convenience, they already have the legal authority to tap connections and such, and opens up huge potential for abuse. Thus it should not be allowed. The cost argument just makes it that much more compelling. It is not the burden of private businesses/citizens to bear this cost.
I also find all this extremely uncompelling because our existing crime fighting tools appear to be working. Violent crime in the US keeps going down. I don't think we'll ever eliminate it, but it looks like we are moving in the right direction, it looks like we ARE able to fight it. Thus I'm not seeing the need for this vastly expanded government power.
Require any manufacturer of "routing" and "addressing" hardware to offer upgrades or other "modifications" that are needed to support Internet wiretapping.
The question is whether those 'modifications' will allow remote wiretapping, possibly without ISP knowing anything about the tap.
IANAL, but I think that they can't sniff traffic coming from outside of U.S.?
So it's wrong to deny access/filter content because of "freedom of speech" but it is okay to spy on and prosecute those who may choose to exercise free speech against the US governments wishes.
Personally I prefer the Chinese approach - at least you know most of the stuff that would get you into trouble has been filtered.
Excuses Are Like Assholes - Everybody's Got One
This seems completely different than phone taps to me (which according to the article telephone switch manufacturers are already required to provide wiretap ability) because I think it would be a much bigger security risk. I am not entirely sure how they want this technology to work but if there are backdoors in all network switches then whats to stop access from ANYWHERE that internet access is available to anyone who knows how the backdoor works. You can't pick up your phone and use it to access a wiretap which makes the wiretap ability built into phone systems much more secure.
Having backdoors is a horrible idea because the way to use them WILL eventually get out to the public and before the compromised switches can be secured a lot of damage may occur. I don't have a problem with internet wiretaps that are similar to phone wiretaps (secure and not easily accessed without court order) but this just sounds ridiculous, especially the backdoors and also requiring the ISPs to filter traffic.
Hey, there is only one Return and it's not of the King, it's of the Jedi.
Seriously is this stuff serious? Or rather are some of the replies here serious? Do people really not care if the government can access your information easily? People say that if you have nothing to hide well then you shouldn't worry. I doubt this very much. I am pretty wary when it comes to trusting our government, especially in a post 9/11 world where they hide information from us "for our protection". For one, the feasibility of implementing this on a hardware level would cost such an increadible ammount of money. Why not have the goverment exoloit security holes in windows which are already documented but MS refuses to fix? Cheaper! Later they can just rely on more holes in Vista to get in, or have MS leave them a hole in their little wga program. But back to my first point as I have a nasty tendency to jump around and lose focus. EVEN IF I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE I DON'T WANT THE GOVERMENT OR ANYONE ELSE TO HAVE THE ABILITY TO LOOK AT MY PRIVATE INFORMATION! What I have to hide isn't illegal, or a threat to our country anyways. Everyone has something to hide of a personal nature. For instance, perhaps I don't want anyone to know that I've modified my wife and I's bed to contain built in restraints for recreational purposes. Perhaps I don't want them to know I subscribed to an online dating service because I was a desperate loser. Who cares? Thats personal. Its only law enforcements problem if I'm breaking a law/hurting someone else. Until then I should have the right to be as weird as I want without worrying if someone is looking at my bank records and email and seeing if I'm trying to arrange a special encounter for my wife with another woman. Not long ago, a girl was arrested for attempting to carry a condom full of white powder onto an aircraft. "Initial tests" determined it was cocaine, and the girl was in jail for over 3 months before some lab sent back and said it was only flower. Why was she detained? She was doing something unusual. If a girl is getting on a plane with a condom of white powder and you're concerned it might be coke, confiscate the condom and then determine if she is a threat to the flight. If she has no bomb, etc.. send her on her way minus her condom thing. There was no warrant so why should she be arrested even? There was no probable cause! I think this shows that you can be in trouble by simply being non-conformative, which is something that frightens me. So yes, I do have stuff to hide but not things that are a threat to national security. Find a reason why I'm a threat, get it past a judge, THEN I say its ok to tap my communications. I get really tired of people who are willing to give up freedom in the interests of better security as this is a process that doesn't reverse. The longer it goes on the less and less real freedoms we have. Its going on all the time but catastrophic incidents such as 9/11 greatly accelerated the process and as a result we have things like the [un]patriot[ic] act. Its only really noticible at accelerated rates such as now. People don't see that these changes are exactly the intended result of terrorist groups like al quaeda. They seek to undermine what we hold dear which is our freedom. A good way of doing this is fear. How to create fear? Kill some people on us soil. We'll all be like "protect us do whatever it takes to keep us safe!" In MY opinion the most defiant thing we could have done post 9/11 would have been to stand up and say "Your psychological and physical attack on the American people cannot and willnot deter us from mainting our greatest asset: Freedom. We will NOT let your terrorist ways change what America is and what America stands for!" I truely believe that this sort of response would have granted us better foreign relations as well thus stregnthening our world position, as opposed to pissing off most every country excetp a few close allies by saying if you're not with us you're against us. Way to go Bush, alienaing so many contries as enemies, though they did nothing to us. I'm sorry but as much as I ha
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
You're absolutely correct about this law enabling individuals to bypass the protections we've built up since our country was founded.
And that's not the worst of it. Individuals can harass other individuals.
But the same tactics can apply to groups within the law enforcement agencies. And that makes it too easy to implement a police state without ever passing another law. They can monitor anyone / anywhere / anytime without any oversight or paperwork.
Goodbye Democracy.
A great recent quote I heard some time ago was (loosely translated):
"If you trust all of your data to your government, you have to realise that you've got to be able to trust this government for eternity."
Always go under the impression you are being watched 24/7 and anything you say or do *will* be seen/read/heard and used against you at some point.
Even if you are doing nothing wrong, still assume the above.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The Cato Institute is often accused of being a conservative think tank. A lot of that has to do with positions they've taken on global warming.
But, this statement makes it clear that isn't exactly what they are about. They are more like somewhere along the spectrum between libertarian and conservative.
Don't like it? Give up computers. there's no such thing as privacy, get over it.
Shit ain't gonna change so you best figure out a way to cope.
Back in 2004 some of the highest-ranking politicians and other most influential people in Greece had their cell phone conversations surreptitiously recorded by an unknown organization for a period of months.
The job could not have been pulled off without the presence of automated wire-tapping functionality built into the Ericsson switches in Greece. What makes the "greek experience" relevant here is that Greece didn't even purchase the wire-tapping "option" to their switches, it would have cost millions more and they decided to save the money and thought that by not purchasing the extra software and hardware they didn't even have to worry about the issue. They were very wrong.
If ever there was proof that wire-tapping features built into systems for law-enforcement use can and will be exploited by unauthorized users, this is it. It really does not get more clean-cut than this - except for the speculation as to who exactly these unauthorized wire-tappers were - the leading candidate is the CIA. Which would lead even just a mildly paranoid person to wonder if perhaps the FBI is jealous of the CIA's latitude in foreign operations and they just want the same, easily-abused by themselves, features within their own jurisdiction.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Uh, I have a reasonable expectation that my internet communications are mostly private.
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.txt
Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
So, basically, I'm good with this being allowed, provided there is probable cause and a search warrant for a specific user and purpose is signed by an authorized judge. Simple.
You guys know exactly where we're headed, right?
I hope you've been reading your Vinge. This is equivalent to homework, if you're a technologist (programmers, that means you.)
Our destination is the Secure Hardware Environment (SHE).
That is, every computing device will have to have a section for the government built in, and the government will require access to just a small part of network traffic.
Further: All manufacturing will be observed. (see: Don't Try This at Home, and Remote Biology Labs -- how could it be allowed to work out any other way?) The US government (not sure which parts) is already rejecting chips for computers where the manufacturing process is unknown or unwatched (link lost; sorry.)
This will be done for your safety.
See also: Big Brother Takes a Controlling Interest in Chips. Rainbows End.
This is an interesting read, a historical perspective of a police state during the reign of Elisabeth I (in 16th century). It is often only with many years of hindsight that you can really understand what was going on. This has happened before, let history be your guide.
The terrorists fight dirty. The only way to fight them is to adopt some of their own tactics. This means that we may have to cooperate with some "unsavory characters." People you don't like, people you don't respect, people you don't want around, people you don't want your kids to interact with, people you wouldn't even allow inside your own home.
So tonight I'm announcing my intention to cooperate with the United States Government.
