Are you willing to trade Civil liberties for security

[Smoothie104]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004060710360002247578&dt=20040607103600&w=RTR&coview=




NEW YORK, June 7 (*******) - In today's America, prisoners are held incommunicado for years, newspapers can't photograph soldiers' coffins returned from Iraq and the government can secretly track the books citizens read and the movies they watch.

But civil liberties can erode much further before Americans will say enough is enough, say experts in social history and political behavior.

Fear struck by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks helped launch the curtailment of civil liberties in the name of national security, and that fear keeps Americans willing to trade away rights for safety, they say.

"We're at war," said Ken Weinstein of the Hudson Institute, a policy think tank. "That's why it doesn't bother us."


Nor is there a clear "tipping point" to swing opinion the other way, added Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "We don't seem to be anywhere near it at this time."


Just after Sept. 11, 2001, polls showed two-thirds of Americans felt it would be necessary to give up some civil liberties to protect the nation. A year later, that number still stood at about half, Bowman said.


"Most people don't see a broader threat," she said. "People seem to be pretty comfortable with the general state of affairs regarding civil liberties."


'A FAIRLY STANDARD PROCESS'


Historically, losing civil liberties in a time of fear is nothing new in America.


"The question is how tolerant can a tolerant society be to the intolerant who may seek to destroy it?" said Weinstein. "This is a fairly standard process in American history."


Historians cite the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, when a threat of war with France led to the law making it illegal to speak critically of the United States. Editors were arrested, and newspapers closed down.


In the U.S. Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus writs, which protect against unlawful imprisonment.


During World War One, fear of rising communism led to anti-immigrant sentiment, deportations and a violent crackdown on the labor movement. The 1917 Espionage Act prohibited anti-war activity and under the 1918 Sedition Act no one could "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government.


Cold War fears of communist infiltration helped fuel the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee and a "Red Scare" led to discrimination and detention. Under the Smith Act, one could not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government.


But, said Isaac Kramnick, professor of government at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, "all of those moments of fear pale in significance to 9/11 in reality and also in the way it's being exploited and manipulated by the Bush regime."


"Holding prisoners without charge and things of that sort are being justified in terms of the old argument of national security," he said.


But civil liberty issues such as prisoners rights do not trouble the average American, experts say. People look the other way when their own personal life is not at stake.


Polls proposing telephone taps and e-mail monitoring evoke far more resistance from Americans, Bowman said.


For Americans to speak out about their civil liberties, she said, "They would have to see some widespread, wide-scale abuses in what they think are private and personal areas. Then again, they're not particularly attentive."


'HEADED FOR A FASCIST DICTATORSHIP?'


But things may not be as insidious as they sound.


"Are we headed for a fascist dictatorship or a fascist regime with fascistic denials of civil liberties? I doubt it," said Kramnick. "Were the denials of civil liberties to really spread to the mainstream population and outside aspects of terrorism, then I think there would be a hue and cry which you do not hear now."


The question of how far is too far may be like ****ography. Maybe you can't define it, but you know it when you see it.


"Americans react pretty quickly when they think their liberties are being curtailed to any serious degree," said Weinstein. "The policies of the Bush administration have been fairly well accepted because I don't think they've crossed that barrier where people say, 'Wait a second."'





© Copyright ******* Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of ******* Ltd.


06/07/2004 10:36
RTR

[5jumpchump]

Sure , why not rofl

[Flagg]

Are you willing to trade Civil liberties for security

No...

[Pille1234]

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denouce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

[American Patriot]

High federal taxes, liberal Supreme Court justices, insane interpretations of the Constitution, and gun control are a bigger loss of civil liberties than the Patriot Act.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

If they'll agree to throw in a CD player and floor mats, yes - I'll trade civil liberties for security.

[Durandal]

High federal taxes, liberal Supreme Court justices, insane interpretations of the Constitution, and gun control are a bigger loss of civil liberties than the Patriot Act.

Show me one case where the Supreme Court and insane interpretations have taken away Civil Liberties?

Now, I'll agree with ANY Federal Income Tax AND Gun Control issues, at least at a Federal level.

I will disagree with the Patriot Act. It is an infringement on Civil Liberties beyond a doubt. Though it only lasts a limited period...if it gets passed through again and does not sunset, I think we are looking at problems...

So yeah, my answer would be F*ck no, and why the F*ck would anyone answer "yes"?

Civil Liberties are the key thing that define our nation. You start mucking around with the first ten amendments and you can kiss the concept of America goodbye. They are there for a goddamn reason. Our founding forefathers gre up in a time of tyrrany and understood how to defeat/prevent it...you take away any of those rights...freedom of speech...right to a trial by jury...right to own a gun...et all...and youare destroying or at least, undermining the very thing that keeps this nation free...

[cqbrdy]

civil liberties vs security
hmm......
do i have to give up my guns?????
i just bought them :cantbeli: .

[CPL Trevoga]

Benjamin Franklin said 200 years ago that people who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

Actually living in the USSR was not that bad. So what if you some **** could send you to Siberia for nothing.

[Tane Angle]

Speaking of the Revolutionary period, it is perhaps worth noting that for the sake of increased strength (despite, or perhaps because, the colonists were fighting a war for greater civil liberties), the Continental Congress granted George Washington dictatorial powers. The man was kind enough to return them after six months. :D

We are always compromising between civil liberties and security. For example, we submit to BAC tests when driving for the sake of both our safety and others' safety. We can be arrested, but hopefully only with probable cause. It's always a compromise, no? The question is, what compromises are we willing to make, I suppose. The Patriot Act...there are some good points, and some bad points. Perhaps if it was modified, it would be more appealing to many.

High federal taxes have very little to do with civil liberties, and with the exception of perhaps the more pro-gun interpretations of the 2nd Amendment, there is little precedence for liberal Supreme Court Justices infringing on civil liberties either. Normally liberal goes hand in hand with openness and given a choice between fewer or more rights, more rights. That's actually the argument held by many for supporting abortion-that it's simply a question of infringing on people's rights. Gay marriage, certainly a ban on it is an infringement on civil liberties. So is it the liberal Supreme Court Justices calling for a ban on gay marriage?

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[Durandal]

Some thoughts...

Washington was a great man.

Driving is a privledge, not a right...though laws and how you are treated is...

Tane...love ya brother.

[ßå$tĮТHÏ¿ð]

Giving away rights for "security" doesnt pan out at all, I mean if you take away your own rights how can you bring freedom to other countries like Iraq and A-stan?

[rokus2595]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004060710360002247578&dt=20040607103600&w=RTR&coview=




NEW YORK, June 7 (*******) - In today's America, prisoners are held incommunicado for years, newspapers can't photograph soldiers' coffins returned from Iraq and the government can secretly track the books citizens read and the movies they watch.so from the very beginning we noticed things are pretty **** us..say almost like any other dictatorship the media always loves to tells us about......


But civil liberties can erode much further before Americans will say enough is enough, say experts in social history and political behavior. what???????? lol..u mean more than the opening paragraph????????lol


Fear struck by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks helped launch the curtailment of civil liberties in the name of national security, and that fear keeps Americans willing to trade away rights for safety, they say. no. It is the government that keeps saying that..not the people...don't confuse the two.




"We're at war," said Ken Weinstein of the Hudson Institute, a policy think tank. "That's why it doesn't bother us." War against who?? against the Iraqi people that had NOTHING to do with sept 11? come on...either there are people out there who actually belive Iraq had something to do with Sept 11, or those same people are lying their asses off....


Nor is there a clear "tipping point" to swing opinion the other way, added Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "We don't seem to be anywhere near it at this time." lol..i don't ****ing believe so....just ask the Spaniards....who did take their troops back home simply because they didn't believe fighting in Iraq was worth it....I mean..hell after invading a country on a false pretense and then realizing all the natives want to kick your ass off...well how about having some decency an and wonder well maybe we were ****ing wrong after all...for once how about we put ourselves in the iraqis' shoes for a while....


