"Under the settlement proposal, Microsoft would be required to make that information available in a "secure facility," where representatives of software makers, computer manufacturers and others deemed qualified could study the Windows programming code and ask questions."
"Carrying out the technology-sharing provision remains one of the sticking points in the settlement talks. The government wants to make sure it is effective, while Microsoft wants to make sure it can protect its intellectual property."
This sounds a little dodgy in terms of open source programmers being allowed a peek for compatibility purposes. And if the code they write then reveals a Microsoft "secret" what happens?
That's just petty crime anyway. Most of the real threats to society are people inside the system out for a fast buck and power.
Like the guys at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who determined worst case for a terrorist attack was a small plane filled with explosives. Who estimated a 0% chance of a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant just months ago. Who make a lot of money by reducing the industry's security costs with optimistic estimates.
People like Hannsen and Ames who worked right inside the FBI and CIA and sold American lives.
Like the congresspeople who believed the airline lobbyists about security being too expensive and are now scrambling for expensive and unworkable systems that make business happy -- like armed but ammoless national guard being stationed around airports at taxpayer expense and face recognition systems that won't work.
I have a proposal. Let's start by requiring all privacy, including financial information, to be surrendered upon taking any position within the government. Then after a few years, when we're pretty sure there aren't any crooks left in government, we'll let them watch us too.
Backdooring our encryption will be useless. For one thing there is absolutely no reason at all to believe that terrorist communications were encrypted. None. Secondly, we can't ban strong encyption secretly, so the only affect will be to cause the terrorists to switch to US mail, classified ads, or one of the other common methods of tradecraft. Note that the day that a newspaper published the fact that we were receiving satellite phone intercepts was the last day we ever got such an intercept from bin Laden.
However, our financial transactions, commercial secrets, and e-commerce *are* dependent on strong encryption, and we are opening ourselves up to crackers, terrorists, criminals, and foreign governments by weakening it.
However, there is a form of encryption our agencies must learn to cope with. It's called Farsi and Pushta. A warning of the attacks was ignored because no one could read the language it arrived in.
It is patriotic to stop our politicians from shooting us in the foot in their panic. They need to get smart instead of scared.
I certainly can't argue that getting the government involved often seems to do more harm than good.
However, my faith in the free market to address issues effectively and in a timely fashion is not as strong as yours. For example, some would say that the free market forced airline fares below where they could afford reasonable security. Well, the free market has acted and the airlines are now in danger of folding due to an increased fear of flying. So what happens? The government steps in and bails them out. Free market in action, not.
Since Microsoft software is needed to keep the government and industry running, we could face bailing them out if their stock collapsed after a really malicious worm. Will you be complaining about government interference then?
Either we need to get the government proactively involved to avoid disasters, or we need to let those business with shoddy practices and irresponsible policies fold up their tent when they are caught. Even if it means the economy tanks into a depression and people die of hunger. It seems to me that a litte interference is better than random economic disasters that may not occur until decades after the corporate policies are formed.
The free market only cares about money. Things like freedom, human rights, and a viable ecology for our grandchildren are not factored into decision making. That's what the government is for, whether it is currently doing it's job well or not. If businesses didn't influence the government with their money, it would probably run much better, for starters.
If the ATA is passed as is and they start rounding up the strong encryption users, gnutella "pirates", and drug "terrorists", I'll pass, I think.
It they were hiring at the NSA or FBI it would be far more attractive. They could use some new blood from what they *say*. Joining a semi-approved vigilante organization is different. The alphabet agencies are somewhat well known for using and discarding people with plausible deniability, like Noreiga for example.
It's all whether they are really looking for people to protect the Internet, or to help them with the Big Brother program. Some of the provisions of the ATA are nonsensical -- they help the terrorists more than us. They are all very nifty domestic surveillance measures however. So I'm not following any leaders until this measure is finalized. If you want to protect the Internet what could be better, for now, than protecting your own systems?
The ATA makes it life in prison without chance for parole for defacing a web site. While I agree that action is illegal, I am not in favor of paying taxes to support the script-kiddies for life.
If you'd like to help them decide here's a petitition getting broad bipartisan support.
I surely hope the government has better things to do than track porn browsing at the moment. It's never the things you expect that get you though.
