Surveillance Update 345
Several things occurred within the past few days on the privacy/surveillance frontier. First, the EU Parliament decision we mentioned yesterday is being widely reported as an assault on privacy (the European press barely mentions the spam angle we covered yesterday). As far as I can tell, this decision will loosen the EU's protections against surveillance, but does not implement any spying itself - national governments are free to NOT spy on their citizens, in the (perhaps unlikely) event that they don't want to do so. In the U.S., the FBI will be increasing their general surveillance - that is, they'll be doing more surveillance unrelated to any suspected crime, using commercial databases, etc. We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur. The NYT has an interesting analysis. Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc.
Well, this planet is screwed... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Well, this planet is screwed... (Score:3, Funny)
I say we all hold our horses untill they have coffee and decent broadband connections.
Re:Well, this planet is screwed... (Score:2)
Urgh. Sorry (Score:2)
Despite opposition from civil liberties groups worldwide, the European parliament bowed to pressure from individual governments, led by Britain...
In my defence, I voted Lib-Dem in the last General Election, so the current bunch of clowns are nothing to do with me...
Re:Urgh. Sorry (Score:2)
The uk seems to be taking on the worst ideas from all over the world at the moment.
Re:Urgh. Sorry (Score:2)
Not all over the world, just from Seattle.
New Labour has an ongoing relationship with our friends.
Quote [theregister.co.uk]
The UK government's increasing reliance on Microsoft software has been demonstrated yet again with leaked documents regarding its new email encryption system.
...
And then during the election, Blair decided to launch his business manifesto at Microsoft's UK HQ in Reading. (He was usurped by MS using the event to publicise Windows XP.)
Re:Urgh. Sorry (Score:2, Interesting)
Worse, the proles seem to think it's a great idea: to them, Big Brother is nothing more than a TV concept. Watch any vox pops show on the subject and all you hear are variations of lines like "Those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear". It's the one thing Orwell missed: that the proles would be manipulated to actively welcome 1984.
Of course, this message will soon be placed in my thought-crime file....
Re:Urgh. Sorry, Sorry.. (Score:2, Funny)
Your *Lack* of Rights Online. . . (Score:2)
As far as I can tell, this decision will loosen the EU's protections against surveillance, but does not implement any spying itself - national governments are free to NOT spy on their citizens, in the (perhaps unlikely) event that they don't want to do so.
A government is like a small child--give it an inch, and it will take a mile. A good case in point is Carnivore, here in the United States, which we already know intercepts non-suspects' e-mails [msnbc.com] despite FBI promises to the contrary.
Really, I'm surprised. Slashdot editors are usually the first ones I can count on to sound the alarm when this kind of blatant Big-Brotherism is passed into law. Maybe it doesn't matter to them because it's not happening in the U.S., yet?
RIP all over again? (Score:3, Interesting)
This sounds like the RIP (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) Act we've been subjected to in the UK. We were informed that the Government had these rights, but no amount of correspondance with politicians would get us a concrete answer as to what exactly 'necessary' and 'appropriate' were defined as in the Government's eyes. It might be 'necessary' to violate our privacy to monitor all of our communications to safeguard National Security, for instance. And the less said about Echelon the better.
Sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
But really... wouldn't a free big-screen high-definition plasma television in exchange for allowing the goverment to plant a camera behind the screen be great?! I want my Phillips Telescreen!
Big Bro (Score:5, Interesting)
Officials said they believe that terrorists unknown to the FBI have taken advantage of such policies by meeting in mosques or Internet chat rooms where agents were unlikely to be watching. That was the case with most of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers, officials said.
But the NY Times article only says they were meeting in mosques, and I've heard no other proof of Internet chat rooms being a contributer to 9/11.
So that justifies placing agents in chat rooms for the sole purpose of developing leads?
In addition, from NY Times:
Among other changes, the new guidelines let agents search Web sites and online chat rooms for evidence of terrorists' planning or other criminal activities.
It's that "other criminal activities" that has me worried. If someone is talking about drugs (regardless of whether or not they actually use them), does Uncle Sam track 'em down and start a file? And "terrorist activities"...seems that they could possibly keep pushing that one until anything that criticizes "Our Great Country" could lead to an investigation.
Seems to me the Thought Police can't be far behind.
Re:Big Bro (Score:2)
Re:Big Bro (Score:4, Insightful)
That's completely asinine.
According to the Washington Post, "The new guidelines state simply that FBI agents may enter public places and forums, including publically accessible Internet sites, to observe, develop leads, and investigate."
What's intrusive or scary about this? If you're engaged in public activity, you don't have much of an expectation of privacy, do you? Previously, FBI agents were restricted from doing things you and I can already do, like walk into a mosque and look around on a whim.
If you think that changing the rules to allow FBI agents to
Re:Big Bro (Score:2, Interesting)
The FBI, SS, IRS and every other flavor of cop has been showing up at hacker gatherings for ages, I do not see where it has ever stopped them before.
They were also taking down license plate numbers at KKK meetings, neo-Nazi meetings and all sorts of other gatherings forever, they never stopped.
Within the past 10 years they have testified in court about infiltrating "Militia" groups and inciting them to build bombs. Also they have been coaxing sepratists into illegal weapons modifications, inventing charges of drug manufacture just to attack sepratists. They have invented charges of child molestation and weapons "violations" to destroy a church.
Seems many folks are getting worked up about a press announcement stating that doing things different means doing the same thing they were doing before, except now they will be paying attention to violent crime/terrorism, hopefully without joining in.
Se ya at Summercon!
Re:Big Bro (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider my example, you're in an online chat and the topic of drugs comes up. So your name goes in an FBI file regarding drugs, regardless of the fact that you don't use them, you were just talking about them online. Now you are potentially being investigated (opening all sorts of other doors into your private life) for something you don't have anything to do with.
Suddenly we all have to watch exactly what we say and do online to make sure it falls in line with Big Brothers ideals, otherwise we're under suspicion. Its a leap, but I don't consider it a stupid one.
Re:Big Bro (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you're the subject of an active criminal investigation, however, there's a reasonable expectation that you should be free from undue scrutiny. Why? Because it has that ever-popular "chilling effect on free speech" that you see mentioned so often in First Amendment cases.
Example: An FBI agent walks into a mosque and says, "Hey folks! No cause for alarm. Just wanted to let you know we'll have three agents with tape recorders at every public meeting held here from now on. But hey, as long as you're not doing or saying anything wrong, you've got nothing to worry about, right?" It'd be hard to argue that this wouldn't have a profound impact on legitimate discourse in that particular forum.
Face it, observation by the law carries with it (rightly or no) a certain presupposition of wrongdoing. For instance, pretend you're driving along when a police cruiser comes out of nowhere and decides to sit five feet from your rear bumper for the next 20 miles. I guarantee you at least two things are gonna happen. (1) You'll sit there furiously trying to figure out what it was you did wrong. Speeding? Illegal turn? (2) Your manner of driving will be greatly impacted while the cruiser is there. You'll become overly cautious.
