It already is blocked. That's one of the arguments that proponents of the blocking are using: ISPs have blocked child porn, which proves that they do have the ability to block things, thus they should have no reason to refuse.
If all ISPs and search engines agree to block anything flagged as child porn then wouldn't this solve the problem of child porn distribution? Then we wouldn't have to arrest thousands of people a year.
Dude, child porn is illegal in pretty much any country and even simply possessing such images (which, one could argue, is harmless) would mean prison sentence.
So why allow people to possess it at all? Block the bits.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I find the concept that "Everyone agrees to fight terrorism using whatever means available." to be more scary that the threat of terrorism.
Just how far are we willing to go to feel "safe"? Personally, I think that the US anti-terror agencies have gone as far as needed and should be willing to accept that the US made enemies and that there will always be some risk.
It's not a matter of feeling safe. We are at war with Iran through Israel. It's no longer an option to just feel safe, but we have to protect our troops from harm.
Wait, I (and the article) are talking about the National Counterterrorism Center and investigating US citizens at home. How does that equate to keeping the troops safe overseas?
If there are international terrorist groups guided by Iran for instance then there could be a cell in the USA which communicates with a cell in some other country to trigger attacks on troops.
You can (some sites have before), but doing so takes up resources and won't necessarily stop all the different attack vectors. DDoS can use multiple approaches aside from just flooding the server with requests. You can, in theory, protect against all the known attacks, but that requires time and money before the attack starts, which might be wasted if you never get attacked (you don't typically want 10x your expected maximum load worth of bandwidth just sitting around unless you absolutely need it, for example).
What you need is enough redundancy so that DDOS is worthless. You also need near instantaneous recovery time. A cloud network could provide redundancy and virtualization could decrease recovery time. The attack vectors also aren't unlimited so unless it's some sort of zero-day it's going to be known.
Why can't these financial institutions stop a DDOS? I am being serious. Why can't these be mitigated at a data center?
DDOS isn't hard to stop. Cloud computing at a datacenter would stop it just fine. When one server goes down if the cloud is based on virtualization such as with VMWare then another instance of the OS would replace it instantly. It would make the DDOS attempts completely ineffective.
Of course there are more details in implementing this but this problem has been solved.
Just my hunch. I suspect Russia and Iran are conducting a Cyberwar operation against US financial targets in an attempt to hurt the US financial economy. It will not be successful.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I find the concept that "Everyone agrees to fight terrorism using whatever means available." to be more scary that the threat of terrorism.
Just how far are we willing to go to feel "safe"? Personally, I think that the US anti-terror agencies have gone as far as needed and should be willing to accept that the US made enemies and that there will always be some risk.
It's not a matter of feeling safe. We are at war with Iran through Israel. It's no longer an option to just feel safe, but we have to protect our troops from harm.
The war on drugs is a morality and political issue. The war on crime is entirely a morality issue.
The "war" on crime has always been a morality issue. The entire point of a legal system is to enforce moral codes.
We have to have this in a society... without it, there would be no legal system.
The war on terror has absolutely nothing to do with criminality, and has everything to do with restricting individual's freedoms. That is the problem with it.
ps. I am a convicted drug user, and believe that drug use should not be illegal.
But terrorism and national security aren't about enforcing moral codes. That is the key difference between counter terrorism and crime fighting. Morals change and are incredibly subjective but whether or not we like getting blown up by terrorists, it's fair to say most people like to not be blown up. Also terrorism is a federal issue because it's the result of warfare between states, states sponsor terrorism but states do not sponsor crime.
and in points in history they did. The reason they do not is because legal authority has been taken from them.
Which is the reason for the seperation of church and state. Not only does it protect the state from the influence of the church, it protects the church from the influence of the state.
When you add personal morality to state you end up with a combined church/state disguised as moral law enforcement.
But sin and crime are basically the same. And just not like everyone agreed we should have a war on sin, we don't all agree with using datamining to fight crime. In fact that is a very radical position only supported by catholic law enforcement officers.
If you're not a law enforcement officer then you're a criminal. If you're not a catholic then you're probably a sinner. Morality should not be influencing these sorts of policy. Politics should also not be influencing these sorts of policy.
The war on drugs is a morality and political issue. The war on crime is entirely a morality issue. In this case the moral minority are pushing their morality on the majority using the law and then using unlimited surveillance to potentially track anyone who does not share their morality. That isn't to fight terrorism, I don't see how it protects national security, and while I do think some crimes are less political or less morally conflicting than others, I think when you just use the word "crime" in the vague sense then that could literally mean anything the law enforcement chooses.
So basically if they want to find something on you and they have 5 years worth of data to do it, there is no way any of us if they look at 5 years of our lives can say we haven't committed a crime. We might be able to say we aren't terrorists or aren't threats to national security but none of us can say we haven't broke the law in 5 years. If you smoked marijuana, or jay-walked, or did the smallest little thing, its illegal and you're a criminal. So it's basically more like the church trying to use surveillance and 5 year datamining to track sinners.
