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FBI Wants Authority To Filter Net Backbone
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, writes "There are places where criminal activity is centralized: the backbone hubs located in hosting facilities across the country. All of the Internet's activity, legal and illegal, flows through these 'choke points,' and the feds, of course, are already tapping those points and siphoning off data. What Mueller wants is the legal authority to comb through the backbone data, which is already being siphoned off by the NSA, in order to look for illegal activity."
Wireless mesh is the only way I know how. Even Tor and Freenet can't really be trusted.
What?
The legal authority to block anything he can't read.
I would say "Welcome to Soviet America" but the feds have had the "we can do what we want in the name of protecting the country damn the Constitution" attitude off and on since the 1700s.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
will they pry my private encryption key passphrase.
"Criminals live amongst us. We need to bug everyone's homes so we can root them out."
No sig for you!!
Back around the turn of the millennium, the U.S.'s monitoring of Internet traffic was a big topic of discussion on the Internet, spurred on by James Bamford's Body of Secrets and the European Union's report on ECHELON facilities. Except for some of us Slashbots, the public seems to have lost interest in this troubling phenomenon.
What if their combing leads me to a brush with the law? It could get hairy....
Invenio via vel creo
Who sees that this could become a huge regulatory nightmare in the coming years for software developers? This will only be effective so long as either the public continues using mainstream protocols for most activities, and the protocols that the FBI wants to monitor don't get changed or replaced on a regular basis by those who don't want to be monitored. The eventual outcome, IMO, besides the obvious privacy, constitutional and financial issues involved in this would be a bridge between this mandate, the data retention mandate and CALEA causing all providers of IT products to comply to make their products easy for law enforcement to monitory, going so far as to outlaw the deployment of software that is capable of evading surveillance.
I for one DO NOT welcome our evil packet sniffing overlords.
I want my country and constitution back. These people have a lot of nerve to ask me for money to be able to read my private papers and correspondence.
Small steps, seemingly innocuous in and of themselves, but taken together, result in a total subversion of the intent of the founders.
Remind me again how any of this falls under the umbrella of rights protection with which the government was originally charged.
Why is it so easy to trash the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and so hard to put them back? What a bunch of assholes. They must have had the words "probable cause" surgically removed from their brains.
we will end no whine before its time
You have to know if the Feds are asking, it's because they are ready are doing.
Which also means they never stopped the Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program or Echelon, the NSA worldwide digital interception program or Carnivore, the FBI US digital interception program.
Man, I bet they've got petabytes of freaky porn by now.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Yeah, and I want to get laid and every five year old wants a pony. Unluckily for me and the five year old, however, the FBI is the only one likely to get their wish.
There are places where criminal activity is centralized: the backbone hubs located in hosting facilities across the country.
Yes, they'll solve all those murders, rapes, assaults, robberies, and other violence by monitoring the backbone.
While you're at it, why not tap all our phones and open all our postal mail as well? Hell, walk on into everyone's house looking for evidence of criminal activity! Why not?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
but arcing up to be planted in our asses...
Pretty soon, they'll want to embedd blueteeth in our asses...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This is just another reason to use secure protocols and encryption for messages, perhaps Tor, too.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
e'll-Way ust-jay se-uay ode-cay.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Your post advocates a
(X) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
(X) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(X) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(X) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(X) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(X) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(X) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(X) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(X) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
(X) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
(X) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
(X) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
(X) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
(X) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(X) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(X) Sending email should be free
(X) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
(X) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
As if NSA spying wasnt bad enough now they want the ISP's to do the dirty work and hand them the result in a silver platter. With intelligence agencies doing the work you could atleast hope on their incompetence to keep you safe but now even that is gone.
Next up: Hiring monkeys at NSA. Details at 11
You had your years of pre "police state", so let other countries have theirs. Don't export your "values" to other countries and help them go directly to the police state stage under the guise of democracy. If _this_ is democracy, I'd rather not have it.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Old system - the duly appointed authorities had to SUSPECT you of a crime ... and get sufficient evidence to convince a disinterested 3rd party (a judge) that there was a need for a warrant.
... just something you want to read about someone. Stalking ex's. Harassing people who do not respect you enough. Getting some info on that cutie you saw at the grocery store.
New system - skim through the LEGITIMATE transactions of EVERYONE hoping to find something criminal or actionable or
Fuck that.