(And yes, I know this is an apples/oranges deal. Driving isn't a constitutionally protected right. Just wanted to get across the point that even within the bounds of legal behavior, we act differently while watched.)
Friendly tip: insulting people or their opinions usually isn't the best way to begin your arguments.
Re:Agents in chat rooms (Score:2)
Cheers!
Kintanon
And from the Depth of Hell.... (Score:3, Funny)
.... Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover enjoy a final, hearty laugh.
Re:And from the Depth of Hell.... (Score:2)
Nixon: Computers may be twice as fast as they were in 1973, but your average voter is as drunk and stupid as ever. The only one who's changed is me. I've become bitter - and, let's face it, crazy over the years, and once I'm swept into office I'll sell our children's organs to zoos and I'll go into people's houses at night and wreck up the place! [Laughs fiendishly]
Re: FBI Subj: And the Constitution is...? (Score:5, Insightful)
The NRA's slogan "Vote Freedom First" seems kind of ludicrous when you consider that it was used in support of this administration. Mod me as flamebait if you must, but increased FBI powers and freedom are not in any way compatible.
On all fronts our freedom is being assaulted. Technological and now social. We don't even have a Congressman to write to and complain in this cse; where are the checks and balances on the FBI? Oh yes, in the hands of the man who just gave them broader powers. And, given their track record for reporting the information they receive to their superiors...
These are scary times.
Re: FBI Subj: And the Constitution is...? (Score:2)
Here's the trick folks; if you want a congressman to write to, vote for a congressman that will...
In fairness... (Score:2)
And so it begins (Score:4, Insightful)
However, that's not directly what I wanted to say. I'd instead like to point out the two main reasons we got to this point:
And you do it too. Every time you say, "I wish the federal government would just regulate <foo>" or "I can't believe those ball players/lawyers/neurosurgeons make so much money," you're demonstrating envy and righteousness. Realize that if you think someone you don't know owes you something just because of your circumstances or his, someone else thinks the same about you. Realize that if you have the power to take away another's liberties, he has the power to take away yours. The only way to combat this is to deny government the power to forcibly take away any of our liberties.
If you're not voting Libertarian [lp.org], donating to the EFF [eff.org], the ACLU [aclu.org] or the Institute for Justice [ij.org], and the NRA [nra.org], your complaints about big government taking away all your freedoms one-by-one is pointless blather.
Re:And so it begins (Score:2)
Things aren't as black and white as you make out. The type of thinking you are displaying (Government = Bad, Regulation = Bad, Freedom = Good, Guns = Good) is crude, to say the least.
Most people can see that the world is a complex place, full of contradictions, conflicting requirements and grey areas. The goal of a civilized society is to come up with a system that balances these as best as possible. You're kind of thinking is not a solution for a balanced, civilized society. Of course, it may be that you don't want to live in a civilized society, in which case you can go fuck yourself.
Re:And so it begins (Score:2)
Perhaps I need to expand on this a bit:
What I mean is, I prefer to live in a civilization where individuals, society, laws and government work together for the common good, and people are not selfish and uncivil to one another. If you don't want to live in a society like that, then I'll respect your descision by telling you to go fuck yourself.
Re:And so it begins (Score:2)
No, I'm not a college student. Perhaps my thinking is influenced by the fact that I'm not a North American.
Libertarian pundits endorsing FBI guidelines (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahem. Just to introduce some complication here, there was just a news release about this where the (Libertarian) Cato Institute has "no serious problems" [cato.org]:
(this is not false, it's honest-to-god what they said)
There's been quite a trend about this generally, with many hardcore, cap-L Libertarian pundits. saying similar things overall. It's been almost amusing to watch. No atheists in foxholes, and no paens to personal responsibility in the face of suicide terrorists (not all have had "foxhole conversions", but quite a few).
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Re:And so it begins (Score:2)
Institute for Justice: Never heard of them before.
EFF ACLU: I really should send these guys checks.
Libertarian: They are great allies on many of our issues, but if you look deeper they have some real scarry positions. Like getting rid of the FDA, eliminiating licencing for doctors, and selling off all public land to finance all sorts of radical changes. Not only are they opposed to the Microsoft anti-trust case, they want to eliminate the anti-monopoly laws. [lp.org] The Libertarians have some real good ideas, but in my oppinion they take them to unreasonable extremes.
-
Re:And so it begins (Score:2)
Regardless, I'll probably stop my idealistic "the lesser-of-two-evils-is-evil" stance and vote for them next time.
I guess that is likely to get me on the FBI list again (Already am for political demos back in the 80s).
I do wish that people would realize that power leads to abuses whether it is the FBI, the executive branch fo the US government, or a market leader.
Oh. And quit blaming the victim.
The Libertarians' Fatal Flaw (Score:2)
The libertarians equate business (or corporate) freedom with individual freedom, (some even claim that individual freedom is predicated on corporate freedom), so while they want to get rid of unjust drug laws that incarcerate thousands of living, breathing people they also want to get rid of drug regulations to unfetter the pharmaceutical companies from "oppresive" government regulation as well.
This is their fatal flaw: setting individual freedom equal to corporate freedom. The two are often in conflict with one another (e.g. an employer who wants to spy on their employees during off hours), and all but the very smallest of companies is significantly larger, richer, and more powerful than individuals, even indivuduals of means. That of course means that, in a society that sets a human being's rights equal to those of a corporations, the corporation is going to have the advantage in terms of resources, power, and influence, which means whenever said freedoms conflict it is the individual who will almost invariably lose their freedoms as a result.
This is an absolutely fatal flaw in Libertarian thinking, and the reason I am not a libertarian.
Another group (Score:2)
Re:And so it begins (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's deal with his points though:
- Envy and Rightousness
This one's bizarre. The New Deal was about reconstructing America and preventing a potential revolution that would have destroyed capitalism in the US for good. It was dealing with a time in which most people were have-nots, and they were have-nots not because they, personally, had done any wrong, but because chronic mismanagement of the stock market, until then largely left to market forces, had resulted in a collapse of the American economy, with thousands of employers forced to close, and tens of millions thrown out of work. Savings and other pools of cash that might have saved the economy were wiped out because those who did the right thing, and kept their money in the banks, ceased to keep their assets when the banks were wiped out due to blind panic by others.In such circumstances in other countries, be it Russia, whose economy was crippled in World War One, and Germany, whose economy was crippled by a house-of-cards effect from the US collapse, revolutions are made from. Russia's people went into armed revolt, resulting, evetually, in the Soviet Union and the world's first attempt at Communism. Germany's business leaders twisted the arm of the Kaiser in a "peaceful" revolution that put Hitler and the Fascist Nazi party in power. And in America, as the Hoover administration wound down, Communists began to organise in the US and the US was in serious danger of seeing its own violent and bloody revolution.
Big Government the result of Envious people wanting to steal from the successful? Erm, nope. Government reorganising to place faith back in the capitalist system to prevent people living in poverty through no fault of their own overthrowing the government in favour of a temporary and stupid solution? Yes. Exactly it.
