It's not necessary. There are a variety of government departments that have long been immune from the need to obtain warrants for various reasons.
I was looking at this a while back, but I'll list off a few (of course it depends on your state law and on the circumstances involved)- fire department officials, public health officials, animal control officials, child protection services...the list goes on.
Most of those agents are only allowed to enter property without a warrant under certain circumstances, of course, and under a lot of circumstances, police can do it too; the circumstances are just different.
As for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, I can certainly see why one would classify them as legitimate military targets.
For all that, however, I can't decide if they were intelligent attacks or unintelligent; I think there are some arguments for either side as to their effectiveness. Mostly, it depends on what you consider the goals of the attackers to be.
As I mentioned at least in passing in a sibling comment (which you may or may not have read, I'm carrying on many strings of conversation at once), in my opinion, war is an extension of, as Von Clausewitz wrote, public policy by other means.
Where you take action militarily that itself does not accord with public policy, you have a problem. This happens more often than you think, of course; it is, in my opinion, unthinkable that the American people would suffer being treated as American troops treat Iraqis.
Why, then, is it justified to treat the Iraqis that way- well, because, the argument goes, it minimizes casualties.
And yet we're always talking about our ancestors fighting and dying to 'preserve our freedom'- and yet that is not something we are, apparently, in this case willing to accept...
Moral culpability is, of course, a fairly relative topic.
Actually, that's not entirely true. There exists a whole framework of legality to define guilt and innocence; it might very well be true that the guy who backs over someone's dog accidentally is still guilty.
Anyway, even if that's true, it's still fallacious. There are a number of reasons one might find intent to be a discriminating factor here- if the action was done with intent, it might happen again and cause damages, as opposed to an accident which is unlikely.
However, I don't think any of those reasons apply here. This was not an 'accident' in the sense that no legal liability would generally apply, IMNSHO; this is an accident to which various forms of legal liability would apply- willful blindness, negligence, recklessness. Intent is only the fourth prong.
That same logic can be applied here, especially in a war where culture and religion are so important. Ideas are spread by all members of the society, not just its soldiers. Perhaps, least of all by its soldiers.
Nobody is a bystander, and nobody is innocent in that kind of war.
I won't lie to you and say that I don't think the tactics one uses don't matter.
Because they do. War is an extension of public policy, and by definition, therefore, the way you conduct war says something about your public policy.
Can you fight for freedom by destroying it? I don't think so. But people have argued otherwise since time immemorial; World War I, World war II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War in its entirety were examples of it.
The current War on Terror is too; we reduce our rights at home in order to preserve some nebulous concept of 'freedom' in general.
And still, society piddles along as it has always done. Never great, never really good, just sort of mediocre.
Its not formulaic but its certainly a damn solid one in many cases and a Bus full of tourist or school kids is *not* a legit military target. To try and play it off as some grey line is f'ing insanity.
Rubbish. Look at the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki or Hiroshima or the firebombings of Germany or the V2 attacks on London. Those were all attacks on civilians that were legitimate military strikes.
They say it because people are so damn afraid to say politically incorrect things and anyone in the world who hates the yanks ( no matter how justified ) must be on to something right? Its a BS statement when said as an absolute truth.
Or, more likely, the definition of 'war', 'bad', 'good', and 'legitimate military target' are not solid constructs but are far more fuzzy. It's perfectly reasonable to construct logical chains which establish terrorists as freedom fighters. You can deny it, but where definitions are based on fuzzy moral clauses, your denial rings as hollow as any other mindless bleat.
A suicide bomber who is targeting a military asset is, imho a 'freedom fighter'. A suicide bomber who targets a bus full of civilians is a terrorist. A man who kills an enemy soldier is a freedom fighter, a man who beheads a journalist because he is Jewish is a terrorist... Are you seeing the difference?
No. I'm not. The difference between 'military assets' and 'civilians' is not a solid one. It's certainly not a fixed one.
Your forgetting something about terrorism. The goals of terrorism is to effect change through hitting non military targets like innocent women and children. You mention Shock and awe without ever realizing that there was military significance to the targets. Showing might and muscle by hitting every target in the course of a few days in hopes of leaving a mental image of superiority doesn't negate that the targets were of military significance when picked.