Someone explain to me how we can trust all future Presidents to refrain from monitoring the minority parties' communications during election campaigns in future? We do remember Watergate, don't we? It'll sure be easier now, and perfectly legal as well. Everyone knows [party of your non-choice] would be a national security threat if they got in office.
Someone explain how shinier toys will help when the problem was lack of human intelligence? If we tap e-mail the terrorists won't use it, so what the heck is the point? We do far more damage to ourselves than them.
I'd be far happier if I saw any motion towards preparedness, but so far nada. No emergency channels, no evacuation plans, no call for volunteers for organization or planning, no public education on ways to respond to threats, no calls for energy conservation. Just a lot of armed guards in Washington, an air cap, and a pack of lawyers after our civil rights with a gleam in their eye.
Most of all why the unseemly haste? Why not ask for limited extraordinary powers until Congress can listen to us, then vote? Someone is trying to sell us something here, and we could be very sorry if we buy it sight unseen. I'm all for things that make sense like wiretapping people not stations, and correcting flubs like the CIA handing off to the FBI, who passed to the INS who lost two of the hijackers, a week before. But let's talk sense, not agendas.
I think the absolutism is destructive, even though my personal views are somewhat absolute in favor of freedom. And there *is* precedent for serious danger allowing the abrogation of some rights. It's often proved to be a mistake, but not always. Think about what the secrecy of the Manhattan project meant. Also realize that security succeeded mainly because nearly everyone on the project (and the press) wanted it to, not because of the threat of legal penalties or efficient government surveillance.
One proposal might be to put time limits on everything that impacts the Bill of Rights. Every six months, or a year say, they are required to reargue and renew the legislation.
Another way these laws could be made more safe is to limit their application to terrorism specifically.
I suspect it will be better to argue for reasonable limitations to these laws so that we can undo them more easily, and fear them less, than to argue with a quite understandably scared congress and citizenry. It will only get worse when there is another attack. We need to fight a battle we can win.
One thing we have to do though, is argue strongly and vehemently against anything that is counterproductive. Like weakening our personal, banking, or e-commerce encryption. Like using racial profiling without any probable cause. Like stifling peaceful protest. It would be unpatriotic not to point out that such ill-considered proposals would amount to shooting ourselves in the foot.
People are scared, some of the terrorists, some of the government. In a democratic republic you work it out to something both can live with -- not call the other side evil and unamerican.
I actually tried very hard not to make this political, but the supporting article happens to be written by a liberal commentator. My politics are mixed. It was written in May, note, before disagreeing with Bush became tantamount to treason.
We also allow Iraq to sell oil as humanitarian relief, but they spend it on weapons instead. Now I don't know how the relief effort in Afghanistan went, and if the money actually got where it was intended -- I haven't seen any coverage.
I do think it is dangerous to support regimes like Iraq and the Taleban in any way. We are hurting the political opposition in those countries -- sending the money to the opposition and influencing their resultant government seems better strategy. Staying out of it completely might be better. We used to believe in self determination instead of picking winners.
But the cold war changed everything by spreading weapons all around. As we've seen over and over we give weapons to regimes we end up having to oppose militarily. Panama, Iran, Iraq, now Pakistan's military government. Note we supported Iraq against Iran our ex-friend, and now will likely support Pakistan against our old ex-friend Iraq. Is it any wonder the Middle East wonders what we will do to Pakistan, next time?
Providing food frees money the Taleban would have to spend for other purposes, which could include support for bin Laden, for example. It's certainly not a clear cut issue whether humanitarian relief helps or hurts more in the long run, and I didn't mean to imply it was. But good intentions aren't enough, as conservatives have been telling liberals for ages -- you've got to look at the effect of your actions too.
Our foreign policy and drug policy are creating pain and grief for us, and I do think working on that will do more to improve our long term security than any loss of civil liberties. Let's not forget the Columbian terrorists. Will we now decide anyone using non-approved drugs in this country is financing terrorism? I fear for us.
