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FBI Stops Satellite Phones
redbird writes "According to this article, the FBI is temporarily (although they have a different meaning for that word) blocking satellite phones that would allow world wide wireless service because such communications are difficult to tap."
1: wiretapping is worthless against criminals. Criminals learned long ago to always speak in code over phone lines. Wiretapping only exists today for the monitoring of political groups that might pose a threat to the rampant corruption in American government, especially in agencies like the FBI that are used against the American people for political reasons.
2: hmmm.... looks like nations are becoming obsolete. About fucking time. A few more decades and they can just drop the facades and the world will be able to go corporate!
It could turn out that we are of the same mind, if we work out the causal chains.
But as people are distrustful of the gov, their distrust is unfocusable. It becomes a heat-seeker, and targets the strange, the unknown and the different. A black family in a white neighborhood, or the smiling stranger in a faceless crowd.
I think that the distrust of the government is the *consequence*, not the cause. There is a biological bias to be distrustful of the strange and the different. If you perceive the environment around you as safe (huge media role!), then you become more tolerant of the different ones, and vice versa.
It seems the causal chain would go like this:
There is a certain level of actual crime ->
Media tends to focus on crimes, so the *perceived* threat level becomes very high ->
People become afraid and distrustful, especially of strangers (note that depending on the circumstances that might be the correct and rational thing to do) ->
People tell politicians that they want 'safety' ->
Politicians, quite happy, increase the powers of the government "to protect the people" and, usually not explicitly, to prohibit 'strangeness' and 'freakiness'.
Yes, this is one way the governments get to be more powerful. My point was however, that govenments innately hunger for power without any prodding from the populace. So we should distrust governments and limit their power just because they are governments, and not because the population is afraid and actually encourages the governments to take away freedoms.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
15 million directly spent to protect our governments ability to tap phones.
It seems like a lot of effort being spent on a task that in the long run is going to fail.
In the long run I don't think that the government can keep everything under wraps, it is as doomed to failure as the efforts in past centuries to keep the reading of the bible the exclusive domain of clergy.
The only argument I have ever read by a non gov official for this sort of thing is in one of the Tom Clancy novels, were he has the terrorists using encryption to prevent their detection. However these same terrorists have the resources of an oil producing nation to back them up, So would pgp being exported really have been needed for them to be protected or would they have just been able to buy what they needed? After all in the book they are able to produce biological weapons to attack the US with, so how hard would it have been for them to operate without coming to the notice of the CIA without public domain strong encyption?
So give me a break. Read my mail if you want to, but have fun I even have trouble keeping up with it.
Check out the Lance Armstrong Foundation
kayaking
I've been considering just emailing the FBI, CIA and NSA whenever I do something. Just so that their info is up to date. Maybe send some general outlies of my phone calls every now and then. For example "today a telemarketer called, I told him I didn't want any" or "well, I'm off to the bathroom. more email when I get back"
Only problem is that I haven't figured out exactly whom to send it to. DDI maybe? Now if everyone did this, imagine how much money we could save in taxes! Could probably also flood their systems if enough people did it.
Neither Lenin, nor Stalin, nor any other Russian, Chines, or Eastern European leader claimed to run communist states, because a communist state is an oxymoron
... a lot of early Soviet history skipped ...
That is entirely correct. However, the common usage in the West was to call countries like the Soviet Union "communist" and countries like Sweden "socialist". The Marxist terminology, as you said, would be to call the first one "socialist", and the second one "capitalist".
Furthermore, Marxism has been tested with warying degrees of success several places
I claim that the "varying degrees of success" was not varying at all -- everywhere the "test" turned out to be a complete failure.
However, in none of these cases where the conditions that Marx himself set forth (for instance in The German Ideology, and also of course in the Manifesto of the Communist Party) for a foundation for a successful transition to socialism and later communism present.
That is also entirely correct, although the conditions that Marx set forth did not occur anywhere. I would argue that this point to (one of many) weaknesses of Marx's ideology, rather than serve as an explanation why the USSR could not be called a marxist state.