Surf Nazis Must Die!
Please tag 'badheadline', 'misleadingheadline' or 'kdawsonfud'.
This is not filtering, this is mining. Both are considered bad, but there is a difference.
--
From the description, it sounds more like he wants to be able to monitor the backbone data. I would think that filtering it would mean that he wants the ability to censor. While I find either development troubling, one is far worse than the other.
The problem I see with all these discussions of privacy vs. evil child porn is that there is no way to independently verify how big of a problem child porn on the internet really is.
The FBI would have you believe that it is a huge problem worth drastically expanding surveillance powers over. Yet compared to the 70s, when (afaik) there was legal child pornography being produced and sold, what is the production rate for this type of material today? Are there really any child pornography sites on the internet where people can pay to download child porn? (please no links)
I also worry that the focus of law enforcement's "war on child porn" is shifting from the visual depiction of young children actually engaged in sexual activity with adults, to (1) pictures of naked children not engaged in sexual activity, and (2) material that is made by teenagers themselves. The original intent of having an exception to the First Amendment for child pornography is being distorted. This is especially true when you consider that CGI child porn that is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing is illegal to possess (thanks to the PROTECT Act), and that people are being arrested for pasting pictures of children's heads on naked adult bodies: http://www.theledger.com/article/20080418/BREAKING/453898235.
From now on all my sensitive data is going to be embedded in a goatse jpeg. If they really want my data so much they'll stare at a gaping asshole, they can have it.
Welcome to the Police State (TM). Population: You.
I do not know in my right mind how, it became permissable for George Bush to undermine civil liberties in the same way that we always argued it was wrong for Democrats to do.
... To secure these liberties, governments are instituted among men", is under assault and in the name of a rival that frankly is not nearly the equal of the rivals that we have faced in the past. We overcame the British Empire to secure our independence. We fought the Barbary Pirates, our own Civil War, Imperial Germany, and Nazi Germany, and then put our cities on the nuclear firing line against the dark stain of Communism... and we NEVER once entertained turning America into a land of checkpoints and identity requests.
Liberty and Freedom do not care about political affiliations and political parties. If a federal practice is wrong, it is wrong regardless of which party does it. If we do not want Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama or Bill Clinton reading our e-mail, then we should not tolerate George Bush or John McCain doing it either. Doing so only undermines the very essence of the rule of law and the fabric of our democracy. It is the totalitarian regime that justifies itself through personality, not the free one.
We conservatives have many differences with our fellow liberal americans and we always will. However, the very thing that makes us American, the idea, as Jefferson said, "We are endowed with certain inalienable rights
What is going on now in our country is madness. America is not supposed to be a place where guys with machine guns are walking around train platforms, asking if you have a driver's license with federal approved features. America is not supposed to be the place where the government collects data on all of its citizens.
Yeah, the muzzies blew up the world trade center, and its sad that those people died. But, the British burned our nation's capital to the ground, the Germans sunk the Lusitania, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and captured an army of 80,000 men of ours. We've been attacked before and we'll be attacked again, and what makes America special is that we keep our freedoms, rather than surrender them.
There's a million dead soldiers rolling over in their graves because we have so easily surrendered every freedom they fought for. It's an insult to them, to our national heritage, to turn our country into some sort of crappy police state because a few muslims with box cutters give us the willies.
Support those candidates, regardless of party, that promise to end the Dept of Homeland Security, promise to repeal the USA PATRIOT ACT, and join me in a call for a Constitutional Amendment that bars the Federal Government from intercepting any electronic communications within its borders, unless it can prove before a court that those communications are with another nation with which the USA might be in a state of war.
This is my sig.
That's what they say anyway - and it might even be what they really mean. But the uses of this technology will expand and it's just a matter of time until what the monitors are looking for are "undesirable elements" as defined by the administration in power.
Imagine what J. Edgar Hoover would have done with this ability. How about Richard Nixon; breaking into the DNC to gather information got him in trouble - if he could have accomplished the same thing with a wiretap or two do you think he'd have hesitated?
Our Founding Fathers put limits on what government could do, insured the privacy of private spaces and generally did a pretty good job of creating a system that would resist the abuses of a power mad wanna-be dictator. It's sad to see these protections being dismantled; history is being ignored and it's going to repeat itself like it or not.
