US No-Fly List Uses 'Predictive Judgement' Instead of Hard Evidence 264
HughPickens.com writes: The Guardian reports that in a little-noticed filing before an Oregon federal judge, the US Justice Department and the FBI conceded that stopping U.S. and other citizens from traveling on airplanes is a matter of "predictive assessments about potential threats." "By its very nature, identifying individuals who 'may be a threat to civil aviation or national security' is a predictive judgment intended to prevent future acts of terrorism in an uncertain context," Justice Department officials Benjamin C Mizer and Anthony J Coppolino told the court. It is believed to be the government's most direct acknowledgment to date that people are not allowed to fly because of what the government believes they might do and not what they have already done. The ACLU has asked Judge Anna Brown to conduct her own review of the error rate in the government's predictions modeling – a process the ACLU likens to the "pre-crime" of Philip K Dick's science fiction. "It has been nearly five years since plaintiffs on the no-fly list filed this case seeking a fair process by which to clear their names and regain a right that most other Americans take for granted," say ACLU lawyers.
The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as damaging to national security. "If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries," says the assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, Michael Steinbach.
The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as damaging to national security. "If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual on the No Fly List and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the No Fly determination, the No Fly redress process would place highly sensitive national security information directly in the hands of terrorist organizations and other adversaries," says the assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division, Michael Steinbach.
Right to travel...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tell me Mr Anderson, what good is a phone call if you can't speak?
Sure, feel free to walk to whereever you want to go.
Re:Right to travel...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a REASONABLE choice.
This is what happense when people relenquish CONTROL. Homeland security and their TSA dogs were supposed to just keep everybody safe, but we see it is much more than that. It's only a matter of time. until they expand on the information they require. They have already asked me for the name of Facebook account, and other information; disinformation can be useful. I provided them with nothing because "I don't have one".
TSA is also located in train stations and bus stations, and we already have Border Patrol with checkpoints far away from the border, and other law enforcement setting up checkpoints in other parts of the country, and the judges are just going along with it, which makes them accessories, or just plain stupid. They have metal detectors and police in schools, and there are rumors of Metal detectors and armed guards being set up at movie theatres and malls.
This is exactly what the Nazis did. It's what happens in all totalitarian societies, when powerful people get into political offices, and those people need removed. And many people are convinced that peaceul solutions are no longer an option.
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in all totalitarian societies, when powerful people get into political offices
People who get into political office are by definition powerful people. What is important is if they have a totalitarian mindset or not.
Re:Right to travel...? (Score:5, Interesting)
What is important is if they have a totalitarian mindset or not.
Not really - the neuroscience on this is pretty clear - exercising power makes them into bad people. It's a long, slow process for most, but the brain's reward system is something that science can study, has studied in this case, and has found clear results.
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Which probably has less to do with anyone's totalitarian ambitions and more with the seemingly neverending supply of armed domestic terrorists striking there.
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Which probably has less to do with anyone's totalitarian ambitions and more with the seemingly neverending supply of armed domestic terrorists striking there.
Never ending supply? There were 1.27 billion movie tickets sold in the US and Canada in 2014. Let's say, for the sake of ease, that half those were sold to Americans. That's over 600,000,000 tickets. Now how many people were killed at theaters? 100? Probably less than that. So what purpose would metal detectors serve, other than to be a huge pain in the ass for everyone involved?
I think you're right, that this is driven more by irrational fear than totalitarian ambitions. But those ambitions do exist
which "no fly" list? It matters. (Score:2)
There are two very different lists which are both commonly referred to as a "No Fly" list, and they are very different. The article doesn't make it clear that the author knows the the difference, much less make it explicit which list the case is about.
There are tens of thousands of people on the "no fly" list which is really a "no border crossing" list. These people aren't allowd to fly into the United States and federal authorities will be notified if they try to leave the country. Personally, I'm okay
Re: which "no fly" list? It matters. (Score:5, Informative)
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However, it seems reasonable that in a population of 320 million, there would be a few hundred who truly are dangerous, for whom there is enough evidence that _I_ wouldn't want to be on a plane with them.