What are they going to come up with next? Go from "crime" to "thought-crime" and "pre-crime"?
Terrorism is a specific danger to national security. Everyone agrees to fight terrorism using whatever means available. We don't all agree with the war on crime or the war on drugs. Maybe catholic law enforcement officers support this but the rest of us are sinners and criminals.
Is not an org but a multi-agency center intended to make it easier for various agencies share information and bring their agency's talents to bear in the fight against terrorism.
This would be fine but why is the threat they claim to be facing outlined as being so broad so as to include "crime" in general? Anything could be a crime or made into a crime. Terrorism is highly specific and a threat to national security so there is a reason for the feds to be involved but "crime fighting" isn't the role of the feds. "Once information is acquired, the new guidelines authorize broad new search powers. As long NCTC says its search is aimed at identifying terrorism information, it may conduct queries that involve non-terrorism data points and pattern-based searches and analysis (data mining). The breadth and wrongheadedness of these changes are particularly noteworthy. Not only do they mean that anytime you interact with any government agency you essentially enter a lineup as a potential terrorist, they also rely on a technique, datamining, "http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/biggest-new-spying-program-youve-probably-never-hearddited as a useful tool for identifying terrorists."
I actually disagree with this quote. I support datamining to catch terrorists. So to start off I want to say that. "Perhaps most disturbing, once information is gathered (not necessarily connected to terrorism), in many cases it can be shared with “a federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign or international entity, or to an individual or entity not part of a government” – literally anyone. That sharing can happen in relation to national security and safety, drug investigations, if it’s evidence of a crime or to evaluate sources or contacts. This boundless sharing is broad enough to encompass disclosures to an employer or landlord about someone who NCTC may think is potentially a criminal, or at the request of local law enforcement for vetting an informant." http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/biggest-new-spying-program-youve-probably-never-hearddited as a useful tool for identifying terrorists."
The problem is here. This is very radical. First they want to share it with an entity not part of the government. Why? What entity which is not part of the government should be involved in this and why? The other problem is the sharing can happen basically for ANYTHING, not just national security investigations but evidence of a crime (there are probably so many crimes that any of us could be a criminal under the local, state and federal government so that applies to anyone). There are reasons behind having this capability but they need to be very precise with information sharing and for the reasons why it's shared.
Employers should have a right to know if someone is a criminal, so should landlords, but it shouldn't be abused. How can we prevent it from being abused or used for fishing expeditions?
In information security compartmentalization, least privilege, need to know and other similar concepts are considered a good thing. These concepts exist to security confidentiality of information. But the NCTC has the authority to share the information with anyone according to the ACLU: "Perhaps most disturbing, once information is gathered (not necessarily connected to terrorism), in many cases it can be shared with “a federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign or international entity, or to an individual or entity not part of a government” – literally anyone. That sharing can happen in relation to national security and safety, drug investigations, if it’s evidence of a crime or to evaluate sources or contacts. This boundless sharing is broad enough to encompass disclosures to an employer or landlord about someone who NCTC may think is potentially a criminal, or at the request of local law enforcement for vetting an informant." http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/biggest-new-spying-program-youve-probably-never-heard
Now it's perfectly understandable that they have to vet informants and sources, investigate terrorism, and defend national security because that is the fundamental purpose of a federal government. Some of that of other stuff however is highly political and some of it gives far too much power to far too few people and is ripe for abuse. "Crime" is vague and could mean literally anything, and I'd be willing to say we are all criminals so that applies to all of us. Drug investigations are highly political because not all of us believe in the war on drugs and in fact a majority of us aren't even for these sorts of investigations in the first place so to include that is highly political and ripe for corruption. To share information with a person not part of a government or with individuals? What reason would they have to ever do that?
The problem I have with the NCTC isn't their spying capability but the fact that they bypassed the Democratic process and the will of the people, and that they aren't following any sort of information security protocol in their sharing. You can share information with people who are cleared, or who have a need to know, but the more you share the more leaks there could be, the more problems there will be. And the more broad the excuse to spy on people the more corruption and oppression there could be in the process. Let's spy on this citizen because they jay-walked or ignored a red light or have a marijuana plant in their closet. So now we got to unleash the full power of the federal government, NSA, CIA, Satellites, and all? That to me is bullcrap and highly political.
For these reasons I think media attention should be brought to this not to get rid of the spy program itself but to restrict it to a narrowly defined purpose. To simply spy on everyone just to give the government power over people and then to spread that power out to random people who aren't even necessarily American citizens is a problem and probably isn't even Constitutional.
With enough media attention this will be shut down.
It's one thing to worry about terrorist, but if they are talking about a witch hunt to find criminals then there is no way anyone but catholic police officers could support it.
Are you serious or just trololo'ing along comment after comment.
A revolution is every 4 years with our "election??" Our revolutionary process is elections?? You've got to be kidding me.
