How The Government Spies On Your Internet Use 641
intnsred writes "In explaining the recent PATRIOT act ACLU lawsuit, a D.C. civil rights lawyer writes, "I am sure that many of you reading this (and I, likely) have the government in our computers....Until now, we did not know much about how the government goes about this procedure. Now we do." Fascinating details of the case and how easy it is for the gov't to get warrantless access to you through your ISP. This clarifies and expands a previous /. article."
meh (Score:5, Funny)
Mmmmm Zak McKracken
They can't touch me.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:They can't touch me.... (Score:3, Funny)
On the other hand, randomized backscatter mind control radiation might be the easiest way to explain the behavior of certain [microsoft.com] companies [sco.com].
USA = China-Lite (Score:5, Insightful)
i guess if you keep repeating "but we are free" enough people will believe it
50% of USA still think Saddam and Al-Queda are connected so it shows psy-ops works
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:5, Insightful)
USA is getting worse, at the speed of light
I need to go now. Anyone mind to dig up the most recent human right index ranking report(or whatever it's call)? The one that made the US opted out the human rights organization 2 years ago
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Informative)
Excellent reasoning, Saddam. Time to crawl back in your spider hole.
All countries, including the US, need allies and positive regard from other countries. Given the infantile foreign policy of the US lately, perhaps a childhood analogy is in order. Unilaterally invading a country is like leaving a big doodie in the international sand box. People tend not to be your friends and they don't want to play with you anymore if you don
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Informative)
Care to share this "overwhelming evidence" with us, oh great Anonymous Coward?
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I checked, the burden of proving an allegation falls squarely on the person or group saying it. Merely saying "we haven't found it yet" or "We don't know it didn't exist" doesn't mean it exists or ever did. After owning the fricking country for the last year and then some, the fact that no evidence has been found for any stated prewar justification is troubling, to say the least.
Yes, Saddam was a bad guy who we didn't like and did awful, awful things to his people, but he was no imminent threat to the United States the way Hitler, fascism, or even the Soviet "Evil Empire" was in the past. If you want a real problem to tackle, how about North Korea? Oh, wait, they don't have oil, do they?
Who's more dangerous, Bush or Saddam? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One Reason Only (Score:3, Interesting)
Well what are the many reasons? The only reasons put forth by the administration that I can find center on the current possesion & construction of WMDs and his history of using them, his human rights violations, and alleged associations with terrorists, and
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Funny)
No can do, man. The SCO business model is the new Black.
btw, you owe me $699...
You are so misled. (Score:5, Insightful)
These two entities, Al-Qaeda and the B'ath Party, were as far from each other on the spectrum as Timothy Leary and John Ashcroft. Hussein was a secular aristocratic illegitimate leader, while Osama is a fundamentalist populist exile.
In Osama's dreams Saddam gets deposed right after the US stops funding Israel and the House of Saud. We just gave him his wish early.
Are there 'links?' between the B'ath Party and Al-Qaeda? Not NEARLY as credible or numerous as there are 'links' between the current administration and Osama, or the current administration and the B'ath party. Who do you think gave intelligence to Saddam for his 'ruthless murder of innocents with WMDs'? Who do you think trained and armed the first incarnations of Al-Qaeda?
I'll tell you: the USA did, because our leaders' vision is limited to a MAXIMUM of eight years. I and all Americans have to take the full responsibility for the sins of our previous leaders. We could reduce terrorism a whole lot better if we stopped using our economic and millitary power to foist up terrible governments around the world and developed reasonable long-term foreign policy.
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course Al-qaeda is active in Iraq now. We've let them in by smashing the police force that kept them out. It's a free for all in seizing the new Iraqi government and of course Al-qaeda wants a piece of it.
Were there a few Al-qaeda operatives in Iraq before Saddam fell? Maybe. It would be very dangerous for them (death-sentence if captured, even if they haven't comitted a crime yet), but there might have been a few. Not nearly as many as in the U.S. Should we bomb ourselves too?
The U.S. invasion of Iraq is the best thing Al-qaeda could have hoped for. They get a big new country to play around in. The pressure is taken off them (are we even looking for bin Laden any more?). Most importantly, arabs around the world are seeing that peaceful co-existance with the U.S. is impossible. If anyone is supporting Al-qaeda, it's Bush.
Now let me clarify that last sentence. I don't think Bush is actually in league with bin Laden. It is possible. The point is that any time you see evidence of someone having Al-qaeda ties, compare it to hat for Bush. If it's weaker, and you don't suspect Bush, then you can't fairly suspect the other person either.