I think that's a lot like firearms though. As something of a philosophical point, if you're unable to trust somebody with a firearm, shouldn't they be in some sort of protective custody/supervision, at the least? I mean, I can probably kill more people with a 5 gallon can of gasoline than I can with a pistol.
That being said, we also can't afford to lock up everybody, so I think we need to take a long hard look at our country and what we're doing to generate dangerous people. The first one that comes to m
They just don't want to get sued (Score:5, Insightful)
for racial /religious profiling
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Well, there are two solutions I can think of to fix this:
1) Stop profiling and only use hard evidence. The downside is that they may be giving up a weapon that, for all its bad, is a net good. (As in, inconveniencing a few million people is worth saving a few hundred lives.)
2) Stop profiling and put everyone on the no-fly list. Then make everyone clear their names before being allowed to fly.
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The downside is that they may be giving up a weapon that, for all its bad, is a net good. (As in, inconveniencing a few million people is worth saving a few hundred lives.)
Last time I checked, airport security theatre had not saved one single life or stopped one single terrorist attempt.
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Goats are caprines. Sheep are ovines.
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Great retort.
MGuire AFB is not guarded or patrolled by the TSA. It's an Air Force base. You has a point there, I know but it's not just invalid. It's oblivious to reality.
So far, every test by the FBI etc that we have been informed of has shown the TSA is spectacularly inept [townhall.com] at finding contraband that agents have tried to smuggle on board an airplane. They've relieved me of several Leatherman Micras over the years, though. My pen is equally dangerous. Go figure.
Do we know if the TSA has discouraged any
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I doubt the TSA is very effective, but I'm sick of the progressives chanting bullshit that they should be able to realize is complete horseshit.
Progressives? Like there aren't plenty of right-wing "patriots" who disapprove of the TSA as well?
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TSA didn't stop the underwear bomber from getting on a plane.
One of the guys that tried to carry a handgun onto a plane was a legislator. Do you assume he meant to hijack the plane?
Re:They just don't want to get sued (Score:5, Insightful)
If inconveniencing a few million people is worth saving a few hundred lives, then inconveniencing a few hundred million people is worth saving tens of thousands of lives, yes?
So let's ban driving.
Shall we continue, or can we agree that line of reasoning would lead to all sorts of unintended consequences?
"National security," needs to be reserved for existential threats. Terrorism is not, and has never been, an existential threat, and it should be treated proportionally, as a crime.
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In the middle east, the enemy is stupid bitches. Movie and game idea, give them education, and upon GED completion, a hand gun and a box of shells. Then run like hell is coming, because it is.
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That would make it impossible to move enough food into cities, resulting in hundreds of millions starving to death. In fact the entire society would collapse since people couldn't get to work.
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then inconveniencing a few hundred million people is worth saving tens of thousands of lives, yes?
So let's ban driving.
You're not taking into account different degrees of inconvenience. I'm shocked that you're at +5 right now.
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Most driving deaths are not caused by the act of an individual or organization whose goal is to kill people. They tend to be call "accidents" for a reason.
Blowing up an aircraft or flying it into a building is no accident.
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"How about not letting the muslims enter our country or the illegals cross the borders?"
Such an attractive concept. Such a bigoted, ill conceived idea.
Yes, virtually every terrorist threat to the United States is sponsored or instigated by some Islamic group or individual. But not all Muslims are a threat.
Illegals crossing the border should be stopped for a variety of reasons, no matter their origin or details.
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Yes, virtually every terrorist threat to the United States is sponsored or instigated by some Islamic group or individual.
Only if you ignore all the ones from white, nominally-Christian Americans.
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How about not letting the muslims enter our country
Given the number of common Arabic names on the no-fly list, most Muslims are already prevented from entering the US. That's part of the problem here.