I dont feel like mankeing an account, so it says my name is Anonymous Coward. But im not, all that im doing is protecting my right to remain anonymous. If you are willing to give up everything to the govornment, then do it, personally i think your stupid. The reason i dont think they should have access to our information is as follows: Information is power, and power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutly. Not only do i not trust the govornment with my information because govorments tend to misuse information, but i dont trust them because they are lax about who can see it. A state govornment sold several hundred state computers to make room for upgrades, only problem is that they diddnt clean the hard drive first. Not very smart. If the FBI forces the ISP's to have backdoors for evesdropping then anyone whith experience in hacking can get in, and that means that anyone can get at our information. Or the FBI can use a hacker to get in without a warrent, and when they said hacker gets persicuted then the FBI can pardon him and give him money, now the FBI has your information, and they diddnt even need a warrent. Great use of power. If the legislature passes, im either going to move out of the country, sell my computer and go to an internet cafe, or just use the highest encryption methods available, if they have a warrent and they NEED to see what im doing then they can come to my house and ask me for my computer, and ill give it up. But if they want to be sneaky and do it behind my back, then they can kiss my hairy white ass and fuck off....ofcorse its my view of things, you may not agree with me and thats ok. But when they arrest you on suspicion of being a terrorist because the dumb fucks mistook something as threatening, then dont come crying to me.
Privacy, schmivacy! This will be the dawn of a new golden age of hacking.
Now, if they have nothing to hide, why are they so worried that we know how often this tool is used?
If privacy is dead, then transparency is our only hope. But the current mood in our government is to trust no one -- not a single citizen. Yet somehow, anyone in law enforcement or homeland security is deemed automatically trustworthy.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
But isn't it true that the Administration has already done what were their wet or wild dreams? All these breeding/training grounds created? All this enormous hatred towards US in the Middle East (if only)?
Ok, I've posted this a couple of times already...not just karma whoring, I just thought it was so fitting to the parent topic that I would post once more. I think we should all sing together!
The Terrorist Song
(Sung to the tune of Python's The Lumber Jack Song)
I'm a terrorist and I'm OK
I read at night and I work all day.
The Government:
He's a terrorist and he's OK
He reads at night and he works all day.
I read a lot and I seek the truth
I go to the lavatory.
After OKC, I saw some things that didn't make sense to me.
The Government:
He doesn't believe our story about OKC,
We monitor when he goes to the lavatory.
On Wednesday night, he went to an unapproved web site.
Chorus:
He's a terrorist and he's OK
He reads at night and he works all day.
When, after 9-11 didn't all add up,
I met with others on the net, to talk it up.
The government:
He didn't believe our story about 9-11.
We followed him to unapproved web sites after hours.
In our report, we'll say he had bomb-making materials under his sink.
Chorus:
He's a terrorist and he's OK
He reads at night and he works all day.
I don't think a plane hit the Pentagon.
I think the World Trade Center buildings fell all wrong.
I wish I could convince my dear ol' mom!!
The government:
He's a terrorist and we're going to make him pay?!
We read his e-mail and didn't like what he had to say?!...
Just me:
I wish I'd been born, back when America was really free!!
The Government:
He's a terrorist and we're going to make him pay
He reads the Constitution and knows his rights.
He's just like McVeigh, Bin Laden, and al-Qaeda!!
Chorus:
He's a terrorist and he's OK
He reads at night and he works all day.
Ron Paul
All the wisdom you need on this issue:
Net's tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D. A.
--
(Waves Hand.) There is no sig.
...which removes any fear it had of it's people.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Who is going to want to buy this stuff?
Not anyone outside the US... and not anyone *inside* - at least until they are required by law to "patriotically" only buy US-made networking gear.
It would have been nice if they had learned *something* from the years of the crypto export restrictions - stuff without the restrictions / backdoors / etc will be made somewhere, and will be purchased and used...
All this crap does is kill the viability in the global marketplace of products from US networking gear manufacturers. Sigh.
You might want to take a look at my posting history before you start throwing around claims of "lunacy" to anyone who disagrees with your "well-thought out and cogent arguments".
Or maybe that will just convince you that I am a "lunatic".
At this point, the problem seems to exist in your perception and beliefs. You claim that you don't believe in privacy on the Internet, yet you attempt to preserve your privacy from the "lunatics" on the Internet.
Those statements are contradictory. Your stated beliefs are contradictory. And you claim that those that disagree with you are "lunatics".
Well that's all the time I'm going to spend on this, with you. Thanks, buh bye.
"WGA" ;P
I'm not quite sure how the article writers missed it, but, privacy is possibly the least of the concerns in this. I mean, it seems obvious to me, but, if you make backdoors, no matter how well concealed they may be, you WILL have people finding and using them. This is far worse than just a compromise of our privacy, this is a compromise of all security as it could ultimately defeat the purpose of firewalls.
I don't know what is going on with the US law system lately, but, it's beginning to become a bit ridiculous with how many rights they've already managed to take away from us, and now they're getting braver and trying to take even more...
They don't need this in place before a warrant is issued. They can get a warrant, go to ISP, and say, "We need you to put this device in your network and send a copy of all traffic passed to and from user X to this network port."
No upgrade required. The only time you'll have a problem is if there's no open ports on any router, which is unlikely.
The idea of the FBI putting a device on my ISP's network isn't so much a violation of my rights, as it is a violation of the rights of my ISP. Even with a device in, no traffic should be sent to it without a warrant. I think the device should be left out until there's a warrant, for my ISP's sake.
I assume we're talking about the same FBI that just stopped the plan to blow up the Holland Tunnel by monitoring a chat room where the the suspects were discussing their plans. Of course, all the terrorism experts say that the "plot" would have never worked and that no real terrorists would sit around discussing their plans in an open chat room. Who knows what they'll "find" if they leave the chat rooms?
The US government is probably the most powerful threat to peoples' security, but it is certainly not the only threat.
Whether or not the FBI manages to mandate that backdoors be installed in your ISPs equipment, you have to already assume that some backdoors exist. Maybe the government already did some of it while no one was looking, maybe some peeping tom at your ISP did it so he could read your love letters, maybe organized criminals are trying to build a database of names and social security numbers, whatever. You damn well know that not everyone is able to secure their system, or that they don't have your best interest as their top priority, and that includes the ISPs. Big Brother and all his Little Brothers are already a plausible threat, and this particular story doesn't change a thing.
It is your responsibility and my responsibility to make sure that we have protected our privacy. Encrypt your mail. Make sure your next stupid web server project can do everything on top of SSL. Meet with people and expand the PGP WoT. Assume the government and the identity thieves and the little green men from Alpha Centauri will completely subvert the network, and work on protecting the endpoint(s) instead. As it has always been, the Internet isn't trustworthy, so don't get your panties in a bunch just because someone wants to make it worse.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Has the memory of 9/11 faded that much?
When you have to trot out that bogeyman, it means your argument has no value. Back under your rock!
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I'm sure that post was insightful, but it was painful to look at.
Seriously, consider putting paragraph breaks in your posts. That way, people are more likely to read your thoughts, which (from what I *did* read) are fairly insightful in nature.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
No. And I find it very telling that it is brought up so often by people who want to take away our Rights.
Fascism has nothing to do with Jews.
Fascism depends upon identifying an "enemy of the state". This "enemy" has to be so terrible that the Rights of the rest of the citizens must be "temporarily" restricted to prevent the atrocities that these enemies will surely bring.
The Nazi party identified Jews, Communists and Blacks as "enemies of the State". Pay attention to history.
And I never said that it was "inefficiency" that lead to Fascism. What I said was:
"Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people."
Freedom is not safe nor is it free.
Our Forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence knowing that their signatures would be used to condemn them to death if the British won the war.
They believed in Freedom enough to PUBLICLY identify themselves and their beliefs.
They fought and died for provide those Freedoms to you. And now you want to sell those Freedoms because there is a slight chance that you will be injured or killed.
The chance of a "terrorist" killing you is LESS than the chance of someone in your own family killing you.
It is LESS likely than you being killed on the highways.
Yeah, these people were all wrong about Freedom when they signed their death warrants back then:
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/
It's so good of people like you who are willing to sell our Freedoms and Rights for a false sense of "security".
Makes sense to me. Totally.
hang brain.
Noone including the Feds can look at a scene (ie. evidence) and determine whether anything illegal or bad has occured without painsaking efforts.
However the propaganda keeps flowing, like a sewer to terrorize us good citizens of the earth.
If they were able to gather EVERYTHING we did, said and saw, who would determine who should have the focus put on them for review!?
I mean we are talking metric tons of data, every second, and only a relatively small amount of humans to review it.
Are the Fuds going to use computers to disect who is acting suspicious?
This question like sooo many others is never really asked.
Regardless there is a way to beat these 'real' threats (i.e. the governments).. and that is to continue to express ourselves as much as possible, inspite of what ANYONE else thinks of you.
That coupled with 'affirmative action' against the 'law makers'.. who even suggest that stalking citizens, the way they are obsessed with it, need to be considered serious enemies of the state (ie. The People.. NOT the governments), who need to be stopped, in the act of their crimes against humanity, even if it means violently (in fact, especially if it is violently, since that is ALL they understand), and that is what will bring more pleasure to a blood thirsty populace.
