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FCC Makes Wiretapping Easier for Cops
"The FCC order will require telecommunications companies to provide six of nine new surveillance capabilities that have been on the 'wish list' of the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation," according to a story in this morning's Washington Post. Telcos have until next June 30 to implement the new E-Z-Wiretap(tm) rules, which do not yet cover data packets (and therefore Internet telephony) but the FCC is now working on how to tap into them, too. This is the long-dreaded implementation of the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Read it and weep, m'friends.
They don't want to give us wireless bandwidth for data, they never have been willing to "open up the air waves" (or any other communications tool) very much. But they seem VERY willing to allow themselves back into OUR data.
I guess it's time to teach my non-tech parents about using that little PGP icon in the tray. As much as I dread explaining and using tech to some of my "e-mail pals" (Well, who would consider e-mail a serious communication tool!?!?) I think it's time.
---
Don Rude - AKA - RudeDude
RudeDude
Perl/Linux/PHP hacker
Have you ever been in a situation where your words or actions were misconstrued and used against you? Perhaps they were totally innocent actions, but for some reason, you ended up punished becuase of it. Think about some of the news stories you've heard - The government can lock you up for breathing if they were so inclined(exaggeration effect there - sorry:), the less they can get to POTENTIALLY use againts me(if they were so inclined), the better. Plus, it never hurts to keep my information out of the public view in the event that I should decide to do something illegal in the future(Perhaps defending a rightous cause...). H.
There are many problems with ignoring privacy. Here's another:
If a stupid law gets passed, I'm going to ignore it, and I don't want it to be easy for the feds to find out and procecute.
An example of a law that I consider stupid is fireworks being illegal in Massachussetts. If I want to risk burning my hand to be able to see pretty fire and here the bottle rocket go *pop*, then that's what I'm going to do. I don't want the local cops to be able to see the E-mail to my uncle in california that says "Hey, can you send me a gross of bottle rockets by UPS?".
And if your response is "You shouldn't just ignore stupid laws, you should try to do petition your legislator or something" then my answer is "been there, tried that, I want my damn fireworks now, not in 2060!"
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Well, I've managed to get along with state socialists, I can do it with pro-capitalists. At the core of things, we want something "better." Better for us, better for those who are discriminated against, better for our children, etc. Through the course of being educated...retrieving information, we took different routes for whatever reason.
I gave this a little bit of thought, to be fair for all of these people. I was thinking to divide up a certain amount of land to each differering segment. Some for the state socialists, some for the capitalist libertarians, some for the conservatives (by the traditional meaning of the term...as in no change from the current norm), some for the anarchists, etc. See which of those societies really flourishes and which of them either crumble, or reduce human moral.
This could theoritically work, except for the possibility those with governments (all of those minus the anarchist collectives), government could become corrupt to a point that it builds a military and uses it to take over the other ones. I'm guessing the capitalist libertarian and anarchist groups would have the most free thinkers, while the state socialist and conservative ones are more prone to being subject to government propaganda. Therefore it'd be those to fear.
Then again, capitalist libertarians want a government to exist to protect the citizens from outside attack, and disobedience within the society...so, it'd be kind of a institution of physical power and therefore could also possibly become corrupt and begin trying to invade other lands so the corporations can get more resources and cheaper labor for resources.
If you're state socialist, you'll deny that such things would happen. Same if you're capitalist libertarian. No one really knows...and you can only expect the worst which is actually possible (as opposed to saying "the worst in an anarchist collective is total chaos, theft, rape, terror AHHHHH!" which is historically and academically false). I'm not saying any of these is perfect, because I really have no idea. I have more trust in one of these choices though, and oput my weight behind that. Whether it'd work out in the long run...no one knows. No ruling body will let it happen. They are afraid of the domino theory. One country prospers through a socialist system and other countries/citizens will want the same, putting an end to whatever existing institutions happen to be in place there and here.
The dividing land thing is all kind of fantasy-ish in that it's unrealistic. Unless some sort of agreement was signed or something crazy like that. I mentioned it as an idea, not a reality. Although "anything is possible."
One of the oldest principles of law is that the law must be written down, and made public. This serves two purposes: it prevents authority figures from making up arbitrary laws as they go along, and allows citizens to know what the law is.
Are current laws are so amazingly complex (though almost always unnecessary) and so full of legalese, that what the law means basically depends on whatever the authority figure says it is at the time they wish to apply it -- thus, by having enough laws, and interpreting those laws as they see fit, our legal system currently violates this oldest and most important of legal principles.
Another important element of English common law, the legal system that is arguably the best that has ever existed, is that the common man generally does a pretty good job of deciding issues of law. This is at the root of the idea of trial by jury. This concept is also suffering erosion at present. See the Fully Informed Jury Association.
Alan R. Light
Rarely has anyone so poorly read what I have written. (Or again, is this a deliberate atempt to bait?) If you printed this in a paper, I would consider suing for libel, since the racist attitudes you attribute to me are not at all like the things I have actually advocated (utter legal equality, personal freedom transcending and independent of race or sex, etc), but to a reader who saw only this response, your calumny would go unanswered.
You wrote:
Maybe you think so. I don't. But I do think that government is responsible for propogating at least as much active racism (like public buildings with drinking fountain apartheid up until the 1960s in some places and Jim Crow laws, right up to race-specific employment and housing laws of Right Now) as it has ever helped to dissolve. Please stop putting (racist) words in my mouth.
I am withdrawing from this line of argument, because I've had enough of your vitriol. I stand by my previous posts on the topics of the FCC, the mutability of class standing and how best to deal with racism. Since I have not posted them anonymously, anyone who cares to is free to read them and decide whether that is true. Since you do post anonynously, they'll have to just take your word for it that you wrote or didn't write any particular post.
Have a nice day.
timothy
p.s. I never attacked your grammar; thanks for extending me the same courtesy.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Actually, there were/are a few people on here who claim to be from the former communist Russia and said things were MUCH better prior to the switch to capitalism. Things meaning crime, economic equality, religious and ethnic quarelling, etc.
Not that I at all believe it was perfect. Prior to Russia becoming totalitarian communist, it was a third world country...so, I'm sure people wouldn't mind waiting in several lines rather than barely having enough to eat at all...if that widely used "fact" about long lines for bread in communist Russia is even true.
Now you can eat at McDonalds in Russia...if you have the money. No lines! Barely anyone can afford it. Many of the US corporations that sell their products there are packing their bags up and leaving.
You're right about that statistics being skewed...the question/request wasn't actually intended to be fufilled....just kind of a curiorisity thing.
In banks. ATMs. Corporate Security. 'Weather' cams. Traffic Cams. 'Public Housing' (e.g. poor people) cams. CRIME CAMS on each corner. (YES THEY ARE IN THE FUCKING US of A, some towns have tried them out, and they 'reduce crime by XXX%' so of course they *will* spread) The first 3 seem fine to me. The next two are for a good use but can have questionable side effects. (PLENTY of examples on that) The rest are plain bullshit in disguise. Down with the complacent bastards! At least they don't have much power, whereas the evil bastards who come up with this shit have plenty.
Actually I'm against government and law enforcement.. oh, and churches or any social group that "forces" their "morals" onto other people. We just don't need authority but it is so entrenched into each of us that you really do have to understand the issues and analyse society to see why it came about and why it is not necessary.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You're an _active_ one too. Must have some reverse orwellian complex. Most of the sheep folks don't *care* and are passive. Wolf in sheeps clothing I call ye.
Where are those sheep shears of mine?...
Of course governments are more dangerous than the criminals around us. They are, to begin with, usually better armed, and more unfeeling and callous.
The simple fact of the matter is that governments in this century alone have been responsible for the murders of over a hundred million innocent civilians -- a number that the "criminals" could not even hope to compete with, if the "criminals" are even anxious for the dubious honour.
In the United States, billions of dollars are stolen from citizens every year, BY THE U.S. GOVERNMENT, without any trial, in the name of preventing "crimes" which are explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution. Meanwhile, making these human rights "criminal" has become the leading cause of *real* crime, where one person harms another.
No wonder people are paranoid. Sometimes they really are out to get you.
There are many good people working in government, and quite a few bad ones as well. In all cases, they are only human -- even the good ones make plenty of mistakes. How much better if the U.S. government were to observe the Constitution which they pretend to respect? How much better if government were limited (as originally designed) so that abuses and mistakes were less likely to happen, and have less scope when they do happen? What a great idea! Why didn't Madison think of it?
Alan R. Light
According to a story a year or so ago in the Washington Post (any reference I might have had is long gone, unfortunately), all the wiretaps in the world are useless for hunting down the local drug dealers.
Problem is that they use a combination of cellphones, pagers, pay telephones, and constantly shifting slang that's so confusing and fragmented that the cops never know what they're hearing.
This was true even with analog cellphones, which can be eavesdropped without a warrant. All you need is a scanner. You probably couldn't use the warantless eavesdropping as evidence, but you could us it to be in the right place at the right time. With digital cellphones, you just need a fancier scanner. Near as I can tell, the only cellphone technology that's really encrypted is GSM, and it is being phased out in the US. (Note -- "spread spectrum" is not encryption, despite press releases from cellphone companies.)
So what's their *real* target? Given the LE abuses of the past, I would say political dissent. Gotta make sure that anybody who gets elected is solidly pro-FBI!
Amazingly, while people in Slashdot are bitching and moaning about how their privacy is being washed down the drain by the FBI's ability to wiretap their phones, millions of Americans are actually welcoming such privacy-removing efforts. The Slashdot contention that most Americans don't know what the FBI is capable of is actually quite a bit of exaggeration. Most Americans actually choose to diminish their privacy for security in the way of home security systems (which are presided over 24/7). Even ISPs keep information on their customers, yet no one seems to mind. In fact, if you called an ISP expecting them to have logs of the time period during which malicious activity occurred to you and they didn't, I bet you'd be furious. I know I would. How is that any different? Most likely, the customer doesn't know all his data is being tracked.