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bull shit.
Fly in to Cuba, float the last sixty fucking miles on a door.
I mean, for fuck's sake.
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most Arabs are already prevented from entering the US
Fixed that for you. Not all Arabs are Muslims, as not all Muslims are Arabs. At the same time, all they need to do is undergo a little bit of additional screening and get a redress number. It's not that bad.
For what it's worth, I voluntarily accepted additional pre-screening and am now a member of Global Entry and TSA Pre, and it only makes my life easier. It saves a lot of time when entering the US, or passing airport security. It saves the CBP and TSA a lot of time, knowing that I'm a low threat to secu
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Kaggle should do a no-fly list crime prediction competition, at least we'd get some good data about the state of the art to discuss on slashdot. As it is, the pro government astroturfers here can claim 100% accuracy and half the readership will lap it up because $TERRORISM.
It's not about terrorism (Score:5, Interesting)
Last year (?) a teenager was able to get over the perimeter fence and get on a plane. Later, they announced that they did not have the money to properly secure the fence. Depite this, exactly zero planes have been subject to terrorist attacks in the USA.
What do we infer from this? The risk from terrorists trying to blow up planes in the USA is indistinguishable from zero. I can't be the only person to realize this.
The administration must realize this, yet, they persist with the ridiculous rules about flying. Clearly, the searches, the no-fly-list, etc. have no connection to terrorism. There is some other reason for their existence.
Reasons for the searches, no-fly-list etc.? Money? Control? Something else?
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What do we infer from this? The risk from terrorists trying to blow up planes in the USA is indistinguishable from zero. I can't be the only person to realize this.
The administration must realize this, yet, they persist with the ridiculous rules about flying. Clearly, the searches, the no-fly-list, etc. have no connection to terrorism. There is some other reason for their existence.
Reasons for the searches, no-fly-list etc.? Money? Control? Something else?
See this response [slashdot.org] for an answer to your question. See also how to boil a frog [wikipedia.org].
Re:It's not about terrorism (Score:4, Insightful)
Reasons for the searches, no-fly-list etc.? Money? Control? Something else?
Theater. The appearance of doing something about the 'problem'. I've also heard of it being a disguised jobs/welfare program.
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Profiling is constitutional, and may or may not be legal depending on jurisdiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And public sentiment seems to swing toward profiling being OK
The second link says:
Nice Nazi regime you got there (Score:5, Insightful)
"Land of the free", indeed... I'm quite amazed how you Americans put up with all that.
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with the help of a quarter million Sons of Jacob in the ranks of his secret police?
It's not only widely known, names are starting to emerge.
Search: Emil Maurice, Adolf Eichmann, Sobibor Scharfuhrer Erich Fuchs... three of many hundreds now known to be Jews serving in the Wermacht and the SS.
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If they want to keep this nonsense intact they would be wise to at least make it easy to get off the list. It shouldn't take more than five business days to look at a file and decide if someone is actually a threat or not. It should not require a lengthy court battle to be heard. It's not just the travel limitations that impact rights, it's also the fairness of available recourse.
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They check for something that we call warrant.
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not just that. The first thing they check now is the Department for Work and Pensions. This is how it is now: if the Government claims you owe them money, like say for a £53 welfare overpayment, then they can prevent you from leaving the country simply by bouncing your passport.
I bullshit you not. This is now SOP. DWP, then warrants.
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please mod insightful.
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Inciting violence is a good way to end up Ruby Ridge style. Or, if you're lucky, you can share facilities with the Unabomber. But probably not trade philosophies. I think they keep him pretty well isolated.
Being prepared to kill wasn't the solution that Martin Luther King chose, and he managed to advance his cause.
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oh, yeah, look where that got him: DEAD.
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"Inciting violence will only get yourself ostracized and jailed"
Yup, even on a small [cnn.com] scale [photograph...acrime.com].
