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Homeland Security Tests Snoop Computer System
Parallax Blue writes "The Washington Times reports that Homeland Security has developed and is testing a new computer system called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement) that collects and analyzes personal information on US citizens. Relevant data 'can include credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information.' The program apparently uses the same process as the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns."
which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns
If by aborted you mean "renamed, swept under the rug and kept secret this time", yes, it has been "aborted".
Rules for naming projects:
...
1) Choose a word you like. Or better, that the boss/sponsor likes.
2) Reverse engineer an acronym to fit. Sort of.
3)
4) Profit!!!!!
Don't tell me it ain't so.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
But TIA was part of the military. This is for the defense of our homeland, so the trade-off in liberty must be worth it.
Granted, data mining can dig a lot of interesting info out of big databases. But to me, there are two big problems with these type of programs:
1. Guilt by association: When they are doing "linkage analysis" using your phone records etc, how many people will be swept up in the "terrorist" net because they visit the same library as a "terrorist", or got called by accident, or shop at the same Wallmart?
2. Mandate drift: We all know that now it is "the terrorists", soon it will be "the terrorists, the child abusers, the drug dealers, the guys who hit little old ladies, ...". But with the sorts of data mining they are doing, they could just as easily pick out groups of probable (insert political affiliation here). How would you like the FBI showing up at your door because some data mining program thinks that you are probably going to protest a visit to your hometown by the president?
http://infowars.net/articles/march2007/080307TIA.h tm
The part I really love, is their logo. A giant eye of Horus with beams coming out of it encompassing the Earth.
Is it me or does anyone else find that just the slightest bit odd?
Funny how this came out just as we are hearing on NPR that the FBI underreported by 20% their use of so-called "National Security Letters", and how there is insufficient oversight on their use, according to the DOJ inspector general.
Ok, I gave up on the U.S. quite a while ago. If *that* is the freedom you were proclaiming for the last few decade, then let me move to the USSR...oh, you brought them *democracy*...damned! :)
As long as good (old) Europe is free(until you bring us democracy too;) I'll just stick to my side of the atlantic (and the channel).
But seriously, U.S. citizens, aware of their surroundings, must be pretty frustrated by these moves.
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
I think it has gotta do with helping corporates than fighting terrorism.
Such mining of data by any single corporation is almost impossible without the HP-Pretext suits.
Hence, if the corporates pay the politicians to make the Govt. to undertake such a study, they can benefit from it.
Why else do we need to analyze credit card statements, spending patterns, etc?
Since politicians, especially republicans have no qualms about spending our tax money on such a thing, they give it a sinister (FUD) name that talks about "terror" in the same way Iraq ties to terror...
This way people think the Govt, is working for them, while the corporates which sponsored the study are laughing all the way to bank with increased targeted marketing opportunities.
I think congress should impeach both Prez and VP at same time and file charges under PATRIOT Act.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
I wondered when this would come on-line. The've been working on the infrastructure since Echelon and TIA went undercover sfter te recol
Would anyone like to make a call to the ACLU?
It is done in the USA, Blair then copies the ideas in the UK, then this stuff is harmonized up to EU level as an anti-terrorism measure. So you're not safe from this stuff in Europe either.
e /
There's examples with SWIFT.
SWIFT violated Belgium banking law and EU privacy law, and USA FISA law when it handed all it's data to the NSA & CIA. UK banks were complicit in this, and would also face prosecution.
Instead, the EU Commission took over the case from the Belgiums to 'coordinate the response', and are currently agreeing a treaty to legalize the sending of data to the USA as an anti-terrorism measure. So they're setting Europe up as a satellite nation to the USA.
The UK banks meanwhile, are writing to their customers and changing their banking agreements to make what they did legal:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/07/bank_prob
So now they're making themselves immune when they hand data over to foreign governments.
But now if China wants the EU data from HSBC or Citibank or any other major international bank that operates both in the EU and China, then the bank can simply hand over the data to keep the Chinese happy and their banking terms permit it.