You are applying the classical western-marxist analysis to the Russian revolution. I myself tend to think that among the Russian revolutionaries some were idealistic "good guys", some were bloodthirsty sadists on a power high, and some were pragmatic "whatever it takes for me to keep my job/position/comforable existence". The ranks of the idealists thinned in the late teens and early twenties when they had to deal with a chaotic country that almost fell apart into many pieces, and the rest of them were shot during the purges on the late 20s and 30s. In the 30s the bloodthirsty sadists came to power (with very unfortunate consequences to the country) and since the 50s the pragmatists ran the slowly dying colossus. I am quite sure that the preponderance of peasants in the Russian population didn't make that much of a difference and even if the majority of the population *were* proletariat, things would have turned out to be much the same.
Face it, Marx was wrong.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Agreed on the cause --> effect sequence. The same [c|w]ould happen in an anarchy, so the government doesn't impart the fear.
:)
My take on the government 'will to power' draws on Nitsche's Zarathustra however. As stated, governments are composed of individuals. Individuals are hungry for power, and being in a position to enforce one's will simply provides the means. A corrupt politician is the example. So is 'you can't fight city hall'. If you call their motives or reasoning into question, you are undermining their means to retain (or continue to gain) power - the resonse is driven by self-preservation. {tangent!! Ooga! Ooga!}
This is why Communism failed {IMHO}. Individuals were handed means, and their individual interests overpowered the ideology.
So, same conclusion: We should prevent (through inspection, peer-review, whatever) individuals and interest-homogenous groups of individuals (government, corporations, special interests, ethnicities, religions, earning brackets... umm.. thin ice?) from achieving too much power over other individuals or groups thereof.
Thomas Jefferson said that a majority has no more right to enforce it's will onto an individual than an individual does to enforce his will onto a majority. This was said in the context of tyranny vs democracy. Oddly, Jefferson was a slave owner. Go figure!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
So, same conclusion: We should prevent (through inspection, peer-review, whatever) individuals and interest-homogenous groups of individuals (government, corporations, special interests, ethnicities, religions, earning brackets... umm.. thin ice?) from achieving too much power over other individuals or groups thereof.
We are almost in complete agreement, except that I would add a big stick to the means to prevent groups from getting too much power. Big sticks on occasions can be very useful...
You are also right that the issue boils down to the philosophy of individual vs. a group. There is a basic, axiomatic choice to be made: in case of conflict of an individual and a group, whose values/interests/goals/points of view are more important? It's almost impossible to argue this issue, as it is too basic -- it's like arguing the existence of God. The issue under discussion -- what are acceptable limits to what a group can impose upon an individual "for the common good" -- follows directly from the stance taken in the base issue. Obviously, libertarians tend to favor the individual, and utilitarians tend to favor the group.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I should have said in the original post, that from the moment I drove away from the girl, through my interview with the police, I totally understood their rationale. Yes, she had every right to be scared - though IMHO she was overly so (subjective, I know).
Yes, they were doing their job - prudently. I wish all the reports they have to follow-up on are as benign (while one was taking my statement, nicely as pie, the other was getting my cat to chase his flashlight up the wall - they both had fun). I sincerely hope that her 'encounter' with me is the worst thing that ever happens to her.
What struck and thoroughly frustrated me, was that good intentions are simply not assumed by anyone. Everyone expects to get screwed by everyone. I somehow saw this as a judgement of my character. I know what my intentions were - but as you point out - no one else does.
It's like being asked to take a drug test before getting a job offer. To me, it's an offense against my integrity, since I do not do that. The company is just trying to protect itself. Ah well, what can you do?
Still, it would be nice to change something, that fundamental something.. I don't know if it's a factor of being human, or if it's a uniquely American phenomenon. I'm originally from Poland, and this would have never been an issue there, so I have to wonder.
But anyway, I wish there was something that we could all do, to make sure that the world is less hostile (perceivably as well as actually) for our kids. I'd prefer that my child didn't have to face a similar situation from either perspective.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
When the FBI says in 1993 that crime statistics show that 8 out of 10 Americans will be the victim of a violent crime during their lifetime, it's not paranoia.
It's common sense.
Have you ever read Strong on Defense? It's a thoughtful book. One of his main points is My safety first, your feelings second. His book is full of stories of people who were raped and murdered because they were trying to be considerate and didn't want to offend people.
Really, who gives a fuck if you are insulted or think I'm rude as long as I am still alive and okay?