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, the third excuse for the war. Isn't it suspicious that they offered three completely different reasons when the preceding ones proved unconvincing, but did not alter the plans in the slightest? Makes one suspect an ulterior motive...
But, ending oppression is worth it -- or would be if it happened. The current U.S. regime is slaughtering civi
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3)
With the fact of PROVEN support of many terrorist organizations, do you really believe that Al Qaeda is the only terrorist organization Saddam didn't have ties with? Are you really that ignorant?!
Don't be daft. saddam had declared Al Queda an enemy of the state in Iraq. He is perfectly happy to support the Palestinians in their regional struggle, but probably didn't want to support Al Queda because they are going after the US and the US would retaliate. Also consider that ObL would like nothing better th
Very True! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's not if we only "believed" him to be there. Even if he was there, what's more imporant is what he was doing there. Where is the evidence of either his presence and the reasons for him being there?
People said before the war, "oh Osama is religious and Saddam is secular so they wouldn't work with one another" yet why is Al Qaeda currently trying to subvert the peace in Iraq? Why is Al Qaeda representatives beheading american civilians in Iraq?
Have you seen any of the pictures from Abu Ghirab prison? If those were American "detainees" - say the Brits did that to us during the Revolutionary War, do you think it would incite retaliation? Think about it. If a forign military power incites the moderate civillian population against them (which is exactly what those photos do) they are in for a long, bloody time. I doubt we have even have seen the full payback yet.
Finally... Saddam supported many terrorist organizations in the middle east, including Hezbola in Isreal. At one point, Saddam was dishing out large checks to families of suicide bombers in Isreal. With the fact of PROVEN support of many terrorist organizations, do you really believe that Al Qaeda is the only terrorist organization Saddam didn't have ties with? Are you really that ignorant?!
Where is the evidence of this support? I will gladly agree with you if I can see the evidence, the money trails, the checks. Show me the evidence. And, if this is, in fact true, perhaps it suggests that the U.S. and the world would be better served facilitating a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian issues than rolling tanks through Baghdad.
Invading Iraq has been the best recruiting tool Al Qaeda ever could have hoped for. From the word "go," it has smacked of imperialism and anti-Islamic Western hedionism, exectly the propaganda which Al Qaeda uses to leverage public sentiment against the U.S. and fuel recruitment. But, hey, "Mission Accomplished," right?
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Insightful)
because, by invading Iraq, we became a symbol and a target. although Osama would not work with Saddam, once we invaded a middle-eastern country, Iraq became a rallying point for ALL islamic terrorists. Remember what people like osama and his followers are fighting for: to destroy the US/Isreal and to keep us out of their turf.
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Funny)
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway; I do quite a bit of 3D work, and also do a bit of compositing to integrate my 3D work into real footage. I have an interest in special effects. You know what the first three things are which struck me about that video?
1) the guy seems too calm for someone who should know enough arabic to know what the guys behind him are going to do to him
2) what a convenient cock up of a zoom, just as they're grabbing for his head to behead him...in sfx land they'd call that a convenient cut so they can montage in the fake. It really is amazingly convenient
3) where's all the blood? They're cutting through his jugulars: the arteries which have the most blood running through them at the highest pressure...ever seen a cow get slaughtered? There should be more blood.
Now the video could be real...but I have to say that, even knowing nothing more about the guys who are supposed to be involved, there are some real convenient (there really is no other word for it) bits in that video. It's not tinfoilhat time, it's just knowing how such things are done fro moving images and some healthy scepticism. I for one would like it if an independant forensic scientist went over that video, together with a special effects artist.
Re:USA = China-Lite (Score:3, Informative)
I've never seen these, and I work at an ISP (Score:5, Funny)
That's because they tap your upstream provider. :) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open source economy (Score:3, Interesting)
they can use web sites, ssl connections, etc
noone is able to monitor (and decrypt) all ssl connections, but if they can get an access to the site itself (when it is running on ISP's server) they can easily get all the information they need
on the other side, i'm running smtp server and web server on my own pc at home
so i'm lucky that i'm not an US citizen, otherwise i would be probably accused of terrorism because FBI cannot get acc
Re:I've never seen these, and I work at an ISP (Score:5, Interesting)
It's simple, and effective, and chilling, that the past three staff meetings have had no mention of it.
You ought to prepare in advance (Score:5, Insightful)
So instead, today you should make up a webpage stating basically what you've just said above: "I have never seen any requests for passwords or email from any law enforcement agency in my time working here." and post a link to it for us. That way, if you ever do get a NSL, then you don't have to violate your gag order and tell anyone about it, you just need to take down the webpage telling them the opposite and wait for people to notice.