So you are not safe in Europe, as long as people like Blair follow the Bush lead. To prosecute the SWIFT case, either the Belgium prosecutors have to stand up to the USA on their own, of it's handed to the EU, but they can't do anything without unanimous consent, so Blair would block any action to protect Europe's interests.
There is no-one fighting Europe's corner here.
We've got something similar to this, it's called:
Assimilating,Reasoning,
Statistical,
Enhancement,
Highlighting,
Online,
Linkage and
Encryption
Luckily no-one cared about our version as we've already got CCTV everywhere.
Welcome to the surveillance society. Come on in, just don't say anything that might result in your arrest. Things like: 'I'm not too fond of our current administration, I may vote for someone different next time,' are a definite no-no. Just stay on-message, never have anything to hide and you will be fine!
I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
...to work on projects like this. I've always thought there was a relatively strong consensus in the tech community that information should be open and privacy must be protected. Of course there are always those who think differently, but on a whole I'd guess they have a pretty small pool to pull from to develop something so sinister.
;-)
I'm guessing they hired developers from other countries just like MS does, they have no adversions to spying on the american people, in fact they will probably get a job doing it when they return home with this wonderful experience we gave them! Makes me feel safer, I was really getting tired of those terrorists disturbing my neighborhood.
Anyone know a country that is actually free, and has pretty decent immigration policies? I think I want to leave while I still can
Honestly, I love my country, but I hate the direction it's headed in... someone really needs to convince the public to stop being so afraid so that politicians will stop pulling the wool over their eyes and pushing bad legislation through in the name of "protecting the people". If I want to trade my civil liberties for protection, I'll be glad to contact the local homeland security office and let them know that I'm ready to take it in the ass!
Sorry, this just pisses me off, how could anyone develop such a horrible thing, I don't care what they were paid... for most of us it wouldn't be enough!
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Did you ever forget to report that extra income you made mawing lawns in that summer, well you hid money from Uncle Sam and you probably used it to fun al-Qaeda which makes you a terrorist.
Did you ever think bad thoughts about the president? Well are definetly a terrorist.
Did you ever use encryption? Only pedophiles and terrorists use encryption so you are probably a terrorist.
Taking all this into consideration, we (the DHS) are offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel. You'll be scheduled on the next flight to Egypt on our luxurious private jets. You'll be viziting old prisons and other historical sites where you'll get to take part in exciting age-old interrogation by torture performances to learn local culture and expand your horizons. Oh and...you'll be the one being interrogated, oh and... it's not a performance. Kthxbi
Welcome to our 'democracy'.
You cannot control a democratic country by force but you can easily do it with fear and lies. Here is the algorithm:
--Fuck up a country algorithm:--
Input: Country founded on freedom, democracy, individual privacy
Output: Complete government control, 0 rights, 0 privacy
1. Make the people afraid. Could be anything, terrorists, communists, mexicans, chinese, witches etc.
2. Tell them that you can make the fear go away if they just willingly relinquish a little bit of their rights and freedoms.
3. Repeat 3 until no more rights and freedoms remain
4. Done.
For having so much dead during the blitztkrieg of the german during 1940 and then surrendering when there was no hope of counter attack ? Coward for resisting the foe and making "terrorist" act on german troup and collaborator ? Coward for saying "No" to bush when he attacked a country which had no tie to 9/11 under false pretense of WMD ? Remmemebr the massive citizen protest in those "coward" countries ? Please define coward. Those act took a lot more civic responsabilities than msot of the reaction I saw on the west side of the atlantic against the Patriot act or the war in irak.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
It's Masonic, or maybe Theosophist if you prefer. As long as it's in the Capstone, I don't think the actual look of the eye matters much. An Eye of Horus or 'udjat' looks much more gothicky. You can google it easily enough.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The question that should be asked about any new piece of anti-terrorism legislation or any anti-terrorism program is simple. If this program was in place before September 11, would it have stopped the catastrophe or made it less serious (e.g. the planes still being hijacked but the world trade centers not actually being hit or collapsing)?
If the answer to this question is NO then the question must be asked, is it worth giving up our civil liberties for a program or law that would not have stopped the terrorists in the first place. And the answer to that should be a resounding NO.
