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FBI Seeks To Restrict University Student Freedoms
amigoro writes with a link to the Press Escape blog, which is discussing new guidelines suggest by the FBI for university administrations. The Federal Bureau, worried about the possibility of international espionage via our centers of learning, now sees the need to restrict the freedoms of university students for national security. "FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls 'espionage indicators' aimed at identifying foreign agents. Unexplained affluence, failing to report overseas travel, showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, unreported contacts with foreign nationals, unreported contact with foreign government, military, or intelligence officials, attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know, and unexplained absences are all considered potential espionage indicators."
Looks to me like 99% of all college students meet quite a few of their espionage indicators.
Here's an idea. How about not passing laws that further disillusion Americans into becoming terrorists?
This is like lowering the speed limit to try and stop drag racing.
IOU one (1) signature
Nice to see we're dipping back into cold war era collective fear mongering.
My government sickens me.
Shadus
Well, it's been my experience that the 'usual' person isn't interested in anything that wasn't on TV, so this would have quite a chilling effect for anyone, like myself, who actually enjoys learning things.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Sounds like McCarthyism all over again.
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Funny Shirts @ ProStoner.com
I must be an espionage risk then.
I've had a great deal of contact with foreign nationals.
I have pursued a lot of information outside of the scope of my job (in fact, I'm often called in on projects that have nothing to do with my profession because of my weird set of experience).
I've been known to keep some truly bizare hours.
And, truth be known, I've probably had some contact with foreign gov, mil, or intel officials in the past because of the rather strange set of friends that I've had (some of which had influential families from other countries, and at least one of them had a father who worked for an embassy).
In addition, to be quite honest, I don't feel the need to explain ANY of it to anyone who flashes a government ID at me.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
So everyone who plays WoW (unusual work hours, to catch up), plays MUDs or goes on IRC (unreported contacts with foreign nationals), provides an EU government with Linux tech support (unreported contact with foreign government), applies patches to SELinux from the NSA's counterparts elsewhere (military, or intelligence officials), wants a Classical Education or wants to learn additional subjects out of enjoyment, interest or geekiness (attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know), or goes to play pinball at the student union hall instead of attending class (unexplained absences) is a spy?
That makes 99.9% of all student population spies, and a good 75% of all lecturers. When will the DoD launch a bombing campaign on Skull and Bones secret meetings? Oh, they can't - they all belong.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Replace "terrorist" with "communist" and it's 1950 all over again.
I almost wish we had the Cold War back. At least the enemy was clearly defined and kept 100% of the government's attention. Now that there's no clear enemy, we feel the need to go after everything.
And with the Cold War, at least there was a permanent stalemate on both sides...neither side would even think about launching an attack because they'd get wiped out in the process. Tense, but it kept people at bay.
I actually don't consider this FUD since I've seen suggestions at my university for all students to have to submit a reason with evidence why they missed a class or go before academic review and possibly get a quarter off. It has not flown yet because of so many holes in the argument but I was wondering why it even mattered that much. Sometimes people need a day off, in America we don't get enough of them anymore. Although I will admit students have it comparatively easy in relation to working stiffs.
.01% positive your already assuming that its a false positive and overlook it. This new approach by the FBI is wrong on so many levels its retarded. Everyone is a criminal unless cleared...
Also if you watched the Daily Show on Thursday John had a guy on promoting his new book called 'Quantico' that had some interesting information about his interactions with the FBI. He specifically stated that in the near future there would be surveillance tech installed at all campuses assumably in an attempt to combat domestic terrorism. Because you know so much of it happens on a school campus. He also said the higher ups in the homeland security divisions, in the meetings he got to attend and discuss matters with them are showing a keen interest into this 'new' arena of terrorism and not concerned with foreign terrorists as much anymore.
This all sounds like big brother and McCarthyism combined. Do we never learn that while we need agencies looking for the next terrorist attack what we don't need is to create an environment in which we loose the very things we are trying to protect. Whack a mole indeed.
The only information they need to disseminate is be vigilante, it is everyone's responsibility. By trying to become big brother no one is vigilant because they either hate big brother and don't want to help him or they have a false sense of security.
Lastly profiling does not work as one would assume. You can always find things about people that seem to fit into a 'mold' but really it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Profiling only helps to give you a general idea of who you may or may not be looking for but the person you are looking for may not fit that profile and a person that fits that profile is more than likely not to be who you are looking for. Its just a tool to help you get started in a direction when you don't have better evidence to go with or to possibly help you out when you get desperate. When you apply it with no context or no crime then it becomes worthless because you get 99.99% false positives and when you get that
In that case, I challenge you to tell me what working hours would be distinctly unusual in academia. Some people work 9-5, some people work noon-midnight, some people work on the weekends and Wednesday, some people work from home unless they have a class or meeting, some people come in for a while in the morning and then again after dinner... Nothing is particularly usual or unusual, particularly if the academic in question doesn't have a family to get home to (including those whose families live in a different place).