I'm absolutely serious. If you want a revolution/regime change then the way to do it is vote. We have a Democracy for a reason and it's to have bloodless revolution. If we didn't have democracy then I would see all this talk of revolution as having some merit but you can vote and your votes count. If you don't like the people in charge you can change them. Stop trying to promote violence!
There are two choices, and oddly, no matter who you choose, they seem to do the same dumb things that no one approves of, regardless of party.
The overall community approves of it or it wouldn't be happening. We have a democracy. If you don't agree then perhaps you've been smoking too much pot.
A revolution, my friend, would be removal of the cancer as whole, not injections of new incompetence.
Study history. The French revolution didn't remove "cancer". It replaced the leadership with new leaders who were more brutal and violent than the last. That is what revolution does, it puts a new leadership in charge through violent means and when you do that the first thing they'll do is crush their opposition violently. It's hard to maintain a democracy during a revolution so it almost always results in a military dictatorship.
You know, maybe our government wouldn't be so upset about leaks that were so damaging to their image if the those things shouldn't be happening in the first place. We send our military overseas and they document themselves killing civilians, but we are to pay no mind to their actions, but that the leak is "illegal." Come on.
That leak may have disrupted a legit investigation. It doesn't belong in the media. The media cannot solve crimes. I'm not saying the leaking itself is the problem but who you leak to and why. Leaking to investigators trying to solve the problem isn't the same as leaking to the whole world via the media. Leaking to the media only creates the sort of people who think like you who think their government is out to kill them, then they form militias and start acting like domestic terrorists because they don't believe in voting or believe in the system at all.
IF our government were required to be transparent, I would be willing to guarantee you that it would do less stupid and/or despicable things.
It's interesting to me that you speak of how we shouldn't step up to our government if we do not want to be thrown in jail for any reason or end up dead. You seem well educated... and I appreciate your statements. However, while I respectfully disagree... please note that there are a hell of alot more people than there is government.
A government cannot be transparent and function as a war machine. The government has the primary function as a war machine. I'm fine with the civilian portion of the government being transparent because they don't really do shit but sign stuff and authorize and represent the wishes of the actual government. The actual government is the community, the community empowers a certain elite group within itself to be the war machine. That war machine has to operate in secrecy, and keep it's operations secret. There is no other way.
At the same time overall the people have a right to a level of privacy. A completely transparent government is fine but the surveillance conducted by that transparent government ought to be done in secret and the intelligence gained from it ought to be classified. There should be no leaks.
Most of them are script kiddies who don't have the technical or engineering knowledge to understand what is wrong with Julian Assange's overall vision.
So why don't you educate us? What is wrong with Julian Assange's vision, which, as far as I can tell, is letting people know what their government is doing in their name? Well?
Go on Google or Youtube and search for "Assassination Politics" by Jim Bell. If you think these sorts of markets make the world more safe then let's have a legit discussion on the philosophical implications.
If you're saying some Anon are patriotic then that is fine and dandy but some Anon act like domestic terrorists and are unpatriotic and you have to accept that truth as well. The Julian Assange faction of Anon is misguided.
If publishing the truth makes you "unpatriotic", then frankly, your country is unworthy of patriotism.
Some information should not be widely distributed. Some information should not be leaked or published as it can put lives in danger, destroy peoples reputation or lives, or destroy society itself. It is not patriotic to leak classified information.
I was not aware that you could tighten a tin foil hat enough to cut off blood flow to the brain without the hat tearing. I really would like to meet your haberdasher.
Do not comment out of ignorance on a topic you know little to nothing about and have not studied on any level. Study for a few years and learn how things work and how situations play out. Conduct a few interviews with people, watch at least 100 documentaries, ready at least a dozen books, maybe get a degree or two and then come back.
Promoting ignorance and stupidity among the youth is not good for the youth or for the community which will have to rely on those youth.I can understand you taking this line if you're a cop and you want a continuous stream of ignorant youth to commit stupid offenses so you can have plenty of informants but my post on Slashdot is not likely to stop the tide. It's only meant to reach a specific demographic of youth who are already in the know and who "get it". Apparently you're either not in the know and can't "get it" or you're with another agenda.
US American. Give me Liberty or Give me Death. I believe in the Declaration of Independence as much as the Constitution.
Respectfully, So do I.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And that is why we have a Democracy, with elections, and the ability to vote. We have a legal traditional method of conducting political warfare to overthrow the old regime and replace it with a new regime. We do this every 4 years through the election process. In 4 years we will have a chance to overthrow the current regime and replace it again with a new regime. Doing it in this traditional manner is a lot less violent than a Civil War and it maintains stability so foreign powers cannot take advantage of a Civil War to burn our Constitution entirely and enslave us as a dulocracy under their rule.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
And that is why we have elections every 4 years and why we don't have a President for life or a king. All of the current people in charge can be replaced fair and square, just follow the traditional ritual for doing it.
You speak of not knowing history, when history tell us exactly how we should handle such situations.