Just after Sept. 11, 2001, polls showed two-thirds of Americans felt it would be necessary to give up some civil liberties to protect the nation. A year later, that number still stood at about half, Bowman said. Right...yet has anyone noticed that that has absolutely notyhing to do with Iraq? Once again..Sept 11 has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with IRAQ....sure the US invaded iraq, but its' reasons have NOTHING to do with Sept 11. Just ask anyone else outside the US and England...sure sure....those people are ALL WRONG :cantbeli:.....


"Most people don't see a broader threat," she said. "People seem to be pretty comfortable with the general state of affairs regarding civil liberties." A broader threat??? as in hey, how about we invade Iraq on a false pretense and then see how the native Iraqis behave.....lol....


The question is how tolerant can a tolerant society be to the intolerant who may seek to destroy it?" said Weinstein. "This is a fairly standard process in American history." You are being a lazy ass....period..how about asking yourself how would I feel if i were to bomb the **** out of another country and then pray for God that the bombed out people are dumb enough to never realized what hit them....that i call being delusional....of course 'they', like me and anyone else reading this forum, would be very very upset at that happening to their respective countries and do something about it...the Iraqis are not different.


Historians cite the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, when a threat of war with France led to the law making it illegal to speak critically of the United States. Editors were arrested, and newspapers closed down.

In the U.S. Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus writs, which protect against unlawful imprisonment.

During World War One, fear of rising communism led to anti-immigrant sentiment, deportations and a violent crackdown on the labor movement. The 1917 Espionage Act prohibited anti-war activity and under the 1918 Sedition Act no one could "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government.

Cold War fears of communist infiltration helped fuel the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee and a "Red Scare" led to discrimination and detention. Under the Smith Act, one could not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government. all of this is filler..until this next part......


But, said Isaac Kramnick, professor of government at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, "all of those moments of fear pale in significance to 9/11 in reality and also in the way it's being exploited and manipulated by the Bush regime." hmmmm exploited and manipulated by the Bush regime??? the only one question that does matter to this argument (if you can call it that) is what the Iraqi people believe in..not the ****ing invadors..e.g the AMERICANS...


Holding prisoners without charge and things of that sort are being justified in terms of the old argument of national security," he said. ..yes.and he is noting but an old hag saying old things..it's not like Ammesty International is ever say that ABOUT THE US....LOL...


But civil liberty issues such as prisoners rights do not trouble the average American, experts say. People look the other way when their own personal life is not at stake. I disagree. I would just be as upset if i see my fellow canadians beating the **** out of some defendless Iraqi dude...IT IS SIMPLY FOCKING WRONG.


For Americans to speak out about their civil liberties, she said, "They would have to see some widespread, wide-scale abuses in what they think are private and personal areas. Then again, they're not particularly attentive." And that is precisely the reason why American's rights' have been eroding lately..all in the name of combating terrorism....people - any people - can be so easily fooled as long as they hear the same crap over and over- just think of the Soviet regime.


Are we headed for a fascist dictatorship or a fascist regime with fascistic denials of civil liberties? I doubt it," lol...tell me the difference!!!


said Kramnick. "Were the denials of civil liberties to really spread to the mainstream population and outside aspects of terrorism, then I think there would be a hue and cry which you do not hear now.[\quote]
yet the majority of the world believe the US invaded Iraq only because they wanted to control Iraqi's resources..yet how many Americans truly believe that?? That goes to show that you can truly fool your population in believing something completely false as long as you have the media cheerleading you...e.g..CNN, Fox, CBC, BBC, etc etc....

[quote=Smoothie104]Americans react pretty quickly when they think their liberties are being curtailed to any serious degree," said Weinstein. "The policies of the Bush administration have been fairly well accepted because I don't think they've crossed that barrier where people say, 'Wait a second." lol...........yes and whoever believes that is an idiot..how about EVERYONE in this forum from now on believe what Rokus says PERIOD.....right....everyone would think of me as an idiot..yet the Bush administration is no different...it is simply an idiot who already lied telling you to trust him again...and the only fools that do are fools themselves....lol

Edit: and that my friends..is called common sense..:)

[Fargin]

no

[oldsoak]

Depends how bad the situation is. If there is zero threat , than no, i wont trade civil liberteis to make things even safer. If we're getting blown up or shot at every five minutes, then yes, I'll trade quite a few things to make sure the family grows up safely - sooner be safe than sorry.

[Durandal]

Depends how bad the situation is. If there is zero threat , than no, i wont trade civil liberteis to make things even safer. If we're getting blown up or shot at every five minutes, then yes, I'll trade quite a few things to make sure the family grows up safely - sooner be safe than sorry.

Especially if you get Federal Troops quartered in your home...

Benjam Franklin was correct. You do not protect your family by giving away civil liberties, you protect your family by gauranteeing their civil liberties.

What do you think is actually "acceptable" to give up?

I am curious.

[MARINO]

simply. YES
btw only 100 post to rank 3 woot

[Tane Angle]

Durandal, right back at you bud. p-) Good point, those are privileges, not really rights...dagnabit, I can't think of any good examples right now. I'll try again later.

[Durandal]

Durandal, right back at you bud. p-) Good point, those are privileges, not really rights...dagnabit, I can't think of any good examples right now. I'll try again later.

I have one.

Its a simple one.

You have a right to an attorney and a right to not purgor yourself. People waive these rights ALL the time. :)

And usually they are idiots for doing so. On rare occasions they do it so they can make a political, social, or economic "point" in court or in testimony.

[oldsoak]

Depends how bad the situation is. If there is zero threat , than no, i wont trade civil liberteis to make things even safer. If we're getting blown up or shot at every five minutes, then yes, I'll trade quite a few things to make sure the family grows up safely - sooner be safe than sorry.

Especially if you get Federal Troops quartered in your home...

Benjam Franklin was correct. You do not protect your family by giving away civil liberties, you protect your family by gauranteeing their civil liberties.

What do you think is actually "acceptable" to give up?

I am curious.

Quite a bit if the circumstances demand it ! If catching a terrorist with a dirty bomb means the intelligence services evesdropping on my emails or phone conversations so be it. If catching a gang of muggers who frequent a shopping arcade means installing a surveillance camera , so be it. I dont break laws so I'm not too worried about what the government knows.

[cqbrdy]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:

cya in a few years guys im going to mexicooooooooooooooo

[Old300]

That article presents a false choice. We do not have fewer rights today than we had on September 10, 2001. No one in government, to my knowledge, is contemplating the abridgement of rights in the event of any future terrorist attack.

Again, the PATRIOT Act did not abridge or destroy a single right. I suppose there are some circumstances when habeas corpus and other ancient remedies could be suspended (as in the North in the civil war), but the Bush Administration's distinction between criminals and enemy combatants has largely obviated doing so.

Moreover, our rights are defined by Supreme Court cases that have long recognized the need to limit rights according to the requirements of circumstances and common sense. Their current definitions would probably suffice in almost any security environment.

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:
Yep they sure can. :)

[Old300]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:
Yep they sure can. :)

No they can't. Not without a warrant, anyway.

[cqbrdy]

:cantbeli: it was a joke guys
of course they can, due to the patriot act.

[oldsoak]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:
Yep they sure can. :)

No they can't. Not without a warrant, anyway.

Who would know ? They would'nt tell you. Keeping you and yours safe in bed at night can mean the security agencies sail pretty damn close to the wind. They do it to catch the bad guys out, not Mr Average Law Abiding citizen.

[Old300]

:cantbeli: it was a joke guys
of course they can, due to the patriot act.

No, wrong. The PATRIOT Act does not give the government the power to monitor emails. That process, which is subject to 4th Amendment constraints, is just like tapping a telephone line, and has been legal in one form or another for many decades.