-- This is no AC but proud
There is a little piece of legislature you should be familiar with, but obviously you are not.
.22 and .380 (non military pistols only), those can STILL kill a terrorist when 20 people stand up and open fire on Akbar and Ahmad.
It is called the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. It has several Ammendments, most of them (14 onward) are crap. But 1 - 10 are known as the bill of rights, and were not added lightly. They ensure that the government will NEVER infringe upon the rights of the people. Properly abided by, this Constitution, by itself, can easily guarantee that the rights of the people are not infringed.
One of these rights is the right to be "secure in their persons, papers, property and effects and to be secure from unreasonable search".
Its known as "the fourth ammendment".
Being that MANY liberals here are die hards of privacy and right to free speech, perhaps you ought to read up on your laws, and learn the law that CREATED THIS REPUBLIC (which we now falsely mislabel democracy due to the demagogues on both sides advertising it as such (read your Franklin quotes if you wish to dig up the truth, our founding fathers HATED the term Democracy as much as they hated Monarchy).
Might I add that if you move to China, the law will do for you exactly what you asked of it in your comment? Their constitution says that China GRANTS the citizens rights, and can revoke them when the citizens rights infringe upon interests of the state (whatever they may be).
Perhaps we should reinstate the right of the people to organize local militias, the right to bear arms, and the right to police oneself instead of waiting for the "authorities" to come dictate how life is to be lived.
My parents live in a heavy ex military, ex and current police and redneck neighborhood. They are liberals, but are happy to have said neighbors. They live next to a violent big city in VA (with very tough gun laws to keep the city "safe", but illegal gun crime with unlicensed smuggled guns leads the charts, only topped by illegal KNIFE AND FIST crime.) My folks however, have a neighborhood with ZERO crime rate for 10 years ongoing. Less than 5 miles away from said violent city (part of Hampton Roads, VA). Why? Because of almost NO gun laws. In Newport News, you need 45 days to 3 months to get a conceal carry permit. Yeah, tough law enforcement... and massive crime. In Williamsburg, Yorktown, Gloucester. It takes at most 45 days. Usually 3 to 15. I think Wmsbg has had 3 violent murders in 3 years(all college students, all with KNIVES, not guns), and despite 3 day conceal carry permits and liberal gun laws, wmsbg is a top retiree spot in the state. Odd? I think not.
Perhaps instead of defending draconian bullshit, we should defend the Constitution. I've seen it at work. Jefferson was right. "Let your pistol be your companion on all your walks." And indeed, if you do, and you know your pistol well, it shall keep you safer than all the 911 calls in the world ever could. (Cops will have to figure out who to shoot after they find your dead, raped body. You already have a 100% correct idea who to shoot while the rape is getting ready to occur.)
Perhaps if, instead of paying more idiots to staff Homeland Security, perhaps we should allow our citizens to do what they did in 1940, that is CARRY ON PLANES! South american nations allow it, and I have YET to see one successful hijacking, even if they're only allowed to carry
Might I add that I have done plenty of aeronautical research, my father and his father were both engineers (one mechanical, and my father was aeronautical and space researcher) both agree that "explosive" decompression like in "Final Destination" is the stuff of movies. Most aircraft actually DO leak. Ask military people if their planes decompose when they perform HALO jumps. I have yet to hear of a military plane fall apart when they go do the HALO jump. But just like uber explosive diesel tanks in movies, everyone buys what the government sells and tyranny lives on. (Hint, diesel is a high compression BURN, it does not explode if a gas tank is hit. Diesel takes ENORMOUS pressure to ignite.)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
There is no way this will work: if a firmware/OS update for a router or switch or server comes along and it implememnts the back door, what sysadmin in their right mind would apply it? also, what about open source firmwares and OSes that sont/wont have the back door because they are not based in the USA? will it be illegal to use a Linux gateway unless it is Novell or Redhat powered?
Who'll will pay for it (US citizen or vendors passed on to consumers)?
Will this be another unfunded mandate like CALEA?
What percentage of requested intercepts cant be done today but could happen would congress pass these laws?
How effective would these changes be? How many terrorists have been cought and brought to trail (only one related to 9/11)?
What is the impact on privacy of these changes? Is their a EFF analesys?
Will it be a bunch of broken protocols or use standard stuff (open source wiretap)?
Will we have to put it in our homebrew firewalls?
Will it make homebrew firewalls and routers illegal or maybe even Linux illegal?
A whole lot of a good a backdoor will do if the organization is using point-to-point encrpytion. I mean, just think about what will happen if this becomes common place? Organizations that want to keep the government out will simply migrate to IPV6 which encrypts everything by default. How would this work with Microsoft's idea of encrypting traffic to and from servers and other computers when they join a domain? Frankly, if someone has something to hide, it won't be that difficult to keep them out by using encryption technology. If I was a system admin with a router like this, I would implement some sort of point-to-point and broadcast level encryption.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Put "lawful intercept" back doors everywhere, and how long do you think it will take the next Kevin Mitnick to figure out how to exploit them? Remember that the FBI wanted remote access, so physical security won't help, and that 38,000 FBI passwords were so lame that a cracking program could guess them.
Nor is this theoretical. The Greek prime minister and many government officials found themselves eavesdropped on through the "lawful intercept" features on a celllco switch. To belabor the point, whoever was doing it was not the Greek police.
In south america they let you carry handguns on planes (no joke, .22 and .380 calibers, which, with a shot to the eyepatch can put someone down, despite the weak calibers (very accurate too, no significant recoil)).
Strange, I don't hear of terrorists blowing up planes there.
I recall a flight on air Iberia (spain) that got "hijacked" for about 15 seconds by uzi wielding terrorists.
Seems that their Israeli UZI were no match for the varied makes and calibers used by the citizens packing on the plane (back then they were allowed to).
This was an exemplary show of citizen responsibility. The passengers blew the terrorists to blood soaked pulp. They then enjoyed the rest of their flight. On landing, after the bodies were bagged and dragged off, they were told "thank you for flying air iberia, please watch your step on your way out, thank you for flying Air Iberia."
Voila, armed citizens equals no terrorism issues for us. Big government is what caused terrorists to exist. Before the civil war, and lincoln's MASSIVE expansion of federal powers, America enjoyed a VERY heavy dosage of goodwill from all. Even the Brits. The founding fathers feared a huge army, and look at what we've done to our fine nation? (By the way, if you quote abolition, there were founding fathers who did it, there's even a biography in stores now, the father in question was G. Wythe, VA).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Great Firewall Of China was created with THIS EXACT HARDWARE by such freedom loving companies as CISCO, IBM and MICROSOFT, if memory serves. Yeah, This is how China polices their internet so fast. How soon do you think our "employment issue" will be solved by creating the Great Firewall of America??
goto www.spp.gov and do some thought.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
>Denying officials access to these systems would be like denying them access to certain buildings.
The issue at hand isn't whether to deny or permit access to the systems. It's whether to require industry and academia, at their own expense, to embark on a redesign of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure to turn it into surveillance equipment.
Sticking with physical analogies, it's kind of like requiring every building owner to deposit a master key with the police, and then remodel to put cameras in every room.
"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either." -Benjamin Franklin
Naturally, the CIA must be involved.
Makes no sense to me. It would be rather difficult for the CIA to keep any modifications to that equipment along the way a secret under the later scrutiny, since there shouldn't even be any Americans involved in the transaction.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I am unwilling to give up the rights that others have fought and died for just because I have nothing to hide.
Hmmm... The day they push this through is the day I go buy a router that *I* compile the firmware for.
If they make THAT illegal?... I am not sure... I might just become a criminal...
Since when does drafting legislation fall under the purview and powers of the FBI?
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Look up "Phil Hartman". You can find other examples on your own.
It was only "witnessed by people around the globe" because it was repeatedly broadcast.
If they repeatedly broadcast car wrecks around the globe, then the same could be said of them.
"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. Again, there is more of a threat to those people from other cars on the highway than from terrorists.
"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. The country was in no more danger that day than a year prior.
"Terrorism" is about scaring other people. Their businesses were in no more danger that day than than a year prior.
No, they are the same in that in each scenario, people die.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm
The only differences are:
a. You are far more likely to die from aspirin than from terrorism.
b. People who do not understand statistics succumb to the "terror" in "terrorism".
And, over time, those "slight reductions" result in ... a police state.
Now, to demonstrate your understanding of statistics, why don't you name 5 countries which have fewer Rights than the US and fewer terrorist attacks.
If you cannot, then your point is invalid.
What "excesses of current policy"?
Either the reduction of Rights is necessary, or it is not. You cannot have it both ways.
