I would assume emergency conditions to be something like:
I would too, however unless specified somewhere, than "emergency conditions" is literally "whatever they declare them to be".
This is similar to "we only do this to terrorists" where "terrorists" means "anyone we unilaterally call a terrorist". When dealing with law, the words matter, intention means nothing if the words do not spell out the intention.
So, wasn't the new congress going to start trying to do something about these signing statements?
Besides itching for the day when a Democrat can use them? No.
Were you under the impression that the democrats actually opposed bush's power grab? That was all posturing (like the republicans did when clinton signed a ton of executive orders). Both parties love power and know that they will eventually have it, civil rights be dammed.
Finally, if you are a law abiding American citzen or law abiding resident then you should have nothing to worry about.
Unless you are running for political office against someone in the party controlling the "mail reading". Or possibly you are a public figure (commentator, editorialist, etc.) and have opinions contrary to those reading the mail (maybe they want some dirt to silence or or embarrass you).
Or are you under the impression that nobody in government has ever abused their power for personal/political gain? Did you think the checks and balances (such as, you know, warrants) were just put in to place for fun?
Why should I be accountable to the government? They are OUR servants in case you forgot. As soon as all of the president's (and congress's) mail, phone calls, and meetings are available for public review (barring national security related ones which should be sealed only by federal judge for a set period of time) then I will make mine available for theirs. If they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to worry about.
So, please, don't act like this is a Republican issue and don't be so ignorant as to assume that any of these limitations are going to be permanent.
I'm sorry, who is being ignorant? Are you telling me that the Bush admin was NOT pushing for all of the patriot act changes that were rammed through days after 9/11 to become permanent?
Right we are at war. On Terror. That should be all finished up soon right?
The right of the people to be secure in their papers against... unreasonable... searches and seizures, shall not be violated...
How do we know if it is reasonable or not? Historically this was done via judicial review, but now we just assume anything Bush wants must be reasonable.
I am cool with having cameras in all public places.
However, lets do it right. First we need cameras on all police cruisers and even on the police themselves (I believe the UK is starting this). We also need cameras mounted in the police stations, holding cells, and interrogation cells. These videos need to be made available in their entirety and in a timely manner to the public over the Internet (bluetube.com maybe?). Obviously some videos would be important to investigations to the police can petition a judge (after reviewing it) to hold it from publication for a specific period of time (renewed until the investigation is over and releasing it would no longer compromise anything). There needs to be absolutely NO time ever when a citizen is in contact with a police officer where it is not filmed and kept for record, any "missing time" should be cause for severe punishment. I don't want to hear anything about the privacy of the police, they have no privacy on the job. They are public servants who are given powers and authority above other citizens and need to be held to a much higher standard.
Now that we can watch the watchers, let's roll out the public cameras. I have nothing to hide about how I go through my daily life in public, but first I want to ensure that those in power who request this do not either.
(one can only dream about a day when elected public officials have to be similarly accountable in their public life)
If they point the cameras inside your home, that would be an invasion of privacy and would require a warrant.
Just to clarify, it would require a warrant OR it would require that an unaccountable bureaucrat declared you an threat to homeland security for classified reasons. Which do you think is easier?
Warrants and judicial oversight are obsolete, take that into consideration when thinking about new laws.
A nationwide ban on the other hand would be alot more effective in the long run as bringing guns in from a neighbouring country would be alot more difficult.
Yes, because we have seen great success at preventing people and drugs from entering from neighboring countries.
Alcohol prohibition was quite the success as well.
Ultimately, the problem exists in a way with the police. The legally have no obligation to actually "protect" anyone, and several court cases have upheld this. So given that their job is to mop up after crimes are committed, who actually is responsible for protecting you? you are.
Now only an idiot would think having a handgun == total protection, obviously just taking steps to avoid dangerous places and situations is vastly more important. But a handgun makes a nice absolute last resort in the hands of someone trained who has exhausted all other possibilities. (note: I am all for mandatory safety and competence training with a firearm as a condition of ownership)
It is also worth noting that even in the USA, the general public are not allowed armour piercing weapons (eg - P90) as these could be used to mount a serious challenge to police wearing body armour and hence would be slightly more usefull for overthrowing a tyrannical government.
Deer rifles will go through pretty much any body armor. NOBODY has suggested banning them.