People need to get used to a different kind of privacy. The world is watching everything you do. It's not just the government. Private companies, the mob, anyone with just a little bit of money and access to the resources can do a bit of tracing. Where the citizen needs to keep a watchful eye is at the usage level. FBI wiretaps should not be used in illegal manners. That's simply it. If some FBI clerk wants to tape my conversations with my girlfriend in which I spout off against the President, the NSA, and then start talking dirty. So be it. My neighbor in the room next door can hear it, too. Just don't expect to try to bend the laws to make me into a criminal for doing it. And that rests in the hands of the court.
But how many of you get on the phone each day and say "I'm goin to go assassinate the president at 6:30 tonight. Good Bye."
My point is, how many of you that are complaining about this actually get on the phone and discuss illegal things that Big Brother would actually care about?
Albeit, it is a large invasion of privacy and is against our constitutional rights in one way or another. So don't bother replying with the usual "Hey dumbass, its against our rights! Freedom of speech, d00d!"
---------------------------
"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
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Like traffic cops which pull over people at the drop of the hat, so do all the other areas of law enforcement find an excuse to go after you. This gives them more opportunity. Saying they wouldn't care listening to you talk to your mother is missing the point.
But what if the people who are holding that "Confidential" data such as you walking around your house naked suddenly decide that people wh walk around the house naked consitute a threat to national security. They then query their database(remember now, it's still confidential) for all people who walk around their house naked. One of those names on the list is yours.
Now you get a knock at your door and are asked to pack for a very long stay by two enforcment agency people - and all things being confidential and such- you won't even know which bad habit of your fits their profile....
Does that shed some light as to how dangerous this data can be if colelcted on EVERY individual?
Forget about the implications of political powers use of this data......
Suppose a new tax comes down the line - all people who walk around their house naked will be taxed 20% more per year.... Hmmmm...
H.
But my greatest hope is that this action will help reduce the amount of paranoia that people have towards the government. Once people observe the (always nice) police enforce the (always just) laws of our (never self-serving) government, maybe they won't be so suspicious, and will come to realize that everything the government does is in the best interest if the people. And if they don't realize it, then maybe the wiretaps will help the government find them so that they can give them the psychiatric help that they so obviously need.
-- $SIGNATURE
Yeah, but think of the advantages:
:-D
:-) the preceeding was tounge in cheek. flame to /dev/null cuz it's a JOKE!
a) a health care system (this alone is SO tounge in cheek that i could die)
b) you can legally possess kiddy porn!
c) you get to stick your nose up at 'Merikans and travel in Europe happilly with a big maple leaf on your backpack
d) your national anthem is easier to remember
e) even if you don't know d) you aren't considered unpatriotic
Ok, I'm done now.
Let's apply some rationality to this. The total number of digital messages is expanding at such a rate that it is not even remotely possible for law enforcement, as we know it in America, to perform wiretaps on anyone but the most serious criminals. This doesn't even take into account the time and effort that is required from the State to obtain legal authorization to do this.
The other thing everyone should think about is the reponse of the FDIC to the so-called "Know Your Customer" Rule, that was killed due to unprecedented public opposition. If you really think that law enforcement should not be able to perform any one of the things that CALEA calls for, then the FCC should be slashdotted until they give up on that provision.
I can't get that upset about the privacy implications of new digital wiretapping rules, if they simply make law enforcement capable of performing surveillance to the same degree as they can with POTS technology. That's because I use all of the communications media, and I prefer to think that the law is being applied consistantly.
However, it would make me really upset if I found out that a person in the act of committing a crime could avoid prosecution, simply by choosing to communicate via digital technology.
-- Dave Aiello
Er, you people do realize they still need a judge's order to do wiretaps, right?
What's astounding to me is that you privacy nazis think that preventing some theoretical happens-once-in-a-generation abuse is more important that capturing real, live bad guys who will do more to you than read your love letters.
Or do you seriously think that the federal government, warts and all, is more actively (not theoretically) dangerous than the criminals around you? If you do, please check yourself into the nearest mental institution.
And one last thing to the idiots who are quoting the constitution... note that the constitution allows legal search and seizure (this should be obvious, but for some reason it never is).
nice sig :)
-funcused
"Er, you people do realize they still need a judge's order to do wiretaps, right?" WRONG. You begged the question, suck down the answer. FACT: A WIRETAP TODAY CAN BE PLACED ON ANYONE FOR 'PROBABLE CAUSE' AND THEY ONLY HAVE TO PROVE THE GODAMN FUCKING CAUSE AFTER THEY WRACK UP THE EVIDENCE, WHICH IS EASILY PREDATED BEFORE THE TAP *cough* (even if it ain't, 'hindsight cause' will let just about anything get by) AND IF THEY DON'T FIND ANYTHING, THEY REMOVE THE TAP AND *NO ONE* BUT THE PEOPLE WHO PLACED THE TAP IS EVER THE WISER. /end shouting
But anyway, point taken :) and heartily agreed with.
Now they have more ways to invade our personal lives... but I think maybe some people might want to ease up a bit. Its not like the police and FBI really want to listen to your "Top Secret" phone conversation with your mother or something. Or to read your spam mail or anything like that.
So unless your a mobster (or someone else with a nefarious purpose in life) you don't really have to worry about anything.
This is it. As I write this, I'm downloading:
* freeS/WAN
* CIPE
* GnuPG
From now on, my drives will be encrypted (so much for the FBI's plan to put backdoors in everyone's machines), my email will be signed and encrypted, and all my network traffic to school and to work will be done over a SKIP tunnel.
I hadn't been doing these things because they're a bit of a pain, but now it seems I have no choice if I want to preserve my privacy.
"America the land of the free? Ha! Suckers, they don't me you when they say that...."
The manner in which I was speaking was sarcasm, and was used because you labeled me a racist for saying that minorities make up a by larger percentage of the lower class than whites.
The other parts have to do with your reasoning of equality through capitalism and I am not sure where you stand on how a person works their way up the class scale, but I can only assume you believe it can be done simply through hard work or highschool (and possibly general college level education, but at this point you're really getting into an area that the lower class has a hard time affording unfortunately...there aren't that many scholarships out there...and while the lower class kids are working in highschool to make ends meet, the well off white kids are getting good grades and getting those scholarships). With this belief, it can only be asserted that the rest, those who are lower class still, are there because they just didn't try hard enough. Those isolated cases you have do not represent good statistics for the easiness of moving up out of the non existent class system.
Another element of the racism thing had to do with filling a missing link in your system of reasoning. That everything, should in effect equal out, and although there can be some racism among superiors here and there, all it takes is effort and you can move out of the bottom of the barrel. Well, there are still millions of US citizens at the bottom...so, are you saying this just aren't hard enough workers? Too uneducated? Only those who are educated enough and hard working enough are the ones that make it, and all of those who fit that criteria do make it out even? I don't think so. So, going to an extreme, what could explain this level of inferior education, being a lazy worker, etc.? Nope, let's not think it has anything to do with capitalism...perhaps the governments! It's welfare! It's the public schools! Those scholarships! Damn the free rides! Or maybe it's not all of that or any of that...maybe they're....inferior!
I wasn't directly calling you a racist. Even if I was, which I assure you I am not, I wouldn't bail out of an argument based on that.
No, I'm not a racist either. No, I do not believe all of the worlds problems start at and end with a single source (capitalism or prejudices or religions or the government, etc.)
1. Support EFF and other similar groups with money and labor.
2. Personally educate everyone we can actually reach.
3. Identify and financially support politicians who are demonstrably pro-privacy.
4. Use strong encryption for every signal sent to anyone equipped for it, no matter how harmless the contents, and encourage others to do likewise.
It's about money and power. Encryption costs the thought police money, and reduces their power. That's why I love to promote it every chance I get.
The Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil liberties advocacy group, said it is outraged by the FCC's decision. "The FCC basically sided with the FBI, putting aside any privacy concerns," said James X. Dempsey, senior staff counsel at the center. He said the center is considering appealing to the courts.
The FCC doesn't seem to be much on the side of the common citizen, the American citizens as a whole.
Something is wrong when a government has to be extremely paranoid and keep watch over everything. If America was such a perfect and free society, the worries would be less...except possible concern over the actions of a group of "bad" countries. Our military budget is still by far the greatest of any nation, much larger than China's even...yet they always make it seem like we're on the verge of attack from crazy terrorists who will take over the world, or China, or some guy in Iraq who doesn't want to share his oil with US/western corporations.
It's quite amazing how accurate George Orwell's predictions were. I'm sure people were quite frightened when 1984 was first released and they probably thought "Wow, that's like the Soviet Union!" Nowadays public knowledge of the invasion of privacy is practically zero so they have no idea this is going on. Why doesn't the so-called fair and unbiased mainstream media ever cover things like this? Because it's mentioned in non-headline areas of a few newspapers, somehow this shows there is no bias?
Let's see, we have echelon, everything the NSA does, the CIA meddling in the governments and militaries of other countries, the FBI watching over people and keeping a really close eye on humanitarian, civil rights, anarchist, and socialist organizations and people...I barely remember this fact, but on the FBI watch list they have something like 20 (or even 2) right wing groups, while they have several hundred more "left" type groups. Left referring anything from human rights groups, animal rights, earth protectionists, and political type groups such as state socialists, anarchists, etc. I forgot where I read this, and wish I had taken better note of it...it was pretty outrageous.
What is the government REALLY afraid of? Is it really this BIG terrorist threat or some evil nation that changes every year? Or is it the spreading of the awareness of the shit the US and it's corporations do to the common masses, creating a larger movement of people calling for major changes to this? Keep your eye on Seattle at the end of November of this year.
For those unfamaliar with political/social movements and such...very few people are anarcho-primitivists, while it's made to look like any person with concern over such things the US does or corporations...is a dumb idiot who wants everyone to live in the jungle again. More people want things to progress as they are now, possibly even faster as there would be MUCH less middle men and service people, and more people actually doing productive work. The changes have more to do with the way things are set up, how decisions are made, who gets all of the money, etc. I don't want to start a debate over political ideologies, I just want to make it clear very few people are actually primitivists.
...the long awaited maturation of:
FreeSWAN
and
The Linux Telephony Project
...tap that, you fascious, parkenson-tremmering bitch....
The NSA is already listening in on every phone conversation on the freaking planet, why doesn't the FBI just go to them and ask them to provide the necessary information?