If you knew history you'd know we are a Democracy not a dictatorship. If we were a dictatorship then I would agree with you that we need to do something but we aren't that. We aren't serving King Obama. The President is not a King. This is not a Kingdom. We do have a Democracy and the government does change over time. It might not change as fast as we like it and there are still some levers of resistance but I believe if we wait it out the old generations will lose power and eventually young people like us will be in charge. There is no need to do anything other than work hard, make money, pay taxes and vote. If you want to do more for your country there are plenty of things you can do which improve the current government such as helping to rid the government of corruption or helping to reform poorly written laws or just getting the right people elected.
Not buckling in Fear of Terrorists, be they foreign or domestic. Read the list of abuses towards the end of the US Declaration of Independence. Those are things that should not be stood for and a Revolution fought if they can not be resolved. Many of the abuses bear striking similarities to current practices... Like our founding fathers I am cautious to not be reactionary and change long established governments for light and transient causes, however I have learned from history that it is better not to suffer merely because the evils are sufferable. It doesn't have to get worse before it gets better. If the cost of Freedom is my life, then I gladly give it, as any Free man should.
The concept of revolution is what I'm debating. A revolution under our traditional system is an election every 4 years. That is what they had in mind when they wrote that. They had in mind to keep the Democracy in place and use the voting mechanism to have a non-violent overthrow. It's not fair for you to decide you want a revolution and try to put y
So, what you're saying is that you work for the feds,
No, I just do my research and have a graduate level education. I study history and computer science. I know how government works and how computers work. I am not working for the feds just because I'm not with Julian Assange. I don't agree with Julian Assange philosophically.
that Black Panthers and Crips are the same kind of groups, USA had a civil war in the sixties(wait, was Vietnam a state in USA) and that the feds have magic cyberwarfare tech
Do you work for foreign intelligence? Why do you want to deny that COINTELPRO exists? When the feds spend 500-600 billion every year on military spending you don't think any of that will be used for Cyberwarfare or Cybersecurity? You don't see how the War on Drugs resulted in millions of gang members, and children of revolutionaries being locked up in prison? Are you even from the United States and if you are do you happen to know anyone who is or was involved in anything? I suggest you do a bit of investigative journalism and go ask people who actually are involved what happened or is happening. Don't take my word on things, go to your local prison and ask about how things work.
and shot Martin Luther King and Bloods are pretty much like IRA and not a drug dealing organization?
I never said anything about MLK or the bloods. The FBI believed MLK was a communist or communist sympathizer. The FBI believed that those gangs are like the IRA because the FBI treated them no different. It's specific gangs I'm talking about here not just random neighborhood bloods. The Crips in the 70s aren't the same as the Crips in the 80s because the founder of the Crips Raymond Washington actually was a revolutionary who formed the Crips not to be a drug gang but to be a social justice gang. It became a drug gang after Raymond Washington and some of the other more civilized leadership were killed and replaced by thugs who had no purpose beyond make money. The FBI COINTELPRO does not and did not see the "basic thug" as a threat. Raymond Washington was not a "basic thug". The Gangster Disciples under Larry Hoover were a revolutionary outfit. Larry Hoover is not a "basic thug". The fact that you don't even know who Raymond Washington or Larry Hoover is, that proves to me you have no business discussing revolution, or talking about this subject. Anyone who seriously thinks about these topics will know these names along with Charles Luciano, Meyer Lansky,Huey P Newton, Donald DeFreeze, Charles Manson (although mainstream people know a bit about him and his family), and others.
These are the sort of people who took on the government in the 50s, 60s, 70s. There are another generation of people who took on the government in the 80s and 90s. For the most part the couch potato middle class e-revolutionaries haven't heard of any of them because they are mostly black, hispanic or asian and viewed as "thugs" because they are convicted of heinous crimes in prison. But the fact is if you take on the feds you'll ultimately be viewed as a "basic thug" and you'll be locked away for life in prison. Anons and Julian Assange wont stand up for you once you go to prison.
Come on, it doesn't take that much to get involved in saying that certain politics are bullshit, but that's all it really needs. they're not going to come to your house and shoot you in your sleep.
That is because they don't have to. They can arrest you and treat you like a "basic thug" and everyone from the middle class suburbs will turn on you without looking at the facts of your case. All it takes to get you on a crime is an informant or several willing to say you're a drug kingpin or an informant willing to commit a serious crime and say you ordered them to do it and have you prove otherwise.
it's just some kids spreading cc numbers and hacking docs, it's the kind of shit half the kids online used to do
still, posting the link to the data from a practically public forum to another.. what the fuck kind of crime is that?
I think I saw links to the data on slashdot. in any case at the point he was linking to them they were for all intents and purposes already public.
When they want to get someone they'll fish for something illegal until they find something. There are so many laws on the books that it's a certainty we are all criminals so if they want to get you they can.
