http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/21/0448225
May you all live in interesting times.
[mod]Trollbait, flamebait, OMFG[/mod]
May you all live in interesting times.
[mod]Trollbait, flamebait, OMFG[/mod]
President Bush Blocks NSA Wireless Tapping Probe
- Thread starter Haven
- Start date
Pestcontrol
In Cryo Sleep
Sign of an overly autocratic rule. Then again, what's new?
Seems US law gives the president too much power in the faith it'll be used responsibly. nuh-uh.
Seems US law gives the president too much power in the faith it'll be used responsibly. nuh-uh.
Taffy
New Member
I think that when we are talking about 'National Security', you have to remember that had the NSA not performed these alleged 'illegal' actions and then another 9/11 had occured, the US public wouldn't be very happy, would they? In my opinion, I think that the NSA was within it's rights to tap into these, as they were led to believe that national security would be at risk if they had not done so.
People are trying to strike the balance between 'national security' and 'human rights'. It's a never-ending debate about how far security services can go to protect their country before they intrude on peoples rights. I know that I wouldn't be happy if MI5, for example, could prevent another attack but don't in case they end up in a human rights court and have their powers restricted.
People are trying to strike the balance between 'national security' and 'human rights'. It's a never-ending debate about how far security services can go to protect their country before they intrude on peoples rights. I know that I wouldn't be happy if MI5, for example, could prevent another attack but don't in case they end up in a human rights court and have their powers restricted.
DeZmond
Junior Administrator
Although bost sides of the argument must be considered, I personally fall into the libertarian side since I think our government has too much power already, as well as an eagerness to puff up threats to our country. While I do not deny that such threats exist, I do think that, to some degree at least, they have been slightly exaggerated and twisted for political propeganda purposes.
Interesting about Mr Bush - he never ceases to surprise me. Like that time this week where he and Mr Blair decided to conduct a private conversation, unaware they were being recorded.
Interesting about Mr Bush - he never ceases to surprise me. Like that time this week where he and Mr Blair decided to conduct a private conversation, unaware they were being recorded.
Pestcontrol
In Cryo Sleep
Taffy said:
It's impossible to say if any attacks have actually been prevented unless you manage to halt an attack preparation being in progress, complete with extensive plans. No such thing.
It's the CIA's job anyway, the NSA is for eavesdropping and code-cracking (and as such considered by many as a very enigmatic, or conspiracy-involved agency). IIRC the scandal here was tapping people who were not suspected of anything, that means bypassing other authorities who normally authorise whether or not a tap is in order. I think that's a gross violation and also an unnecissary one when it comes to the war against terror.
Tetsuo_Shima
In Cryo Sleep
Taffy said:
Agreed. I hate to drift off-topicish but its in the same kind of vein. Jean-Chales De Menezes accidental killing in London? Every single time I read an article lobbying for prosecution my blood boils. In all fairness, I cant have any idea how horrible it must be for the Menezes family and they deserve at least some kind of compensation for the loss of their son, but prosecution of the officers is NOT the answer. One, what would the family actually gain from the prosecution of the officers? All it would result in is two police officers who acted in the best interests of their country being found guilty for doing their job. Personally, I feel far better that the policemen involved took the initiative to prevent a potential catastrophe. If the police have to stop and consider and debate for even a split second over the viability of stopping a suspected terrorist, especially when he is running and ignoring the express commands of the officers involved, then I believe they were totally within rights to do what was necessary to ensure the safety of the people in the area.
I know how bitter it must be for the family, and how horrible it is that things like these happen, but they have to happen. Its a fine line really, on one side you have the police unable to do their job through worry of breaching human rights, but on the other you have a totalitarian and militaristic police force who act on instinct rather than proof. For now, Im with the officers, but preventing this kind of thing happening whould be a prioirity.
waterproofbob
Junior Administrator
firstly the president doesn't have overall control of the security agencies, so the chances are that although these have been publicly blocked they may well have gone ahead with the investigation anyway. (not saying they have so no biting my head off).
secondly the way the US defence and security forces is constructed is so complex (in comparison to our own MOD and at home defence policies) it is mind boggling.
People say that there is already too much interference into personal life, in the way of phone taps, and security screening of certain words. Yet how does this actually affect us. Lets be honest not alot. We pass hundreds of cameras in towns, is this an invasion of privacy, hardly. I have nothing to hide and if someone ever had to tap my phone i'd pity them as i've never said anything remotely interesting. hehe.
