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Latest Revelations on the FBI's Data Mining of America
An anonymous reader writes "You probably already knew that the FBI was data mining Americans in the "search" for potential terrorists, but did you know that they're also supposed to be looking for people in the U.S. engaged in criminal activity that is not really supposed to be the province of the federal government? Now the feds are alleged to be data mining for insurance fraudsters, identity thieves, and questionable online pharmacists. That's what they're telling us now. What else could they be looking for that they are not telling us about?"
People comiting "moral crimes".
They have a history of blackmail using that sort of thing.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
I've been assuming that since before they admitted they were using it to look for terrorist.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
They're looking for 'leakers' who spread misinformation through government documents. Once they identify which government official's cell phone was in the same vicinity as the reporter who published the leaks they're gonna smack the leaker down.
Oh. They're also digging up dirt to discredit the leakers.
The amount of porn everybody watches online. In thirty or so years when today's youth starts running for government office, mudslinging campaigns based on this knowledge (which by then will be hilariously declassified!) will be hugely entertaining and embarrassing for everyone involved.
I think I've discovered the terrible future of reality TV.
why? forty-two.
Is there anyone who doubts that Karl Rove has the wiretaps indexed for the most effective political control of both his Republican "friends" and Democratic enemies? I'm sure Rove knows who you are.
--
make install -not war
If they're able to form a behaviour pattern from that and provide it to the state law enforcement agencies the I say that it would be okay.
As long as the FBI removed any individual identifying info (names, aliases, addresses, etc). Even in their database.
Fuck you, Boyd. What is "lawfully acquired" varies with the laws passed. When a private person does it, we often refer to that as "stalking" and it is illegal.
There's never been a power given to a federal agency that its members haven't immediately sought to abuse. But the same goes for state, local, federal government of all stripes, insurance agencies, organized religions, etc. It's human nature. Power will be abused so it's just common sense to restrict it as much as possible.
When the FBI honchos go wringing their hands and lamenting over all the crimes they could have prevented if only they had more powers, the first question should be "why aren't you able to do your job with the resources you have?" Throw more money and more powers at the problem and you'll just get the same song and dance during the next budget hearing.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Did anybody really think they wouldn't find a "use" for all the data they've been collecting?
Every single head-of-department has had his eye on it since day one.
No sig today...
Pardon my conspiracy theory, but hasn't the government been spying on us, well, forever? Sure, legally it's a faux pas, but an "Echelon" type system must exist by now if it has not been with us since the dawn of the computer age. I say privacy is pretty much a thing of the past. Everyone wants everything NOW and WIRELESS. Pretty much in the next 10 years just about everything will be wireless. This means that a conversations/data will be able to be plucked out of the air by just about anyone (as is being done now.)
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
The FBI is trying to find people breaking the law? This must be stopped!!!
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
But if you have nothing to hide .... oh yeah.
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
Actually, it's the CIA that is tasked with finding Osama. Well, unless Osama is somewhere in the US and commits a crime that crosses state lines or something.
That was true before 9/11. Now, the CIA and FBI are allowed to collaborate.. in fact, anyone in the DHS is allowed to share information, because they are all one big happy Gestapo now.
This is my sig.
"I am a bit surprised that Liberals would be against the Federal Government using Data Mining. In the grand scheme of things, if socialism actually could ever be made to work, data mining would be a key tool to do it, because you could use Data mining to do central economic planning and anticipate citizens demands."
I think Deus Ex: The invisable war basically solved that problem by having everyone linked together.
those companies are just using the data to sell me crap I don't want more efficiently
the government can use it to arrest/hassle me
that's a huge difference
No, no.
Data mining does not necessarily mean that each and every data must be exact. Data mining is creating probability relationships in large populations.
There are mathematical and statistical methods where data can be obscured whilst the data mining still be accurate. Look up the field of privacy preserving data mining.
My point is that it is possible to data mine whilst preserving privacy. Privacy and benefits of data mining and not mutually exclusive.
Yep, they should definitely be stopped.
Then again, we should also stop local law enforcement from catching identity thieves too, after all, they also keep records!
And to think of it, we should outlaw anti-phishing sites -- they invade the phishers' privacy rights by keeping tabs on their activities.
And stopping people from sending me emails about 3n14r91n9 my p3n15 is clearly an infringement on their freedom of speech rights.
And regulating questionable online pharmacies is infringement on the freedom of contract. I mean, if I choose to buy drugs made in some dude's basement, it's my own right to make a contract, and if I die from them, it's my own fault.
Yea, phishers, online "pharmacies", and identity thieves are sure heaps better than those blasted feds who are only here to oppress us, eh?
I have a pretty good idea that any data gathering the FBI may or may not be doing about us civilians is a fraction of what is being gathered by "marketers" every day.
Now that's a scary thought, huh?
.
The company I work for makes fraud detection tools for private industry. Some of the clients we're talking to now are NOT private industry, if you know what I mean. I daren't say anymore though, I like my job.
"...did you know that they're also supposed to be looking for people in the U.S. engaged in criminal activity that is not really supposed to be the province of the federal government? Now the feds are alleged to be data mining for insurance fraudsters, identity thieves, and questionable online pharmacists."
They *should* be looking into fraudsters, identity theft and other such items. These things cross state boundaries which the federal government is suppose to investigate. Frankly, I don't care if they're out there searching *publicly available* information.
The problem isn't that they're doing this. The problem is that the data that is out there isn't fully accurate, so people could effectively be accused on false information. (Not that this doesn't happen anyways). If they're going to use this kind of thing to pursue criminals then there needs to be checks that protect the fourth amendment (due process). In other words if someone was flagged as a possible criminal then any further information discovered as a result of them being flagged (such as them *actually* having committed a crime) must hinge upon the validity of the original data.
.
that's the main problem I have with the leftright scale of political idealism, it's not leftright, it's not even circular, if there's any overlap, then it's spherical.... liberal != socialist, "radical right" != and has nothing to do with conservatism, religious radicalism has nothing to do with conservatism, I'm so sick of these generalisations... why must things be explained in 1 dimension? there are not 2 sides to issues, and most positions that are traditionally linked to either side of the leftright spectrum contradict every other position traditionally linked with that side of the 'spectrum'... stop generalizing and maybe you will understand other people's positions, then, MAYBE then you will be able to compromise, AND ACTUALLY SOLVE PROBLEMS P.S. WTF is this guy getting modded troll for? He has a perfectly valid point of view, it's just founded on misconception of reality is all... P.P.S. I read some of the comments this person made to figure out if it is a dude or chick, still haven't figured that out, but it seems like they are all Right vs. Left.... maybe it is Troll, or maybe he/she is just too rigid/stupid to see other points of view in more than one dimension...
I would argue that the vast majority of liberals in America aren't trying to push central planning aspects of socialism.
Not to mention the fact that data mining like this would be a pretty ineffective way to do it.
Yeah, insurance fraud, identity theft and questionable online pharmacies aren't matters for federal law enforcement, because they don't cross state li... oh, wait.
*plonk*
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Unfortunately, people seem to accept infringement after infringement always telling themselves that it won't apply to THEM.... And, eventually, we have 1984. War is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. Survalience Is Safety.
/.'s last comment before being completely shutdown will be a resounding "we told you so." But, it won't matter, because no one will ever read it.
And, In the end,
Aren't all of these 5 categories of data they are looking into correlated with prior terrorist conduct?
- Identity theft? Check - think some of the 9/11 driver's licenses.