What you might be thinking of is PATRIOT II, which contains a provision that is commonly known as Total Informational Awareness. That allows the feds - at least until or unless the US Supreme Court rules the law unconstitutional, which it might - to collect a "cyber profile" of people: basically, it tracks credit histories, purchases, etc., to determine if, say, you tend to buy a lot of fertilizer or fly between Washington and Yemen on a regular basis.

I don't like the sound of that, but it's important to remember that the IRS, among many, many other agencies, has had the power to investigate this stuff for a long time. At least now the government is using this information to save our lives rather than take our money.

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:
Yep they sure can. :)

No they can't. Not without a warrant, anyway.

Who would know ? They would'nt tell you. Keeping you and yours safe in bed at night can mean the security agencies sail pretty damn close to the wind. They do it to catch the bad guys out, not Mr Average Law Abiding citizen.
I have no problem with the interception of my e-mail by government agencies or the multitude CCTV cameras surveilling my town its all for the best. Eagerly awaiting Minority Report crime and terrorism prevention methods. :D

[Old300]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:
Yep they sure can. :)

No they can't. Not without a warrant, anyway.

Who would know ? They would'nt tell you. Keeping you and yours safe in bed at night can mean the security agencies sail pretty damn close to the wind. They do it to catch the bad guys out, not Mr Average Law Abiding citizen.
I have no problem with the interception of my e-mail by government agencies or the multitude CCTV cameras surveilling my town its all for the best. Eagerly awaiting Minority Report crime and terrorism prevention methods. :D

Listen up:

In America, at least, the government can't just start monitoring your emails. The FBI would have to go to a federal judge and obtain a warrant. In order to get a warrant, the agents would have to satisfy the judge that there is probable cause to believe that the person is committing a federal crime and that the person is using email to discuss or further his criminal activity. Furthermore, the judge has to be satisfied that any evidence gathered would be admissible at trial.

And that's the key thing. No judge wants to issue a warrant unless he's sure that a trial court (and subsequent appellate courts) would uphold the warrant. As a conservate, all those liberal federal judges make me angry on a regular basis. But I have to give them credit for setting extremely high standards for the admissibility of warranted evidence.

In my (pretty well informed) personal opinion, the deck is STILL stacked against law enforcement when it comes to the stuff. And when I say that the deck is stacked against law enforcement, what I really mean is that the deck is stacked against normal every day Americans who just don't want to get blown up for Allah.

[Sayeret]

yes because otherwise your society will have to suffer tons of tons of terrorist attacks unless the terrorist organization wants to wait and creat a false sense of security.

[Hydro]

There was a story in the papers here not long ago about a man who sent a text message over his mobile phone to a friend. The message contained lyrics to a song by The Clash, as he was a member of a tribute group. I can't remember the exact wording, but the song was about terrorism, and contained words like "hijack", "plane", "gun", "bomb" etc.

A few days afterwards, a Special Branch policeman turned up, and started questioning him. Alledgedly, the message was intercepted, and passed onto the authorities. I can't say whether it actually happened, but if governments are intercepting emails, I don't see that messages over phones are exactly hard to do.

[Old300]

There was a story in the papers here not long ago about a man who sent a text message over his mobile phone to a friend. The message contained lyrics to a song by The Clash, as he was a member of a tribute group. I can't remember the exact wording, but the song was about terrorism, and contained words like "hijack", "plane", "gun", "bomb" etc.

A few days afterwards, a Special Branch policeman turned up, and started questioning him. Alledgedly, the message was intercepted, and passed onto the authorities. I can't say whether it actually happened, but if governments are intercepting emails, I don't see that messages over phones are exactly hard to do.

America is different. Our 4th Amendment is derived from ancient English common law, so you have many of the same protections, but our "search and seizure" jurisprudence is really, really tough. Even our most conservative Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, has ruled that the government can't use infrared detectors to find out whether a house has lots of growing-lamps for marijuana. There are lots of other examples, but suffice it to say that the laws on eavesdropping and invasive surveilance are still very much geared toward a pre-9/11 world.

[ibstolidude]

Benjamin Franklin said 200 years ago that people who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

Actually living in the USSR was not that bad. So what if you some f*** could send you to Siberia for nothing. and A. Hamilton stated that security ensures liberty.

[Old300]

Benjamin Franklin said 200 years ago that people who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

Actually living in the USSR was not that bad. So what if you some f*** could send you to Siberia for nothing. and A. Hamilton stated that security ensures liberty.

This might be slightly off-topic, but, in my opinion, the traditional American conception of liberty and security is different from what's suggested in either the Franklin or Hamilton quotes: generally, I think our forefathers would not have thought of someone gaining security at the expense of liberty, or vice/versa.

Instead, they would have thought of the ability to provide for one's own security to be the greatest form of liberty.

I think this is reflected in the fact that the Bill of Rights does not GIVE us any rights. It takes for granted the fact that, as subjects of the British Crown, we already had them. The Bill of Rights is full of "negative" rights: that is to say, they assume that we already have rigths X, Y, and Z and tell us that the government is not allowed to take them away.

As is noted frequently in these forums with respect to gun rights, the ultimate guarantor of our rights is ourselves. In other words, as I suggested at the beginning of the post, our greatest freedom is to defend the rights that we've already had; our freedom is in providing our security.

Right?

[Smoothie104]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:
Yep they sure can. :)

No they can't. Not without a warrant, anyway.

Who would know ? They would'nt tell you. Keeping you and yours safe in bed at night can mean the security agencies sail pretty damn close to the wind. They do it to catch the bad guys out, not Mr Average Law Abiding citizen.
I have no problem with the interception of my e-mail by government agencies or the multitude CCTV cameras surveilling my town its all for the best. Eagerly awaiting Minority Report crime and terrorism prevention methods. :D

Listen up:

In America, at least, the government can't just start monitoring your emails. The FBI would have to go to a federal judge and obtain a warrant. In order to get a warrant, the agents would have to satisfy the judge that there is probable cause to believe that the person is committing a federal crime and that the person is using email to discuss or further his criminal activity. Furthermore, the judge has to be satisfied that any evidence gathered would be admissible at trial.

And that's the key thing. No judge wants to issue a warrant unless he's sure that a trial court (and subsequent appellate courts) would uphold the warrant. As a conservate, all those liberal federal judges make me angry on a regular basis. But I have to give them credit for setting extremely high standards for the admissibility of warranted evidence.

In my (pretty well informed) personal opinion, the deck is STILL stacked against law enforcement when it comes to the stuff. And when I say that the deck is stacked against law enforcement, what I really mean is that the deck is stacked against normal every day Americans who just don't want to get blown up for Allah.



Read this.



Scattershot Intelligence Wiretaps
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution requires that search warrants specify the place to be searched. This provides an important privacy protection. It prevents abuses such as random searches of the homes of innocent persons based on a warrant obtained to search the home of another. In the context of electronic surveillance, the specificity requirement of the Fourth Amendment means that law enforcement officers applying for a court order must specify the phone they want to tap.

In 1986, Congress amended the wiretapping law that applies in criminal cases to allow for "roving wiretaps." If law enforcement agents could prove to a judge that a person was changing telephones for the purpose of thwarting a tap of telephone lines or Internet communications specified in the order, they could obtain a "roving" wiretap that specifies a person to be tapped, not a particular telephone. In 1998, Congress relaxed the standards for roving wiretaps in criminal cases by allowing such surveillance when the target's conduct in changing telephones or facilities has the effect of thwarting the tap -- a much looser standard than the purposeful thwarting then required by the statute. The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether roving wiretaps violate the Fourth Amendment.

A roving wiretap means that law enforcement agents can listen in on any phone the target might use because he is nearby. When the target of a roving wiretap order enters another person's home, law enforcement agents can tap the homeowner's telephone. Congress attempted to lessen the possibility that law enforcement officers executing a roving wiretap would intercept the conversations of innocent persons. It required that before roving surveillance of a particular telephone line could commence, law enforcement officers must ascertain that the target is actually using the line. 18 U.S.C. 2518(12).