"Whenever any wire or oral communication has been intercepted, no part of the contents of such communication and no evidence derived therefrom may be received in evidence in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court, grand jury, department, officer, agency, regulatory body, legislative committee, or other authority of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of this chapter." I don't get the legalese in this, are they saying it can only be used in trials or not in any? Huh? Anyway, either way were fucked, because you don't think they'd *really* not use it? *snicker* sure -laugh-
This is a serious pain in the ass.
;)
I work for a wireless provider. Hence we have a measurable amount of amateur pharamsuticals, and personal entertainers using our services. This is just a fact.
We've been debating back and forth for about a year and half now with the feds on who's going to buy what equipment.
They're _extremely_ specific on what they want accomplished, and how it should be done.
Heh. Atleast this way, I know if they're monitoring me.
A political animal's primary motivation is survival -- remaining in office. They will explain that only they know how to save the country (and the children!), so re-election is a matter of national security.
Have you heard of political dirty-tricks squads? They're really not too uncommon, many political candidates have tolerated them as deniably over-enthusiastic supporters. Some, like Nixon, actively helped them in illegal ways.
If that's too much of a stretch for you, you do know that nearly ALL political candidates hire investigators to dig up dirt on their opponents, don't you? Think how valuable government surveillance would be for those efforts.
Now, the question is, who gets an advantage in political intelligence for dirty political campaigns if the government has widespread surveillance? The honest grass-roots challenger, or the corrupt incumbent?
Still think you don't have an interest in keeping the playing field between citizens watching government and government watching citizens level?
Jim
I'm not afraid of anything I say over the phone or internet being intercepted and used against me, I don't say those things over the phone or internet. However, I'm scared sh*tless by any law that takes freedom out of the hands of the American populace, and places it into our caretakers.
Perhaps it would be better explained in the hypothetical. Let's say that I'm of a certain religious denomination that says that it is immoral to use any form of birth control. Then, lets say that the government mandated that all males should have some form of subcutaneous(sp) birth control implanted in them, because of population pressures. What is the result of this? Either my religious beliefs are swayed, or I break the law. Let's say that I break the law, but have no more children, obeying the spirit of the law, if not the letter.
How does this relate? How is enforced birth control similar to federal wiretapping? Because they both take the rights out of my hands, and put them into the hands of the government. In both cases, I would be forced to break the law. I will not stand for wire tapping without a search warrant, and I will(would) not stand for enforced birth control.
. when in danger or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout --Robert Heinlein
Case in point: Big Brother from 1984; it stopped crime, sure, but at what cost? The right to privacy for millions outweighs the right of hundreds to snoop around, even if that snooping could save lives.
Big Brother only stopped the suffering for those who were already dead on the inside and therefore incapable of human feeling. The only true humans of the book, the Proles, Winston Smith, and Julia faced excrutiating suffering. The proles live in poverty and were a form of slave labor; Winston and Julia were found breaking nothing that we would call a law (All that was happening was 2 single people were sleeping together) and tortured until their personalities, their humanity was completely destroyed. So among other things, we would have to be complete conformists for Big Brother to approve and then we could go about our mundane lives. Otherwise, prepare yourself to join the dead.
On another note, how many people are really familiar with 1984? Was O'Brien really a member of the Brotherhood, or was it merely a ploy to catch Winston?
-- Terry
I am not a criminal. I am a Witch. Contrary to popular belief, Witches do NOT worship satan, do not do sacrifices of any kind. We are peace-loving, earth-oriented people. However, the majority of people do not understand or wish to understand this. As it stands right now, Wicca is a government-recognized religion with all the rights of other religions. However, at this time a U.S. representative leading an attempt to try to take away the rights of Wiccans to our religious freedom by outlawing my religion. If they are successful, then the new communications act will allow the government to monitor my religious activities on the internet and use them against me. This could happen to ANY religion, not just mine. If this could happen to my religion or your religion, then it could certainly happen to anything or anyone for any reason. This is why I am outraged by this decision.
How about if your not a mobster but a political activist for a cause they don't like? You think they would miss even a wink of sleep over the fact that they used some completely unrelated fact or evidence about you to gather data on the group(s) you work with? ..or maybe they find some way to justify wiretapping you (afterall at the same time they make wiretapping easier...they also have tried to expand the allowable uses of it) then use it to steal industrial secrets or even future plans of your company. Remember one of the main reasons we NEED limits to what law enforcment is allowed to do is that they are human. (remember...power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely). They make mistakes, they have personal agendas, they have feelings, they have curiosity...they can be corrupt.
Maybe I better go put my clothes back on...
Uhhh, privacy NAZIS? Wtf? Been watching Rush Limbaugh again?
Like someone said in another post, the real criminals use slang and numerous methods of communication making what this plans to do nearly useless to really combat such things. If you haven't noticed, there isn't a terrorist problem in the US either. There have been a few isolated cases, but they've mainly been with right wing, white supremecist groups. Oddly enough, the FBI watches less of them, than say human rights church groups. They also try harder to dismantle civil rights, human rights, animal rights, and equality-based political groups than right-wing groups and white supremecist groups.
From my overwhelming amount of research on "dissenting" groups both left and right and what the FBI, CIA, NSA does, I can safely say this will be used more to attack "left" groups and people involved in such things, than it will be used to catch "criminals."
Won't it be nice to be able to stop direct action demonstrations...be able to intercept and fake communication between organizerso f rallies and such. Direct action rallies, protests, even riots have a GREAT deal more impact on government representative decesions and public awareness than anything else. Governmental authorities were semi successfull in lessoning the planned impact of organized G-7/8 protests around the world on June 18th, primarily in Cologne, Germany where the meeting took place where they intercepted public transportation routes that most people who travelled to Germany had to use on their way to get to a certain location. They held these people for many hours, forced many back to their countries, arrested many, etc. all to lesson the impact...more people, more attention.
Search and seizure as (semi unclearly) defined in the US constitution is a bit different than being able to unknowingly steal/listen in on the communication between two people. There is also a new more universal "constitution" that is much larger and more specific than the US constitution created by the UN. I, and everyone here, should read that because I hear news reports that the US violates that left and right on it's own citizens and people in other countries.
It would also be nice to note that Germany during "nazi" rule had almost ZERO street crime. So, in your view of a utopian society of no crime through an all seing government eye...rather than say, economic and social equality (as most crime is based on the theft of private property, destruction of private property, theft of, or illegally obtaining money, illegal use of or possession of drugs etc...all of which primarily jails the lower class and homeless which are largely african american and hispanic)...you'd allow for the government and it's corporate institutions to slowly evolve into a greater and smarter force than Nazi Germany and Hitler could have ever imagined. I guess it's not the same because it isn't a direct dictatorship and we (the us government) aren't directly seeking out and destroying certain races and ethnic groups.
Excuse me, the highest legal authority in the United States and most other nations today is the World Trade Organization. It can override laws passed by Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court. It is true that there are principle governing how they can do this, but this is true of any system of authority, even the most despotic. Enemies of the proletariat die is a principle; Jews but not Aryans die is another. Principles do not equal democracy. The WTO purview is, in theory, limited to certain kinds of laws. This, of course, is also true of Congress, but we don't consider them a dimished legal authority in consequence of that fact. In any case, this limitation is likely to change, just as the unification of Europe, originally a "purely economic" matter, morphed into political union with seeming inevitability. Therefore, my statement that they are the highest legal authority withstands the these challenges. No one ever asked me to vote for these WTO clowns or their laws, so don't go calling my government a democracy.
I believe that we are on a slippery slope regarding government watching over us. I am afraid there is no way we (the residents) of this country can stop as most people just don't care. A good movie about the attitudes that have been portrayed on this board is Brazil, written by Tom Stoppard and Terry Gilliam (yes, monty python's terry gilliam).
In addition to spying upon its citizenry, the government does other things in trying to weed out the bad element. Take the media for instance. Look closely at the languange used regarding world events. You will see that everything is skewed or ignored at the best, and misrepresented at the worst. We have a free media you say? yes we do but how many people OWN the media.. lets see, westinghouse owns cbs, disney owns nbc, we have good old rupert running fox and of course Turner. We have a very rich group of people running all of the media in whatever manner they please, holding a great deal of influence indeed.
Look at our politicians use of language as well. The Cold War is a prime example of that. This country is always "fighting evil" so therefore it must be "good". I find it amusing when people think that good & evil are written in stone.
These are the ways we can molded to fit.
check out www.stratfor.com if your getting tired of cnn
thanks for listening and go ahead and email me @
hancu@usc.edu
domo arigato mr roboto
Having lived in Romania before the collapse of communism there knowing what it is like after I would have to say that the quality of life was better before. Things were stable, mafia's existed but controlled less. It will take a long time for it to dig its way out of the hole its in.
At least in communism people expected to be spied upon.
The CALEA requirements were not drawn up by the FBI, but by the NSA. They are what the NSA wants. They just used the FBI to get them. Go to www.boardwatch.com and do a search for wiretap, and read the articles.
And if there are people dumb enough to think that the FBI follows the law, think NICS.
The Brady law prohibits the FBI from creating and maintaining any kind of database on firearm purchasers, but the FBI has been doing this since NICS became operational.
In 1986, the Firearms Owner Protection Act was passed into law, and it modified the Gun Control Act of 1968. The BATF has been completely ignoring the modifications, and been enforcing the pre-1986 gun control act.
The NSA claims client/attorney privelege when questioned about Echelon.
Does anyone else see a "goverment out of control" trend here?
Remember the IRS employees reading supposedly-confidential files? Nah, it just couldn't happen with the FBI!
Is your name Mr Rogers? Cuz you sure seem to live in the land of make believe to me.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
That still doesn't mean it will only be used to stop crime. If the FBI's anything to go by, it will also stop civil right movements.
spelling has two "l"s... hope it's a typo. if it is, perhaps the same can be said for herka.
Do you really think that just because the FBI have to get a warrent etc.. to use it, to stop so-called "criminals" They won't use it for other things? They will use it anyway... without a warrent. They've abused there power and twisted the law in the past, this just gives them more power to do it. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!! rray@*NOSPAM*abforestry.co.nz
don't know what happened to those page breakes, oh well.