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
This is not new, people. What do you think was going on in universities during the Viet Nam War, when people actually had the backbone to stand up and protest like they meant it? This is just the next turn of the wheel; history flows like a river and events repeat themselves.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
The nation has been de-balled. It is a fait accompli. Neutered. It's mostly over, and the goons won. You can't do anything about it besides *talk*, and pretty soon that will be going the way of speech in china, their poster boy model nation, full technology, full police state, one major party, in the US it is the globalist party with two wings and their platform is full technofeudalism...
If you do anything besides talk, it is considered a major crime, and you therefore are a criminal, maybe a "terrorist", so it becomes self fulfilling prophecy of their's.
I remember a lot of civil disobedience to try and stop thoroughly disgusting governmental action, and it was dangerous then, but now, it is beyond dangerous, and they just won't put up with it. They have all the power they need now and plenty of order followers and a cowed-enough population who have more interest in entertainments and just making a living, a desperate living for a lot of people. Bread and circuses tempered with governmental "legal terrorism" makes for a controlled population.
Voting doesn't work, that is obvious. Even among the intellectually aware and politically active, the meme of "don't waste your vote!!!" is still quite strong and repeated endlessly, like some cult chant, and results in the same type and form and demographic makeup of government, election after election after election, which is, the completely corrupt R and D power sharing cartel which has hijacked government and runs it as a power and jobs sharing racket.
I vote, but it is inertia, more to say I still vote than for any expectation it will actually mean anything.
The short phrase is *sigh*
What's left, blog about it? You can't even go protest, step outside of the completely illegal and unConstitutional "free speech zones" and their mercenaries will arrest and/or beat you. Be a big enoug hassle to them, you go on the lists, and eventually won't be able to travel or change jobs even. It's coming. The population has sucked up the no fly list so far, no protests, meekly stand in line for the perv search and the humbling glares.
I knew once that got accepted without mass protest it was all over.
And stuff like that. Too tired to list them all, but there's a big list.
I'm not a pessimist, but I will consider myself a realist. We have a defacto low threshold but growing fast one party police state. It is only going to get worse for a long time to come now. They have found out they can get away with the largest crimes, with no revolt from the people, and a mostly controlled and tame media who go along with it, so small crimes are just part of the system now.
I think the best people can do now is try and stay as free and independent as possible, especially inside their own hearts, and see what opportunities present themselves in the future. Who knows, pigs may fly someday and we might get humble and honest and decent government some election time.
It could happen. Low odds, but still possible.
What freedom is taken away by the FBI asking people to watch out for certain behaviors
Nothing.
IF the behaviours are not unreasonable vague.
The list of behaviours mentioned here IS unreasonably vague.
Actually, they aren't because the FBI is looking for patterns of behaviour that may indicate someone is an espionage agent; any one is not really that odd or troubling but a set of them, over time, *may* warrant further investigation.
The list is the result of post-mortums of espionage cases to look for potential warning signs.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
That is not the case at all. The International Criminal Court is simply a permanent court to replace the ad-hoc courts convened to prosecute previous war crimes. The US or more particularly the Bush administration opposes the ICC. That can be reversed by a future administration.
The ICC only has jurisdiction if the national courts are unable or refuse to prosecute. US law has multiple provisions to prosecute war crimes in federal courts. The only situation in which an international court would be required would be if Bush were to pardon himself or his accomplices.
The constitution only allows the President to pardon offenses against the United States. Gitmo is in Cuba and according to the Bush administration not under the jurisdiction of the US courts. If the US is not sovereign Cuba must be. I am sure that the authorities there would deal with the situation appropriately.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
It's like saying, "Since when is a high heart-rate bad for you? I work out all the time and have a high heart-rate every day!" and getting pissed when the nurse takes your pulse as soon as you walk into the clinic!
When I worked at the grocery store, part of my job was to catch shoplifters. An expert told me, "You can tell the shoplifters because they are watching you, not their shopping." Now does everyone that looks at the night manager a shoplifter? Of course not, and only a fool would believe it, and only a bigger fool would suggest it. But the idea that you can detect shoplifters by seeing what they are watching is still extremely useful. It's the unusual-ness that makes it suspicious. It's a judgment call in the grocery business, and I imagine it is in the industrial counter-espionage business as well.