What about /. ? (Score:5, Interesting)
While in their FAQ's they (/.) state that they've only ever removed one comment... how does that apply/work now? Slashdot is an equal target for the PATRIOT act, as well as their hosts and the people who post here... hell even posting under the 'Post Anonymously' option may have certain 'caveats'.
Food for thought people, food for thought.
Re:What about /. ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which brings us to this Reality Check: There is no anonymity on the Net, period, full stop, end of story.
Was there ever supposed to be? (Did I miss a meeting?) Is there some constitutional sub-text granting us anonymity on privately-owned Internet bulletin boards/communities? I don't believe there is... Should there be? Maybe, maybe not, but that's a topic for a different thread.
If you wanna be happy for the rest of the your life (to paraphrase the old song), never post anything "anonymously" on the Net that you would be uncomfortable scribing on your T-Shirt or your bumper sticker. Obviously, the owners of the boards you frequent don't stress the traceability of their membership's rants because they are in the business of _attracting_ posters, not scaring them away.
I see this less as an Evil, "They're Taking Our Rights Away, Big Brother is the SuXXor!" thing as I do a testimony to the naivete of so many people raised on the Internet thinking it is some kind of Magic Utopian Prometheus-Provided Happy Cyber-Town Forum and not the built-by-the-military and run-by-businss entity it really is.
This is not about anonymity (Score:3, Insightful)
But I guess conformists/authority-lovers (like you) fail to grasp such distinctions. And I feel quite comfortable airing my sentiments online like this, whereas a bumper sticker would afford people like you the opportunity to vandalize my car.
Re:yeah, you are right (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about /. ? (Score:3, Insightful)
But there is an expectation of privacy and we have to be careful not to allow the separate issues of privacy and anonymity to be confused. It is in the interest of those who want to limit free speech to remove the expectation of privacy from communications over the Internet.
It can also be argued that there are cases where guaranteed anonymity is essential to privacy, but in mosts cases posts to a p
Re:What about /. ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been posting on the Net since '90. I never had any expectation of privacy. I've also never felt my free speech hindered. (I also think the Founding Fathers did not draft the Bill of Rights to protect either the Anonymous or the Cowards, but I digress...)
Re:What about /. ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Was there ever supposed to be? (Did I miss a meeting?) Is there some constitutional sub-text granting us anonymity on privately-owned Internet bulletin boards/communities? I don't believe there is... Should there be? Maybe, maybe not, but that's a topic for a different thread.
Checking out books at the library is also not anonymous, and never has been. However, there is an expectation of privacy; you don't think a librarian would run to the feds to tell them if you read one book too many about Stalin. And even if one librarian did, most of them just wouldn't give a rat's behind, nor would they feel inclined to cooperate with bothersome government requests for information on all sorts of "suspicious" persons. Not without a warrant. That stops a lot of unwarrented (no pun intended) government intrusion right there because there's this little thing called judicial oversight that curtails some of their powers. Suddenly they need a good reason to get that information. Like, due cause.
The "PATRIOT" act changes that so that librarians, ISPs, banks, etc. are forced by the FBI to spy on their customers on their behalve - on NO basis for suspicion whatsoever. There is NO judicial oversight, and the government is entirely free to do with that information what it wants, and gag everyone involved in the process.
Are you old enough to remember McCarthy? Read up on him some time.
This suit is a prime example. The feds can already get secret wiretaps if they want. If this guy was so dangerous, they could just bug his home, attach all sorts of wiretapping equipment on his telephone line, etc. But they're too lazy to do that (or more likely the guy isn't a threat), so they go after the one guy running an ISP, and then tell him that he can't argue; and now that he does he's prohibited from even discussing the effects of the "PATRIOT" act.
The "PATRIOT" act is just a thinly veiled instrument to establish a secret police that spies on US citizens. Any country that has had such a secret police can tell you how wildly succesful that approach is to enhance "national security".
There are firms out ther pushing "intelligence" software that can track people's "association" 30 degrees of separation deep. Talk about guilt by association, when it's widely assumed that you know every one in the world in only 6 degrees of separation..
I see this less as an Evil, "They're Taking Our Rights Away, Big Brother is the SuXXor!" thing as I do a testimony to the naivete of so many people raised on the Internet thinking it is some kind of Magic Utopian Prometheus-Provided Happy Cyber-Town Forum and not the built-by-the-military and run-by-businss entity it really is.
The toilet at work is owned by your boss. I don't suppose you mind if he is forced to install a covert and secret FBI camera to check for suspicious, well.. weenies..