- The other four categories of fraudulent monetary theft? Check - think past uses by terrorist asshats of, for example, counterfeit money to fund their violent activities.
If catching and stopping terrorism is the goal, then using these investigative methods certainly should sound reasonable to any observant lay person like us.
Is that our lives are becoming more and more transparent to the government, but the government is becoming more and more opaque to us. This is the exact opposite of how it should be and should be a huge flashing warning light to everyone.
One reaction to abuse of governmental power is to restrict it as much as possible. The other is to have transparency in government and checks and balances. The secrecy of the current administration is a dangerous precedent, even if you agree with their policies. They should be working for us and shouldn't be able to hide so much of their work. Thankfully we have things like the FOIA and the Sunlight Foundation. Checks and balances are part of the foundation of our system of government. Again, the current administration's "unitary executive" theory is a dangerous precedent.
No, the data Amazon collects results primarily from my voluntary interactions with it. Thus, if Amazon abuses my trust, I can sever my relationship with it.
The government, on the other hand, retrieves this data without my consent and has the power to coerce me.
There's a big difference between those two scenarios.
Is this the same FBI that has been in the news in the past few years for not being able to get a decent modern computer system in spite of throwing millions of our tax dollars at the problem?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
This is the FBI, not the NSA or CIA.
WTF do you think we pay the FBI to do? Sit on their asses?
Maybe you think we should disband the FBI? Maybe the state police, county sherifs, and city cops too?
Sorry, anarchy doesn't work so well. Anarchy is a vaccuum that will get filled by something, and that "something" might be a whole lot less to your liking.
Perhaps the French people are being "represented" by violent fuckers like our administration, too? Perhaps the French /.ers posting here against violence aren't the same people who supplied the killers back in the 90s? Are you RETARDED?
There should be a requirement that states "you must be somewhat intelligent to post comments, KTHXBYE" on slashdot.
Wow. I MEAN FUCKING WOW.
Internet: Serious Business
I'd mod this -1 Dumbass./P
Man, you know you're doing something right when you're the Minority Party and the radical left still blames you.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Seems to me, this list of miscreants accounts for about 80% of the spam my filters catch. Tell me again why I should give a shit that some viagra insurance spammer trying to steal my identity with some phishing scheme shouldn't be gone after?
Oh, and for the people who are going to say I'm promoting "I have nothing to hide therefore I don't care", NO, I'm not saying that. I'm saying, if someone in authority is going after the people who leech from tha intarwebs rather than contribute to same, I'm all for it.
in the article that the types of crimes they are mining data for are not their responsibility? Also, all databases have at least some data integrity issues. This is especially the case if the data is entered by hand and at some point the data is almost always generated somewhere along the line by a human and then possibly turned into a machine-readable form for insertion into a database. The millions of digital fingerprints in storage now are subject to the quality of the print when it was on the card (however high quality scanners are used). Any system has a garbage in rate and a garbage out rate. The FBI knows that and they aren't going to use a system that is going to give them bad results. If enough false positives show up the FBI will realize they are just wasting their time tracking down false leads. This doesn't preclude them from requesting and paying for a system to be designed that may include bad data, but at least after using it and seeing the error of their requests they won't use the system. Because of this the ACLU is wasting their time complaining about data quality. This isn't any different than huge database owned by banks or credit companies (which would contain an order of magnitude more records) and I don't see anyone complaining about the data quality of those databases (they can still be mined too).
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Since when is it not the province of the FBI to look for people in the U.S. engaged in criminal activity? It's their fucking job. That's why it's called the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If all you people can do is trot out the same old "government bad...GOVERNMENT BAD!" knee-jerk conspiracy theories when shit like this pops up in the news, nobody is going to take you seriously. At least RTFA and comment on the actual issues.
For example...
I can see this being a major problem. I'd hate to have a name like, oh I dunno, Osama Bin Laden, and try to get through an airport security checkpoint. More importantly, what if I do something mildly suspicious that comes to the attention of the authorities? I can imagine the conversation...
FBI Agent: We'd like a warrant to wiretap this man's phone.
Judge: What did he do?
FBI Agent: He wrote a strongly worded letter to his local police department contesting a parking ticket he received.
Judge: I dunno, that seems pretty weak. What's his name?
FBI Agent: Osama Bin Laden.
Judge: Granted.
Maybe in addition to a terrorist watch list we should have a not-a-terrorist-don't-watch list. Just a thought.
Can't do that, it'll be down to three comments a story
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I guess I just care a lot more about truth than about process. That's not to say that process is completely unimportant, but I definitely fall further on the spectrum toward prioritizing truth. I don't think much of the 5th Ammendment, for example. Why should you be able to ask someone under oath, "did you kill him?" at a murder trial? I don't want to hear that the slam-dunk evidence against the pedophile is 'inadmissible' because cops didn't follow procedure. But I guess that's just me.
A-Bomb
avoteforrepublicansisavoteforvictory, republicansarefuckingfascists
That's so lame. It just makes the opposition look like a bunch of twerps.
What?
Well...we were supposed to give the power to the people. You know, a democracy. But as it turns out all political systems have a life-cycle and it seems the ideals have grown old and the people have begun to forget. Viva la....oh that's quite a while off. But it *is* part of the life-cycle!
Quack, quack.
Most of the world's problems stem from the fact that so many idiots refuse to see the light of reason and just agree with everything I say.
If everyone would just wake up and smell the Lee, we'd all be so much better off.
Going outside with tight pants on....we're big pant people!!!
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
You should get annoyed when the CIA does that. As long as it is the FBI, it is OK. That is what they are supposed to do. It is called 'Police Work'.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The vast majority of Liberals in America aren't trying to push anything anymore because they are not FOR anything. They've been reduced to a subculture defined not by what its members believe in, but by what they gripe about. Where it once was about ideals and noble intentions, profoundly flawed though they might be, now it's about grudges and grievances.
They no longer attempt to promote their own ideas, but they haven't quite reached the point of examining and revising the flawed assumptions those bad ideas are based upon. Their stuck in a limbo where they're not quite sure what they are for, but they have no doubt what they are against. This is why they you'll see them denigrating and casting aspersions at their traditional political foes, but without any attempt at promoting their own ideas or explaining why they are better. They've lost their capacity to build, all they can do now is seek to destroy.
Those among them who are intellectually honest and who value truth will eventually find their way out of the darkness and into the light. Unfortunately not everyone possesses these particular virtues, and for them I do feel sorry.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
It wasn't until Lopez v. United States (and, subsequently, United States v. Morrison) that the Supreme Court had the balls (well, with O'Connor, the ovaries) to draw the line for the first time in seventy years and keep the Feds out of the State's business.
Yes, that would be Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, O'Connor and Rehnquist. We can only hope that Alito and Roberts will be "conservative" that way too.
If it was up to those nutbags Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter, there would be no distinction between the States' province and the Fed's province. Those of you hoping for a democrat president better be aware that democratic appointees will almost surely give the Feds back all the power they lost under Rehnquist. (Yes, I know Souter was appointed by Bush I.)
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
I guess that is why you only hear liberals "griping" about stuff like:
- Providing adequate health care to all citizens of the country we live in
- Sensible foreign policy
- Finding alternatives to oil
- Abolishing capital punishment
- Making taxation more fair
- Taking better care of our environment
Yep, nothing but total mud-slinging at the Republican party....
