Why is it that this bill makes me think of Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?
Why is it that Afhghanistan reminds me of Vietnam?
Umm... your an aging hippy?
Am I rightfully very, very scared?
That depends, Do you live or work in a very high building? Are you a postal worker? congressional staffer, pentagon emplyee? news personality or the employee of a news personality?
If yes to any of the above you are rightfully very scared.
This bill passed by the American Government seems to extend even beyond the borders of the US and into other countries. If the internet, being an international entity, is to be monitored, should it not be monitored by an international entity as opposed to a single, albeit powerful country?
Quite a few of those other countries already monitor internet traffic in a massively more extensive way than this bill provides. I regularly get emails from friends in another country where they leave out certain words because they know that the government and other governments in the region their mail is being routed through is scanning for suspicious keywords. That government also keeps archives of all email, there is obviously too much to look at real time but if they are ever suspicious of you they can go back through every email you ever sent. No search warrant, court review or probable cause needed just a suspicion in the mind of the secret police.
To be fair my friends are doing something illegal in that country that could get them deported or jailed (they are christian missionaries) The Americans I know who have been jailed have been treated reasonably well but native born converts or missionaries from other countries are usually subject to torture (I have one friend now in the US that was a native that has tremendous permanent physical difficulties from being tortured because he would not recant his religious beliefs). This in a country I recently saw lauded in the news as a model of reliqious freedom and 'toleration'.
I don't agree with some of the extremes that the anti-terrorism bill goes to but the more hysterical critisisms (the U.S. is fascist, a dictatoriship, we've 'trashed' our civil liberties, etc.) have no sense of proportion or perspective.
I don't see the 4th ammendment violation, could you point it out to me? As far as I have been able to find all the searches and seisures still need a warrant from a court based upon probable cause.
The bill may increase the ability of the government to engage in surveillance without having to return as often or get as many different warrants but the requirment to get a warrant is still there.
Didn't all the September 11th hijackers enter openly and legally? What's with "Blame Canada"?
I don't know if the Sept. 11th hijackers entered through Canada or not - it doesn't matter since it seems that most had entered legally. But it seems that ehenver terrorist want to smuggle in something illegal (like the explosives for the millenium plot) they come through Canada. There is nothing particularly sinister in this portion of the bill - we have a very long and open border with canada.
The US people are the best and kindest in the world. The US government are stone cold evil murdering motherfuckers.
In defense of the U.S. government - ALL governments are stone cold evil murdering motherfuckers. I recall seeing a display in a museum in Quebec City about what a "stone cold evil murdering motherfucker" the Canadian government was. With all the other S.C.E.M.M*F's out there most people want their own government to be the most capable (if not the most evil) S.C.E.M.M*F
I just received this information below from Itzah Hokes, the reknowned
internet watchdog and stormdoor salesman. Please read and send to everybody
in the world. Encourage any and all to notify their senators and
congressmen about their opposition to this measure or just to have a nice
chat. This is urgent. The right to bear boxcutters is as American as
whine, cheese, the Widettes, the Coneheads, and sauerkraut.
Gotta Paypurcutt, the author, is a syndicated communist and president of
"Washington is for Liberals", a metropolitan DC thinkless tank.
National Boxcutters Association Moves to Preserve Constitutional Rights
By Gotta Paypurcutt
(UPS)
Cardboard, IL -- The National Boxcutters Association (NBA - not to be
confused with the National Balloon Association) moved today to head off
Congressional action requiring the registration of boxcutting tools,
primarily easily concealed boxcutters. These have come to be known as
"Tuesday Morning Specials". (The larger version of the boxcutter, the
hunting boxcutter or sports blade, is not included in the current
legislation.) The bill requires a 15 day waiting period for purchasers to
allow adequate time for background checks. Law-abiding citizens, NBA
members, and U-BOX (Union of Box Opening X-perts) members, deemed by the
ACLU and People for the American Way as a menace to society, will be
prohibited from purchasing such weapons whereas known criminals such as
black market traffickers, Osama bin Laden, Yassir Arafat, Mike Tyson, and
Geraldo Rivera will be allowed to receive and register their boxcutters.
Those of latter group, who already possess boxcutters, are fully expected to
acknowledge ownership and fall in line with this law. ACLU lawyer, I. B.
Libble, states, "Criminals are people, too, and have rights but we're not
sure about the rest."
Proponents of the measure state that at least one person is injured, maimed
or killed each year using boxcutters. In the hands of children, boxcutters
render coffee tables as "dead meat". "People have even been known to cut
cardboard with these things! RIGHT IN THE HOME! even when directions say
'Don't try this at home'", says Mr. Libble. Further, he says, "It is
obvious that boxcutters kill people. People don't kill people. That's why
they have to be registered." He cites a case in Toledo where a Stanley
boxcutter (not to be confused with Deck & Blacker, Betty Crocker, or Chevy
Like-a-Truck) is on trial for illicitly slicing a hotdog. Proponents also
claim that the registration of boxcutters makes them less lethal. A person
killed with a registered boxcutter is less seriously killed than one
without. They say that studies show that people wielding registered
boxcutters are more benign.
The president of U-BOX, William "Will" U. Slice, is outraged. He says
returning to the old fashioned method of opening boxes, that is, using small
handguns, is totally unacceptable. It requires too many bullets and if
anything inside is alive, it will be killed for sure. He claims that too
many of his workers were getting wounded with the previous method. The
simple act of performing one's job was too dangerous. The advent of the
boxcutter revolutionized opening boxes, he said. Workers say that the loss
of appendages, the lacerations, the blood-letting, and peeling oranges with
boxcutters is much preferable to the incessant, secondary bullet wounds from
the guns, not to mention the deafening sound of constant weapons fire.
The NBA claims that the constitutional right to bear boxcutters would be
violated by this law. NBA says that the founding fathers, and several
founding mothers carrying and nursing their founding children, intended to
put this provision to into the founding Constitution. They also cite these
founding persons who, following the Boston Tea Party, realized that
cardboard would eventually be developed and, further, would require some
quick method for opening, namely via the boxcutter. Reknowned historian
George Washington Jefferson Jones-Smith-Coopersmith Jackson claims that if
the masquerading Indians (AKA masquerading Native Western Hemisphere-ers)
had had a means to open the boxes in the first place, perhaps the tea party
would have been a more conservative celebration. He states that the right
to bear boxcutters allows the average citizen the right to arm
himself/herself against massive onslaughts of cardboard, initiated by an
oppressive, over-powerful, central government.
The NBA is a very strong lobby, claiming to have a membership in excess of
85 billion members, representing the inhabitants of several galaxies as well
as philatelists, local PTA members, Gus the mechanic, and Capt. James Kirk
along with the entire crew of Starship Enterprise going where no man has
gone before.
I don't know exactly what he expected. There are 100 senators for 285 MILLION people, in the worst case scenario the two senators from California represent about 34 million people alone. Each representative in the house represents between 600,000 and 700,000 people. On top of the coorespondence that someone representing that huge number of people would normally generate they are also the recipients of continuous organised spamming campaigns hoping to influence them through the sheer volume of spam. The idea being that if congresscritter Alice gets 5,000 letters supporting position X and 6,000 letters supporting position Y Alice will asume that the correct position is Y because it represents the 'will of the people' and not that the supporters of Y had a larger copy machine than the supporters of X.
