For god's sakes everyone, we in America need to step up and put a stop to the freakin' office of homeland security and the patriot act. We are starting to resemble an Orwellian land. We have the endless conflict going on versus an udefinable enemy and although the government already has huge powers they just want more.
http://www.dailyemerald.com/vnews/displ ... 091eba8b23
No more right to privacy.
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grooboggle
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:13 pm
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grooboggle
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:13 pm
No more right to privacy.
Well I guess the part I don't like is how the FBI seems to be deliberately vague on whether or not they are going to have immediate root access to the machines. Also where they say the tuition cost is likely to go up 450 dollars per student I read that as per semester. If it is only one time I guess the cost isn't really so bad. However the idea that you have to revamp your entire system to allow the government more easy access rankles me.
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TenneseeGirl
- Posts: 289
- Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 6:06 pm
No more right to privacy.
I think that the essential problem with this is that we are afraid of those in power. If we did not fear what they would do with said access then there would be no problem. I am in agreement ESPECIALLY with things like the partiot act. The patriot act allows the law enforcement agencies to take anyone "suspected of anti american acts" and hold them, with out notification to family members. Allows these agencies to infiltrate groops without court orders. Alows them to hold you with out seeing a lawyer or a judge. All of these things remind me alot of gestapo tactics the nazi's used. GRANTED we have not sunk to that level. However I do not believe it would take much to send this country into a panic of dire concequence. just one more slice of our civil liberties if you ask me!
~~~~~
Just some food for thought. Swallow it or not that's up to you.
Just some food for thought. Swallow it or not that's up to you.
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Accountable
- Posts: 24818
- Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am
No more right to privacy.
The question arguably most dangerous to liberty:
Why do you object, if you don't have anything to hide?
Why do you object, if you don't have anything to hide?
No more right to privacy.
Many are familiar with this famous quotation:
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up. (by Martin Niemoller)
We have already given up a lot in the past three years. We need to really think about whether our supposed 'security' is worth the loss of any more of our freedoms. We can't EVER be sure that searches and seizures, wire tapping, imprisonment happen only to the 'other guy' (who may or may not be guilty) if it is done under the banner of 'national security' i there is a madman at the helm. (Please!!! I'm not implying Mr. Bush is a mad man...but who knows who may come after)
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up. (by Martin Niemoller)
We have already given up a lot in the past three years. We need to really think about whether our supposed 'security' is worth the loss of any more of our freedoms. We can't EVER be sure that searches and seizures, wire tapping, imprisonment happen only to the 'other guy' (who may or may not be guilty) if it is done under the banner of 'national security' i there is a madman at the helm. (Please!!! I'm not implying Mr. Bush is a mad man...but who knows who may come after)
No more right to privacy.
Accountable wrote:
Why do you object, if you don't have anything to hide?
Exactly! :wah:
Why do you object, if you don't have anything to hide?
Exactly! :wah:
Signature text removed at the request of a member.
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Accountable
- Posts: 24818
- Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am
No more right to privacy.
libertine wrote: Many are familiar with this famous quotation:
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up. (by Martin Niemoller)
We have already given up a lot in the past three years. We need to really think about whether our supposed 'security' is worth the loss of any more of our freedoms. We can't EVER be sure that searches and seizures, wire tapping, imprisonment happen only to the 'other guy' (who may or may not be guilty) if it is done under the banner of 'national security' i there is a madman at the helm. (Please!!! I'm not implying Mr. Bush is a mad man...but who knows who may come after)
Bullseye! We have to remember that laws last beyond the original lawmakers. We don't know who will be elected years from now, or how they may twist the written word of the law to suit their needs. While I was living in Las Vegas several local politicians were brought up on charges (I forget the specifics but it involved money, of course) using surveillance provisions allowed by the "Patriot" Act, a law written to catch terrorists. Remember that a carpenter's hammer can be used to crack walnuts, kill vermin, burglarize convenience stores, or a hundred other things it wasn't originally intended for. We must be very careful in choosing which tools we allow our representatives.
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up. (by Martin Niemoller)
We have already given up a lot in the past three years. We need to really think about whether our supposed 'security' is worth the loss of any more of our freedoms. We can't EVER be sure that searches and seizures, wire tapping, imprisonment happen only to the 'other guy' (who may or may not be guilty) if it is done under the banner of 'national security' i there is a madman at the helm. (Please!!! I'm not implying Mr. Bush is a mad man...but who knows who may come after)
Bullseye! We have to remember that laws last beyond the original lawmakers. We don't know who will be elected years from now, or how they may twist the written word of the law to suit their needs. While I was living in Las Vegas several local politicians were brought up on charges (I forget the specifics but it involved money, of course) using surveillance provisions allowed by the "Patriot" Act, a law written to catch terrorists. Remember that a carpenter's hammer can be used to crack walnuts, kill vermin, burglarize convenience stores, or a hundred other things it wasn't originally intended for. We must be very careful in choosing which tools we allow our representatives.
