DHS Wants To Monitor the Web For Terrorists 285
a user writes "Under the belief that terrorists are 'increasingly' recruiting US citizens, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano says that increased government monitoring of the Internet is necessary to thwart them. It is believed that Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hassan and attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad were inspired by radical Internet postings. Speaking at a meeting of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Napolitano said, 'We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where tradeoffs are inevitable.'"
Re:When you are looking for a needle in a (Score:2, Interesting)
[A]ll this will do is make people more paranoid.
This is going to change anything? The idea that some government agency or another isn't already monitoring the web for terrorist activity is inconceivable.
Re:Go To Hell (Score:0, Interesting)
A-Fucking-Men!
How long before this shit has people rooting for the terrorists and it comes full circle and creates freedom fighters?
Re:who's to blame? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately the idiots that think the fox was a necessary addition outnumber those of us that know better. The fox is always to blame *and* so are those who were stupid enough to let fear make the decisions for them.
Disturbing (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently the speech focused on one of those situations where "tradeoffs are inevitable." If Hassan and Shahzad were "inspired" by radical internet posts, I cannot conceive of any further investigative tradeoff that could have been made while still maintaining constitutionality. Even if they had made radical internet posts, they would have to be inciting imminent lawless action [cornell.edu] or alluding to their participation in criminal plots/conspiracies/etc. to justify a search warrant. The FBI is already on the lookout for people who post such things on public online forums.
Napolitano's comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights.
I would hate to think that anyone liberal on civil rights would find these statements comforting...
"Her speech is sign of the maturing of the administration on this issue," said Stewart Baker, former undersecretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security. "They now appreciate the risks and the trade-offs much more clearly than when they first arrived, and to their credit, they've adjusted their preconceptions."
Yes, I'm sure "liberals" will be relieved that Stewart Baker, former Assistant Secretary [dhs.gov] (nice research, AP) of the DHS for George W. Bush, approves of the Obama Administration's "security" policies. When Republican hawks talk about "mature" security policies, they mean the ones that Dick Cheney dreams about at night, the ones that Bush was trying to step back from in his final two years; they mean Obama's current policies.
That is the point. (Score:3, Interesting)
When I entered high school the internet exposed me to anti-Christian propaganda. This led me to think about my belief system in a more analytical way. I am sure there are some people in Utah who would like to have removed my access to all dissenting religious thought for the same reason.
People who want to limit your access to information are trying to control how you think and how you act. People should do what they feel is right, and most importantly their actions should be the result of a well informed thought process.
Surely Nadal's actions were not efficient. He did not change anything, but he made his choice. Now he's dead. But you can hardly say he was a child who was indoctrinated by some internet posting.
Flame me if you will.
What a facist (Score:5, Interesting)
Quote:
"Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday."
She goes on to say that the TSA procedure to not retain copies of the pictures taken by airport scanners is "protecting our rights". If the argument is going to be made that not making copies is "good enough" let's ask Rolando Negrin, the TSA employee who was arrested and fired after beating the snot out of one of his co-workers for their cracks about the size of his genitals.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/TSA-Fracas-After-Body-Scanner-Reveals-TMI-92971929.html [nbcmiami.com]
So, if someone only "publicly" derides your appearance, reading habits or porn preferences then your rights are violated. If the government gives unfettered access to the fine details of your private life to a select group it is a good thing?
The process is supposed to be based upon reasonable cause and suspicion. Evidence is to be presented to a judge who would issue a search warrant to give the government the temporary permission to snoop into the details of your private life to collect evidence of a crime. Homeland Security is quick to jump onto any opportunity to treat every American as a criminal "who just hasn't been caught yet".
Re:Theatrical Security (Score:2, Interesting)
For those of you who use Emacs, you can use M-x spook when composing email
(Or you can use it with twitter [nmt.edu])
Example: terrorist Ft. Meade strategic supercomputer $400 million in gold bullion quiche Honduras BATF colonel Treasury domestic disruption SEAL Team 6 class struggle smuggle
Re:Go To Hell (Score:5, Interesting)
Though I might have put it more politely, I agree to some extent. How many deaths a year do we have from terrorism? Is that number really big enough to justify giving up some of our rights?
