I practically died with joy the first time I got to use a pre-check lane. Kept my coat, shoes, and belt on, didn't take shit out of my bags. It almost justified the 8 hours it took me to get a global entry card (drive to boston, wait, talk to beurocrats about how I'm not a threat, drive back to vermont).
This is how far we've come. It is now refreshing when we are treated like respectable human beings. And you only had to jump through 8 hours of hoops!
Conspiracy theorists' version: it's all part of the plan. Tank the economy so that citizens have to work their fingers to the bone just to survive and they'll be too busy and tired to care.
I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but there are members of the Elite who think this way.
See, this is the exact sort of insanity I'm talking about. Life in America is good by any sane standard. Only a literal crazy person could think that mass murder and decades of violence would be an improvement. But on Slashdot, this sort of drivel gets modded +5, Insightful.
Is it any wonder that most Americans seem apathetic by comparison?
He's right about this part though:
Despite rampant criminality and indiscipline in the administration, the DoJ is deliberately remaining toothless on the matter, the judiciary is issuing no orders to rectify its oversight being ignored, and the legislators are largely following sponsor^Wparty lines instead of constituent wishes when drafting and voting on legislation.
A fish rots from the head, and by this time most people know that something is rotten in the state of DC. Faith in public institutions is at an all time low. Income inequality is at an all time high. This is not good, and indicates a decline. Sure, life in America is still pretty good for a lot of people. But how long can that last when everyone sees powerful criminals facing no punishment and in some cases being rewarded?
I don't want a revolution, because such things are messy and violent and hard to predict. But the more people see that the game is rigged and justice is not done if you know the right people, the less faith I have that the status quo will remain peaceful.
but after Al Qaeda showed everyone how infiltration can really be done,
Except that isn't true.
Every one of the 9/11 terrorists fit a profile that should have sounded alarm bells at the border.
Finding guys like that is easy if you are looking and it doesn't require reading every grandmothers email, or recording
every phone call or feeling every crotch.
Russian operatives were far more successful, some escaping detection for multiple decades.
It's actually even worse than that. The CIA was tracking two of the hijackers before the attacks and just didn't tell anyone. Other hijackers were living with an FBI informant. When the 9/11 commission asked to speak with that informant, the FBI hid him away and did not let him appear. Further, 15 of the hijackers were granted visas in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with help from the CIA.
Of course, little of this has made its way into the public consciousness. See my sig for more insight. At any rate, it seems clear that the government did not need more surveillance powers to be aware of the presence of the hijackers in the US.
Hypothetical: The police need a warrant to search your house, but it's OK to have 24/7 surveillance of the inside of your house because you purchased a Kinect, and Microsoft decided to send the stream to the authorities. Why would anyone be upset over that?
Is this a joke? Why would anyone be upset? So, if I want to play a video game I have to let the supplier of that game give all of the information they can collect on me to the authorities? Now my XBox can bear witness against me?
Welcome to the modern world, where you have to make a deal with the Devil just to participate.
But they lie to Congress and are not punished for it. So they keep lying. Members of the intelligence committees have said as much. How do we deal with that?
That when a government department actually does its job, and does it well, everyone seems upset. I want my intelligence community to be competent, get all the information we need to protect our interests, and do it well, and the NSA has done this and then some. Their only mistake was perhaps a lack of internal security. Instead of criticism, they should be commended for a job well done.
The world is not a safe place, and information is power. I want the good guys to win. I'm a Canadian, but I support the NSA, and the job it does to protect American (and indirectly) Canadian interests.
How do you know the USA or NSA are the "good guys"? Because they told you they were? Because the news portrays them that way? Would you feel the same way if these powers were used to blackmail those in public office, or to harass legitimate political protesters? What if they were used for industrial espionage, giving American companies an advantage over Canadian companies? It's a secret program, so no one really knows the extent of what it is used for. Do you just trust that the people in charge are honest and that their values line up with yours?
The NSA may need better oversight for some of its operations, but it plays a vital role in the defense of the US and its allies. It both should and will continue to exist. Any other outcome would be folly of the highest order.
Excellent. Can we now talk about how we conduct oversight on a secret organization that seems to be able to lie about its activities without consequence?
I too have been sick of the fear mongering propaganda complex that has overtaken our society in the past several years.
See, you have to start out with something that will leave the target with the impression you are on their side.
However, there is an enormous gulf between McCarthyism and the terrorist threat. No commies blew up airplanes and buildings. No commies went on shooting sprees in malls. No commies set off car bombs in crowded markets. The pink menace wasn't really very menacing at all. It was a false accusation.