Slashdot Mirror
It already is blocked. That's one of the arguments that proponents of the blocking are using: ISPs have blocked child porn, which proves that they do have the ability to block things, thus they should have no reason to refuse.
If all ISPs and search engines agree to block anything flagged as child porn then wouldn't this solve the problem of child porn distribution? Then we wouldn't have to arrest thousands of people a year.
Dude, child porn is illegal in pretty much any country and even simply possessing such images (which, one could argue, is harmless) would mean prison sentence.
So why allow people to possess it at all? Block the bits.
Why not block child porn?
Maybe I'm the only one, but I find the concept that "Everyone agrees to fight terrorism using whatever means available." to be more scary that the threat of terrorism.
Just how far are we willing to go to feel "safe"? Personally, I think that the US anti-terror agencies have gone as far as needed and should be willing to accept that the US made enemies and that there will always be some risk.
It's not a matter of feeling safe. We are at war with Iran through Israel. It's no longer an option to just feel safe, but we have to protect our troops from harm.
Wait, I (and the article) are talking about the National Counterterrorism Center and investigating US citizens at home. How does that equate to keeping the troops safe overseas?
If there are international terrorist groups guided by Iran for instance then there could be a cell in the USA which communicates with a cell in some other country to trigger attacks on troops.
You can (some sites have before), but doing so takes up resources and won't necessarily stop all the different attack vectors. DDoS can use multiple approaches aside from just flooding the server with requests. You can, in theory, protect against all the known attacks, but that requires time and money before the attack starts, which might be wasted if you never get attacked (you don't typically want 10x your expected maximum load worth of bandwidth just sitting around unless you absolutely need it, for example).
What you need is enough redundancy so that DDOS is worthless. You also need near instantaneous recovery time. A cloud network could provide redundancy and virtualization could decrease recovery time. The attack vectors also aren't unlimited so unless it's some sort of zero-day it's going to be known.
Why can't these financial institutions stop a DDOS? I am being serious. Why can't these be mitigated at a data center?
DDOS isn't hard to stop. Cloud computing at a datacenter would stop it just fine. When one server goes down if the cloud is based on virtualization such as with VMWare then another instance of the OS would replace it instantly. It would make the DDOS attempts completely ineffective.
Of course there are more details in implementing this but this problem has been solved.
Just my hunch. I suspect Russia and Iran are conducting a Cyberwar operation against US financial targets in an attempt to hurt the US financial economy. It will not be successful.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I find the concept that "Everyone agrees to fight terrorism using whatever means available." to be more scary that the threat of terrorism.
Just how far are we willing to go to feel "safe"? Personally, I think that the US anti-terror agencies have gone as far as needed and should be willing to accept that the US made enemies and that there will always be some risk.
It's not a matter of feeling safe. We are at war with Iran through Israel. It's no longer an option to just feel safe, but we have to protect our troops from harm.
The war on drugs is a morality and political issue. The war on crime is entirely a morality issue.
The "war" on crime has always been a morality issue. The entire point of a legal system is to enforce moral codes.
We have to have this in a society... without it, there would be no legal system.
The war on terror has absolutely nothing to do with criminality, and has everything to do with restricting individual's freedoms. That is the problem with it.
ps. I am a convicted drug user, and believe that drug use should not be illegal.
But terrorism and national security aren't about enforcing moral codes. That is the key difference between counter terrorism and crime fighting. Morals change and are incredibly subjective but whether or not we like getting blown up by terrorists, it's fair to say most people like to not be blown up. Also terrorism is a federal issue because it's the result of warfare between states, states sponsor terrorism but states do not sponsor crime.
depends on the church.
and in points in history they did. The reason they do not is because legal authority has been taken from them.
Which is the reason for the seperation of church and state. Not only does it protect the state from the influence of the church, it protects the church from the influence of the state.
When you add personal morality to state you end up with a combined church/state disguised as moral law enforcement.
But sin and crime are basically the same. And just not like everyone agreed we should have a war on sin, we don't all agree with using datamining to fight crime. In fact that is a very radical position only supported by catholic law enforcement officers.
If you're not a law enforcement officer then you're a criminal. If you're not a catholic then you're probably a sinner. Morality should not be influencing these sorts of policy. Politics should also not be influencing these sorts of policy.
The war on drugs is a morality and political issue. The war on crime is entirely a morality issue. In this case the moral minority are pushing their morality on the majority using the law and then using unlimited surveillance to potentially track anyone who does not share their morality. That isn't to fight terrorism, I don't see how it protects national security, and while I do think some crimes are less political or less morally conflicting than others, I think when you just use the word "crime" in the vague sense then that could literally mean anything the law enforcement chooses.
So basically if they want to find something on you and they have 5 years worth of data to do it, there is no way any of us if they look at 5 years of our lives can say we haven't committed a crime. We might be able to say we aren't terrorists or aren't threats to national security but none of us can say we haven't broke the law in 5 years. If you smoked marijuana, or jay-walked, or did the smallest little thing, its illegal and you're a criminal. So it's basically more like the church trying to use surveillance and 5 year datamining to track sinners.
