Full Details of My Attempted Entrapment For Teaching Polygraph Countermeasures

George Maschke writes "In May of this year, I was the target of an attempted entrapment, evidently in connection with material support for terrorism. Marisa Taylor of McClatchy reported briefly on this in August. I've now published a full public accounting, including the raw source of the e-mails received and the IP addresses involved. Comments from Slashdot readers more technically savvy than I are welcome."

Comments

Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ...

[DavidClarkeHR]

Want to stay safe? Don't learn ANYTHING that the government doesn't explicitly approve.

If you're living in the 40s, that means avoid learning about integration.
In the 90s? avoid learning about marriage equality.
Living in 2013? Don't learn about avoiding government interrogation.
Living in 2015? Don't even THINK about avoiding surveillance.

Re:Don't teach, and certainly don't learn ...

[Jane Q. Public]

"Were you around in the nineties? That was when Clinton used CALEA to force telecoms to build the exact infrastructure that was exploited after 9/11 by Bush, and later Obama."

The lesson is clear: even if the current administration pushes something through while promising not to abuse it, that has absolutely no bearing on whether someone else will, later.

tacit admission

[globaljustin]

either Polygraphs are bullshit or these charges should be dropped...

by setting up the sting and charging the guys for what they did, they government is admitting that it is possible to fool the polygraph

if it is possible to fool the polygraph it leaves no doubt that the polygraph is not scientific or useful

by proving these men guilty, the prosecution simultaneously proves that the lie detector is a farce and negates the logical need for the entire charade in the first place

a good lawyer could get a not guilty verdict IMHO

Re:We need a workers government

[radiumsoup]

so far, there have been no implementations of the Communist ideology *without* suppression of free people to the extreme of mass murdering the dissenters.

Re: what about

[garyebickford]

The romance of the creator having to deal with the political realities. In our own minds, we are all Mozart, Tesla, and John Galt. :)

We the people

[TapeCutter]

The opening line of Karl Mark's book..."From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". A succinct, compassionate, and efficient "prime directive" for any "we the people" if you ask me. Yet most adults know the devil is always in the details, for example China has dragged more people above the poverty line than the rest of the world combined in the last 40yrs, (coincidently 14yrs less than my age). China did that with a centrally planned economy. Of course they also put themselves in that the position of wide spread famine in the first place, ironically using the very same "system" of a centrally planning following a series of 5yr plans.

Frankly a 14yo's opinions on comparative politics are about as insightful and original as a 14yo's opinions on birth control, it's mostly second hand knowledge that (like the Marxist slogan above) often bears little resemblance to the real world. However you do seem to have worked out that the "free market" is actually a set of rules that form a trading system for "we the people" (eg: property law), not some magical hand righting wrongs, just a different set of rules to what we use. The system we use says that the "free" in "free market" means anyone can participate in that market, what's not so clear is whether anyone is free NOT to participate. The alcohol market is a trivial example of a non-free market since some sections of the population are prohibited from buying it, and the rest are prohibited from selling it to them.

Don't believe everything people tell you about Marx, Rand, Orwell, et al, go and read what they have to say. There's also a metric shitload of stuff on youtube from modern writers such as Hitchens, Vidal, Pinker, Feynman, Sagan, et al. I particularly like Pinker's latest stuff about the decline of violence over the last 1000yrs and I personally think the "Stanford prison experiments" will be seen as one of (if not The) most important insight into human nature to come out of the 20th century.

Don't let "being wrong" stop you from thinking, the more angles you look at, the more picture's the kaleidoscope of the real world shows you. - refer to sig.