Re:What about /. ? (Score:5, Interesting)
The "PATRIOT" act changes that so that librarians, ISPs, banks, etc. are forced by the FBI to spy on their customers
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Schools have been using our most gullible resource, children, to spy on their parents for years. Children who are less than conformist are approached more often by counselors and teachers. They're engaged in more conversation and encouraged to tell things about the family. Human society, as a general rule, seems to be a suspicious lot of witch hunters always looking for the next witch.
I'm not so much worried about coordinated government big-brotherism. I'd like to hypothesize that Big Brotherism doesn't exist. It can't exist. It's too complicated to actually formally exist. What feeds the concept of Big Brotherism are individual abuses made by vindictive people who find themselves in positions of available power and who get their feathers ruffled by someone who isn't in a position of power.
Like McCarthy. He wasn't targeting all the communist pinkos. He only targeted the ones who personally got under his skin.
I guess the trick is to fly below the radar. But how does one fly below the radar when they're being squeezed by taxes which keep going up and and up and up?
Re:What about /. ? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only person who has 4096-bit RSA?
Re:What's the point (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's the point (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I the only person who has 4096-bit RSA?"
(paranoia-filled comment)
That is assuming their isn't some backdoor written into that encryption software that would let the gubermint easily decode your heroine habit with some "master key."
(/paranoia-filled comment)
Re:What's the point (Score:5, Informative)
This is, of course, why gpg/pgp is such a great idea--an open source encryption method allows you to look for said back-door. Good luck. I don't think you'll find one.
I do use pgp for my email with certain individuals. Does that likely put me on the 'radar'? Maybe, but if we were all using it, then the gov't would have to rely on other indicators to find suspect emails. Personally, I am in favor of a government that doesn't have the right to look at my information without my permission or a court order. Does this cause a loss in the FBI's ability to gather information? Certainly. Am I willing to deal with that? Absolutely.
Re:What's the point (Score:5, Informative)
Have you read the Ken Thompson's classic paper on putting trapdoors into open source systems [acm.org]?
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Interesting)
If you compile everything on your system with a compiler to which you have access to the source code, then you should be able to scrutinize these sources. This is similar to the idea of having code that you wrote yourself, only in this case, you need to have access to not just the program's source, but also the compiler's source. In th
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Insightful)
"You can take all of your code and inspect it prior to compilation."
should be:
"You can use an already compiled text viewer and inspect the code prior to compilation."
And there lies the interesting bit for the true conspiracy lovers - all text editors could have a basic "grep -v [secret information]" already slipped into their code. Thus, even if you use one of them to check the code for itself you would never see it.
You need to get to the most basic level to create a "known clea
Re:What's the point (Score:2)
Re:What's the point (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that by merely sending data with that sort of encryption, you are waving a red flag in the direction of Those Who Would Seek to Watch Over You.
At which point other, less straightforward methods may be employed as seen fit by The Watchers.
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't bank on it. These guys are casting the net as far and as wide as they can. As far as they can tell, "foodsoft" is a code word inside an encrypted message that refers to the White House. And while they're puzzling over that one, whether for ill or for good, you can rest assured that they will be taking the fine-toothed comb to everything else, with results that you cannot know. Tinfoil
Re:What's the point (Score:5, Insightful)
THAT is a good point... People need to use encryption for things they DONT CARE about someone being able to crack... If everyone did that, there would be no way for encryption itself to be a "tip" that there is something to hide there.
I don't have anything to hide on my server. But I hide it anyway. Why? It's mine. I don't want anyone else in there without my express permission.
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What's the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Terrorists and foreign government agents use encryption.
But dissidents and "trouble-makers" don't.
Terrorists blow things up and kill about 1/10th the number of Americans who die in highway deaths each year [about.com], but in doing do they stiffen our resolve and so never get anywhere near to changing our fundamental America values [cornell.edu].
But dissidents [aclu.org] and domestic trouble-makers [commondreams.org] can cause real problems for a regime [disinfopedia.org] that calls questioning its mistakes [antiwar.com] tantamount to aiding America's enemies [cnn.com].
Today is Memorial Day. I hope that all Americans will take time today to reflect on the costs of freedom and the American men and women in our armed forces who have paid for our freedoms with their service, their wounds, and their lives.
On this Memorial Day [lunaville.org], let's really support our troops by following the advice [military.com] of so many retired [cbsnews.com] officers [nypost.com] and men [armytimes.com] by insisting that "Robert S." [wikipedia.org] Rumsfeld [firerumsfeld.org] and his band of incompetent chicken-hawks [wikipedia.org] resign -- or be fired.
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only person who has 4096-bit RSA?
Do you have your private keys on hardrive? Are you sure nobody has a copy of it?