Section 206 of the USA PATRIOT Act would extend roving wiretap authority to "intelligence" wiretaps authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These wiretaps pose a greater challenge to privacy because they are authorized secretly without a showing of probable cause of crime. However, while Section 206 extends power to engage in roving wiretaps to the intelligence realm, it does not also require that law enforcement agents must first ascertain that the target is actually using the phone to be tapped. This Section represents a broad expansion of power without building in a necessary privacy protection. It means, for example, that if a terrorist was using the Internet connection at a public library and law enforcement was using a FISA wiretap order to monitor his Internet communications, it might continue to monitor all Internet communications at that site after the terrorist left and was no longer using the computer. Surveillance could remain in place, and innocent users would have their privacy invaded.


Evading Judicially-Determined Probable Cause Requirements


Section 218 of the USA PATRIOT Act would allow the FBI to use its intelligence gathering power to circumvent the standard that must be met for criminal wiretaps. Currently, wiretapping conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which does not contain many of the same checks and balances that govern wiretaps for criminal purposes, can be authorized only when gathering foreign intelligence information is the primary purpose of the surveillance. FISA requirements are looser than those that apply to wiretaps for criminal purposes. Most importantly, probable cause of crime need not be found by a judge in order to justify an intelligence wiretap.
Section 218 would allow use of FISA surveillance authority even if the primary purpose of the surveillance is a criminal investigation. This would allow law enforcement officials to wiretap people in the United States primarily for the purpose of conducting a criminal investigation even if they did not have probable cause of crime. The fact that Section 218 would authorize such evasion of a judicial finding of probable cause of crime only when intelligence gathering was a "significant" purpose of the surveillance does not alter this fact. Because of its importance and because the surveillance this section would authorize would apply both to electronic surveillance and to physical searches, this provision is more fully described in the ACLU fact sheet: How the Anti-Terrorism Bill Enables Law Enforcement To Use Intelligence Authorities To Circumvent Privacy Protections in Criminal Cases.

[Old300]

the gov't can read my email :cantbeli:
Yep they sure can. :)

No they can't. Not without a warrant, anyway.

Who would know ? They would'nt tell you. Keeping you and yours safe in bed at night can mean the security agencies sail pretty damn close to the wind. They do it to catch the bad guys out, not Mr Average Law Abiding citizen.
I have no problem with the interception of my e-mail by government agencies or the multitude CCTV cameras surveilling my town its all for the best. Eagerly awaiting Minority Report crime and terrorism prevention methods. :D

Listen up:

In America, at least, the government can't just start monitoring your emails. The FBI would have to go to a federal judge and obtain a warrant. In order to get a warrant, the agents would have to satisfy the judge that there is probable cause to believe that the person is committing a federal crime and that the person is using email to discuss or further his criminal activity. Furthermore, the judge has to be satisfied that any evidence gathered would be admissible at trial.

And that's the key thing. No judge wants to issue a warrant unless he's sure that a trial court (and subsequent appellate courts) would uphold the warrant. As a conservate, all those liberal federal judges make me angry on a regular basis. But I have to give them credit for setting extremely high standards for the admissibility of warranted evidence.

In my (pretty well informed) personal opinion, the deck is STILL stacked against law enforcement when it comes to the stuff. And when I say that the deck is stacked against law enforcement, what I really mean is that the deck is stacked against normal every day Americans who just don't want to get blown up for Allah.



Read this.



Scattershot Intelligence Wiretaps
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution requires that search warrants specify the place to be searched. This provides an important privacy protection. It prevents abuses such as random searches of the homes of innocent persons based on a warrant obtained to search the home of another. In the context of electronic surveillance, the specificity requirement of the Fourth Amendment means that law enforcement officers applying for a court order must specify the phone they want to tap.

In 1986, Congress amended the wiretapping law that applies in criminal cases to allow for "roving wiretaps." If law enforcement agents could prove to a judge that a person was changing telephones for the purpose of thwarting a tap of telephone lines or Internet communications specified in the order, they could obtain a "roving" wiretap that specifies a person to be tapped, not a particular telephone. In 1998, Congress relaxed the standards for roving wiretaps in criminal cases by allowing such surveillance when the target's conduct in changing telephones or facilities has the effect of thwarting the tap -- a much looser standard than the purposeful thwarting then required by the statute. The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether roving wiretaps violate the Fourth Amendment.

A roving wiretap means that law enforcement agents can listen in on any phone the target might use because he is nearby. When the target of a roving wiretap order enters another person's home, law enforcement agents can tap the homeowner's telephone. Congress attempted to lessen the possibility that law enforcement officers executing a roving wiretap would intercept the conversations of innocent persons. It required that before roving surveillance of a particular telephone line could commence, law enforcement officers must ascertain that the target is actually using the line. 18 U.S.C. 2518(12).

Section 206 of the USA PATRIOT Act would extend roving wiretap authority to "intelligence" wiretaps authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These wiretaps pose a greater challenge to privacy because they are authorized secretly without a showing of probable cause of crime. However, while Section 206 extends power to engage in roving wiretaps to the intelligence realm, it does not also require that law enforcement agents must first ascertain that the target is actually using the phone to be tapped. This Section represents a broad expansion of power without building in a necessary privacy protection. It means, for example, that if a terrorist was using the Internet connection at a public library and law enforcement was using a FISA wiretap order to monitor his Internet communications, it might continue to monitor all Internet communications at that site after the terrorist left and was no longer using the computer. Surveillance could remain in place, and innocent users would have their privacy invaded.


Evading Judicially-Determined Probable Cause Requirements


Section 218 of the USA PATRIOT Act would allow the FBI to use its intelligence gathering power to circumvent the standard that must be met for criminal wiretaps. Currently, wiretapping conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which does not contain many of the same checks and balances that govern wiretaps for criminal purposes, can be authorized only when gathering foreign intelligence information is the primary purpose of the surveillance. FISA requirements are looser than those that apply to wiretaps for criminal purposes. Most importantly, probable cause of crime need not be found by a judge in order to justify an intelligence wiretap.
Section 218 would allow use of FISA surveillance authority even if the primary purpose of the surveillance is a criminal investigation. This would allow law enforcement officials to wiretap people in the United States primarily for the purpose of conducting a criminal investigation even if they did not have probable cause of crime. The fact that Section 218 would authorize such evasion of a judicial finding of probable cause of crime only when intelligence gathering was a "significant" purpose of the surveillance does not alter this fact. Because of its importance and because the surveillance this section would authorize would apply both to electronic surveillance and to physical searches, this provision is more fully described in the ACLU fact sheet: How the Anti-Terrorism Bill Enables Law Enforcement To Use Intelligence Authorities To Circumvent Privacy Protections in Criminal Cases.

No.

Section 206:

SEC. 206. ROVING SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY UNDER THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT OF 1978.
Section 105(c)(2)(B) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1805(c)(2)(B)) is amended by inserting `, or in circumstances where the Court finds that the actions of the target of the application may have the effect of thwarting the identification of a specified person, such other persons,' after `specified person'.

Section 218:

SEC. 218. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION.
Sections 104(a)(7)(B) and section 303(a)(7)(B) (50 U.S.C. 1804(a)(7)(B) and 1823(a)(7)(B)) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 are each amended by striking `the purpose' and inserting `a significant purpose'

The fact of the matter is that the PATRIOT Act does much, much, much less than its opponents fear and quite a lot less than its supporters would wish, too.

The goverhment must still show probable cause. The government must still get a warrant. And, most importantly, there is still judicial review of those warrants. Finally, the PATRIOT Act does not authorize the government to do things that it couldn't do before the Act. The PATRIOT Act is about streamlining existing intelligence gathering procedures and facilitating inter-agency cooperation.