No more right to privacy.
Accountable wrote: Bullseye! We have to remember that laws last beyond the original lawmakers. We don't know who will be elected years from now, or how they may twist the written word of the law to suit their needs. While I was living in Las Vegas several local politicians were brought up on charges (I forget the specifics but it involved money, of course) using surveillance provisions allowed by the "Patriot" Act, a law written to catch terrorists. Remember that a carpenter's hammer can be used to crack walnuts, kill vermin, burglarize convenience stores, or a hundred other things it wasn't originally intended for. We must be very careful in choosing which tools we allow our representatives.
I have a question. How is it that a company can ask people seeking employment if they are now or ever have accepted food stamps or equivalent. It seems irrelivent to me that they would need to know. That seems a private thing. I guess its public record but why do they need to know? I asked a friend and he said that the Fed pays employers money if they employ people that are drawing food stamps. I dont know why they would or if in fact they do. The food stamp programs are all state ran I think.
I have a question. How is it that a company can ask people seeking employment if they are now or ever have accepted food stamps or equivalent. It seems irrelivent to me that they would need to know. That seems a private thing. I guess its public record but why do they need to know? I asked a friend and he said that the Fed pays employers money if they employ people that are drawing food stamps. I dont know why they would or if in fact they do. The food stamp programs are all state ran I think.
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Accountable
- Posts: 24818
- Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am
No more right to privacy.
That's the first I've heard of that. I can't imagine I would answer, just out of priciple.
No more right to privacy.
From where I sit people in the US who complain about the raised level of security should use a little bit of joined up thinking and ask why the steps are needed and who has created that need.
We’ve lived with security so tight it makes your boots squeak for the last 60 years and more. For myself when I first went to the UK as a child I was at first terrified at the lack of security and felt really exposed. I couldn’t grasp why other people didn’t feel the same and then it dawned on me – there was no equivalent threat in the UK to what we had at home.
When the IRA started the ‘Troubles’ in 1966 I was in my final year at University and watched the astonishment at the Divis Flats riots in Belfast and what followed (I confess that I was in the middle of a hot and heavy relationship with a girl from Newtownards who was reading the same subject as I was and so I took a correspondingly greater interest!).
As the ‘Troubles’ spread and when you could no longer simply walk to a ‘plane and sit where you wanted and searches gradually became more thorough and more like I was used to with El Al so I watched the British public change in their attitude to them. At first hostile but very soon grateful and wanting the security even at the cost of some inconvenience.
There was a rapid understanding that the changes were not done for the hell of it but to counter a real threat though one that was both very obvious and more to the point, very close to home for them.
Maybe it’s the success of The Homeland Security laws have had in preventing more islamic terrorist atrocities that is proving to be counter productive as the result is that the threat though very real is not accepted for the very real and very present danger that it is.
Terrorism is a strange instrument of war.
It’s a well known adage that a war is always fought, at least initially, using the weapons that won the previous war that the attacked party was engaged in. Terrorism has different war objectives and strategy than ‘conventional’ war hence what works in a military war won’t cut the mustard in a terrorist war.
In a conventional war the war strategy is destruction of the enemies resources and capability to engage in battle resulting in the enemy government having to surrender to superior force.
In a terrorism war the strategy is more insidious. It is to have the electorate or the population of the enemy become so disillusioned with the war, or so terrified of the continuation of the war that the population forces the government to surrender.
There are all sorts of methods that can be employed in a war that has terrorism as its primary weapon of choice. Getting your enemies government or troops to do things that are unpopular to the enemies population or to the world at large is a classic and one that the palests have been using against us for years.
Then there is the knock on effect. Set off one device and you create local and short lived terror. Create warnings that have to be taken seriously and defensive steps taken is if anything even more so because it hits at the uncertainty of if and where the ‘second boot’ is to fall.
The recent letter from the Mad Mullah is another classic. Playing to prejudice, weasel words, lies (yes, they were there), faux reasonableness, all to undermine the enemy – even amongs his own population.
All the stuff of psy-warfare.