What's more, I think the girl did the right thing by not pulling over. She should have kept driving until she found the first open business. Sorry that some police did the prudent thing by checking you out. Sorry that you were offended that they did their job. Sorry that some girl was afraid of stopping in a dark road in the middle of the night at the urging of some guy she does not know.
I'm sorry if I'm coming across as harsh here, but really, I think she was prudent to not take the chance by stopping.
I also think that the insecurity the average person feels on a dark street when a group of youths carrying guns approaches them has nothing to do with the government's paranoia of Iraqi terrorists or biological weapons. It has to do with the fact that Americans kill, rape, and rob other Americans.
Finally, how exactly were you punished? Were you crucified? I don't think so. So just chill down and get off your offended high horse.
Or would you prefer that when a scared woman calls the police they just ignore her complaint and don't follow up on it? What's the next step? You call the police because you think there is an intruder in your home, or because you were mugged and they figure you're just overreacting? Please. The police have an obligation and all they did was ask you some questions. Were you charged with anything? Did they incarcerate you?
You weren't punished in any way. So don't try to pretend that you were.
Point well taken, but as I see it, the two issues are strongly interconnected.
I agree that distrust of the establishment is the duty of all citizens. After all, the gummint is there to represent US, it is there to work for US and to carry out our orders. We tell the gov what we want by voting. [If politicians tell us what we want to hear to get elected, and then do their thing, the system fails, but that's another matter]
But as people are distrustful of the gov, their distrust is unfocusable. It becomes a heat-seeker, and targets the strange, the unknown and the different. A black family in a white neighborhood, or the smiling stranger in a faceless crowd.
My point is that the overall level of distrust in the country is such, that it is out of control. It should be applied rationally, but there's simply too much of it. Each day we hear about murders, molesters, shooting sprees... Who has time to think through the latest anti-encryption legislation and what it really means, when they're worried about "road rage", Tim McVeigh and the kids in the local high-school??
The government is (intentionally or not) playing the same game that makes the insurance companies tick. The probability of any given individual being a homocidal freak is small, but eveyone has to pay [with their liberties] to provide some semblance of security. This is why kids have to pass through metal detectors on their way into a school. They are uniformly subjected to heavy-handed authoritative behavior control, to protect them from the freak. But the message they receive is that any one of them might be a freak, and so they should be afraid of everyone.
Our rights and liberties are being reduced to the lowest common denominator level. It's akin to political correctness - you're not allowed to do anything that someone, somewhere, somehow, might construe as offensive or threatening. You can no longer extend your hand to a stranger, because there is the potential that you will hit them. So if you hold out your hand, you're likely to get a hand-cuff on your wrist as a result.
Looking back, I truly regret making that girl nervous enough to call the police - the thought never crossed my 'eager to help' mind. But more importantly, I'm sorry that she lives with so much fear in her life. I'm sorry she'll pass it on to her kids and friends and co-workers - just because some freak tried to flag her down on the highway.
I'm sorry that she's so concerned about her immediate safety, about the threat of another individual, that she doesn't think rationally, and is therefore likely to vote for a liberty abridging ordinance to settle her worried little mind. And this, Kaa, is how being paranoid of individuals is connected to being paranoid of the government - at least in this freak's head.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
>well now.. who would need it in the states? people who don't live there ofcourse.
Huh? If you don't live/travel in the states, why would you care if its available in the states? He didn't say if you don't live in the states you don't need it. He asked if you *do* live in the states, why would you need it? (if you are out of coverage of traditional terestrial wireless away from populated coverage areas.)
Since I've had fantasies about living on a cruising yacht, where exactly this kind of highly portable, global service would make a lot of sense, I was intrigued by Iridium and did some careful checking.
(1) It's useless for data. I believe the top transmission speed is something like 2400 baud.
(2) It's horrendously expensive. The older Inmarsat technology can deliver a similar service using a suitcase-sized phone for about $ 1.50 a minute. This is less than half the cost of Iridium, and the phones cost about the same. Reports I've read about Iridium say that Inmarsat service actually works, with far superior service quality.
(3) Service quality is terrible. It must be used outdoors, line of site with the satellites. Again, the old technology works a lot better.