As for the "defense against a corrupt government" argument, there is some merit even in the day of tanks and bombs. Obviously if we wanted to totally destroy Iraq it would take maybe an hour tops. But we are trying to effectively set up a different type of government and clearly many are not happy with this. As we are trying not to destroy the country but change it, we are not carpeting bombing every populated area, but trying to act like a police force. In the event of some kind of radical (and significantly opposed) action by the government here in the US, I doubt it would be citizens vs thermonuclear bombs, tanks, and cruise missiles.
It would be citizens vs military acting as a police force (and really, something that disruptive as to cause widespread civil war is going to split the military as well). Historically (and today), the US military sucks at being a police force, and pretty much loses every time they try. They are unbeatable when their mission is destruction of an opposing military, but that is not what an uprising in the US would look like. Everyone has this image in their head of a pitched battle between citizens and fully armed military but that is unrealistic. For all our military might IEDs are way more effective against us than anything we are doing against them (because we are not trying to kill all of them).
I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?
It's more real time than email usually is. I use it for when a phone call would be too much trouble (quick one off questions and such) or when cutting and pasting code and/or config lines is needed.
There's no way to archive the messages is there?
Gaim can easily save everything to text files
Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?
grep the text files
How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?,
copy/paste
As for threaded discussions, you want email (or NNTP), not IM. IM is not some holy grail that covers all communication needs.
I definitely have uses for irc (which is kinda like im I guess) but if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?
I think your mistake is looking for a sole means of electronic communication.
I completely agree, but I am amused by it. To me the absolute worst designed controller in history was the Gamecube's. It seems Nintendo had to take it to one extreme before doing it right.
While I'm not certain (law student, limited experience) I believe your answer is: Yes they could do that - and the court would eventually get pissed, dismiss with prejudice, and it would be dead.
And the family would be financially ruined, which seems to be really all the RIAA wants.
I don't agree with this part however. People like you, Copid and me would be happy, but there are too many shrill voices that do not agree with wiretapping at all, under any circumstance. I feel that these people (ACLU) would use this as a political tool to forward their own agendas. I could see the headlines now, "President has 98% of FISA warrants denied, but continues to spy on citizens and turn in warrants to be denied." And in the want adds, "FISA court hiring to fill 10,000 seats".
Eh, personally if that were the case (98% of warrants are denied by a court that historically almost never denies warrants), I would want to know. Obviously something something would be horribly wrong there.
But it sounds to me like you want the FISA law changed, and I am totally open to a discussion on that. However, what bothers me is that Bush apparently does not like that law either, but rather than make a case to change it, he just chooses to ignore it.
I will only add that yes, everyone probably would be happy if all the warrants were submitted, if not for approval at least for record. Having a branch of government which believes it essentially has unlimited police powers is much more palpable when there is some record of their actions and more than just their hand picked cronies are aware of what is going on.
What if the warrant is denied?
My understanding is that there is no penalty for a denied warrant, just that all wiretapping must cease when it is denied. Regardless, the most important thing is that there is accountability to someone other than themselves.
The issue I have with this is, again, the disposable phone. Habib Mohamed buys a disposable phone to call his mum, Bosama InLaden in Pakistan. The Feds freak and immediately start listening in, only to find out that Mr. Mohamed really is calling his mum and stop listening and remove Mr. Mohamed from any further surveillance. The problem is, they would not have known this if they had not listened. And they really can't go to the FISA court now to get a warrant for tapping Mr. Mohamed's calls to his Mum.
Why can't they? They go to the court and say: "Based upon this evidence which shows a legitimate need to wiretap Mr Mohamed's phone ASAP we started tapping, attached is the evidence and our application for a warrant". Then after tapping him for a while (assuming the warrant is issued, which it almost always is anyway), if they determine that they were wrong and they are getting no evidence, they stop the tap and everyone is happy and legal.
There is no "punishment" if no evidence is gathered in a tap, BUT they have to have a solid case for one when they apply. If they do an "emergency tap" to get a specific conversation they feel will result in critical intelligence, but none comes up, they STILL have to submit the paperwork to the FISA court and explain why they felt they needed to tap.