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"Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish
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you know if it wasn't for us "Eurofag"s, you arseholes would be speaking Cherokee.
You're welcome.
Secret Laws and Rules are the Threat to Security (Score:5, Insightful)
Secret Laws and Rules do not create national security, they are the threat to national security. The problem is, without a clear set of rules, it's a law that is open to abuse towards whomever those who are in charge don't like. Secret laws & courts are what shows you that instead of caring about protecting it's citizen, the government is using it to further their own ends.
We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
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We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
We cannot have freedom when we have any laws at all.
Any law whatsoever restricts individual freedom. You are no longer free to do whatever you want, whenever you feel like it.
No one anywhere is actually completely free. That's probably a real good thing.
Freedom does not mean no laws (Score:5, Insightful)
We cannot have freedom when we have any laws at all.
Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want. Never has been. That is anarchy which is not the same thing. Freedom is FAR more complicated than the absence of laws. Freedom is not just absence of restrictions on you but also absence of things being done TO you. A complete absence of laws for you necessarily means a loss of freedom for me because there is nothing restraining you (or me) from removing other people's freedom. Societies cannot exist without rules, both formal and informal and yet freedom under reasonable definitions of the term still exists.
If there is no law against slavery is the slave-owner free? The slave certainly isn't. But with laws against slavery we can fairly describe both people as free so the absolutist definition of freedom only existing when there are no laws simply makes no sense.
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We cannot have freedom when we have any laws at all.
Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want. Never has been. That is anarchy which is not the same thing. Freedom is FAR more complicated than the absence of laws.
Then freedom is not possible to ever happen. Some peopel want to do things to others, and consider it a restriction of their freedoms to do those things to others.
Any law anywhere, about anything restricts someone's freedom. And yeah, no laws is indeed anarchy. But everyone is free then, but of course, there are those who insist that one of their freedoms is removing freedoms from others.
We see this in areas like gay marriage, where there are groups that would deny marriage to other groups, even thoug
Rules exist if population is greater than 1 (Score:2)
Then freedom is not possible to ever happen. Some peopel want to do things to others, and consider it a restriction of their freedoms to do those things to others.
If you take an absurdly absolutist definition of freedom (no restrictions on me ever) then yes, it isn't possible for a population >1. I don't really think that is a useful discussion however.
Freedom in more practical terms is a relative state within a society. It is minimizing the restrictions on behavior rather than eliminating them altogether. It also provide reasonable protections against the harmful actions of others. It's sort of akin to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. You cannot simulta
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Then freedom is not possible to ever happen. Some peopel want to do things to others, and consider it a restriction of their freedoms to do those things to others.
Two heterosexual men, one an engineer and one a mathematician are standing at the end of a hallway. At the other end is a beautiful naked woman. The two men are told that they may walk halfway down the hallway, then halfway down the remaining hallway, then halfway down the remaining hallway, etc. If they reach the woman they can have sex with her. The mathematician immediately realizes this is Zeno's paradox and sits down. The engineer starts walking. When the mathematician asks "Why are you walking? You ca
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A complete absence of laws for you necessarily means a loss of freedom for me because there is nothing restraining you (or me) from removing other people's freedom.
there is indeed something restraining you: your own moral and ethical judgement. and that's really what man-made laws are there for: to catch the people who have no understanding of either morals or ethics.
the problem we have right now is that the process by which the laws are made has itself been blatantly corrupted, and there are people in positions of power who feel that they can blatantly ignore the entire legal process.
at some point ordinary american citizens - probably pressurised by the rest of the
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Some freedoms are spelled out in the various constitutions of various countries.
And when secret laws and courts pretend those freedoms don't exist, or are optional, then you have a very serious problem.
And these secret laws are doing precisely that ... no right to know how or why you're on a no-fly list, no redress, no due process other than "someone somewhere made an unsubstantiated allegation".