On the other hand, we already consider rights to be a trade off against security. Most people support allowing some forms of surveillance with a court order. Laws haven't kept up with improving technology, so there isn't really a black and white "this violates our rights and that does not".
I don't have serious objections to collecting information to stop terrorism. what I object to is using that information to stop other crimes. We already accept the idea that our military is given different tools than our police: We don't give the police attack helicopters, grenade launchers and nukes. By the same sort of argument, I don't mind the military having extensive surveillance technology to stop international terrorism, but I DO object to that technology or information obtained from it being used to stop other crimes like copyright violations.
feature or a bug? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:When you are looking for a needle in a (Score:5, Interesting)
Uhhh - how much have you actually read about Hassan? The man made treasonous statements in the presence of other commissioned officers. The only thing that held those officers back, it seems, is the liberal feel-good policies that would have branded them as racists, and/or intolerant religious bigots.
I wasn't an officer, but I reported less treasonous statements made by a little freak skinhead who worked for me. Nazi, neo-nazi, skinhead, whatever you care to call it, the freak drew swastikas everywhere he could draw them, and praised Hitler and his policies. His attitude toward blacks was disgusting, and his attitude toward our flag was little better. I don't know how the little freak ever got into the service.
Hassan? Same thing.
If you've read very much of what I post around here, or elsewhere, I am NOT EVER "politically correct", and I'd have reported Hassan again and again, even if I had to send letters to BuPers, the Pentagon, the White House, and to congress. No man in uniform should ever run at the mouth like Hassan did. Most certainly not a commissioned officer.
Re:When you are looking for a needle in a (Score:5, Interesting)
Little Brother (Score:3, Interesting)
This is slightly off-topic, but is anyone here familiar with Cory Doctorow? He wrote a book I just finished called Little Brother where this same thing happened (except a little more localized and extreme) and he shows how pointless it really is. The book can be found here for download [craphound.com] and it's under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If I was in Marcus's position right now (the book's main character), I'd be scared and facepalming at the same time. I wouldn't be scared of terrorists; I'd be scared of my own government! And to think we always shoot down the very ideas of some foreign governments that "don't respect freedom" when we're doing the very things we hate. It just doesn't make sense.
Re:When you are looking for a needle in a (Score:3, Interesting)
For better or for worse it's hardly unheard of for supremacist groups to order hits via postings on the internet. Not specifically aimed at one person, but at anybody interested in carrying out their agenda. Which is what probably spurred this interest in monitoring the threats online. But without knowing what exactly she meant, it's really hard to know whether it's a good idea or terribly frightening.
Terrorism and $$$ (Score:1, Interesting)
For the Police and Security types this whole thing is a giant self fullfilling prophcey. The more LE you add, the more "crimes" they find, the more they justifify their jobs, the more the LE they add, the more "crimes" they find, the more they justify their jobs.....
Now, This leads to other problems because the more "crimes" you find, the more people you put in jail, and once your there and out the chances of you leading a productive life afterwards is greatly reduced. Mostly because we have few manufacturing jobs in the US anymore where these people could work out their days.
What does this have to do with terrorism? Nothing at all. Mostly because in my opinion most of the homeland security grant moneys dont get spent finding osama bin laden or any of his cronies, but get dispatched to the local police to spend on new toys, which they seem to enjoy (ever seen the lighting packages on most police cars these days?)...
Granted we want to live in safety, however we are slowly turning into a police state on a war against fear. Overall we are more likely to be killed in an automobile accident, heart attack, cancer, etc or some other more or less normal means than getting blown to smitherines by a terrorist.
Encryption wont stop the NSA. (Score:3, Interesting)
The best encryption will slow the NSA down but it wont stop them. PGP's key length is not large enough that it cannot be cracked. It's large enough that it would take weeks to do it. So in general the use of encryption while secure enough to keep them from simply sniffing the data up, it wont stop them from putting a gun to your head and torturing the data out of you.
So if you use encryption and they suspect you are a terrorist, you'll be kidnapped and tortured, and this could last anywhere from minutes to years, or even for the rest of your life if they put you in a Supermax prison. The point is if you do use encryption it doesn't stop the rubber hose cryptoanalyst.