The purpose of this is twofold. The court will obviously not allow tapping for political gain (imagine if Nixon tried to get federal judge approval for Watergate). But most importantly, it holds the Executive branch accountable for their actions. Without having to apply for a warrant they can tap whoever they want, whenever they want, on any whim. Fishing expeditions, political gain, corporate spying for their buddies, why not? Nobody except for them will ever know. Even if you do trust this administration, are you prepared to afford this level supreme trust to every future administration?
For example, don't say require FISA warrants before listening, because it is quicker to buy another disposable cell phone than it is to obtain a FISA warrant.
They have NEVER needed FISA warrants before listening. In the event that they need to tap in an emergency (where waiting for a FISA warrant could lose the chance at intelligence), they can just start doing so. However, they do need to apply for a warrant within 72 hours of starting the tap. How could any reasonable person have a problem with this? All they are saying is that you cannot wiretap without ever telling anyone about it.
We obviously need some sort of security. What is OK?
Yes, we do. But we cannot forget that we have a system of checks and balances. Democracy does not move as fast as a dictatorship, and a dictatorship can (in theory) move much faster to protect its citizens. If that is what we truly want as a country then let's just do it and quit pretending. This whole "we are still a democracy with governmental checks and balances but because the president declared war on an abstract concept he can do anything he wants" thing we have going now just does not make sense. The excuses are always so flimsy, it is always a claim that it is perfectly legal under written law and when that proves to be false then it becomes "oh well, none of that matter anyway because he's got unlimited wartime powers".
But you ask what we can do? Obviously we are doing some things that make a lot of sense. Better information between the intelligence agencies is a no-brainer, and I would go as far as saying going after the Taliban in Afghanistan was a good move as well (Iraq was obviously a horribly stupid blunder/distraction though).
However we do a lot of stupid things also. Hiring a lot of poorly trained rent-a-cops to play detective in the airports was probably not the best use of our resources. Insane restrictions on what we can take on airplanes do nothing for security, but make ignorant people feel safer. The whole slew of ways we try to throw billions in poorly thought out "technical" solutions like RealID, MagicLantern, facial recognition (which doesn't work any better than space lasers shooting at ICBMs), and whatever kludged algorithm generates the Mo-Fly list do nothing for security and cost both money and civil liberties.
There are many tried and true intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism techniques, but the current administration is more interested in presenting a color coded security theater for the masses complete with high tech sounding ("it involves computers so you know it must be good") projects. The paranoid thinks they are just using "terrorism" as a bogeyman to implement systems to track and control all citizens. I actually think that is a side effect of their actual motivation to dump money into their friend's and contributer's companies.
I can't wait, for the congressional hearings to start.
I was completely in support for the Democrats to take over Congress, but only because I wanted to end the neo-con control of government and bring some healthy gridlock into DC. I do not for a second imagine the Democrats will actually CHANGE anything any more than the Republicans did when they took over in 94. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking the dems and anything more than corrupt sellouts who will gladly take a dump on the constitution if it serves their needs.
Under The Real ID Act, though, the state ID authority (usually the DMV) will be required not only to examine your birth certificate and social security card, but also to scan and create digital copies of them in their system, as well as collecting further information on their forms.
Thus making the RealID absolutely no more secure than a birth certificate, ssn card, etc. All I need to do to get a totally trusted and unforgeable realID card is forge some documents that people have been successfully forging for ages.
The analogy I like for this is that I can have the most secure password ever, 128 characters, no repeating groups, upper and lower case with numbers and symbols, etc. Of course to reset it, you just need to know my mother's maiden name. Guess what, my password is effectively nothing more than my mother's maiden name.
ReadID is no more secure than the documents you will need to show to obtain it.
The DHS is run by over promoted bureaucrats who know absolutely nothing about security. We all know this, here is why this time:
First lets talk about passwords. One thing I run into that people who set corporate policies for passwords often do not understand is that the password strength is very rarely the weak point in an attack. Quite often the requirements will be sent to something crazy like 20 characters, no repeating characters, enforced alphanumeric, (you all know the usual strong password requirements) and they feel that is it. Oh, but to reset a forgotten password all you need to know is your mother's maiden name or some such. THAT is the weak link, you have effectively made every user's password their mother's maiden name. All of the other password strength requirements are irrelevant.