This is not partisan, every President including and onward from Kennedy supported these kind of shortsighted policies. Our excuse used to be the cold war. Now it's the war on drugs. Soon no doubt, it will be the war on terrorism. It's time to quit making excuses and start planning for the long term future of our country in our foreign policy. We have interests, and it is our place to protect them. But other countries have interests too. If we arrogantly force ours on them, it will eventually rebound.
Do we really want to become an empire? If we can't protect our interests thru consensus, instead of force, we'll have absolutely no other choice now. Some would welcome a Pax Americana. Some in power right now probably. Maybe they're even right, but if we go that way we better do it with our eyes wide open. I don't think there is popular support for an American Empire. There is none from me.
After the Afghani-Russian war that we armed and funded them for they begged us to stay and help set up a democratic government, but they no longer held any strategic interest for us, I'm afraid. So we left them to the Taleban, which we have helped prop up, just like the military government in neighboring Pakistan.
No, I'm afraid that who we support has little to do with whether they are democratic and everything to do with their short term realpolitik strategic value. Russia's stability was quite critical to us for what I hope are obvious reasons. About 20,000 of them.
If you would like some more examples think on Pinochet, Noreiga, the Shah, and Hussein. None of those ran even mildly democratic governments, yet they all received stong support at one time. And we've had to clean up after a few as well. The list is far longer of course. Our country has become known for it's puppet dictators. But we live back here where it's safe and free. Or was.
Generally I think it is individual. For example most have to know that legalizing Napster would be pretty popular among their constituents, but that matters to some and not to others. Some may know but actually feel the jobs in the content industry and the artist's rights have to be protected. Others of course aren't willing to vote against one of their largest contributors because it could cost them their cushy job. Basically it's ethics and I don't believe that it divides along party lines.
Encryption is defended a little better by Repubicans because corporations care deeply about the security of their data. I expect the compromise to be one that allows registered commercial encryption, but no personal use.
Perhaps this is why they classified encryption as a munition, Republicans are very good on gun rights too.
As is well known most other civil liberties like free speech and religous freedom are often associated with liberals. Unfortunately there aren't many of those in our government, just New Democrats, which is catch as catch can.
Both are parties are trying to tear the Bill of Rights in half instead of living up to it.
Someone is over-reacting here alright, but it is Congress.
I don't argue for a second that we need to improve our security, but lets figure out the best way to do that. Maybe there are better ways than trampling the Constitution and racial profiling.
Point one -- our airport security has been greatly degraded by deregulation. Security guards get minimum wage and minimal training. Now that keeps airfares down sure enough, but it is not without a price, is it?
Point two -- Customs stopped racial profiling recently and their "hit rate" in fact went up. In conjunction with probable cause racial background is just another piece of information. Without probable cause it is a red herring.
Point three -- Jets at Andrews were not on ready status even though the Mossad and NSA both had strong indications of a major attack coming. Are Washington and NY not considered targets anymore? Let's rethink our air defense, even though the next attack will likely be different.
Point four -- banning strong encryption will not stop secure terrorist communications, but it will certainly and definitely weaken our personal, banking, and e-commerce security. This aids the terrorists, we shouldn't do it.
Point five -- the adminstration isn't even telling Congress what is happening. Giving all of us real information might allow us to participate meaningfully instead of just randomly lashing out at any Arab-looking Americans. An Indian was shot to death today because someone thought him an Arab.
Point six -- don't for a minute think that any loss of liberty will be temporary. When the "War on Terrorism" is done (if it ever is) the focus will simply shift to the "War on Drugs" and if we abandon that too, there is the "War on Crime" that will certainly never be over. (We gave $40M to the Taleban this year for "anti-drug" efforts, so there is obviously some priortization to work on here, as well.)
Since there are ways to combat terrorism without giving up our rights I really think we should consider carefully rather than rushing to adopt hasty measures, some of which may actually be counterproductive to our cause.
I feel I have to point out that a very large number of people in this country have been living without any real security for years. If you suddenly feel threatened now, consider what that says about abandoned duties to our own citizens. Is security a right for everyone? Civil liberties are.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I think you're right generally. While there is nothing we can do in all likeliehood it is still important we peacefully raise our voices in calm dissent. And continue to speak freely, even if we are the ones in internment camps this time.