As far as the point about government regulating industry goes, this has been a central plank of government throughout the entirety of the 20th Century and the tail end of the 19th. The railways were regulated. Antitrust legislation, dealing with the abuses of monopolies, were advocated and signed into law by that great Republican hero Theodore Roosevelt. AT&T's president in the early 1900's was quoted as saying that regulation was a necessary burden for any monopoly. FDR's reforms were aimed predominantly at the financial sector, in many cases to ensure dishonest but ungovernable-without-reform practices were wiped out. They worked too - do you have a problem putting your money in a bank? Would you have had the same confidence in 1932?
Further, wanting businesses to be regulated has nothing, zilch, to do with wanting government to spy on private individuals. There is no connection.
- Inaction and voting for the GOP
The GOP is not a civil liberties party, there is no connection between "small government" and civil liberties. The GOP hasn't been pro-liberties since the early part of the 20th Century. In fairness, your respondant admits that the GOP is not the party to vote for to protect civil liberties, but does so using the inane and absurd argument that "smaller government" = "more civil liberties".The party which consistantly avoids "smaller government" tends to be the one that supports restrictions on the behaviour of law enforcement agencies and supports people having control over their own bodies. "Smaller government" doesn't just mean paying lower taxes, but also throwing out the baby with the bathwater - dismantling those institutions and parts of the constitution designed to protect people from those with power, whether that's ensuring that the resources of certain states cannot be used to prevent people of a particular colour from voting in an election to ensuring that the reason someone is convicted of a crime is that they did it, not that they were tricked into a confession.
It gets tiresome to hear the same old crap, that people opposed to government intrusion are natural GOP supporters, despite it being the party of reducing restrictions on government agencies, the party that's trying to use taxation money to fund religion, the party that's most in favour of dictating what people can do with their own bodies (be it through the WoD or the anti-Choice issue.)
It isn't. The GOP is not the civil liberties party. It hasn't been for 70-80 years, and it probably will not be again in our lifetimes.
Rant over.
Re:And so it begins (Score:2)
I feel bad for the libertarians here. Most of them seem exceedingly confused.
Semi-humor: "Food Profiling" (Score:5, Interesting)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Re:Semi-humor: "Food Profiling" (Score:2)
After September 11, the company I worked for decided to cut costs and replaced Pappa Johns with Pizza Time for "pizza meetings." I wonder if we're all on a list now...
Re:Semi-humor: "Food Profiling" (Score:2)
Uh-oh. Even though I'm the kind of guy who eats red meat from cows that eat red meat, I don't like marketroids, and consequently, don't have a supermarket tracking card.
Worse, I purchase most of my food at a local grocer/butcher who does good work with quality cuts of meat and pretty fresh veggies. As I see no value in burdening him with credit card processing fees, I pay cash.
Based on that, they're gonna conclude that I either eat nothing at all, or that I must have something to hide because I pay for stuff with cash and am therefore almost absent in the grocery marketing databases. (And other databases, for that matter, as I also block doubleclick.net and as many of the other web bug scumbagz as I can.)
In short, I think it's a good thing they're reading and archiving my Slashdot postings and email, or I'd be worried :-)
(Actually, that comment is only half in jest. The problem with database marketing is that incomplete and inaccurate data is worse than no data at all. By having access to my complete datastream, their automated systems can profile me as "cynical and geeky, but harmless". If they only had access to the fact that I take a few steps to avoid being tracked by mass marketers, the systems might come to an inaccurate conclusion and mark me for higher levels of surveillance than I warrant.)
Why can't /. summarize anything???? (Score:3, Troll)
I searched the article and didn't even find the word wife or global. Where did this summary come from? Wife beaters? Why would you even make up a lie that a bank is profiling wife beaters? Is that suppose to add sensationalism to the article? Because I don't think many computer geeks are wife beaters...
...And The Rest.... (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously, that's the catch-all phrase for anti-globalization wife beaters who make intricate gadgets from tropical bamboo and powered by cocnut cream pies.
the spin begins (Score:3, Insightful)
"The FBI needed to change," said the president. "It was an organization full of fine people who loved America but the organization didn't meet the times."
Excuse me, but I don't see how increasing their monitoring capabilities has anything to do with a reorganization of the FBI.
The organization is broken, so we'll fix it by giving it more powers. Argh.
Re:the spin begins (Score:2, Interesting)
This conclusion is even more baffling in light of Colleen Rowler's memo [time.com] and the now infamous "Pheonix" memo. It seems to me that the information gathering was rather effective, just poorly coordinated. The connections leading to 9/11 could have been made if the FBI had merely Googled their own information!
Ripe target (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, I'm not advocating that...that would be illegal....
Re:Ripe target (Score:2)
Interesting timing (Score:4, Informative)
The full EFA briefing is found here [efa.org.au], and I sure as heck don't like the idea of it.
This is getting bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Semper Fidelis
Re:This is getting bad (Score:2)
Do you have any real concept of how much information you're talking about? You want a "small team" of experts to review "every report" from four major intelligence agencies, plus clandestine and subordinate agencies, millitary, and foreign sources? That's insane.
Streamlining communications and information sharing is, in part, what the new guidelines are intended to address. The problem is no so much lack of communication as too many levels of communication. Right now field officers can't initiate an investigation without first kicking it upstairs and waiting for the answer to trickle back down to them.
The FBI labors under all sorts of archaic and arbitrary restrictions on what they can investigate and when. The bad guys know all about those restrictions and take full advantage of them to foil investigations. This change in guidelines is not taking away our rights, destroying democracy, killing babies, etc. It's just removing some of those barriers and making the whole thing make more sense.
Dear Mr. Ashcroft (Score:4, Funny)
2 days later: Sir, here is that report on that subversive Slashdot thing.
Everyone but Spackler is a commie.
Re:Dear Mr. Ashcroft (Score:2)
"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a terrorist organisation?"
Yep, NRA counts(they own guns !) For you guys on the other side of the fence, Greenpeace counts, too. (They stage protests !, and finance Eco-terrorists.)
Underground.... (Score:2)
Anyway, it seems that at some point, our subversive dialogues and challenging viewpoints may make us targets in the (near) future.
Bring on the crypto. (Score:2, Interesting)
And yet all is not lost. This is the net, a place driven by evolution and change and progress. It evolved from one organisation's needs to an unpredictable beast that panders to the needs of anyone and everyone, a panacaea for a sick society dependent on simple variety. And now it's being tamed.
Look around. Netspace has grown stale and bloated. Development, the slave of investment and capital, galumphs towards stationary anguish, a victim of its own success, the energy required to organise its own grotesque matter turning it into a turgid lump feeding off the ideas and technologies that made it so successful all those years ago.
But all is not lost. Much as the limitations and restrictions imposed upon content distribution begat the rise of distributed systems, just as the advances of surveillance gave birth to fresh, simpler waves of viruses, so the need now is for infrastructures that take back what was previously reigned by an absence of crumbling politics. The technology means anything's possible, the forces driving us towards necessity are gathering and rumbling. Time to change the net again.