FIRST: realize that the F.B.I. is INEPT, then whine all you want. The more data collected, the more it buries the whole lot. Do you really think TBs upon TBs of raw data is somehow magically processed and folded into a nice, neat folder on you? Get real! It's like throwing a 1000s fish in a pond and letting a bunch of urbanites loose to catch their dinner. They look awfully funny trying, and by-golly, sometimes get lucky! The poor fish, you say. BFD! You are much, MUCH more likely to be killed by the likes of a Paris Hilton than some Waco-notched, cowboy federales.
Just maybe the FBI will check into corporate crimes, crimes of the rich, crimes of George Bush too! Probably not.
Its like torte reform, it was only designed to go after poor people trying to sue corporations but Bush's torte reform did nothing to stop the RIAA from going after average citizens.
If you can't identify liberals' stances on the issues then you need to go back to grade school. This is really basic stuff. I'm not even asking you to analyze the arguments, just identify them. I promise, you will not become an "intellectual elite" just by having basic comprehension skills. You can have these skills and still believe in God. You can still support Bush. You can still oppose Global Warming and Evolution. But for the sake of us all, figure out what the other side is saying. You might just find that it makes sense.
Isn't that what we _pay_ them to do, in the first place?
Why does everything the governent does come as some sort of lethal, subversive crime? Colgate/Palmolive knows much more about you, than them.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
For those who think they're safe from all this, or that all this privacy "nonsense" doesn't affect them because they've got nothing to hide...
One of the reasons I admire the ACLU is that they stick up for the privacy even of insane druggie assholes like Rush Limbaugh. For all those Republicans who think this is some sort of liberal propaganda, keep this up -- in the totalitarian state where the neocon policies are taking us, it won't matter too much what your political affiliations are.
I worked a little for a P.I. as a computer consultant, I was pretty impressed at the time how much information you can pull up through their databases. The more info you have about a person the better, but with just a first, last name and birthday is usually more than enough to get all their info from a PI database.. I ran the most basic search once on a person i could, ended up with their SSN, last 5 addresses, current vehicles, the fact they had some medical license, all phone numbers, etc all in 3 pages printed out.. I know people here might not think much of that, but too many of every day people dont think twice about giving out their birthday or sending in some of the crap they do to companies who just sell the info.
The PI was running a large check on a person, it was well over 30 pages and they started mapping his immediate family and things of that nature..
s/©//g
Typical French response.
We did find out that Reagan was helping to bring in drugs to the US.
BTW your great right wing masters formulated that Clinton story. Are you saying your masters are wrong, megaditto?
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
As far as I recall they only do this when this is done with public fund or by public official within their work time. Could you please care to show that they indeed sued private persons which did a bit of proselytism using private fund ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
When I first read the story I'm not really too concerning about your right my right (I'm not an American citizen anyway). I'm rather interested in knowing the heuristics behind the data mining.
Data mining of such a large scale is so cool. The most time consuming task of data mining research is always the acquisition of relevant data for testing your heuristics and, most importantly, developing a new heuristics. The larger the mining sample size, the better the chance you come up with a better heuristic.
May be they should reveal the heuristics behind. Ok I'm going back to bed.
It seems like the government is just doing data mining on information it already had access to. I don't see why the government should be prevented from putting together information it already has, assuming it should have the information in the first place. Besides, you can't convict someone on the output of some data mining algorithm. It just generates leads.
I'm much more worried about AT&T tapping into the internet backbone and sending a copy of the packets to the NSA.
People comiting "moral crimes". They have a history of blackmail using that sort of thing.
Actually, black mailing such individuals is a tried and true method of the foreign intelligence services. Hence the legitimate motivation for the FBI to look into such things with respect to security risks. Of course "moral" is a poor choice of words, and a certain lifestyle is not necessarily a security risk. For example it would be kind of tough to black mail a gay guy who was open about it. Someone who is hiding it could be a security risk, as is a straight guy who is cheating on his wife. Things are far more complicated than you suggest, and the black mail thing is largely from part decades.
Where is this "land of the free" of yours then?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
All those databases searching specific crimes committed by citizens and none of them search for crimes committed by the government itself.
How about those shorts and puts on airline stocks right before 9/11 that lead back A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard of the CIA? Seems like that would be a good crime to track down and prosecute.
"If they're able to form a behaviour pattern"
;-) I knew a guy who did a lot of on-site tech support. Lots of flights around the country with very little time spent at the destination. Once when flying home the DEA questioned him for about 15 minutes. He fit a travel profile they look for, this was the early 1990s. He explained his job, they apologized for the inconvenience. I expect that nearly all false positives go something like that.
This assumes there are more chances that if someone has a different behavior to the majority's, then he is an undesirable person. This damages diversity by encouraging homogeneity.
I think you need to loosen the wrappings on the tin foil hat.
I expect that the article that started this thread misrepresented the details. Aside from behaviors like traveling to Pakistan for a couple of months, having wads of unexplained cash(1), etc they are not looking at many behaviors. Past law enforcement data mining that I saw had to do with associations. Who you called, who you had interactions with, what locations you frequented, etc. Such networks do help identify criminal networks - gangs, organized crime, etc. Might help for terrorist cells as well.
(1) Wads of unexplained cash have been reported for many decades. I think the laws requiring cash transactions above a certain to be reported are from the 1970s, but I'm not 100% sure about that.
I accept that the summary is against data mining - which clearly bothers me as well.
But I do not understand:
I thought that this was precisely the "province" of the FBI: nationally-coordinated police work, including into all sorts of fraud (here: insurance, identity, and wire).The most dangerous of all criminals are those who carry badges and whose chief weapons are the power and authority of the state.
Without police you would be at the mercy of your neighbor with bigger muscles. Human nature is self serving, flawed in a social sense. People with badges and state authority are a necessary evil to create a peaceful environment once a community grows beyond the size of extended family / tribal units. In these smaller communities you kind of know everyone else and there are more intermediaries to talk people down when they are angered to a level that they become violent. Once a community becomes so large that anonymity is widespread violence becomes far more common, hence the development of professional law enforcement. Beyond a certain size a community is no longer self policing.
Corollary: your cops don't really have the option of having a second job; they're paid to ignore nothing, and to come down hard on anything that moves. For cops, no crime is too small. For spies, not so much. And that's why I trust spies more than cops.
... However as those that wield the authority of the state, they are not allowed to make the laws and are stuck with whatever laws the politician who pandered to the voters best write.
You are mistaken. Police exercise a lot of discretion and do not "come down hard" on everything. It is logistically impossible to do so, time, paper work, etc. They also realize arrest is not always the most effective method to correct a situation. As a matter of fact, they bemoan various "zero tolerance" law/policies as distractions, wastes of time and resources, unjust,
As a kid who was brought up with the notion that "a policeman is someone you can always trust", that's the second-saddest fucking thing I've ever written. The saddest thing is that as an adult... it isn't that I've been lucky enough to have never encountered a bad cop (because I have been lucky -- I've never met a bad cop -- every cop I've encountered has been both polite and professional)... but it's that I think my experience has been lucky.
No you have met the typical cops. You don't hear about the good ones, just the aberrations that make the news doing something wrong.
This tag is offensive to tech people everywhere,
This type of political taggism should be banned.
This entire issue has nothing to do with race. Please explain to me why this falls under 'racism'?
Is it just another thing that one party can throw at another?
Maybe it's time to throw everyone out of government and start fresh, with young people that are not jaded, influenced and corrupted from the past.