What I find especially unfortunate is the ossification of thought this shows in our government. We seem to be stuck with decades old ways of coping. Clamp down on the press and dissent generally. Wage conventional warfare. Dehumanize your enemy. If they consider encryption backdoors and warrantless searches an important part of our protection it reflects a huge error in judgement, or an intentional power grab, not sure which is worse.
Let's hope they use better thinking, or have better motives for the other things they do in our defense. I am not hopeful.
I think you are correct to doubt absolute statements.
But the invalid assumption here is that you can design an acceptable compromise and stick with it. Given any particular security system, if you look long and hard enough, exploits can be found. Then we have to trade more of our liberties for security in a neverending cycle of escalation.
The problem isn't that people can talk privately. They always could, and always will be able to. It's that they want and are able to kill us. We should work on those instead.
"I would not doubt if there is already some conjecture to give more power to government agencies for search and seizure. "
According to Sen. Leahy on Lehrer News Hour today, the senate (Orrin Hatch and some others were named) was indeed working on that very thing today. Leahy, to his credit, was extremely upset about the unseemly haste to politically profit from the disaster at the expense of civil liberties.
Yeah, especially those guys that trained bin Laden, eh? You may have heard of them. They're the CIA.
And it's interesting that we find Afghanistan such a problem now. We didn't seem to feel that way when they were fighting the Soviet Union. Kipling and the Russians can tell you about barbarism in Afghanistan, it's not a new problem.
There are plenty of examples. Remember Noriega and Pinochet?
There is no excuse for what happened yesterday, none at all. No matter how oppressed you are, no matter how badly you've been hurt, killing civilians will not make you safer or hurt less. This is the very lesson we need to send to terrorists, but they pay attention to what we do, not what we say.
I fully support an informed and measured response. That probably will inevitably involve some civilians whose only crime is being too poor to move out of their country. But damn, people, we would have a lot less trouble with monsters if we didn't shortsightedly create and fund them to protect our interest of the moment.
I haven't played it since I nuked my windows partition, but Rubik's Playground was one of the best and most fun puzzle games I've ever seen. Being a physics simulation, it requires developing sound intuition about mechanics. It comes with a built in editor allowing students to create puzzles for themselves and others as well.
The game also includes 3 other puzzles, including a nice cube simulation. It certainly fits the no-violence criterion at least:).
It's not just the Congressmen who think their job is about looking out for their campaign contributors. We could deal with that.
A bigger problem is that nearly all news media are associated with the same content industries that are pushing for the DMCA and this bill. This is more problematic because there isn't even the figleaf of elections as far as who runs our media. Money is the only voice.
I don't expect any editorials in the NYT or Washington Post about this bill, unless it gains too much coverage to ignore. It's hard enough to find editorials against the new law making government leakers into felons (the same one Clinton vetoed, back for another go), or the new policy of subpoena'ing reporters phone records to uncover leak sources. You'd think newspapers and media would be screaming bloody murder over those, wouldn't you?
Even as we write our congresscritters you can bet that many more letters are being produced by professional lobbyists, who probably won't even make the mistake of using dead people's names this time.
We need a cluestick. A big one. All of the usual feedback mechanisms of a democratic republic have been short circuited or coopted. Time to be creative.
"I just don't think this will happen over anything related to entertainment or even publishing."
That's an excellent point. It suggests we move the argument out of the entertainment domain. I can only agree intellectually. But ask yourself -- which would receive the larger reaction -- TV vanishing for a day, or this bill passing? A law against beer, or this bill? If this were a true and immediate threat, like blocking politicians speeches that weren't pre-approved, we'd likely be worse off than we are -- many would see that as a public service -- too bad they can't block them all. It's hard to stir people up about losing a democracy they lost faith in years ago. But we better find a way.
So, if you're a smart frog being slowly boiled, what do you do?
Slashdot Mirror
Please be careful, they're reactivating the Sedition Laws too.
Sedition Law Used to Hold Suspects
From the NYT article:
"Under the settlement proposal, Microsoft would be required to make that information available in a "secure facility," where representatives of software makers, computer manufacturers and others deemed qualified could study the Windows programming code and ask questions."
"Carrying out the technology-sharing provision remains one of the sticking points in the settlement talks. The government wants to make sure it is effective, while Microsoft wants to make sure it can protect its intellectual property."