But seriously if ur doing nought wrong then wheres the problem, tap away i say. the only reason i see for having an issue with it is if u actually have somet to conceal.
and i'm spent.
secondly the way the US defence and security forces is constructed is so complex (in comparison to our own MOD and at home defence policies) it is mind boggling.
People say that there is already too much interference into personal life, in the way of phone taps, and security screening of certain words. Yet how does this actually affect us. Lets be honest not alot. We pass hundreds of cameras in towns, is this an invasion of privacy, hardly. I have nothing to hide and if someone ever had to tap my phone i'd pity them as i've never said anything remotely interesting. hehe.
But seriously if ur doing nought wrong then wheres the problem, tap away i say. the only reason i see for having an issue with it is if u actually have somet to conceal.
and i'm spent.
Bad! Bad man!waterproofbob said:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html
But sure, if you're happy with slowly being stripped of all your rights, then there isn't much I can say to convince you.
Okay so you're happy with camera's in public - what about private emails, private phone calls and cameras in the workplace.
What about if/when your home privacy is compromised allowing searches/monitoring of your home life activities.
What about when you lose the right to free speech and the right to a fair representation under the law.
How much is too much and do you understand what you are losing ?
waterproofbob
Junior Administrator
There are certain viewpoints that are more severe than i actually believe contained below however i was feeling this debate was a bit too one sided and for the sake of a true debate i've brought them up, as a differing view.Thankyou.
firstly i apologise for my original statement of tap away this was rash and thrown together in a very slap dash manner.
Secondly we are not being slowly stripped of rights, we as modern western civilisation have more rights than we know what to do with. We are amazingly fortunate to live as we do, and yes privacy is a basic human need we are not and i very much doubt will ever be constantly monitored. i couldn't agree more that privacy is incredibly important but there is a collosal jump from the monitoring of email/ phone conversations to the amount of intrusion that would stop ppl feeling happy to say walk around their house naked or be able to go to a quiet place to be alone with ur thoughts.
i have no problem with work place cameras, in many ways the cameras in my work place make me feel more secure. if someone was looking into my personal emails then woe betide them, but seriously there would have to have been some reason for this invasion in a home life scenario to occur as there isn't the man power to monitor everyone and yes although it is amazingly cliched to say oh but it will only happen if u've done something wrong, in some ways i agree with BigD that this must be taken with a pinch of salt there is still a large element of truth in this.
however i couldn't agree more that there has to be limitations on what can happen.
the idea of a restrictive Big brother society as portrayed in 1984 is a concentrated form of what certain ppl seem to think we are coming to. I disagree, yes there is an element of the george orwell world about modern society in as much as u could conclude that ur every move is being watched. However the use of security screening, use of cameras, use of checks i feel is not intrusive. I wouldn't notice if someone was monitoring my calls and tbh it really wouldn't bother me, i'm not saying it is right to do so, but as a society we would not allow this monitoring to start dictating to us and in this i take comfort and in areas of the world where this has happened llarge parts of teh world have stood in outrage against such travesty, with this in mind i do not fear as some of u clearly do that we are going to lose our rights as humans.
I personal feel we do not have free speech as an ideal, but this doesn't phase me at all as too much freedom is not a benefit to a human race that is inherintely greedy, stubborn and to some extent destructive.We also do not have free speech, there's so much inherent political correctness that makes true freedom of speech or even true freedom a catch22.(sorry i'm great book pluggin now).
There does of course have to be stringent guidelines and controls in place to insure that those using these methods have some proof or indication that the person/persons being checked are being so for a reason, and ther will always be a a who will watch the watchers problem. this is unsolvable, the only possible final solution to this is remove the watchers and i hope i'm not alone in saying that would suck.
firstly i apologise for my original statement of tap away this was rash and thrown together in a very slap dash manner.