"How does this relate, finkployd, you arrogant prick?" I hear most of you asking. Simple, how does one get one of these super duper realID cards? I strongly suspect it is by showing OTHER, PRE-EXISTING forms of ID. How else would it work? The problem of how to distribute these cards in such a way that you know they are being generated for and sent to the proper people pales in comparison to actually designing the damn thing in the first place. It will certainly depend in some way on existing forms of ID, meaning it is absolutely no more secure then them.
Of course the government and financial institutions will inevitably consider it to be the absolute last word in authentication, so expect that if your identity is ever stolen via a false realID card, nobody will ever believe you. YOU will be financially (and likely criminally) responsible for anything done if your realID is spoofed. Good luck everyone, we are screwed:)
So do you believe an identity card (deemed "secure" by the authorities) will make identity theft less common, OR will it make it significantly harder for a victim to prove?
"I am sorry sir, you must have been the one who bought all of that stuff, your un-fakable ID card was used"
I am curious, what about a national ID card do you feel will have any effect on identity theft prevention?
but it would also ensure the demise of the company and squash out any hope of making a rebound.
You are looking at these companies as the powerhouses they are today. What happens in 5 years (forever in Internet time) when one of them is on the ropes and facing demise anyway?
And it would not ensure the demise of the company anymore than PC clones ensured the demise of IBM. It will just be a change in strategy. Making the change from a software company to a patent holding company would not be easy, but it would certainly be more lucrative than rolling over and dying.
I am not suggesting this is what they want to do, I am saying this is what they WILL if their back is ever against the wall. So what do we do? Hope Linux/openoffice.org never actually threatens MS since we know they have a nuclear option?
Slashdot Mirror
I would assume emergency conditions to be something like:
I would too, however unless specified somewhere, than "emergency conditions" is literally "whatever they declare them to be".
This is similar to "we only do this to terrorists" where "terrorists" means "anyone we unilaterally call a terrorist". When dealing with law, the words matter, intention means nothing if the words do not spell out the intention.
Finkployd
So, wasn't the new congress going to start trying to do something about these signing statements?
Besides itching for the day when a Democrat can use them? No.
Were you under the impression that the democrats actually opposed bush's power grab? That was all posturing (like the republicans did when clinton signed a ton of executive orders). Both parties love power and know that they will eventually have it, civil rights be dammed.
Finkployd
Someone should send a letter to Osama bin Laden with a couple of bucks in it and a PGP-encrypted message. That'll freak out the feds. :)
They would be thrilled if someone were to just give them his address methinks.
Finkployd
Finally, if you are a law abiding American citzen or law abiding resident then you should have nothing to worry about.
Unless you are running for political office against someone in the party controlling the "mail reading". Or possibly you are a public figure (commentator, editorialist, etc.) and have opinions contrary to those reading the mail (maybe they want some dirt to silence or or embarrass you).
Or are you under the impression that nobody in government has ever abused their power for personal/political gain? Did you think the checks and balances (such as, you know, warrants) were just put in to place for fun?
Why should I be accountable to the government? They are OUR servants in case you forgot. As soon as all of the president's (and congress's) mail, phone calls, and meetings are available for public review (barring national security related ones which should be sealed only by federal judge for a set period of time) then I will make mine available for theirs. If they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to worry about.
Finkployd
So, please, don't act like this is a Republican issue and don't be so ignorant as to assume that any of these limitations are going to be permanent.
I'm sorry, who is being ignorant? Are you telling me that the Bush admin was NOT pushing for all of the patriot act changes that were rammed through days after 9/11 to become permanent?
Right we are at war. On Terror. That should be all finished up soon right?
Finkployd
The right of the people to be secure in their papers against ... unreasonable ... searches and seizures, shall not be violated ...
How do we know if it is reasonable or not? Historically this was done via judicial review, but now we just assume anything Bush wants must be reasonable.
Finkployd
Meanwhile, the FCC has already declared that they'll fine any company that abuses their tiering abilities.
Oh good, because the FCC is not completely owned by corporate interests...
How would they even know?
Finkployd
I am cool with having cameras in all public places.
However, lets do it right. First we need cameras on all police cruisers and even on the police themselves (I believe the UK is starting this). We also need cameras mounted in the police stations, holding cells, and interrogation cells. These videos need to be made available in their entirety and in a timely manner to the public over the Internet (bluetube.com maybe?). Obviously some videos would be important to investigations to the police can petition a judge (after reviewing it) to hold it from publication for a specific period of time (renewed until the investigation is over and releasing it would no longer compromise anything). There needs to be absolutely NO time ever when a citizen is in contact with a police officer where it is not filmed and kept for record, any "missing time" should be cause for severe punishment. I don't want to hear anything about the privacy of the police, they have no privacy on the job. They are public servants who are given powers and authority above other citizens and need to be held to a much higher standard.