What are they going to come up with next? Go from "crime" to "thought-crime" and "pre-crime"?
Terrorism is a specific danger to national security. Everyone agrees to fight terrorism using whatever means available. We don't all agree with the war on crime or the war on drugs. Maybe catholic law enforcement officers support this but the rest of us are sinners and criminals.
Is not an org but a multi-agency center intended to make it easier for various agencies share information and bring their agency's talents to bear in the fight against terrorism.
This would be fine but why is the threat they claim to be facing outlined as being so broad so as to include "crime" in general? Anything could be a crime or made into a crime. Terrorism is highly specific and a threat to national security so there is a reason for the feds to be involved but "crime fighting" isn't the role of the feds.
"Once information is acquired, the new guidelines authorize broad new search powers. As long NCTC says its search is aimed at identifying terrorism information, it may conduct queries that involve non-terrorism data points and pattern-based searches and analysis (data mining). The breadth and wrongheadedness of these changes are particularly noteworthy. Not only do they mean that anytime you interact with any government agency you essentially enter a lineup as a potential terrorist, they also rely on a technique, datamining, " http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/biggest-new-spying-program-youve-probably-never-hearddited as a useful tool for identifying terrorists."
I actually disagree with this quote. I support datamining to catch terrorists. So to start off I want to say that.
"Perhaps most disturbing, once information is gathered (not necessarily connected to terrorism), in many cases it can be shared with “a federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign or international entity, or to an individual or entity not part of a government” – literally anyone. That sharing can happen in relation to national security and safety, drug investigations, if it’s evidence of a crime or to evaluate sources or contacts. This boundless sharing is broad enough to encompass disclosures to an employer or landlord about someone who NCTC may think is potentially a criminal, or at the request of local law enforcement for vetting an informant."
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/biggest-new-spying-program-youve-probably-never-hearddited as a useful tool for identifying terrorists."
The problem is here. This is very radical. First they want to share it with an entity not part of the government. Why? What entity which is not part of the government should be involved in this and why? The other problem is the sharing can happen basically for ANYTHING, not just national security investigations but evidence of a crime (there are probably so many crimes that any of us could be a criminal under the local, state and federal government so that applies to anyone). There are reasons behind having this capability but they need to be very precise with information sharing and for the reasons why it's shared.
Employers should have a right to know if someone is a criminal, so should landlords, but it shouldn't be abused. How can we prevent it from being abused or used for fishing expeditions?
In information security compartmentalization, least privilege, need to know and other similar concepts are considered a good thing. These concepts exist to security confidentiality of information. But the NCTC has the authority to share the information with anyone according to the ACLU: "Perhaps most disturbing, once information is gathered (not necessarily connected to terrorism), in many cases it can be shared with “a federal, state, local, tribal, or foreign or international entity, or to an individual or entity not part of a government” – literally anyone. That sharing can happen in relation to national security and safety, drug investigations, if it’s evidence of a crime or to evaluate sources or contacts. This boundless sharing is broad enough to encompass disclosures to an employer or landlord about someone who NCTC may think is potentially a criminal, or at the request of local law enforcement for vetting an informant." http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/biggest-new-spying-program-youve-probably-never-heard
Now it's perfectly understandable that they have to vet informants and sources, investigate terrorism, and defend national security because that is the fundamental purpose of a federal government. Some of that of other stuff however is highly political and some of it gives far too much power to far too few people and is ripe for abuse. "Crime" is vague and could mean literally anything, and I'd be willing to say we are all criminals so that applies to all of us. Drug investigations are highly political because not all of us believe in the war on drugs and in fact a majority of us aren't even for these sorts of investigations in the first place so to include that is highly political and ripe for corruption. To share information with a person not part of a government or with individuals? What reason would they have to ever do that?
The problem I have with the NCTC isn't their spying capability but the fact that they bypassed the Democratic process and the will of the people, and that they aren't following any sort of information security protocol in their sharing. You can share information with people who are cleared, or who have a need to know, but the more you share the more leaks there could be, the more problems there will be. And the more broad the excuse to spy on people the more corruption and oppression there could be in the process. Let's spy on this citizen because they jay-walked or ignored a red light or have a marijuana plant in their closet. So now we got to unleash the full power of the federal government, NSA, CIA, Satellites, and all? That to me is bullcrap and highly political.
For these reasons I think media attention should be brought to this not to get rid of the spy program itself but to restrict it to a narrowly defined purpose. To simply spy on everyone just to give the government power over people and then to spread that power out to random people who aren't even necessarily American citizens is a problem and probably isn't even Constitutional.
With enough media attention this will be shut down.
It's one thing to worry about terrorist, but if they are talking about a witch hunt to find criminals then there is no way anyone but catholic police officers could support it.
Are you serious or just trololo'ing along comment after comment.
A revolution is every 4 years with our "election??" Our revolutionary process is elections?? You've got to be kidding me.