It's become abundantly clear to me that something of this nature will be the only solution. Otherwise, we will forever be fighting back the invasion into our personal lives that the various government agencies desire "for our own good".
People have this attitude of "if you don't have anything to hide, why worry about it? And if you are concerned you must be hiding something." So what if I'm not a fucking crack dealer or a kiddie-porn freak?! Am I still not an individual who deserves a small corner of this world to call my own?!! A refuge from the rest of the world where no one else can go without my invitation? An island of sanity in a world of chaos?!! This is what my home is supposed to be. Is it not too much to ask in this "civilized" world that someone, be it an individual or a government agency, knock before entering my home??!! It's that simple. No, I don't have anything to hide, just knock first. That's all.
Freedom, once yielded, is almost impossible to regain.
BTW, a lot of cities already have cameras all over the place and sheep^H^H^H^H^Hpeople don't even notice, much less care.
http://www.jetico.sci.fi/
Bestcrypt on the fly transparent harddrive encryption. Currently availible for Dos/WinX but a public beta version for Linux will be availible in Sept. (As far as I've been told so for).
I dont doubt the date so much as I'm currently testing/using the beta software right now and it works pretty awesome. (couple of minor bugs so far but I've reported them back so hopefully those will be gone soon).
I guess you don't realize living in Montana is living on US soil. So the government can still equally apply anything they apply on anyone else in the US on a person living in isolation there. Even if he/she phones another isolated person in North Dakota, or mail, or email communication. Try to find a habital place on earth wherey ou aren't ruled by some government and can really avoid their laws and privacy invasion.
Not everyone who is concerned about privacey invasion belongs to one particular group of people. Sorry to bust your over generalizing bubble. I can't stand capitalist libertarians myself...but I happen to agree with them on this.
Im sorry, I do not trust the government not to abuse power. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilence" The problem is not THIS new change. This is small. The problem is that it is always small. No matter how tiny of a bite you take of your steak, eventually from all those tiny bites, your steak is gone. Perhaps to you this is not a problem. Two math students can argue. One says that the angle of a triangle can NOT add up to more than 180 degrees, and the other can argue that a triangle can easily have 4 90 degree angles. They are both right...just in differnt systems. Their fundamental assumptions are differnt (the latter one being where the plane is curved properly) Both are right and the argument is pointless. Morality and "rights" are another such area. The basic working assumptions we make can only be understood if looked at as a religious belief...this is how it is. No explanation of this is needed. It is my belief that Human beings have certain inaienable human rights. It is also my belief that Governments MUST NEVER infringe upon the rights of even one single person. Likewise I do not belive rights are cumulative. If 10 people or even a million get together, thaty does not make the collective rights of that group more important than the rights of one individual man. Obviously that ideal will never be reached...we have to find a middle ground. However just as "It is better to let 100 guilty men go free than to convict 1 innocent man", it is better to let 100 criminals go untouched than to infringe upon the rights of 1 innocent man. Perhaps this is not what you believe. So be it. You have the right to waive all of your rights... please to not try to force me to do the same. "I do not agree with what you say but I would defend to the death your right to say it" -- Voltaire
"The total number of digital messages is expanding at such a rate that it is not even remotely possible for law enforcement, as we know it in America, to perform wiretaps on anyone but the most serious criminals."
How about their most serious political enemies? Does it bother you that politicians could perform wiretaps on them? This gives corrupt politicians great power, while honest ones wouldn't use it.
Jim
Hey.. if they don't like you, they'll just whap you with the IRS and put you in prison until you rot. It worked for Al Capone.
Evil Peer (evilpeer@Spam.Me.And.Die.email.com)
I always felt O'Brien was sort of an informant...a fake. It may be possible he later switched sides and ratted on others. I haven't read the book in 2 years, so I don't remember the details that well.
I am concerned that the fbi might bash in the
door and search my belongings
because probable cause when out the window in
the war on drugs not if they can find someone who
says "yeah sure he must be on drugs hes a fricken
weirdo" then they can break in and take all your
stuff. Plus as mentioned yesterday they dont have
to give it back either so even when your cleared
of all the charges, and if you wern't 'accidentally' shot to death because you looked like you might be reaching for a gun, and
the case gets thrown out of court cus the guy
that they got the tip from was insane, and you
had no drugs or illigal products of any kind,
you still dont get your stuff back and they still
have probably cost you thousands if not tens of
thousands of dollers becuase some idiot thinks you
must be on crack to dye your hair blue.
course nothing to worry about here cus it's all
perfectly legel.
One half ass search will not get a search warrant signed from any judge in the country. Do you people even listen to the other side? Conservatives spend half their time bitching about how hard it is to get a search warrant. The constitution, search and seizure wise, is the strongest it has ever been.
The cops screwed up big time there. That has no relevance to this however. This law will not make it any easier for screwups like that to happend, nor will it make them any worse if they do. This will not affect seizure in any way. Also, this is one isolated case. One screw up like this happens, and its remembered for years. This disregards the thousands of legitamite search warrants issued and served every year. Mistakes do happen. Amputating law enforcements ability to do their job will not alleviate the problem, it will only make it easier for real criminals to break the law. The answer to incidents like Steve Jackson Games is to fire, or perhaps even prosecute the people involved.
Yeah, I hear that, but I guess what I'm getting at is even though they think they have probable cause, and perhaps do obtain a warrant, how do I know that a warrant for everyone in the united states doesent exist? Ok, it's a silly question, but if there is no mechanism for finding out, then why should I feel safe? How do I know that my privacy is NOT being interrupted by a warrant that I don't even know about?
I mean, yeah, it would be counterintuitive to post a list of all the people who have a warrant against them enableing the use of wiretaps, but on the other hand, doesent it seem like that is required to protect our freedom?
I've heard this attitude before and its truly a dissapointment to hear so much of it. The privacy issue is a question of right and wrong. The fact that our privacy has been invaded in many ways already does not mean the government should have the freedom to invade it. It's truly sickening that our representatives in congress are acting on behalf on the justice department instead of on behalf of their constituents. This country is truly going down the tubes. Things are going to get far worse I can promise you. Gone are the days of government by the people for the people. I just don't know what to do about it. The cause is the average person's lack of concern for what goes on. People don't take any responsibility for what the government does, they don't stand up and say "NO!" when things like this happen, and so the thugs in the FBI get the ability to tap your phones. Don't kid yourself that they are only going to tap the phones of the bad guys. No instead they will harrass ordinary people like you and me who have opinions they don't like. The FBI had a bigger file on Martin Luther King Jr. than on anyone else at the time. What does that say about them? All government is stained by evil. The only real question is how much. We could have a country where the government was accountable to the people and truly acted on their behalf. But the only way that is ever going to happen is if we ourselves make it happen.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Interesting points, JH.
To add an example, what if you were place under surveillance (for reasons that history shows us can be utterly dubious) during a period in which you were applying for job. Employers probably do some background check on prospective employees, and if it can be found that you are for whatever reason regarded by law enforcement as worthy of suspicion, then you're fucked. And you wouldn't even know it.
Now this example is only consequential to the degree that companies important to you (banks, future employers) have access to this sort of info. So it might not be very relevant except in the cases that (1) someone can find info about previous but closed investigations about you, and (2) you apply for a high-security government job where my guess is that they will get this info even for on-going investigations.
You are right; your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness might require access to information concerning previous accusations against you (court-approved intrusive surveillance is accusatory) and the right to demand justification.
Disclaimer: My concern here is only for innocent people. Criminals be damned.
Lets play a game, shall we? Lets say you totally trust the government, and that they never abuse that trust. You say, sure, you can rifle through my harddrive or my brain or whatever without asking, I have nothing to hide, and they gleefully do so "for your own protection". As the years and decades go on, the trustworthy people are eventually replaced. This is enevitable. What is also enevetable is that eventually another power-hungry and/or dishonest and/or evil etc. individual person will work their way into the agencies you trust or even into the White House. (this is where learning a little history will help you, this turns out to be enevetable). And what better environment for a Hitler or a Hoover to come to power in than one where he has access to even your most private thoughts. Maybe you decide you don't like this new government and you'd like to campaign against it. Look out! They already know what you're going to do, you have no hope of unseating them!
What you do when you give up your privacy to the government is not just say you trust the government not to abuse their power, but also that you trust there will never be a future governement that will abuse that power. And boy if you trust that you really do need to go study some history.
And for craps sake, learn some HTML while you're at it! :-) (sorry about the typo.)
IMNSHO (which may not agree with US law...im not
a liar^H^H^Hawyer, I didn't go to lie^H^Haw
school. )
The government does NOT own telco equipment.
I do not see how they have the right to require
the installation of wiretap equipment.
OK fine...the courts can order wiretaps etc...
So when they do THEN AND ONLY THEN should
the telco companies be required to comply
with the court order. So IMNSHO how it should work
is FBI goes to court...gets order.
Telco company says "OK here is the info, there
are the wires" and the FBI gets out THEIR OWN
DAMNED EQUIPMENT and does their job.
I think the FCC is overstepping its bounds.
This ruling has NOTHING to do with keeping
stations from interfereing with eachother etc.
Do you really think someone (or a family, for that matter) that is barely making end's meat is going to have _time_ to watch the news? :\
For that matter, I would venture a guess that the more education you have, the more likely you are to watch the news.
It's difficult to seperate these variables because they're all intercorrelated.
I'll see you your alleged "high standards" and raise you Steve Jackson games.
I call.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Case in point: Big Brother from 1984
i don't think a work of fiction (no matter how insightful it may be) can legitimately be used as evidence of something non-fictional.
"onward!" cried the copper man, little knowing brass corrupts...
First, I'd like to thank the guys who posted links to privacy software. I was preparing to write my own symmetric encryption software for my hard drive before learning that someone's already started.
It seems to me that people who want others to be at ease with the liberties of govenment investigative agencies are being purposely dismissive of the danger of abuse --- and its inevitability. It would however be appropriate for us all to accept the govenment's right to wiretap, as long as we still have the right to encrypt (at the very least using our own hand-written software) our data transmissions with arbitrarily high security, as in 1024-bit RSA, 360-bit eliptic curve public key implementations. But this guy's post should be dismissed because taking control of your online identity is as fundamentally important to responsible citenzenry as taking control of your finances, etc.