You can’t change a mind with an Uzi, but you sure as hell can with a well written letter. After all, it’s presentation that is the difference between seduction and rape.
We’ve lived with security so tight it makes your boots squeak for the last 60 years and more. For myself when I first went to the UK as a child I was at first terrified at the lack of security and felt really exposed. I couldn’t grasp why other people didn’t feel the same and then it dawned on me – there was no equivalent threat in the UK to what we had at home.
When the IRA started the ‘Troubles’ in 1966 I was in my final year at University and watched the astonishment at the Divis Flats riots in Belfast and what followed (I confess that I was in the middle of a hot and heavy relationship with a girl from Newtownards who was reading the same subject as I was and so I took a correspondingly greater interest!).
As the ‘Troubles’ spread and when you could no longer simply walk to a ‘plane and sit where you wanted and searches gradually became more thorough and more like I was used to with El Al so I watched the British public change in their attitude to them. At first hostile but very soon grateful and wanting the security even at the cost of some inconvenience.
There was a rapid understanding that the changes were not done for the hell of it but to counter a real threat though one that was both very obvious and more to the point, very close to home for them.
Maybe it’s the success of The Homeland Security laws have had in preventing more islamic terrorist atrocities that is proving to be counter productive as the result is that the threat though very real is not accepted for the very real and very present danger that it is.
Terrorism is a strange instrument of war.
It’s a well known adage that a war is always fought, at least initially, using the weapons that won the previous war that the attacked party was engaged in. Terrorism has different war objectives and strategy than ‘conventional’ war hence what works in a military war won’t cut the mustard in a terrorist war.
In a conventional war the war strategy is destruction of the enemies resources and capability to engage in battle resulting in the enemy government having to surrender to superior force.
In a terrorism war the strategy is more insidious. It is to have the electorate or the population of the enemy become so disillusioned with the war, or so terrified of the continuation of the war that the population forces the government to surrender.
There are all sorts of methods that can be employed in a war that has terrorism as its primary weapon of choice. Getting your enemies government or troops to do things that are unpopular to the enemies population or to the world at large is a classic and one that the palests have been using against us for years.
Then there is the knock on effect. Set off one device and you create local and short lived terror. Create warnings that have to be taken seriously and defensive steps taken is if anything even more so because it hits at the uncertainty of if and where the ‘second boot’ is to fall.
The recent letter from the Mad Mullah is another classic. Playing to prejudice, weasel words, lies (yes, they were there), faux reasonableness, all to undermine the enemy – even amongs his own population.
All the stuff of psy-warfare.
You can’t change a mind with an Uzi, but you sure as hell can with a well written letter. After all, it’s presentation that is the difference between seduction and rape.
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Accountable
- Posts: 24818
- Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am
No more right to privacy.
golem wrote: From where I sit people in the US who complain about the raised level of security should use a little bit of joined up thinking and ask why the steps are needed and who has created that need.I would first as IF the steps are needed. 
golem wrote: We’ve lived with security so tight it makes your boots squeak for the last 60 years and more. For myself when I first went to the UK as a child I was at first terrified at the lack of security and felt really exposed. I had the same feeling when I first moved out on my own. Freedom is scary at first, what with all the responsibility on your own shoulders and all.
Complete freedom means complete self-responsibility, including responsibility for security. Abdicating security to the gov't (or anyone else) forfeits freedom. I prefer freedom to the maxium extent possible. I prefer that the federal gov't monitor and secure our borders (which it refuses to do), and let us take care of the rest.
golem wrote: We’ve lived with security so tight it makes your boots squeak for the last 60 years and more. For myself when I first went to the UK as a child I was at first terrified at the lack of security and felt really exposed. I had the same feeling when I first moved out on my own. Freedom is scary at first, what with all the responsibility on your own shoulders and all.
Complete freedom means complete self-responsibility, including responsibility for security. Abdicating security to the gov't (or anyone else) forfeits freedom. I prefer freedom to the maxium extent possible. I prefer that the federal gov't monitor and secure our borders (which it refuses to do), and let us take care of the rest.
No more right to privacy.
Accountable wrote: I had the same feeling when I first moved out on my own. Freedom is scary at first, what with all the responsibility on your own shoulders and all.
This wasn’t about freedom it was about finding myself in a country where the terrorism that I took for granted in my homeland just didn’t exist and so there was no NEED for tight security. It was the initial feeling of exposure as the realisation that there was no terrorism that needed to be guarded against simply hadn’t hit home to me.
In any case there was no responsibility involved as at the time I was a child who had been sent to stay with my favorite aunt whilst I received a (supposedly) better education in Britain.