Jon Katz, right? (Score:2)
All I can say is (Score:2)
agent package spores president activate terminate Allah plastique stegonography [attrition.org]
Is this yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, or is it an illustration of how futile it is to try and filter out the overwhelming false positives generated by free speech?
While you're deciding, remember that intelligence agencies are spending your taxes to monitor you. Free speech might become a very expensive priviledge.
Re:All I can say is (Score:2)
//rdj
Accumulation of power? (Score:2, Interesting)
The current system mistakenly identifys people!
I'm in the process of getting a mortgage, so I got a copy of my credit report. I was so supprised to find out that about 40% of the accounts on the report are not my own. Most are my fathers, we have the same name, I'm a Jr. Anyway the information on there is so badly maintained it is scarry.
For example there is somthing on the report from '78, I was born in '77. Aparently I was buying diapers for my self with a VISA. In '89 there was a credit card opend with a limit of $11K, I was in 6th grade at the time, I bought lots of candy for my friends with that Mastercard!
All joking aside. The system is broken now, the new system will be just as broken. I'm guessing that it will be "more broken" because it will be in the name of finding the terrorists to protect the children, or some such crap! This war on terror is now way out of hand in the political arena, our poloticians are using it to accumulate power.
The day "Emergency Powers" are granted to the president of the USA is the day I head for the hills. I fear that day is soon approaching!
Re:Accumulation of power? (Score:2)
Typical Michael...Time for Him to Go (Score:2)
I hope I don't have to point out the logical fallacies in the above argument - the above train of thought is so poorly constructed and hate-filled that it can't even begin to be taken seriously.
Michael, there's a reason you're not a journalist for anything more than Slashdot, and it isn't because you're too good, or there's a conservative conspiracy against your liberal views, etc. etc., it's because you are a horrible "journalist."
Michael writes stories like this every so often; he writes stories and headlines claiming far-out conspiracy angles as fact and generally spewing hatred and venom towards those he disagrees with.
It's unfortunate, because I agree with most [of the objective parts] of what Michael said, but he does it in such a silly, infantile manner that it's unbearable to read. Please, Michael, spare us the melodrama; this isn't the end of the world yet.
I have some unfortunate news for you, Michael: the "freedom" and "democracy" you no doubt feel you're trying to protect by [rightly] informing the citizenry does not approve of or recognize slander, hatred, or general whinyness as legitament forms of political discourse. You have done nothing, I repeat NOTHING to make your conspiracy angles and ranting seem credible. All you have done is stoop down to the level of those you're fighting against, and then gone lower.
In conclusion, I would like to resubmit my original suggestion to CmdrTaco and the Slashdot editorial board: fire Michael. He's detrimental to the credibility of this site, and his hatred and name-calling should not be given such a place of prominence. Please show him the door and strongly encourage him never to return.
Go ahead and mod me to oblivion, oh unthinking moderators: my karma can take a hit for the truth.
Re:Typical Michael...Time for Him to Go (Score:2, Informative)
How about some historical examples to bolster Michael's claim.
What many of the hard-core groups such as the ACLU and the EFF fear is a return to the days of COINTELPRO [derechos.net] when the FBI (with the cooperation of the CIA) used it's vast powers to spy on Americans. And to discredit any political group outside of the mainstream. One noteable target was Dr. Martin Luther King. [derechos.net] To quote from the Church Commission's report:
And:The above quotes are from the final report of the Church Committee [derechos.net] (see also Here [cryptome.org]), a congressional committee set up to investigate the FBI's abuses of power. Out of this investigation arose many of the restrictions that Bush, Ashcroft, and Co. are overturning. These changes and the arguments for them have received opposition from longtime FBI members:
The first is from a recent Memo by Minneapolis Chief Division Counsel for the FBI Coleen M. Rowley via Time Magazine [time.com]. The Second is from a Mother Jones article on John Ashcroft here [motherjones.com]. Note that the Mother Jones article (which discusses these changes) is several months old.This is what people (quite rightly) fear and what we should be striving against. This is what Prompted Emmanuel Goldstein (editor of 2600) to devote his editorial in the most recent issue to a call to arms against such governance. This is a serious issue and the note that Michael Struck was just right. The FBI stated that carnivore will never collect the wrong information Yet we have admissions of the opposite (see here [slashdot.org]). In the light of all of this, can you really say that he is wrong?
As always you can contact the ACLU [aclu.org] for more.
For some fun side-reading see:
- Amnesty International's 2002 report [amnesty.org] on the U.S.A.
- NYC Indymedia [indymedia.org]
- The San Francisco Chronicle [sfgate.com]
- And, The Register [theregister.co.uk]
Irvu.Typical Michael...Time for Him to Go (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope I don't have to point out the logical fallacies in the above argument - the above train of thought is so poorly constructed and hate-filled that it can't even begin to be taken seriously.
Michael, there's a reason you're not a journalist for anything more than Slashdot, and it isn't because you're too good, or there's a conservative conspiracy against your liberal views, etc. etc., it's because you are a horrible "journalist."
Michael writes stories like this every so often; he writes stories and headlines claiming far-out conspiracy angles as fact and generally spewing hatred and venom towards those he disagrees with.
It's unfortunate, because I agree with most [of the objective parts] of what Michael said, but he does it in such a silly, infantile manner that it's unbearable to read. Please, Michael, spare us the melodrama; this isn't the end of the world yet.
I have some unfortunate news for you, Michael: the "freedom" and "democracy" you no doubt feel you're trying to protect by [rightly] informing the citizenry does not approve of or recognize slander, hatred, or general whinyness as legitament forms of political discourse. You have done nothing, I repeat NOTHING to make your conspiracy angles and ranting seem credible. All you have done is stoop down to the level of those you're fighting against, and then gone lower.
In conclusion, I would like to resubmit my original suggestion to CmdrTaco and the Slashdot editorial board: fire Michael. He's detrimental to the credibility of this site, and his hatred and name-calling should not be given such a place of prominence. Please show him the door and strongly encourage him never to return.
Go ahead and mod me to oblivion, oh unthinking moderators: my karma can take a hit for the truth.
Re:Typical Michael...Time for Him to Go (Score:2)
liberty nor safety... (Karma Whoring) (Score:2)
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
geeze, I hope they don't find (Score:2)
COOKBOOK
Great... my experiences (Score:2, Interesting)
I tried for FIVE years to get them to unmerge our credit records, without success. And, thanks to the protections congress has given the credit bureaus (that is, it seems I can't sue them for defamation) I have no recourse other than bad credit since my credit report shows all my mother's bad debts.
Wonder how long it will be before they decide that I'm really the well-known russian terrorist Ivan Narkinsky.