Now that we can watch the watchers, let's roll out the public cameras. I have nothing to hide about how I go through my daily life in public, but first I want to ensure that those in power who request this do not either.
(one can only dream about a day when elected public officials have to be similarly accountable in their public life)
Finkployd
If they point the cameras inside your home, that would be an invasion of privacy and would require a warrant.
Just to clarify, it would require a warrant OR it would require that an unaccountable bureaucrat declared you an threat to homeland security for classified reasons. Which do you think is easier?
Warrants and judicial oversight are obsolete, take that into consideration when thinking about new laws.
Finkployd
A nationwide ban on the other hand would be alot more effective in the long run as bringing guns in from a neighbouring country would be alot more difficult.
Yes, because we have seen great success at preventing people and drugs from entering from neighboring countries.
Alcohol prohibition was quite the success as well.
Ultimately, the problem exists in a way with the police. The legally have no obligation to actually "protect" anyone, and several court cases have upheld this. So given that their job is to mop up after crimes are committed, who actually is responsible for protecting you? you are.
Now only an idiot would think having a handgun == total protection, obviously just taking steps to avoid dangerous places and situations is vastly more important. But a handgun makes a nice absolute last resort in the hands of someone trained who has exhausted all other possibilities. (note: I am all for mandatory safety and competence training with a firearm as a condition of ownership)
It is also worth noting that even in the USA, the general public are not allowed armour piercing weapons (eg - P90) as these could be used to mount a serious challenge to police wearing body armour and hence would be slightly more usefull for overthrowing a tyrannical government.
Deer rifles will go through pretty much any body armor. NOBODY has suggested banning them.
As for the "defense against a corrupt government" argument, there is some merit even in the day of tanks and bombs. Obviously if we wanted to totally destroy Iraq it would take maybe an hour tops. But we are trying to effectively set up a different type of government and clearly many are not happy with this. As we are trying not to destroy the country but change it, we are not carpeting bombing every populated area, but trying to act like a police force. In the event of some kind of radical (and significantly opposed) action by the government here in the US, I doubt it would be citizens vs thermonuclear bombs, tanks, and cruise missiles.
It would be citizens vs military acting as a police force (and really, something that disruptive as to cause widespread civil war is going to split the military as well). Historically (and today), the US military sucks at being a police force, and pretty much loses every time they try. They are unbeatable when their mission is destruction of an opposing military, but that is not what an uprising in the US would look like. Everyone has this image in their head of a pitched battle between citizens and fully armed military but that is unrealistic. For all our military might IEDs are way more effective against us than anything we are doing against them (because we are not trying to kill all of them).
Finkployd
As for whatshername from Temple of Doom
That is Spielberg's wife, meaning she will probably be back (and with just as much acting talent as before)
Finkployd
I'm a luddite I admit, but what makes IM so great?
It's more real time than email usually is. I use it for when a phone call would be too much trouble (quick one off questions and such) or when cutting and pasting code and/or config lines is needed.
There's no way to archive the messages is there?
Gaim can easily save everything to text files
Is there a way to catalog the information into a searchable index?
grep the text files
How can you "forward" an im to another person or group of people? Can you thread the information into a cohesive timeline?,
copy/paste
As for threaded discussions, you want email (or NNTP), not IM. IM is not some holy grail that covers all communication needs.
I definitely have uses for irc (which is kinda like im I guess) but if it were my sole means of electronic communication I wouldn't get anything done. What am I missing?
I think your mistake is looking for a sole means of electronic communication.
Finkployd
I completely agree, but I am amused by it. To me the absolute worst designed controller in history was the Gamecube's. It seems Nintendo had to take it to one extreme before doing it right.
Finkployd
While I'm not certain (law student, limited experience) I believe your answer is: Yes they could do that - and the court would eventually get pissed, dismiss with prejudice, and it would be dead.
And the family would be financially ruined, which seems to be really all the RIAA wants.