That's less interesting than the black-helicopter and tin-foil-helmet crowd think it is, but whatever. That's the law and it's not out to get you...

[ibstolidude]

Benjamin Franklin said 200 years ago that people who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

Actually living in the USSR was not that bad. So what if you some f*** could send you to Siberia for nothing. and A. Hamilton stated that security ensures liberty.

This might be slightly off-topic, but, in my opinion, the traditional American conception of liberty and security is different from what's suggested in either the Franklin or Hamilton quotes: generally, I think our forefathers would not have thought of someone gaining security at the expense of liberty, or vice/versa.

Instead, they would have thought of the ability to provide for one's own security to be the greatest form of liberty.

I think this is reflected in the fact that the Bill of Rights does not GIVE us any rights. It takes for granted the fact that, as subjects of the British Crown, we already had them. The Bill of Rights is full of "negative" rights: that is to say, they assume that we already have rigths X, Y, and Z and tell us that the government is not allowed to take them away.

As is noted frequently in these forums with respect to gun rights, the ultimate guarantor of our rights is ourselves. In other words, as I suggested at the beginning of the post, our greatest freedom is to defend the rights that we've already had; our freedom is in providing our security.

Right?

A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31, January 1, 1788

And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 78, 1788

Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 25, 1788

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 15, 1787

I am persuaded that a firm union is as necessary to perpetuate our liberties as it is to make us respectable; and experience will probably prove that the National Government will be as natural a guardian of our freedom as the State Legislatures.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June, 1788

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, 1788

- Although I do not espouse his same beliefs, it is foolish to consider the political piloshophies of founding fathers, yet ignore the one who is argues to be the greatest US political hero, having the greatest amount of influence on our form of government.

I also disagree that "our greatest freedom is to defend the rights that we've already had". Our greatest freedom is that WE set the terms of our government, WE decide which rights and priveleges WE are willing to sacrefice in order to live as part of this society. WE set the terms of the government whose job it is to protect our interests.
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher." - Thomas Paine

[Old300]

Benjamin Franklin said 200 years ago that people who trade liberty for security deserve neither.

Actually living in the USSR was not that bad. So what if you some f*** could send you to Siberia for nothing. and A. Hamilton stated that security ensures liberty.

This might be slightly off-topic, but, in my opinion, the traditional American conception of liberty and security is different from what's suggested in either the Franklin or Hamilton quotes: generally, I think our forefathers would not have thought of someone gaining security at the expense of liberty, or vice/versa.

Instead, they would have thought of the ability to provide for one's own security to be the greatest form of liberty.

I think this is reflected in the fact that the Bill of Rights does not GIVE us any rights. It takes for granted the fact that, as subjects of the British Crown, we already had them. The Bill of Rights is full of "negative" rights: that is to say, they assume that we already have rigths X, Y, and Z and tell us that the government is not allowed to take them away.

As is noted frequently in these forums with respect to gun rights, the ultimate guarantor of our rights is ourselves. In other words, as I suggested at the beginning of the post, our greatest freedom is to defend the rights that we've already had; our freedom is in providing our security.

Right?

A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31, January 1, 1788

And it proves, in the last place, that liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 78, 1788

Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 25, 1788

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 15, 1787

I am persuaded that a firm union is as necessary to perpetuate our liberties as it is to make us respectable; and experience will probably prove that the National Government will be as natural a guardian of our freedom as the State Legislatures.
Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, June, 1788

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, 1788

- Although I do not espouse his same beliefs, it is foolish to consider the political piloshophies of founding fathers, yet ignore the one who is argues to be the greatest US political hero, having the greatest amount of influence on our form of government.

I also disagree that "our greatest freedom is to defend the rights that we've already had". Our greatest freedom is that WE set the terms of our government, WE decide which rights and priveleges WE are willing to sacrefice in order to live as part of this society. WE set the terms of the government whose job it is to protect our interests.
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher." - Thomas Paine

I like Alexander Hamilton as much as the next guy, but we do have a Bill Rights thanks, mostly, to James Madison. The Constitution - as it is written and as it has been construed over the past 213 years - takes for granted the existence of rights; the obligation of the framers and the judiciary was and is to prevent government from infringing the rights that Washington, Jefferson, et al. (and Edmund Burke, William Pitt, et al.), were born with.

[cqbrdy]

ahh so they can read email.

[Durandal]

At least now the government is using this information to save our lives rather than take our money.

No, they are STILL using it to take our money.

;)

[Durandal]

ahh so they can read email.

Yes, and before the Patriot Act too...

The government is, or rahter, was/still is allowed to read any emails that come into and leave the boundaries of this nation. Thus, if you send an email and routes to Toronto and then back down to say New York City, then chances are it ahs been read.

I honestly do not know all the details, but almost ALL major ISPs have Federal monitoring boxes that also have the capacity to simply shut won ANY access to that ISP...or ALL ISPs...

I have to be honest folks, most of the major pieces are in place to be able to cause a completel news and information blackout within this nation...it is sort of scary...unless you trust your government to actually represent the people rather than special interest groups...and other nations.

Which brings us back to main point...Big Borther is simply inthe shadows waiting...

So keep saying yes, I'll give up X, Y, and Z...the he'll come out and play.

[Tane Angle]

The odd thing is that there was a time when conservative meant small government, minimal invasiveness. Perhaps I am actually conversative in that respect. Yes, security is good. But let's be realistic about some parts of security.

Being actually conservative would mean allowing gay marriage, allowing at least most abortions, taking away at least some parts of the Patriot Act. But who wants to be conservative these days? Hence the term neo-con, I suppose.

I suppose the libertarians are a bit closer to being pro-small government today, no?

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[Flagg]

The odd thing is that there was a time when conservative meant small government, minimal invasiveness. Perhaps I am actually conversative in that respect. Yes, security is good. But let's be realistic about some parts of security.

Being actually conservative would mean allowing gay marriage, allowing at least most abortions, taking away at least some parts of the Patriot Act. But who wants to be conservative these days? Hence the term neo-con, I suppose.

I suppose the libertarians are a bit closer to being pro-small government today, no?

Funny that.....couldn't agree more.....the only problem is.....which Party do I best relate to now......I'm so confused :(

[Durandal]

The odd thing is that there was a time when conservative meant small government, minimal invasiveness. Perhaps I am actually conversative in that respect. Yes, security is good. But let's be realistic about some parts of security.

Being actually conservative would mean allowing gay marriage, allowing at least most abortions, taking away at least some parts of the Patriot Act. But who wants to be conservative these days? Hence the term neo-con, I suppose.

I suppose the libertarians are a bit closer to being pro-small government today, no?

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

Madisonians baby.....Libertarians are where it is at without a doubt. I soooo need to run or at least start the party.

Honestly, I see little difference between Democrats or Republicans, party-wise. The receive gifts for votes. They make deals on bills to gaurantee their bill passes, the follow polls rather than their moral and ethical beliefs that "supposedly" got them there in the first place. Yes, there might be a couple senators and a dozen or two state reps that are honest decent statespersons, but on the whole they are corrupt...sell outs and divergent from what most would consider to be true America...a land of liberty, opportunity, and diverse cultures and beliefs...

Ultimately I think the problem is Federal Tax system. It supports a LOT of pork...way TOO much. It pays hundreds of MILLIONs in retirements for Senators anf goes to pet projects that assure these folks a VERY decent salary when all is said and done...unless you are like Kennedy and in their for life...the NEW "royalty"...

*sigh*

Just some ramblings...mainly for Tane since I love discussing with him on these matters...

[California Joe]

I'm reading all of your emails as we speak.....

[Tane Angle]

CJ, that e-mail about artists being pansies wasn't actually by me. It was by...uh...farmgirl. Yeah, you can't get mad at her, right? p-)

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4648.shtml
What Price Freedom?
Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7
By TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON
Jun 7, 2004, 00:34


Customers of the Bank of America branch at 3625 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia, often wonder about the Arlington police car that is always parked in front of the building in the next block.