I'm absolutely serious. If you want a revolution/regime change then the way to do it is vote. We have a Democracy for a reason and it's to have bloodless revolution. If we didn't have democracy then I would see all this talk of revolution as having some merit but you can vote and your votes count. If you don't like the people in charge you can change them. Stop trying to promote violence!
There are two choices, and oddly, no matter who you choose, they seem to do the same dumb things that no one approves of, regardless of party.
The overall community approves of it or it wouldn't be happening. We have a democracy. If you don't agree then perhaps you've been smoking too much pot.
A revolution, my friend, would be removal of the cancer as whole, not injections of new incompetence.
Study history. The French revolution didn't remove "cancer". It replaced the leadership with new leaders who were more brutal and violent than the last. That is what revolution does, it puts a new leadership in charge through violent means and when you do that the first thing they'll do is crush their opposition violently. It's hard to maintain a democracy during a revolution so it almost always results in a military dictatorship.
You know, maybe our government wouldn't be so upset about leaks that were so damaging to their image if the those things shouldn't be happening in the first place. We send our military overseas and they document themselves killing civilians, but we are to pay no mind to their actions, but that the leak is "illegal." Come on.
That leak may have disrupted a legit investigation. It doesn't belong in the media. The media cannot solve crimes. I'm not saying the leaking itself is the problem but who you leak to and why. Leaking to investigators trying to solve the problem isn't the same as leaking to the whole world via the media. Leaking to the media only creates the sort of people who think like you who think their government is out to kill them, then they form militias and start acting like domestic terrorists because they don't believe in voting or believe in the system at all.
IF our government were required to be transparent, I would be willing to guarantee you that it would do less stupid and/or despicable things.
It's interesting to me that you speak of how we shouldn't step up to our government if we do not want to be thrown in jail for any reason or end up dead. You seem well educated... and I appreciate your statements. However, while I respectfully disagree... please note that there are a hell of alot more people than there is government.
A government cannot be transparent and function as a war machine. The government has the primary function as a war machine. I'm fine with the civilian portion of the government being transparent because they don't really do shit but sign stuff and authorize and represent the wishes of the actual government. The actual government is the community, the community empowers a certain elite group within itself to be the war machine. That war machine has to operate in secrecy, and keep it's operations secret. There is no other way.
At the same time overall the people have a right to a level of privacy. A completely transparent government is fine but the surveillance conducted by that transparent government ought to be done in secret and the intelligence gained from it ought to be classified. There should be no leaks.
Hoovering random scraps of psychotic ramblings into your skull does not lead to some grand insight. It just fills your head full of shit.
Nice try. If you had an argument you would have stated a case.
Because that is the end result of this blank media tax.
So why don't you educate us? What is wrong with Julian Assange's vision, which, as far as I can tell, is letting people know what their government is doing in their name? Well?
Go on Google or Youtube and search for "Assassination Politics" by Jim Bell. If you think these sorts of markets make the world more safe then let's have a legit discussion on the philosophical implications.
If publishing the truth makes you "unpatriotic", then frankly, your country is unworthy of patriotism.
Some information should not be widely distributed. Some information should not be leaked or published as it can put lives in danger, destroy peoples reputation or lives, or destroy society itself. It is not patriotic to leak classified information.
I was not aware that you could tighten a tin foil hat enough to cut off blood flow to the brain without the hat tearing. I really would like to meet your haberdasher.
Do not comment out of ignorance on a topic you know little to nothing about and have not studied on any level. Study for a few years and learn how things work and how situations play out. Conduct a few interviews with people, watch at least 100 documentaries, ready at least a dozen books, maybe get a degree or two and then come back.
Promoting ignorance and stupidity among the youth is not good for the youth or for the community which will have to rely on those youth.I can understand you taking this line if you're a cop and you want a continuous stream of ignorant youth to commit stupid offenses so you can have plenty of informants but my post on Slashdot is not likely to stop the tide. It's only meant to reach a specific demographic of youth who are already in the know and who "get it". Apparently you're either not in the know and can't "get it" or you're with another agenda.
US American. Give me Liberty or Give me Death. I believe in the Declaration of Independence as much as the Constitution.
Respectfully, So do I.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
And that is why we have a Democracy, with elections, and the ability to vote. We have a legal traditional method of conducting political warfare to overthrow the old regime and replace it with a new regime. We do this every 4 years through the election process. In 4 years we will have a chance to overthrow the current regime and replace it again with a new regime. Doing it in this traditional manner is a lot less violent than a Civil War and it maintains stability so foreign powers cannot take advantage of a Civil War to burn our Constitution entirely and enslave us as a dulocracy under their rule.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
And that is why we have elections every 4 years and why we don't have a President for life or a king. All of the current people in charge can be replaced fair and square, just follow the traditional ritual for doing it.
You speak of not knowing history, when history tell us exactly how we should handle such situations.