Unfortunately as long as we have politicians who are more willing to listen to a man named after a plant than after the people who voted for them in the first place, we will continue to see anti-terrorism programs and legislation that erode our civil liberties without even doing anything that would have actually had an effect on the September 11 hijackers in the first place.
I would say "thank god I don't live in America" but given that our prime minister will do anything Bush says and then some, we too are seeing all sorts of nasty laws that we don't need and that do nothing to benefit our country or stop terrorism. Thankfully there is an election coming up later this year or so and I can go and do my bit to vote the bastard Howard and his party out of office (I just hope more people follow suit)
They can print as much of that as they want. It's about control. Having the power of life and death over people, and maintaining a base of power. They're now finished with the illusion of democracy and constitutional law, because they don't think they need it any more now they have technology. After this massive Big Brother world government, we will also see forced drugging, sterilisation and the religion of the State. Americans, the people who are doing this have no interest in your displays of enthusiasm for jingoistic hegemony. They want your fear.
Whereever does it say that this is any kind of official symbol for the project? It's probably just a picture chosen/created for dramatic effect. Alex Jones will credit _everything_ to the Illuminati, you know...
This is no different from a supermarket loyalty scheme, except that you can't opt out.
The sooner Homeland Security start offering discount points and a frequent flyer program the better - to reward loyal citizens - otherwise it's just a rip-off.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
While on contract with ABN AMRO several years back, I sat near a team of Anderson Consulting (now Accenture) weenies.
I am not at all exaggerating when I report that the team of four/five spent approximately two full weeks of 7 hour days 'brainstorming' an acronym for the 'Business Process Re-Engineering' project they were working on.
I never did find out what they came up with.
What was missing from the article was that they have embedded the Snoop computing system into the robotic Defense Optimized Garden Guard (DOGG). The Snoop DOGG has been optimized for replacement of canines presently servicing as security personnel at key DoD facilities.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
What I don't get about the slashdot community is how articles such as this one lead to pointless, angry rambling, while stories on similarly worrisome developments in foreign countries (think videotaping violence in France, banning of Nazi memorabilia, ...) are usually met with a load of hateful comments on the inferiority of the countries in question. Just take the "America is the freest of all" postings. They could fill books. Most of you people here are from America, so why don't you actually try to take some action against what is wrong in /your/ country? I like America a lot, probably much more so than a lot of people in Europe and other parts of the world do. I just want to point out that it is attitudes such as these that lead to a negative opinion about the US in the first place. Opinion changes quickly, though. I do not believe that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the transatlantic friendship. Just realize that your state is not /inherently/ the best one, but that it takes effort for it to serve as a role-model.
i mean it doesn't take a rocket scientist.
put aa batteries in buildings with:
1 - proximity censors
2 - automated radio warnings for unwitting pleasure pilots
jets travel at some 600 mph.. in crashes usually the largest pieces left (besides the tail which almost always survives) are the size of dinner plates..
so, it's a question of the greater good.. shred a plane full of already doomed passengers with AA fire to mitigate the damage it will do to the building it is about to impact.
i'd say one battery on each corner every couple hundred feet would do the job. place the automation control system in a reinforced vault in control of the local national guard.. end of story.
THAT would have prevented the collapse of the towers by shredding the planes into chunks the building would have withstood rather than a reinforced metal lance.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Hmm, isn't it only imperialistic countries that call their territory "the homeland?" Last time I checked, we're not actually claiming Iraq as a new state of the union. If we were, we might be seeing lower oil prices--or at least higher profits for American oil tycoons. Oh well.
--"The program apparently uses the same process as the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns."
This _is_ the Total Information Awareness project and work on it was
never stopped for a moment. I don't mean to disrespect the submitter but
it doesn't take a lot of deep thinking to see that.
We need more fluoride in the water, homeland assholes.
Face it, the laws being passed by democracies around the globe to 'defend ourselves from (terrorists who hate freedom/pedophiles who love nine year olds/teenagers who are just naughty' make it seem like fascism won the second game...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Oh, no we're doomed, I tell you! I read it in a comic book somewhere.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
ignore this post.. somehow it got connected as a reply to some other post in my profile when it was not..
this might be another bug in the "new discussion system", like the one a couple months back where random replies would end up completely disconnected from their original threads.