They also can’t help but notice the two armed guards from the private Cantwell Security Service who patrol the street in front of the building and eye each passerby warily.

“What’s going on across the street?” one woman asked while waiting in line to deposit her paycheck last Friday.

“Not sure,” said the man ahead of her in line. “Something to do with the government. The police cars and guards have been there since shortly after 9-11.”

“Oh,” she said. “No matter.”

Actually, if the woman knew what was happening inside the nondescript office building at 3701 Fairfax Drive, she might think it really does matter because the building houses the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Total Information Awareness Program, the “big brother” program Congress thought it killed.

When the woman in line deposited her paycheck at the Bank of America branch, a record of that deposit showed up immediately in the computer databanks in the office across the street, just as financial, travel and other personal transactions of virtually every American do millions of time every minute.

Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program’s controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA’s TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon – with administration approval – simply moved the program into a ‘black bag’ account,” says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. “Black bag programs don’t require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight.”

DARPA also hired private contractors to fill many of the roles in the program, which helped evade detection by Congressional auditors. Using a private security firm like Cantwell, instead of the Federal Protective Service, helped keep TIA off the radar screen.

DARPA moved into the Arlington County building shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and established the TIA project under the USA Patriot Act and a number of executive orders from President George W. Bush.

TIA’s mission was to build a giant computer database with real time access to bank records, credit card companies, airlines and other travel companies, credit bureaus and other data banks to monitor, in real time, the financial transactions and travel of Americans and foreign citizens with accounts at the institutions.

Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the banks and other companies were forced to allow DARPA to access their files, a move normally considered an invasion of privacy.

When news of TIA first surfaced in 2002, along with the appointment of Poindexter, a key-figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, as director, citizens’ watchdog groups and some members of Congress took a second look. The uproar that followed led to the resignation of Poindexter, who had lied to Congress during the Iran-Contra investigation, and the elimination of funding for TIA.

But Congress left the door open by supplying DARPA with research funding to develop data mining alternatives to TIA. Instead, the Bush administration instructed the Pentagon to move TIA into the convert area of black bag operations and Congress was cut out of the loop.

Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism.

“Americans must trade some privacy for security,” he says. “Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off.”

The trade off means virtually every financial transaction of every American is now recorded and monitored by the federal government. Any bank transaction, all credit card charges plus phone records, credit reports, travel and even health records are captured in real time by the DARPA computers.

“Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person’s spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”

Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.

Such data mining is also called “database profiling” and is prohibited under Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against invasion of privacy says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Steinhardt points out the information is already being used to create “no fly” lists of people who are thought to be a danger but that safeguards are not in place to insure the accuracy of the information.

“Once you get on a ‘no-fly’ list, how do you get off it?” Steinhardt asks.

Missouri Congressman William Clay, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, and Intergovernmental Relations, worries that DARPA is skirting the law by letting private contractors handle the data mining.

"The agencies involved in data mining are trying to skirt the Privacy Act by claiming that they hold no data," said Clay. Instead, they use private companies to maintain and sift through the data, he said.

"Technically, that gets them out from under the Privacy Act," he said. "Ethically, it does not."

When the Senate voted in 2003 to cut funding for TIA, Senators like Ron Wyden of Oregon thought they had put a stop to the problem.

"This makes it clear that Congress wants to make sure there is no snooping on law-abiding Americans," Wyden said after the vote.

But it didn’t. The Bush Administration, already recognized as one of the most secretive Presidencies in modern times, simply put the program under wraps and let it continue.

When Congress voted to cut the funded, the operation at 3701 Fairfax Drive should have shut down and Arlington County should have returned the officers assigned there to normal duty. However, the officers remained in place and additional security was added to the detail.

According to construction records on file in the Arlington County building and zoning office, more than 20 high-speed data lines have been installed at the location in the last 18 months. Microwave data antennas are also installed on the roof.

Pentagon spokesmen refuse to discuss what is happening in the building, citing "national security" as the reason.

When quized about TIA earlier, DARPA officials insist they have safeguards to prevent abuses but the record suggests otherwise.

“Given the military's legacy of privacy abuses, such vague assurances are cold comfort,” says Gene Healy, senior editor of the CATO Institute in Washington.

“During World War I, concerns about German saboteurs led to unrestrained domestic spying by U.S. Army intelligence operatives,” says Healy. “Army spies were given free reign to gather information on potential subversives, and were often empowered to make arrests as special police officers. Occasionally, they carried false identification as employees of public utilities to allow them, as the chief intelligence officer for the Western Department put it, ‘to enter offices or residences of suspects gracefully, and thereby obtain data.’”

In her book Army Surveillance in America, historian Joan M. Jensen noted, “What began as a system to protect the government from enemy agents became a vast surveillance system to watch civilians who violated no law but who objected to wartime policies or to the war itself.”

The Army’s recent debacle with treatment of Iraqi prisoners also suggests the American military system lacks either the ability or the restraint to police itself.

“There's a long and troubling history of military surveillance in this country,” Healy adds. “That history suggests that we should loathe allowing the Pentagon access to our personal information.”

While TIA allows the government to snoop on American citizens, experts in the data mining field say it won’t help fight terrorism.

"Terrorism is an adaptive problem,” says Herb Edelstein, president of data-mining company Two Crows. “It's pretty unlikely the next terrorist attack will be people hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings.”

Simson Garfinkel, author of Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century, agrees.

“Data mining is good for the purpose of increasing sales and figuring out where to place products in stores,” he says. “This is very different from figuring out if these products are going to be used for terrorist activities.”

Other experts say the chances for mistakes are huge.

“With meaningful pattern recognition, the order of magnitude of errors from inferences is huge, something like ten to the third (power),” says Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce and the chairman of information mapping software company Groxis. “There would be an incalculable expense to monitor a thousand wrong hits for one correct inference.”

DARPA tried to interest Groxis in becoming part of the TIA project but the company declined, saying the project was neither feasible nor ethical. Hawken says he knows people with the National Security Agency who refused to work on TIA because of ethical concerns.

The dangers of TIA have created a coalition of strange bedfellows. The American Civil Liberties Union has teamed up with conservative Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and even the Heritage Foundation to fight not only TIA but other abuses of Constitutional rights under the USA Patriot Act. Even former member of Congress Bob Barr, a conservative firebrand, has joined the effort.

Yet even with all this attention, TIA still exists and still watches Americans 24/7 from the office building on Fairfax Drive in Arlington. Although employees who work in the building are supposed to keep their presence there a secret, they regularly sport their DARPA id badges around their necks when eating at restaurants near the building. The straps attached to the badges are printed with “DARPA” in large letters.

“Yeah, they’re the spooks who work in the building over there,” says Ernie, the counterman at a deli near 3701 Fairfax Drive. “If this is how they keep secrets, I guess we should really be worried.”

© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue

[Durandal]

;)

[oldsoak]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4648.shtml
What Price Freedom?
Where Big Brother Snoops on Americans 24/7
By TERESA HAMPTON & DOUG THOMPSON
Jun 7, 2004, 00:34


Customers of the Bank of America branch at 3625 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia, often wonder about the Arlington police car that is always parked in front of the building in the next block.

They also can’t help but notice the two armed guards from the private Cantwell Security Service who patrol the street in front of the building and eye each passerby warily.

“What’s going on across the street?” one woman asked while waiting in line to deposit her paycheck last Friday.

“Not sure,” said the man ahead of her in line. “Something to do with the government. The police cars and guards have been there since shortly after 9-11.”

“Oh,” she said. “No matter.”

Actually, if the woman knew what was happening inside the nondescript office building at 3701 Fairfax Drive, she might think it really does matter because the building houses the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s Total Information Awareness Program, the “big brother” program Congress thought it killed.