This sounds a little dodgy in terms of open source programmers being allowed a peek for compatibility purposes. And if the code they write then reveals a Microsoft "secret" what happens?
Happy New Year: It's 1984
With technical people, the argument should be towards the ineffectiveness of the USA bill
CRYPTO-GRAM special issue
And in general
EFF alerts
ACLU site
That's just petty crime anyway. Most of the real threats to society are people inside the system out for a fast buck and power.
Like the guys at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who determined worst case for a terrorist attack was a small plane filled with explosives. Who estimated a 0% chance of a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant just months ago. Who make a lot of money by reducing the industry's security costs with optimistic estimates.
People like Hannsen and Ames who worked right inside the FBI and CIA and sold American lives.
Like the congresspeople who believed the airline lobbyists about security being too expensive and are now scrambling for expensive and unworkable systems that make business happy -- like armed but ammoless national guard being stationed around airports at taxpayer expense and face recognition systems that won't work.
I have a proposal. Let's start by requiring all privacy, including financial information, to be surrendered upon taking any position within the government. Then after a few years, when we're pretty sure there aren't any crooks left in government, we'll let them watch us too.
Backdooring our encryption will be useless. For one thing there is absolutely no reason at all to believe that terrorist communications were encrypted. None. Secondly, we can't ban strong encyption secretly, so the only affect will be to cause the terrorists to switch to US mail, classified ads, or one of the other common methods of tradecraft. Note that the day that a newspaper published the fact that we were receiving satellite phone intercepts was the last day we ever got such an intercept from bin Laden.
However, our financial transactions, commercial secrets, and e-commerce *are* dependent on strong encryption, and we are opening ourselves up to crackers, terrorists, criminals, and foreign governments by weakening it.
However, there is a form of encryption our agencies must learn to cope with. It's called Farsi and Pushta. A warning of the attacks was ignored because no one could read the language it arrived in.
It is patriotic to stop our politicians from shooting us in the foot in their panic. They need to get smart instead of scared.
I certainly can't argue that getting the government involved often seems to do more harm than good.
However, my faith in the free market to address issues effectively and in a timely fashion is not as strong as yours. For example, some would say that the free market forced airline fares below where they could afford reasonable security. Well, the free market has acted and the airlines are now in danger of folding due to an increased fear of flying. So what happens? The government steps in and bails them out. Free market in action, not.
Since Microsoft software is needed to keep the government and industry running, we could face bailing them out if their stock collapsed after a really malicious worm. Will you be complaining about government interference then?
Either we need to get the government proactively involved to avoid disasters, or we need to let those business with shoddy practices and irresponsible policies fold up their tent when they are caught. Even if it means the economy tanks into a depression and people die of hunger. It seems to me that a litte interference is better than random economic disasters that may not occur until decades after the corporate policies are formed.
The free market only cares about money. Things like freedom, human rights, and a viable ecology for our grandchildren are not factored into decision making. That's what the government is for, whether it is currently doing it's job well or not. If businesses didn't influence the government with their money, it would probably run much better, for starters.
It they were hiring at the NSA or FBI it would be far more attractive. They could use some new blood from what they *say*. Joining a semi-approved vigilante organization is different. The alphabet agencies are somewhat well known for using and discarding people with plausible deniability, like Noreiga for example.
It's all whether they are really looking for people to protect the Internet, or to help them with the Big Brother program. Some of the provisions of the ATA are nonsensical -- they help the terrorists more than us. They are all very nifty domestic surveillance measures however. So I'm not following any leaders until this measure is finalized. If you want to protect the Internet what could be better, for now, than protecting your own systems?
The ATA makes it life in prison without chance for parole for defacing a web site. While I agree that action is illegal, I am not in favor of paying taxes to support the script-kiddies for life.
If you'd like to help them decide here's a petitition getting broad bipartisan support.
In Defense Of Freedom
So we do everything the government tells us and nothing the government tells us not to do, and we'll be safe from the government. No kidding?
Well, when they tell me to pass the Zyklon-B, I'm going to tell them to shove it. Suit yourself.
I surely hope the government has better things to do than track porn browsing at the moment. It's never the things you expect that get you though.