"these are not the droids youre looking for. move along"
this is rather funnny though.. because now it just looks totally random!
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someone really needs to convince the public to stop being so afraid so that politicians will stop pulling the wool over their eyes and pushing bad legislation through in the name of "protecting the people".
I remember a town hall meeting in days after 9-11, lot of people spoke but two stuck out in my mind. One was a single mother with two kids who got up and started bawling about who was going to protect her. Nauseating enough but she was followed by another man who volunteered to give up his privacy in the name of security and he got a rousing round of applause. I found both of them to be thoroughly disgusting. I despise pussies who let fear push them around and are willing to surrender the core values that made America a great country in exchange for the illusion that we are somehow safer. But we're swimming against the tide. The bulk of our countrymen don't value freedom as much as the illusion of security.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Honestly, beyond wwriting letters to our members of congress, what control does the American public have over this sort of thing? It's getting to the point that I feel rather powerless over my government. Last I looked, we were supposed to control them, not the other way around.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Several of you have been asking "could this program have prevented 9/11?". No, absolutely not. Did we all forget that after 9/11 all of the intelligence agencies dug into their records and found all kinds of warning signs and other indicators that 9/11 was going to happen?
Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but the point is they had the intel necessary to predict and prevent this, but it was lost in the noise. What they need is not more electronic noise to sift through (and electronic wild goose chases to go on) but better human intelligence. Grepping through all of the worlds internet traffic and phone records is not nearly as useful as having a single agent embedded with a terrorist group or even paying a couple of informers in the "extremist Muslim" community.
One can reasonably argue that flooding the TLA agencies with this data will make their jobs harder and the overall counter terrorism situation worse. What it will accomplish however is pumping mullions of dollars into the private contractors, while allowing the intelligence agencies to justify raising their budgets and hiring more people to run this program. Which do you think is the real goal?
This is not about catching terrorists OR spying on Americans in an effort to turn us into a 1984 police state. It's about money, plain and simple.
Finkployd
> put aa batteries in buildings with: Ohhhhh I thought you meant the *duracell* type of batteries!! How very confusing that would be.
And if you told them to surrender their mouse pads and screen cleaner, doubtless they'd hide those and drag them back out when you weren't looking, too.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
> I tend to think that if you offered enough money say >$100 million, or equivilent incentives, for someone to kill their own family, children and > all, getting away scott free That's an awful lot of money...on the flipside, it's a f*cking henious act. I'm a capitalist, and known for being callous, but I would never, ever, ever, entertain such a thought. That's just so hideously wrong, I can't even empathise enough to see where you're coming from. Never in '$100 million' years.
but in reality to get their oil.
Honestly -- lay off the Kool Aid. Take a look at the amount spent on the Iraq war sometime. It's a vast sum; easily enough to have just bought Saddam's cooperation (and let's face it, he was desperate for friends anyway) and all the oil under Iraq.
If you're going to come up with conspiracy theories, at least make them plausible. The "OMG it's blood for oil BLOOD FOR OIL" thing just doesn't fly. If oil had been the goal, it could have just been purchased. It's not like the U.S. has a ethical problem with funding repressive dictators when it suits us.
I'm not really justifying the war per se, but you're going to have to look a little harder if you want to find its root causes. As usual, it's not something that can be rendered down to a three-word slogan. I think in large part, it had to do with the American populace wanting their government to kick the living shit out of some brown-skinned somebody's (and the government only too happy to oblige -- war being a far easier condition to manage than peace), and when the whole thing in Afghanistan didn't look like it was going to go anywhere satisfying in a hurry, Iraq was a convenient target for our collective spleen-venting: it was big, flat, filled with people we either didn't like or didn't care about, and we had good maps from the last time we'd taken a stroll through. Kind of a no-brainer.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
"Fortunately, everybody else are against this, so there's still hope."
I want to see the CEO of SWIFT in prison.