Sorry, but this emperor's naked.
If you guys watched "Enemy of the State" (1999) with Will smith and Gene Hackman, you'd be pretty nervous about this bill. The film brings into question the exact same issue and its repercussions in law enforcement and personal privacy. IMO it would be the end of the world when law enforcement or NSA would have the same kind of power it had in the movie where they could tap into commercial surveillance cameras or control cams from anywhere in the city. How would we be able to privately change our clothes or such in private without being broadcast on someone's screen?
-----
Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
The govt and the medias are evil. They seek control of everything. And wish that all people would be stupid and go their way. Fuck them.
>As a designer of miniature DSP hardware - I would love to work with a >group of coders to develop open source - strong > encryption system to be used either mobile or fixed telephones. Have a look at http://www.cypherpunks.to (ssl browser required), I don't have an SSL browser handy but I believe this site has a mailing list archive of the HLB project to build a hardware voice encryption device for fixed phone lines. They demonstrated a prototype at the Chaos Communication Camp reccently but its still under development. Where I am GSM cellular is the standard. Data calls are usually charged at a higher rate so encrypted calls would be more expensive. In theory one could design a new handset or hack an exisiting one to end-to-end encrypt the voice datastream but phone hardware has to be certified to meet lots of standards for connection to a phone network or for radio transmissions and encrypted comms would not be possible between cellphone and an analog network.
Oh please. Don't give me this bullshit about rising out of the lower class through some extra effort. For every former lower class person who becomes middle class, upper middle, millionaire, or billionaire, there are millions more who remain the "lower class." Don't try to tell me they're all lazy asses. It's a matter of luck for them...surviving in their state of living means working their ass off.
And don't try to turn this argument over by making it appear to be a matter of racism and not class division. There is certainly a better chance of moving up the class scale in the US, than in tighter populated countries like England (or most of western europe) due to a great number of factors...mainly large land size and not so dense populations on the whole. If you can offord to move, and somehow have connections to places of employment outside of your local area, your chances to move to a higher paying job certainly increase (in the US).
I'd like more information on this stock survey. How did they go about getting their statistics? Polls? Did they call up major businesses? Unless they hand asked every single citizen of the US, or somehow knew how each and every business operated, and what every employee gets, and the number of employees at each particular business...there is good reason to be skeptical of this data. Something tells me they're leaving out a good deal of the lower class, homeless people, illegal immigrants...not to mention the workers for US corporations in third world countries (although including them in the statistic you mentioned wouldn't be possible since they aren't US citizens). It's funny, out of the past 30+ common jobs I applied at when I was in highschool and college, none of them offered me stock. Yet these are the places of employment that are at every corner, on every major street.
What do you mean by stock ownership is one of the great levellers? Somehow being able to own stocks compensates for CEOs making ~372 times as much as the common worker? I love worshippers of capitalism...trying to make logic out of chaos.
I'm agnostic towards socioeconomic systems btw...just so you don't assume I'm some "outrageous" totalitarian communist or something.
of a sick society.. when people perform acts of terrorism (or steal bread) it is a sign that something is wrong.
How we know is more important than what we know.
well, i agree with your general argument, so it's obvious that we interpreted the reference to 1984 differently
"onward!" cried the copper man, little knowing brass corrupts...
People have been pleasantly surpized lately by the fact that the FCC is being less aggressive than they formerly hinted at re. low-power radio stations. Wow, thanks, FCC!
...)
Point is, the FCC (in its control, through licensure) of US airwaves relies on a wrong-headed view of airwave resources, declaring not just that airwaves are finite but they the FCC has the right and the vision to divide the pie. The premise is that if the radio spectrum was simply seen as an arena of voluntary human interaction, either anarchy or monopoly would prevail. I say this is patently false, and extending the analogy that the FCC relies on to justify itself to other fields makes elaboration here pointless.
The bigger picture, though, is that in the US (and everywhere), there are acronymical organizations (bureaucracies with a capital B) designed to 'regulate' and --unbelievably!-- 'stimulate' certain aspects of your interaction with other people by printing hefty volumes of their Wise and Considered rules. And the longer these organizations are around, the harder it is to realize clearheadedly that all such bodies are artificial -- as in, 'artifice' -- rather than remnants of the Dreamtime. Radio spectra could be split, used, sold, shared in any number of possible combinations; it takes the shortsightedness of appointed officials and their sack of good intentions to declare all visions other than their own illusory.
There probably are some individual rules passed by some of these Departments of Abbreviation that you agree with; I've had people tell me what a bad person I am if I don't like the EPA because they 'protect the environment,' for instance. (Sort of like being against ALF bombings and being berated as 'an animal hater.') I like clean water and clean air; government regulations no matter how extensive have little to do with either in any way which an unfettered market could not deliver, faster and better.
Like I said, in the bigger picture, there are simply too many laws and too many bodies given authority to pass them. "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state." And boy, are our laws numerous! FCC, NHSTA, DEA, FDA, FTC, DOE, EPA, DOA, BATF, and those are just the biggies. When the body of law is in practical terms unavailable to most people, and every industry is subject to regulation, licensure and sanction, the result is not capitalism, but rather a form of mercantilism (in which favored producers are de facto appointed by the ruling authority, and produce at it's discretion) which is only a few jumps, winks and nudges from fascism. (As a political system -- quite apart from the societal control that it requires and which can have the results we've seen in films about concentration and death camps of WWII.)
Rather than you simply making your choice among available goods, the philosophy is that the range of goods and their qualities oiught first be inspected and approved by the Higher Ups, and their availability only possible if their producers have jumped through the right hoops.
And those higher ups, having been appointed by congress (or appointed by such appointees, etc etc) are arrogant in their power. They seize things they don't like (computers, radio equipment, houses, boats, cars) and know that even if the owners get it back, they've been screwed but good. Fair? Ask Steve Jackson.
Just be grateful it hasn't quite reached software yet. (Please correct me if there is in fact already some busybody agency regulating software
OK, this rant has gone too long.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
* On stocks, it wouldn't surprise me if a LOT of people held at least some -- especially given the availability of employee stock purchase plans.
Most people don't play a whole lot, nor do they have vast investments, but they may hold a couple.
People who have cable TV might have a slightly higher average income than those that don't...
* The poor have less to spend, and most likely what they do spend on, will be necessities and products w/ low profit margins (high competition). While an executive might get an Audi or BMW and not really care that much about getting the best deal, you can't say as much for groceries. Generally, the former will have enough of a margin for a heavy shotgun-style ad budget...
...Hades, sometimes ads seem to be bought just for the *station* and not because of the program. I'm not sure how many people still watching old "ST:TNG" re-runs care that much about designer clothing or cosmetics... but when margins are high, a shotgun approach is affordable.
And that's why advertising aims towards the rich. You nailed it: money.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Er, if you think you might be, don't ask. It brings to mind the fool who called his local police, asking whether there were any warrants for his arrest (There were. They got used, pretty darn quick.).
I doubt that they'd let you know, since it'd imperil their investigation. Afterwards, they *might* have to let you know if you were tapped at some point (or at least, find out what they found out), but...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I've really had it with our governments gradual erosion of our ability to maintain a private existence or live even semi-anonymously. We should all be outraged and in the streets protesting. I'm ready to act!
As a designer of miniature DSP hardware - I would love to work with a group of coders to develop open source - strong encryption system to be used either mobile or fixed telephones. All hardware/software is published online - let people build their one encryption devices.
Let the FBI chew on that for a while.
Ohh - and for all you skeptics. The reason 'nuts' like me want privacy - possibly sooner rather than later if the FBI has its way - it may become illegal for us to make encryption hardware and software or even post this rebellious message. Then when you fight the system - you to become a *Mobster*. Possibly this is circular reasoning - yet history teaches us when happens when government gets too much power over its citizens.
In America your free - if you do what your told to do. Wake up!
What, you WANT to be monitored? Fine, let me tap your phone. Let me watch you 24/7. Let me use that information anyway I want to.
;) Inquiring minds want to know...
Let me tell you a little story, one without "criminals" and without "bad people" which lead to the same two being convicted in Indiana of "Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor". Bare with me on all the details, becuase I'm recalling this from memory.
Simple story. A couple were ingaged in sexual activity and had failed to close their curtains completely. Hardly a crime, when one is caught up in the heat of the moment, one can lose track of things like this. (OK, at least I have...)
A neighboring couple saw glimpses of what was going on, so one of them took a video camera and went across the way to tape them through the opening in the window. This was all do to their "outrage" that someone would be doing such, allowing others to see, though noone else had. (Part of their testimony in the trial.)
Some time later, the taper's young child found the video tape and watched it. Caught in the act, the two voyeur parents brought the whole thing to the attention of the authorities, who then arrested the love-making couple on the above criminal charges.
They were convicted, in spite of the fact that in many ways their privacy had been invaded, due to an oversight on their part and snooping on another's.
Did they do anything wrong? They were a couple in love, who were acting out nature's way of intimacy. But because one couple with a child refused to take personal responsibility for their own actions, an innocent (IMHO) couple was convicted of a crime.
So, let's expound on this for a moment.
You are someone who enjoys fellatio. Your girlfriend doesn't mind, actually enjoys giving such pleasure. The state you are in (and check your laws, because in many states this behavior is considered sodomy and is illegal. There's even one state, of which I can't remember for sure at the moment but think is Tennessee, where the only legal way of intercourse, inside marraige {illegal outside under any circumstances), is the "Missionary Position". Everything else is illegal...) So, you've been picked out by authorities as a deviant in society, because you believe in saving the whales. You think that these creatures are being hunted mercilessly and being driven to extinction.
The authorities start to monitor your activity, put fiber-op cameras in your house (what, they wouldn't do that? They did that to David Koresh and folks in Waco) and finally catch you and your girlfriend on tape ingaged in fellatio: illegal in your state. They arrest the two of you.
Would you feel comprimised that such a personal activity was being monitored by the government? Would you feel victimized by the fact that a particular form of human expression had been ruled illegal in your state? Would you feel as if you had been trapped somehow, just because you had a frame of mind contrary to the government's concerns? When you found out that the whole reason you were being monitored was because you believed that the human race was hurting whales, what would you feel?