If you knew history you'd know we are a Democracy not a dictatorship. If we were a dictatorship then I would agree with you that we need to do something but we aren't that. We aren't serving King Obama. The President is not a King. This is not a Kingdom. We do have a Democracy and the government does change over time. It might not change as fast as we like it and there are still some levers of resistance but I believe if we wait it out the old generations will lose power and eventually young people like us will be in charge. There is no need to do anything other than work hard, make money, pay taxes and vote. If you want to do more for your country there are plenty of things you can do which improve the current government such as helping to rid the government of corruption or helping to reform poorly written laws or just getting the right people elected.
Not buckling in Fear of Terrorists, be they foreign or domestic. Read the list of abuses towards the end of the US Declaration of Independence. Those are things that should not be stood for and a Revolution fought if they can not be resolved. Many of the abuses bear striking similarities to current practices... Like our founding fathers I am cautious to not be reactionary and change long established governments for light and transient causes, however I have learned from history that it is better not to suffer merely because the evils are sufferable. It doesn't have to get worse before it gets better. If the cost of Freedom is my life, then I gladly give it, as any Free man should.
The concept of revolution is what I'm debating. A revolution under our traditional system is an election every 4 years. That is what they had in mind when they wrote that. They had in mind to keep the Democracy in place and use the voting mechanism to have a non-violent overthrow. It's not fair for you to decide you want a revolution and try to put y
So, what you're saying is that you work for the feds,
No, I just do my research and have a graduate level education. I study history and computer science. I know how government works and how computers work. I am not working for the feds just because I'm not with Julian Assange. I don't agree with Julian Assange philosophically.
that Black Panthers and Crips are the same kind of groups, USA had a civil war in the sixties(wait, was Vietnam a state in USA) and that the feds have magic cyberwarfare tech
Do you work for foreign intelligence? Why do you want to deny that COINTELPRO exists? When the feds spend 500-600 billion every year on military spending you don't think any of that will be used for Cyberwarfare or Cybersecurity? You don't see how the War on Drugs resulted in millions of gang members, and children of revolutionaries being locked up in prison? Are you even from the United States and if you are do you happen to know anyone who is or was involved in anything? I suggest you do a bit of investigative journalism and go ask people who actually are involved what happened or is happening. Don't take my word on things, go to your local prison and ask about how things work.
and shot Martin Luther King and Bloods are pretty much like IRA and not a drug dealing organization?
I never said anything about MLK or the bloods. The FBI believed MLK was a communist or communist sympathizer. The FBI believed that those gangs are like the IRA because the FBI treated them no different. It's specific gangs I'm talking about here not just random neighborhood bloods. The Crips in the 70s aren't the same as the Crips in the 80s because the founder of the Crips Raymond Washington actually was a revolutionary who formed the Crips not to be a drug gang but to be a social justice gang. It became a drug gang after Raymond Washington and some of the other more civilized leadership were killed and replaced by thugs who had no purpose beyond make money. The FBI COINTELPRO does not and did not see the "basic thug" as a threat. Raymond Washington was not a "basic thug". The Gangster Disciples under Larry Hoover were a revolutionary outfit. Larry Hoover is not a "basic thug". The fact that you don't even know who Raymond Washington or Larry Hoover is, that proves to me you have no business discussing revolution, or talking about this subject. Anyone who seriously thinks about these topics will know these names along with Charles Luciano, Meyer Lansky,Huey P Newton, Donald DeFreeze, Charles Manson (although mainstream people know a bit about him and his family), and others.
These are the sort of people who took on the government in the 50s, 60s, 70s. There are another generation of people who took on the government in the 80s and 90s. For the most part the couch potato middle class e-revolutionaries haven't heard of any of them because they are mostly black, hispanic or asian and viewed as "thugs" because they are convicted of heinous crimes in prison. But the fact is if you take on the feds you'll ultimately be viewed as a "basic thug" and you'll be locked away for life in prison. Anons and Julian Assange wont stand up for you once you go to prison.
Come on, it doesn't take that much to get involved in saying that certain politics are bullshit, but that's all it really needs. they're not going to come to your house and shoot you in your sleep.
That is because they don't have to. They can arrest you and treat you like a "basic thug" and everyone from the middle class suburbs will turn on you without looking at the facts of your case. All it takes to get you on a crime is an informant or several willing to say you're a drug kingpin or an informant willing to commit a serious crime and say you ordered them to do it and have you prove otherwise.
it's just some kids spreading cc numbers and hacking docs, it's the kind of shit half the kids online used to do
"Provide a URL to the real data you're talking about." - that's called entrapment. Didn't you know providing links is a heinous crime?
Since when?
still, posting the link to the data from a practically public forum to another.. what the fuck kind of crime is that?
I think I saw links to the data on slashdot. in any case at the point he was linking to them they were for all intents and purposes already public.
When they want to get someone they'll fish for something illegal until they find something. There are so many laws on the books that it's a certainty we are all criminals so if they want to get you they can.