Big Brother, anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Big Brother, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, there should be a -1: Tin-foil hat option. Anyway, in Canada the government can seize your property without any kind of warrant, or even notification. Next. look up the Notwithstanding Clause. Finally, Canada also recently psased "anti-terrorism" laws similar to what you're complaining about.
All in all, neither country is perfect, and neither is heading down a slippery slope toward having "neither liberty or safety" (all right, please stop bashing us over the head with that quote, I know it's not just you but all of Slashdot). You've got plenty of liberties in both countries, and pretty incontestably more in the U.S. Now put down your George Orwell and enjoy the good life.
Re:Big Brother, anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wake up and read the following!
The Patriot Act is hideously reminiscent of the "Decree for the Protection of Nation and State" that became law in Nazi Germany in February 1933. Its provisions were described by John Toland, in his masterly "Adolf Hitler", as ostensibly innocuous while in practice destroying every reasonable humanitarian right formerly possessed by the German people. There were "Tribunals set up to try enemies of the state", and Toland observed that Hitler made his legislation (the "Enabling Act") "sound moderate and promised to use its emergency powers "only in so far as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures"." Does that sound horribly familiar? And who would decide whether a measure was "vitally necessary"? " Why, the man wielding total power, of course. ("Trust me!" is ever the cry of the incipient dictator.) So Hitler"s Decree and the Reichstag"s subsequent Enabling Act were never modified or repealed, because they gave the man who was served by a compliant and intensely patriotic legislature the instruments he needed to keep him in total control. This is the reason for Bush"s energetic campaign to prevent the Patriot Act being subject to the existing "sunset clause" whereby most of its more despotic provisions should lapse next year. It was passed by a compliant and intensely patriotic legislature : will it be repealed by one?
Cloughley [counterpunch.org]
Re:Big Brother, anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
No, the government cannot seize your property without any kind of warrant, or even notification. The Notwithstanding Clause applies to rights of provinces, not individuals; it allows a province to pass laws that violate the federal Charter of Rights and Freedo
Sad, sad, sad. (Score:4, Insightful)
It you are an American and you don't like this, get out and vote in November.
Re:Sad, sad, sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
This brings up the second issue. Who would fix it? Democrats and Republicans sided with the bill. It isn't a matter of changing out one group of people for another, because it won't improve things. We need honest politians, but that's an oxymoron.
Re:Sad, sad, sad. (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are that worried about 'throwing away' your vote find a friend a friend on the opposite side of politics, who is equally disturbed by goings on, and convince her to vote 3rd party too.
They're all the same (Score:5, Interesting)
Right. They're all the same. Always have been, always will be.
* Carter tried to distance the US from dictators, took the Soviets at face value when they claimed to desire co-existence, and was shocked when they invaded Afghanistan.
* Reagan believed in the notion that it's better to have a dictator who is on our side than a totalitarian ruler opposed to us, and he pushed the Soviet Union to collapse by forcing them into an arms race they couldn't win.
* Bush 1 put together a very strong alliance to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, but didn't take over Iraq for fear of breaking the trust he had established with the Coalition partners.
* Clinton believed in working in close concert with America's European allies wherever possible, did not believe in unilateral "regime change," and deliberately limited the scope of operations against Serbia and in the Middle East, believing that effective use of American "soft power" ultimately provided better results than constant use of "hard power."
* Bush 2 eschewed long-standing European alliances and incorporated pre-emptive invasion and regime change as a core element in American foreign policy oriented almost exclusively around hard power. His post-liberation plans were based on faith-based intelligence and wishful thinking.
You're so right. No differences between them. Give up your right to vote, and let the knee-jerk flag-waving "Creationism is science" crowd take over America.
Re:Sad, sad, sad. (Score:3, Interesting)
the P. act (can't stand to call it by it's full acronym) was passed during a time of overwhelming stress and near hysteria in the U.S. We are in more sober times, now (thanks to two successful invasions and two failing post-invasion reconstructions).
Furthermore, the P. act was passed with an incredible lack of congressio
Encryption (Score:3, Interesting)
MS word can be useful (Score:3, Funny)
Great shame that they didn't post it as a MS word document having just blacked out the offending sections. What did you say about an undo facility ?
Land of the free... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can someone please explain to me how this is indicative of the principles on which the USA was founded ? On where John Hancock and his mates saw a US goverment with the ability to spy on its own citizens, and on how this all makes sure we have a goverment "of the people, by the people and for the people" ?
I might be a bit depressed having just re-read 1984, but with the US and Airstrip 1... I mean Britain, working together on a strategy underpinned by propoganda and the continual spying on its citizens by the US Goverment you have to ask whether Orwell was just out by 20 years.