Accountable wrote: Complete freedom means complete self-responsibility, including responsibility for security. Abdicating security to the gov't (or anyone else) forfeits freedom. I prefer freedom to the maxium extent possible. I prefer that the federal gov't monitor and secure our borders (which it refuses to do), and let us take care of the rest.
Facing a terrorist threat is a thing that the individual simply can not cater for be it by providing their own security, safety, safety of others, whatever.
For example how can a person provide their own security from a homicide bomber blowing himself up in a crowded café? And how can any government secure borders to the extent that a person who is intent on causing death and destruction can't get across? It can’t be done.
Consider what we are doing with our security fence and then look at how what we are doing is being vilified by our enemies. At best all we will achieve is a reduction in attacks on us from outsiders. Consider what the South Africans did to secure their borders and how ineffective it proved to be. Then the USSR border and how porous that was in reality.
No doubt whatsoever there are improvements that could and probably should be made to the US but at what cost? How would it be interpreted by the millions of people who have entered the US illegally already.
The erosion if freedoms that is taking place are inevitable owing to the nature of the attacks that are being faced and the nature of the enemy. The very unrest that so many people are showing at the erosions are a form of success for the terrorists as it’s not them who are being blamed for wat must be done, it’s the government who really have little option.
I don’t especially like analogies but there is one here. It is like a patient who rages against his doctor who must amputate his leg and totally ignores the gangrene that is eating into it that makes what must be done inevitable.
This wasn’t about freedom it was about finding myself in a country where the terrorism that I took for granted in my homeland just didn’t exist and so there was no NEED for tight security. It was the initial feeling of exposure as the realisation that there was no terrorism that needed to be guarded against simply hadn’t hit home to me.
In any case there was no responsibility involved as at the time I was a child who had been sent to stay with my favorite aunt whilst I received a (supposedly) better education in Britain.
Accountable wrote: Complete freedom means complete self-responsibility, including responsibility for security. Abdicating security to the gov't (or anyone else) forfeits freedom. I prefer freedom to the maxium extent possible. I prefer that the federal gov't monitor and secure our borders (which it refuses to do), and let us take care of the rest.
Facing a terrorist threat is a thing that the individual simply can not cater for be it by providing their own security, safety, safety of others, whatever.
For example how can a person provide their own security from a homicide bomber blowing himself up in a crowded café? And how can any government secure borders to the extent that a person who is intent on causing death and destruction can't get across? It can’t be done.
Consider what we are doing with our security fence and then look at how what we are doing is being vilified by our enemies. At best all we will achieve is a reduction in attacks on us from outsiders. Consider what the South Africans did to secure their borders and how ineffective it proved to be. Then the USSR border and how porous that was in reality.
No doubt whatsoever there are improvements that could and probably should be made to the US but at what cost? How would it be interpreted by the millions of people who have entered the US illegally already.
The erosion if freedoms that is taking place are inevitable owing to the nature of the attacks that are being faced and the nature of the enemy. The very unrest that so many people are showing at the erosions are a form of success for the terrorists as it’s not them who are being blamed for wat must be done, it’s the government who really have little option.
I don’t especially like analogies but there is one here. It is like a patient who rages against his doctor who must amputate his leg and totally ignores the gangrene that is eating into it that makes what must be done inevitable.
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Accountable
- Posts: 24818
- Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am
No more right to privacy.
I love analogies; they help me cement in my mind the scope of the problem as you see it.
Here's the analogy as I see it: some guy is trying to kill me, but is willing to settle for smashing my toes with a hammer until he figures out a better way. The doctor (gov't) wants to amputate the leg to prevent the attack.
The doctor should splint my toe and prevent infection. I'll buy my own safety boots, thank you.
Let the federal gov't guard the border and other entryways. If the local citizenry want to increase their own security, it should be up to them.
Here's the analogy as I see it: some guy is trying to kill me, but is willing to settle for smashing my toes with a hammer until he figures out a better way. The doctor (gov't) wants to amputate the leg to prevent the attack.
The doctor should splint my toe and prevent infection. I'll buy my own safety boots, thank you.
Let the federal gov't guard the border and other entryways. If the local citizenry want to increase their own security, it should be up to them.
No more right to privacy.
Accountable wrote: I love analogies; they help me cement in my mind the scope of the problem as you see it.
Here's the analogy as I see it: some guy is trying to kill me, but is willing to settle for smashing my toes with a hammer until he figures out a better way. The doctor (gov't) wants to amputate the leg to prevent the attack.