I think that when that happens, every CEO of a bank or ISP, every minister in government, will suddenly remember that there are privacy laws they are obligated to abide by. They'll remember that the EU isn't toothless and Europe isn't a subsidiary to the USA.
The reason I want the SWIFT CEO made an example of is, he went even further than anyone else:
He broke EU data protection laws,
He broke Belgium banking secrecy laws which is a criminal offense.
He broke EU Basic Human Treaty legislation which defines privacy as a right.
He did it for a foreign power for SWIFTs commercial interests.
He exposed European businesses, politicians, government procurement, everything, to inspection by a foreign power.
Want to know what a French defense contractor bid for a contract? Just look at bank transfers and see how much they were paid.
See a payment from Guy Verhofstadt (Belgium Minister) to an alcohol clinic? Next time you disagree with Mr Verhofstadt, you can discredit him by accusing him of alcoholism.
If we don't make a stand now, then the Vodafone bugging in Greece will be legalized and the kidnapping of a person from Italy will become legal and we'll all hide in fear just like Belarus people fear Russia.
You can't catch terrorists because there is no profile for terrorists. This system is going to catch lots of people who are not terrorists.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Ok. I kind of understand the other stuff that they're looking for. Sure it's evil, but it might be useful in investigations. But, medical records? What terrorist activity are they mining for in immunization records and colonoscopies? Talk about literally being up someone's butt.
> The Washington Times reports that Homeland Security has developed and
> is testing a new computer system called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination,
> Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement)
They renamed it this after they realized an unfortunate problem with the previous name, Analyze Static States For Understanding Citizen Knowledge.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
DevelopMassivelyPrivacyInfringingSoftware(); while(1) { while(PublicDoesntKnowAboutIt()) { UseIt(); } ChangeItsName(); // haha, suckers!
}
You gotta love the Orwellian genius of our darling public servants. Think I'll pen a new law for Congress and the Senate to consider: the Love America And Freedom act. The text of the bill demands immediate impeachment and war crimes trials for the Bush administration. If you disagree with the bill, obviously you hate America and Freedom.
Ask me about my sig!
That's going to be an awful lot more expensive than not doing anything, and it only counters one specific attack vector. Figuring out who terrorists are and intercepting them is a much better use of resources.
Data mining doesn't work because if you run 10,000 innocent people through a system that is 99.99% accurate, it tells you you have a terrorist. Using databases to work backwards from people that you already have excellent probably cause to investigate, in order to find other people to 'take a look at', is a fine idea, as long as there are good controls in place.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Let's see. Data mining for the purposes of identifying critical info related to a personals habits, affiliations and whatnot. My Tivo already does this and it thinks I'm gay and black. If the incredible people at Tivo can't get this right, the how in the hell is Homeland Security gonna figure it out?
And stop being lazy, write a goddamned handy dandy rijnaedel command-line crypt program and email encrypted attachments around. You'll be good on the privacy 'till QC gets in the govt's hands... unless they've already got it hmmmm... *(&@#JNNCSNJj NO CARRIER EOF
Silly me, I was under the impression that those were protected execpt in cases of actual criminal activity...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
I did some quick research, what they came up with can be found here: BPR.
I'm sure they had a tough time decidig between BPR, BPRE, BPR-E, and BPRe. I'm also sure that they had an easy time billing the client for those hours.
I'd bet plenty of PHBs pronounce it as "beeper", which I'd also bet leads to all kinds of confusion as the sales force long ago upgraded from beepers to cell phones to crackberries.
That, and "Beeper" sounds like the name of a muppet.
Oh well, I suppose I'll log off and go watch whatever basketball game's on espen right now.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
...teaching the Bill of Rights in school again. Obviously, none of these Homeland Security folks have read the Fourth Amendment. You know, that bit that says they need to have a warrant to collect information to be used against you in a criminal case.
Heck, when I read that bit about "medical records" being grepped, I thought to myself, "Gee, isn't that a HIPAA violation?"
I'd love to read the warrant allowing them to sift through three million records per hour. If it exists.