Jeb's Big Brother is in the Whitehouse folks, trouble is he kind of looks likes everyones Big Brother right now.
Re:Land of the free... (Score:5, Insightful)
As FDR said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. We're afraid right now. And that, personally, makes me worried about what is going to happen.
My viewpoint, from Europe (Score:3, Insightful)
Now as this is a mainly yankee forum, I'd like express what I see is w
Privacy is obselete. (Score:4, Insightful)
Collecting private data has many implications (Score:3, Interesting)
When a government agency begins covertly compiling personal data on individuals, it sets in motion a long chain of events that can have implications far beyond the act of gathering data.
While it is easily possible to keep such record gathering secret for a period of time, history shows that eventually these efforts tend to make it into the publi
Stamp of totalitarianism (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, the Patriot act is being used to stifle dissent against the act itself.
Re:Stamp of totalitarianism (Score:5, Insightful)
"The girls were crying. 'Did we do anything wrong?' they said. The men said no and pushed them away out the door with the ends of their clubs. 'Then why are you chasing us out?' the girls said. 'Catch-22,' the men said. 'What right do you have?' the girls said. 'Catch-22,' the men said. All they kept saying was 'Catch-22, Catch-22.' What does it mean, Catch-22? What is Catch-22?"
"Didn't they show it to you?" Yossarian demanded, stamping about in ager and distress. "Didn't you even make them read it?"
"They don't have to show us Catch-22," the old woman answered. "The law says they don't have to."
"What law says they don't have to?"
"Catch-22."
Re:Stamp of totalitarianism (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stamp of totalitarianism (Score:3, Insightful)
Yossarian tried that solution in the book, and it didn't work: Done properly, civil disobedience is a powerful way to protest unjust laws -- and by done properly I mean that you announce your intent to break the law, break it, and then publicly an
Newsflash! (Score:5, Insightful)
That aside, I am surprised at how strongly I feel about the by passing of legal stewardship in these issues. Normally I dont have alot of time for them but they do have their uses in a checks and bounds system. Obviously secrecy is required to carry out these operations but whats so hard about going to a judge if you have a valid case ? I think the recent statements by Ashcroft are indicative though. After Sept 11 all Arabic young men were potential terrorists. Now this has been expanded to include all young/middle aged/fathers/European looking Arabic men. No doubt Europeans and Asians will soon be included based on this logic.
Its becoming a concern that the US its leaders and institutions are becoming more and more isolated from the people they are supposed to represent and serve.
Re:Newsflash! (Score:3, Interesting)
its in your power to sack them if you are unhappy with what they are doing
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That must be the special formula crack#9 you're smoking.
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Start explaining vociferously to you CongressPerson/Senator what the issue is and act with your ballot
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There's no one else to vote for. Dems and Pubs, same body, different head.
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Its becoming a concern that the US its leaders and institutions are becoming more and more isolated from the people they are supposed to represent and serve
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I'm not going to
Student Uncovers US Secrets [Reloaded] (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like a job for Claire Whelan, a dictionary and text analysis software.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/16/144
Not my ISP (Score:5, Funny)
We too, have had several "requests" from the RIAA for users info, etc. We told them to fuck off and get a warrant.
Haven't seen nor heard from them again.
Ditto the US feds.
Some ISPs have a backbone you know.
The Definition of a Terrorist is the Key (Score:5, Insightful)
One could argue that the government is using unfettered powers to protect the people by finding out who could be potential 'terrorists'.
Now the problem is, who is a 'terrorist'?? Who defines the term 'terrorist'?
For instance take this ridiculous example (only to make a point, and makes silly assumptions that does not reflect their true nature):
Say, in a Democrat controlled (assume that they are all pro-Abortion etc.) government, would I be a terrorist if I advocated avoidance of abortion and extolled the virtues of abstinance?
Say, in a Republican controlled (assume that they are all xenophobic and White only), would a person be a terrorist if he/she were of Middle-Eastern descent.
Say, in a Stallmanist regime, would Bill Gates be a terrorist for advocating non-free software :-)
Another irritating point is the use of fancy words to which you cannot say anything near 'no' or 'I object' without the danger of being attacked, like 'Pro-Choice', 'Pro-Life', 'USA Patriot Act', 'Homeland Security', 'Intellectual Property' without looking like a bigot, one-who-condones-murder, unpatriotic, one who does not care for their patriotic duties to protect their homeland and one who condones thieving, respectively..
I have leaned to view everything with such names with suspicion.
i am sick to my stomach... (Score:3, Insightful)
And for fuck's sake, VOTE IN NOVEMBER!