Bullshit. The goal of terrorism is to effect change through terror. One way of creating that terror is to hit civilian targets, although it's not the only way; often militaries use the excuse that the targets they're hitting serve a military purpose as well (broadcast facilities, power plants, water reclamation facilities, etc).
Bombing crap in order to make the enemy scared is terrorism. Shock and Awe was most certainly terrorism.
I can't believe that your advocating killing an innocent woman and child in for doing nothing military related other then living and somehow see that as the same as taking out a intelligence headquarters or a row of tanks. You simply amaze me.
Show me where I said that. I said nothing of the kind. I said that there is nothing inherently wrong with the techniques and tactics used in asymmetric warfare. It also happens to be more competent and more intelligent, as shown by the obvious relative success of such tactics in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Iraq. In a strictly numbers-based sense, such techniques are indeed better.
Which is why, if you'd read my comment, you'd notice the first sentence was 'it depends on how you define better'.
The issue then boils down to your definition of 'better', then, doesn't it.
They say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. They say it because it's true.
There is nothing inherently wrong with using asymmetric warfare tactics. In many cases, it's the more intelligent, more competent thing to do.
Few governments refuse to engage in terror tactics- look at Shock and Awe, for example.
The names are different, yes. The tactics and techniques are often the same because once somebody uses an effective tactic, it doesn't stay confined to 'just the good guys', or 'just the bad guys'.
More often, in fact, the 'good guys' get worse to compensate.
I can't see how those rules would have prevented this attack.
Firstly, again, the user would define the security context of the application- not necessarily a problem if you have users who can define 'security context'. Most can't, and as a result, telling them to do so is worse than useless (as the Vista UAC program demonstrates).
Your average user does not know what permissions a specific application requires to execute its function correctly.
For example, a piece of software that bases its security apparatus around public-key infrastructure would need to be able to check the Certificate Revocation List. However, the CRL is not necessarily stored at the same place as the application generally operates. To an untested user, it would appear that the application is behaving improperly, when in fact, the application is behaving exactly as designed and exactly as it should.
It was Albert Einstein who coined the truism that "...problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness at which they are created."
In this case, I think, the problem with security (of any kind, to be honest, from electronic warfare to physical security to computer security) is that you can only 'solve' the problem when the user understands the problem to the same level as the solution. You can't create a solution that requires less knowledge than the problem.
For a perhaps clearer example, locks: The answer to someone turning the handle and opening your door and walking in is a lock. But that doesn't stop a variety of other attacks, like say kicking down the door or picking the lock. There are, of course, solutions to those problems as well, but they require knowledge of the problem in order to sufficiently utilize and apply a solution (reinforced doors, multi-factor identification, etc).
I don't see computer security as being any different. You can't dumb it down because to do so doesn't solve the problem- it only solves a specific subset of problems, those that are created at the same complexity as the level to which you have dumbed down the solution.
The problem is that 'places people can trust' often don't release the software and media that people want to run or view.
Microsoft is not going to release today's latest screener movies via BitTorrent, and Debian is not going to add "Asian Teen Whores IV" to its download repositories.
Your solution is great for OS upgrades, and some applications and their updates, but it certainly doesn't work everywhere.
I'm not sure how you can blame the content providers. I'm trying to come up with an analogy, but I can't- I think your model is that flawed.
The user has a choice. The user is not forced to install browser plugins. Moreover, not all those plugins are harmful; are you arguing that a monopoly is better for users than diversity? Because that appears to be what you're claiming.
Really, I think you've mixed your own ideological struggles with content providers with the technical issue- and the technical issue is that the security flaw here is not software. It's the user.
Even if you're right about the cause of the flaw, which I strongly disagree with, that doesn't change the flaw.
I think that would require people to actually know what the hell the HTML5 standard is and what its video tag would be.
Such a system wouldn't put a stop to anything- and nor, quite frankly, would one expect it to; just because there is a standard does not mean that disobedience to the dictates of such standard implies a lack of security.
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It's not necessary. There are a variety of government departments that have long been immune from the need to obtain warrants for various reasons.