No need to name a movement, an organization,a person. Look at your ballot, follow the issues, and vote your mind against those that have followed their party line, and vote in someone new that does not have an affiliation.
Read your rights - read them as responsibilities and do your part.
Mediocity is a cancer, you are the cure.
01-20-09 YAH!!!!!!!!
> What else could they be looking for that they are not telling us about?
I could tell you,
but then I would have to kill you.
The Republicans are destroying America. If you don't want America destroyed, then vote for Democrats.
(Yes, I'm American, and *NO*, the parties are not the same.)
-j
If the actual substance of the list you just gave consisted of good ideas then I'd have no problem with the left.
I'd love to provide health care to everyone. The difference is that I don't believe the ends justify the means, especially when those means have a track record of failure when applied elsewhere. I don't believe in doing something bad for the sake of achieving something good and hoping that somehow everything will turn out alright in the end. My wife is from the UK and she's glad that she's no longer subject to the "care" she received there. There are some problems for which there are no easy answers, and health care is one of them. This is not going to change. The government cannot solve this problem. The free market cannot solve this problem. Unless something happens to alter the economics involved there will be no solution. Right now health care is expensive. Unless it somehow becomes cheaper then there will continue to be people who cannot afford it. The government already provides health care to the most needy in the form of medicaid. The ones who are screwed are those who don't have insurance, but who are not quite poor enough to qualify for medicaid. There is no solution to this.
Sensible foreign policy is of course something that almost everyone will agree with. The problem is that "sensible" is a subjective term that is highly dependent upon the philosophical views of the person wielding it. To me sensible amounts to speaking softly and carrying a very big stick. Make that a shotgun. And a blow torch. And a pair of pliers.
Finding alternatives to oil is of course a good idea. The problem is that what the left generally means by that is "stop drilling for oil." The best alternative is of course nuclear power, but we all know how superstitious the left is about that. Alternatives to oil are not necessarily going to mean alternatives that the meany greenies prefer. The oil will run out one day, alternatives are inevitable. In the end they will be found or created no later than when the economic incentive to find them develops. It probably won't happen any earlier either. As long as oil is cheaper, alternatives will take a back seat. That being said I myself would LOVE to see an alternative to oil. The less money we pour into the pockets of medieval barbarian religious fanatics, the better off the world as a whole will be.
Capital punishment is a football, just like gay marriage. It is something that extremists on the left and right fight over because it is a subject that is resistant to moderation. Abortion is an even better example of this. There is no in-between position that would be acceptable to both sides, and so they continue to fight about it. I think this is a good thing because it takes up their time and energy and expends it on issues that are of only marginal relevance to most people. Capital punishment to me is something that I have a hard time caring about. It is sad when an innocent person is wrongly executed, but it isn't sad at all when a guilty person gets the chair. The problem isn't capital punishment itself, but the human - and therefore flawed - system which controls its use. At the end of the day I believe that capital punishment helps keep the criminal justice system working as it should. The members of a jury are far more likely to do their duty to the fullest if a person's life is at stake. I also believe that it is a credible deterrent. Not against the psycho ax murderer types, but against ethically challenged individuals whose decision to murder is calculated and deliberate. But, if capital punishment were to go away I don't think I'd care very much. As for gay marriage, my wife is bisexual, need I say more? As for abortion, it is a bad idea but not an issue that the government should be involved in regulating.
Making taxation more fair is yet another statement that everyone would agree with, provided their subjective interpretation of the word "fair" was the one employed. The sad truth is that far to
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
If the conservative Supreme Court is such a big fan of States Rights, why did they order a stop to the Florida recount?
I'm not buying it.
I think you're confusing the reality of non-leftists with the caricature you just used to describe them.
You're making a very serious mistake. Never believe your own press.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Despite fears of Godwin, census data has been responsible for the deaths of millions of Europeans. It even has IBM involved in the story. They made $M of dollars leasing the Hollerith machines and Hollerith cards to their European subsidiaries.
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
The Juden were marked before the Nazis marched into many of the European countries thanks to IBM's census, and they knew the pattern.
The story of France's census data is particularly illuminating as the guy there (I forget his name without re-reading the book) did a good job of non-collaboration and delay.
Thomas J. Watson., IBM's President, didn't receive the "Eagle with Star" in 1937 for nothing !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
The important components are authoritarianism and unity with the state. This runs heavily contrary to the "freedom" ideals of the US Constitution. Racism is often involved, but usually as a means to promote unity (nothing unites a group like a common enemy, and racial groups are an easily identifiable target to build up into an enemy.)
The current administration would appear to be using terrorists in a similar way. Terrorists have the advantage of not having any civil rights (since they were all legislated away), and not being a productive segment of the US economy (so it doesn't affect profits when you lock them up without trial). Since they are also stereotypically of a different (arabic) race and culture, they make a great fascist unifier because very few of the general populace actually understand them. If the terror attacks were actually genuine, the other advantage of using terrorists as a fascist unifier is that they are actually guilty of being dangerous, so the government doesn't have to make up stuff about them, it just has to make sure they have a high profile in the news.
You can't get away with using ethnic groups common to the US, because the population is familiar with them and even respects them. How many people in New York have never visited a Jewish deli, for example? America prides itself on being a melting-pot, so if you want a target, you have to use a foreign one. Terrorist are ideal.
Just exactly how many terrorists do you think are in Afghanistan? As a fraction of the population? Think that justifies occupying the country? How about Iraq?
"Huh? Yeah, whatever. Can we talk later, the mall closes in an hour?"
The apathy of today's society is really incredible.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Tags for this story: "republicansarefuckingfascists, privacy, internet, politics, bigbrother (tagging beta)"
When even Slashdot editors know the U.S. government is corrupt, things are REALLY bad.
"However the trend of giving them ever expanding power to make it easier and more efficient to catch criminals only sets us up for an abusive and corrupt haven for criminals that is effectively untouchable."
You do realize that that "trend" is in part because of changing technology? Technology not only makes for more effective police. It makes for more effective criminals. Expecting the law to be a static entity in a dynamic world would be of the highest folly. As for your "abusive and corrupt" haven. No, sweeping powers doesn't set us up. Us not doing our civic duties sets us up. An apathetic public is still going to have problems with a corrupt and abusive haven.
If find it amusing that the same government activities engaged in by the now defunct USSR were maligned by the USA in the 50's, 60's, 70's but here we are with the great land of the not so free anymore doing the exactly the same.
HUH? Looking for criminals inside the USA is EXACTLY the province of the FBI, and they are part of the federal government. Any more makeitupasyougoalong objections to government? Objection to data mining without some kind of probable cause OK there's a point, objecting to the FBI looking for criminals inside the USA, give me a break.
The government is trying to find criminals!
- real hackers don't have sigs -
More on Ashcroft's Justice Dept
And this is the Ashcroft who ended up quiting because he wouldn't go along with wholesale spying on the American public. If someone like Ashcroft turns out to be a hero, what kind of atrocities are going on behind the scenes? It's all legal as far as Alberto is concerned.
What a horrible chapter in our nations history.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Dudes, go read up on the history of IBM and the hollocaust.
;)
This is just a version 7 of what IBM started in the 20s/30s for Germany then the National Party.
I equally blame the Xian churchs/priests who gave ALL THEIR birth records to the government with names
so they could compile a massive Database back then.
I worry about government peoples secret ambitions for total control of society.
