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U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read
boarder8925 writes "Be careful what you read when you fly in the United States. What you read is being monitored by airport screeners and stored in a government database for years. 'Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore's choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he'd packed for the trip. The breadth of the information obtained by the Gilmore-funded Identity Project (using a Privacy Act request) shows the government's screening program at the border is actually a survelliance dragnet."
whoop-de-fucking-do. ..... And You don't care if they look, 'cause you've done nothing wrong......
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
the rest of us about 'freedom' and 'democracy' as your country clearer has neither.
Cheers.
But voting does not work anymore.
:( Retire overseas, I suppose.
At the state level (both state and Congressional elections), the districts have been so gerrymandered, you get extremist after extremist. Do you live in California by chance? The extremism is destroying this state.
At the presidential level, any sane people get culled out even before the primaries. It's the media's fault here. Any sane person will occasionally suggest a solution that is diametrically opposed to the status quo, and the media will make that person out to be a lunatic when the exact opposite is true. What were left with is a choice between a small number of sociopathic megalomaniacs.
And I'm no Republican, but you don't *really* think the Dems have any solutions, do you? I go to their web pages, and it's the same old broken crap.
Go look at Edwards statement on energy. The first half of it is "No nuclear power! It's scary! Don't care about technological advancements. No nukes! Naaa naa naaa! I'm not listening!"
Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Dems are just as close-minded as Rep, but on different things.
And, no, I don't have any answers, hence the frustration.
Actually, I thought the ability to travel freely within one's own country without passports or border check was a very fundamental right of a free people.
At least that's what they taught me during the fifties... when Soviet citizens did not have that right but U. S. citizens still did.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
But voting does not work anymore.
You know when it stopped working? WHEN PEOPLE STOPPED PARTICIPATING!!!
I know political agenda is a bad word, but damn it all to hell how else is a representative democracy supposed to work if you don't have a political agenda and make an effort to see that agenda through?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Geez. People like you are annoying, you know that? Police State? Where do you live? Comparing the current state of America to a Police state is complete and total hyperbole. Last time I checked we did still have free speech, just look at the University of Florida incident (the one that everyone's jumping all over as police brutality, yeah that one). The student was allowed to say what he wanted to say, he was not blocked from speaking up at all. In fact he was allowed to keep saying what he wanted to say long after he had broken the rules of the debate (and a Florida law, but that's less important).
In a true police state he would never have been allowed to speak at all. America is not a police state. America is a country where a small amount of freedom has been removed from the people in order to insure their security. A large number of American's (myself included by the way) believe that that is wrong but calling America a police state just makes you seem like a crazed fanatic, someone completely out of touch with reality. Calm down and think rationally about the freedoms you have right now. Now think about the freedoms allowed to people in a police state. Once you understand the difference between the two then you will stop looking like a fanatic and start looking like a rational individual.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
In a free country it doesn't matter why you're carrying "a number of small flashlights" because it's nobody's goddamn business. This hyper-sensitivity some people have now to anything that's even slightly out of the ordinary is ridiculous.
I think reality is, things are broken from the top down... Unfortunately, most of us are so concerned about the "big elections", we make the "feel good" attempts to go vote for our new president every 4 years, and possibly go a time or two in-between, specifically to vote for or against some tax measure or issue that's of great personal importance to us for whatever reason.
... but at least you can make an effort to weed out known corrupt ones. (If I don't know better, I just vote out all of them whenever I get the chance. I figure, worst case, I have better odds bringing in fresh, new people for the job vs. letting the existing people stick around, potentially getting more crooked over time.)
Meanwhile, we don't bother with much of the "smaller stuff", when in reality, THAT is precisely where one's vote really counts!
You may have noticed, it's not too often someone comes out of nowhere to take on a high-profile political career as president, vice-president, or Supreme Court justice.
These people "grow into" their jobs, after getting elected first at a local level and working their way up the ranks over the years. By the time they've made all the political connections and accepted all the bribes in a higher-ranking position, your "say so" in keeping them around (or even expecting them to do what they initially promised you) is pretty much zilch.
Where you STILL have control is at the bottom of the pyramid, instead of up near the peak. I know not everyone has time to research all the candidates for judges in their district and so on
Just by going to the occasional city/county council meeting, you're able to have say-so in issues that directly affect things right near your own home and workplace - and you may be one voice out of only 10 or 20 taken into consideration at that meeting.... Not 1 vote out of hundreds of thousands or millions!