Secondly we are not being slowly stripped of rights, we as modern western civilisation have more rights than we know what to do with. We are amazingly fortunate to live as we do, and yes privacy is a basic human need we are not and i very much doubt will ever be constantly monitored. i couldn't agree more that privacy is incredibly important but there is a collosal jump from the monitoring of email/ phone conversations to the amount of intrusion that would stop ppl feeling happy to say walk around their house naked or be able to go to a quiet place to be alone with ur thoughts.
i have no problem with work place cameras, in many ways the cameras in my work place make me feel more secure. if someone was looking into my personal emails then woe betide them, but seriously there would have to have been some reason for this invasion in a home life scenario to occur as there isn't the man power to monitor everyone and yes although it is amazingly cliched to say oh but it will only happen if u've done something wrong, in some ways i agree with BigD that this must be taken with a pinch of salt there is still a large element of truth in this.
however i couldn't agree more that there has to be limitations on what can happen.
the idea of a restrictive Big brother society as portrayed in 1984 is a concentrated form of what certain ppl seem to think we are coming to. I disagree, yes there is an element of the george orwell world about modern society in as much as u could conclude that ur every move is being watched. However the use of security screening, use of cameras, use of checks i feel is not intrusive. I wouldn't notice if someone was monitoring my calls and tbh it really wouldn't bother me, i'm not saying it is right to do so, but as a society we would not allow this monitoring to start dictating to us and in this i take comfort and in areas of the world where this has happened llarge parts of teh world have stood in outrage against such travesty, with this in mind i do not fear as some of u clearly do that we are going to lose our rights as humans.
I personal feel we do not have free speech as an ideal, but this doesn't phase me at all as too much freedom is not a benefit to a human race that is inherintely greedy, stubborn and to some extent destructive.We also do not have free speech, there's so much inherent political correctness that makes true freedom of speech or even true freedom a catch22.(sorry i'm great book pluggin now).
There does of course have to be stringent guidelines and controls in place to insure that those using these methods have some proof or indication that the person/persons being checked are being so for a reason, and ther will always be a a who will watch the watchers problem. this is unsolvable, the only possible final solution to this is remove the watchers and i hope i'm not alone in saying that would suck.
I'm happy to entertain your viewpoints but could you elaborate on the following bits and I will respond more to those specific parts:
I know that as I drive along roads in the UK there are now blue CCTV camera's every few miles down ALL the major roads. I also know that they monitor and record number plates for all traffic.
I know that whenever I use my bank cards my location is logged and that this informatin is freely available to the police service in the UK (and probably US). I also know that many cash points include a small camera positioned to monitor the person making the withdrawl.
I could drone on for another hour about all the monitoring that goes on - there are many more examples and if you want I will sit and list as many as I can think of.
However it is probably more useful to list the reason I care about all of this. I believe we are monitored constantly in our daily actiivities. I believe that privacy is a right and that as social beings it is necessary for a healthy society. I don't want to be monitored and I don't those around me to be monitored. I don't want to be "protected" from "terrorists" where the definition of terrorists seems ambivalent and vague (and that being kind). I don't want to see minorities being 'terrorised' by a government that increasingly acts without the sanction of international law. I want to protect my right to privacy, my right to campaign against a (supposedly) publically accountable leadership that I feel does not act in my best interests. I want people to be judged on evidence of their actions and not their supposed intent. I want us all to be presumed innocent before we are found guilty. I want politicians to not be above the law.
Who watches the watchers.
Two sentences that sum up some of my concerns very aptly. I do not trust the government to have this ammount of power. I do not believe that they have my best interests at heart - I believe they instead have their own interests at heart. Governments need to be regulated, if they are not or cannot be regulated then we have moved from a democratic regime into something much less appealing. I believe that the current changes in legislation (anti-terrorism bill, data protection acts and privacy acts) put too much power in the governments hands without enough independant regulation to ensure its fair use. In short there are not enough watchers and we are being forced to stand by and watch the government perpetrate acts against our own civilians and those of foreign nationalities that could only be achieved under the new legislation and that fly in the face of human rights and the long standing legal precident that we are all innocent until proven guilty (I'll save examples for this unless you really want them).
I believe that the balance of power has shifted too far away from the people and into the ruling elite and that this balance needs to be altered for society to avoid the inevitable repression that an overzealous leadership with too much power brings with it.
Unlike the US we do not have the right to bear arms in the UK (a right that was kept to enable its citizens to fight an oppressive regime and to keep the government from taking over). Therefore we walk a much finer tightrope where we have less to fight with and theremore more reason to fight with the means that we have.
I hope you've made it this far and I hope that you get some sense of where my beliefs and my fears lie.
Yours sincerely
V
Examples please ? I could just state that "you are wrong and I am right" without something to back this up it is just meaningless noise.