I read a news.com article (linked to the original story) which said that Iridium is failing because of marketing deficiencies. This is not true at all; I think Iridium's ads were pretty cool. The problem is the product and the pricing, both of which are terrible. As a cruising wannabe, I can only hope things get better.
I hope GlobalStar realizes that unless they give much better service than Iridium, they will go down the same path. Lower per-minute rates are a good start, but they'll need to supply decent service, too. And that's going to be tough.
D
----
You're making several factual errors.
... Prohibiting private ownerships of the means of production has.
...Some Marxist ideology skipped...
I don't think so.
I suggest you READ the Communist Manifesto - it's available on the web
I have. I've read it before there was a Web.
Prohibiting private property has nothing to do with communism
And that's exactly why I said "other than personal". Private property other than personal is, to a great degree, property of means of production.
That's all fine, but we are not talking about Marxism, we are talking about communism. See the my post above about the two meanings of the word "communism". You may argue that the system that existed in the Soviet Union, etc. was not really Marxist, and technically was not communist at all, but the common usage in the Western countries clearly points to the USSR as the quintessential "communist" country. Marxism in its pure form was never implemented anywhere, so there is not much point in discussing what society might have looked like it it has happened somewhere. Communism (again, in the common meaning) has happened -- and the consequences were very brutal and unpleasant.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
You have a lot more faith in the integrity of our government than most people on Slashdot. Many of the people here see a government bent on controlling every aspect of our lives "for our protection", while our protection (and rights) seems to take a back seat to the policical agenda of the FBI, Congress, or anyone else who can afford to bribe^H^H^H^H^Hgive soft money to these people.
The most recent example that comes to my mind are the McCarthy era commie witchhunts, although there are other much less publicized and more recent examples.
Just put yourself between a politician and his money if you want to see this for yourself.
I read the internet for the articles.
1) Wiretapping is not going to do anything. Any criminal sufficiently sophisticated to have a satellite phone is also sufficiently sophisticated enough to be able to use a normal phone and encrypt his/her communications. The government can then wiretap a bunch of line noise that's of no use.
2) Why should I forfeit some of my liberties to catch these drug dealers? If they break other laws, such as killing people, then go after them for that, but I really don't care if they sell a bunch of drugs to people who want to buy them (and will find a way to get them whether the FBI likes it or not) anyway. I certainly don't want my money and freedoms forfeited in a futile effort to stop it.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Now, I don't think this is one big conspiracy. Each of the individual decisions may make sense, but the overall result is that the government, and possibly other people with enough money, can find out just about anything about you that they want to.
This might not be quite so bad if everybody understood clearly the possibilities. But most US residents still seem to assume that their privacy is protected, that their conversations are private, and that a purchase at most results in annoying junk mail.
Similarly, the legal system and juries have no basis yet for judging the new realities. For example, setting penalties for anything from traffic violations to murder has not only been based on the severity of the infraction, but also on the likelihood being caught; penalties for speeding and car pool violations are high because people get away with them most of the time. If photo enforcement changes that, it completely changes the equation.
There is also considerable potential for abuse of such data. Information gathered by these means may not reveal illegal behavior, but law enforcement may still be used to embarrass and harrass potential witnesses or suspects.
The US strikes me like one of the countries furthest along in eroding privacy rights. For example, in many other countries, strong encryption is legal, large cash tranasactions are not subject to reporting requirements, and buying plant growing equipment doesn't automatically make you suspect of growing pot (or if it does, it may simply be legal).
Many of those mechanisms have been put into place under the umbrella of the "war against drugs", "anti-terrorism measures", and "protecting US defense secrets". But the societal costs resulting from the compromises that needed to be made to achieve those goals are not well understood. I must admit, the US government's obsession with drugs, terrorism, and defense secrets strikes me as bordering on collective paranoia.
We may well be able to live comfortably in a world in which all of our actions are very transparent and accessible to a wide variety of government agencies and businesses. But the combination of 19th/20th century laws, behaviors, and assumptions of privacy together with 21st century surveillance, tracking, and database technology strikes me as very dangerous. Either we have to regulate surveillance uses of these new technologies and enact strong privacy regulations, or our society has to undergo some profound transformation to deal with the new realities.