Nobody is talking about being completely free. What they're talking about is maintaining the freedoms enshrined
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What they're talking about is maintaining the freedoms enshrined in law which are being violated because a process of "because we said so" is in place.
Just responding to the OP - and it seems he was saying that. You can disagree, and I'm not arguing for anarchy, or disring that there are no laws, nor for the concept of not knowing about the existence of a law until jack-booted thugs haul me off in the middle of the night.
Nosiree - just responding to:
We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
We can not have freedom even if there is not one "secret" law or court either. It's not a call for anarchy, just a rather valid observatio
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These programs are clearly not conducive to the long term maintenance of a free, open, and democratic society. Internal security programs like this are highly susceptible to abuse; but more importantly, look at how ineffective this and other abusive programs have proved in the past 14 years. All of the worst ones have not proved to have ANY significant impact on terrorist or other attacks.
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We can NOT have freedom when we have secret laws & courts.
To make matters worse, ignorantia juris non excusat (ignorance of the law does not excuse) is a fundamental legal principle in this country. Coupled with secret laws, no one can claim with certainty that they are a law-abiding citizen. That's probably what's driving the total surveillance state - we're all criminals that just haven't realized it yet.
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Except in the case where the police violate the 4th amendment.
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Predictive Judgment AKA "guessing" (Score:2)
"Predictive judgment" is a somewhat technical-sounding name for "giving it our best guess based on all kinds of stuff we pretend to understand".
Does it work? Absolutely- 30% of the time it works every time!
They'd almost be better off just rolling some dice and making decisions based on the score.
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In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. [orwell.ru]
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Infrequent event statistics do not lend well to random comparisons.
Whoooooooooooosh!
Of course they don't want to release info (Score:2, Insightful)
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Are you trying to justify racial/religious profiling, or suggest that doing so against Muslims would *not* be islamophobic? Or suggest that anyone who can recognize simple bigotry against Muslims is a terrorist sympathizer/appeaser? Because I don't think it's working outside of your own head.
Mare likely (Score:2)
The have hard statistical evidence that most likely terrorists are white Christians, but that would jeopardize their funding.
The no-fly list targeted Ted Kennedy and Dave Nelson, which is not consisted with either the terrorist or the Muslim portions of the theory.
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news, during criminal procedures the prosecutor will no longer be obligated to present evidence the defendant is guilty of a crime before incarcerating them.
"If the Government were required to provide full notice of its reasons for placing an individual in prison and to turn over all evidence (both incriminating and exculpatory) supporting the incarceration determination, the incarceration process would place highly sensitive criminal justice information directly in the hands of criminals and other adversaries, like the American people," said some fuckstick.
What Rights (Score:2)
That US government statement reads more like this "The government of the United States of America, declares all it's citizens terrorists and they have no right to know how they are being judged by the government of the United States of America prior to the administrative branch of the government of United States of America applying penalties and curtailing their rights". You people are in deep trouble.
So dangerous they can't fly but (Score:5, Insightful)
And before someone mods this troll that was sarcasm. I also happen to believe that if the administration were to reveal their "State Secrets" it would be something like the emperor has no cloths.
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So let me get this straight these people are so dangerous that they can't fly yet aren't dangerous enough to be brought in for questioning, gotten off the streets for the safety of the general public, and are likely not under direct surveillance? I am a bit confused here.
It's actually not all that difficult to consider situations where the above is true. For example, imagine that the NSA is monitoring the email and social media activity of Joe Blow, an American born recent convert to Islam who has expressed the opinion that ISIS is pretty cool and should be supported. Is expressing such an opinion really a crime? Nope. But showing such sympathies might just be enough to get him put on the no fly list even though he's committed no crime. And bringing him in for question
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They caught Ted Kennedy. Mission accomplished.
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I am a bit confused here.