I don't have a problem with... (Score:4, Insightful)
The obvious (and constitutional solution) is to have judicial oversight. Just like the s.o.b.s at RIAA, you must go to a judge somewhere and say "we suspect this person of doing this. Please give us a search warrant." No problem. The FBI would be limited in what information they can use for procecution. That is the way the Constitution is supposed to work.
Old news... (Score:4, Insightful)
To think that the fed does not tap/read email or any other electronic transmission, this posting included, is simply delusional. All the paranoia in the world will not protect you from this, only 2 things can fix this:
1. Never log on to the net, never use your telephone, never mail anything via USPS. There, now you are safe.2. Make a change in goverment - the election process. Yeah, I know it is a slow, ugly process to get any kind of change done, but it is the only way to effect change in this country.
Farcial nature of case (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course the details of what's going on in the US is doing is different from what my grandparent's described about China, but the whole farcial nature, the whole "Sorry we can't even talk about what the charge is." (at least the defendents are allowed to know), the whole beating and torture until you confess (Guantonomo Bay), the whole lack of oversight to prevent abuses, the whole "we can't allow you to see/challenge the evidence/witnesses" (that trial in the US right now with that guy connected to 9/11) seems very very similar. And with the recent torture cases in US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan etc the US is sliding down a very slippery slope.
Magic Lantern and Carnivore (Score:4, Informative)
Magic Lantern is the government virus that AV makers are told not to detect and remove. It logs keystrokes, steals passwords, monitors internet activity, etc.
Carnivore, or whatever it is called now, is that box the Feds put on almost every major ISP out there to monitor network traffic and forward the info to the Fed database. It uses packet sniffers, and checks for certain key words.
These technologies are still being used to Spy on US citizens, Green Card Holders, Visa holders, etc.
Washington atmosphere a contributor (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of the problem is a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" atmosphere in Washington for a president. If you implement things like the Patriot Act and increased spying you are dinged for eroding liberties and not living up to your country's ideals. If you *don't* implement them and something happens (aka 9-11) you are dinged for not "doing enough" and all your opponents open up multi-year inquisitions into why you didn't stop it.
Noone said after 9-11 "Well, that sucked. But that's the price of living in a free society. We could have engaged in massive spying and black ops and we could have made it a living hell for any Muslim to get on a plane but we didn't because we wanted freedom." No, instead we open up commissions and inquiries and try to assign blame
And note that this same process would have happened no matter if a Democrat or a Republican were in office. I can't imaging what kind of criticism Gore would have faced during 9-11 from the right. Most likely, something like "See you elected that spineless eco-hippy and he let THIS happen."
We need to drop this "us vs. them" attitude FACT. Otherwise our country is in serious trouble. It is not healthy for political discourse when you believe your side is the almighty righteous and the other side is Hitler reincarnated (Bush for lefties and Hilary for righties).
Brian EllenbergerMajor issue, terrible blog article (Score:4, Informative)
A few key points:
This whole discussion is off topic (Score:3, Insightful)
In spite of the fact that the debate about the alleged "War on Terror" is lively and informative, I think it represents a good bit of cyber-turfing in support of various non-domestic agendas.
The article is about the abuse of the US legislative, judicial, and enforcement power to silence and oppress american citizens, yet the bulk of the discussion seems to be about the war. It's a classic case of diversion, imo, depite the fact that many valid points are being made on other (arguably related) subjects.
Al Gore's speech excerpts relevant here (Score:5, Informative)
"President Bush is claiming the unilateral right to do that to any American citizen he believes is an "enemy combatant." Those are the magic words. If the President alone decides that those two words accurately describe someone, then that person can be immediately locked up and held incommunicado for as long as the President wants, with no court having the right to determine whether the facts actually justify his imprisonment.
Now if the President makes a mistake, or is given faulty information by somebody working for him, and locks up the wrong person, then it's almost impossible for that person to prove his innocence - because he can't talk to a lawyer or his family or anyone else and he doesn't even have the right to know what specific crime he is accused of committing. So a constitutional right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we used to think of in an old-fashioned way as "inalienable" can now be instantly stripped from any American by the President with no meaningful review by any other branch of government.
How do we feel about that? Is that OK?
Here's another recent change in our civil liberties: Now, if it wants to, the federal government has the right to monitor every website you go to on the internet, keep a list of everyone you send email to or receive email from and everyone who you call on the telephone or who calls you - and they don't even have to show probable cause that you've done anything wrong. Nor do they ever have to report to any court on what they're doing with the information. Moreover, there are precious few safeguards to keep them from reading the content of all your email.
Everybody fine with that?
If so, what about this next change?