Banks Will Be Consciencious (Score:2)
"Before taking any action, they will dig deeper to be sure of a customer's identity and attempt to confirm any allegations and reports" - Bank Guy
Pardon my cynicism, but, YEAAAAH, RIIIIIGHT. I'm sure that when I attempt to open a new account with $5,000, and my name pops up as a terrorist, they're going to spend an extra $1000 of company resources to investigate further, just like they do now if my name tilts a TRW report. Never mind the fact that it means they will have spent more money acquiring my account than they hope to profit from it - as my brother (a banker) has explained to me, profits don't matter to banks, they just want to provide liquidity to markets and make their account holders happy. If they make some money along the way that's a happy side effect. It's not like profitability is their sole driving motivation. It's not as if it's a deep, almost spiritual, belief verified in each potential new employee above janitor.</sarcasm>
It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure Slashdot would love to be an esoteric forum of quaint thoughts about the exciting rarefied air of liberty for its own sake. I'm sure Slashdot would love it even more if the words that are spoken here had more to do with the common man and woman. TO do that, some of you have to get your heads out of your Ivory Towers and talk about the real world rather than some grand libertarian utopia we should really be living in. I'm glad it sounds like cotton candy. So can you talk about your concerns in a way that the folks living in Paramus, New Jersey and Pasadena, California can relate to? They are SCARED.
A herd of buffalo, once it starts charging, has no intelligence, and will trample the fields that feed it just because somebody fired a few rounds by their flanks. Many decades hence, if we remove a lot of our own rights, there may be a lot of regret about our reaction to September 11th, but right now, we are in the thick of it. People are afraid.
So what am I saying? Y'all sound rather hollow, ok? Because you offer no protection from the kind of folks who committed September 11th. You invoke theories and possibilities of a police state, but the democratic tradition in this country is strong and deep, and the terrorists are REAL and in our midst, plotting our doom. You stand in the way of a herd of trampling buffalo, and you shout slogans that mean nothing to the mob before you, running over their own rights.
Folks, if you want to protect our freedoms, you have to find new arguments, and here is the kicker- you have to invoke those arguments that address the real problem: not our freedom, but our safety! I am with y'all, but I'm just saying: NO ONE IS LISTENING TO YOU. YOU SOUND TIRED AND SHRILL. I agree with you that our rights are in jeopardy, and they need to be saved, but you are doing nothing to appease the approaching mob who will trample our freedom in the name of our safety, get it? THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR FREEDOM THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR SAFETY. YOU MUST ADDRESS THIS.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Gee what a wonderful quote. Any volunteers to write this on a big banner and hold it up in front of a herd of charging buffalo? I didn't think so.
People are scared. They are covering their asses, they are not listening with their ears wide open and their minds in full-tilt. They are scared. You must invoke arguments that include their safety, because none of you do, and safety is what the herd of buffalo is worried most about right now.
Hear me now or regret it later when you are really out of touch with a reality we all dislike, when we REALLY get our rights bitten into. Fight the good fight but fight it with your feet on the ground and your eyes on the mud in front of you, not the glorious utopian fantasies of a world where liberty exists for liberty's sake with no concern at all for real world problems. The world needs the good fight for liberty, but ain't nobody gonna care about liberty if their DEAD.
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2)
Is this the same UK with 200,000 public surveillance cameras? Nope, no mass surveillance here! No siree!
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2, Insightful)
People like to be scared, that's the reason why 1984 is so popular. Fear gives people a sense of place, the security that all they have to do is wrap themselves in a blanket and they can get on with doing nothing. Without fear, people would have to think, and would have to actually do something. People like to be scared, and that's what they're getting.
The one hope, the way to get out of this, is to move this critical mass all at once. Drag an entire mindset out of its creepy little hole with no light (but at least it's warm there). If there's one thing that fear instills, it's an affinity with leadership - sombody else that's making decisions and doing all of the thinking for them.
In an age of information "overload", this leader is just whoever happens to be shouting the loudest. Democracy, an excuse for people to feel less guilty about not thinking, is the means by which those that shout the loudest get to maintain their position. In order to shift the mass of the masses, an assault on their perception is needed. Independent media is one start, but it needs to progress into and right through dependent media and the word on the street. We can argue for liberty over safety, we just have to make sure it's heard above the noise of calming warmongering.
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:3, Interesting)
That's the amazing part, now for the scary part: We are no more secure today than we were on September 8, 2001. The shrieking headlines notwithstanding, it is as easy today to get on a plane with a deadly weapon as it was then. It is just as easy to buy forged ID's now as it was before. And it is just as easy to cross our borders illegally as it ever was. The media do not tell you anything but what the government will allow them to.....
The bureaucrats don't want you to know this, but they do want to protect their jobs and their budgets, so we need to: increase the power of the FBI/NSA/any other agency tasked with surveillance, increase the budget for the war on terrorism, and we completely cover up any responsiblity for the travesty that occurred on September 9, 2001. Those involved in the massive cover-up (remember who set up and trained bin Laden and his cronies...) have been lost in shuffle. The current investigation into the FBI and anyone else who didn't act on information at hand will probably go nowhere, but it will cost the taxpayers considerably and secure quite a few bureaucrats' positions....Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2)
Umm, a quick look at FoxNews will tell you everything you are saying about "the media" is false. Not sure what spoon-fead-by-the-feds news you are watching, but FoxNews has been saying pretty much the same thing you are saying, and raising the same questions, the whole time. I suspect other news outlets do too, just responding with my personal observations.
Are you someplace where the government owns the media? Like England, or Cuba?
Perhaps you need DirectTV, a cable subscription, or just hang around someplace that plays the news in public.
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2)
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
That's why they're called "terrorists," not "deathists."
Fear is the problem, not an excuse for a poor solution.
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:3, Insightful)
FWIW, even a casual observation by the most obtuse person in the US would realize they are more likely to be struck by a car than a terrorist's bomb. That's where we need to be arguing - risk and proportion. But until people quit watching TV news and learn to read between the lines in their newspapers we will always have a government that manipulates its population out of fear and ignorance.
The only thing that changes is the names and efficiency of propagating a meme.
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2)
Nope. It's not a cop out. You can't reason with a herd (your words). Its best to step out of the way. Herd reflexes don't tend to last long anyway since they are driven by emotions, not logic or reason. So you got to keep the herd whipped to keep it going.
I'm all for stopping terrorism but you don't do that by bombing another country. You do that by getting those few who are responsible and resolving it either through the courts or through very selective covert means.
In 1982 when Soviet government personnell were taken hostage in Beirut they didn't blow up Beirut. They had the KGB find the group responsible, and mailed fingers from members of that group to their leaders. Within days the hostages were released.
"we are to do nothing about sept. 11?"
Not at all. I'm merely suggesting a slow approach that evaluates the pros and cons before acting.
From everything I've seen there were signs something was going to happen. It was the lack of being able to communicate effectively and collate *available information* that didn't prevent Sept 11, not a lack of powers.
Sure we can cancel the Constitution. Maybe we'll be safe. Maybe not. It is the *illusion* of safety that leads to limits on the government being shredded. In any event why didn't the 1996 anti-Terrorism act suffice? Is there any evidence spying on people attending church, hiding in chat rooms in hopes of getting information about something that might someday happen going to make me safer? I am extremely sceptical.