Finkployd
I don't agree with this part however. People like you, Copid and me would be happy, but there are too many shrill voices that do not agree with wiretapping at all, under any circumstance. I feel that these people (ACLU) would use this as a political tool to forward their own agendas. I could see the headlines now, "President has 98% of FISA warrants denied, but continues to spy on citizens and turn in warrants to be denied." And in the want adds, "FISA court hiring to fill 10,000 seats".
Eh, personally if that were the case (98% of warrants are denied by a court that historically almost never denies warrants), I would want to know. Obviously something something would be horribly wrong there.
But it sounds to me like you want the FISA law changed, and I am totally open to a discussion on that. However, what bothers me is that Bush apparently does not like that law either, but rather than make a case to change it, he just chooses to ignore it.
Finkployd
Copid answered this as well as I could.
I will only add that yes, everyone probably would be happy if all the warrants were submitted, if not for approval at least for record. Having a branch of government which believes it essentially has unlimited police powers is much more palpable when there is some record of their actions and more than just their hand picked cronies are aware of what is going on.
What if the warrant is denied?
My understanding is that there is no penalty for a denied warrant, just that all wiretapping must cease when it is denied. Regardless, the most important thing is that there is accountability to someone other than themselves.
What's the point on oversight as hindsight?
In the IT industry, we call them logfiles.
Finkployd
The issue I have with this is, again, the disposable phone. Habib Mohamed buys a disposable phone to call his mum, Bosama InLaden in Pakistan. The Feds freak and immediately start listening in, only to find out that Mr. Mohamed really is calling his mum and stop listening and remove Mr. Mohamed from any further surveillance. The problem is, they would not have known this if they had not listened. And they really can't go to the FISA court now to get a warrant for tapping Mr. Mohamed's calls to his Mum.
Why can't they? They go to the court and say: "Based upon this evidence which shows a legitimate need to wiretap Mr Mohamed's phone ASAP we started tapping, attached is the evidence and our application for a warrant". Then after tapping him for a while (assuming the warrant is issued, which it almost always is anyway), if they determine that they were wrong and they are getting no evidence, they stop the tap and everyone is happy and legal.
There is no "punishment" if no evidence is gathered in a tap, BUT they have to have a solid case for one when they apply. If they do an "emergency tap" to get a specific conversation they feel will result in critical intelligence, but none comes up, they STILL have to submit the paperwork to the FISA court and explain why they felt they needed to tap.
The purpose of this is twofold. The court will obviously not allow tapping for political gain (imagine if Nixon tried to get federal judge approval for Watergate). But most importantly, it holds the Executive branch accountable for their actions. Without having to apply for a warrant they can tap whoever they want, whenever they want, on any whim. Fishing expeditions, political gain, corporate spying for their buddies, why not? Nobody except for them will ever know. Even if you do trust this administration, are you prepared to afford this level supreme trust to every future administration?
Finkployd
For example, don't say require FISA warrants before listening, because it is quicker to buy another disposable cell phone than it is to obtain a FISA warrant.
They have NEVER needed FISA warrants before listening. In the event that they need to tap in an emergency (where waiting for a FISA warrant could lose the chance at intelligence), they can just start doing so. However, they do need to apply for a warrant within 72 hours of starting the tap. How could any reasonable person have a problem with this? All they are saying is that you cannot wiretap without ever telling anyone about it.
We obviously need some sort of security. What is OK?
Yes, we do. But we cannot forget that we have a system of checks and balances. Democracy does not move as fast as a dictatorship, and a dictatorship can (in theory) move much faster to protect its citizens. If that is what we truly want as a country then let's just do it and quit pretending. This whole "we are still a democracy with governmental checks and balances but because the president declared war on an abstract concept he can do anything he wants" thing we have going now just does not make sense. The excuses are always so flimsy, it is always a claim that it is perfectly legal under written law and when that proves to be false then it becomes "oh well, none of that matter anyway because he's got unlimited wartime powers".
But you ask what we can do? Obviously we are doing some things that make a lot of sense. Better information between the intelligence agencies is a no-brainer, and I would go as far as saying going after the Taliban in Afghanistan was a good move as well (Iraq was obviously a horribly stupid blunder/distraction though).