Listen up govt honchos , its all chaos, you can never control all people in society, if you push harder, they fight back harder and produce
lots of wasted decades and death and nastyness that will haunt that culture for eternity. Even today we know of the nut case Spaniards and their
south american stupidity.
Can someone isolate the power-trip gene and remove it? Or drop 1000 tonnes of LSD into all water supplies
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
just set up an email account and publish the email address, pick all incoming spam and you get enough...
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Potentially federal issue? None of those items necessarily happen interstate. All of those items could happen intrastate. Why do you give the government the benefit of doubt in being allowed to capture, intern, and investigate data about you?
Was there cause?
No, this is wholesale dragnetting. And if I supposed you were in favor of living inside a glass home filled with microphones, then I might still suggest that at the very least the federal agency might allow local law enforcement to comb through your innards if there's to be any witch hunts rather than allow a federal agency to spend your income investigating for crimes about you which may not have committed and may not even be a crime where you're from when, in fact, they have bigger fish to fry, like terrorism: the impetus behind the enabling laws.
Sorry. Even if you didn't commit the crime, and told the court so under oath, you will still have lied under oath if you're found guilty for the crime (because if you're found guilty, then, legally, you _did_ commit the crime).
1984, anyone?
Say it isn't so. We have a legal right to be involved in illegal activities.
Self proclaimed wannabe geek. You know how it is. Most of us who read this stuff probably fit in that category.
Read the article. The terrorist databases are seperate from the other databases used to identify and track FEDERAL (F as in FBI) crimes.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
.. how come they're not telling us all the truth about government involvement in scientology, eh?
Since you mention the UK so often it would be nice if you bothered to find out something about it.
I am very happy with the NHS and so are the vast majority of the people here in the UK. Yes it may have it's problems but everyone would much rather have the NHS than private healthcare.
The number of people with a degree is, in most regions of the UK, well above 15% and in most cities above 24% of the population in 2001.
Most people in the UK who are working are earning above the minimum wage.
VAT is not charged on everything, most especially it's not charged on food.
People need to get over this. It's now inevitable. America is no longer either a democracy or a republic. America is an oligarchy, our next President will be a Clinton, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Your votes don't count, the Executive Branch has absolute unchecked power, and citizens have whatever rights their government decides they're allowed to have. Just accept it. You can't beat them, the battle is already over. Humans lost, corporations won. Stop whining about civil liberties, habeus corpus and freedom. You'll take the freedoms that they give you and like it, or you'll be sent to Guantanimo Bay with the rest of the terrorists. Live with it. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Go start your own business, make your own money and forget about Wa$hington. The Constitution is a fairy tail you can tell your children. It has no meaning and no place in today's America. American is democracy is dead.
You americans should try to create a constituion. We have one here in germany, and its awesome. It does not only institute "Human rights" ( awesome thing too, try to get that too. You'd have to give up guantanamo tho ), but also protects our personal freedoms and us from a ( /another, we actually learned from history ) police state.
Watergate Anyone?
This is a great idea. Let's get crazy and run with it for a second.
The "not-a-terrorist-don't-watch list" should have everyone on it by default. We'll give it a better name too. How 'bout the "presumption of innocence"? Then we'll define a way that someone can be moved from one list to another. (it should probably have some independent oversight and citizen involvement, dontcha think?) We could call that "due process".
Yeah, and in 5 years from now, it will be required to have a hawk-eye camera inm every room in your house, just so they can see if bin laden lives with you, where the fuck is our privacy?????
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
Simma down now...I mean seriously, everybody whines about crime, violence, over taxing and all that crap, now they do something about it by catching criminals and tax leeches (insurance frauds costs us ALL money and you know it)...and people still bitch.
If you are not a criminal, then shut up and let them do their job.
Some people are just never happy unless their mad...they are called liberals. Always bitching, but never having any viable solutions, just bitching. Somebody tries to do something and they still bitch.
Jeezuz...
dB Masters
I find it very interesting that for the 40 years the Democrats were in charge, they kept making the Federal Government stronger and more intrusive, and only when the Repubs get in do they suddenly say "Oh shit!".
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
> Pardon my conspiracy theory, but hasn't the government been spying on us, well, forever?
yeah - to various levels of effectiveness and efficiency:
Data collection: 50 years ago it took a ton of paperwork and a massive staff to collect data on a lot of people. Typically, you'd just target a fraction of the population, or collect a little info on everyone.
Personal aggregation: this data could not be (for all practical purposes) aggregated by person
Profile aggregation: again, due to reasons of economy, the data by person could not be aggregated by profile
however, now:
You've got handy electronic records of everything you buy, everywhere you go, every web site you visit, everyone you call, and every message via sms and email. So, data collection is no longer extremely expensive - in fact it can be relatively trivial.
The challenge is in getting "common keys" between all these sources - so that they know that ken@acme.com is the same person as ken@hp.com who lives in the same household that visits salon.com. This part is still very expensive to do completely. So, aggregation is still a challenge - but the problem is being whittled away at by these departments and organizations.
The good news is that this is difficult to do well - especially given government bureaucracies.
> I say privacy is pretty much a thing of the past.
As we lose privacy we'll lose freedoms, so you better hope not. There will be little effective opposition to a majority government that controls this info - and can easily blackmail opposition figures over uncovered items. There will be enormous pressures to conform to perceived normalacy when deviations from it result in raised TerroristScore, lowered PatriotScore, or whatever.
Imagine for a second trying to get onto a plane past a security guard that notices your TerroristScore is a little high. Unknown to both you and him this is because you frequent a middle eastern falafal stand frequented by a few fundamentalist moslems that donate to Hamas. This guy isn't very good with numbers, isn't very good at understanding that your score is a little high - it's black & white with this guy. You're not getting on that plane, and you will be treated like a terrorist.
Or imagine getting denied a job or health insurance because you work out at a gym where there's a lot of gay men with aids. This has affected your HealthCostScore, even though you have no idea about this - the system will automatically reject your application.
Giving up on privacy in an age of information is like giving up on food. The only difference is that one will kill you faster than the other.
I am a registered Democrat. I am not a fan of the Republican Party here in Ohio or at the national level. Nevertheless, when I see a story on /. with the tag of "republicansarefuckingfascists" I do think it serves only to add fuel to the fire that makes politics in the United States even more divisive than it already is.
/. has a particular political and ideological bent and so certain story topics are to be expected here (reader, know thine author). Still, some restraint on the part of the submitter and /. is not an unreasonable expectation.
Just post the story and let the readers decide.
Everyone knows
Be the change you want the world to become.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
someone on /. just removed that highly inappropriate tag. thank you.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
I'm hoping they'll notify me of any relatives who may want to sell me amway guised as 'a great new way to save money buying things you already buy'.
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
In a simplistic sense, that's true, but the data you leave behind on someone elses's server can be sold. It's their data that they've paid together, not yours, even though it is about you. So, sure, you might not trust Amazon, but, if I was a magazine company, I could always sell your data to them. And in fact, most companies probably DO sell this data they acquire about you.
This is my sig.
As a practical matter, most aspects of the current left wing agenda, from higher taxes on the rich (a progressive tax scale), more social services for the poor, etc, are all viewed as a subset of a larger socialist state. If you gave them all of that, they would continue to advocate for even more socialism.
As political spheres go, you are right. But we are in a political climate where a lot of people on this board post as Democrats == Good and Republicans == Evil, and really, without any context at all. I mean, you have people comparing Bush to Kim Jong Il.. and honestly, its more like people touting slogans than being any real leftists.