Really? Perhaps you can provide an example of such? All of the Fascist states that I'm familiar with (Italy, German, etc) did not prevent the citizens from participating in politics. In fact, the citizens were encouraged to support the Fascists by identifying the "threats" in their communities.
"first shadow" and "centuries" don't match. Something cannot be the "first shadow" that happens over "centuries".
You may also want to read about various monarchs throughout the ages.
Look up "McCarthy witch hunt".
Is this giving them authorization to look without warrants? If so, it's unlawful. No amount of legislation, short of amending the Bill of Rights, will give them this authority.
Is this simply giving them access to the system easier once they have furnished the warrant? If so, let me say this. How many here would be okay if the government required lock makers, for your front doors of your house, to have a built in backdoor type thing in which they could easily unlock if they have the warrant to enter?
I don't expect privacy simply because of how our government works. However, I don't believe it's an unreasonable expectation/hope to have. Unfortunantly the Constitution doesn't give us the right to privacy; that's an Amendment that truly needs to be added. I remember reading an article right after the Tiannamen Square incident that the students had drafted a new Constitution. One of the things they added to their 1st Amendment was guaranteeing the right to privacy.
Sadly you can probably have more privacy in the real world vs. the digital one. Set up a mail drop or use General Delivery (if it still exists) for your mail, pay cash for as much as you can, use money orders for mail-order products, use pay phones for your calls, etc.
Free Programming BookLearn to program
So... the backdoors would be built-in, by this legislation, right? Won't that just make it easier for the scum of the internet to take over ever-larger numbers of PCs (personal, governmental, and corporate)? If the backdoors are allowing content to be readable as it passes through, can't people other than those retained by the government utilize the backdoor (at least in theory) and use that information to create titanic botnets?
Will corporate America allow their information technology assets to be thus put at risk of compromise?
~UP
Eat the Path.
You are not.
Fascism did not start in Germany. Fascism started in Hungary and Italy. It didn't really care much about Jews until Hitler came into power. Furthermore, terrorism has only killed maybe ten thousand people. Fascist and authoritarian governments have killed over ten million.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
They're asking Congress to draft legislation.
I believe that it is you that needs to work on your "cognitive thinking".
Well, unless your name is "Richard Pipes" I don't believe that he posted here.
Are you his secretary? Are you scheduling his appointments?
If not, then learn to support the statements that YOU make. Don't try to dump your claims off on someone who is not here and has not posted.
Actually, I did address them.
The "consequences" you speak of are nothing more than emotional reactions by people who do not understand statistics. And those "consequences" are what the "terrorists" are attempting to achieve.
So, if you are afraid because a terrorist killed someone, then the terrorist has "won" that round.
Nice attempt at a strawman. I did not say that the United States has no enemies. North Korea and Iran and two obvious examples.
But you won't stop North Korea or Iran by spying upon what US citizens say in chatrooms.
Just as McCarthy's witch hunts to find "Communists" in "Hollywood" did not in any way, shape or form hinder Soviet Russia's activities.
Did you understand it that time?
It was you who brought up "cognitive thinking".
It was you who tried to deflect arguments to "Richard Pipes".
It was you who could not understand that McCarthy did nothing to hinder Soviet Russia.
It is you who is resorting to personal attacks. That would seem to indicate that you're cache of "logic" has been expended.
Statistically, you are more likely to die from suicide than from a terrorist attack.
The only reason that terrorism still exists is because people do not understand statistics and allow their emotions to be manipulated. You've chose the emotional side of this issue and I have chosen the rational, statistical side.
Every poster to Slashdot ir regularly logged by a DOD computer and files turned over to the FBI for case by case investigation for subversive discourse and seditious thought and free thinking. If you have ever posted or replied on Slashdot (pro or con the government, it makes no difference, you are earmarked as dangerous intelligensia outside the 'organization') you have been earmarked as a subversive.
You've been listening to way too much Republican propaganda.
The fact is various different intelligence and investigative agencies already had all of the pieces of the plot in different datasets necessary to detect and stop the 9/11 attacks. However, the various agencies did not communicate with each other for various different reasons--some legal, some turf. In theory, this is why the Department of Homeland Security was created--to facilitate the kind of sharing needed for these cases. Whether it will be effective is a debate for another day.
But let's repeat the important part again, so that it has a better chance of being recorded in your brain: The various different intelligence and investigative agencies already had all of the pieces of the plot in different datasets necessary to detect and stop the 9/11 attacks. In other words, the "openness and freedom" that existed before the 9/11 attacks still managed to tell us everything we needed to know about the attacks.
It was the government that "let us down" by not connecting the dots. Of course, they don't want to say it that way because it makes them look bad, so suddenly we need all sorts of new surveillance laws to collect data that we don't need.
Is that somewhere in southern/central Asia with the rest of the 'stans?
"You appear to be under some kind of delusion that the Government is a sort-of monolithic realty carved in granite that is separate, distinct, and eternal, from you, and that it serves to provide a groundwork of truth and justice on which your entire reality rests. Well, let me assure you, the Government is run by people not very different from you or me. The only difference is, they got there first." --"V" V is for Vengeance
Has the memory of the Reichstag fire faded that much?
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
Shitforbrains, Facism was Italy not Germany. There is a difference. Just like there's a difference between communism and socialism (and all the other isms, that's why they have different names).
Is the US education system really this bad?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Umm, isn't that the root cause of the controversy?
More like I write it ;)
Oh, that is a real consolation! Liberals are amusing. Your point is irrelevent. Prevention is all that matters. What good is the ability to reconstruct the plot after 3000 people are disintegrated? Could you imagine running for office with such a policy. "Yes, the Sears tower was destroyed but hey, we identified the terror cell of the attackers." That'll sure to get you reelected, not! It would probably land you in jail.
an ill wind that blows no good
The Republicans are the party that thinks the way to win the war on terror is spying on Americans.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
If there is a "secret backdoor" in routers and switches, it will be found by security experts both white and black hat. This will open up ENORMOUS security and privacy issues. Compromise a machine, get it to link to the routers and switches and just collect the info. Could it BE more obvious? And if you think a warrant will be used, you're imagining things. Accoding to Bush, he doesn't need a warrant for anything while we are "at war." The war is just an excuse to allow his group to snatch more power for themselves and take more away from the people. If he was REALLY interested in fighting terrorism and defending the homeland, the closing of borders would have been the FIRST thing he did, not the last and most reluctant thing...
I already read it.
A preponderance of wild-ass guesses doesn't add up to good analysis.
There's no "the CIA held one of the receiving phones". There's no "CIA agents were seen at the scene". There's no "the CIA was tied to Ericsson" or the install.
In fact, the closest thing to involvement is "some calls from the interceptor phones went to the US, some to Laurel, MD (NSA headquarters)". The NSA being a different entity than the CIA.
There's simply no evidence to state assertively that any particular party did it. You can sure see the motive for the NSA (or CIA) to do it, but motive along doesn't make conclusive proof.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
It might tip things in favor of the FBI against criminals. On the other hand, backdoors like this would easily be abusable by criminals so it'll all average out. I'd hate to see the balance of the criminal/crimefighter ecosystem upset.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Yawwwwnnnn....... Yes, it has -- with people like you making it their own personal mantra, it is slowly becoming devoid of any meaning.
You seem to be contradicting yourself -- those open environments were outside the US, as they were plotting in the Middle East, and they still do. There are plenty of places therre where they can do so without fear of any reprisal. So, how exactly is wiretapping in the US going to shutdown those open environments over there?
So, you see, if you really want to take care of those "open environments" whom you speak of, then I suggest we nuke the entire Middle East.
Oh, shit! Wait a second! What is that? Cockroaches will survive a nuclear holocaust? Dang, guess this problem is a bit more complex than just dropping some bombs here and here.
*Should* I be expecting privacy? As a point of law? As a courtesy?
Yes.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
How many of you have never run a stop sign? How many of you have never sped?
Jaywalked? Worse?
To think that everyone should be punished for every violation of the law is to almost remoove free will.
I'd prefer to read 1984 live it.
Lets say, for instance, that my business competes with US businesses, or has competitive procurement where some of the parties involved are US businesses. There is a significant chance that my sensitive data will be accessed by the US government and passed to US competitors or those US businesses I am dealing with (Hint: The French were notorious for this, and their security people reputedly even bugged business class seats on Air France).
Am I willing to accept this risk - hell no. SOLUTION: don't buy any more IT gear from the US - the Chinese/Taiwanese/Japanese/Europeans (exept the French) have just become more trustworthy. RESULT: The US IT sector will need to host a few more farewells, to say goodbye to a few more export markets!
I didn't invent this expectation that the gov't won't collect information on me unless certian standards are met. The Privacy Act of 1974 REQUIRES the gov't to take very specific steps before they collect information on individuals.