Over the decades, people whose job it is to prevent espionage of all types have come to the conclusion that unexplained affluence, unusual interest outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, etc., etc., are good indicators of suspicious activities.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Instead, he's killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? Made hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions more, homeless in Iraq and surrounding Arab countries where they have fled to.
He refused to convene any type of investigative commission, until finally, he was forced to - and even then he underfunded them and refused to allow them sub peona powers.
And when he spoke before them with his handler Cheney, he refused to testify under oath. Wow, but I'm sure you know best, huh???
I'll bet you're in the crowd that believes torture works? If so, then WTF is Osama???? Or at least, WTF is he hiding out at??? Guess all that torture doesn't work after all, especially not on innocents.....
[Commonly heard phrase in the USA: "I'm a Christian, let's nuke Iran!"]
Confusing, but here is what I have to say anyways.
Unless the FBI plans on making this into law, their wanting to do whatever has no legal effect.
Do you honestly believe this will affect what students do? Good universities won't stand for restricting freedoms.
A lot more than the vast majority realize. Much is done under DARPA grants. In one of my previous grant positions, we were doing DARPA work, to which my boss said that we should keep it to ourselves. It was 1982, so we were not subjected to heavy security scrutinies, but in today's time, no doubt many ppl are, in private if not outright.
And for the record, there are a lot of spies here. In particular, Chinese. I have written about this issue in several other posts.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sure, there are lots of terrorists attacks. There are a lot of traffic accidents, too, absolutely dwarfing any terrorist-related deaths whatsoever.
Not to mention world hunger. 24.000 dead per day, was it?
Terrorism sucks, of course it does. But what on earth makes it so much worse than all the other things that kill so many more people every year? It's time to pull our heads out of the sand, suck it up, and deal with terrorism in a more rational way. At the moment, it seesm we're in some weird from of global panic.
Panic never helps.
I lost my sig.
No, that's the quality of information you get from the Bush Administration.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. --George Orwell
OT I know, but I'm wondering where that Orwell quote comes from. I'm reading a collection of his essays right now and find him pretty fascinating.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
you'll find that they are incredibly capable people
They're capable, but yet they can't get the facts right about Iraq? They're capable, but yet they've seriously screwed up the Iraq war in multiple ways? They're capable, but yet Paul Wolfowitz gets caught in a conflict of interest giving his girlfriend a position of authority in the World Bank? Somehow these things don't come from capable people.
Seems like the actual evidence points to them being ass-clowns that screw up left and right, but until now have been able to talk their way out of it, or make friends who can do it for them.
You can talk conspiracy theories all day long, but until you actually have evidence instead of motivations, it's nonsense. You can make up anything you damn well please if all you have is motivations to guide you.
AccountKiller
It started when the US and UK decided to set up a new state for the Jews in Palestine.
Before that, no Arabs cared much about what the West was doing. After that, they were pissed off that their land had been taken, and given to a people who were a self-professed enemy of Islam. So they attacked Israel. And the US defended it.
And it all went downhill from there.
But that was where it started.
No doubt the same Orwell who wrote this:
"War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world."
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Which gets me thinking about our own individual roles in safeguarding our rights. I recently turned down a job because the employement contract required would have signed over all rights to all works I produced during my employment there, regardless of when or where I worked on them, or about what they concerned. I wrote a later to HR and the hiring manager explaining my objections, and why I wasn't accepting the position.
I never got a response, and it's quite likely they just thought I was some sort of crank. My wife, although supportive, also thought I was some sort of crank. And perhaps I am.
But I feel very good about it because it was my chance to push back on the systematic encroachment on personal freedoms. At least two people with decision making authority have seen it come up as an issue. And I don't feel like I've sold myself short.
It was a small stand - I can't say I wouldn't have done it differently if I was desperate for a job. But the small ways matter too - it's letting things slip away a little at a time that is the biggest threat to our freedoms.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
> So, until you risk your life on a daily basis for people like yourself, who spit on those that step in front of a
> bullet aimed at you, shut your fucking mouth.
Self-censorship was big around 2002-2004. But that is now gradually disappearing - we no longer must swear "i support the troops" with every tenth sentence. And "do it for the troops" no longer has the mystical powers of persuasion that it did a few years ago (much like "do it for the children"). Some of this is due to Abu Grahb, some due to the gradual realization by most of this country that they've been had.
Whatever the case - having spent years in the marine corps - I'm not looking for anyone to protect me and my family by fighting in Iraq, thank you very much. I'd much rather them protect me by ceasing to aid in terrorist recruiting and training with the US's dumb-ass invasion.
In other words, you can stick your effort to manipulate people with the troops-line up your ass.