Why do they want or need to collect medical records? But keeping all the medical records stored in one location (which will eventually be hacked or leaked) could potentially destroy the lives and livelihoods of innocent Americans.
This is an already scary system, where all Americans are considered a terrorist, until otherwise proven that they really are a terrorist!
doh! -- da database is in east Pakistan, man.
Can you say "al-Queda" is our Enemy? (it's a classic "Bay of Pigs" style-joke for our Pentagon Marxists.)
Heil Bush!
Just because it's been banned/illegal means it ok to do if your "Homeland Security".
It's sickening how often we can reference Orwell nowadays, but that is where we've landed ourselves. Speaking of Orwell, how has history viewed Stalin?
People are going to say "well, if you're doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to worry about". As if people have the right to judge me, of course. And that's the problem: who's doing the judging? Just what is "wrong" and "right"? Yes, we know that something that hurts another person is definately wrong, I'm not debating those issues. What I'm debating is someone searching for evidence to support themselves, and using nothing but circumstantial evidence.
For instance, say it's a rape (this is hypothetical). They don't have DNA evidence, but you're a suspect. You didn't do it. Well, hey, look at that, didn't you use your credit card to rent a porno? Or sign up for a porn site? Or make a purchase at an adult novelty store? I guess you really are a pervert...
The thing about this is that yes, that above example has a remote chance of happening, but the fact of the matter is that IT DOES HAVE THAT CHANCE. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, after all. And furthermore, not only could the government use this to build a possible profile against anyone from potential terrorists to potential dissidents (we already consider anyone that calls out against a war or a policy "un-American"), but it could be used as marketing fodder. This brings us much, much closer to - even unofficially - government sanctioned products; think Budweiser can come out with Victory Beer? And if you think this is highly sceptical, remember who got that contract to clean up in Iraq.
It's getting to the point where everything about our lives will be indexed and viewable to anyone that wants to within any reason whatsoever. We are becoming a fascist government with just enough Democracy to fool people into thinking they're in charge. Something needs to be done. NOW.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
i think you could count the number of buildings tall enough to be a target on one hand.. if you go liberally it could fill one 8.5 x 11 in piece of typing paper.
... i think a couple cwis or sam launchers are a bit less than that ^^;;;
compare that to HS and TSA budgets
as far as being the guy on the plane.. since a very young age i've resigned myself to the fact that.. if my plane crashes.. they'll be picking up random parts of my corpse and playing go fish ; )
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I fully expect any Snoop Computer System to include a diamond-encrusted pimp cup and lots of topless girls smoking bubonic chronic.
steampunk web design
Do you mean on Wall Street? There are thousands of buildings that are 'tall enough', all you have to do is ask the people inside of them.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Seems the USA have learned a lot from the practices in the former communist world. But then, all totalitarian governments act much the same, independent of the outside rethorics.
It is easy to create denial of service attacks against such surveillance systems by using zombies, viruses and bots to spread suspicious threats and traffic. Just generating some random expressions of suitable intentions towards notable places and people with power will easily overload the system.
Also, I don't see how health related information is useful in determining whether a person is a terrorist threat or not. Having an anonymous "stranger" mock you for your personal health problems that nobody but you, your doctor, and his database should know about, is a bit unnerving, let me tell you. (Such is the case in Finland when you get under observation and the investigators get annoyed at finding nothing on you and wasting their time.)
This data is not used for good. It is used to fuck with your life when you become the target for such paranoid investigations and the rabid investigators are viable to use it to "get revenge" when they can't seem to get results otherwise and just take out their frustrations (any way they can). There's also ample potential for financial abuse and causing damage. No privacy protections whatsoever are afforded to foreign people and the perpetrators are very unlikely to ever get caught. CIA itself is famous for fucking up the finances of anyone it suspects of terrorism, and during the early years of Bush tenure there were open calls for hacking and emptying suspects' bank accounts and otherwise fucking up their businesses. - Does this kind of "law enforcement" really serve justice?
These systems are a threat to democracy and only serve the paranoid fascists' dreams, if anything.