Email has made the problem much more difficult, now it is so easy that it can be done on impulse. Constituent Bob hears Rush Limbaugh say something about Congresscritter Alice so Bob fires off an email he never would have cared enough about to send as a snailmail. All of the lobbying groups send out email alerts to their 'grass roots' telling them to just cut and past a message into an email to congresscritter Alice - it's so easy that almost every 'concerned' member on the list does so.
So congresscritter Alice with tens of thousands of emails, phone calls and letters to answer every week has not written back to you a personal reply addressing your individual concerns. And she even has the NERVE to think that a hand written note because it was more difficult to send might have meant more to the sender.
They seem to think that if you take the time to write it down and send it, it must be important.
Oh Please, I don't particularly like the congresscritters but I can't fault them for this. They responded to his email in the way it deserved - a quick stock response to a quick stock complaint. They are so buried in crap generated by letter-writing campaigns that the best they can do is send a generic meaningless response and tally the letters pro and con. And they know that the tally doesn't reflect the opinions of their constituents but reflects which group had the larger copy machine. Email is so easy to to fire off it makes is 100 times worse than the old form-letter writing campaigns. These guys are buried in a form of inverted spam where instead of one guy sending out meaningless email to a million people a few hundred (or maybe thousand) people send millions of emails to one guy.
Yes, if it IS important enough TO YOU to write down with your own hand, and even more importantly, with your own thoughts, to take the trouble to find a stamp and an envelope and walk down to the mailbox your congressman will pay more attention to it. "But, that isn't as convenient, it takes more time and trouble, if it's that hard I won't even bother!" - Exactly the point.
The disgrace of the Spanish American war was that the 'Attack' or 'provocation' never happened. The evidence which Pulitzer knew at the time was that the Maine sank because of a boiler explosion not a Spanish torpedo or mine.
To be fair to the media of today the Twin Towers and tbe Pentagon REALLY WERE ATTACKED!!! There really ARE bastards to get this time. We DO have to get them. America SHOULD NOT stand for this. And frankly I think "Rally 'round the flag - America, America God shed His grace on thee.." and "the same shit" as you put it are perfectly fine and appropriate sentiments to express when your country REALLY has been attacked.
Unless you have some proof that the images we saw on TV are a hollywood special effect and that the smoke and stench in lower Manhattan today is really a complex media hoax there is absolutely NO comparison to the Spanish-American war.
This "rah-rah the net is the best" article is a little silly. Each media has different strengths.
The net was almost completely useless covering this story as it broke - TV does that best, aside from actually being there there is no competing with the sense of awful reality you get from watching events like these live on CNN. Radio can also be good at covering an event live but has the advantage or disadvantage of not having the same emotional impact.
TV is lousy at after the fact in-depth reporting and analysis - this is what print media (newspapers, news magazines, opinion journals) is really good at. Print reporters have more time to think about what they write, editors and fact checkers have more time to get the story right. And print is itself just a better way of conveying more complex data or concepts. Because print is relatively expensive there is a high bar to entry that (to a degree) weeds out the bizarre and uninformed opinions you see rife on the net.
The net is good at two things: getting a wild diversity of opinion and analysis, and getting more in-depth information directly from the a wide range of sources. Of course in all of that wide diversity and sea of raw information it can be very hard to judge the reliablity of the information. You can turn to 'trusted' internet news sources but the vast majority of those are trusted precisely because they are NOT really internet sources but repurposed print or broadcast sources. They are trusted because of their offline counterpart with it's high cost of operation and the resulting financial necessity to maintain it's reputation for accuracy.
I totally agree with this. I think that given the threat many of these regulatory changes about wiretaps are not unreasonable. The threat they pose to our civil liberties is that they will outlive the threat they are meant to address.
The rules regulating how, when and where the government can monitor your actions are designed with the primary purpose of preventing abuse by government - the efficiency and efficacy of law enforcment and intelligence agencies is a secondary concern. During a war it is reasonable that the priorities switch since the more serious threat to our rights is the actions of our enemy not government abuse. Many laws already recognise that switch in priorities during times of war. Even the consititution in a clause specifically related to privacy rights recognises this principle (Amendment 3 - the right to not have soldiers quartered in your you - DURING TIMES OF PEACE)
Just for the sake of the accountability that comes with clear definitions and clear constitutional authority the congress should declare war on Al Queada and the Taliban. The difficult part is that there is no particular country to force the surrender of so the declaration of war would need to contain some terms defining when the war ends. Maybe the terms of victory would be the arrest or death of Al Queada's identifiable leaders and evidence of its effective dissolution (to Congresses satisfaction).
he didn't feel obligated to stop... Israeli aggression (against Palistinians), or other recent conflicts.
I'll adress this first since it would be hard to imagine a comment that is MORE ignorant of Buchanan's views - Do you live under a rock?. While Buchanan would oppose U.S. military action against Isreal he does support a complete end to all military and economic aid to Isreal. And in the case of Isreal it is not only because of his isolationist political philosophy but because he is strongly critical of Isreal's treatment of Palestinians and Lebanon. The main reason Buchanan is considered anti-semetic is because of his vigorous and strongly worded opposition to Isreali policy. He has said something to the effect (can't find the exact quote right now) that Isreal should stop complaining about Hitler if they are going to adopt his methods. I doubt you could find a more stinging condemnation. It was the Isreali invasion of Lebanon that seems to have most directly spurred Buchanan to his present isolationist positions.
Wrong. Buchanan has consistently supported military actions against China.
I've never heard him voice support for military action against China. Could you cite where he said this? I'm not saying your wrong though it is out of sync with all of his foreign policy positions that I have ever read. He speaks very strongly against U.S. companies that have given China technology that helps them build ICBM's and that he views China as a hostile regime that is dangerous not only to our 'interests' but to us. That is hardly "support for military action against China."
In general the Buchananite position is that American defense policy should be to defend America and it's citizens not to defend vaguely defined 'interests' or to police the world. Because of this he would focus American foreign and defense policy on nations that threaten us here at home. China is at least potentially a direct threat to the U.S. therefore the Buchananite position is that we should be actively concerned about what China does. Serbia and Isreal are not a direct threat to us nor are they ever likely to be no matter how aggresive they become therefore while we may voice our condemnation for their actions it is not our right or responsiblity to do anything more.
Just to set the record straight I am not Buchananite in my own views though I would agree that our military should be used for our defense and not to arrogantly fine tune the world to our liking. I only mentioned the 'Paleo-conservative' Buchananites as a group that where generally consistant and intellectually honest in their criticism of U.S. policy as opposed to the inconsistant Anti-americanism that finds fault in American policy no matter what that policy is.
Tke a look; not all the same people are complaining about everything, different people are complaining about different things.
Actually that is just the problem! Way too often THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE. The only common thread is that America must be at fault no matter what the policy. Tell me in all seriousness that if America had decided to cease supporting Israeal prior to the 11th tthat the very same people wouldn't be criticising that as anti-semetic. Just look at what these exact same people say about Pat Buchanan.
A few of the critics are consistant and are to be commended for it. The Pat Buchanan paleo-conservatives (sounds like your position) are also consistant in their isolationist neutral stance. The REAL pacifists have a consistant position - that no state of affairs is worth killing to change. But most of the people pretending to be pacifists are no such thing, their anti-war rhetoric quickly turns to merely anti-American rhetoric justifying the actions of any enemy of America. So are they anti-American because of a prior anti-war philosophy or are they really anti-war because of a prior anti-American philosophy.
Lets see how we get that count of *MILLIONS* killed by the U.S.