It's funny, yes... But I wonder how the CIA, FBI, NSA, IMF, KGB, etc (Echelon et al) would stand up to full disclosure. After all, the government is composed of citizens, and the citizens have the right to know. They should know. Everything. I'm installing a pressure sensor under my toilet seat right now!!
Could the NSA and company HANDLE a denial of service data flood? Any spooks out there care to comment? Comon guys... We know you're listening... Don't be shy.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Government intervention in cases like this is about trading individual freedom off against freedom for everyone. In many cases, it could be in _your_ self-interest to do X, but if everyone did X, we'd all be worse off. So the government has to step in and forbid X. In this particular case, you're trading off individual freedom to encrypted communciations, against freedom for everyone from terrorist attacks, crime and the like.
This is not to say that I agree with what the US government and the FBI are doing. Quite the opposite in fact. But you can't just say 'Get your hands off me, let me do whatever the hell I want'.
Maybe you don't agree with the tradeoff that the government has made - it gives too much emphasis to the group and not enough to individual freedoms. But in other cases, even you depend on the government to restrict people's freedom. What if everyone decided to apply your 'I know what my best interest is, dumbass' principle to serve their own 'best interest' by, say, stealing? It's in the 'best interest' of individuals, but not of society as a whole.
You can ask them what happens when you have militias with guns roaming the streets. The most important task in Kosovo right now is to disarm the KLA, and get rid of the guns. Otherwise you get revenge attacks, such as those Serbian farmers who were murdered while bringing in their harvest. If the KLA had been disarmed, that would not have happened.
You might argue that the best answer to Serbian military aggression is to arm the KLA and let them fight back; but if countries like Russia had not armed the Serbs in the first place, the war could not have happened.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Communism is a completely different thing. Communism is ONLY an economic system. It is not a philosophy of massive oppression and/or censorship on the people.
Whaaaat? [boggle]
Communism is not an economic system at all. It is a political repression system, where one of the major ways to make the people completely dependent on the government is to prohibit private property (other than personal one).
You could, maybe, argue that marxism is an economic system, although there are major problems here as well. But communism?? Communism cannot exist without massive oppression and censorship.
And yes, I know what I am talking about.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Again, I'm a lowly Canadian here and SOMETIMES I think that our government is a little more sane, although over time the spineless PM here knuckles under to the US for whatever reason. But these events are starting to worry me.
All of this wiretapping crap is done "in your best interest". Well, maybe I know what my best interest is, dumbass. Freedom is not without risk. You can't have it both ways. Personally, I want less governemtn invovlement and more risk - because I can make that decision.
Before the chorus starts up about Drug Dealers, Iraqi Nuclear Bombers, Sarin-Gas wielding manaics, etc, let's assume you're right. Why not give them what they want! Let's wiretap everything. Let's outlaw all encryption. Let's do away with that pesky probable cause. Let's take all the guns from the people. Let's have a drug test mailed in with your income tax. Let's censor the media.
That's not a world I want to live in. That's not what millions of people died in World War II to protect.
We're selling our souls, and it's almost to the point where only outlaws have freedom. Not to mention that gun thing - You can ask the poor people in Kosovo about what happens when you take all the guns. Ban guns in Cities - don't ban my right to OWN a gun. That's how the Wild West worked.
I'm on a rant here - but you can fucking bet that when I get my finances to the point where I'm independantly wealthy, I'll be working on the last refuge we have - transparent encryption of all communications. You've lost all your other "freedoms".
Remember kids.. Power comes from the barrel of a gun. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.
AC.. With damn good reason.
It's not about rights and liberties, it's about fear. It's about the expectation of the worst overshadowing the fact that people are inherently not evil. Bear with me...
...
... snip!
And how does this pertain to the article subject matter? Well, as long as the government insists on making us feel insecure in our own country, with Commies, and Iraqi terrorists, and biological weapons around every corner, we will keep suspecting each other of cruel intentions. As long as we keep being afraid, the government will keep trying to protect us from each other. As long as the government keeps trying to keep us safe, we will feel our rights erode, and we will be even more paranoid.
You miss the point. We (at least I, and I suspect, a lot of people on this board) are not afraid of each other or of individuals in general. The whole discussion is not about threats you face on the streets. I have not heard a single person (as opposed to a governent official or a politician) demand more stringent national security because he was afraid of Iraqi terrorists. Fear and suspicion of fellow people is a completely different topic.