Anyone who believes that the "Total Information Awareness" project was scrapped is misguided. Until the US creates a Constituional Amendment which defines a citizen's right to privacy, the government and in particular the police/injustice arm of the government will pursue developing this capability vigorusly. It is the technology that make despotism possible in secular society, why wouldn't they want it? -D
That's all I really have to say.
Before you go boohoo for the ones plagued by communism all I have to say that there are examples of people that revolted and kicked them out. So there you have it.
If you talk about moving to another country 'cause your gov is corrupt/bad/mean/stupid you are talking the easy way out. Way to take the high moral ground when you actions speak so clearly.
Fourty-two!
Yes, because little children always deserve to be genocided by their own country's government.
You, sir, are an ass.
What ever happend to the ACLU? Ever since Bush and Co. came into power, they have by laying pretty low. Hardly a word about Jose Padillia. Hardly a word about the NSA wiretapping. Shouldn't the ACLU be making higher-profile protests against these kinds of actions? Or is it they simply don't get in the press anymore?
There's really nothing offensive about it:
"Love the LORD."
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
"Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you."
"Love your enemy."
"Never retaliate. Turn the other cheek."
"Always forgive."
"Return kindness in exchange for evil."
"Pray for your enemy."
"Don't judge one another."
"Don't condemn one another."
"Don't love money. Don't be a servant of money. A rich man cannot enter heaven."
"Help the poor."
"Be a good samaritan. Help those in need."
"Give to everyone who asks of you."
"Do not resist evil. Do not resist lawsuits."
"Keep the 10 Commandments."
"Refrain from incest."
"Refrain from homosexual conduct."
"Be honest in your business."
"The LORD helps those who pray."
"Faith can move mountains."
"Jesus raised the dead, healed the blind, healed leppers, fed thousands."
"Salvation and everlasting life come from accepting the sacrifice that the LORD made of His Son, Jesus Christ, on our behalf, on the cross, and that is confirmed by Christ's Ressurection and Ascention into Heaven."
Muslims also keep the 10 Commandemnts, or at least they are suppose to. Christians, Muslims and Jews account for 2/3's of the world's population.
There is much more to the Christian faith than keeping the 10 Commandments.
They are central to the faith, however, and I think it would be a better world if everyone were keeping them.
These are quoted from memory, and might not be perfect, but they are identical, in meaning. That doesn't mean I never sin, but it means I try not to sin:
(1) Have no other god than the LORD.
(2) Don't make any graven image or likeness of anything in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, or in the water beneath the earth. Don't worship them and don't serve them, for the LORD thy God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of those who break His Commandments unto three or four generations, but showing mercy unto thousands, those who keep His Commandments.
[Some churches have been routinely breaking this commandment for over a thousand years. The commandment forbits making, worshipping OR serving drawings OR carvings of things such as crucifixes, angels, the LORD (see cistine chapel), devils, or any other thing that groups into that category of "in heaven" "in the earth beneath" or "in the water under the earth".]
(3) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it Holy. In six days, do your work, and do all of it, but let the 7th day be a day of rest. For the LORD thy God created the heaven and the earth and everything that is in them in six days, but on the seventh day, the LORD rested, whereupon the seventh day is blessed and hallowed. Neither you, nor your wife, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor the stranger within your gates shall do any work on the sabbath day.
[The sabbath is from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. It never changed, it is the same for Christians, Muslims and Jews. See exodus 16, exodus 20 You are right that it is odd that the Church changed the day of worship from the sabbath to another day, but that doesn't change the sabbath, and it doesn't change the commandment.]
(4) Do not take the LORD's name in vain.
[Not in anger, profanity, or as conversational emphasis]
(5) Don't kill.
(6) Don't steal.
(7) Don't bear false witness against your neighbor.
[i.e. don't give false testimony]
(8) Don't commit adultery.
(9) Honor your father and your mother, so your days will be long on the land which the LORD giveth thee.
(10) Do not covet your neighbor's wife, his house, his servants, his ox or his ass, or any other thing that is your neighbor's.