U.S. Killing people method 1: Something bad happens in the world and America does absolutely nothing. Example: Bosnia & Somalia before the U.S. got involved, Rwanda, etc. Verdict: "The U.S. should have done something" all of those deaths are the U.S.A's fault.
U.S. Killing people method 2: Something bad happens in the world we try diplomacy, and moral suassion alone but otherwise continuing relationship with nasty people Example: South Africa Verdict: "U.S. should do more, U.S. complicit in the crimes, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. Killing people method 3: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with economic sanctions. Example: Iraq, Cuba Verdict: Innocent people suffer and even die as a result of the economic hardship. The U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 4: Something bad happens in the world and the U.S. supports one side or the other in the conflict. Example: Afghanistan (last time) Verdict: U.S. indirectly killing people, also U.S.A. is forever solely responsible for all acts by their one time allies. The U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 5: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with limited military force. Example: Somalia, Bosnia after U.S. gets involved Verdict: People killed directly by the U.S. military, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 6: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with overwhelming military force. Example: Iraq, Afghanistan (Germany, Japan, Italy etc.) Verdict: Lots of people killed directly by the U.S. military, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
Final Verdict: Only the U.S.A. is a moral agent capable of evil. All other nations only respond to "root causes" and the USA's actions, their response is always the sole responsibility of the U.S.A. All misery and death around the world is always the result directly or indirectly of the either the U.S.A.'s actions or inactions.
If the U.S. signs a treaty (WTO etc.) they are responsible for the evils of 'globalism' and 'imperialism' If the U.S. does NOT sign a treaty (Kyoto accord etc.) they are guilty of 'isolationism' or 'unilateralism.' If the U.S. acts where their interests are involved (Iraq, Afghanistan) they are selfish. If the U.S. acts where their interests are not involved (Bosnia, Somolia) they are arrogantly and imperialisticly meddling with the affairs of others. It is all a plot to sell American made weapons which is why whenever you see people killing each other all around the world they are always using M-16's not Kalishnikovs, Lobing Nike missles and never Scuds, Frogs or Silkworm missles, etc. etc. etc.
We all know that the world was a far better place before the U.S.A. invented hate and death.
I think this war may prove to be much more costly and long that any of the talking head may say
Thats interesting because I keep hearing the talking heads talk about the experience and ferocity of the Afghans as an enemy and predicting a meat grinder if we go in there. A ground war in Afghanistan will cause a lot of casualties compared to other recent wars (aside from Vietnam) but we are not in for the kind of hell that the Soviets got themselves into for a several reasons.
1) The Soviets were trying to subjigate the entire nation, we just want to topple the Taliban and don't care all that much who replaces them as long as they crack down on terrorists, or at least don't stop us from doing so.
2) The Soviets were facing an enemy with a massive defense budget (provided by the U.S.) and some very high tech weaponry. We are facing an enemy with aging or hand made Kalishnikovs and a few 20 year old tanks & missles that were low tech when they were designed in the early 1960's
3) We have better allies and more unpopular enemies than the Soviets. Even if all of the Pashtoon end up supporting the Taliban (which may or may not happen) it is fair to say that all the Uzbecks, Tajicks, Turkomens and Shi'a Iranians that make up the remaining 60% of the population won't - they will either support us or remain neutral but they won't support the Taliban. If we play our cards right with the exiled Pashtun king many Pashtun may end up opposing the Taliban as well.
A war with less casualties? Perhaps, but probably only ever on our side.
Actually I don't think this is true at all. Civilian casualties are inevitable in any war but the high tech weapons we have can minimise them. A GPS or laser guided bomb is not foolproof, on rare occasions it might hit the building next door to the target killing a dozen civilians accidentally and leaving the real target to be hit the following night. But the low tech alternative would be to *INTENTIONALLY* flatten the entire neighboorhood killing hundreds or even thousands of civilians.
Even enemy military casualties are probably lower than in a lower tech war, with superior air power, battlefield intelligence etc. we can at least attempt to disable the enemy by destroying their command & control, communications & supply lines without slaughtering the entire mass of them. Even in those cases where we do inflict overwhelming slaughter on hostile armies the total casualties are far smaller than if we where evenly matched and had to win a long slow war of attrition.
This is NOT to say that all of this high tech will always be helpful against terrorists. It will help us to win decisively against the Taliban which is a necessary precondition to destroying Al Queaeda (sp?) Our overwhelming military superiority derived from superior technology will also intimidate other nations that would otherwise support terrorists or openly oppose our actions (Like Pakistan, the government there has very good reasons to NOT support us, apparently we gave the even BETTER reasons TO support us.) Technology will also make possible pinpoint raids against terrorist assets like training camps and the dens of terrorist commanders - if we can find them. Unfortunately our superior tech will not prevent terrorist attacks the way it prevents conventional attacks, which is why terrorists choose terrorism as a tactic in the first place. But I would imagine having access to high tech tools helps even though it is not decisive in this particular form of conflict.
If you support the ATA then you are {DELETED} {polite}mistaken{/polite}.
If you read the actual text of my post and the text of my other posts on this topic you will be happy to note that I do not support the ATA as written so I guess that means I am not a {DELETED}.
I am however disagreeing with those whose critisism is not based on the legitimate argument that the ATA goes too far or is open to abuse because of a loose or broad definition of "cyber-terrorism." but think that computer crime is not crime or that it must be a minor crime because it is easy for them to do.
There is a real potential for cyber-sabotage of a very serious nature that existing laws do not adequately address. The "cyber-terrorism" portion of the ATA is a deeply flawed attempt to address that issue. The authors of the ATA don't intend for your petty theft to be considered terrorism, unfortunately the law IS written so broadly and leaves so much latitude to prosecutors and juries that by the letter of the law it could. The answer to the real problems with this bill is not to descend into the fever-swamps of paranoid conspiracy theory and hysterical accusations against the authors of the bill. We should rationally present the case for better definitions of what computer crimes really do merit such stiff penalties rather than deny that such serious crimes exist.
TechWorld - Defacement: You get into someone's website and move stuff around.
RealWorld - Defacement: You walk into someone's store and change the window display around because it wasn't locked.
You mean:
RealWorld - Defacement: You break into someone's stores and change the window displays around because you are a locksmith and the lock on the door was one an expert could easily pick. And to keep the analogy going you do this for every store in the chain however big it is.
Of course most defacements of web sites don't usually just move the existing graphics & text around so a more accurate analogy for what commonly happens is:
Techworld - Defacement: Replace index.html with some H4X0r boasting or political screed
Realworld - Defacement: Break in (as before) & block the enterance to every store in a nation wide chain costing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales. Furthermore to the customers it appears that you may have (they don't know) also gotten into the stores files and stolen their credit card numbers and that you are capable (and likely) to do so again resulting in millions of dollars in lost sales in the future and the possible bankruptcy of the business, lost jobs etc.
You may think the last part of the "realworld" example is overstating the case but I have seen exactly that happen to a succesful & even modestly profitable ecommerce site that had it's home page defaced. Even though the ecommerce portion of the site was secure and no sensitive information was comprimised the loss of confidence on the part of affiliated businesses and previously loyal customers killed the business. You can say it was their own fault for not having tight enough security and there is *some* merit to that. But not taking, or even knowing you should take, steps to avoid being a victim does not make you the criminal.
Why then should any computer crimes be considered terrorism unless they are actually causing serious death and destruction with the intent of causing terror in the US?