Get the word out and vote. Real change comes from knowledge. The Republicans are going to be run out of Washington on a rail but that won't matter if their replacements don't enforce the Bill of Rights. Vote for people who get it at every level of government, regardless of party affiliation. Write the representatives you already have and tell them what you think. People like RMS already have political action notes. Join or form your own civic group to get the word out and organize effective rights defense. There will always be people who attack your rights because it makes their lives easier but everyone is always better off when rights are protected. Make noise and the right kinds of things have a chance of happening.
And yet we all read every day about bot nets and cyber attacks.
Sooner or later government is going to have to take a more active police roll in internet affairs.
Yes, I understand the privacy issues, and I worry about them, too.
I just think today the Internet is much like the Wild West with a hundred miles to the nearest police man.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
This accumulation of power will be, or maybe is currently being, be in secret. As seems typical with the US massive abuses will eventually be uncovered and there will then be a flurry of regulation and oversight committees re-instituted. How quickly we forget past abuses. US = ADD nation
What was said in the article was:
search capability utilizing filtersIt has nothing to do with filtering the traffic on the network, which implies blocking/removing valid packets. It only means implementing a search capability that can use keyword filters (like searching in the gnarled mess for the word "Kalashnikov").
It is bad that they are dumping all this data for perusal later, obviously. But what they are asking for in the article is just a better way to search around in that data. It's not really anything new.
You said "five year old" and "laid" and "pony" in the same sentence, which just triggered Echelon's autofilters and flagged this discussion for FBI staff to review before arrest. OMG I JUST DID THE SAME THING!!!!!!!!! SOMEBODY CALL RON KUBY.
Spock: As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create. ...
May take a while - a few months, a few years - but they can wait.
:)
Once you've forgotten about this story, they'll go to work making it happen.
Support the EFF, ACLU, and GOA.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
>> "There are places where criminal activity is centralized..."
Yes there are. The White House, NSA, Dept of Homeland Security.
How long are the American people going to put up with this shit? Our government has done more damage to this country than the terrorists did on 9-11. They don't even need to attack us again, they can sit back and watch us self-destruct.
-Skeeterbug
You speak for all of us, my friend.
However, if by "illegal" they mean:
- 1. Expressing your political opinions or views on important issues
- 2. Using BitTorrent in any way, shape, or form; legally or illegally
- 3. Downloading music, movies, or any other "illegal" things
- 4. Being a liberal
- 5. Clicking the wrong link or searching the wrong thing on Google
I would have a BIG problem with this. I think we all know that if the FBI were allowed to do this, eventually the RIAA or MPAA will come up and ask for those records, turning a government agency designed to make us all safer into the copyright police (or dictator). Our tax dollars are NOT going to go towards forwarding the RIAA/MPAA's fucked up crusade against the consumers.And I would have a HUGE problem if the FBI just want to spy on people who oppose the government (which is a hell of a lot of people). It's like the airport screening system: you have a "random" chance of being searched, but the guy next to you, who is a Muslim, has a 100% chance of being searched simply based on what he looks like and how he thinks. So will people like us
You'd think a god of wine and revelry would have more to do with his time than go for the record number of stories posted by one user in a 48 hour period...
I'm right there with you. I keep hoping there will be something for our brand of conservative to band around. Although the title sounds un-conservative, there is a book that just hit the bookstores this week that I think maybe we can use to rally the old conservatives and save this dying experiment in freedom.
Thank god for modern CPU technology... encrypting everything is becoming more practical all the time. Now we just have the much bigger problem of getting people to use it!
It's about the definition of 'property'.
See, they define that electronic information is not your property (except if you're a rich copyright holder). If it's not your property, then probable cause does not even come into play.
Sadly it's not just a Republican or Democrat issue. The Patriot act, communications decency act, etc were all pretty bi-lateral. The Bush administration have clawed their way to a lot of executive privileges and trampling of rights, far more than any other president. However the Congress hasn't done much complaining. Where are the changes the Dem's promised when they took back the house?
There are a few individuals who are good on privacy and the rule of the constitution. This election cycle I can think of Paul (R) and Kucinich (D) as candidates who didn't get the attention they deserved since they weren't soundbite only types of people. Upholding the constitution doesn't seem to be generally a popular topic for people when they vote.
The EFF and EPIC are good places to visit regularly, especially EPIC's bill track.
You just can't resist the opportunity to use slurs and smear whole groups of people, can you?
How about "Al Qaida?" It's more accurate than "the muzzies," it's less wildly broad in who it blames for 9/11, and it's even shorter to type. But maybe it doesn't achieve your goal of projecting hate at the whole of the Muslim world.
I think it's time to organize an Internet Protest. How about we all pick a day and for 24 hours, and make the only message flowing over the tubes "Piss off, wankers!"
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
The FBI wants to be able to use NSA (or other agency, possibly agencies without authority to operate within the USA) data to mine for crimimal activity.
It's laudable to be searching for criminal activity and all, but...
The FBI Should NOT be allowed to use NSA or CIA data without either controls or specific authority.
The NSA primarily operates outside of the USA. It should not be encouraged to collect data that is exclusively US - to - US data.
More ditto the CIA. It should not be operating in the US, with vevy specific exceptions. data they might be collecting should be shared with the FIB within the existing laws and restrictions, which while it will impede some investigations, does protect us from having the CIA used at arms-length to spy on us for another agency.
This is worse than most commentors seem point out, at least to me. Letting the FBI use other agencies' data should be limited to those agencies' permitted uses and sources. If it's foreign data, should the FBI have it? Not sure. The CIA? While the Clinton administration pretty much ended this practice, we shouldn't let this happen without serious consideration and of course approval.
And the likelihood that this could just be an end run around the lack of subpoenas or court orders...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The biggest ad hock mesh I know if is Meraki's San Fran Mesh. However with the feds having CALEA hanging over every open hotspot, I don't see alternates really growing that well. What average person is going to be able to comply with the real time snooping/sniffing/auditing requirements, let alone sweat the 10,000 a day fine, just to let others use the Internet? If it's not plug and play simplicity it's not going to happen.
Bravo! Bravo, good sir!
Maybe not what Republicans want to hear, but it's pretty much true.
You speak for all of us, my friend.
Because we let this go on amongst ourselves for way too long. We were the ones that identified, as Reagan said, "The government is the problem"... we were the ones that argued against the IRS, and a host of other government regulations on the grounds that they were an attack on state and ultimately individual sovereignty and would lead to a police state.
But, wow, Bush gets in, we get into a war, and the next thing you know, we actually HAVE the makings of an institutionalized police state, and we just say "oh, ok, but its to fight the terrorists.." It's the weakest excuse ever.
Now, we know that its been almost a decade where the legal framework that created this monster was enacted in the wake of 9/11, and, we're in serious danger of institutionalizing it. It's crazy talk. I mean, guys at a train station with machine guns, live automatic weapons. WTF is up the that.
This is my sig.
Are there really any child pornography sites on the internet where people can pay to download child porn? (please no links)
I don't think the goatse guy is a minor, and I've never seen anybody actuallly try to charge money.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Out-of-control FBI and their illegal wiretaps, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this great country.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
There is more in the linked article.
Be afraid. The terrorists have won, and they occupy the white house, the courts, every police agency, and both houses of Congress.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I should have hit "preview", sorry. Here's the link to the wikipedia article.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You see, that's the problem with the Chinese government.
They secretly spy on everyone and blocks sites they don't like. Hold people in prisons with no trial and torture them. Their military continues to occupy foreign countries and...
Uh. This is about the US?
Oh well. That's different. The US just wants to stop bad guys and would never abuse authority. After all, politicians never lie.
I find it also fascinating that if you presented this in non-internet terms, the citizens would be up in arms.
Here's another example that might be more obvious to the ordinary citizen:
"There are places where criminal voice communication is centralized: the telephone switches located in central offices across the country. All of the telephone network's activity, legal and illegal, flows through these 'choke points,' and the feds, of course, are already tapping those points and siphoning off the signals. What Mueller wants is the legal authority to comb through the content of all the telephone calls, which are already being siphoned off by the NSA, in order to look for illegal activity."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There, fixed that for you.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If they think they need a baby monitor to listen in on us.
Must I remind all those who don't find stuff like this to be at least a little bit disheartening the following passage from what should be a very important document to all Americans:
"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
What is really ironic in these times is that to many, "general public and espicially those in power", that my belief in and my quoting that passage probably makes me out to be some bad guy.