Yes, these were factors in the way facism developed in Germany, but don't fool yourself. Facism is alive and well in this country too.
Like this comment? I accept Bitcoin! - 153sc8UUBXyp12ofQqfAWDmJrzyiKCYC1x
What I mean is this. Are any of the first 10 Amendments located anywhere in any of the articles of the Constitution, or are they essentially a seperate document?
Did Amendments 11+ essentially modify parts of the Constitution?
What I mean is this. The first 10 Amendments, those are the Bill of Rights. Those essentially tell us what rights we have as citizens.
The Constitution is what limits the government, what they are restricted to, so they don't overstep their bounds. Don't 11+ tend to do more with the Constitution than being something like the Bill of Rights?
Only way I would feel more violated is if someone drilled a hole inside my head to have a look around without my permission because I was a "threat". All they woudl have to do is write up one of their national security letters, or whatever else pseudo-legal paper work they use to get "right" to conduct surveillance without a judge.
All I can say is further erosion of what little rights we have left. This country is becomming a parallel of Nazi Germany.
Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Click the link and read the entire speech that ends thusly and ask yourselves this, if the monitoring framework we are moving towards had been in place when Patrick Henry made that speech, would he have ever gotten to complete the speech?
Who says they haven't already done so?
They had no problems getting and backdating the authorization to spy on phone calls some weeks before 9-11; what's different in this situation?
--I*Love*Green*Olives
There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. --George Carlin
I read: "FBI plans wiretapping Bush".
but with a warrent the officials should be able to get into anywhere they want, including your electronic systems
You might also wish that pi equals 3 or that gravity were half as strong as it is, but wishing that something might be so doesn't actually make it so.
As long as we have programmable, general purpose computers, there simply is no way for ISPs to comply with this: they cannot reliably identify VoIP calls, and they cannot reliably provide wiretapping capabilities for voice or IM communications.
You are outright wrong. Facism was born of Germany's humiliation in WWI, weak democractic institutions, and a widespread, simmering hatred of Jews, not of government "inefficiency".
Fascism was not some political or cultural idiosyncracy of Germans: fascist political views were rampant throughout Europe and the US. The primary difference between Germany and the rest of the world was that the Germans managed to implement a highly efficient system of surveillance that relayed any anti-governmental sentiments to the authorities and resulted in anything from losing your job and restrictions on your freedoms of association and movement to being sent to detention camps.
In fact, an efficient system of informants and surveillance for the detection of anti-governmental sentiments is a universal constant for every fascist or totalitarian regime, and it is fundamentally incompatible with a free or democratic society.
Has the memory of 9/11 faded that much?
I sure hope so, because it's about time that people view 9/11 in a more rational light. Tragic as the loss of several thousand lives is, it is not sufficient reason to throw away our liberties. Even if there was a 9/11 every year, the death toll from terrorism would still be negligible compared to other easily preventable deaths in the US. The fixation on 9/11 and terrorism is an irrational and self-destructive emotional response, not a rational policy related to security or saving human lives.
The reaction to 9/11 should have been focussed changes in airline and transportation security together with a reaffirmation of our commitment to keep our society democratic and open, not a wholesale "war on terrorism". Bush and people like you are aiding the terrorists.
With voicechat option of course ...
Read radical news here
Sorry, but your citation is meaningless in the context of this discussion. You seek to extend the "constitutional privacy rights" which the USSC extrapolated existed for marriage to today's Internet, which is to say, communications in a time of war. Bit of a stretch, doncha think?
...then why should you accept being treated as a criminal ? This planet will just become one day a Zoo with chipped, tattooed and rfid'd humans wandering around lining up happily for their free daily beating.
Some say it doesn't matter if someone else is always listening/watching. Well, do you speak and behave the same if someone is watching ? Can you pee with someone standing beside you watching ?
Hell, I'm not in the U.S., still I've come to a point where I don't even sign [before you start, I mean gpg] my e-mails going to the U.S., let alone use encryption.
I'd never use network equipment with backdoors known to have been built in (and I don't even have trade secrets to guard). Would you ? Would a company ? Would they prosecute you if you use certified hw with backdoors but keep everyone out with proxies and firewalls ? Or would they then make it also illegal to filter network traffic ?
Am I going too far ? Maybe. But sometimes you have to think further. Where can a road paved with ever more often restrictions lead ? If the police gets more freedoms while you loose your freedoms, what does that tell you about your future ?
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Great. So now politicians will not only be able to talk out of their own asses, but mine as well?
That just don't seem right.
Speak truth to those in the throes of stupidity.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
I'm afraid you've got it all wrong. 9/11 was indeed plotted out by some cockroaches, but if you believe it was the cockroaches from some caves in Afganistan or Pakistan, you're sadly mistaken. Someday the history books will point out that America's facism began with 9/11.
You're nothing; like me.
Do you know who created the Taliban? Who trained Al-Qaeda? Who then ditched them after it looked as tho they weren't going to be able to serve the purpose of protecting that huge oil pipeline Unocal was salivating over? That's right. WE did. We created this enemy. It's not like there are some bearded towel wearing kooks on the other side of the world that just straight up hate our freedoms... oh no no, they have a much much deeper seated hatred for us. Why we would worry about them is another question altogether however. The taliban tried to hand Osama over to us multiple times and were refused each time. It seems we still needed the bogeyman for other purposes after he bombed those US Embassies and the USS Cole.
You're nothing; like me.
First people complain about how insecure most networks are by default, and now they want to make them more insecure?
I don't care how secure the backdoor is, as long as we have binary firmware dumps, we will find it, and then the backpedaling will begin.
We need to stop electing uneducated people to positions where they can make decisions about the future of things they do not understand.
It's only an insult if it's not true.
And who is starting up another cycle of the same nonsense in Kazakhstan? [sing] We do! We do! [/sing] All this talk about spreading democracy and that the mistakes of the past (like toppling a legally elected Iranian government and installing a dictator) are in the past, but even right now we are propping up dictators in places like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. So, in forty years, we will have another "long war" to deal with, and I'm sure whoever is in charge will prop up other dictators to defeat those dictators.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
It will just help create more public attention to the abuse of government agencies in their ability to spy on people.
This is an agency that can't even keep chinese spys from getting classified information, no less will they be able to keep these backdoor survallance methods secret. The current IP structure is already unsecure enough. A move like this will be suicide for internet security. Government agencies regularly get their network and data broken into. An agency with no realistic IT expertise on such a large scale will undoubtedly screw themselves over with a move like this.
They will expose US citizens information to hackers whom get ahold of their backdoor methods and also to less than scrupulous operatives. Lets face it, humans are easily corrupted, especially those in positions of power. Giving the FBI such unprecidented and nearly untrackable access will ultimately hurt the FBI more than anyone.
A move like this will also create the demand and higher use for encryption standards which will ultimately render any backdoor spying methods mostly useless. The current system is about as good as it gets. As a previous poster mentioned the fact they have to go onsite to setup their sniffer PC is an advantage to the integrity of the process. It keeps unjust spying to a minimun (hopefully) and it creates accountability and a lack of total deniability since workers at the ISP can testify to the installation and judiciary processes could potentially track unjust use.
Backdoor approaches mean we (including the FBI) will have little to no idea who is using their spying methods rouge agents, terrorists and hackers. It will eventually have the potential to create a national securtiy crisis in which ISP and other networking vendors must rush to create firmware updates to their hardware after a mass abuse of built in security vulnerabilities. Such a move will also make it much easier for countries like China to penetrate sensitive information networks. Ultimately the fallout will be Americans demand high level encryption and adopting more secure pathways for their data needs effectively cutting the FBI out of the picture since they there is no practicality in a free market to enforce encryption filled with security holes. This means non-compliant vendors will sell their encryption and all the FBI will have are streams of encrypted data and not enough supercomputer time to do anything about it.
Those who want security will simply move to more secure network and methodology. In many ways the FBI will be making a trade off in which they get a short term gain to privlaged information, but at the same time put into motion a major push for government proof encryption.
you: "..read all of the (public) analysis of the event.."
me: "I already read it."
You suggested I read a body of evidence, I looked it up and read what I could find.
You misread my statement.
Despite having read what I could find, I don't consider myself an expert. Unless you are holding back some info you have, I don't consider you an expert either though. Those closest to the case are the experts and they have not named any culprits.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
No. I have something against irregular wiretaps done without warrents. Possibly even without the involvement of the police.
If you think that nobody outside of the police forces is going to have the codes to break into your network a week after the date is available, you've got your head in the sand.
Back in the '80s when it was common for the games companies to copy-protect their games (before they finally figured out that this just upset their legitimate customers), a friend of mine came in with a cracked copy of the latest game -- weeks before the game was available to legitimate purchasers. Network backdoor codes are going to be like that. The 2% of crooked cops will ensure that no spammer is going to lack for that information.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Fascist and authoritarian governments have killed over ten million.