Someone explain to me how we can trust all future Presidents to refrain from monitoring the minority parties' communications during election campaigns in future? We do remember Watergate, don't we? It'll sure be easier now, and perfectly legal as well. Everyone knows [party of your non-choice] would be a national security threat if they got in office.
Someone explain how shinier toys will help when the problem was lack of human intelligence? If we tap e-mail the terrorists won't use it, so what the heck is the point? We do far more damage to ourselves than them.
I'd be far happier if I saw any motion towards preparedness, but so far nada. No emergency channels, no evacuation plans, no call for volunteers for organization or planning, no public education on ways to respond to threats, no calls for energy conservation. Just a lot of armed guards in Washington, an air cap, and a pack of lawyers after our civil rights with a gleam in their eye.
Most of all why the unseemly haste? Why not ask for limited extraordinary powers until Congress can listen to us, then vote? Someone is trying to sell us something here, and we could be very sorry if we buy it sight unseen. I'm all for things that make sense like wiretapping people not stations, and correcting flubs like the CIA handing off to the FBI, who passed to the INS who lost two of the hijackers, a week before. But let's talk sense, not agendas.
I think the absolutism is destructive, even though my personal views are somewhat absolute in favor of freedom. And there *is* precedent for serious danger allowing the abrogation of some rights. It's often proved to be a mistake, but not always. Think about what the secrecy of the Manhattan project meant. Also realize that security succeeded mainly because nearly everyone on the project (and the press) wanted it to, not because of the threat of legal penalties or efficient government surveillance.
One proposal might be to put time limits on everything that impacts the Bill of Rights. Every six months, or a year say, they are required to reargue and renew the legislation.
Another way these laws could be made more safe is to limit their application to terrorism specifically.
I suspect it will be better to argue for reasonable limitations to these laws so that we can undo them more easily, and fear them less, than to argue with a quite understandably scared congress and citizenry. It will only get worse when there is another attack. We need to fight a battle we can win.
One thing we have to do though, is argue strongly and vehemently against anything that is counterproductive. Like weakening our personal, banking, or e-commerce encryption. Like using racial profiling without any probable cause. Like stifling peaceful protest. It would be unpatriotic not to point out that such ill-considered proposals would amount to shooting ourselves in the foot.
People are scared, some of the terrorists, some of the government. In a democratic republic you work it out to something both can live with -- not call the other side evil and unamerican.
I actually tried very hard not to make this political, but the supporting article happens to be written by a liberal commentator. My politics are mixed. It was written in May, note, before disagreeing with Bush became tantamount to treason.
We also allow Iraq to sell oil as humanitarian relief, but they spend it on weapons instead. Now I don't know how the relief effort in Afghanistan went, and if the money actually got where it was intended -- I haven't seen any coverage.
I do think it is dangerous to support regimes like Iraq and the Taleban in any way. We are hurting the political opposition in those countries -- sending the money to the opposition and influencing their resultant government seems better strategy. Staying out of it completely might be better. We used to believe in self determination instead of picking winners.
But the cold war changed everything by spreading weapons all around. As we've seen over and over we give weapons to regimes we end up having to oppose militarily. Panama, Iran, Iraq, now Pakistan's military government. Note we supported Iraq against Iran our ex-friend, and now will likely support Pakistan against our old ex-friend Iraq. Is it any wonder the Middle East wonders what we will do to Pakistan, next time?
Providing food frees money the Taleban would have to spend for other purposes, which could include support for bin Laden, for example. It's certainly not a clear cut issue whether humanitarian relief helps or hurts more in the long run, and I didn't mean to imply it was. But good intentions aren't enough, as conservatives have been telling liberals for ages -- you've got to look at the effect of your actions too.
Our foreign policy and drug policy are creating pain and grief for us, and I do think working on that will do more to improve our long term security than any loss of civil liberties. Let's not forget the Columbian terrorists. Will we now decide anyone using non-approved drugs in this country is financing terrorism? I fear for us.
This is not partisan, every President including and onward from Kennedy supported these kind of shortsighted policies. Our excuse used to be the cold war. Now it's the war on drugs. Soon no doubt, it will be the war on terrorism. It's time to quit making excuses and start planning for the long term future of our country in our foreign policy. We have interests, and it is our place to protect them. But other countries have interests too. If we arrogantly force ours on them, it will eventually rebound.