You have no fucking idea how things work.
Let me clue you in on a basic principal of government: give them an inch, they will take 10 miles.
Government doesn't care about you. They don't care if you do anything at all, unless you've pissed them off some way. Then, they'll do everything they can to discredit you, to ruin your life. Hell, they don't even need to spy on you. Why bother? All they have to do is storm in, on an anonymous tip that you are dealing drugs, plant evidence and then use the RICO statuates to perform civil-forfeiture and take everything you own. All of your money, all of your property, everything: gone - taken away leaving you to post a $10,000 bond (money you now don't have) just to have the priviledge to argue that your property did not commit a crime.
You are a damn fool, who has no idea how much un-constitutional power the government has managed to grab. Ignorant people like you, let it go on, saying, "It's all for the good of the country."
I dare you to read "1984". I dare you to read the last 10 years of legistlation out of congress. Compare them. Now, compare that to what happpened in what became Nazi Germany...
"Mommy, can I trust the government?"
"Of course, dear. Just ask any Native American."
- Xiombarg, (still can't remember the password.)
P.S. Ah, Rob? Someone? How do I validate that I am what I am?
Scott Ostrander
Scotto@cs.indiana.edu
The concern over this puzzles me. They still need a warrant to do any of this. Are you concerned that the FBI may burst through your door at any moment and search your belongings? If that is a possibility for you, then this concerns you. The standard of probable cause is still applicable. Anyone who knows a little about the criminal justice system knows that this is a pretty high standard. This is simply high tech wiretapping. This is not a further invasion into our private lives, it is simply the law enforcement community trying to keep up with progressing technology. Even if they do get the capability to tap internet phone calls, so what? Again, they still need a warrant, and this is still just a technology driven update of what is already legal and accepted, that being wiretapping of standard phones.
You'll also notice many ads for white specific products, while NONE for blacks and the lower class (like hair care, make up, expensive vehicles, etc.)
Hold on a minute. I can think of a very few products that are functionally 'white-specific' (or race-specific in any sense) and they're mostly cosmetic, like creams to lighten or darken the skin of those who find their own too dark or too light respectively, and chemicals to curl or uncurl hair with the same sort of division
Just a little questionaire from a race seminar I attended:
1) Can you find Band-Aids for your skin tone?
2) When you act to speak to a supervisor, do you think they will be of your own race?
3) When buying cosmetics (female oriented question) can you easily find a base to match your skin tone?
Those are the only three I can remember, but there were like 20 questions total. If you answered YES, you took a step forward, if you had no opinion, you stood still, or if you answered NO, you took a step back. Every non-white person was at LEAST 5 steps behind the last white person. Just made me think how lucky white people have it, and take it for granted. Racism does exist, just because you're not on the recieving end doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Unpopular? I agree, if someone really wanted to construct a positive case for orders of magnitude more surveillence, let them have at it. But "obviously wrongheaded" is something else. The top of this thread is the lamest among several lame comments that encourage people to blindly trust government authority when the evidence in today's headlines fairly screams the opposite. There is, at least, some need to cite a reason.
I wrote parts of this stuff
Actually, a fairly high number of Americans own stock. In fat, according to the online edition of the Seattle Times, the number of Americans who stock is over 100 million. This is more than a third of the population, I think, and far more than a third of the adult population. People own stock because it's part of their compensation package, because they save for retirement with a mutual fund, because they sent in an application to Yahoo or other Internet company offering free stock as incentive at their startup, because day trading seems to have replaced tattoos for those born between 1976 and 82, or for any of several other reasons. Not everyone's a big investor (I have only a few shares, and a lot of people are in that boat) but if you own even three shares of Microsoft, you'd be interested if it dove or jumped, wouldn't you?
Stockownership is one of the great levelers that capitalist public ownership has which is so totally absent from feudal or totally-statist economies, because you can own a small piece of Compaq or GE just by paying the price of a share (or a few).
Now on to the serious stuff.
Hold on a minute. I can think of a very few products that are functionally 'white-specific' (or race-specific in any sense) and they're mostly cosmetic, like creams to lighten or darken the skin of those who find their own too dark or too light respectively, and chemicals to curl or uncurl hair with the same sort of division. Marketing is another matter, important but different. Products are marketed to the overlap of the interested and the eligible, and this results in a different *marketing* strategy for different products, but does not make them race-specific any more than advertising salsa in Texas means people in Minnesota can't have any.
And are you really lumping together "blacks and the lower class"?! It's my favorite question, but is this inflammatory, racist flamebait? In America, there are no heriditary titles as they still are in Brittain and in other monarchal / semi-monarchal countries, and lower-class is (despite the best efforts of the Welfarists) still an adjective rather than a noun. Are some people born in poverty poor when they die? Sure. Are people 'trapped' in one place or economic state because they were born into it? Ask Thomas Sowell and Mario Puzo about that. Heck, ask Bill once he and the intern come out of his closed office.
Again, the reference to products 'made for their race' is either flamebait or ought to be. Would Advertising for SPF 30 sunscreen, jerrycurls and makeup built for the skin of specific Asian people be enough to pay for the evening news? Are expensive cars not "made for their [whose?] race"? What are you saying?! An observation of any large city will prove within minutes that plenty of non-whites own expensive cars (where I live, there is a large low-rider culture, and many of those are aesthetic knockouts) and that plenty of whites drive shitboxes. Sounds like you are willfully confusing race and culture, and maybe even race with species.
Am I going crazy here or what?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
...to "flamebait." Sure, his opinion is that of a simpleton with little or no awareness of governmental abuses throughout history. But it clearly was not posted with the intent of trolling or otherwise harming public discourse. Moderators should be slow to mark down posts simply because they might express an unpopular or obviously-wrongheaded opinion.
Ok drop your pants and bend over..You have nothing to hide do you?
Most people seem concerned about two scenarios: 1984 and "Good government caring for its citizens"
Frankly there are reasons for wiretapping. There are also reasons to be concerned for 1984. However let me tell you one thing. It is a losen battle. This wiretapping stuff will bring only more confusion and nothing else. 5 years from now we may not only face 1984 and good government scenarios but also a lot of "ooops", "its not a bug its a feature" and such.
Sincerly right now wiretapping, will hardly stop terrorists, criminals and states. And this can be inferred even at much lower levels. Let's take a typical user environment at a University or commercial company. Most security on such environments have already take a level where wiretapping is presumed to exist, at least potentially. And it is presumed that any user can wiretap lines. Does this sounds fantastic? Three years ago yes. Today when Linux distributions carry tcpdump and anyone can download similar programs for Windows no.
This story can be seen interpreted in two ways. Either someone is just keeping pace with the new world, in a relatively bad way. Or someone is making the biggest stupidity, one ever could dream of.
Consider that someone taps you. You write, speak, spell: "Daisen aek veon aksavan dion sat". Can anyone arrest you for this?
If the soul of the present laws remain the same no. No one can arrest you for communicating in a foreign language. No one can accuse you of anything before clearly translate the meaning of these words. And if someone taps you "for free" he can get some serious trouble in the future. In several ways and at several levels.
Five years from now, someone in the FBI will have to explain a loooot of a mess they may have made with this...
Nope. You need a bit of electronic equipment to do wiretaps. You are supposed to also have a judge's order -- but when I see a few Feds who dispensed with that part spending 5-10 years at the Crossbar Hotel as Bubba's boytoy, then I might be inclined to take your argument seriously.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Why should we only talk about this statute? I see a broad spectrum of privacy invasions being proposed by our government of which this is just the latest example. Do we need to defeat each law in detail, or can't we look at the implications of the entire set of proposals?
You seem to believe that if the President wants a wiretap on an enemy of his, it will be impossible to find a judge to sign the warrant. Granted, most judges are honorable, but all it takes is one bad apple to make warrants too easy to obtain. The Executive appoints federal judges, so how hard is it to create some friendly judges? You think the FBI and cops don't keep lists of warrant "friendly" judges?
Yes, it is difficult to wiretap your enemies covertly, Watergate was a real screwup that proves that point. How many didn't get caught is the only question in my mind. It also shows that some politicians are interested in collecting political intelligence even when it *IS* illegal. I don't want to make it possible for corrupt politicians to increase their power without even going outside the law.
Maybe it's terrorists and criminals that screw up your daily life. The government does a far better job of it for me.
Jim
I think I'm going to go do that too, but it isn't enough.
We all have to get together and remind everyone of some basic points:
If the USA doesn't clean up it's damn act, I'm moving north 500 Miles as soon as I finish college (7 years from now for a bachlor's degree, arghh!)
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
It seems that most people have strange views as to what is private in their lives and not. Why are you so paranoid? Our governments have enough resources available to them that we, the avarage citizens would not be able to slow them down much. Do you take the same route to work everyday? Do you throw away the old VISA bills? Do you ever discuss anything private over ICQ or Email (or worse, Hotmail)? These are *all* ways that if any avarage idiot was interested in you, they could begin to piece together your life. The government could surely piece together additional things with access to Income tax records, etc...
Are you really worried about the government finding out what you're writing in your email, or do you just want to have a "secret life" so you can live more like a Sci-Fi book?
Secure Shell www.ssh.org PGP http://www.nai.com/asp_set/products/tns/intro.asp Gnu Privacy Guard http://www.gnupg.org/ Crypto IP Encapsulation http://sites.inka.de/sites/bigred/devel/cipe.html Linux FreeS/WAN http://www.xs4all.nl/~freeswan/ Cfs - Encryption services for the Unix(tm) file system. http://filewatcher.org/sec/cfs/int_1week.html PGPfone - Pretty Good Privacy Phone http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone/ Misc links http://www.counterpane.com/sites.html#programs Rreadings: http://www.zeroknowledge.com/ http://www.rsa.com http://www.counterpane.com/ any comments on what works best and for what are welcome, any more links are welcome. Lets get downloading, they asked for it. Also are there any more open source solutions? Somehow I trust them more. PS: port 23 down, 22 up
So all you need to do is read the chapter.
bomb allah president marx encryption revolution Newt Gingrich unabomber occult
>I'm moving north 500 Miles
:)
Well, Canada will welcome you, just don't:
a) try to make mix tapes or mix CD's, 'cuz we'll tax your ass
b) try to get a tech job, since they're all moving to the US anyway
c) try anything illegal, cuz the RCMP will pepper-spray your eyes out
d) move to Ontario, cuz you won't be able to afford an apartment (thanks, Mike!)
e) am I missing anything?
pope, tongue perfectly in cheek
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Strikes me as being the pinnacle of vanity to think that there's any real danger of having your privacy invaded by the Govt.