Actually, the various socialist/communist regimes that infested the 20th centry killed in aggregate over 100 million. Stalin alone killed 60 million. Pol Pot, 2-3, Mao 30 million. Who the fuck knows how much the crazy-as-shithouse-rats Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, Castro and Ortega have killed?
If you add Hitler's death count to that list (NAZI stood for National *Socialist* Worker's Party) you're well over 100 million.
In Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk especially, try getting a CCW. Even with a clean record it will take the FULL 45 days. And then you need to call in and follow up, just to get the "letter of permit" after which your REAL permit will still take a good 1 or 2 months to actually come in.
In Williamsburg it takes 3 days to 15 tops (I used to live there).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
And as I recall there are no LAWS that dissuade carry on south american airlines (except brazil and colombia) in Venezuela in particular .380 and .22 cals are allowed anywhere except in El Presidente's presence (I think). The only gun laws I know are enforced throughout as far as civilian ownership and carry is "no military caliber weapons permitted to civvies". And .380's haven't been "Military caliber" since WW1 (and some sporadic use by Viet Cong in Vietnam).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
When I was a kid, and I'm not older than 30 yet.
Air Iberia is about 75 years of age to date, probably from the time period past WW2 when people were still allowed to carry on ALL airlines, Air Iberia seems to have been among the last western 1st world airlines to revoke that right to "avoid explosive decompression".
As for you calling bullshit, how old are you? How many places have you lived? How many old timers do you actually TALK to. How many old newspapers do you read (not google, or alta vista)??
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Politics aside, I wonder how much eavesdropping affects internet performance?
If every packet on the net is intercepted by, say, an average of three secret spy agencies, you would think the global network is only operating on 25% of it's capacity.
Or is this not how these technologies work?
Inversely, could there be some way to measure the amount of spying by observing network performance?
I think that the government should of course have access to these kinds of systems, given that they acquired the necessary warrants etc, but the records should be safeguarded by some kind of human element that would oversee the use of the records and what is done with them. Someone working for the data center that that contains the node wishing to be accessed by law enforcement personnel. I do not think it is right for the government to be able to just directly' tap into the system themselves and collect this data without any oversight from an employee or director of the sip / datacenter / network or what have you.
He managed during the course of his phone-phreaking to uncover US government wiretaps used to eavesdrop on foreign consulates - specifically Israel and South Africa.
"all they have to do is repeat three words over and over again. Terrorism, child porn. Terrorism, child porn. Terrorism, child porn."
You forgot drugs and drug traffickers. The "war on drugs" has been at the forefront on our loss of civil liberties in the last fifty years or so. Before that there were the McCarthy years with the communist purges. There were also a lot of terrible abuses of peoples civil liberties by the states and feds during Prohibition as well, until that is we found the good sense to repeal the insane amendment.
There is a long history of abuses in this country. Usually the abuses have been restricted to a minority of the population and no one else seemed to care. The beast that has been allowed to feed on the hapless minority is larger, hungrier and more insecure and aggressive. Now the people of the majority have begin to smell its foul breath and feel the chill of its shadow. This is a natural progression of this type of abuse of power and should have been expected by all. IMHO those who have created, supported, simply ignored or indeed often applauded this beasts self righteous feeding frenzy on others will deserve the attention they get when its fear driven hunger is directed toward them.
"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own." Thomas Jefferson
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
really, apart from this not being funny
What about privacy in telephone calls? Letters? or any conversation over any medium? The same school of thought could be applied to those as well. Imagine a world where everything was watched, where even your house has microphones for convenient "tapping" of conversations. Sure you could get around that by never conversing about something you didn't want others to hear but then we would also be brutally oppressed.
We have a very reasonable expectation to privacy in any form of communication. That you can overcome abuses of that privacy does not ever change that. Even worse your solution encourages more abuse by simply letting it happen.
Sorry if I was unclear, my point was that the suggested ISP equipment backdoors are different from regular phone wiretaps for exactly the reasons you specified (and others have given). The NSA wiretaps sound like they have been done by installing new equipment at AT&T, which allowed more than was needed for regular police wiretapping. I do not know how they collect data from the system, but it would be quite amusing if it turned out to be over the internet and someone cracked the protections.
Excuse me, but when did copy protection end? Well, maybe it took a break. I guess I have a few early CD games and some floppy games (early 90's) with no copy protection, but almost every game released in the past 8+ years has some form of copy protection and recently almost every game has StarForce on it.
Centralization breaks the internet.
We have a very reasonable expectation to privacy in any form of communication
What's this "we" stuff? That's my point. *I* never had any preconceptions regarding privacy as relates to my e-mail or web browsing, and I live my life (quite well, thanks for asking) without them. The conversation is not about phonecalls or semaphore or morse code or microphones in my house or any crazy stuff like that. It's about the Internet.
I've no need of the government to create any new laws to protect my "Internet privacy," especially if these laws are going to tie their hands later on when they are trying to do the job that I do need them to do, namely protect me against religious fundamentalists intent upon blowing up large sections of my neighborhood.
And puh-leeze don't give me any of that tired Ben Franklin crap about how I'm giving up my rights. It's about the Internet. The IN*TER*NET. Never had any rights of privacy regarding it, never expected any.
Careful now, be sure you understand your rights. I do agree that the law allows warranted searches for pre-described specific locations and persons and/or items. This should not be allowed to degrade into "with a warrant they can search or seize whomever, whatever, whenever, wherever they wish". Plus what about encryption, to require that one surrender the key is paramount to being a witness on oneself. The encryption key surrender requirement is in the works, failure to surrender the key would be either an outright admission of guilt or a separate crimminal charge such as contempt of court. I believe I read that something like this has already passed as law in the UK, any UK citizens care to support or correct this?
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
These guys just want what will make their job as easy as possible. Think of Brownie: sweet, right? $120K a year for next to nothing. So they have to watch the net. Most of these guys are like family. Who wants to mess with judges? Who cares about the law? It's all about looking good enough to keep pulling that .gov gravy.
Bad news.
Keep doing nothing about all these spy agencies and the KLM haliburton/concentration camp in Texas will start to be filled up with those who have been bitching. It all started with with electronic voting. It's going to end in blood, riots, and gas chambers. You need to break through the mainstream media blackout, most people that don't have web access don't even know this is going on. That means put stickers on bathroom stalls, and artwork where people without news can read. Also talk to your neighbors, some of them can not read either. Personally I don't think it's going to be much longer before they start coming after people like you and me. You could just keep acting like an ostrich and bury your head, and love you family until the world comes to an end for everyone in the USA. Welcome to the culture of death.
Good news.
2006 FIFA!
Go Italy!
This is about every form of communication. There are no fundamental or ideological differences between them. The same privacy should apply to all of them.
You call microphones in your house "crazy" because you assume it will never happen. Unfortunatly, the reason it wouldn't happen is not because it is ideologically different from tapping the internet, but instead because of technical and financial limitations. If putting microphones in houses was as easy and cost effective as tapping a router you better believe it would happen.
Now lets say hypothetically the government was able to afford microphones in everyones house. Following the same rules as internet tapping they only turn on the microphones for specific people they want to watch, but you wouldn't ever know if or when you had been watched. Would you be ok to this in-home equivilant of internet spying and why? I know you'd like to just dismiss this as "crazy" but thats just a cop out.
Association fallacy's such as the logical argument tool "reductio ad absurdum" (reduction to the absurd) or "reductio ad Hitlerum" (reduction to Hitler), which are what Godwin's Law attempts to thwart, are tools of debate usually employed to expose a contradiction, fallacy or weak argument. They really should not be used to set the framework for such discussion. I do agree that Godwin's Law does indeed express valid concerns when applied to a lot of Internet discussions. Such hyperbole has been way to common and often has been an indication of a weak argument, and such does tend to degrade the whole environment. In its essence the law would tend to promote discussion of more depth. However it also has the inherent tendency to apply a "political correctness" to such discussion. At some point Godwin's Law becomes untenable as valid limiter for the frame of discussion. Fascist states rarely happen overnight. Such a state is often the devolution of a Democracy or Republic and as such the decline is deceptively gradual. The signs of such trends toward fascist like states are apparent today in many lands including the USA and UK. To ban these observations in discussions because of the wish to elevate the content at some point defeats the validity of the discussion.
If you haven't already, you should read some Hermann Hesse. The novels Krieg und Frieden, Steppenwolf and Demian are insightful as to the stealthy insipid effects of such "politically correct" rules on discussion in social environments leading to a fascist state. Or maybe some George Orwell, the novels "1984", "Animal Farm", "Coming Up For Air" were also somewhat interesting in this regard. I do agree that those that rant incessantly and illogically in such a manner are in no way helpful indeed they often actually defeat their own agendas. Since my point of view is often tainted by these types I wish many would just shut-tf-up.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
For those of you that don't believe the "Hitler was a Commie! It's all a big commie conspiracy to defame fascism!" crowd doesn't exist, here ya go.