The fact of the matter is, 95% of all humans do not think of themselves, and probably %99.995 on slashdot. The more educated you are, the more likely you are to accept indoctrination, just because, you learn to trust as knowledge that which you read. So right now, America is a bunch of free thinkers in the right wing, who lack the educational tools to do so effectively, and a bunch of drones on the left, who have a lot of knowledge, but can't think at all. And the result is either the likes of Bush or Gore or Kerry... and worst of all, Bush actually has better grades in college than his Democratic opposition... How f--- up is that?
This is my sig.
I would have modded you up with an insightful, if just the above had been your post. With the context of the parent comment, this is very smart.
But WTF was that lot for? This is very dumb.
Now I've seen some more of your posts, Lee, its clear you are just a redneck, and you weren't making an insightful tongue-in-cheek remark. I'm glad I didn't mod you up!
If you can cite the times when the democrats encouraged warrantless wiretaps and administrations based on war profiteering - by far the biggest examples of a stronger and more intrusive government - then I'll mod you insightful.
I agree with you that openness and free exchange of personal information is a good thing. The problem comes in when some people exchange information freely and others don't (for instance, I know everything about you, but you don't even know my name). This gives me plenty of opportunities to abuse you, and doesn't give you a way of defending yourself (or even know what I'm planning to do).
In other words:
A completely open society is better than a closed society (where everyone keeps secrets and lies). Both, however, are better than a society where most people know nothing, and a few secretive elites know everything about everyone.
I didn't RTA but I thank the FBI for stepping up. The fraud on the Internet is just atrocious. And no state police forces are ready/able to combat it. It crosses state lines. I remember over a decade ago when the hackers attacked a company where I worked, the FBI was the only force to even lift a finger.
I hope they trap and slaughter every single spammer and fraudster. The world would be alot more productive without those lowlifes.
I believe in the Bill of Rights but with Carnivore in place I'd sure expect to see some of the spammers eliminated. Maybe we should make a legal system where we gather the info on them and then sue their ISP and everyone else who supports them. I can see us adding a tarriff on all oil products from Nigeria to settle the illegal activities if they are unwilling to prosecute their criminals.
My $.02
timjowers
Expect Freedom.
Anyway, even if the post-Patriot Act surveillance is legal and just, Bush has lied about it repeatedly. In 2006, Bush explicitly said
Now this story shows that they are extensively using data-mining since as early as 2003. Bush is very good at lying without technically lying (ex: the Iraq/al-qaeda link) and an apologist could make some defenses. "The databases may be aggregations of public data therefore not 'personal lives'." "He only meant to address the specific scandal of the day (NSA wiretapping) nothing else." "He was talking about literal mining not data-mining." These pathetic defenses are even weaker than asking what the "definition of 'is' is". He said he was not data-mining when he was and still is. He is a liar.
As a DB Developer who works for marketing organizations I have to say that you should be VERY afraid of what both parties already know about you via legal channels - done for targeting of campaign funds. Add in easy, near-unlimited access! Say you have a hot-button district coming into an election year (and they already know it's a hot-button district ahead of everybody else because they have a monstrous data store that would be illegal for any other entity). Do you really think info for a nice police sting to that area, targeted to opposition voters/wrongdoers won't be executed to sway the balance? Politicization of non-political offices is a cornerstone of this administration. Another very crucial governmental function becoming too busy serving Washington to serve the people (that being law enforcement, from the CIA down to beat cops) is just be a side effect of this insidious effort. How about clarifying the ROL (Return On Legislation) for tax breaks and coming up with more misrepresetative numbers for bad policies and scare tactics? You want to throw better data at W(ashington) for those efforts? They want data more than they want crooks. This is the information age, people. Privacy has a cost, but so does the lack of it and that cost is our freedom.
There's a balance somewhere. Why do you think they call it a police state? The founders were wise to restrict and separate power. All-powerful law enforcement is no more desirable than an all-powerful unitary executive. You mention large societies, but what about large organizations? The larger an organization becomes (U.S. govt, FBI, Enron, whatever...) the greater are the chances that corrupt cadres will use its resources to nefarious ends. When the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, you have problems.
Is this data mining something that the FBI is doing by themselves or is it something that has been outsourced to Choicepoint?
You yourself are saying how bad it is to do the VERY things that the people you are ripping on are doing. Get a clue buddy. Racisim is about creating a group and singling them out for something.
Incorrect. Racism is about prejudice or discrimination against a group identified based on an inborn characteristic, generally ethnicity; not judgment based on voluntary affiliations. The Confederacy was a political association; its degree of racial identity is merely a side effect of its underlying racist principles. To give a sloppy approximation, "All neo-Confederates are White Southerners, but not all White Southerners are neo-Confederates". If ObsessiveMathsFreak had been assigning the blame to Rednecks, you might have a point. As is... no.
However, OMF's was slightly inaccurate to blame the streak of Jingoism in the Republican party on the neo-Confederate elements; I believe that Republican tendency clearly dates back at least to the time of Theodore Roosevelt, and arguably had roots all the way back through the Grant presidency. While the trend in the 20th century was a rise in Xenophobia in the Republicans and a fall in the Democrats, it has had solid roots in all of America's major parties. Blaming the social conservatism of the Republicans on the neo-Confederates might have more solid basis, but I'd judge that it took until the Carter Presidency to solidly push this group into the Republican balliwick.
Still... these political elements are an albatross around the neck of the United States.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Wow... the liberal foil fest rolls on!
I can already see someone posting something about this proving that in the US not brains but money dictate how far you get in your "education"... whoopse, I just did.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Looks like you are trying to "wriggle out of admitting you were wrong".
Why am I not surprised.
Well, but be honest, those are the ones that are most vocal, most obnoxious and thus most well known.
What I find considerably interesting is that there are no such stereotypes for "lefties". At least I don't know any.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...by data mining your posts.
Amazon is only going to buy personal information about me if it will help them make money. The data they receive directly from me is probably far more valuable than the information they might purchase from a third party. Regardless, until Amazon has the power to make me disappear in the middle of the night by declaring me an "enemy combatant", I'll sleep easy with them knowing what books I have purchased.
"Since forever. The FBI's job is to discover who committed crimes."
You act like the FBI is supposed to sit around waiting until a crime occurs then investigate it after the fact. As though they aren't also tasked with investigating crimes that are occurring or will occur.
"Having to prove that you don't deserve to be on those lists, that it is a case of mistaken identity, seems like having to prove your innocence."
Innocence of what? It's not a "committed a crime" list, it's a "watch" list. You're not being presumed guilty of anything.
Yup, I'll go along with that. I don't care - it's only a bunch of Americans in their third-world culture. Who cares what happens to them? They kill and torture everyone anyway - it's a good idea to keep them under tight control.
Mind you, if it happened in Europe, that would be different....
And your point is that Amazon and Walmart do that? I don't think so. Obscuring the data the way you say doesn't really work anyways. You lose that battle every time if your adversary has more data than you, or is better at statistics.
Up through the point where we have good documentation we know for a fact that the FBI always abuses whatever powers it has. Martin Luther King Jr. was surveilled and harassed. Later that approach was formalized in the COINTELPRO program. COINTELPRO was directed against the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Vietnam era peace movement. After COINTELPRO was officially stopped, the same tactics were used against people who protested/organized against Reagan's Central American Policies in the '80s. In the late '80s and early '90s the same tactics were used against the environmental movement. Now we have evidence that the FBI abused their National Security Letter powers.