I'm all for full monitoring of every voice and data communication on the planet. Fuck, they can even read my thoughts for all I care (It would dramatically speed up elections if they could).
Look at it this way: The gov't doesn't give a tinker's cuss about what you tell your wife/husband in the car on the way home from work. I don't care if they can see me walking around my house naked, or if they compile a database of every item I purchase, or even compile a database of every word I've ever spoken. The only thing to be careful of is that the information is kept totally confidential, and is never used outside of legal matters. If it gets back to my dentist that I walk around the house naked, that could put me in an uncomfortable position.
But for god's sake, I'm not a friggin' mob boss. I don't break the law, other than J walking or the occasional kph or two over the speed limit.
Get a grip.
Listen up, its fucking complacent bastards like you who let this shit go on and get worse in the first place!
:) turned the tables didn't I? I bet once it came down to that, you would finally start to bitch. Its too fucking late by then though. IT WILL COME TO THAT much sooner than you think unless we speak the fuck up now and in numbers. Otherwise (once those cameras are in place) it will be decades before a bloodly uprising could manage to knock off the 'watchers' from their throne.
If you want to live in the shithole that will become if the current trend of privacy-crushing continues, fuck off and go live somewhere else.
The future IS 1984 by no doubt, unless some changes occur soon. The best thing for any of us would be this:
'Amendment 28 : Individuals residing in the United States and all territories have a right to privacy'
This puts it as a 'fundamental' right in the courts, which means most of the recent hogwash passed wouldn't fly. Search warrants and the like would remain. Yes there would be tons of argueing about HOW MUCH privacy we get. But no more of these friggin sellouts who pretty much think we don't have a right to any. They are out there, adn as long as only a 'few' innocents get bothered, who cares. >:|
BTW:
"I'm not doing anything wrong, so why should I care?"
:
"I'm not a jew, so why should I care? I'm not gay so why should I care? I'm not a commie so why should I care? I'm not a liberal so why should I care? My eyes are blue so why should I care? My hair is blond so why should I care?"
Thats how the cookie crumbles bub.
The rest of you who say things like "awww its not TOO bad, don't worry about it" need cameras watching you 24/7/52
Rule #1: To have a freedom you have to believe in it, and that you deserve it! otherwise its going the days of the dodo.
occult has two "c"'s
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
As I like to say, "If you have nothing to hide, then you won't mind this anal probe."
Since criminality is decided by the same people (that is, an entrenched, poorly-responsive government) as would like to watch your movements, listen to your phone calls for dirty thoughts, etc, the idea that "this should only worry you if you are a criminal" is nonsensical.
If you do something they don't like, you'll soon find that you're a criminal.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
1984 is not being used as evidence of something that is going on right now. However, sometime in the future our world may become like the world of 1984. It does not happen often, but sometimes a piece of written work is a fair description of something that is not known at the time. For example, the book The Titan and the ship The Titanic. As long as we can understand Winston Smith and believe he was in the right, Big Brother does not exist and we still have our individual rights to freedom of thought.
-- Terry
No, it does not fall under illegal search and seizure. Illegal search and seizure is search and seizure (or wiretapping) without probable cause, i.e. a warrant. The courts have ruled this again and again.
With this law enforcement is not trying to create a utopia, or even stay miles ahead of crime, they are simply trying to keep up with it.
Richard Nixon
-- Terry
As a cop myself, I am always amazed when the government claims to be doing these things for us. No cop I know either cares nor knows anything about it. Most police agencies I know just don't have the resources or manpower to do these things on a regular basis. Now, I have done some computer crime investigation myself involving stalking and sex crimes, but do I really need to "wiretap" someone's computer for this? That's what subpoenas and search warrants are for. Hence the term "investigation," as opposed to trolling for suspects. Don't be fooled. This is all politics and power struggles from bureaucrats. Cops are just as afraid of the federal government invading their privacy as the next guy. Just because I have nothing to hide, doesn't mean I want some stranger going through my things at the drop of a hat. The bigwigs just want to reserve the right to do these kinds of things legally for when they pull out all the stops on someone they desparately want. That way, they're covered when the $#!& hits the fan.
The entire point of a wiretap is that you don't know. And no, they cannot, legally tap everyone in america. I hate to scream this again, but "probable cause" and warrant. This words have meanings, and I suggest you look them up before the paranoia reaches fever pitch.
It was made clear in the book that O'Brien was running a sting (he personally oversaw the breaking of Winston Smith, had recordings of their seditious conversation, etc).
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Since there's no harm in giving out your personal information to government officials, please send me your credit card number, your SSN, your street and mailing addresses, your checking account number, and your bank's name and address.
Don't worry, I'm a government official. You can trust me on that.
Why, if you were to call that into doubt, you might begin thinking dangerous things like, "How do I know non-government officials won't use the backdoors created for the government?" And from there it only gets worse, you start thinking anti-government thoughts like "How do I know government officials won't misuse my personal information for their own non-governmental purposes?" And then it's only a hop-skip-jump to "How do I know the government is acting in my own best interests? Gee, maybe I should have some privacy?"
No, citizen, these are dangerous thoughts. To avoid thinking them, just supply me with your personal information now. Thank you.
There is a big difference between having to go to an exchange or a wiring cabinet to attach a recording device and having someone's conversations delivered at the push of a button. I think we need to limit this stuff to methods where it takes a lot of reources, so it will only be used when it is really needed. This is a much more practical, self-enforcing limit to abuse than a bunch of poor schleps trying to sue to get their lives back when some dope bureaucrat screws them up. And it does happen rather more than "once a century." There are some recent news stories about whether burning a bunch of women and children was as good an idea as it seemed to be at the time. All kinds of laws, regs, rules, procedures, not to mention that doormat we call the Constitution got shredded to fuel the fire. Fat lot of good any current lawsuit is going to do for those people. I would be amazed if anyone actually does time for Waco.
I'm not saying cops are jackbooted thugs. I am saying that a couple of jackbooted thugs, combined with sloppy procedure, scared whistleblowers, CYA careerists, cops with bad training, and some corruption, are a greater danger to the average joe than terrorists or drug runners.
The kind of retail level crime most people actually fear is little affected by this stuff. Guiliani proved in NYC that stopping muggings and break-ins makes a lot more difference to quality of life than the kinds of rare and sometimes entirely theoretical threats high tech surveillence is effective against.
Anyone care to defend the FCC in light of examples of real abuses?
I wrote parts of this stuff
IIRC the law in question requires provisions for more wire taps than there CAN be warrents for. That is based on all judges doing nothing but signing their names 24/7. If there can't be that many warrants, one must wonder why there should be capacity for that many wire taps?
The government doesn't own the digital communications infrastructure. Therefore, it would be tough to get into commercial points of presence like digital phone switches, NAPs, and wireless communications cells for an illegal, covert operation.
Let me know if I am missing an obvious dimension of this.
-- Dave Aiello
Both would use images from "1984", with subtext saying things like "The Government wants to tap your phone line without a warrent", "The Government wants to control your speech on the Internet", etc etc. It should then briefly tell people how to 'fight' it, by either writing their representatives, or even better, vote the ones that voted these bills in out.
The problem is with laws and regulations like this is that 99% of the general public either doesn't know about it or doesn't care. Only until their rights are completely gone will they wish they paid attention. And unfortunately, the media seems to be avoiding these issues, as well as the fact that with 2000 being an election year in the US, none of the candidates have even mentioned the Internet or privacy or freedom of speech issues. Without knowledges, the 99% will continue to live happily as their rights are abolished.
However, if we push an ad campaign *NOW*, gettings ads out during the Nov-Dec-Jan months, and make enough of an issue about it, it might force the candidates to bring it up themselves, and that itself might help us (those that care about our rights) to vote wisely. It would also make the press take notice, *HOPEFULLY*.
Now, unfortunately, none of the major players for fighting these types of regulars have the money. But I'd being willing to send in a small donation to help produce and push the ads into the mainstream. As I'm sure a lot of others do to.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Er, you people do realize they still need a judge's order to do wiretaps, right?
Then why does the law require capacity for more wiretaps than all of the judges in the US could possably sign warrants for in a year?
Rising out of poverty through effort is just "bullshit"? Gotta disagree with you there, based both on some people I've never met (like the ones I mentioned in the first post, but with a few minute's though I'm sure you can think of dozens more) and many more people who I have. I'm sorry if you believe that people are basically doomed to stay where they're born. In that case, I hope you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth! ;) I know people who are lazy and poor, lazy and rich, hardworking and poor, hardworking and rich, and many many combinations between these.
... so?
..." you know why CEOs can earn a lot of money for sitting in an office.
And actually, I didn't mention a "survey;" the factoid on stock ownership was part of a page that the Seattle Times had listing various tidbits about US stock exchanges, historical events relating to the US's 8 largest exchanges, etc. I bumped into it after reading the post to which mine was responding, who said that only a small percentage of Americans owned stock. I don't know how they gathered their information, but it's a good question, and I will devote some small amount of my mental energy to seeing what other sources say about this. It does jibe with other claims I've heard about this over the years. But to clarify, because you seem not to have read or understood what I wrote, the statistic I named did not "leave out" the groups you mention any more than citing the number of people with Ford autos "leaves out" the people who don't have them. Sure it does, but that claim is meaningless -- it leaves them out by definition, since it's counting something else. Just like the number of kids with cats "leaves out" all those kids without cats
Whether a company offers stock as part of its compensation to employees is up to the company, not me. Maybe you should have picked the "30-plus common jobs" you applied for with this in mind if that is something you value. Also, *applying* by itself won't get you very far; you probably have to get the job. At many places, employees are also offered discounts on stock as an incentive, whether or not they are given it outright. The company I work for does not have stock because it is privately held. YMMV. The ability to *purchase* stock is open to anyone with a hundred dollars or so. Do some brokers have account minimums? Yes. Are there other ways to invest? Yes -- you might want to look at dripcentral.com, a site devoted to investment through Dividend Reinvestment Programs.