When the woman in line deposited her paycheck at the Bank of America branch, a record of that deposit showed up immediately in the computer databanks in the office across the street, just as financial, travel and other personal transactions of virtually every American do millions of time every minute.

Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program’s controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA’s TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon – with administration approval – simply moved the program into a ‘black bag’ account,” says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. “Black bag programs don’t require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight.”

DARPA also hired private contractors to fill many of the roles in the program, which helped evade detection by Congressional auditors. Using a private security firm like Cantwell, instead of the Federal Protective Service, helped keep TIA off the radar screen.

DARPA moved into the Arlington County building shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and established the TIA project under the USA Patriot Act and a number of executive orders from President George W. Bush.

TIA’s mission was to build a giant computer database with real time access to bank records, credit card companies, airlines and other travel companies, credit bureaus and other data banks to monitor, in real time, the financial transactions and travel of Americans and foreign citizens with accounts at the institutions.

Under provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the banks and other companies were forced to allow DARPA to access their files, a move normally considered an invasion of privacy.

When news of TIA first surfaced in 2002, along with the appointment of Poindexter, a key-figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, as director, citizens’ watchdog groups and some members of Congress took a second look. The uproar that followed led to the resignation of Poindexter, who had lied to Congress during the Iran-Contra investigation, and the elimination of funding for TIA.

But Congress left the door open by supplying DARPA with research funding to develop data mining alternatives to TIA. Instead, the Bush administration instructed the Pentagon to move TIA into the convert area of black bag operations and Congress was cut out of the loop.

Lt. Col. Doug Dyer, a program manager for DARPA, defends TIA as a necessary sacrifice in the war on terrorism.

“Americans must trade some privacy for security,” he says. “Three thousand people died on 9/11. When you consider the potential effect of a terrorist attack against the privacy of an entire population, there has to be some trade-off.”

The trade off means virtually every financial transaction of every American is now recorded and monitored by the federal government. Any bank transaction, all credit card charges plus phone records, credit reports, travel and even health records are captured in real time by the DARPA computers.

“Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person’s spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”

Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says.

Such data mining is also called “database profiling” and is prohibited under Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against invasion of privacy says Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Steinhardt points out the information is already being used to create “no fly” lists of people who are thought to be a danger but that safeguards are not in place to insure the accuracy of the information.

“Once you get on a ‘no-fly’ list, how do you get off it?” Steinhardt asks.

Missouri Congressman William Clay, ranking minority member of the House Committee on Government Reform's Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, and Intergovernmental Relations, worries that DARPA is skirting the law by letting private contractors handle the data mining.

"The agencies involved in data mining are trying to skirt the Privacy Act by claiming that they hold no data," said Clay. Instead, they use private companies to maintain and sift through the data, he said.

"Technically, that gets them out from under the Privacy Act," he said. "Ethically, it does not."

When the Senate voted in 2003 to cut funding for TIA, Senators like Ron Wyden of Oregon thought they had put a stop to the problem.

"This makes it clear that Congress wants to make sure there is no snooping on law-abiding Americans," Wyden said after the vote.

But it didn’t. The Bush Administration, already recognized as one of the most secretive Presidencies in modern times, simply put the program under wraps and let it continue.

When Congress voted to cut the funded, the operation at 3701 Fairfax Drive should have shut down and Arlington County should have returned the officers assigned there to normal duty. However, the officers remained in place and additional security was added to the detail.

According to construction records on file in the Arlington County building and zoning office, more than 20 high-speed data lines have been installed at the location in the last 18 months. Microwave data antennas are also installed on the roof.

Pentagon spokesmen refuse to discuss what is happening in the building, citing "national security" as the reason.

When quized about TIA earlier, DARPA officials insist they have safeguards to prevent abuses but the record suggests otherwise.

“Given the military's legacy of privacy abuses, such vague assurances are cold comfort,” says Gene Healy, senior editor of the CATO Institute in Washington.

“During World War I, concerns about German saboteurs led to unrestrained domestic spying by U.S. Army intelligence operatives,” says Healy. “Army spies were given free reign to gather information on potential subversives, and were often empowered to make arrests as special police officers. Occasionally, they carried false identification as employees of public utilities to allow them, as the chief intelligence officer for the Western Department put it, ‘to enter offices or residences of suspects gracefully, and thereby obtain data.’”

In her book Army Surveillance in America, historian Joan M. Jensen noted, “What began as a system to protect the government from enemy agents became a vast surveillance system to watch civilians who violated no law but who objected to wartime policies or to the war itself.”

The Army’s recent debacle with treatment of Iraqi prisoners also suggests the American military system lacks either the ability or the restraint to police itself.

“There's a long and troubling history of military surveillance in this country,” Healy adds. “That history suggests that we should loathe allowing the Pentagon access to our personal information.”

While TIA allows the government to snoop on American citizens, experts in the data mining field say it won’t help fight terrorism.

"Terrorism is an adaptive problem,” says Herb Edelstein, president of data-mining company Two Crows. “It's pretty unlikely the next terrorist attack will be people hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings.”

Simson Garfinkel, author of Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century, agrees.

“Data mining is good for the purpose of increasing sales and figuring out where to place products in stores,” he says. “This is very different from figuring out if these products are going to be used for terrorist activities.”

Other experts say the chances for mistakes are huge.

“With meaningful pattern recognition, the order of magnitude of errors from inferences is huge, something like ten to the third (power),” says Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce and the chairman of information mapping software company Groxis. “There would be an incalculable expense to monitor a thousand wrong hits for one correct inference.”

DARPA tried to interest Groxis in becoming part of the TIA project but the company declined, saying the project was neither feasible nor ethical. Hawken says he knows people with the National Security Agency who refused to work on TIA because of ethical concerns.

The dangers of TIA have created a coalition of strange bedfellows. The American Civil Liberties Union has teamed up with conservative Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and even the Heritage Foundation to fight not only TIA but other abuses of Constitutional rights under the USA Patriot Act. Even former member of Congress Bob Barr, a conservative firebrand, has joined the effort.

Yet even with all this attention, TIA still exists and still watches Americans 24/7 from the office building on Fairfax Drive in Arlington. Although employees who work in the building are supposed to keep their presence there a secret, they regularly sport their DARPA id badges around their necks when eating at restaurants near the building. The straps attached to the badges are printed with “DARPA” in large letters.

“Yeah, they’re the spooks who work in the building over there,” says Ernie, the counterman at a deli near 3701 Fairfax Drive. “If this is how they keep secrets, I guess we should really be worried.”

© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue

Echelon does not exist - it is in fact called aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhmmmmmmghphphph

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

Echelon does not exist - it is in fact called aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhmmmmmmghphphph
Has oldsoak been brutally murdered by the Security Police of the New World Order or was it an old girlfriends mother who was enraged by the tales her daughter told her of oldsoak's depraved ****** antics. Stay tuned to this thread.

[BlackRain]

Boy, some of you people are really paranoid.

The only ones who should worry about the Patriot Act are terrorists and enemies of the free world.

Besides, the average US citizen has never been affected by the Patriot Act. Nor due Americans mind the proactive measures very much as evidenced by these Gallop Poll results from March 2004.



Americans Generally Comfortable With Patriot Act
Few believe it goes too far in restricting civil liberties

Few Americans say they are highly familiar with the Patriot Act, signed into law over two years ago, but most believe it is within acceptable bounds in its treatment of civil liberties. Furthermore, despite sharp criticism of the law by the American Civil Liberties Union, more Americans trust Attorney General John Ashcroft than trust the ACLU to balance the sometimes competing values of national security and civil liberties. That is the positive spin suggested by poll data relating to the counter-terrorism law passed by Congress in the panicked weeks shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The negative spin is that Americans are at odds with some of its specific provisions.

To further buttress this arguement, is an earlier poll:


A 2001 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows that most Americans are not worried that their civil liberties are in danger. While a large majority of Americans say the government should not take actions in the war on terrorism that would violate their basic civil liberties, an even larger majority says the Bush administration has not done so.