"the us govt is made up of well-meaning halfwits trapped in a bureaucratic amber. and you consign to them this amazing power of foresight and control."
Not at all. I absolutely agree. That is preceisly why I *don't* want more power given to the government. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that. Nevertheless, there is good reason to mistrust those that purport to protect us.
Have you read the findings of the Church Commssion? Did you know that elements within the government trampled on "anti-American" groups like Dr Martin Luther King Jr? I'm sure most field agents didn't think they were doing anything wrong, but those calling the shots (Hoover, Nixon and others) think they were protecting us Americans. Yet they weren't bureacrats, but people with the power to enact adn implement a policy they thought was in somebody's best interests (American's their's whoever).
As for my "read between the lines" comment I am trying to encourage people to put events inside a broader context. Obviously people like you who feel the need to swear and believe you're reading the whole story when you pick up USA Today must be right. How many people know we fired anti-tank missles at a group of people who may or may not have been terrorists in Afghanistan? Not exactly front page news, yet this same tactic when used by the Israelis against Palestinians was all over the papers at the same time (circa Feb - March).
There doesn't have to be a grand manipulator orchestrating events to have somebody's interests override somebody elses. Individuals and organizations will always tend to act in their own self-interest. Those interests often conflict with the interests of others. For example, the CIA didn't see the end of Communicam coming. Once the Berlin Wall fell and the putsch in Moscow was foiled they scrambled to find a justification for their existence. Was it going to be drug lords, industrial espionage, North Koreans? They were all trotted out during the 90s.
And I certainly don't trust a born again Pentecostal who begins his meetings with prayers and is annointed in oil to know what's always in my best interests. The only thing Ashcroft has done I applaud is reinterpret the 2nd Amendment so its easier for me to own a gun.
Feel free to think I'm a conspiratorial nut. Human fallibility when mixed with awesome power is a dangerous combination. That's why our Founding Fathers struck limits to the power of the government and ensured checks and balances.
Safety through better home insulation (Score:4, Insightful)
To put all this hysteria in perspective, about the same number of people as died in the WTC disaster die on U.S. roads each and every month and few seem to mind. If writers want to end a character immediately in a soap opera, they can just say they had a car accident and no one will question it. Yet, U.S. policies still promote cars over other alternatives (mass transit, working from home, mixed use zoning). Millions more middle aged lives are cut short each year from lack of exercise -- where are the walking trails and bicycle trails in every U.S. city and suburb (compared to say, the Netherlands)? So from this point of view, even if a million U.S. citizens are killed a year by terrorists, bicycle paths are still a better investment in American health and safety than more surveillance. So, my starting position is what people care about seems really strange when looked at from the big picture perspective. And fear, and building and economy and tax structure and new laws based directly on short-term fear, have direct negative effects on U.S. society, as U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
The problem is that the ways to safety have all been outlined for the last forty years and ignored. They are essentially summed up in: people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. So, as an action agenda for the most safety:
1. Stop throwing stones.
2. Make houses out of something else than glass.
3. Help others to live in non-glass houses and to stop throwing stones.
I'm not going to talk about stopping throwing stones as that is now considered unpatriotic (although I have done so for a long time in the past). But I can still talk about glass houses, I guess.
Consider this book "Brittle Power" written around 1980: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/art7095.php [rmi.org] Federal energy policy continues to promote the most centralized, unforgiving, and vulnerable sources and infrastructures, while ignoring or suppressing the more efficient, diverse, dispersed, localized, and renewable options that could in time make major supply failures impossible by design. At present, the Department of Energy, apparently unwittingly but quite effectively, is undercutting the antiterrorist mission of the Department of Defense.
The problem with the U.S. from a safety perspective is that because the way the economy is set up, the most money can be made by centralizing a service, like Microsoft centralizes the OS, or agribusiness centralizes monocultures, or the oil company centralizes with a few pipelines. All these are the most profitable concerns because they are centralized, and backed by social, legal, political, and financial systems that keep them that way and supress alternatives. And because they are centralized, they are vulnerable.
What are the safe choices?
Consider, for example, a suggestion I read years ago that taking one year of the money spent on maintain the Persian Gulf Deployment, and applying it to insulating U.S. homes, would eliminate U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The figures may have changed since (and may have been optimistic) but do you see the point? Passive solar architecture shouldn't just be an oddity -- it should be the law, if we are serious about building a safer society. Yet, it is more profitable to centralized companies for have the U.S. government subsidize oil costs (some economist say to $60 per barrel) than to consider a decentralized approach like home insulation. Same with resisting the non-brainer of fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.
Another safe choice -- local community supported agriculture, to reduce the length of food supply lines (typically 1500 miles). Other forms of alternative energy (especially wind power) could be developed. Well insulated refrigerators can be 10X more efficient than current ones (that is the major consumer of electricity in many american homes).
Basically, take much of the stuff environmentalists, consumer advocates, small farmers, civil rights leaders, and probably the green party have been saying for years, and do it. But you know what, it isn't "profitable". It's somehow "profitable" to tax Americans a trillion dollars a year to prop up the current system, but somehow talk about doing things that provide true safety, and while we're at it, also compassion, and justice, and humaneness, and fairness, and one will get mostly blank stares. Seems so much easier to just declare a war on terrorists and the problem seems almost solved -- it seems like the president is doing something, instead of providing leadership on home insulation (an effectively impossible thing for an oil man to ever do...)
My own tiny efforts along that line (mostly laughed at or ignored): http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak [kurtz-fernhout.com] That, and helping people learn how to grow more of their own food with a garden simulator. The problem is, when the current approaches keep being tried, and they keep not working, any alternative is going to seem laughable. We can spend $300 billion dollars on defense, but suggest spending $100 billion dollars a year on sustainable technology research and that seems laughable.
The ironic thing is, all the people who messed up the system already as far as promoting policies producing an unsafe U.S. are mainly the ones getting rewarded by the new spurt of government funding. And we get solutions like pump more arctic oil when it will take ten years to get it, it will be expensive, and any yahoo with a hunting rifle can shut down the Alaskan pipeline for days or weeks (as recently happened from one shot).
These people are working on a report for Congress that will hopefully show a better way: http://www.nepinitiative.org/ [nepinitiative.org] Bet they recommend insulating homes as the number one way to fight terrorism. A laughable idea, or is it?
Re:Safety through better home insulation (Score:2)
Ironically, guerrilla fighters and terrorist organization often "get" the decentralization issue far better than we do. Small semi-autonomous cells are much harder to fight than a single centralized force.
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2, Interesting)
This guy says Quote :
"The world needs the good fight for liberty, but ain't nobody gonna care about liberty if their DEAD.
"
but I say he has it completely backwards. Ain't nobody gonna cair about security if they aren't free.
