A History of Wiretapping 128
ChelleChelle writes "Wiretapping technology has grown increasingly sophisticated since the police first began to utilize it as a surveillance tool in the 1890s. What once entailed simply putting clips on wires has now evolved into building wiretapping capabilities directly into communications infrastructures (at the government's behest). In a modern society, where surveillance is often touted as a way of ensuring our safety, it is important to take into consideration the risks to our privacy and security that electronic eavesdropping presents. In this article, Whitfield Diffie and Susan Landau examine these issues, attempting to answer the important question: does wiretapping actually make us more secure?"
A Necessary Evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More importantly (Score:5, Interesting)
Another video that pisses me off - Warrantless Search - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2ZV_kQh048 [youtube.com]
Re:More importantly (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't be intimidated. These officers are your EMPLOYEES and you are the boss.
Ha ha, no. I know a guy who was woken up about 7 am on a Sunday by banging and crashing next to his apartment, he got up to investigate and found two cops trying to kick his neighbour's door open. He asked them what was going on and they said they wanted to talk to his neighbour about some stolen property. He told them he never heard him come home and they asked if he had a key, he told them he did and they asked him to unlock the door. He asked if they had a warrant, they said they didn't so he refused to open the door. They pepper sprayed him, arrested him and made up a story about how he tried to assault them. It was the word of one guy versus two cops, guess who the judge sided with? (no jury trial in NZ for "minor assault") Later on they even tried to implicate him in the robbery (the neighbour *had* been knowingly buying stolen TVs etc.) but he got off on that due to lack of evidence.
Rule 1: DO NOT talk to police.
Re:More importantly (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet another Unconstitutional, illegal search without warrant
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB_jp3Sm1BY [youtube.com]
Anybody With Something To Hide Knows Better (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well, yes, it does (Score:3, Interesting)
Well that happens when Congress fails to read the bills placed in front of them. I found it amusing that representatives later said, "I didn't know that law was in the Patriot Act!" Well you would have known if you had bothered to read it.
I expect to hear similar representative cries of "I didn't know that was in the Stimulus Bill" in a few more months. If I was in Congress I would automatically vote "nay" on any bill I have not read at least once.
Re:Asynchronous Encryption ends the debate (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:If you knew what was really going on... (Score:2, Interesting)
The authority figure(s) may present convincing evidence, which is often fabricated or exaggerated. In addition, what the neighborhood watch members don't know is that the target is being covertly harassed by police informants, in an attempt to get him to act out, or to confirm what the police are saying. For example, if the police accuse the target of being a sex offender who hasn't gotten caught yet, female police informants will show up everywhere in the target's path dressed wildly inappropriately to get the target to look. The neighborhood watch member observing this will conclude there's something to the accusations.
It takes a lot of effort to build up the momentum for Gang Stalking of a single individual, a lot of setups like the one I just described. But it's possible because practically everyone involved (neighborhood watch members, police informants) have been tricked or manipulated into working for free. The neighborhood watch members are volunteers. The police informants have to do whatever their case officers tell them to, for free, or go to prison.
There's much more to the ground forces than this, but it's way off-topic for this story, so I'll save it for later.
As for the high tech component of the persecution and torture campaign, it's interesting that you mention tinfoil hats. That is the kind of comment I was warned about before deciding to post here. Just FYI, I'm quite sophisticated enough to know that tinfoil hats do very little to protect against the kinds of things targeted individuals are concerned about. People who have been targeted in the US are a cross-section of America, and unfortunately the majority of Americans are scientifically illiterate. However, don't make the mistake of placing me in that category.
This program is going to come out much sooner than Russ Tice would like, and it's going to be big, but it's probably not going to happen as a result of what I post today. There are people working behind the scenes to expose this; unfortunately you're not going to find accurate information about what's being done on the web. A lot of people who speak up about this are, as I've said, scientifically uninformed, and thus they post nonsense. I'm doing my part by trying to reduce the amount of nonsense out there.
I'm not concerned about posting anonymously. I've already been targeted. What are they going to do... double-target me? My concern is about stepping into the public eye before the time is right.
Re:If you knew what was really going on... (Score:2, Interesting)
This stuff is happening here in America, and it has historical precedent in East Germany's Stasi, who used police informants and citizen's watch groups for Gang Stalking, as well as covert microwaves for torturing and killing targets. In addition, similar tactics were used and exposed in America decades ago - read up on COINTELPRO. Wikipedia has an executive summary in its COINTELPRO page in the "methods" section.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to pull this stuff off. The tactics come from a big book that most targeted individuals that I've communicated with are highly familiar with. Many policemen are also being manipulated, unwittingly, in this program. Again, read up on COINTELPRO, the tactic I mentioned in passing is only one of many the FBI used in that decades old program, and they've gotten more advanced in their tactics since then.
But this is off-topic for this article, anyway, since the topic is warrantless wiretapping, not Stasi-like Gang Stalking. However, there is a new high tech component to the Gang Stalking that didn't exist in East Germany, it's the stuff I was saying above that Slashdotters wouldn't be able to comprehend. It's something I can't talk about yet in the presence of non-targeted individuals (*especially* young techies who think they know everything), but it's going to come out a lot sooner than these guys think.
Re:If you knew what was really going on... (Score:1, Interesting)
If there were armed soldiers following your politicians everywhere they went with guns to their heads as they signed papers, you'd immediately recognize it as a military dictatorship. But what if the guns are several hundred or thousand miles away, and the gunshot is invisible? What if heart attacks or strokes can be induced electronically at will, and the only consideration is whether the target will comply with the implied threat, and if not, whether the target can be killed with deniability? Would that fit your definition of a military dictatorship?
When Dick Cheney had his well publicized heart problems in office, maybe you should revisit what message was really being sent. Maybe the people who order Dick Cheney around like an errand boy were telling the world, "If Dick died on the operating table, nobody would question it. His life is in our hands. We own him."
Maybe the government doesn't work the way you think it does. Maybe your leaders aren't in control and can't possibly be in control. Maybe the smart ones understand this, and decide to make the best of a bad situation by selling out.
That's all I'm prepared to say today. There's a lot more to the high tech persecution/torture/blackmail/murder angle than I've alluded to here.
Re:If you knew what was really going on... (Score:1, Interesting)
Patiently trying to explain to you and other readers, who haven't experienced what I and others like me have experienced, what's really going on... well, that'll blow what tiny scraps of credibility I've managed to accumulate in this thread.
There will be developments in the coming months that will be cause for me to post more information about this program, because the public's awareness will be broadened. Slashdot hasn't seen the last of me. (Is that a threat, or a promise? Cue the Slashdot laugh track...)