However we do a lot of stupid things also. Hiring a lot of poorly trained rent-a-cops to play detective in the airports was probably not the best use of our resources. Insane restrictions on what we can take on airplanes do nothing for security, but make ignorant people feel safer. The whole slew of ways we try to throw billions in poorly thought out "technical" solutions like RealID, MagicLantern, facial recognition (which doesn't work any better than space lasers shooting at ICBMs), and whatever kludged algorithm generates the Mo-Fly list do nothing for security and cost both money and civil liberties.
There are many tried and true intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism techniques, but the current administration is more interested in presenting a color coded security theater for the masses complete with high tech sounding ("it involves computers so you know it must be good") projects. The paranoid thinks they are just using "terrorism" as a bogeyman to implement systems to track and control all citizens. I actually think that is a side effect of their actual motivation to dump money into their friend's and contributer's companies.
Finkployd
We are getting closer, someone has already created an 8-bit google maps...
Finkployd
I can't wait, for the congressional hearings to start.
I was completely in support for the Democrats to take over Congress, but only because I wanted to end the neo-con control of government and bring some healthy gridlock into DC. I do not for a second imagine the Democrats will actually CHANGE anything any more than the Republicans did when they took over in 94. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking the dems and anything more than corrupt sellouts who will gladly take a dump on the constitution if it serves their needs.
Finkployd
Under The Real ID Act, though, the state ID authority (usually the DMV) will be required not only to examine your birth certificate and social security card, but also to scan and create digital copies of them in their system, as well as collecting further information on their forms.
Thus making the RealID absolutely no more secure than a birth certificate, ssn card, etc. All I need to do to get a totally trusted and unforgeable realID card is forge some documents that people have been successfully forging for ages.
The analogy I like for this is that I can have the most secure password ever, 128 characters, no repeating groups, upper and lower case with numbers and symbols, etc. Of course to reset it, you just need to know my mother's maiden name. Guess what, my password is effectively nothing more than my mother's maiden name.
ReadID is no more secure than the documents you will need to show to obtain it.
Finkployd
The DHS is run by over promoted bureaucrats who know absolutely nothing about security. We all know this, here is why this time:
:)
First lets talk about passwords. One thing I run into that people who set corporate policies for passwords often do not understand is that the password strength is very rarely the weak point in an attack. Quite often the requirements will be sent to something crazy like 20 characters, no repeating characters, enforced alphanumeric, (you all know the usual strong password requirements) and they feel that is it. Oh, but to reset a forgotten password all you need to know is your mother's maiden name or some such. THAT is the weak link, you have effectively made every user's password their mother's maiden name. All of the other password strength requirements are irrelevant.
"How does this relate, finkployd, you arrogant prick?" I hear most of you asking. Simple, how does one get one of these super duper realID cards? I strongly suspect it is by showing OTHER, PRE-EXISTING forms of ID. How else would it work? The problem of how to distribute these cards in such a way that you know they are being generated for and sent to the proper people pales in comparison to actually designing the damn thing in the first place. It will certainly depend in some way on existing forms of ID, meaning it is absolutely no more secure then them.
Of course the government and financial institutions will inevitably consider it to be the absolute last word in authentication, so expect that if your identity is ever stolen via a false realID card, nobody will ever believe you. YOU will be financially (and likely criminally) responsible for anything done if your realID is spoofed. Good luck everyone, we are screwed
Finkployd
My local video store demanded my actual physical SSN card before they would rent me a video.
I am fairly certain that is illegal...
Finkployd
So do you believe an identity card (deemed "secure" by the authorities) will make identity theft less common, OR will it make it significantly harder for a victim to prove?
"I am sorry sir, you must have been the one who bought all of that stuff, your un-fakable ID card was used"
I am curious, what about a national ID card do you feel will have any effect on identity theft prevention?
Finkployd
but it would also ensure the demise of the company and squash out any hope of making a rebound.
You are looking at these companies as the powerhouses they are today. What happens in 5 years (forever in Internet time) when one of them is on the ropes and facing demise anyway?
And it would not ensure the demise of the company anymore than PC clones ensured the demise of IBM. It will just be a change in strategy. Making the change from a software company to a patent holding company would not be easy, but it would certainly be more lucrative than rolling over and dying.
I am not suggesting this is what they want to do, I am saying this is what they WILL if their back is ever against the wall. So what do we do? Hope Linux/openoffice.org never actually threatens MS since we know they have a nuclear option?
Finkployd