What I meant by calling stock ownership a "leveler" is that the possibility for private citizens of any class besides hand-to-mouth poverty to own some shares in companies provides the chance for someone who lives in (say) the trailer park I live in to benefit from the success of Dell Computer, or AT&T, or any other publically traded stock.
If you don't like how much the CEO makes, don't invest in the company, or maybe *do* invest and help vote in someone else. (Or on the other hand, climb a mountain and howl about the unfairness of it all. Not as effective but I hear it's very cleansing.) Some CEOs are probably far overpaid, but some aren't. I hope the ones that are overpaid work for a company I don't have an investment in. Gedanksexperiment: Could the average floor worker at, say, Intel switch bodies with Andy Grove for a few years without the stockholders noticing? If you know the joke that goes "I want you to punch my hand as hard as you can when I count to three
I'm not a worshipper of capitalism per se; I'm in favor of freedom though, and that makes the coercion of non-capitalist societies unattractive. (That includes the coercion which is slowly poisoning the US, where I live.) Capitalism is like physics - practical enough that it really doesn't need worshippers.
You don't sound "outrageous," in fact what you're saying I think is the common, resentful view which state-run and -funded schools, invasive government and trendy cynicism breed.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Let's move already.
freenet.on.openprojects.net
www.biocomputing.org
www.ompages.com
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Oh... so that's why pres. Hoover had him investigated.
I don't think so.
Get a grip yourself, dumbass.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
This is unconstitutional. It falls under "illegal search and seizure."
Look, I don't doubt that the people who originally created this law had good intentions. They want to stop terrorists and criminals. But they're deluded. They think they can stop crime and create a utopia.
The simple fact is, you cannot eradicate suffering, no matter how hard you try, because the only sure-fire means of stopping the suffering of a few will instead cause the suffering of billions. Case in point: Big Brother from 1984; it stopped crime, sure, but at what cost? The right to privacy for millions outweighs the right of hundreds to snoop around, even if that snooping could save lives. And yes, that statement sounds heartless, and yes, it isn't fair, but it's the way of the universe. The best a person can do is live his or her life, alleviate suffering as much as possible knowing that it can't be completely stopped, and try not to cause any more.
That's the problem: if law enforcement is to dispense true justice, it can never win completely. It can gain a huge lead, and maintain it indefinitely, but it can't ever totally win the war. It's sad, but I really wish law enforcement would realize this. There's a reason it's called "utopia," after all; translate it from the original Greek word and it means nowhere.
Read some history asshole.
If it makes you feel guilty that other people give a damn where you just pick the most comfortable policy, well fuck you.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
According to the former head of the FBI's Computer Crime division, as told at the USENIX '99 Security Symposium, the reason for CALEA was to allow Law Enforcement the capability to tap calls on the digital side of the phone switch, since some RBOCs would not even allow them into the Central Offices. The FBI asserted that they needed the capability to perform something like 4000 simultaneous wiretaps when there are roughly only 1500 per year under both Title III and FISA. Someone is exaggerating, but why?
Andrew G. Feinberg
Does anyone know of some law(perhaps freedom of information act?) that would let me know if I am subject to an investigation, and a potential target for being tapped?
If there is'nt, then legally, everyone in the states can be tapped without even knowing, shilded by some obscure law that prevents the tappee from knowing they are being tapped...
Anyone?
There is racism and other cultural divides in the US and other places, and plenty of them! Some people simply won't associate with others based on external and historical factors. Shame on them, and their loss. (Try visiting Korea as a Japanese tourist, or Japan as a Korea. Try pledging a US fraternity of the 'wrong' race.*)
... it isn't innoculable.
... finally amended by what, the 14th Amendment?) and after that allow people to follow their consciences so long as they do not initiate violence on another person. I think that is the approach which most values human freedom. If someone is a racist, Fine. Bring on the segregated lunch counters, as long as they are not government owned. Let them suffer for it by being denied the custom of those who they don't like, and anyone else who doesn't want to swell their coffers. Can you think of any big companies likely to institute such a policy? A nice thing about capitalism is that it has built-in incentives to treat potential customers nicely even if you don't like them otherwise. Sort of a neat trick, with an automatic feedback mechanism that sounds like "ka-CHING!"
However, what conclusions should one draw from that fact that racism and its cousins all exist?
Some people think we should counteract racism by officializing it -- with timetables, quotas, 'preferences,' etc to carefully track numbers by skin tone, sex, etc, in the effort of making sure that the 'right' number of each defined class is going to 4-year colleges, working in the Department of Bureaucracy, etc. Some people think it will go away if we stand very very still and don't make eye contact.
I've seen no evidence that it is, so I don't think that racism (which I will use from now on as a shorthand for all the other things that people lump with it, like religious discrimination and sexual discrimination) is a curable disease at all, at least not like scurvy -- there is no magic cure, like eating limes. Racism etc. springs up in all sorts of contexts. Serb / Croat, among Liberian tribes, in N. Ireland
So what to do about it? Declare all people equal (which the US Constitution did, even while many people were enslaved
timothy
* This is sheerly hypothetical. I am not urging anyone to join a fraternity unless they are good and sure they want to. And even then.
p.s. And no, band-aids don't come in milky blue, so they look pinky-brown on my sun-deprived Euromutt self.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Obedience to "the system" is not what the Founders advocated, and for good reason. Germans passed laws which allowed Hitler to legally become the most powerful German politician. Would you have said to any who griped at this within Germany,
Cheap shot? Sure, but the point is to consider the consequences of the Permissionism you're advocating.
More reasonably, there is a huge body of law which is passed by no one you / we / I have elected, whether or not there is some link to elected officials at some point. When it comes to the FCC, which "we" are you referring to? How many links in the political chain does it take before it's a grey mass, and not the friendly politician who shook your hand and promised to "represent" you? Are you not concerned in the least that there are too many laws and agencies clinging to us like leeches?
And actually, yes, "they" really do pass laws because you are doing something they don't like -- case in point, producing alcoholic beverages. It's one of those things which seem absurd, even amusing, except they really happened. Unless you're a big fan of Prohibition, I'm guessing you'll agree that prohibition is not such a hot thing, and that it violated personal freedoms as it lowered respect for the law. How'd you like your opposition to an existing law or one being devised to be on record with the Nice Folks Protecting You as reference material when you're tried for disobeying such a law?
Well ok,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
A vigilant defendant will be wary of the "ferreting effect." It's arbitary enforcement with punitive standards. It builds a fear of the enforcer because all the lawful law breakers are made examples.
The American just system is written to be accusatorial. This is where the government can only allege and accuse. The standard of proof for physical and testimonial evidence in criminal cases is 'guild beyond a reasonable doubt.'
The European system of justice is inquisitorial in nature. In the inquisitorial system one is guilty before proven innocent.
"The inquisitorial system rests on values of efficiency and accuracy, and it is based on trust of authority."
"The accusatorial system rests on a distrust of government and trust of the common man to make fact finding decisions. It is also based on checks and balances. It exhalts the rights of the individual instead of the rights of the government." (Judge Tochterman, McGeorge School of Law, Aug. 1999).
Which system do you prefer? If you prefer the inquisitorial system, which is efficient and accurate, but rests on trust of authority, perhaps you would favor a complete re-vamping of the Constitution?
I don't agree overmuch with Rush Limbaugh (though he makes good points on occasion), nor do I agree with you, evidently, though we've obviously considered a lot of the same ideas.
But the key point I see in what you wrote is that there are distinctions to be made among capitalism, psuedo-capitalism, and anti-capitalism. For instance, don't blame capitalism for government babysitters called public schools, or for ROTC at these institutions, but do note that these are part of the 'psuedo capitalism' you mention in passing. (Check out sepschool.org.) And no, private school grads are probably no more likely to be ultracapitalist, at least not because they went to private schools. Having been to both at different points, that's my impression at least. Government funding and curricula have lowered standards all over the place, so private schools aren't as much better as would be nice.
Distinctions ought also be made between the people who write and report the news (who tend to be leftish) and those who own the papers (who tend to be rightish, at least in those areas convenient to business owners). Of course, Establishmentarianism is a stronger force that either capitalism or anti-capitalism, at least in the US.
Within a free(ish) society, people are free to educate or to de-educate themselves. 3-5 headlines, or reading for hours in a library (whether its state-funded or voluntarily funded), or renouncing worldly things and living as a mendicant monk, all up to you.
I will try to spend a reasonably portion of my life reading, eating lobster, writing, and hopefully meeting a wonderful woman, not watching much business television. We've all got different paths.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
whenever any line or have mouth communication its to intercept, no section of the contents of such communication and a proof do not calculate therefore can be received in proof in any attempt, audition, or other procedures into or before any court, greatly jury, department of, officer, agency, regulating bodies, law-giving committee, or one authorization of the state, a status, or politically partitioning of it if a data communication of this information become its in violation of this section.
I was watching some cable news channels the other day, and it occurred to me "Why do they focus SO much on stocks?" I mean, a very small portion of the US population invests in them. You may also like to role play a few times. Try to pretend you're african american and live in the ghetto while you're watching the news. You'll notice about ALL mainstream news focuses on white upper middle class americans, besides the few big story headlines. You'll also notice many ads for white specific products, while NONE for blacks and the lower class (like hair care, make up, expensive vehicles, etc.) I am sure this certainly skews people's view of the world when they (average middle class americans) think everything is fine...and everything on TV is in their interests.
I am not sure there is any sort of conspiracy...I guess the reasoning behind this is not so certain...my best guess is they are trying to make money, and to do that they appeal to advertisers who pay more, and those advertisers have more money because their customer base is more well off. This same audience who can afford these products, or the products are made more specifically for their race, also (percentage wise) is more likely to own stocks and other things of that nature.
Why are you people so nervous? What, please tell, has you so afraid of this? Can you give some vague examples of what it is you don't want the government to know about you? Is there something they shouldn't know??? Post anonymous if you are afraid that you are being monitored by the big BB. I can't recall ever saying anything on the phone that I would regret the government finding out.