What we are talking about here is government powers and the abuse thereof. I am suspicious of governments and I believe I have good reasons to be. History, and in particular, XX century history, should teach everybody (who is capable of learning, that is) that governments have huge appetite for power and if they get this power, Very Bad Things (tm) tend to happen. It doesn't really matter if the original goals were good/idealistic -- power corrupts and does it quickly and effectively.
I trust people -- but I definitely don't trust governments.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
This is somewhat off-topic, but pertinent to the larger theme we're seeing here...
It's not about rights and liberties, it's about fear. It's about the expectation of the worst overshadowing the fact that people are inherently not evil. Bear with me...
Last night, while driving home from a class, I saw a car on the highway, spewing smoke out the back end. Not from the tailpipe, but from underneath the engine. It was coming out so much that when I pulled behind it, I got dropplets of oil on my windshield.
I tried to get the driver (a girl my age) to pull over. I flashed my lights, turned on my directionals and hazzards intermittently, and tried to get this girl to pull over, since I thought she might like to know that she stood to loose the engine if she didn't keep an eye on the oil level. Silly me.
Well, after a couple of minutes, and three lane changes later, the girl wasn't getting the point, and she seemed to be getting upset. So, I wrote a note on a piece of paper that said "leaking oil", showed it to her, and went on my way.
About an hour later, two state cruisers, two troopers and dog show up at my house to take my statement. Apparently, the girl thought I was trying to run her off the road, and kill her, and rape her and whatever else. So much for good intentions.
Well, they took my statement, looked at my car for damage (I should have had them look at the oil splattered on the windshield, but in the moment, it didn't come to mind - I should have kept the note, but I tossed it at a gas station since I didn't need it anymore), and left.
It made me understand how people can stand by and watch as someone gets beaten or killed in the street, and not lift a finger. It's not worth the hassle to go out of your way for another person anymore. It's not worth watching out for your 'fellow man' anymore.
I'm a parochially schooled, college degreed, well paid professional software engineer. I have a steady girlfriend, a nice car, a normal life, and (god forbid!) good intentions. But, with the rampant paranoia (at least in the U.S.) these days, it's hadly worth the hassle of watching out for anyone buy the proverbial 'number one'. It's a mistake I'll have to be careful not to make again.
And how does this pertain to the article subject matter? Well, as long as the government insists on making us feel insecure in our own country, with Commies, and Iraqi terrorists, and biological weapons around every corner, we will keep suspecting each other of cruel intentions. As long as we keep being afraid, the government will keep trying to protect us from each other. As long as the government keeps trying to keep us safe, we will feel our rights erode, and we will be even more paranoid.
We need common sense, and good upbringing. We need to NOT be punished for trying to help. We need to stop crucifying good Samaritans, and start acting like them. We need to stop looking over our shoulder, and start looking into our common good - not just as individuals, but as a nation, and as a world.
And if someone who can afford a satellite phone wants to sneak information past Echelon, they can hire a personal courier.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Communism, as it was originally intended, is the united force of the population taking care of itself through cooperation. ("Workers of all nations unite" (At least, I think that's how it goes))
You are somewhat confused. Let's try to clear up some of terminology.
"Utopian socialism": forerunner to Karl Marx from which he (Marx) borrowed a lot of ideas about the desirable form of society. Under utopian socialism everybody lives in the same conditions, labors for the general good, owns nothing, and generally behaves himself. This is basically a secular form of a monastic order. People nowadays tend not to know anything about utopian socialism and tend to be horrified when they learn the details, which are very unpleasant (as in death penalties for insubordination, prohibition on any unsanctioned sex, breeding of people for genetic traits, etc.). Campanella is a good example of an utopian socialist writer.
"Marxism": an economic, social, and political philosophy, formulated by Karl Marx. Never implemented in reality. Economically it is based on common ownership of means of production (Marx was very vague as to who would actually run factories), socially -- on utopian socialism, and politically -- on violent revolution overthrowing existing governments worldwide, with the semi-anarchic global community without any governments to follow.