Then you shift to a point that seems reasonable enough; that the target will probably agree with, since you only shifted the focus a little. It's cool since we all agree that the propaganda has gotten really thick (it gets thicker with posts like this one). So we're still on the same team.
Terrorists are real. Terrorist individuals and organizations commit atrocities on a near daily basis and regularly and publicly vow to kill large segments of the population or entire nations. Terrorism, unlike communism in the U.S., is a real threat that must not be ignored. But, that doesn't excuse these governments from using it as the go-to excuse for justifying every infringement of rights and nefarious activity, from banning nail clippers to the brave new world.
Then you deliver the real payload. Yeah, the government goes overboard, but we really do need them to keep us safe. Terrorism is real after all (which no one is disagreeing with) and it must not be ignored. On balance, it's a good thing we have our intelligence agencies to watch out for us. You've earned it today, AC.
I see that occurring on Slashdot, along with various claims of "everyone's a terrorist" for some reason or another generally involving disingenuous rhetoric. As a rule I don't see that from government. They seem to be a bit clearer about its meaning.
You mean like when they consider the Occupy movement, political protests and environmental groups terrorism?
While Internet access is free in coffee shops, some public transit, and even campsites, as of 2009 15% of hotels charged guests for the privilege of checking their e-mail and catching up on watching cat videos. Oddly, budget and midscale hotel chains are more likely to offer free Wi-Fi, while luxurious hotels — already costing the traveler more — regularly ding us.
It's all about charging what you think you can get. Budget hotels house budget travelers who likely won't pay extra for WiFi. So free WiFi serves to differentiate you from you competitors, or at least keeps you competitive. Higher end hotels serve a wealthier clientele who won't notice $30 tacked on to a $1000 bill, or business travelers who will just pay it and expense it.
There's a reason these programs are kept secret (along with their budgets) from the general "civilian" government. It's because they're huge money pits. They're pork. Free money for security services contractors. It's not some boogeyman new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
It's a much, much, older and familiar monster. Greed.
Funny, no one has suggested a new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
While all this surveillance is partly about money, that's not the whole of it (as I suspect you already know). Knowledge is power. These surveillance powers have already been used to conduct industrial espionage, intimidate political activists, blackmail public office holders and to provide secret evidence in criminal cases (mostly related to the drug war). All of these things are beneficial to the powers that be. In short these powers are used by the existing power structures to increase and enhance their power. This is why they are kept secret even from the people supposedly providing oversight.
I agree that this is a huge money train for all kinds of defense and other government contractors, and their stakeholders in office. But it's also about increasing power. So it might not be a "new world order shadow conspiracy", but the result is not too far off from that.
It makes no difference. Success or failure, it means the US is going back to the core principles of justice, obtain evidence, capture and put on trial and present the evidence, thus proving the validity of laws.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force designated the perpetrators of 9/11 at the enemy. The "War against Terror" is symbolic language. There really shouldn't be any confusion on the point unless someone wants to be confused.
So, was Abu Anas al Libi one of the perpetrators of 9/11? The article says he is wanted for the 1998 embassy bombings. And how can you say that the War on Terror is symbolic language and then turn around and talk about how all of the US actions are legal because we are at war and the laws of war apply? Are we actually at war or is it symbolic language? Or is it the War on Al Qaeda? Does the Geneva Convention allow declaring war on a loose affiliation of religious fighters? Can we declare war on any group we want to, like the EFF or the NRA or the Boy Scouts and then have the laws of war apply?
To qualify for all the rights, privileges, and protections of the Geneva Convention, such as preparing your own food and not be subject to interrogation, you have to conduct war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Al Qaida doesn't do that.
Is the US War on Terror a war in accordance with the Geneva Convention?
The objective should be to rid us of wage slavery altogether. Let the robots do all the work.
The economic system part is easy to fix and will be a form of communism. The robots don't need greed to do their work efficiently.
I am also 100% down for eliminating wage slavery. I think that even if robots did most of the work there would still be a need for human labor, even if just at the managerial/planning level. I will admit though I have a hard time envisioning a complex society and economy that doesn't require some medium of exchange. Unless we went with a resource based economy like that described by the Zeitgeist movement. I don't agree with everything they envision, but I find the idea intriguing.
Can we have an adult in this conversation at some point? Do you not even feel shame in typing that out? Christ we doomed as a culture thanks to this pathetic GYPSY generation.
I assume you would be filling the role of adult here?
Why can't tech make having to go to work obsolete?
Why can't we make all the tech stuff, like robots, do all the dumb work for all of us so we can spend the rest of our lives playing, or do the kind of work we really enjoy? Isn't this the frigging thing we should strive to achieve in society? Not create more jobs, but less?
I very much agree with this. We should all be working less. However, American capitalism isn't set up that way. Capital always wants Labor to work more for less money. Everyone would have to be paid more (or the same) for doing less work.
I'm certainly down for that, but we'd probably need a law restricting the work week to 20 hours or something like that.
The unwillingness to prosecute businesses who employ illegal aliens has probably cost more Americans jobs in the last 20 years than any technological advance.
For most people it is really not an issue, you only have to worry when you have something to hide. It's funny how people whine and freak out about privacy but they don't really have a point, only the assumed guilty act like they must hid what they do. People who know they aren't breaking the law and don't intend to aren't afraid of just letting people see what they do on a daily basis.
I thought this board had moved past this argument. How do you know you're not doing something illegal? Do you have a working knowledge of every law on the books for your state or local municipality, let alone the federal government? Are you under the impression that all laws are reasonable and adhere to your common sense? Is your idea of "wrong" the same as everyone employed at the NSA? Are you aware that these surveillance powers are being used against people who have not broken a law but are critical of, or inconvenient to the US government? Finally, how do you know that guy you cut off in traffic doesn't have a cousin at the NSA who now has you license number and is digging into your life? Are you sure your life will look squeaky clean to some faceless bureaucrat with an ax to grind?
I'm aware of that, but generally the worst that happens if they don't like you is that they'll stop you from legally entering the US. You have to be being a douchebag on a pretty epic scale before they start being able to justify rendition.
ORLY?
Do you think Khalid El-Masri and Maher Arar would agree? Or do you not have a Muslim sounding name, so you figure you'll be fine? First they came for the Muslims, something something...
Slashdot Mirror
I practically died with joy the first time I got to use a pre-check lane. Kept my coat, shoes, and belt on, didn't take shit out of my bags. It almost justified the 8 hours it took me to get a global entry card (drive to boston, wait, talk to beurocrats about how I'm not a threat, drive back to vermont).
This is how far we've come. It is now refreshing when we are treated like respectable human beings. And you only had to jump through 8 hours of hoops!
Conspiracy theorists' version: it's all part of the plan. Tank the economy so that citizens have to work their fingers to the bone just to survive and they'll be too busy and tired to care.
I'm not sure if you're kidding or not, but there are members of the Elite who think this way.
You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that.
LOL! Well done.
See, this is the exact sort of insanity I'm talking about. Life in America is good by any sane standard. Only a literal crazy person could think that mass murder and decades of violence would be an improvement. But on Slashdot, this sort of drivel gets modded +5, Insightful.
Is it any wonder that most Americans seem apathetic by comparison?
He's right about this part though:
Despite rampant criminality and indiscipline in the administration, the DoJ is deliberately remaining toothless on the matter, the judiciary is issuing no orders to rectify its oversight being ignored, and the legislators are largely following sponsor^Wparty lines instead of constituent wishes when drafting and voting on legislation.
A fish rots from the head, and by this time most people know that something is rotten in the state of DC. Faith in public institutions is at an all time low. Income inequality is at an all time high. This is not good, and indicates a decline. Sure, life in America is still pretty good for a lot of people. But how long can that last when everyone sees powerful criminals facing no punishment and in some cases being rewarded?
I don't want a revolution, because such things are messy and violent and hard to predict. But the more people see that the game is rigged and justice is not done if you know the right people, the less faith I have that the status quo will remain peaceful.
but after Al Qaeda showed everyone how infiltration can really be done,
Except that isn't true.
Every one of the 9/11 terrorists fit a profile that should have sounded alarm bells at the border. Finding guys like that is easy if you are looking and it doesn't require reading every grandmothers email, or recording every phone call or feeling every crotch.
Russian operatives were far more successful, some escaping detection for multiple decades.
It's actually even worse than that. The CIA was tracking two of the hijackers before the attacks and just didn't tell anyone. Other hijackers were living with an FBI informant. When the 9/11 commission asked to speak with that informant, the FBI hid him away and did not let him appear. Further, 15 of the hijackers were granted visas in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with help from the CIA.
Of course, little of this has made its way into the public consciousness. See my sig for more insight. At any rate, it seems clear that the government did not need more surveillance powers to be aware of the presence of the hijackers in the US.
Hypothetical: The police need a warrant to search your house, but it's OK to have 24/7 surveillance of the inside of your house because you purchased a Kinect, and Microsoft decided to send the stream to the authorities. Why would anyone be upset over that?
Is this a joke? Why would anyone be upset? So, if I want to play a video game I have to let the supplier of that game give all of the information they can collect on me to the authorities? Now my XBox can bear witness against me?
Welcome to the modern world, where you have to make a deal with the Devil just to participate.
But they lie to Congress and are not punished for it. So they keep lying. Members of the intelligence committees have said as much. How do we deal with that?
That when a government department actually does its job, and does it well, everyone seems upset. I want my intelligence community to be competent, get all the information we need to protect our interests, and do it well, and the NSA has done this and then some. Their only mistake was perhaps a lack of internal security. Instead of criticism, they should be commended for a job well done. The world is not a safe place, and information is power. I want the good guys to win. I'm a Canadian, but I support the NSA, and the job it does to protect American (and indirectly) Canadian interests.
How do you know the USA or NSA are the "good guys"? Because they told you they were? Because the news portrays them that way? Would you feel the same way if these powers were used to blackmail those in public office, or to harass legitimate political protesters? What if they were used for industrial espionage, giving American companies an advantage over Canadian companies? It's a secret program, so no one really knows the extent of what it is used for. Do you just trust that the people in charge are honest and that their values line up with yours?
Drama queen, are you? The CIA wasn't created until 1947, and it was nothing like it is now until about 20 years ago when black budgets went their way.
Really? The Iranian revolution was in 1953 and the CIA trained the SAVAK, the Shah's secret police.
The NSA may need better oversight for some of its operations, but it plays a vital role in the defense of the US and its allies. It both should and will continue to exist. Any other outcome would be folly of the highest order.
Excellent. Can we now talk about how we conduct oversight on a secret organization that seems to be able to lie about its activities without consequence?
Then they'd serve as a warning to others.
I too have been sick of the fear mongering propaganda complex that has overtaken our society in the past several years.
See, you have to start out with something that will leave the target with the impression you are on their side.
However, there is an enormous gulf between McCarthyism and the terrorist threat. No commies blew up airplanes and buildings. No commies went on shooting sprees in malls. No commies set off car bombs in crowded markets. The pink menace wasn't really very menacing at all. It was a false accusation.
Then you shift to a point that seems reasonable enough; that the target will probably agree with, since you only shifted the focus a little. It's cool since we all agree that the propaganda has gotten really thick (it gets thicker with posts like this one). So we're still on the same team.
Terrorists are real. Terrorist individuals and organizations commit atrocities on a near daily basis and regularly and publicly vow to kill large segments of the population or entire nations. Terrorism, unlike communism in the U.S., is a real threat that must not be ignored. But, that doesn't excuse these governments from using it as the go-to excuse for justifying every infringement of rights and nefarious activity, from banning nail clippers to the brave new world.
Then you deliver the real payload. Yeah, the government goes overboard, but we really do need them to keep us safe. Terrorism is real after all (which no one is disagreeing with) and it must not be ignored. On balance, it's a good thing we have our intelligence agencies to watch out for us. You've earned it today, AC.
I see that occurring on Slashdot, along with various claims of "everyone's a terrorist" for some reason or another generally involving disingenuous rhetoric. As a rule I don't see that from government. They seem to be a bit clearer about its meaning.
You mean like when they consider the Occupy movement, political protests and environmental groups terrorism?
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/peaceful-protest-treated-as-terrorism-by-the-fbi.html
While Internet access is free in coffee shops, some public transit, and even campsites, as of 2009 15% of hotels charged guests for the privilege of checking their e-mail and catching up on watching cat videos. Oddly, budget and midscale hotel chains are more likely to offer free Wi-Fi, while luxurious hotels — already costing the traveler more — regularly ding us.
It's all about charging what you think you can get. Budget hotels house budget travelers who likely won't pay extra for WiFi. So free WiFi serves to differentiate you from you competitors, or at least keeps you competitive. Higher end hotels serve a wealthier clientele who won't notice $30 tacked on to a $1000 bill, or business travelers who will just pay it and expense it.
There's a reason these programs are kept secret (along with their budgets) from the general "civilian" government. It's because they're huge money pits. They're pork. Free money for security services contractors. It's not some boogeyman new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
It's a much, much, older and familiar monster. Greed.
Funny, no one has suggested a new world order shadow conspiracy for power.
While all this surveillance is partly about money, that's not the whole of it (as I suspect you already know). Knowledge is power. These surveillance powers have already been used to conduct industrial espionage, intimidate political activists, blackmail public office holders and to provide secret evidence in criminal cases (mostly related to the drug war). All of these things are beneficial to the powers that be. In short these powers are used by the existing power structures to increase and enhance their power. This is why they are kept secret even from the people supposedly providing oversight.
I agree that this is a huge money train for all kinds of defense and other government contractors, and their stakeholders in office. But it's also about increasing power. So it might not be a "new world order shadow conspiracy", but the result is not too far off from that.
It makes no difference. Success or failure, it means the US is going back to the core principles of justice, obtain evidence, capture and put on trial and present the evidence, thus proving the validity of laws.
Yeah, that'll happen.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force designated the perpetrators of 9/11 at the enemy. The "War against Terror" is symbolic language. There really shouldn't be any confusion on the point unless someone wants to be confused.
So, was Abu Anas al Libi one of the perpetrators of 9/11? The article says he is wanted for the 1998 embassy bombings. And how can you say that the War on Terror is symbolic language and then turn around and talk about how all of the US actions are legal because we are at war and the laws of war apply? Are we actually at war or is it symbolic language? Or is it the War on Al Qaeda? Does the Geneva Convention allow declaring war on a loose affiliation of religious fighters? Can we declare war on any group we want to, like the EFF or the NRA or the Boy Scouts and then have the laws of war apply?
To qualify for all the rights, privileges, and protections of the Geneva Convention, such as preparing your own food and not be subject to interrogation, you have to conduct war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Al Qaida doesn't do that.
Is the US War on Terror a war in accordance with the Geneva Convention?
The objective should be to rid us of wage slavery altogether. Let the robots do all the work.
The economic system part is easy to fix and will be a form of communism. The robots don't need greed to do their work efficiently.
I am also 100% down for eliminating wage slavery. I think that even if robots did most of the work there would still be a need for human labor, even if just at the managerial/planning level. I will admit though I have a hard time envisioning a complex society and economy that doesn't require some medium of exchange. Unless we went with a resource based economy like that described by the Zeitgeist movement. I don't agree with everything they envision, but I find the idea intriguing.
Can we have an adult in this conversation at some point? Do you not even feel shame in typing that out? Christ we doomed as a culture thanks to this pathetic GYPSY generation.
I assume you would be filling the role of adult here?
Why can't tech make having to go to work obsolete?
Why can't we make all the tech stuff, like robots, do all the dumb work for all of us so we can spend the rest of our lives playing, or do the kind of work we really enjoy? Isn't this the frigging thing we should strive to achieve in society? Not create more jobs, but less?
I very much agree with this. We should all be working less. However, American capitalism isn't set up that way. Capital always wants Labor to work more for less money. Everyone would have to be paid more (or the same) for doing less work.
I'm certainly down for that, but we'd probably need a law restricting the work week to 20 hours or something like that.
The unwillingness to prosecute businesses who employ illegal aliens has probably cost more Americans jobs in the last 20 years than any technological advance.
FTFY
For most people it is really not an issue, you only have to worry when you have something to hide. It's funny how people whine and freak out about privacy but they don't really have a point, only the assumed guilty act like they must hid what they do. People who know they aren't breaking the law and don't intend to aren't afraid of just letting people see what they do on a daily basis.
I thought this board had moved past this argument. How do you know you're not doing something illegal? Do you have a working knowledge of every law on the books for your state or local municipality, let alone the federal government? Are you under the impression that all laws are reasonable and adhere to your common sense? Is your idea of "wrong" the same as everyone employed at the NSA? Are you aware that these surveillance powers are being used against people who have not broken a law but are critical of, or inconvenient to the US government? Finally, how do you know that guy you cut off in traffic doesn't have a cousin at the NSA who now has you license number and is digging into your life? Are you sure your life will look squeaky clean to some faceless bureaucrat with an ax to grind?
Like spongeworthy?
I'm aware of that, but generally the worst that happens if they don't like you is that they'll stop you from legally entering the US. You have to be being a douchebag on a pretty epic scale before they start being able to justify rendition.
ORLY?
Do you think Khalid El-Masri and Maher Arar would agree? Or do you not have a Muslim sounding name, so you figure you'll be fine? First they came for the Muslims, something something...