Actually I agree that they should not. There should be language in the law that limits the bills applicablity to cases where the computer attack is severe and intended to cause death. Attacks that don't intend to cause death but serious social or economic damage should be defined as sabotage and retain reasonably stiff penalties. And lesser attacks with proportionate penalties down to the nuisance graffiti hacker
What I react to on this board are many who understate the potential seriousness of actual computer crimes. Those that say foolish things like equating cracking into computers with jaywalking. It is more equivalent to breaking and enterring and the real crimes are what you choose to do when you are in there - whether it is theft, fraud, murder or disruption and murder on a scale to be plausibly considered "terrorism". It is wrong for the ATA to give prosecutors the latititude to define every computer related crime up to the level of "terrorism" but it is just as silly to counter that they are all really equivalent to "jaywalking" the criminal potential runs the whole spectrum.
Aside from which, the examples in the security focus article I referenced were of people wreaking social or financial "havoc," which is NOT terrorism. Cyber-terrorism is not a valid word, and I am attacking its validity.
I agree with you about the definitions being to broad. The definitions in the law should protect people that really are commiting misdeamenors from overzealous prosecution. Wreaking financial & social havoc should not be defined as terrorism but depending on the severity of the attack as sabatoge and should retain the stiff penalties. If the perpetrator is the agent of a foreign power it is potentially an act of war, if a state of war exists and the perpetrator is a citizen it should also be considered treason.
computers are just a bunch of people typing on keyboards. There is a gee-whiz mentality that people get carried away with and they start thinking the computer somehow runs the world... I am unaware of any application of computer usage that can lead to death
You may only use your computer to play Quake, surf for pr0n, and chat with your friends on IM, but breaking into your computer is not what this law is aimed at. Indeed if someone broke into your computer it would not be a serious crime. It may be a net benefit for society since not having your glorified entertainment system might lead to more informed opinions.
Computers don't "run the world" but they do run alot of important things in the world. Things that if they are comprimised can have very serious consequences - yes, even death.
Terrorism is not merely the act of killing people it has a broader goal - to cause significant societal disruption in order to achieve a political goal. The attacks on 9/11 were not aimed at random people but at particular economic and military targets.
Perhaps terrorism is not the right word but a successful attack on the computer systems that run our financial markets, the power grid, our communications, businesses, government etc. would achieve many of the goals of the Al Quaeda. There is room for abuse in the loose definitions of the ATA which should be fixed but the risks it is attempting to address are very real and are serious crimes.
Yes, but jaywalking could never be considered terrorism while (some) hacking could.
Computers aren't just toys for nerds, they are also "stuff that matters". A lot of very important things in this world are run by computers and a truly malicious hacker can do *real* damage. Things like attacking the air traffic control system or the financial markets are serious attacks. A particularly nasty virus can do significant real world damage. Even the nuisance "graffiti" type of defacement can ruin a business in ways offline graffiti cannot compare to. I can't imagine an instance where mere website defacement could credibly be considered terrorism but it is easy to see instances where it should properly be considered a felony.
All that being said the definitions in the ATA are loose and that opens the door to potential abuse by overzealous prosecutors. It is a serious flaw in the law but I don't think hysterical alarmism, abusive rhetoric about the totalitarian intent of the bills authors, or downplaying the seriousness of some "computer crime" is the best way to fix it.
Privacy is *not* the primary concern of most people protesting these bills. Accountability is.
Perhaps not, but it is the primary concern of many on this board. My point was not that in light of this crisis we should lend knee-jerk support to any expansion of police power. But by the same token we should not have a knee-jerk opposition to every expansion of police powers. As I said I am playing the devils advocate - I would have posted something quite different if the prevailing wisdom of this board tilted in the other direction.
FISA also allows for trials and deportation hearings involving secret evidence
Thanks for the information. This is perhaps a good case in point of why hysterical accusations and a simple assumption of bad faith serves no ones interests. The rights of the accused to confront his accuser is constitutionally protected and an important bulwark protecting everyones liberty from arbitrary government abuses. But there is also a legitimate government interest in keeping national security secrets and protecting intelligence assets. We are on the horns of a dilemma where there are conflicting *legitimate* interests, any proposed solution must address both concerns. However the rhetoric of many civil libertarians just assumes the bad faith of the government and the illegitimacy of it's concerns
I'm not wise enough to cut the gordian knot of valid but conflicting interests but I'll give it a shot.
1) The government exists to actively protect the rights of it's citizens, it must also respect the human rights of non-citizens. A non-citizen should not be detained (imprisoned) indefinitely without being convicted of a crime. Though just like anyone else accused (indicted) of a crime they may be detained awaiting trial.
2) However, residency in the US is NOT a fundamental human right we are bound to respect. Immigrants are here at the pleasure of the government - deporting them back to the country from which they came is NOT in any way a violation of their rights. If the government has evidence that must remain secret that a foreign national is a threat to the rights of citizens it may have to forgoe the pleasure of convicting and punishing that individual. But there is no reason why the executive branch on it's own authority could not summarily deport that individual or give him a choice between immediate deportation and continued detention. We have chosen to have a mechanism for appealling deportation but that is an act of charity not an obligation.
Dealing with a U.S. citizen that we have evidence against that must remain secret is a much more difficult issue since they DO have a right to residency in the U.S. There is no way we can remove them as a threat without either violating their rights or convicting them of a crime - which would require the revealing secrets.
Here's a thought experiment rather than as a serious proposal - There is no reason why all players (aside from the defendant obviously) couldn't be people with security clearance, so the defendant himself is the only significant security risk. Perhaps in truly spectactular instances the intelligence agency (FBI, CIA whoever) could present a judge with secret evidence and the reasons why it must remain secret. The judge would evaluate the sensitivity of the information, it's necessity to the case, and the severity of the threat posed by the defendant if guilty. If high standards are met in each instance the Judge could allow testimony that the jury and the defending counsel could hear but the defendant himself (being the only person without clearance) would be barred from hearing.
There are obvious objections: such a scheme of confronting evidence by proxy is constitutionally problematic; there is a potential conflict of interest for the defense lawyer who must both represent his clients interests but in this case would also be required to have an interest in the secrecy of information relevant to his clients case, and finally the sheer number of players involved may make the actual security of the information a practical impossiblity. Perhaps the procedure could be changed to address or mitigate against these objections - just musing about the issue.
I understand and am sympathetic to the concerns about losing freedoms but I can't help but to notice that most of the people on this board can't seem to imagine ANY legitimate intrusion by government on someones privacy. Such an extreme position is untenable (not to mention silly) since there are obviously legitimate government intrusions into peoples privacy. The debate should focus around the checks and balances on legitimate government intrusions to guard against abuse.
Most of the provisions of the terrorism bill certainly expand the federal governments powers of surviellance but that surveillance still requires a warrant and probable cause. It seems primarily a move towards more efficiency rather than a jettisoning of constitutional protections (admittadly inefficiency may be a practical protection from abuse of our rights by government but it is also a loss of protection by government from the abuse of our rights by agents other than government - like criminals, terrorists & foreign governments). I'm not sure what you mean by the use of secret evidence. Could you clarify? I looked over the bill but IANAL and legalesse makes my brain hurt.
I'm much more concerned about indefinite detention of foreign nationals. Our government does not have the same obligation to foreigners as it has to citizens but foreigners still have human rights we are should respect one of which is liberty. There is however no basic human right to reside in the U.S. - perhaps a suspect who is a non-citizen should be given the choice of continued detention during the investigation or deportation.
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Just curiosity: what was particularly liberal about your rant?
Why is it that this bill makes me think of Johnson's Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?
Why is it that Afhghanistan reminds me of Vietnam?
Umm... your an aging hippy?
Am I rightfully very, very scared?
That depends, Do you live or work in a very high building? Are you a postal worker? congressional staffer, pentagon emplyee? news personality or the employee of a news personality?
If yes to any of the above you are rightfully very scared.
This bill passed by the American Government seems to extend even beyond the borders of the US and into other countries. If the internet, being an international entity, is to be monitored, should it not be monitored by an international entity as opposed to a single, albeit powerful country?
Quite a few of those other countries already monitor internet traffic in a massively more extensive way than this bill provides. I regularly get emails from friends in another country where they leave out certain words because they know that the government and other governments in the region their mail is being routed through is scanning for suspicious keywords. That government also keeps archives of all email, there is obviously too much to look at real time but if they are ever suspicious of you they can go back through every email you ever sent. No search warrant, court review or probable cause needed just a suspicion in the mind of the secret police.
To be fair my friends are doing something illegal in that country that could get them deported or jailed (they are christian missionaries) The Americans I know who have been jailed have been treated reasonably well but native born converts or missionaries from other countries are usually subject to torture (I have one friend now in the US that was a native that has tremendous permanent physical difficulties from being tortured because he would not recant his religious beliefs). This in a country I recently saw lauded in the news as a model of reliqious freedom and 'toleration'.
I don't agree with some of the extremes that the anti-terrorism bill goes to but the more hysterical critisisms (the U.S. is fascist, a dictatoriship, we've 'trashed' our civil liberties, etc.) have no sense of proportion or perspective.
I don't see the 4th ammendment violation, could you point it out to me? As far as I have been able to find all the searches and seisures still need a warrant from a court based upon probable cause.
The bill may increase the ability of the government to engage in surveillance without having to return as often or get as many different warrants but the requirment to get a warrant is still there.
Didn't all the September 11th hijackers enter openly and legally? What's with "Blame Canada"?
I don't know if the Sept. 11th hijackers entered through Canada or not - it doesn't matter since it seems that most had entered legally. But it seems that ehenver terrorist want to smuggle in something illegal (like the explosives for the millenium plot) they come through Canada. There is nothing particularly sinister in this portion of the bill - we have a very long and open border with canada.
The US people are the best and kindest in the world. The US government are stone cold evil murdering motherfuckers.
In defense of the U.S. government - ALL governments are stone cold evil murdering motherfuckers. I recall seeing a display in a museum in Quebec City about what a "stone cold evil murdering motherfucker" the Canadian government was. With all the other S.C.E.M.M*F's out there most people want their own government to be the most capable (if not the most evil) S.C.E.M.M*F
I just received this information below from Itzah Hokes, the reknowned
internet watchdog and stormdoor salesman. Please read and send to everybody
in the world. Encourage any and all to notify their senators and
congressmen about their opposition to this measure or just to have a nice
chat. This is urgent. The right to bear boxcutters is as American as
whine, cheese, the Widettes, the Coneheads, and sauerkraut.
Gotta Paypurcutt, the author, is a syndicated communist and president of
"Washington is for Liberals", a metropolitan DC thinkless tank.
National Boxcutters Association Moves to Preserve Constitutional Rights
By Gotta Paypurcutt
(UPS)
Cardboard, IL -- The National Boxcutters Association (NBA - not to be
confused with the National Balloon Association) moved today to head off
Congressional action requiring the registration of boxcutting tools,
primarily easily concealed boxcutters. These have come to be known as
"Tuesday Morning Specials". (The larger version of the boxcutter, the
hunting boxcutter or sports blade, is not included in the current
legislation.) The bill requires a 15 day waiting period for purchasers to
allow adequate time for background checks. Law-abiding citizens, NBA
members, and U-BOX (Union of Box Opening X-perts) members, deemed by the
ACLU and People for the American Way as a menace to society, will be
prohibited from purchasing such weapons whereas known criminals such as
black market traffickers, Osama bin Laden, Yassir Arafat, Mike Tyson, and
Geraldo Rivera will be allowed to receive and register their boxcutters.
Those of latter group, who already possess boxcutters, are fully expected to
acknowledge ownership and fall in line with this law. ACLU lawyer, I. B.
Libble, states, "Criminals are people, too, and have rights but we're not
sure about the rest."
Proponents of the measure state that at least one person is injured, maimed
or killed each year using boxcutters. In the hands of children, boxcutters
render coffee tables as "dead meat". "People have even been known to cut
cardboard with these things! RIGHT IN THE HOME! even when directions say
'Don't try this at home'", says Mr. Libble. Further, he says, "It is
obvious that boxcutters kill people. People don't kill people. That's why
they have to be registered." He cites a case in Toledo where a Stanley
boxcutter (not to be confused with Deck & Blacker, Betty Crocker, or Chevy
Like-a-Truck) is on trial for illicitly slicing a hotdog. Proponents also
claim that the registration of boxcutters makes them less lethal. A person
killed with a registered boxcutter is less seriously killed than one
without. They say that studies show that people wielding registered
boxcutters are more benign.
The president of U-BOX, William "Will" U. Slice, is outraged. He says
returning to the old fashioned method of opening boxes, that is, using small
handguns, is totally unacceptable. It requires too many bullets and if
anything inside is alive, it will be killed for sure. He claims that too
many of his workers were getting wounded with the previous method. The
simple act of performing one's job was too dangerous. The advent of the
boxcutter revolutionized opening boxes, he said. Workers say that the loss
of appendages, the lacerations, the blood-letting, and peeling oranges with
boxcutters is much preferable to the incessant, secondary bullet wounds from
the guns, not to mention the deafening sound of constant weapons fire.
The NBA claims that the constitutional right to bear boxcutters would be
violated by this law. NBA says that the founding fathers, and several
founding mothers carrying and nursing their founding children, intended to
put this provision to into the founding Constitution. They also cite these
founding persons who, following the Boston Tea Party, realized that
cardboard would eventually be developed and, further, would require some
quick method for opening, namely via the boxcutter. Reknowned historian
George Washington Jefferson Jones-Smith-Coopersmith Jackson claims that if
the masquerading Indians (AKA masquerading Native Western Hemisphere-ers)
had had a means to open the boxes in the first place, perhaps the tea party
would have been a more conservative celebration. He states that the right
to bear boxcutters allows the average citizen the right to arm
himself/herself against massive onslaughts of cardboard, initiated by an
oppressive, over-powerful, central government.
The NBA is a very strong lobby, claiming to have a membership in excess of
85 billion members, representing the inhabitants of several galaxies as well
as philatelists, local PTA members, Gus the mechanic, and Capt. James Kirk
along with the entire crew of Starship Enterprise going where no man has
gone before.
I don't know exactly what he expected. There are 100 senators for 285 MILLION people, in the worst case scenario the two senators from California represent about 34 million people alone. Each representative in the house represents between 600,000 and 700,000 people. On top of the coorespondence that someone representing that huge number of people would normally generate they are also the recipients of continuous organised spamming campaigns hoping to influence them through the sheer volume of spam. The idea being that if congresscritter Alice gets 5,000 letters supporting position X and 6,000 letters supporting position Y Alice will asume that the correct position is Y because it represents the 'will of the people' and not that the supporters of Y had a larger copy machine than the supporters of X.
Email has made the problem much more difficult, now it is so easy that it can be done on impulse. Constituent Bob hears Rush Limbaugh say something about Congresscritter Alice so Bob fires off an email he never would have cared enough about to send as a snailmail. All of the lobbying groups send out email alerts to their 'grass roots' telling them to just cut and past a message into an email to congresscritter Alice - it's so easy that almost every 'concerned' member on the list does so.
So congresscritter Alice with tens of thousands of emails, phone calls and letters to answer every week has not written back to you a personal reply addressing your individual concerns. And she even has the NERVE to think that a hand written note because it was more difficult to send might have meant more to the sender.
They seem to think that if you take the time to write it down and send it, it must be important.
Oh Please, I don't particularly like the congresscritters but I can't fault them for this. They responded to his email in the way it deserved - a quick stock response to a quick stock complaint. They are so buried in crap generated by letter-writing campaigns that the best they can do is send a generic meaningless response and tally the letters pro and con. And they know that the tally doesn't reflect the opinions of their constituents but reflects which group had the larger copy machine. Email is so easy to to fire off it makes is 100 times worse than the old form-letter writing campaigns. These guys are buried in a form of inverted spam where instead of one guy sending out meaningless email to a million people a few hundred (or maybe thousand) people send millions of emails to one guy.
Yes, if it IS important enough TO YOU to write down with your own hand, and even more importantly, with your own thoughts, to take the trouble to find a stamp and an envelope and walk down to the mailbox your congressman will pay more attention to it. "But, that isn't as convenient, it takes more time and trouble, if it's that hard I won't even bother!" - Exactly the point.
The disgrace of the Spanish American war was that the 'Attack' or 'provocation' never happened. The evidence which Pulitzer knew at the time was that the Maine sank because of a boiler explosion not a Spanish torpedo or mine.
To be fair to the media of today the Twin Towers and tbe Pentagon REALLY WERE ATTACKED!!! There really ARE bastards to get this time. We DO have to get them. America SHOULD NOT stand for this. And frankly I think "Rally 'round the flag - America, America God shed His grace on thee.." and "the same shit" as you put it are perfectly fine and appropriate sentiments to express when your country REALLY has been attacked.
Unless you have some proof that the images we saw on TV are a hollywood special effect and that the smoke and stench in lower Manhattan today is really a complex media hoax there is absolutely NO comparison to the Spanish-American war.
This "rah-rah the net is the best" article is a little silly. Each media has different strengths.
The net was almost completely useless covering this story as it broke - TV does that best, aside from actually being there there is no competing with the sense of awful reality you get from watching events like these live on CNN. Radio can also be good at covering an event live but has the advantage or disadvantage of not having the same emotional impact.
TV is lousy at after the fact in-depth reporting and analysis - this is what print media (newspapers, news magazines, opinion journals) is really good at. Print reporters have more time to think about what they write, editors and fact checkers have more time to get the story right. And print is itself just a better way of conveying more complex data or concepts. Because print is relatively expensive there is a high bar to entry that (to a degree) weeds out the bizarre and uninformed opinions you see rife on the net.
The net is good at two things: getting a wild diversity of opinion and analysis, and getting more in-depth information directly from the a wide range of sources. Of course in all of that wide diversity and sea of raw information it can be very hard to judge the reliablity of the information. You can turn to 'trusted' internet news sources but the vast majority of those are trusted precisely because they are NOT really internet sources but repurposed print or broadcast sources. They are trusted because of their offline counterpart with it's high cost of operation and the resulting financial necessity to maintain it's reputation for accuracy.
I totally agree with this. I think that given the threat many of these regulatory changes about wiretaps are not unreasonable. The threat they pose to our civil liberties is that they will outlive the threat they are meant to address.
The rules regulating how, when and where the government can monitor your actions are designed with the primary purpose of preventing abuse by government - the efficiency and efficacy of law enforcment and intelligence agencies is a secondary concern. During a war it is reasonable that the priorities switch since the more serious threat to our rights is the actions of our enemy not government abuse. Many laws already recognise that switch in priorities during times of war. Even the consititution in a clause specifically related to privacy rights recognises this principle (Amendment 3 - the right to not have soldiers quartered in your you - DURING TIMES OF PEACE)
Just for the sake of the accountability that comes with clear definitions and clear constitutional authority the congress should declare war on Al Queada and the Taliban. The difficult part is that there is no particular country to force the surrender of so the declaration of war would need to contain some terms defining when the war ends. Maybe the terms of victory would be the arrest or death of Al Queada's identifiable leaders and evidence of its effective dissolution (to Congresses satisfaction).
he didn't feel obligated to stop... Israeli aggression (against Palistinians), or other recent conflicts.
I'll adress this first since it would be hard to imagine a comment that is MORE ignorant of Buchanan's views - Do you live under a rock?. While Buchanan would oppose U.S. military action against Isreal he does support a complete end to all military and economic aid to Isreal. And in the case of Isreal it is not only because of his isolationist political philosophy but because he is strongly critical of Isreal's treatment of Palestinians and Lebanon. The main reason Buchanan is considered anti-semetic is because of his vigorous and strongly worded opposition to Isreali policy. He has said something to the effect (can't find the exact quote right now) that Isreal should stop complaining about Hitler if they are going to adopt his methods. I doubt you could find a more stinging condemnation. It was the Isreali invasion of Lebanon that seems to have most directly spurred Buchanan to his present isolationist positions.
Wrong. Buchanan has consistently supported military actions against China.
I've never heard him voice support for military action against China. Could you cite where he said this? I'm not saying your wrong though it is out of sync with all of his foreign policy positions that I have ever read. He speaks very strongly against U.S. companies that have given China technology that helps them build ICBM's and that he views China as a hostile regime that is dangerous not only to our 'interests' but to us. That is hardly "support for military action against China."
In general the Buchananite position is that American defense policy should be to defend America and it's citizens not to defend vaguely defined 'interests' or to police the world. Because of this he would focus American foreign and defense policy on nations that threaten us here at home. China is at least potentially a direct threat to the U.S. therefore the Buchananite position is that we should be actively concerned about what China does. Serbia and Isreal are not a direct threat to us nor are they ever likely to be no matter how aggresive they become therefore while we may voice our condemnation for their actions it is not our right or responsiblity to do anything more.
Just to set the record straight I am not Buchananite in my own views though I would agree that our military should be used for our defense and not to arrogantly fine tune the world to our liking. I only mentioned the 'Paleo-conservative' Buchananites as a group that where generally consistant and intellectually honest in their criticism of U.S. policy as opposed to the inconsistant Anti-americanism that finds fault in American policy no matter what that policy is.
Tke a look; not all the same people are complaining about everything, different people are complaining about different things.
Actually that is just the problem! Way too often THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE. The only common thread is that America must be at fault no matter what the policy. Tell me in all seriousness that if America had decided to cease supporting Israeal prior to the 11th tthat the very same people wouldn't be criticising that as anti-semetic. Just look at what these exact same people say about Pat Buchanan.
A few of the critics are consistant and are to be commended for it. The Pat Buchanan paleo-conservatives (sounds like your position) are also consistant in their isolationist neutral stance. The REAL pacifists have a consistant position - that no state of affairs is worth killing to change. But most of the people pretending to be pacifists are no such thing, their anti-war rhetoric quickly turns to merely anti-American rhetoric justifying the actions of any enemy of America. So are they anti-American because of a prior anti-war philosophy or are they really anti-war because of a prior anti-American philosophy.
Lets see how we get that count of *MILLIONS* killed by the U.S.
: South Africa
U.S. Killing people method 1: Something bad happens in the world and America does absolutely nothing.
Example: Bosnia & Somalia before the U.S. got involved, Rwanda, etc.
Verdict: "The U.S. should have done something" all of those deaths are the U.S.A's fault.
U.S. Killing people method 2: Something bad happens in the world we try diplomacy, and moral suassion alone but otherwise continuing relationship with nasty people
Example
Verdict: "U.S. should do more, U.S. complicit in the crimes, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. Killing people method 3: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with economic sanctions.
Example: Iraq, Cuba
Verdict: Innocent people suffer and even die as a result of the economic hardship. The U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 4: Something bad happens in the world and the U.S. supports one side or the other in the conflict.
Example: Afghanistan (last time)
Verdict: U.S. indirectly killing people, also U.S.A. is forever solely responsible for all acts by their one time allies. The U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 5: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with limited military force.
Example: Somalia, Bosnia after U.S. gets involved
Verdict: People killed directly by the U.S. military, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
U.S. killing people method 6: Something bad happens in the world and we respond with overwhelming military force.
Example: Iraq, Afghanistan (Germany, Japan, Italy etc.)
Verdict: Lots of people killed directly by the U.S. military, the U.S.A. is solely responsible for all the misery and deaths.
Final Verdict: Only the U.S.A. is a moral agent capable of evil. All other nations only respond to "root causes" and the USA's actions, their response is always the sole responsibility of the U.S.A. All misery and death around the world is always the result directly or indirectly of the either the U.S.A.'s actions or inactions.
If the U.S. signs a treaty (WTO etc.) they are responsible for the evils of 'globalism' and 'imperialism' If the U.S. does NOT sign a treaty (Kyoto accord etc.) they are guilty of 'isolationism' or 'unilateralism.' If the U.S. acts where their interests are involved (Iraq, Afghanistan) they are selfish. If the U.S. acts where their interests are not involved (Bosnia, Somolia) they are arrogantly and imperialisticly meddling with the affairs of others. It is all a plot to sell American made weapons which is why whenever you see people killing each other all around the world they are always using M-16's not Kalishnikovs, Lobing Nike missles and never Scuds, Frogs or Silkworm missles, etc. etc. etc.
We all know that the world was a far better place before the U.S.A. invented hate and death.
I think this war may prove to be much more costly and long that any of the talking head may say
Thats interesting because I keep hearing the talking heads talk about the experience and ferocity of the Afghans as an enemy and predicting a meat grinder if we go in there. A ground war in Afghanistan will cause a lot of casualties compared to other recent wars (aside from Vietnam) but we are not in for the kind of hell that the Soviets got themselves into for a several reasons.
1) The Soviets were trying to subjigate the entire nation, we just want to topple the Taliban and don't care all that much who replaces them as long as they crack down on terrorists, or at least don't stop us from doing so.
2) The Soviets were facing an enemy with a massive defense budget (provided by the U.S.) and some very high tech weaponry. We are facing an enemy with aging or hand made Kalishnikovs and a few 20 year old tanks & missles that were low tech when they were designed in the early 1960's
3) We have better allies and more unpopular enemies than the Soviets. Even if all of the Pashtoon end up supporting the Taliban (which may or may not happen) it is fair to say that all the Uzbecks, Tajicks, Turkomens and Shi'a Iranians that make up the remaining 60% of the population won't - they will either support us or remain neutral but they won't support the Taliban. If we play our cards right with the exiled Pashtun king many Pashtun may end up opposing the Taliban as well.
A war with less casualties? Perhaps, but probably only ever on our side.
Actually I don't think this is true at all. Civilian casualties are inevitable in any war but the high tech weapons we have can minimise them. A GPS or laser guided bomb is not foolproof, on rare occasions it might hit the building next door to the target killing a dozen civilians accidentally and leaving the real target to be hit the following night. But the low tech alternative would be to *INTENTIONALLY* flatten the entire neighboorhood killing hundreds or even thousands of civilians.
Even enemy military casualties are probably lower than in a lower tech war, with superior air power, battlefield intelligence etc. we can at least attempt to disable the enemy by destroying their command & control, communications & supply lines without slaughtering the entire mass of them. Even in those cases where we do inflict overwhelming slaughter on hostile armies the total casualties are far smaller than if we where evenly matched and had to win a long slow war of attrition.
This is NOT to say that all of this high tech will always be helpful against terrorists. It will help us to win decisively against the Taliban which is a necessary precondition to destroying Al Queaeda (sp?) Our overwhelming military superiority derived from superior technology will also intimidate other nations that would otherwise support terrorists or openly oppose our actions (Like Pakistan, the government there has very good reasons to NOT support us, apparently we gave the even BETTER reasons TO support us.) Technology will also make possible pinpoint raids against terrorist assets like training camps and the dens of terrorist commanders - if we can find them. Unfortunately our superior tech will not prevent terrorist attacks the way it prevents conventional attacks, which is why terrorists choose terrorism as a tactic in the first place. But I would imagine having access to high tech tools helps even though it is not decisive in this particular form of conflict.
I think it's pretty obvious he is talking about the 5,000 or so civilians killed at the WTC.
If you support the ATA then you are {DELETED} {polite}mistaken{/polite}.
If you read the actual text of my post and the text of my other posts on this topic you will be happy to note that I do not support the ATA as written so I guess that means I am not a {DELETED}.
I am however disagreeing with those whose critisism is not based on the legitimate argument that the ATA goes too far or is open to abuse because of a loose or broad definition of "cyber-terrorism." but think that computer crime is not crime or that it must be a minor crime because it is easy for them to do.
There is a real potential for cyber-sabotage of a very serious nature that existing laws do not adequately address. The "cyber-terrorism" portion of the ATA is a deeply flawed attempt to address that issue. The authors of the ATA don't intend for your petty theft to be considered terrorism, unfortunately the law IS written so broadly and leaves so much latitude to prosecutors and juries that by the letter of the law it could. The answer to the real problems with this bill is not to descend into the fever-swamps of paranoid conspiracy theory and hysterical accusations against the authors of the bill. We should rationally present the case for better definitions of what computer crimes really do merit such stiff penalties rather than deny that such serious crimes exist.
TechWorld - Defacement: You get into someone's website and move stuff around.
RealWorld - Defacement: You walk into someone's store and change the window display around because it wasn't locked. You mean: RealWorld - Defacement: You break into someone's stores and change the window displays around because you are a locksmith and the lock on the door was one an expert could easily pick. And to keep the analogy going you do this for every store in the chain however big it is.
Of course most defacements of web sites don't usually just move the existing graphics & text around so a more accurate analogy for what commonly happens is:
Techworld - Defacement: Replace index.html with some H4X0r boasting or political screed
Realworld - Defacement: Break in (as before) & block the enterance to every store in a nation wide chain costing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales. Furthermore to the customers it appears that you may have (they don't know) also gotten into the stores files and stolen their credit card numbers and that you are capable (and likely) to do so again resulting in millions of dollars in lost sales in the future and the possible bankruptcy of the business, lost jobs etc.
You may think the last part of the "realworld" example is overstating the case but I have seen exactly that happen to a succesful & even modestly profitable ecommerce site that had it's home page defaced. Even though the ecommerce portion of the site was secure and no sensitive information was comprimised the loss of confidence on the part of affiliated businesses and previously loyal customers killed the business. You can say it was their own fault for not having tight enough security and there is *some* merit to that. But not taking, or even knowing you should take, steps to avoid being a victim does not make you the criminal.
Why then should any computer crimes be considered terrorism unless they are actually causing serious death and destruction with the intent of causing terror in the US?
Actually I agree that they should not. There should be language in the law that limits the bills applicablity to cases where the computer attack is severe and intended to cause death. Attacks that don't intend to cause death but serious social or economic damage should be defined as sabotage and retain reasonably stiff penalties. And lesser attacks with proportionate penalties down to the nuisance graffiti hacker
What I react to on this board are many who understate the potential seriousness of actual computer crimes. Those that say foolish things like equating cracking into computers with jaywalking. It is more equivalent to breaking and enterring and the real crimes are what you choose to do when you are in there - whether it is theft, fraud, murder or disruption and murder on a scale to be plausibly considered "terrorism". It is wrong for the ATA to give prosecutors the latititude to define every computer related crime up to the level of "terrorism" but it is just as silly to counter that they are all really equivalent to "jaywalking" the criminal potential runs the whole spectrum.
Aside from which, the examples in the security focus article I referenced were of people wreaking social or financial "havoc," which is NOT terrorism. Cyber-terrorism is not a valid word, and I am attacking its validity.
I agree with you about the definitions being to broad. The definitions in the law should protect people that really are commiting misdeamenors from overzealous prosecution. Wreaking financial & social havoc should not be defined as terrorism but depending on the severity of the attack as sabatoge and should retain the stiff penalties. If the perpetrator is the agent of a foreign power it is potentially an act of war, if a state of war exists and the perpetrator is a citizen it should also be considered treason.
computers are just a bunch of people typing on keyboards. There is a gee-whiz mentality that people get carried away with and they start thinking the computer somehow runs the world... I am unaware of any application of computer usage that can lead to death
You may only use your computer to play Quake, surf for pr0n, and chat with your friends on IM, but breaking into your computer is not what this law is aimed at. Indeed if someone broke into your computer it would not be a serious crime. It may be a net benefit for society since not having your glorified entertainment system might lead to more informed opinions. Computers don't "run the world" but they do run alot of important things in the world. Things that if they are comprimised can have very serious consequences - yes, even death.
Terrorism is not merely the act of killing people it has a broader goal - to cause significant societal disruption in order to achieve a political goal. The attacks on 9/11 were not aimed at random people but at particular economic and military targets. Perhaps terrorism is not the right word but a successful attack on the computer systems that run our financial markets, the power grid, our communications, businesses, government etc. would achieve many of the goals of the Al Quaeda. There is room for abuse in the loose definitions of the ATA which should be fixed but the risks it is attempting to address are very real and are serious crimes.
Yes, but jaywalking could never be considered terrorism while (some) hacking could.
Computers aren't just toys for nerds, they are also "stuff that matters". A lot of very important things in this world are run by computers and a truly malicious hacker can do *real* damage. Things like attacking the air traffic control system or the financial markets are serious attacks. A particularly nasty virus can do significant real world damage. Even the nuisance "graffiti" type of defacement can ruin a business in ways offline graffiti cannot compare to. I can't imagine an instance where mere website defacement could credibly be considered terrorism but it is easy to see instances where it should properly be considered a felony.
All that being said the definitions in the ATA are loose and that opens the door to potential abuse by overzealous prosecutors. It is a serious flaw in the law but I don't think hysterical alarmism, abusive rhetoric about the totalitarian intent of the bills authors, or downplaying the seriousness of some "computer crime" is the best way to fix it.
Privacy is *not* the primary concern of most people protesting these bills. Accountability is.
Perhaps not, but it is the primary concern of many on this board. My point was not that in light of this crisis we should lend knee-jerk support to any expansion of police power. But by the same token we should not have a knee-jerk opposition to every expansion of police powers. As I said I am playing the devils advocate - I would have posted something quite different if the prevailing wisdom of this board tilted in the other direction.
FISA also allows for trials and deportation hearings involving secret evidence
Thanks for the information. This is perhaps a good case in point of why hysterical accusations and a simple assumption of bad faith serves no ones interests. The rights of the accused to confront his accuser is constitutionally protected and an important bulwark protecting everyones liberty from arbitrary government abuses. But there is also a legitimate government interest in keeping national security secrets and protecting intelligence assets. We are on the horns of a dilemma where there are conflicting *legitimate* interests, any proposed solution must address both concerns. However the rhetoric of many civil libertarians just assumes the bad faith of the government and the illegitimacy of it's concerns
I'm not wise enough to cut the gordian knot of valid but conflicting interests but I'll give it a shot.
1) The government exists to actively protect the rights of it's citizens, it must also respect the human rights of non-citizens. A non-citizen should not be detained (imprisoned) indefinitely without being convicted of a crime. Though just like anyone else accused (indicted) of a crime they may be detained awaiting trial.
2) However, residency in the US is NOT a fundamental human right we are bound to respect. Immigrants are here at the pleasure of the government - deporting them back to the country from which they came is NOT in any way a violation of their rights. If the government has evidence that must remain secret that a foreign national is a threat to the rights of citizens it may have to forgoe the pleasure of convicting and punishing that individual. But there is no reason why the executive branch on it's own authority could not summarily deport that individual or give him a choice between immediate deportation and continued detention. We have chosen to have a mechanism for appealling deportation but that is an act of charity not an obligation.
Dealing with a U.S. citizen that we have evidence against that must remain secret is a much more difficult issue since they DO have a right to residency in the U.S. There is no way we can remove them as a threat without either violating their rights or convicting them of a crime - which would require the revealing secrets.
Here's a thought experiment rather than as a serious proposal - There is no reason why all players (aside from the defendant obviously) couldn't be people with security clearance, so the defendant himself is the only significant security risk. Perhaps in truly spectactular instances the intelligence agency (FBI, CIA whoever) could present a judge with secret evidence and the reasons why it must remain secret. The judge would evaluate the sensitivity of the information, it's necessity to the case, and the severity of the threat posed by the defendant if guilty. If high standards are met in each instance the Judge could allow testimony that the jury and the defending counsel could hear but the defendant himself (being the only person without clearance) would be barred from hearing.
There are obvious objections: such a scheme of confronting evidence by proxy is constitutionally problematic; there is a potential conflict of interest for the defense lawyer who must both represent his clients interests but in this case would also be required to have an interest in the secrecy of information relevant to his clients case, and finally the sheer number of players involved may make the actual security of the information a practical impossiblity. Perhaps the procedure could be changed to address or mitigate against these objections - just musing about the issue.
I understand and am sympathetic to the concerns about losing freedoms but I can't help but to notice that most of the people on this board can't seem to imagine ANY legitimate intrusion by government on someones privacy. Such an extreme position is untenable (not to mention silly) since there are obviously legitimate government intrusions into peoples privacy. The debate should focus around the checks and balances on legitimate government intrusions to guard against abuse.
Most of the provisions of the terrorism bill certainly expand the federal governments powers of surviellance but that surveillance still requires a warrant and probable cause. It seems primarily a move towards more efficiency rather than a jettisoning of constitutional protections (admittadly inefficiency may be a practical protection from abuse of our rights by government but it is also a loss of protection by government from the abuse of our rights by agents other than government - like criminals, terrorists & foreign governments). I'm not sure what you mean by the use of secret evidence. Could you clarify? I looked over the bill but IANAL and legalesse makes my brain hurt.
I'm much more concerned about indefinite detention of foreign nationals. Our government does not have the same obligation to foreigners as it has to citizens but foreigners still have human rights we are should respect one of which is liberty. There is however no basic human right to reside in the U.S. - perhaps a suspect who is a non-citizen should be given the choice of continued detention during the investigation or deportation.