I was looking at this a while back, but I'll list off a few (of course it depends on your state law and on the circumstances involved)- fire department officials, public health officials, animal control officials, child protection services...the list goes on.
Most of those agents are only allowed to enter property without a warrant under certain circumstances, of course, and under a lot of circumstances, police can do it too; the circumstances are just different.
What is that old miltary maxim?
"The military always prepares to fight the last war?"
Maybe SecDef Gates is making exactly the same mistake.
Mod parent funny.
Well, yes. But a BMP-1 has very different access points to an M1.
Screen-hatch, perhaps...
...where would you put a screen door on an M1A1?
Depends who you ask.
As for the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, I can certainly see why one would classify them as legitimate military targets.
For all that, however, I can't decide if they were intelligent attacks or unintelligent; I think there are some arguments for either side as to their effectiveness. Mostly, it depends on what you consider the goals of the attackers to be.
As I mentioned at least in passing in a sibling comment (which you may or may not have read, I'm carrying on many strings of conversation at once), in my opinion, war is an extension of, as Von Clausewitz wrote, public policy by other means.
Where you take action militarily that itself does not accord with public policy, you have a problem. This happens more often than you think, of course; it is, in my opinion, unthinkable that the American people would suffer being treated as American troops treat Iraqis.
Why, then, is it justified to treat the Iraqis that way- well, because, the argument goes, it minimizes casualties.
And yet we're always talking about our ancestors fighting and dying to 'preserve our freedom'- and yet that is not something we are, apparently, in this case willing to accept...
Moral culpability is, of course, a fairly relative topic.
I don't have an ethicist. Why should it be?
The failure was the civilians dying in contravention of the laws of war, not the failure of the action.
The failure, i.e., killing civilians, is no better if done by intent than if done by accident.
Actually, that's not entirely true. There exists a whole framework of legality to define guilt and innocence; it might very well be true that the guy who backs over someone's dog accidentally is still guilty.
Anyway, even if that's true, it's still fallacious. There are a number of reasons one might find intent to be a discriminating factor here- if the action was done with intent, it might happen again and cause damages, as opposed to an accident which is unlikely.
However, I don't think any of those reasons apply here. This was not an 'accident' in the sense that no legal liability would generally apply, IMNSHO; this is an accident to which various forms of legal liability would apply- willful blindness, negligence, recklessness. Intent is only the fourth prong.
That same logic can be applied here, especially in a war where culture and religion are so important. Ideas are spread by all members of the society, not just its soldiers. Perhaps, least of all by its soldiers.
Nobody is a bystander, and nobody is innocent in that kind of war.
So it's okay to target civilians if you can't do any better?
I see. Who defines 'better', then? Who defines which targets are too hard to hit, which are soft enough that they're 'terrorist'?
You're making it up as you go along.
I won't lie to you and say that I don't think the tactics one uses don't matter.
Because they do. War is an extension of public policy, and by definition, therefore, the way you conduct war says something about your public policy.
Can you fight for freedom by destroying it? I don't think so. But people have argued otherwise since time immemorial; World War I, World war II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War in its entirety were examples of it.
The current War on Terror is too; we reduce our rights at home in order to preserve some nebulous concept of 'freedom' in general.
And still, society piddles along as it has always done. Never great, never really good, just sort of mediocre.
Right, then!
The amusing thing is that this is coming from an Anonymous Coward.
Rubbish. Look at the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki or Hiroshima or the firebombings of Germany or the V2 attacks on London. Those were all attacks on civilians that were legitimate military strikes.
Or, more likely, the definition of 'war', 'bad', 'good', and 'legitimate military target' are not solid constructs but are far more fuzzy. It's perfectly reasonable to construct logical chains which establish terrorists as freedom fighters. You can deny it, but where definitions are based on fuzzy moral clauses, your denial rings as hollow as any other mindless bleat.
No. I'm not. The difference between 'military assets' and 'civilians' is not a solid one. It's certainly not a fixed one.
Bullshit. The goal of terrorism is to effect change through terror. One way of creating that terror is to hit civilian targets, although it's not the only way; often militaries use the excuse that the targets they're hitting serve a military purpose as well (broadcast facilities, power plants, water reclamation facilities, etc).