Do we really want to become an empire? If we can't protect our interests thru consensus, instead of force, we'll have absolutely no other choice now. Some would welcome a Pax Americana. Some in power right now probably. Maybe they're even right, but if we go that way we better do it with our eyes wide open. I don't think there is popular support for an American Empire. There is none from me.
Yup, that's so easy we're busily undoing it here. And Russia is far from being out of the woods yet.
Of course the $40M we gave the Taleban this year may not be helping the insurrection.
After the Afghani-Russian war that we armed and funded them for they begged us to stay and help set up a democratic government, but they no longer held any strategic interest for us, I'm afraid. So we left them to the Taleban, which we have helped prop up, just like the military government in neighboring Pakistan.
No, I'm afraid that who we support has little to do with whether they are democratic and everything to do with their short term realpolitik strategic value. Russia's stability was quite critical to us for what I hope are obvious reasons. About 20,000 of them.
If you would like some more examples think on Pinochet, Noreiga, the Shah, and Hussein. None of those ran even mildly democratic governments, yet they all received stong support at one time. And we've had to clean up after a few as well. The list is far longer of course. Our country has become known for it's puppet dictators. But we live back here where it's safe and free. Or was.
As long as you solicit a guess... :)
Generally I think it is individual. For example most have to know that legalizing Napster would be pretty popular among their constituents, but that matters to some and not to others. Some may know but actually feel the jobs in the content industry and the artist's rights have to be protected. Others of course aren't willing to vote against one of their largest contributors because it could cost them their cushy job. Basically it's ethics and I don't believe that it divides along party lines.
Encryption is defended a little better by Repubicans because corporations care deeply about the security of their data. I expect the compromise to be one that allows registered commercial encryption, but no personal use.
Perhaps this is why they classified encryption as a munition, Republicans are very good on gun rights too.
As is well known most other civil liberties like free speech and religous freedom are often associated with liberals. Unfortunately there aren't many of those in our government, just New Democrats, which is catch as catch can.
Both are parties are trying to tear the Bill of Rights in half instead of living up to it.
"This was a miscalculation"
I would like to think that, and it very well may have been, even probably. But I find this report disturbing, to say the least.
Sure, "Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban"
Someone is over-reacting here alright, but it is Congress.
I don't argue for a second that we need to improve our security, but lets figure out the best way to do that. Maybe there are better ways than trampling the Constitution and racial profiling.
Point one -- our airport security has been greatly degraded by deregulation. Security guards get minimum wage and minimal training. Now that keeps airfares down sure enough, but it is not without a price, is it?
Point two -- Customs stopped racial profiling recently and their "hit rate" in fact went up. In conjunction with probable cause racial background is just another piece of information. Without probable cause it is a red herring.
Point three -- Jets at Andrews were not on ready status even though the Mossad and NSA both had strong indications of a major attack coming. Are Washington and NY not considered targets anymore? Let's rethink our air defense, even though the next attack will likely be different.
Point four -- banning strong encryption will not stop secure terrorist communications, but it will certainly and definitely weaken our personal, banking, and e-commerce security. This aids the terrorists, we shouldn't do it.
Point five -- the adminstration isn't even telling Congress what is happening. Giving all of us real information might allow us to participate meaningfully instead of just randomly lashing out at any Arab-looking Americans. An Indian was shot to death today because someone thought him an Arab.
Point six -- don't for a minute think that any loss of liberty will be temporary. When the "War on Terrorism" is done (if it ever is) the focus will simply shift to the "War on Drugs" and if we abandon that too, there is the "War on Crime" that will certainly never be over. (We gave $40M to the Taleban this year for "anti-drug" efforts, so there is obviously some priortization to work on here, as well.)
Since there are ways to combat terrorism without giving up our rights I really think we should consider carefully rather than rushing to adopt hasty measures, some of which may actually be counterproductive to our cause.
I feel I have to point out that a very large number of people in this country have been living without any real security for years. If you suddenly feel threatened now, consider what that says about abandoned duties to our own citizens. Is security a right for everyone? Civil liberties are.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Aren't you kind of assuming we can tolerate the instability of an election in time of war?