Why should you worship the LORD? There's only one LORD, and you're either with Him or you're not. There are places where demon worship is accepted. Demons are really nasty things. If you want to worship demons instead of the LORD, I can't stop you; the LORD will reckon with you.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
"I wonder how much blood it would take to make you all beLIEve." - Godmachine, Acid Bath. Listen to it.
They "leak" this every year, about this time. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.htm l
Budget renewal, I guess.
You should not worry about it, Advise generates so many positives that it's useless, except as a way to keep friends of a bunch of former high level State Department employees flush with with wads of disposable cash for developing it, and to keep the civil servant deadwood in the intelligence community occupied until they retire. One bright spot, however, at least someone found a way to make money off of Jini technology.
Look, all this alarmism over government surveillance is silly. The only thing that anyone in government actually pays attention to is good old fashioned fieldwork and human intelligence (i.e developing a network of informers). One competent case officer is worth a hundred of these systems.
The fact of the matter is, in the past fifty years, human fecundity has rendered even the most sophisticated electronic surveillance system useless, there is just too many people to keep track of. Our courts are backlogged, our prisons are overflowing, and we can't even control our own borders or cities.
Lets assume this system was 100% accurate. What exactly could the government DO with that information? Law Enforcement organizations can't even cope with the threats we know about...for example, there are 200,000 gang members in California alone, and we KNOW they do far more damage in a year than every terrorist in the world combined could ever hope to achieve.
The PRC (China) has the best signals intelligence they can buy, and no laws to hamper them. They still only manage to detect 1% of the crimes committed in their nation, and the ones they miss have lead to riots involving tens of thousands of peasants and will eventually cause the downfall of the Communist Chinese government in a few years.
Our government doesn't want to believe that answer doesn't lie in technology, it wants an "easy button" to solve it's problems. The answer lies in social engineering, in creating a culture where this technology is not needed. We could do it easily, for a fraction of the cost of even one of these systems.
But that doesn't involve bending others to their will (at least not directly) and to some decision makers, thats far more important than a better future.
Congresscritter: No, the CIA may not use this scheme.
Spook: What about the FBL?
Congresscritter: Nope
Spook: NSA?
Congresscritter: Negatron.
Spook: What about Homeland Security?
Congresscritter: Oh, why didn't you say so in the first place? Approved!
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
US Citizens == Labrats
Don't like it? Write your congresscritter, write a letter to the editor, run for office, or stand in front of the Capital building with a sandwich board that reads, "Revolution at 8pm Friday, be there or be square!" It's all the same.
America The Free, it was fun while it lasted.
ken
[start]
Onscreen: Sequence of stills of various battle scenes from the American War of Independence, War Between the States, First and Second World War.
Narrator: Political liberty was a necessary evil until the global marketplace arrived.
Onscreen: motion clips of arrivals at Ellis Island
Narrator: The global marketplace has now arrived.
Onscreen: quick sequence of stills of modern cities and office spaces fading to an elementary school classroom.
Teacher: Robert, name the planets of our solar system.
Pupil: Mercury, Venus, Singapore, Mars, Jupiter...
Teacher: Correct, Robert.
Narrator: Political liberty is now obsolete, so do yourself a favor. Shut up and chase the dollar, or something bad may happen to you...and your loved ones.
Onscreen: A young male with a 'non-commercial demeanor' outside his home. Same is accosted by four well-dressed sunglassed Anglo males.
Onscreen: fade to black.
(sound of silenced firearm and body thud)
Narrator: know your place; shut your face.
Onscreen: fade to [DHS logo]
[end]
Submission as evidence constitutes plaintiff and/or prosecutorial misconduct.
"Until the US creates a Constituional Amendment which defines a citizen's right to privacy"
Already taken care of in Amendment 4 in pretty plain language, ie: "secure in" = inviolable or private. Even IF this could be argued, Amendments 9 & 10 cover the rights to privacy via explicit reservation of all unenumerated rights. Our "public servants" just need to be taught to respect the constitution as it exists. I'm sorry but we can have endless writ specifying and confirming our rights, unless or until we hold those who would ignore and/or abuse these writs and the rights they define to serious consequence such writ is just "a goddamn piece of paper".
Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.
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.
Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified 12/15/1791.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Source: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew