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Lincoln's Surveillance State
An anonymous reader writes "The N.S.A.'s program is indeed alarming — but not, from a historical perspective, unprecedented. And history suggests that we should worry less about the surveillance itself and more about when the war in whose name the surveillance is being conducted will end. In 1862, after President Abraham Lincoln appointed him secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton penned a letter to the president requesting sweeping powers, which would include total control of the telegraph lines. By rerouting those lines through his office, Stanton would keep tabs on vast amounts of communication, journalistic, governmental and personal. On the back of Stanton's letter Lincoln scribbled his approval: 'The Secretary of War has my authority to exercise his discretion in the matter within mentioned.'"
Hah! You're killing me. You'd let everything you care about perish rather than eavesdrop on people? If you had been president during the civil war there would be a large country between the US and Mexico today. Eavesdropping on people is one of the least of the compromises President Lincoln made.
Lincoln was a despot who trampled the Constitution far more than any modern President has, and the changes he started led to the situation we have today where the Federal Government is all powerful compared to the States.
Was he right or wrong? I really can't say, and it's a question I've struggled with. The fact remains that it's quite politically incorrect to talk about his despotism. Instead everyone seems to revere him.
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A few weeks ago, I foolishly ran a strange executable file that one of my acquaintances sent me by email. As someone who doesn't know much about computers, at the time, I thought nothing of it. "Why would my acquaintance want to hurt me?" Following this line of thought, I ran the file without question.
How naive I was. Despite having what was supposedly the best anti-virus software out right then, a virus took over my computer and held it hostage. It was pretending to be a warning from Windows telling me to buy some strange anti-virus software I'd never heard of from a company I'd never heard of to remove the virus.
This immediately set alarm bells off in my head. "How could this happen? My anti-virus is supposed to be second to none!" Faced with this harsh and depressing reality, I decided to take it to a PC repair shop for repair. They gladly accepted the job, told me it'd be fixed in a few days, and sent me off with a smile.
A few days later, they called me and told me to come pick up my computer. At the time, I noticed that they sounded like whimpering animals, but I concluded that it must just be stress from work. When I arrived, they, with tears in their eyes, told me that the virus was so awful and merciless that they were unable to remove it. "Ah," I thought. "That must be why they sounded so frust
Your ass has become a spaghetti noodle, has it? It sucked that cabbage patch kid right up!
Your ass is disgusting! It doesn't even deserve to be in my presence! Your ass poisons everything around it!
It's a disgusting rumblehouse ass!
Get it out of my sight! Get it out of my reality!
Vanish already!
Such a thing! Looks like your mentality brought about the TSA! Worthless Slashdot intellectual! Vanish already!