Bombing crap in order to make the enemy scared is terrorism. Shock and Awe was most certainly terrorism.
Show me where I said that. I said nothing of the kind. I said that there is nothing inherently wrong with the techniques and tactics used in asymmetric warfare. It also happens to be more competent and more intelligent, as shown by the obvious relative success of such tactics in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Iraq. In a strictly numbers-based sense, such techniques are indeed better.
Which is why, if you'd read my comment, you'd notice the first sentence was 'it depends on how you define better'.
I'm not sure why you'd assign blame otherwise than based on the results.
Haven't you heard the saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'?
A failure by intent is no worse than a failure by accident. They're still just as dead.
The issue then boils down to your definition of 'better', then, doesn't it.
They say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. They say it because it's true.
There is nothing inherently wrong with using asymmetric warfare tactics. In many cases, it's the more intelligent, more competent thing to do.
Few governments refuse to engage in terror tactics- look at Shock and Awe, for example.
The names are different, yes. The tactics and techniques are often the same because once somebody uses an effective tactic, it doesn't stay confined to 'just the good guys', or 'just the bad guys'.
More often, in fact, the 'good guys' get worse to compensate.
I can't see how those rules would have prevented this attack.
Firstly, again, the user would define the security context of the application- not necessarily a problem if you have users who can define 'security context'. Most can't, and as a result, telling them to do so is worse than useless (as the Vista UAC program demonstrates).
Your average user does not know what permissions a specific application requires to execute its function correctly.
For example, a piece of software that bases its security apparatus around public-key infrastructure would need to be able to check the Certificate Revocation List. However, the CRL is not necessarily stored at the same place as the application generally operates. To an untested user, it would appear that the application is behaving improperly, when in fact, the application is behaving exactly as designed and exactly as it should.
It was Albert Einstein who coined the truism that "...problems cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness at which they are created."
In this case, I think, the problem with security (of any kind, to be honest, from electronic warfare to physical security to computer security) is that you can only 'solve' the problem when the user understands the problem to the same level as the solution. You can't create a solution that requires less knowledge than the problem.
For a perhaps clearer example, locks: The answer to someone turning the handle and opening your door and walking in is a lock. But that doesn't stop a variety of other attacks, like say kicking down the door or picking the lock. There are, of course, solutions to those problems as well, but they require knowledge of the problem in order to sufficiently utilize and apply a solution (reinforced doors, multi-factor identification, etc).
I don't see computer security as being any different. You can't dumb it down because to do so doesn't solve the problem- it only solves a specific subset of problems, those that are created at the same complexity as the level to which you have dumbed down the solution.
The problem is that 'places people can trust' often don't release the software and media that people want to run or view.
Microsoft is not going to release today's latest screener movies via BitTorrent, and Debian is not going to add "Asian Teen Whores IV" to its download repositories.
Your solution is great for OS upgrades, and some applications and their updates, but it certainly doesn't work everywhere.
If that is the case, then how do you change Windows to defend the user?
If, in fact, the problem is with Windows, then obviously there is something Microsoft can fix to-
Oh, wait, no. They can't. The operating system is not doing anything wrong.
Blame implies they are guilty of some misdeed. They are not.
They have no responsibility for the user's lack of competence, and positive reinforcement is no excuse.
That would be appropriate if, in fact, they were reinforcing the fact that the user should do something wrong, but that is not the case.
I'm not sure how you can blame the content providers. I'm trying to come up with an analogy, but I can't- I think your model is that flawed.
The user has a choice. The user is not forced to install browser plugins. Moreover, not all those plugins are harmful; are you arguing that a monopoly is better for users than diversity? Because that appears to be what you're claiming.
Really, I think you've mixed your own ideological struggles with content providers with the technical issue- and the technical issue is that the security flaw here is not software. It's the user.
Even if you're right about the cause of the flaw, which I strongly disagree with, that doesn't change the flaw.
I think that would require people to actually know what the hell the HTML5 standard is and what its video tag would be.
Such a system wouldn't put a stop to anything- and nor, quite frankly, would one expect it to; just because there is a standard does not mean that disobedience to the dictates of such standard implies a lack of security.