So is this NEW? No.
Is it NEWS? Absolutely!
This time we are learning about the abuses as they are happening instead of 20 years after the fact when the government is forced to declassify old documents. The excuse has always been, "well that was unfortunate, but we don't do that anymore." They can't use that excuse this time.
-- QED
"If the FBI wants to investigate criminals, fucking wonderful. But they should leave the rest of us alone."
Will the REAL criminals please stand up!!
The agents are probably just surfing for p0rn and stumble across some criminal activity from time to time.
Have gnu, will travel.
You do the mining.....in the gulag.
Have gnu, will travel.
Move along nothing to read here.
The article indicates that they are clearly mining data that is available to anyone that can pay for it... Many of the databases that they are mining are available to you or me.... It is stupid to assume that the government can not look at publicly available data to look for trends or clues that could be of assistance in identify crimes and criminals.... In fact it would be irresponsible for them not to.
This story is nothing more that the authors poking a sharp stick at the hornets nest that is the irrational left it has helped to create....
You said, "(FBI) they're also supposed to be looking for people in the U.S. engaged in criminal activity that is not really supposed to be the province of the federal government?"
...
...) failures of the USA Government. Chaos theory should apply to the politicized "executives/bosses" creating a critical avalanche of failures that could eventually overwhelm the proportionally few remaining real "executives/bosses" Professionals in the USA Government. Then the politicized "executives/bosses" will blame the "Real Professionals" and degrade the efforts further.
.... The "Real Professionals" in Military and Government Service have been oppressed, fired, and forced to retire or accept political "Ass-kissing", "Dogma-sucking", and "Delusion-puking" as SOP in the USA Government.
....
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is chartered by the USA Government to investigate all
interstate (physical/internet...) crimes, organized crime, terrorist activities
[ http://www.fbi.gov/hq.htm ] go to their website and read. The FBI has the lead in almost
all "Domestic Interstate and Federal" threats/crimes investigation and prevention.
The "Real Professionals" in Military and Government Service (especially field personnel) have my thanks and respect for all they are doing.
FBI politicized "executives/bosses" are among the biggest (Military "Career First" GO, State Department OJT, Homeland Defense popinjays, Justice Department Spinsters, Executive Department Story Tellers
The "Real Professionals" in Military and Government Service (especially field personnel) are not failing our National Interest. Our Field Personnel are exceptional and would have prevented (I believe) 9-11 and the NOLA catastrophe, killed Bin Laden and all the top terrorist leaders
It all started in Congress, now it is in the Whitehouse, and finally include the politicization of the Supreme Justice of the land. Just what we don't fycking need politicized "executives/bosses". In times of National Emergency our politicized "executives/bosses" are advocating Corporate-Welfare, Religious Mythology Policy, Plutocratic Fools' Doctrine
I you, in these times, believe any politician (including a parent) is telling the truth, working or the Public Good, and defending US Citizen freedoms, justice, and posterity for our grand-children, then you are a fool, uneducated, and/or mentally ill.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Not only do we need tight regulation of LE, every call to a scene should require the presence of a member of a public advocate (member of the press?) to document, witness and rate their actions.
The press is largely superficial, sometimes even clueless, why would you want them or other ill-informed individuals rating anyone's actions? If you doubt the press' cluelessness look at their reports in areas where you have in depth knowledge. In areas where I have such knowledge I often find their reports superficial, ill-informed, more emotional/sensationalist than informative or truth seeking. Why would I expect the press' performance to be any better in areas I don't have in depth knowledge? The image of the dedicated journalist digging for the truth against all odds is largely a fiction, a movie stereotype. In truth if they can get two unrelated people to say the same thing they generally go with that. There is already an effective balance on law enforcement, it's called the courts. If an officer misbehaves there is no shortage of lawyers who will be willing to file a lawsuit.
Secondly, the press can be about as dangerous to an individual as some around here accuse law enforcement. They are virtually untouchable, there is no check or balance upon them. They can get a story wrong, destroy you on the front page, and when they are proven to have been wrong they will bury their retraction inside and offer no compensation for the damage they have done.
All men are equal under the law... the police are a little 'more equal than the rest of us' though.
That is a pretty ignorant statement. In truth law enformcement is held to a higher standard than normal civilians. That is the tradeoff made for the authority they are given. They can have their careers ruined and be fired for actions that are legal or misdeanors when comitted by civilians. They are more limited in how they can defend themselves if physically attacked than civilians are. They are more liable when attempting to help or rescue someone than civilians are. All this 24/7, regardless of whether on the job or off.
If they pull you over for speeding, beat you up, take your watch, and then toss you in jail for a week without access to a lawyer or phone, then drive you out to the outskirts of town and dump you in a ditch -- what are you going to do about it? Call the police?
Lets pretend your grade B movie or third world scenario occured in the US. In the US, you call a higher law enforcement agency, the local district attorney, or one of many private attorneys who will be more than happy to file a lawsuit on your behalf. We already have a check and balance upon law enforcement, it's called the courts.
Your post would make sense if it weren't for freely available student loans (with the easiest qualification requirements possible, apart from none) and Junior/Community colleges.
Blather all you like about how money is the determinant, but when it comes to higher education, you are dead fucking wrong.
"- Providing adequate health care to all citizens of the country we live in
- Sensible foreign policy
- Finding alternatives to oil
- Abolishing capital punishment
- Making taxation more fair
- Taking better care of our environment"
You just proved his point. None of these things are attainable goals, as they are so undefined and nonspecific as to be useless. They are simply ginned up references to social ills, with happy little vagaries included to avoid answering the hard questions like "what the fuck does sensible foreign policy" mean.
"Yep, nothing but total mud-slinging at the Republican party...."
What the hell is the point of this? You KNOW the Democrats attack the Republicans, and vice versa, and you know they use policy differences to do it, so stop with this crap. Just ask yourself what the genesis of the phrase "tax cuts for the rich" is and you'll see why you're wrong.
YOU are why our two party system sucks, we're stuck with stupid Democrat fanatics on one side, and Republican zealots on the other, and every time someone with a legitimate criticism finds the courage to speak, they get shouted down by the likes of you and yours.
Shut up and listen, maybe you'll learn a thing or two.
One of the most important things we the people can do to protect our privacy and liberty is to make damn sure that ALL laws that congress passes apply to each and every citizen. Congress, the executive and the judiciary should never, ever under any circumstances be allowed to exempt themselves from laws they make, enforce or interpret: that's what LAW is supposed to BE. Want to watch us with video cameras? Fine. You go first, install one in your building. Want to wiretap our calls? Fine. You go first, let us wiretap your calls first. Want to take our fingerprints, retinal scans, etc? Fine. You go first, give us your data and make it all public. Want to give us "fake news" and disinformation? Fine. You go first, we'll give you fake and misleading info too. Want to make it illegal to take photos in certain cities? Fine. You go first, make it illegal for government to take photos too. Want to outlaw firearms ownership? Fine. You go first, have the military and police turn in all their guns. Want to restrict my free speech? Fine. You go first, No more politics of any kind on TV. Whenever government wants anything....Fine. You go first.
I have to disagree with you here. The news media often sees "good cops" as newsworthy. That's why we see so much TV news that's really not news at all.... the "feel good" stories about the cat rescued from the dumpster by a local cop, or things along those lines.