The whole negative spin about the Patriot Act comes from liberals/Democrats looking for political leverage in an election year.

I am sure the enemies of the USA would love for the Patriot Act to be overturned so that their planning/execution of terrorist acts would be enhanced.

How is the Disinformation about the Patriot Act Spread???


Critics of the act, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, have contributed to the misperceptions by glossing over how secret surveillance has long been allowed under other laws.

...

On its Web site, the ACLU glosses over legal standards for subpoenas, warrants and wiretaps that were set decades ago and makes it seem that the Patriot Act created them.

...

The ACLU also says that FBI agents can spy on people "because they don't like" the books they read or the Web sites they visit. But since 1978, the FBI has been barred from investigating U.S. citizens "solely" for First Amendment free-speech activities. The Patriot Act has the same language.




Meanwhile, misleading descriptions of the Patriot Act are seeping into popular culture, further perpetuating the myths about it.

TV scriptwriters are taking literary license with the act by casting it as the latest interrogation-room weapon for fictional cops.

On shows such as CBS' Navy NCIS and NBC's Las Vegas, bad guys have been coerced into cooperating by threats that they would be held under the Patriot Act as "enemy combatants" at the U.S. military base in Cuba, without access to a lawyer. In real life, the U.S. government is holding 650 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives at the base at Guantanamo Bay.

Such misinformation does not serve the public, says former House majority leader **** Armey, a Texas Republican who expresses concern about the act's impact on privacy. "Unfortunately," he says, "political discourse was never designed to elevate intellect."

[JiJoMacLE45]

You can't be free if your dead!

[Durandal]

Boy, some of you people are really paranoid.

No, we can read...and some....understand that power corrupts and our government regardless of parties is getting more and more...

Considering that few Senators actually read the damn thing when the signed off on it makes me worry. They are just as ignorant of the law, at least at the time the pushed it through, as those that elected them.


The only ones who should worry about the Patriot Act are terrorists and enemies of the free world.

This is such a straw man argument. By saying this you make the argument (wether intended or not) that those of us by disapproving of it are somehow terrorists or enemies of the free world. Obviously we are not since we are discussing NOT giving up liberties....and freedom in general.


Besides, the average US citizen has never been affected by the Patriot Act. Nor due Americans mind the proactive measures very much as evidenced by these Gallop Poll results from March 2004.

This could not be further from the truth. Several American citizens have been arrested using the Patriot Act that had nothing to do with terrorism. I agree they should have been arrested. Example: A child ****ography collector. However, I disagree how it was done. The end does NOT justify the means, PERIOD. The fact that the Patriot Act was used to catch a common criminal,a CITIZEN, using techniques that would have been otherwise ILLEGAL previously...worry me. Yes, scum is off the street for certain, but that does not justify illegally searching and collecting data on this guy.


Americans Generally Comfortable With Patriot Act
Few believe it goes too far in restricting civil liberties

But wait...


Few Americans say they are highly familiar with the Patriot Act, signed into law over two years ago, but most believe it is within acceptable bounds in its treatment of civil liberties...


To further buttress this arguement, is an earlier poll:

Actually it DESTROYS the poll. How can you use a poll about how people feel about something when they little or NOTHING about the issue.

This is insanity...and unfortunately typical. As we pump kids through school, less and less have ANY concept of civil duty much less how government works. Of course a general portion of the population is similarly illiterate when it comes to understanding the very government that in theory...they elect.

Nor, and this probably the most important issue, because a majority thinks in such away (as a result of ignorance more than anything else) means it is true (a common misunderstanding when it comes to discussing the government...a REPUBLIC. Our government is designed with checks and balances (three branches of federal government, the voting process, ownership of firearms, and a natural right to revolution as a worst case scenario). I doubt the law will survive the sunset, but if it does, it will eventually be contested in Federal Court and probably overturned as being unconstitutional. Which is part of the checks and balances. Just because a majority supports it does not mean its right...OR in this case constitutional.


The whole negative spin about the Patriot Act comes from liberals/Democrats looking for political leverage in an election year.

And Republicans and Libertarians...

How FOX News of you to break it down to party and ideology. This side against that side.


I am sure the enemies of the USA would love for the Patriot Act to be overturned so that their planning/execution of terrorist acts would be enhanced.

There ya go again. Preaching the hate...I am sure the enemies of the United States LOVE the fact that we are becomeing MORE like them...totalitarian. :) The argument can go both ways of course.


Critics of the act, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, have contributed to the misperceptions by glossing over how secret surveillance has long been allowed under other laws.

On its Web site, the ACLU glosses over legal standards for subpoenas, warrants and wiretaps that were set decades ago and makes it seem that the Patriot Act created them.

The ACLU also says that FBI agents can spy on people "because they don't like" the books they read or the Web sites they visit. But since 1978, the FBI has been barred from investigating U.S. citizens "solely" for First Amendment free-speech activities. The Patriot Act has the same language.

Hehehe you are kidding me right? The FBI can see my posts here, track a purchase for camo netting and ammo boxes at Loadup.com, see a couple checks for purchases at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot, and then suddenly decide ...this guy might be bad, lets haul him in for questioning, which is a violation of my civil rights...

With that said...

A) They should NEVER be able to attain that information without a warrant...which they can no do without.

B) Have you actually read the entire Patriot Act? I have...took me a weekend, but I did. It IS scary stuff. Rather than parroting some idiot Senator or a self serving News Service go read it yourself.

Can the rhetoric man...

[California Joe]

Most of the same people who think the Patriot Act is OK are the same types that think Saddam hit the Twin Towers. It's an egregious attack on civil liberties coming from a political party that always claimed as one of their hallmarks that they were for smaller government .

[Resevoir Hogs]

Yes I'd trade some liberties for security in a time of need. There's no point in me having those liberties if I or any of my loved ones are dead because of an attack.

[BlackRain]

There ya go again. Preaching the hate...I am sure the enemies of the United States LOVE the fact that we are becomeing MORE like them...totalitarian. :) The argument can go both ways of course.

Can the rhetoric man...

Since you cannot rebut the poll results or facts with a logical response, I can only conclude that you are responding from an emotional base.

I doubt you read the Patriot Act. If you did you would realize that it has been around for a long time in the form of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

As I said before, the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are only tools to protect the USA from attack.

Do a little reading about your misperceptions about the Patriot Act here; this website http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/subs/add_myths.htm is here to help those with diminished reading comprehension and severe paranoia.

[Durandal]

Yes I'd trade some liberties for security in a time of need. There's no point in me having those liberties if I or any of my loved ones are dead because of an attack.

I guess the question for you and those that think this same way is...

Just how many liberties are you willing to give up? Privacy? Free Speech? Assembly? Gun ownership? Trial by Jury?

Those that answer yes seem so carefree about casually tossing aside something that was so hard won in a time when people simply did not have these freedoms, so, I would like an answer.

When is it too much?

[OB Kenobi]

Send all the Muslims, Christians, and Jews back to their "holy land" in the middle-east, terror problem solved.

[BlackRain]

I guess the question for you and those that think this same way is...

Just how many liberties are you willing to give up? Privacy? Free Speech? Assembly? Gun ownership? Trial by Jury?

Those that answer yes seem so carefree about casually tossing aside something that was so hard won in a time when people simply did not have these freedoms, so, I would like an answer.

When is it too much?

I have NO IDEA what you are talking about.

What liberties did I give up today?

None.

No law has changed or any proposed to change the Bill of Rights or the Constitution.

You are strictly talking hypotheticals.

Please provide a specific instance of what liberty you gave up and how?

[Durandal]

Please provide a specific instance of what liberty you gave up and how?

Before I answer your question, which I will do, please anser mine...and/or respond to my reply to your post.

Thanks!

[Johnnyringo]

You can't be free if your dead!


riiiight :|