For America's first 212 years, it used to be that if the police wanted to search your house, they had to be able to convince an independent judge to give them a search warrant and then (with rare exceptions) they had to go bang on your door and yell, "Open up!" Then, if you didn't quickly open up, they could knock the door down. Also, if they seized anything, they had to leave a list explaining what they had taken. That way, if it was all a terrible mistake (as it sometimes is) you could go and get your stuff back.
But that's all changed now. Starting two years ago, federal agents were given broad new statutory authority by the Patriot Act to "sneak and peak" in non-terrorism cases. They can secretly enter your home with no warning - whether you are there or not - and they can wait for months before telling you they were there. And it doesn't have to have any relationship to terrorism whatsoever. It applies to any garden-variety crime. And the new law makes it very easy to get around the need for a traditional warrant - simply by saying that searching your house might have some connection (even a remote one) to the investigation of some agent of a foreign power. Then they can go to another court, a secret court, that more or less has to give them a warrant whenever they ask.
Three weeks ago, in a speech at FBI Headquarters, President Bush went even further and formally proposed that the Attorney General be allowed to authorize subpoenas by administrative order, without the need for a warrant from any court.
What about the right to consult a lawyer if you're arrested? Is that important?
Attorney General Ashcroft has issued regulations authorizing the secret monitoring of attorney-client conversations on his say-so alone; bypassing procedures for obtaining prior judicial review for such monitoring in the rare instances when it was permitted in the past. Now, whoever is in custody has to assume that the government is always listening to c
Life Cycle of Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
I'm pretty sure we're right in around the apathy phase...
Support the EFF: more ! for the $ (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, back when talk of "the importance of 128 bit encryption in your browser" would have been met with blank stares by most organizations like the ACLU, the EFF was fighting for the right to real encryption [eff.org]. Privacy, technology and Carnivore? [eff.org] Or DRM and HDTV and the implications for Fair Use? [eff.org]
But like any non-profit, especially small non-profits, the EFF is limited by the amount of funding it has: they more you donate, the more cases they can take. So donate or volunteer now [eff.org]-- its your freedom of technological development insurance policy. It helps to ensure you can call someone who'll understand why your prosecution under the "2006 XYZ DRM Technobabble Here Act" has constitutional implications. The EFF was there for 2600 [eff.org] and Dmitry and many more [eff.org]. How many other organizations would have been ready to care about DeCSS or UCITA... not many. Other organizations get cases that 20 million people really care about. The EFF has taken cases that only a fraction of Slashdot cares about- but are still just as important. (Slashdot has 100's of thousands of readers. The EFF has an order of magnitude less members. Why haven't you joined? Quantity isn't everything, but it helps impress the congresscritters and it makes it more likely they can afford to take your case when you call them up. Take your case to the Supreme Court if needed.)
Parenthetically, 2600 wasn't an easy posterboy for programming rights case: neither the government nor the RIAA / MPAA / Disney conglomerates are ever going to be that nice. The EFF took the case anyways.
Simple equation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Subject (Score:3, Funny)
Article too long, here is the short version (Score:4, Informative)
Doe and the ACLU are asking the court to deem unconstitutional the government's use of National Security Letters (NSLs), which allow FBI agents to demand, with no judicial oversight, personal information about clients of Internet Service Providers.
Re:Article too long, here is the short version (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Old news. (Score:5, Insightful)
Disgusting, these people are like cockroaches. Watch them scurry when you shine the light on them. This level of secrecy is unwarrented by any part of the government. Any power that can be abused will be abused, our only defence is eternal vigilance, which requires transparency.
At least in the case of phone taps you need a warrent. It's not hard to get, granted, but at least there's a record. With secrecy like this the government can get at your computer and your records and your communication without any evidence and risks nothing should nothing turn up. This kind of situation just breeds fishing expiditions.
Besides, it WILL leak (Score:4, Insightful)
Really. You do business with an ISP owner who likes to talks about politics. All of a sudden, he becomes REAL quiet and looks scared all the time. D'oh.
The sad thing is, people will figure out who he is despite his best efforts, and the government WILL blame him.
Re:Besides, it WILL leak (Score:5, Insightful)
But isn't this the core of terrorism? Where a government has threatened a citizen to the point where they seek anonymity and are afraid to talk about the current topics of the day? When they're constantly looking over their shoulders to check and see if they might be breaching an "approved topic".
Sure it's just one person but the implication is, well, enough to make me ill.
Re:The article contains links to 25 books... (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's exactly the problem.
As long as things aren't that bad, there's nothing to worry about, right?
I really fear for what this country is going to be like in ten years. Looks like it is time to start packing my bags.
Re:Old news. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Old news. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Informative)