How many of you here would rather be safe and secure in your little houses and continue to be able to drive your SUVs and go to McDonalds and watch your sitcoms and guzzle your beer, but not be able to speak out or write what you want or burn a flag or protest or march or bitch about the President? Probably alot of you. That is what is wrong with this country today.
Not terrorism, not hate, not racism - those are all problems that can be somehow solved. Apathy, however, has almost no cure. It can be prevented, but once it starts it's just like that herd of buffalo this guy talks about. It can't be stopped because it has no intelligence.
Let me make it completely clear for you once more:
Quote :
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Re:It's a new world, folks, adjust your arguments (Score:2)
This is not an internal security issue, not even remotely. It is a foreign policy issue. And that is our most dangerous weakness as a country run by a leader who probably can't even spell 'foreign'. These guys make Kissinger look good- at least he was manipulative and evil from a position of understanding and study... Machiavellian, but there's something to be said for doing the homework. Without it, it's like trying to body-check oncoming traffic.
Of course, we now have banks sharing data outside of any government, for their own agendas. I can't even guess what will transpire from that- terrorists and suspected terrorists and other bad people, oh my! Color me impressed. No, color me good. Please? :P
Re:Dead on (Score:2, Insightful)
Privacy and rights are not mindless. It's standing up for what makes the human race so great - individuality, and the ability to think and speak for oneself.
If you want answers, first you have to find the questions. Now, the question is not "how can we stop people killing us?" but rather "Why do they want to kill us?" Once we've asked that (which is currently a rarity, thanks to the loss of freedom of speech), then we can sort out the solutions. Don't claim that security through obscurity is going to help anything, because it's not.
Re:Dead on (Score:2)
I don't see how his logic is flawed. Essentially, surveillance is ultimately ineffective. If surveillance worked, then why do prisons have such a problem with contraband drugs or prisoner rapes (leading to more AIDS deaths)? Additionally surveillance is expensive, taking away money from real solutions for safety such as decentralization, education, charity, efficency, research, arts, and community. Also, surveillance creates an unpleasant social environment where those in power selectively enforce laws against their opponents.
I think you make good points about personal responsibility, and the issue of where to draw the line in excusing people's behavior based on circumstances, and how the growing material abundance removes some presures for negative social behaviors, and how a life of physical violence (or, for that matter, economic violence such as by those supporting slavery in the past) can consume a person and their community.
Still, widespread one-way surveillance is an idea that sounds good in theory but is ultimately counterproductive in practice. Who watches the watchers?
You guys crack me up.. (Score:2)
It's like, you guys want your privacy, but you also want full disclosure of everyone else.
Get on with it. Polititians are like lawyers, it doesn't matter who wins, or who is in power, they will still be making a profit off your fears and complaints.
Have you guys ever noticed that polititians do the opposite of what they say? So why waste your time voting based on what you find out? Just vote for who you DON'T agree with, and get on with life. Besides, all the elections are rigged, or have some sort of cheating in them anyways.
I'm surprised you guys don't all have ulcers and hemherroids from constant worrying. The rest of the country just goes back to whatever they were doing the day before.
Re:You guys crack me up.. (Score:3, Insightful)
A political undesireable would be exposed to the authorities much faster by talking to joe via icq than having a physical or phone conversation in the 40s. So much more of people's lives are now online and in central databases than the paper records filed in so many offices. The efficiency of any targetted operation would be staggering.
This places a chill upon any dissent, because people are dependant upon banks and governments for their every day needs.
For instance, I'm a Canadian Citizen who is living in the US. I have an application for an Employment Authorization Document with INS that is taking a month longer than it should. Now I belive that this is due to some FBI checking procedure. Now, I have to think: what if they take my tounge-and-cheek hacking posts on
These things do affect the lives of real people, and many real people will have to get their lives messed up before the pendulum swings back.
Cheers,
-b
Re:You guys crack me up.. (Score:2)
That's a bit excessive. I'd consider myself normal (black lab), while you have ADD (dense puppy - tongue hagning out, chasing anything that moves). There's a reason there are so many "Nothing to see here, move along" comments..there really isn't anything of value.
Actually, most alive beings (including humans) cannot focus on things they fail to evaluate or understand.
Recognizing futility doesn't have anything to do with lack of understanding, in fact, it's just the opposite. I merely manage my time better by setting worthwhile attainable goals. (Again, to counter you knee-jerk reaction, an attainable goal is not necessarily an easy, empty goal.)
There's nothing like the poor old guy who spent his whole life looking at the ground to find money. All he got out of it was $86, and sever saw the stars. Be aware, but don't waste your time, you really do need it.
Financial Institution Criminal Databases (Score:2, Interesting)
All of these companies except Citigroup are under SEC and 30 state investigation [cnn.com] for fraud and insider trading. Merrill Lynch just bought their way out of a crime [cnn.com]. This is current news from the last two weeks.
Are these companies going to add their names to the database of criminials and suspicious activity?
The punchline is... (Score:2)
At the time of its demise, the East German government held dossiers on about one-third of its citizenry. Yet in spite of this database, they failed to forsee the mass protest that culminated in the destruction of the Berlin Wall.
I can see it now (Score:2)
#abbadabba has joined the room
abbadabba : Wassup to all my arab homeys
#l33tEfBeeEye@gent has joined the room
abbadabba : Hey l33t!
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : Hello
abbadabba : don't you hate this government?
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : Maybe, why do YOU hate it?
abbadabba : because
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : because
abbadabba : because I do . Man, you acting weird
l33tEfBeeEye@gent : Me, Weird? Nah, Just doing my job. Well, not my job. Just surfing for Info. Well, not info. Just hanging out... yeah, that's it. Just hanging out. So, why do YOU hate this government again?
Now the FBI can team with new partners! (Score:2)
From: John Ashcroft
Subject: Time to make new friends
As many of you are aware, our righteous pursuit of organized crime in Boston [nytimes.com] has led to unwarranted criticism since our agents had to become one with the Mob in order to fully develop our intelligence sources within it. We will henceforth improve our public relations posture by returning to the policy of J. Edgar 'There-Is-No-Mob-in-America' Hoover, and refocus on developing intelligence sources within the Islamic Fundamentalist, Catholic Pedophile, and Hippie Treehugging communities.
Pursuant to the new policies, deep cover may require our good agents to occassionally take part in IF and CP activities in order to go after the true [washtimes.com] heads [nypost.com] of those nefarious movements. However, special care must be taken not to go too far [nrdc.org].
Get busy! And remember, the sacrifices freedom requires may seem at time distasteful, but to guard the largest number of the American citizenry, we must sometimes prove our trustworthiness to our intelligence sources by aiding in the sacrifice of lesser numbers, such as those jailed and killed to protect our Boston associates. It is a small price to pay.
Remember to wipe the Crisco [crisco.com] from your foreheads before undertaking undercover activities. We must not gloat that we are the annointed ones.