The nightly news is, ultimately, about getting good ratings, and NOT about making sure they only cover the news that's really "most important to society". Car accidents and house fires, while serious, don't really affect 99.99% of the people watching the summaries on the TV news about them each night.
By the same token, it's more difficult and risky to provide news coverage that challenges established authority. You have to have all your facts really solid, consult with your lawyers on retainer to double-check your script, etc. etc. TV stations never got in trouble or lost paid advertisers for praising the fire dept. or a cop for a rescue effort - but they can't say the same about an expose showing the local police to largely be corrupt and abusive to the public.
Considering the fact that I'm far from a real "criminal" - it's absolutely frightening how often I've been harassed, verbally abused, or simply ordered to stop doing things well within my rights, by local law enforcement officers over the years! I can honestly say that I've lived in rough neighborhoods, worked in them, and drove through them daily - yet I wasn't that afraid of criminals. What scares me far worse is getting pulled over by a cop. I'm not even comfortable seeing one around me, despite having done nothing wrong!
Now you have to scan your card again to get out as well. So they're (and by they're I mean at least Atlanta City Gov, perhaps passing on to FBI/Feds) mining my traveling habits (I ride MARTA daily so I don't like this).
Privacy-minded as I am, I don't really have a problem with this for two reasons:
A) The data is useful for route optimization.
B) There is no way of identifying who you are. (I buy my MARTA card with cash; don't you?)
Guess what -- in countries with fully functioning public transit systems (like Japan) they actually (*gasp*) charge you different rates depending on how far you travel. Your card actually has a record (encoded on it) of all your starting and stopping points, including bus routes (though not necessarily individual stops), which is necessary for properly billing you.
This actually makes sure that people who want to travel a short distance are not discouraged from doing so by having to pay the average price of everyone using the system and ensures that heavy users are charged appropriately. It also lets the transit authorities know (en masse) what routes need additional trains and buses and which ones can be reduced at different times of the day. This is very important to lowering costs and improving quality of service.
Again, I'd have a BIG problem with this if you could identify me from my card, but you can't, so what's the big deal?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
We are a republic of individual states. The Electoral College system makes sure that those states still have power. In a popular vote system, presidential candidates would only have to campaign in LA, Chicago, and NYC. The first two caucuses that can give a candidate enormous momentum are in Iowa and New Hampshire. How amazing is that? We had presidential elections turn on the outcomes of voting in Florida and Ohio. For me that's evidence that the Electoral College system works.
So, on the one hand, it's bad if the entire election hinges on LA, Chicago, and NYC...
But, on the other hand, it's good if the entire election hinges on Florida and Ohio?
From my perspective as a citizen of Georgia, it's not at all evidence that the system works that the entire election hinges on one set of places that I don't live in instead of another.
Also, I dispute you assertion that elections would only hinge on both parties pandering to the big cities. A cursory look at any by-district map of the past several elections will reveal a general trend -- high population areas vote Democrat; low-population areas vote Republican. In other words, Republicans would see no advantage in pandering to big city liberals that they've demonized for so many decades.
Instead, elections would be a battle between who could rally their base the best, kind of like primaries are right now. Can you turn out more city dwellers or more suburbanites and country dwellers? Republicans would hit up places like Texas, Utah, and the South while Democrats would hit up the East and West coasts. The central and plains states might lose out a little, but except for Ohio, they're already pretty much losing out. Some attention would have to be paid the entire nation, though.
While I'm not sure that this would be an improvement for politics over the insincere move to the center that most candidate do after the primary, it certainly is at least more fair that letting a person from Rhode Island have nearly 3X the voting power of a person from California. I also maintain that there should never be a person that doesn't have a plurality of Americans getting into office over someone who does. That's neither democratic in a majoritarian nor a proportional manner.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
You do realize that the "evil" in "necessary evil" is figurative not literal [...]
I'm sorry -- are you stating that necessary evil is never actually evil? That's a dark road to walk down, and at the very end is the belief that the ends always justify the means. War is a necessary evil, but do not think that just because it is necessary for our survival that it is not mass murder.
Now, back to the police. Never forget that police are human beings and thus fallible. Any time you hand someone the keys to power over you, you invite them to abuse that power if you do not ensure oversight of their actions. Read your civil rights history if you forget that power can be abused by those charged to protect us. Read about the things done under the veil of "national security" as part of COINTELPRO.
This isn't conjecture. This isn't mad conspiracy theory. This is history, and it's people like you that doom those who know history to watching everyone else repeat it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
put the fish in a database.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Sadly, those exabytes of data are mostly only useful after the fact. Its like all those "security cameras" - they don't improve security - they just help you identify the person who was wearing the backpack that blew everyone to bits.
Fewer cameras and hi-tech "solutions", and more manpower on the beat.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Funny how it's all been up and running for years. Oh, except for the program that detects "terrorist" suspects. Real soon they'll do the thing that they said it was all about, right? That IS what they're doing it for, right? They wouldn't lie and just PRETEND it was about terrorists, now, would they?
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
And at the end of the day the whole system is vulnerable, because WHO ultimately regulates the police and the other government law enforcement bodies? The government does. The very same entity we fear of abusing their power is the entity charged with ensuring it doesn't happen.
Your logic is flawed. Your use of the the word government suggests that your are referring to the executive and legislative branches, the branches that wield power. What you fail to consider is that law enforcement is checked by the same authority that checks these two branches, this check is the third branch, the courts. For your paranoid scenario to occur the judicial system must be corrupted. With a functioning judiciary you will have no shortage of attorneys willing to sue any abusive law enforcement officer or agency.
A poster writes how eating smart peoples brains that he kills received a "5" for "informative". Now either something is going horribly wrong here with the rating system or more smart people are needed here to joint in on the approval process. It's ridiculous to think that a forum can award the "5 Informative" to some 'dude' trying to be funny when there is no factual information in the response. Yet someone who posts here with Bush Supported = Troll and Bush Hater =Points receives a -1 Troll rating? WTF? As this post would relate to the topic...There continues to be over sensationalizing over what information the government collects. I'm sure that no matter which president is in power, information will continue to be collected on each and every person that our Government sees fit whether we like it or not. The fact that this story originated from Patrick Leahey is already an indicator that the story is flawed. You need to read about Leahey's voting record before you hold value in what he says. If you continue to hold value in what he says then it should not result in you being a troll. Comments should be welcome but the additional question is Why is a Political Wiretapping story on Slashdot?
Except the first time, when the Supreme Court stepped in to *stop the counting process*, which would have, it turned out, elected Gore if it had continued to the end.
Except the second time, when there was clearly chicanery in Ohio, which could have been exposed if the Democrats had been on their toes and challenged the election there. Which they didn't, being as corrupt as the Republicans. (How *do* you explain the mathematical discrepancies between the exit polls and the actual vote, which only varied significantly in precincts that Bush won?)
This is all without challenging your assertion that Presidents have been elected without winning the popular vote. In fact, Jackson and Cleveland came back to be elected the next time around. Tilden died between elections and Gore bailed, otherwise he might have been elected in 2004.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
With a functioning judiciary you will have no shortage of attorneys willing to sue any abusive law enforcement officer or agency.
Would they be so willing to sue if the law enforcent agency took them out back and beat them, or locked them in cells on trumped up drug charges or harrassed their families? The idea that attorneys can prosecute law enforcment pretty much presupposes that law enforcement will protect them...in this case protect them from itself. If its corrupt enough this becomes a bad bet.