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Cyber Crime A Distant #3 Priority for FBI
An anonymous reader writes "A reading of the Justice Department's 2008 budget justification to Congress for the FBI indicates the agency is dedicating about 5.5 percent of its field agents to combating cyber crime, the FBI's stated Number Three priority, The Washington Post reports. Take away the agents dedicated to catching child predators online — a program that accounts for the vast majority of the department's prosecutorial victories — and about 3.6 percent of the FBI's agents are dedicated to cyber crime, the report notes. From the story: 'If the FBI's third most-important priority claims just over 3.5 percent of its active agents, how many agents and FBI resources are dedicated to the remaining Top Ten priorities?'"
A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending a "CEO's dinner" at a regional tech trade show. (I'm not a CEO, I just happened to work for the meetings major sponsor.) The majority of attendees were the type of people who wear very expensive watches and attend regional tech conferences and use words like "synergy" a lot.
The keynote speech was given by an FBI special agent, and was about cybercrime (I hate that word). He talked about where major risks came from, talked up InfraGard a bit, and generally gave common sense advice to the CEO types there. I remember thinking, "This guy can't really be a computer security expert, can he?"
At one point, I zoned out, and when I tuned back in I thought he was using a Latino name repeatedly in a context I didn't understand. So I glanced up at his powerpoint slide, then back at him, and then back at the slide, until I made the connection.
He was talking about "warez," but he was pronouncing it "Juarez."
I found it very hard to take him seriously after that.
Neoconservative was first coined in the 80s as a synonym for "Reagan Democrats." It was a derisive term for politicians who cynically took (or pretended to take) conservative positions that they do not believe on certain issues for the purpose getting elected. The implication was that they did not hold those views, and once elected would not behave conservatively as they suggested.
It certainly shouldn't be applied to people who have always been conservative. Ann Coulter is not a neocon. Both of the Clintons are. Newt Gingrich is not a neocon, but neither is Nancy Pelosi. Dick Cheney is not, but both the Bush presidents (41,43) could be considered to be. Rudy Guiliani is shaping up to be one. Barack Obama has cleverly been on the campaign trail (or otherwise occupied) during a number of policy-defining votes during his freshman term, so it remains to be seen just exactly what he is, and what he's pretending to be.
Neocons don't tend to control anything, principally because they, like moderates, like to stick their finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing before not really doing anything of substance.
There is no logical reason why the word would be repeated so often about people it does not describe except to create a new definition. One which is intended to associate conservatives with a certain kind of nazis by way of a common prefix. It is very tiring to watch this in action. Especially as it appears to be succeeding amongst the ill-informed, non-critically thinking masses.
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