The tendancy for paraniod-subserviance among conservatives is too much to fathom. Too bad that your kind is in power.
When are you going to understand that polititians are not the nation, nor it's values, nor it's ideals? You understood this perfectly well over 6 years ago. Too bad you just kind of gloss over all that and equate legitimate critisism of the actions of polititians with some kind of blasphemy against god and country.
Whatever method that is put in place to do this, should such an idiotic notion (not in this government) come to pass, I have no doubt that it will be uncrackable for all eternity.
The easy cure for this is that the feds should have an automated process prescribed that posts everything they find (and everything about them personally, so that veracity / conflict of interest matters can be measured with at least pseudo-objectivity). After all, if they weren't doing anything wrong, they wouldn't have anything to hide, right?!
Back in the '80s when it was common for the games companies to copy-protect their games
When's the last time you bought a game? A game without copy protection is uncommon. Also there are probably more leaks before publication today than there were 20 years ago.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The same privacy should apply to all of them.
It shouldn't and it doesn't.
The SCOTUS extrapolated a constitutional right to privacy -- extrapolated, mind you; no where is it mentioned in the document -- as relates to the stuff that goes on *inside* your home. That's it! And your average middle-of-the-road consitutional scholar will still tell you even that's a stretch. Seriously, now: where do you come up with this "every form of communication?" As best as I can deduce -- and IANAL -- the only form of communication whose privacy is protected is the note you might slip to your spouse at the dinner table.
So let me spell it out: I don't want someone putting a camera in my house, and I have a right to that privacy. But the government has a right to put a camera on my street corner, and it has a right to look at my e-mail. Clinton kicked that off with ECHELON, and now Bush is just adding some buzzers and whistles (and bad press) to the process. Doesn't affect the way I live my life at all. Hopefully, the next ultra right-wing religious extremist looking to slam a plane into a building or collapse a tunnel on top of my commute will use the Internet to plot some of his shenanigans and get nailed.
Oh, wait: Didn't that just happen?
Judging from Bush's sub-30 standing in the polls, even Americans (other than you) are disinclined to trust him. You expect foriegners to be more trusting?
Tech Public Policy stuff
What I mean is this. The first 10 Amendments, those are the Bill of Rights. Those essentially tell us what rights we have as citizens.
The Constitution is what limits the government, what they are restricted to, so they don't overstep their bounds. Don't 11+ tend to do more with the Constitution than being something like the Bill of Rights?
No, no, a thousand times no!!
The constitution explicitly lays out the few powers the government is allowed to have.
You have pretty much every right you can possibly conceive of barring things like murder, theft and the like which harm others.
The bill of rights is the first ten amendments, but the constitution never really existed without them since it wasn't ratified by the states until they were added due to some loony paranoid conspiracy freaks (to use the current popular lingo) who wouldn't shut up about potential abuses.
The bill of rights came about something like this:
So, the answer to all of your questions is "no".
The less polite answer is that the fact that you even asked such utterly insane questions that demonstrate your complete and total misunderstanding of the entire point of this country rather than just reading it for yourslef makes you part of the problem.
Back in the day Bush, his entire administration both houses of Congress and the cowards who defend them (as well as many other prior public servants; don't kid yourself that it started with the current Traitor in Chief) would have been dragged out in the streets and shot.
I opposed the ECHELON project just as much as any other invasion of privacy. I'm an independant and care about issues not party lines.
Those terrorists were not even in this country, nor had they ever been. Wiretapping did not have anything to do with catching them. They were caught by monitoring websites and chatrooms. Details, Details..Those terrorists did not have funding or bomb material, they sound about as dangerous as the wannabe al'qaeda in florida. It doesn't take much training to get around wiretapping with encryption and coded messages. I'm sure there are real terrorists out there and all this domestic spying wont hinder them any more than gun control laws stop criminals from getting guns.
There is just no way to implement this stupid idea. Maybe this stupid idea is not meant to be implemented. Maybe it is just meant to be a distraction.
Miles
Wiretapping... Wiretapping... Wiretapping
Listen to yourself! Who said anything about wiretapping? This is not about wiretapping, nor is it about *coming into my house* and seizing my computer. None of my e-mail or my web surfing move along telecomm wires inside my home.
It doesn't take much training to get around wiretapping with encryption and coded messages
And it doesn't take a heck of a lot of effort to not use the Internet or e-mail in any way that might incriminate yourself. And I would prefer that people rely upon their own discipline and common sense than call upon a nanny-state government to "protect" them in the name of their "rights."
If you add Hitler's death count to that list (NAZI stood for National *Socialist* Worker's Party) you're well over 100 million.
You are misunderstanding the term. "National socialism" is not socialism with the adjective "national" added to it, it is one indivisible term. In German it's called "Nationalsozialismus" as opposed to "nationaler Sozialismus".
The NSDAP (as the party is abbreviated) had a social side, providing the poor with food and promising work (which is why they were so popular), but they weren't really friends of socialism and certainly not communism.
Nevertheless, Nazi Germany qualifies as a prime example of how a fascist state can get away with extreme atrocities without the people even noticing (most people only learned of what happened in the KZs after the war).
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
1. All servers on the internet get backdoor'd.
2. Hackers figure out how to exploit the backdoors.
3. All TC servers get rooted. Trusted Computing turns into a massive worldwide system DDOS as no key validates at all, rendering all TC OSes unbootable, all TC protected files unopenable.
4. TC goes down in flames as nobody trusts it anymore.
I think this is one of the best ideas the FBI ever had.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
No, I don't. Why should communications in wartime be any different than communications in peacetime? Do you really think the government will roll over and abolish the Patriot Act, stop its unconstitutional wiretapping activities, etc., the moment we "win" the "Global War on Terror"? For that matter, do you really think the "war on terror" is any more winnable than the "war on drugs"?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Why should communications in wartime be any different than communications in peacetime?
Uhh, because "loose lips sink ships?"
For that matter, do you really think the "war on terror" is any more winnable than the "war on drugs"?
C'mon, you seem bright enough to know that "war on terror" is the PC euphemism for "War Against Islamic Fundamentalists," and in its proper context, it is winnable (ask the Ottoman Empire). To do so requires the toppling of Iran, however, and the West does not have the stones to do that so quickly after Iraq. But I continue to hold out hope.
And what's with your fixation on the "wiretapping?" Someone tap your phone at a very early age or something?
You are misunderstanding the term. "National socialism" is not socialism with the adjective "national" added to it, it is one indivisible term. In German it's called "Nationalsozialismus" as opposed to "nationaler Sozialismus".
I agree with the point of your post (that Nazis are no friends to socialism) but one semester of German in college taught me that adjectives and nouns usually are combined to form one word in German.
So "chocolate cookies" would be "Schocoladenplatzen" instead of "Schocoladen platzen." That would go for any set of adjectives and nouns.
(yes, a semester of German and all it got me was the ability to ask for chocolate cookies.)
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
privacy on the internet is about noone peering into your personal communication aka "wiretapping". Wiretapping requires a warrant because of the 4th amendment. It does not matter if the wires are physically in your home and courts have upheld this.
This has nothing to do with people incriminating themselves, it has to do with my right to privacy. It doesn't matter what i'm discussing, i still have the right for it to be private. I know you're working with the thought "If you don't have anything to hide why do you care?" well i prefer "If i've done nothing wrong why do you spy on me?".If the government can't protect ALL of my rights then it serves no purpose especially since it was founded for that reason.
why are you all complaining - this is exactly what you have been begging for all these years!
Ah, I see the propaganda machine has been doing its job. Do you really think that "terrorists" are just people born with an irrational hatred for "freedom" and that's why they blow themselves up just to terrorize people half way across the globe from them?
Why are we so often the target of terrorism, and not other countries? How come Canada doesn't have to worry about terrorist attacks in their country, despite their defense budget being miniscule compared to ours and their equally (if not more) free and open atmosphere?
Do you think Palestinians simply have a genetic defect which compels 17 year-old girls who once aspired to be journalists or teachers to strap bombs to their chest and blow up Israelis? Why would a nation with no standing army want to purposely instigate war with the second most well-armed nation in the world--thanks to the billions of dollars of annual defense aid from the U.S.? Because they've got some sort of terrorist gene and the Israeli government just isn't doing enough to protect its citizens?