These days however if you were to believe in or propose such a thing that our government, the very government founded and established by this document would likely want to question you, harrass you, publicly ruin you, arrest you, deem you an enemy of the state and so on.
Does anyone believe the people of this country could ever rise up again or truly take a stand against our government?
I just don't think its possible anymore.
We will slowly loose our rights as is evident by what has been happening. People will become compliacent in things. People will continue to use and believe the "if you have nothing to hide" argument which in turn just means those that don't believe that (small minority) are simply quacks or nut jobs or criminals looking for a way to maintain their evil ways.
And of course if you even bring up the notion of forming a new government, well your just a non-american, non-patriotic, commie ass and if you don't like this country you should leave.
I suppose the only thing left is for the oil to run out one day, financial crisis looms, those in power and those running the country loose their money / wealth, the military machine and might crumbles with no oil. The people rise, and who knows. Sounds like a mix of movie themes there, who knows it might happen. Oil is pretty much the foundation of everything currently. Its sort of like what water is to life, oil is to industry and the life we all know. It would explain the middle east and why our politico's are so concerned with it the people there right? ;-) Could they be afraid of loosing this resource, and thus what their whole fortunes and futures are based on? Could that be why the prices are going up and these companies are making crazy profits? Maybe they are stock piling money for the inevitable day when it all dries up? And of course the more you can take from everyone else, the less they have and the harder their lives are to sustain and become increasingly depend on those with to give them a helping hand and thus willing to become obidient little lambs to their overlords.
This is especially true when you consider that CGI child porn that is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing is illegal to possess (thanks to the PROTECT Act), and that people are being arrested for pasting pictures of children's heads on naked adult bodies:
It's worse than that. At least one person has been prosecuted for writing fiction with pedophilic themes. It's all just thoughtcrime, and pedophiles appear to be the backup boogeyman just in case the sheep stop being afraid on cue whenever their masters say 'terrorists'.
What I took from this is they are asking for the right to prevent crimes before they take place? How the hell is that possible? Talking about something and doing it are two different things. Someone speaking about revolution against a tyrannical government is a lot different than someone mounting a revolution. The same goes for terrorist-like activities. They know the American people are unhappy with their government and shit is brewing for them, now they are looking for ways to control it before it starts.
Or better yet: don't waste your time voting and instead start acting like the original Constitution still applied, everyday. Take measures not to be caught at it of course, but encourage your friends and family to stop giving the law and the gov'n'ment credit where it deserves none. Start building the world you wish to live in, by living as if it was there already and inviting other people to join in. You don't have any rights if you don't use them, but the corollary is true too.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
What do all men with power want?
More power.
What would Foucault say?
As an aside, this liberal isn't interested in taking your guns - I own several myself
Just as a weird question, I know you guys aren't down with drilling ANWR because of the environment, but, is that an absolute thing? I'm looking at it like, it's trillion dollars worth of oil and the country could use some money right now.
Like, if, instead of just leasing the place to the likes of Exxon and have them sell it wherever, what if we put on the table having the government do the drilling through the auspices of some sort of a state owned enterprise. I could even be coaxed into some sort of an affirmative action thing so that we could say that minorities could use this "bonanza" to really leverage themselves economically for once.
The government would then sell the oil on the world markets, at some price that is around where it is today. Then, instead of just blowing the money, we would do two things. First I would bail out everyone who makes under some XYZ amount of dollars who bought a house. I would take about 400 billion of that and just have the federal government buy all the subprime mortgages in areas that have been screwed by globalization and forgive those debts. Just, hand the keys to the homes back to the homeowners, along with the deeds, and stabilize a lot of neighborhoods.
Then, I would rebuild a good chunk of our national transportation infrastructure. Like, I would extend all the rail lines in the USA, upgrade all the track on "lines west", upgrade all the commuter passenger rolling stock, tear down all the wires from PRR electrification and replace all the rolling stock in all the passenger rails with faster, more efficient rolling stock. I reduce airport congestion, get more people out of cars and onto trains.
And, if there's some billions left, I build an ITER fusion reactor, invest in alternative energy, and we can argue about building loads of nuclear power plants and helping the car companies retool with electric cars.
There, we make one deal with the devil, but instead of pissing it way, we do something smart and put the country on a track for a secure energy future.
This is my sig.
PEDOPHILE!!!111one
The FBI's definition of illegal activity is idiotically broad. Apparently clicking on the wrong link can get you searched and thumbnails can get you serious time. These puritanical idiots need to be shut down not encouraged.
Pre-requisite would be that all U.S. Mail and internet history of FBI bureaucrats in that chain of command and every congress critter that votes approval for this be posted publicly so that it can be combed for evidence of corruption and conspiracy to abrogate the constitutional rights of American citizens that is certain to be there.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
I keep calling the Dept of Justice as I need to filter the net backbone to find dates on Friday and Saturdays.
It is good to hear so many talk about their RIGHTs. We all get to contact our Reps in Government and let them know how we feel about this. Support them if they agree with us. And, do our best to get them out of office when they don't.
With Freedom as our focus, that is what we will achieve, so Focus Freedom Now! Let's gett'er done!
As for amendments to the Constitution, I think a good one is to repeal the 16th amendment, to support fair taxation. Presently, the 16th amendment allows the Government to tax unfairly, Freedom can not exist when the Government can tax unfairly. The idea that the Government can tax unfairly, leads down the path that it can do other things unfairly, because the people expect that from their Government. Let's bring fairness back by repealing the 16th Amendment.
Syphoning off data, what do they need permission for to read the data, and who is to say they aren't already doing it. I mean if they are grabbing it it's too much of a temptation not to peek.
You can see the apple, you can touch the apple, you can sniff the apple, but you may not eat of the apple.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
That this gets modded "Informative"
Is getting more like an episode of the X-files everyday! All this Machiavellian/Orwellian shit is making it harder to buy tinfoil lined hats, a worldwide shortage of paranoid accoutrement is making me tend to only creep around by night and hide in doorways.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
First we have ISPs attempting to filter and/or "prioritize" services (some to profit off services they endorse) and now the FBI wants to read everything we do online. Just exactly why wouldn't there be the same expectation of privacy that you have with a phone call where they need a warrant to hear what you do? At this rate we'll all be able to visit only disney.com or other websites that the "ISP" and FBI want us to visit.
Happy Alice Day!!!! ;)
I think the word you want is nonpartisannonpartisan.
What we need is more nonpartisan action since the republicrats seem quite happy to collaborate and screw the people in a bipartisan manner.
If all these NSA, FBI, CIA guys keep siphoning off info from my tube, how the hell am i supposed to make full use of the tube?
I mean the tube is supposed to be full when it reaches me according to my ISP.
And these guys siphon off stuff from my tube.
And i get only half the info iam supposed to get.
My ISP says go ask FBI.
FBI says, no can't talk about it, because its a state secret.
The court says, nope the president has classified it as state secret and hence you cannot sue FBI.
And my ISP is wondering when the immunity bill gets passed so that they too can escape responsibility.
And who's left paying for FBI/NSA usage? ME!
My money pays for it.
And i can't get good service, i can't sue them, and i can't even ask them.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
... but it's "lose", not "loose"... I was cringing by the third time, because I agree with the rest of what you wrote...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
He was referring to the US constitution, suggesting that "we" means all US citizens.
Very very very bad idea. I think it is time for us to wake up and be suspicious of any proposal that is linked to (cyber)crime, childporn, terrorism and any other threat. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWVyFH6_Ynk
What can _I_ do about it?
Fund those addressing it legally:
- Support www.aclu.org
- Support www.eff.org
Talk with my local congress or senate representative.
Talk with my friends and coworkers about this, so they understand what it really means.
Ideas?
No existe.
But seriously... If you'd say yes, the FBI would claim probable clause, raid your house, beat you, and take your possessions and ability to smile at kittens. If you'd say no, you would look like a hapless, desperate pedophile searching for child pornography all day to no avail.
No existe.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
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Look. I have a pair. I believe in personal liberty and keeping the government in check.
I also believe in law enforcement.
Today we have a huge problem with cyber crime, bot-nets, phishing, etc. etc.
These sorts of things DO merit law enforcement attention, and some fairly comprehensive law-enforcement hooks into the network to be effective.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Cars get stolen all the time, too. Do we blame the manufacturers for insecure locking mechanisms and forgo police investigations into auto thefts? No.
The fact of the matter is, the internet is full of lawless activities. Phishing. Hacking. Attacking. There does need to be some kind of law enforcement ability to track down and prosecute the people responsible for these activities.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.