"Communism": two meanings. Meaning one, the original one: a phase in the socio-economic history of manking that follows capitalism. Very rarely used nowadays. Meaning two, the common one: the political, economic, and social structures implemented in Russia in the beginning of the century, and later in Eastern Europe, China and some other countries. It mostly has been developed by Lenin, so sometimes the word "leninism" is used. I use "communism" in it's second meaning.
By the way, the meaning of the expression "Workers of the world, unite!" is "unite, so that we together can overthrow all the governments in the world". It has nothing to do with population taking care of itself through cooperation.
What most misinformed Americans (including myself up until about two or three months ago) believe the only form of communism is the supposed Russian atrocities, but this is false.
First, I am not a misinformed American. Second, the Russian atrocities are not supposed but quite real. By the best estimates Stalin killed about 20 million people by artificially induced famines in the 20s, plus about 10 million perished in labor camps during Stalin's lifetime.
Many countries are using some form of communism.
Right now I can think of North Korea, maybe Cuba, but that's about it.
In true communism, people give up their possessions voluntarily, to provide for a better life for others.
I don't know what do you mean by "true communism". Karl Marx certainly didn't envision it this way. Some utopian socialist did, but see above re their views.
It is only when these rules are enforced at penalty of death that communism becomes what most consider it to be.
It so happened that these rules always were enforced at the penalty of death. Doesn't it tell you something?
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Anonymous Chemist wrote:
/. The Gvmnt right to a digital feed of phone info is emminent domain.
Once more, I hear paranoia at
No, "eminent domain" is the right of the government to take private property in exchange for just compensation. It is completely unrelated to what we are talking about here. The government has no right to a digital feed of phone info, in fact, the Fourth Amendment explicitly says the opposite, that a citizen has the right to security against such searches unless probable cause exists, and an appropriatly detailed warrant is issued.
Believe it or not, they don't have time to track ordinary law abiding citizens, just the criminals.
Believe it or not, even without bringing paranoia into the mix, they sometimes have trouble distinguishing between law abiding citizens and criminals, and try to track them anyway. That is one reason why we have a Fourth Amendment, to ensure that there are checks and balances on the government when it comes to investigating citizens.
Would you have a terrorist/drug trafficker in the US able to coordinate activities without any way for law enforcement to track his communications?
First, you are misrepresenting the issue. We are not preventing the government from tracking terrorists. If they pay attention to the rights of citizens it is merely more difficult to track a terrorist or drug trafficer, not impossible. Secondly, I, and most people I know, know and accept that if they maintain our rights as citizens, law enforcement's job is harder, and there might be more crime. That is the price of freedom.
Think about it, you're opening Pandora's box; and folks like don't care who gets hurt.
No, the Feds are opening Pandora's box by removing the citizen's right to protection against searches. They don't care who gets hurt. In addition, if we get another J. Edgar Hoover in the FBI, than the paranoid fears are all justified.
True you take the risk that the law may be abused at some time, but then if you don't have such a law.. you can be certain that the loophole will be exploited by terrorists or criminals.
Such laws don't prevent terrorists from using these products. A terrorist can easily go to Europe, buy an Iridium phone, and use it in the US. A terrorist is more likely to do this than a private citizen.
unfortunately our Founding Fathers had no idea of nukes, germ warfare, car bombs, etc. I have no
doubt if they had, they would have supported the ability to infringe on those folks rights (who would commit such crimes) for the greater good of the nation.
I disagree. One of the key rights that was implicit in many of the ideas put forth by the founding fathers (especially Thomas Jefferson) was that the Constitution must maintain the citizen's rights to the means of revolution, should the citizens decide that a change of government was necessary. That thread strongly underlies the bill of rights. Why should a government not allowed to hunt for muskets and bombs be allowed to hunt for automatic weapons and car bombs?
I've said it before, I'll say it again. If you have nothing to hide, you really have nothing to fear.
I have nothing to hide, but I disagree. I have a lot to fear from the US Government intruding in my rights. The key fear is "how far will they go?"!
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Open mind, insert foot.
Why do 99% of American refuse to see their liberties being eroded right out from under them?
This WAS the land of the free, but now, every time I turn around, I'm hearing about how the FBI has the right to decrypt my e-mail, listen to my phone conversations and about 100 other things.
Are we all so complacent that we just don't care anymore?
Question 2 - is it better elsewhere? REALLY?
Werd.