___
At your next LUG meeting... (Score:2)
What I want to know more about is (Score:2)
Indeed, the restrictions under which the F.B.I. has operated for three decades were self-imposed. Congressional pressure, lawsuits, scandals and a public outcry played a role in the bureau's vow to limit domestic surveillance to situations in which criminal conduct was suspected. But the restrictions were not enforceable in court and were grounded in what might be called constitutional values, rather than actual law.
WTF?! So again when some entity wants to do something good, maybe along the lines of the intent of what our forefathers wanted, a lawyer comes alongs and picks apart every letter just to f*ck us over. Great.
I hate it when that happens.
Jason
revolution...... (Score:2, Insightful)
and reformism doesn't work, either.... look at what the trade unions of the 30's fought and won... look at what we have now.. things have turned back to the same sort of shit. the fbi got fucked over, but it's building itself back up. eventually a revolution's gotta happen...or things will end up like 1984 or brave new world....
ALL badthinkers won't be on that database (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously now. This is without a doubt the worst news I've heard all year, and I've heard a lot. This database will be a tool of very powerful and opinionated people to destroy the financial lives of people that disagree with them. And let's not even think about how Nixonian politicians or well-connected cults will manipulate that database to brand people "terrorists".
That word, "terrorist", mark me here, is the shiboleth of the 21st century. It will be used by very motivated political interests to annihilate "enemies", i.e. anyone who opposes their policies. And opposition will be forever muted, because people will learn not to make waves, else be spied on by the world cops, and marked "verboten" for financial dealings by the financial world.
Paranoid, you say? [bang head on wall].
It's already happening. Democratic party members are already terrified of speaking out because they WILL be branded traitors and terrorist sympathizers. The WTO protesters are already being labelled premptively as violent criminals wherever they show up -- and you can bet that is because of the influence wielded by the those they oppose. Oh, and did you know that protestors against Bush are not allowed within miles of the Great Man? They are bussed to cordoned-off "First Amendment Zones" miles away, and penned there by local cops until the Leader is gone, free of protestor taint. Of course, pro-Bush people are allowed to swarm the Bush -- this is democracy???
And to forestall any more "paranoia" strikes -- the use of lists and secret monitoring against political adversaries was used extensively by Nixon -- and a lot of the same moral-free characters than ran his culture war in their youth are now happily and ruthlessly slamming around the Constitution in pursuit of money for their peers and political control for themselves. I've never seen a press corps so utterly whipped.
Re:not so terrible? (Score:3, Insightful)
That gets a big, fat PFFT from me. I didn't know George Dubya logged onto Slashdot as tps12.
Come on, man. The government does *not* need to be compiling a database worth of material on me. I haven't done anything. I'm not a terrorist. So why am I being investigated? That's just not cool.
Re:not so terrible? (Score:5, Insightful)
The question you should really be asking yourself is "Would I gladly give up a lot of privacy for a false impression of security?", because that's what is really happening.
Re:not so terrible? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think I'm alone in saying that I will gladly give up a little privacy in exchange for a lot of security.
is too dangerous by far -- how much is a little privacy? Who would you like to determine how much privacy you are allowed to keep versus your security? Unfortunately, we have already seen, in the month of May alone, how many breaches of security within the FBI? Insider trading, Carnivore overstepping its bounds, and the current disaster investigation are only the tip of the iceberg....As far as
...the American intelligence community is well within its Constitutional rights to create these databases and monitor our transmissions
... what Constitutional rights? The rights you allude to are rights of the citizens, not the police/investigative forces created to enforce the law. As much as I crave the feeling of security, the loss of privacy and the rest of my Constitutional rights you offer up in the name of this security will always be too high of a price to pay.Re:Time to move (Score:2, Funny)
ah well, so be it, go for communism. I'd rather live with some communist quinquennial plan than with my Nortel stock...
Re:Time to move (Score:2)
Seriously, where in the world is there a country whose government isn't corrupt, where individual freedoms are abundant, personal privacy is respected, people aren't viewed as criminals until *after* they commit a crime, and where you can have a decent life with some modicum of prosperity?
Re:Time to move (Score:2)
it's a US Govt buzz word they use to crush whoever they like
WAKE UP
Re:No more wifebeaters? (Score:2)
Please turn your webcam to the wall.
Re:The reason why the FBI is given broad powers (Score:2)
Monitoring a group, or assuming the group's guilt and limiting your investigation to them, either without a specific crime(preventive surveillance, like all the "terrorist" crap) or without supporting evidence, that's racial profiling. Like assuming that a black man in a nice car is a car thief. Or assuming that only middle-eastern men are terrorists, and limiting your investigation to them.
It sounds to me like you have some sort of chip on your shoulder about the ACLU - they aren't as reactionary as all that. They attempt to act as watchdogs when the government crosses the line, which it does rather more often than we'd like. Remember, they look out for YOUR rights too.
"Political Correctness" is a fine idea. It's take to a ridiculously silly degree by some moronic people, but there's nothing wrong with the idea that discriminating against people is bad. Racial profiling is inherently discriminatory - it's making a judgment based on race INSTEAD of actual evidence.
And yeah, I suspect you probably are racist.
Re:The reason why the FBI is given broad powers (Score:2)
"Racial Profiling" is LAW ENFORCMENT speak. It means "We target people who are of X race because we think they commit more crimes". And you know jack all about the ACLU, too. Point the first: You can say God Bless America whereever you want. Watch some news some time, you'll notice that our president is really fond of it. You can also say the pledge of allegience all you want. What you can't do is force someone else to do that, which is good, because I don't believe in your stupid fucking god and prefer that he not get brought up in conversations with me.
Re:Well, here's an idea... (Score:2)
~ imaginary scenario, AD 2048 ~
Congressman: "Huh? Wazziz ting with foldy bits and black squigglez? Smells funny. Oh no! Duz it got ant tracks?"
Staffer: "A book, sir, and no, sir, you know everything's been screened for biohazards. The foldy bits are pages, (no, Sir, not the kind you fuck after-hours, the other kind, the kind you write on!), and the squiggles are letters, that make words, like the ones they put in the Congressional Record when they write down your speeches."
Congressman: "OK, it's a book. Whaddya do with it? Wazzit for?"
Staffer: "The words contain ideas. It's a communications medium. You read it to extract the ideas."
Congressman: "Hmph. No time for that. I've gotta get to the floor for a vote. You read it and tell me the ideas when I get back."
Staffer: "Okay, sir."
Congressman: "Hey, did you ever get around to reading that 'book' thing? Any interesting ideas there?"
Staffer: "Yes sir! Lots of them! This Orwell guy was some kind of genius! He anticipated technologies 100 years ahead of his time. Call up Jack Valenti Jr. and Hilary Rosen II, and tell 'em their prayers are answered!"
Careful what you ask for, kids :)
Re:If you don't want it known, don't do it in publ (Score:2)
With your voice and data communications monitored there, of course.
There will be nowhere left to live free. And our kids will never know what that means, and be happy with their imprisonment.
If you want to live a safe life, live in a prison? Waitaminute -- prisons are pretty bad, aren't they, if the wardens and guards don't like you?