The doctor should splint my toe and prevent infection. I'll buy my own safety boots, thank you.
Let the federal gov't guard the border and other entryways. If the local citizenry want to increase their own security, it should be up to them.
I think the analogy is flawed as the guys concerned is not trying to kill you, they are trying to kill the doctor by killing you and others like you until those left kill the doctor themselves out of desperation.
The doctor can and should do his best to keep the guys from reaching you but as many of the guys have already got in, and worse yet some of the patients on the doctors list also want the doctor dead maybe even to the extent of killing you, the doctor must do what is needed to protect you as well as himself.
If you want to help yourself in the process, then fine, but you can’t totally deal with this threat as individuals.
Here's the analogy as I see it: some guy is trying to kill me, but is willing to settle for smashing my toes with a hammer until he figures out a better way. The doctor (gov't) wants to amputate the leg to prevent the attack.
The doctor should splint my toe and prevent infection. I'll buy my own safety boots, thank you.
Let the federal gov't guard the border and other entryways. If the local citizenry want to increase their own security, it should be up to them.
I think the analogy is flawed as the guys concerned is not trying to kill you, they are trying to kill the doctor by killing you and others like you until those left kill the doctor themselves out of desperation.
The doctor can and should do his best to keep the guys from reaching you but as many of the guys have already got in, and worse yet some of the patients on the doctors list also want the doctor dead maybe even to the extent of killing you, the doctor must do what is needed to protect you as well as himself.
If you want to help yourself in the process, then fine, but you can’t totally deal with this threat as individuals.
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Accountable
- Posts: 24818
- Joined: Mon May 30, 2005 8:33 am
No more right to privacy.
By your own description, we can't totally deal with this threat collectively, either. There are few threats we can totally deal with. I'd rather take my chances with maximum possible freedom rather than mass official paranoia.
No more right to privacy.
Accountable wrote: By your own description, we can't totally deal with this threat collectively, either. There are few threats we can totally deal with. I'd rather take my chances with maximum possible freedom rather than mass official paranoia.
It’s a question of balance isn’t it.
Here at home I carry a 40 cal Jericho and my wife has a GLOCK 22 in her handbag (Jewish women’s handbags have a greater internal volume than external!) whilst when visiting the UK we must carry nothing, as privately owned handguns are illegal to possess over there and so of course only terrorists and criminals have them.
It’s ludicrous.
It’s a question of balance isn’t it.
Here at home I carry a 40 cal Jericho and my wife has a GLOCK 22 in her handbag (Jewish women’s handbags have a greater internal volume than external!) whilst when visiting the UK we must carry nothing, as privately owned handguns are illegal to possess over there and so of course only terrorists and criminals have them.
It’s ludicrous.
No more right to privacy.
Diuretic wrote: It's not ludicrous. You don't need to be armed in the UK but you need to be armed at home. That's ludicrous. It's also very sad.
We don’t actually need to be armed, we choose to be armed. There is a difference.
And as for not needing to be armed in the UK, believe me, there are parts of the UK where to walk at night guarantees that you WILL be ‘mugged’ with absolute 100% certainty.
Then there are the burglaries and ither crimes that take place in the UK, now so common that unless there’s something out of the ordinary the police don’t even bother to treat an incident as an emergency as a college of mine who lives in Manchester found out.
Here’s a verbatim quote from the police in connection with a different but similar incident but can be used as a source to establish the bona fides of this matter ->
"We cannot have members of the public dictating police attendance, or nobody will get the service, but we attend every house burglary. We may not attend quickly enough, but we do attend every one."
The source is at
http://www.beartown.co.uk/newsviewer.asp?ID=20220&Sec=3
The UK is not what it once was.
We don’t actually need to be armed, we choose to be armed. There is a difference.
And as for not needing to be armed in the UK, believe me, there are parts of the UK where to walk at night guarantees that you WILL be ‘mugged’ with absolute 100% certainty.
Then there are the burglaries and ither crimes that take place in the UK, now so common that unless there’s something out of the ordinary the police don’t even bother to treat an incident as an emergency as a college of mine who lives in Manchester found out.
Here’s a verbatim quote from the police in connection with a different but similar incident but can be used as a source to establish the bona fides of this matter ->
"We cannot have members of the public dictating police attendance, or nobody will get the service, but we attend every house burglary. We may not attend quickly enough, but we do attend every one."
The source is at
http://www.beartown.co.uk/newsviewer.asp?ID=20220&Sec=3
The UK is not what it once was.