BTW I did write my reps, Feinstein included.
I think you're right generally. While there is nothing we can do in all likeliehood it is still important we peacefully raise our voices in calm dissent. And continue to speak freely, even if we are the ones in internment camps this time.
What I find especially unfortunate is the ossification of thought this shows in our government. We seem to be stuck with decades old ways of coping. Clamp down on the press and dissent generally. Wage conventional warfare. Dehumanize your enemy. If they consider encryption backdoors and warrantless searches an important part of our protection it reflects a huge error in judgement, or an intentional power grab, not sure which is worse.
Let's hope they use better thinking, or have better motives for the other things they do in our defense. I am not hopeful.
I think you are correct to doubt absolute statements.
But the invalid assumption here is that you can design an acceptable compromise and stick with it. Given any particular security system, if you look long and hard enough, exploits can be found. Then we have to trade more of our liberties for security in a neverending cycle of escalation.
The problem isn't that people can talk privately. They always could, and always will be able to. It's that they want and are able to kill us. We should work on those instead.
I, Cringely's "A Man With a Hammer" is relevant I think.
"I would not doubt if there is already some conjecture to give more power to government agencies for search and seizure. "
According to Sen. Leahy on Lehrer News Hour today, the senate (Orrin Hatch and some others were named) was indeed working on that very thing today. Leahy, to his credit, was extremely upset about the unseemly haste to politically profit from the disaster at the expense of civil liberties.
Yeah, especially those guys that trained bin Laden, eh? You may have heard of them. They're the CIA.
And it's interesting that we find Afghanistan such a problem now. We didn't seem to feel that way when they were fighting the Soviet Union. Kipling and the Russians can tell you about barbarism in Afghanistan, it's not a new problem.
There are plenty of examples. Remember Noriega and Pinochet?
There is no excuse for what happened yesterday, none at all. No matter how oppressed you are, no matter how badly you've been hurt, killing civilians will not make you safer or hurt less. This is the very lesson we need to send to terrorists, but they pay attention to what we do, not what we say.
I fully support an informed and measured response. That probably will inevitably involve some civilians whose only crime is being too poor to move out of their country. But damn, people, we would have a lot less trouble with monsters if we didn't shortsightedly create and fund them to protect our interest of the moment.
I haven't played it since I nuked my windows partition, but Rubik's Playground was one of the best and most fun puzzle games I've ever seen. Being a physics simulation, it requires developing sound intuition about mechanics. It comes with a built in editor allowing students to create puzzles for themselves and others as well.
:).
The game also includes 3 other puzzles, including a nice cube simulation. It certainly fits the no-violence criterion at least
It's not just the Congressmen who think their job is about looking out for their campaign contributors. We could deal with that.
A bigger problem is that nearly all news media are associated with the same content industries that are pushing for the DMCA and this bill. This is more problematic because there isn't even the figleaf of elections as far as who runs our media. Money is the only voice.
I don't expect any editorials in the NYT or Washington Post about this bill, unless it gains too much coverage to ignore. It's hard enough to find editorials against the new law making government leakers into felons (the same one Clinton vetoed, back for another go), or the new policy of subpoena'ing reporters phone records to uncover leak sources. You'd think newspapers and media would be screaming bloody murder over those, wouldn't you?
Even as we write our congresscritters you can bet that many more letters are being produced by professional lobbyists, who probably won't even make the mistake of using dead people's names this time.
We need a cluestick. A big one. All of the usual feedback mechanisms of a democratic republic have been short circuited or coopted. Time to be creative.
"I just don't think this will happen over anything related to entertainment or even publishing."
That's an excellent point. It suggests we move the argument out of the entertainment domain. I can only agree intellectually. But ask yourself -- which would receive the larger reaction -- TV vanishing for a day, or this bill passing? A law against beer, or this bill? If this were a true and immediate threat, like blocking politicians speeches that weren't pre-approved, we'd likely be worse off than we are -- many would see that as a public service -- too bad they can't block them all. It's hard to stir people up about losing a democracy they lost faith in years ago. But we better find a way.
So, if you're a smart frog being slowly boiled, what do you do?