Why are you confused? This is very simple behavioral conditioning. They are in charge, they don't need a good reason -- it's "because I said so." Now don't make Mommy Dearest give you a beating - that would not be nice of you.
winter soldier, zola's algorithm (Score:5, Interesting)
whilst others may quote george orwell 1984, philip k dick, V for Vendetta, minority report and so on, i'm reminded of the more recent film captain america winter soldier, in which a swiss nazi/hydra scientist, who was permitted to work in the US after the 2nd world war, creates an "algorithm" that can read people's online digital fingerprint, predicts whether they are likely to be a threat (to hydra's "new world order"), and the results are used to murder them... *before* they can act.
the justifications for such action - delivered by the character played by robert redford - sound so completely sane and rational that it's genuinely hard - rationally - to come up with a counter-argument. questions are asked such as "what if we could stop terrorists before they act?" and to be absolutely honest, the responses by the actors were really not that convincing, as they sounded lame in their "emotive" and "moral conscience" justification.
and that's really illustrative of what we're seeing here. these films merely reflect to us what's *actually* going on. these films are pointing out to us that there are *genuinely* people out there who can, with no moral conscience whatsoever and with a blatant disregard for the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, use purely rational logic to justify the removal of freedom and even of life itself.
the problem is, i feel, that the founding fathers had just been through a war that tore what is now known as the U.S. apart: the lesson was burned into their minds, and it brought together people with good conscience to make sensible and far-sighted committments, in the form of "The Constitution".
by contrast, i cannot honestly say that i can even guess at what truly drives the current power-hungry people who make decisions like the ones that they're making right now. we have people like bruce schneier "calling out" their "security theatrics", but that's just a symptom, not the underlying motivation. we see glimpses that something terribly strange is going on - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] - but it's sufficiently orwellian that even i have a hard time comprehending the implications.
so help me out here: someone please help me to understand why there are people in the world's leading nation - the one that all others look up to - who would blatantly disregard the principles on which the U.S. Constitution is founded.
Re:winter soldier, zola's algorithm (Score:5, Insightful)
The Constitution was designed to LIMIT the power of the Federal Government. It has been extended in ways that also limit the power of State governments (14th Amendment, for example).
There are people in the world to whom POWER is everything. You can frequently identify them by looking at a ballot in an election - you run for office not to "serve" the public, but to "master" them. Yes, "civil servant" is pretty much equivalent to "civil master" in most situations...
In other words, never trust a politician - he/she didn't run for office for the pay, but for the perks (getting to tell other people what to do)....
Citizens = Adversaries (Score:2)
So are US citizens regarded as a terrorist organization or just "Other Adversaries" now? Silly me, I thought we were the bosses of th
Re:Citizens = Adversaries (Score:4, Insightful)
So are US citizens regarded as a terrorist organization or just "Other Adversaries" now? Silly me, I thought we were the bosses of the government. Been reading that Constitution too much. It'll warp your brain.
No, the information *would not* be placed directly into the hands of terrorists. The information need only be provided only to the defendant's lawyer, an officer of the court, who could be cleared to receive it, and promise, under threat of prosecution, not to divulge it to the defendant.
This is crap, just like the no-fly list, and the TSA searches. I'm sure there are people too dangerous to fly. But there can't be many of them. And if you're a regular American citizen, who hasn't been convicted of a crime, the Government should have to explain to you why they're restricting your ability to travel by air. If they can't explain it to you, you should be allowed to fly. To do otherwise comes awfully close to violating your rights under the fourth amendment tothe Constitution.
And our elected representatives are a bunch of pussies for not standing up and saying that.
Not unreasonable for visas (Score:2)
Internationally most countries deny visas all the time for reasons ranging from "because" to "you said something that hurt my feelings" to "you once talked to a guy I don't like".
So the US denying entry visas on grounds similar to what other countries all over the world... including England, France, Japan, Switzerland etc deny visas on... that's fine. No nation really has any grounds to criticize the US for its entry policies since they're generally more permissive than anyone else.