Terrorism starts when desperate people are pushed to extremes through continuous oppression. It's what desperate people resort to when they have no other recourse. It has nothing to do with whether a government is performing its duty to protect its citizens. That's why no matter how much money we pour into "defense" and the War on Terrorism, and no matter how much power we grant to our government, we'll never be as safe as countries that don't interfere with the democratic will of foreign nations, that don't manipulate the political process of other states, don't impose suicidal economic policies on developing nations, and don't exploit weaker nations for their economic resources.
But keep buying into whatever CNN/Fox News wants you to believe, and ignore the obvious realities that are in front of you. The fact that the military industrial complex exerts enormous influence over our government and is exploiting our position as the world's superpower for its financial interests has nothing to do with the creation of terrorists, I'm sure. It's all just a bunch of crazy rag-heads who have a fanatical hatred of "freedom" and "democracy"...
I know I'm way late on this conversation, but I'd throw in a relevant link: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28121 :)
Nowadays, game production is "big business" I guess that copy-protection salesmen now have easier access to the game company executives than their customers do... They don't quite get that the people who are intent on pirating their works are unlikely to buy them in any event, and people who are willing to buy them are simply annoyed by anything but the most benign copy protection schemes.
In any case, the current situation supports my contention -- People who want to break the system sometimes get inside information -- and, even when they don't, they still manage to break most methods. In either case, you have greeblies walking all over your network data, and cops able to do illegal surveilance with no oversight -- the worst of both worlds (unless you're a terrorist or a criminal).
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
It does exactly what spp.gov will do to US citizens. It extradites you from your locality and makes you directly responsible ONLY to the fed. You are now an AMERICAN citizen only. And when spp.gov gets their way, and the North American Union forms up, we'll have what is called a North American Citizen, completely devoid of a bill of rights of any kind because it will be invalidated by the "agreement" in place. Just watch. The europeans have been used to being bullied around by rulers, any pretense at freedom is simply that, a farce, but we have NO excuse for having let shit get this far.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
How much news coverage did you see on mass media, internet or otherwise of the US delegation's presentation at the UN "illegal small arms" conference these past 2 weeks?
.22 to school, leave it and the ammo with the principal and then go shooting with "the rest of the boys". If you disbelieve it, ask the old gunnies and watch their eyes well up. Nowadays you'll probably get expelled for bringing it up.***
Yeah exactly, you got Koffi's little bullsh** speech and then it went off. About the only people that shot film of John Bolton's speech Cam Edwards from the NRA. Figures, nobody wants to hear gun positive things, or disarmament negative things...
Lets go back to that lovely example of what follows after getting rid of guns from lawful citizens... remember the chop job in Ruwanda? Yeah... UN defines "legal small arms" as those "arms owned by government players" while illegal small arms are those held by "non government actors". By that judgement, even our founding fathers would've been barred from holding guns.
Do some research by talking to old people... A lot of news coverage isn't given to things that are against the whole world government deal.
I lived on the eastern block, by that same measure, and I still remember that everyone carried a weapon of some sort, even if nobody admitted it (penalties were stiff, since communists got pretty upset if someone was discovered owning a firearm, but the revolutions that took place actually did involve firearms, not all of them seized from Social Security (that's what they were called) troopers, sadly when it was all said and done, the people reestablished the same old world order that they had been accustomed with.)
** I will dig up that story for you and post a scan if I can find it in a newspaper. **
*** If you were alive in the US in the 40's you can probably remember that you could still take a
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Microsoft does't need to be alcoholic, but just so they drink the wine from Linuxland advertised at http://www.winehq.co
What part of "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside" do you not understand? As for the rest of that... you're sounding like the guy in high school who ranted on about the "New World Order" and how Bush Sr. and Clinton were in league with the aliens to subjugate the human race.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Its a mystery to me. Chuckle.
Here are some reasons the Palestinian Arabs commit acts of terror:
The Palestinians have received billions in direct US aid, as do Eqypt and Israel
And so it should! Did you see the way the MIC lullabied Zarqawi's ass? Wow!
Next victim please...
an ill wind that blows no good
I'd have to research the origin more then.
It doesn't seem like we have much in the way of freedom of religion. If a religion, a church, is denied the ability to marry two homosexuals, allowed in their doctrine, or perhaps perform polygamy, that really says a lot about what the government thinks about the 1st Amendment.
The aliens part I don't believe, but I've lived outside of the little bubble that is "School, Work, TV, never leave US, when leaving US stay in US friendly area, don't ask questions... breathe, look like dumb bovine at things I don't know from *the nice man on tv*"
:)
Sheesh... there is a new world order son... but the people running the show are actually intelligent enough to do it openly
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
It isn't them.
:) I'll put in a call about it to Cam Edwards, see if he can dig it up on NRA news (you'd be amazed how little good things one can find on radio after having been on the road for a bit).
You're right, I'm going to get in touch with my friend and ask him to send me an article if he has one (at 75 years old, he's got a few years on me and tends to clip a lot of articles
To support your comment about things being "suppressed", I actually used to enjoy google videos as well, but as of late several videos a friend of mine at GNN posted have gone offline, quite often requested, no more defaming than any other videos up on video.google. Most of them were new world order, loss of freedoms, loss of rights type stuff, some are VERY good, some are 100% crap, most were on google video or youtube, and the google videos have been down for weeks... not for lack of viewers mind you. GNN, however, is a VERY far left newsgroup (if you've frequented the board you'll notice that there are maybe 3 or 4 ACTIVE centrist/rightwing types on that whole board (and one is a troll), rest being so far of the left that they called Mao TseDun a capitalist christian(or other religious "god fearing" man)).
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
I don't have time to google it tonight, since I need to get rolling and typing while driving an 18wheeler would probably kill someone (myself notwithstanding) but do a lookup on "unitary executive" and add Bill Clinton to the mix. I remember reading an article about it (might be gone by now) about Bill being the guy under whom the "unitary executive" was "united". He's the "fella" who put the various executive decision privileges all under the unitary... not sure if that's the right wording. I read the article about a year ago, so it should still be around
Try these strings (google seems to not be responding well to my searches, try yahoo or altavista (see it is good for other things than just finding warez)):
bill clinton and centralization of presidential powers
bill clinton and unitary executive decisions
Wow... seems Bandit Bill made off with the glory and left his buddy George to take the fall. Funny, almost. I'm no George Bush supporter, but neither am I a Clinton supporter. And as far as the UN goes, look at their PRAISE of the "police action" taken against "illegal small arms" in Uganda.(they got upset once the Ugandan military started raping women, on top of murder and theft... well everyone has "some" standards, and the UN gets squeamish about rape it seems, but remaining silent while its "members" commit atrocities, well that's par for the course.) *chuckle* Yeah, Bill Clinton belongs in Koffi's place. After all, Uganda won't be QUITE the UN Masterpiece that Ruwanda's "chop job" was, but the innocent blood will run all the same. And the UN, of course, will condemn guns (even though the real issue was a disarmed, powerless people, with NO rights, being butchered by their GOVERNMENT... hmmm... come to think of it... so was the Jewish Holocaust... oh and the Russian Pogroms against Jews... and the Israeli onslaught in the middle east, and Saddam's gassing and massacres... and... well you get the point.)
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
If a religion, a church, is denied the ability to marry two homosexuals, allowed in their doctrine, or perhaps perform polygamy, that really says a lot about what the government thinks about the 1st Amendment.
Well, there's some truth to that. I don't think that Churches are denied the right to marry anyone or thing that they want to. It's just that that marriage won't be legally recognized by the state.
That's the thing that these anti-gay marriage wackos are so off base about. "Marriage" means at least two entirely differnt things. There is the religious aspect (to some people) which is determined by the particular church and can mean just about anything or nothing depending.
Then there is the legal institution which really only relates to things like hospital visitation rights, inheritance, and things like that.
So AFAIK (and I could be wrong on this) a church could marry a dog to a cow, a chair, and a person all at the same time and the state wouldn't care. It's just that the state wouldn't recognize the marriage in terms of granting the benefits normally associated with it.
The anti-gay marriage zealots keep trying to confuse the 2 things by on the one hand talking aobut "preserving the sanctity" of the institution and other such idiotic nonsense while ignoring the fact that in the eyes of the law it is only a legal contract. "Sanctity" and other such crap aren't legal terms and have no meaning in the law. At the same time, they're trying to change the constitution to destroy the whole seperation of church and state idea which is the only thing preventing the government from forcing them to perform gay marriages in those places where it is legal.
Truly insane.
If you mean a church has the right to deny marriage to anyone, then that is true.
I couldn't have said that better myself. Well done.
You're nothing; like me.
If you dismiss the importance of the attack on 9/11 any reasonable person should wonder about your ability to assess reality and should disregard your deluded perceptions altogether. You 're the one under the rock or with your head in the sand or whatever stupid cliche applies. The attack is not merely a ``bogeyman'', it's a true occurrence and no number of moderation points can prove it to be merely fiction.