As to denying citizens th
How hard evidence are you going to find? (Score:2)
The process? What process? (Score:2)
Has elaborate eastern-style headgear? Y/N
Looks african/middle eastern? Y/N
Looks fanatical? Y/N
Shake Magic 8-Ball (Result): _________________________
That's pretty much it. There's no process or real criteria here. And anyone telling you differently is full of shit. Including President OhBlahBlah.
I am fine with predictive judgement.... (Score:2)
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As I understand it the main argument, which the ACLU is using, boils down to saying that the no-fly list deprives people of liberty and this "predictive judgement" is not due process of law.
I've seen the documentary on this process (Score:2)
Apparently three people floating in a hot tub intuit that you could be guilty of 'precrime' and you're on the list.
Giving reasons would make it even less useful (Score:2)
The use of "predictive judgment" is debatable to say the least but revealing the reasons would make the system even less useful. It would be like telling the terrorists how to defeat the system.
Total Information Awareness (Score:4, Interesting)
It's John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness. Even though it was blocked by congress it was quietly renamed. The entire Air Screening program is unconstitutional, but the judges just don't have the balls to rule that way in court.
Vietnam quote redux (Score:2)
So what the FBI are saying is (Score:2)
"Fuck the Constitution and fuck the very idea of justice".
Because withholding "evidence" in the name of national security has NEVER held up in any court of Law. Injustice to one is injustice to all. Will you wait until it happens to you before you say something? Because when it does happen to you, it's gonna be too late to complain. The time is NOW.
Would it, Barack Hussein? Would it expose? (Score:2)
So, hang on a minute. The reasons and evidence
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Except -- its a long standing legal principle that suspicion is not tantamount to punishment, a principle that was established in the days when suspicion was propagated within the government by letters written in copperplate calligraphy and acted upon by a human magistrate, all very cumbersome, labor-intensive and expensive.
Of course now that you can be selected for suspicion by an algorithm and that suspicion can be acted upon (albeit non-decisively) by IT, there is no practical distinction between indefin
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It is also a long standing legal position that enemy combatants are not subject to Constitutional protection. Terrorists are by virtue of the term "war on terror", enemy combatants. You also do not have to afford an enemy combatant any sort of legal process, least of all trial by jury. The only thing the Geneva Convention prohibits you from doing is torturing or murdering the prisoner. Beyond that, the only thing you have to do for an EC is prevent him from starving to death.
All a Fed has to do is say the w
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that's a mighty suspicious looking package on your front passenger seat.
See you at Gitmo.
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"The Obama administration is seeking to block the release of further information about how the predictions are made, as damaging to national security."
Yeah, but it's no big deal that the secretary of state was using her own private email server to store top secret and confidential information.
I wish Obama would have turned out merely as bad as I thought he would be 7 years ago - he's so far exceeded my expectations.
Uh....you know that this all started under Bush, right?
Right?
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Uh....you know that this all started under Bush, right?
Right?
And the current administration utterly failed to change it.
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Holy shit, still clinging to "Bush did it, too!" after 6 years? Give it the fuck up already. You people looked like morons 6 years ago, at this point you simply look insane.
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What, Bush's Secretary of State was using a private email server too?!? Didn't know that.
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Re:Gotta love it (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, but it's no big deal that the secretary of state was using her own private email server to store top secret and confidential information.
Ironically, given the recent OPM and IRS breaches, Clinton's server was perhaps more secure than the State Department's... :-)
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Politicians have found themselves on the no-fly list, witness the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, as a target of retaliation.
Actually, no he wasn't. There was a "T Kennedy" on the list but Ted's name was actually Edward Moore Kennedy - not even a silent "T" in there. Unless you count his nickname. By that time you can just make up names to be on the list if you don't want someone to fly.
And that's before we get to people getting past the name issue by -gasp- using an alias. Like some terrorist suspect once using the alias "T Kennedy", which is how that name got on the list.