Ok I'm being picky here but what I believe you mean is "in my opinion" ... we are not ... blah blah blah. Or do you have evidence that we are not being monitorerd. I store email logs of all traffic sent through my workplace. I know ISP's do the same (and have to under current law. I know that mobile phone calls are routed through RAF menwith hill where they are scanned for keywords and phrases. As are text messages.
I know that as I drive along roads in the UK there are now blue CCTV camera's every few miles down ALL the major roads. I also know that they monitor and record number plates for all traffic.
I know that whenever I use my bank cards my location is logged and that this informatin is freely available to the police service in the UK (and probably US). I also know that many cash points include a small camera positioned to monitor the person making the withdrawl.
I could drone on for another hour about all the monitoring that goes on - there are many more examples and if you want I will sit and list as many as I can think of.
However it is probably more useful to list the reason I care about all of this. I believe we are monitored constantly in our daily actiivities. I believe that privacy is a right and that as social beings it is necessary for a healthy society. I don't want to be monitored and I don't those around me to be monitored. I don't want to be "protected" from "terrorists" where the definition of terrorists seems ambivalent and vague (and that being kind). I don't want to see minorities being 'terrorised' by a government that increasingly acts without the sanction of international law. I want to protect my right to privacy, my right to campaign against a (supposedly) publically accountable leadership that I feel does not act in my best interests. I want people to be judged on evidence of their actions and not their supposed intent. I want us all to be presumed innocent before we are found guilty. I want politicians to not be above the law.
Power corrups, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Who watches the watchers.
Two sentences that sum up some of my concerns very aptly. I do not trust the government to have this ammount of power. I do not believe that they have my best interests at heart - I believe they instead have their own interests at heart. Governments need to be regulated, if they are not or cannot be regulated then we have moved from a democratic regime into something much less appealing. I believe that the current changes in legislation (anti-terrorism bill, data protection acts and privacy acts) put too much power in the governments hands without enough independant regulation to ensure its fair use. In short there are not enough watchers and we are being forced to stand by and watch the government perpetrate acts against our own civilians and those of foreign nationalities that could only be achieved under the new legislation and that fly in the face of human rights and the long standing legal precident that we are all innocent until proven guilty (I'll save examples for this unless you really want them).
I believe that the balance of power has shifted too far away from the people and into the ruling elite and that this balance needs to be altered for society to avoid the inevitable repression that an overzealous leadership with too much power brings with it.
I could not disagree more. The last thing we should ever do is remove the watchers. In the UK this is largely the free press and political actiivsts, these are our watchers. "independant" parliamentary reports have become so bogged down with internal beaurocracy as to be rendered largely innefective in giving a fair viewpoint of the governments actions. We must therefore rely on protest and a free press to report and monitor the governments actions. Given that in the UK in order to protest you now have to apply for the right to protest (free protest is no longer allowed without permission). We have only the free press ... and the degree of freedom and the motivations of the press are often in question (I'll save this for another thread).
Unlike the US we do not have the right to bear arms in the UK (a right that was kept to enable its citizens to fight an oppressive regime and to keep the government from taking over). Therefore we walk a much finer tightrope where we have less to fight with and theremore more reason to fight with the means that we have.
I hope you've made it this far and I hope that you get some sense of where my beliefs and my fears lie.
Yours sincerely
V
waterproofbob
Junior Administrator
My point was exatctly that removing the watchers would be a terrible thingy, sorry was that clear, it is very interesting reading your ideas and my main issue and this could be conceived as very naive is that let me restate myself.
I do not feel monitored, i realise there are many electronic checks and all the other devices u have mentioned. i think a large amount of my possible conceived lethargy on this subject has a large amount to do with where i live, i am very fortunate to live in the suffolk countryside and to this effect i've never felt the possible constrictive nature of this monitoring thus it has not greatly affected me. so from that point i am biased and possibly a little ignorant to the extent that this monitoring has say in big cities.
This is very interesting as i see perhaps one camera a day and thats if i'm working.
As i've already mentioned the electronic checks that take place don't both me at all, however i couldn't agree more that your viewpoint on government is spot on. Politicians are the perfect example of where a better wtcher of the watchers system has to be introduced, as media do in my opinion an annoying less than affective job of this, the media in some attempt to monitor those who monitor us do so in a frustrating in your face manner that actually does bother me. there there is massive invasion of privacy and with thuis i have major issues.
Ity may just be me but my mind set is if i don't notice the monitoring then it doesn't bother me. I might change my opinion if i was constantly surrounded by the cameras however i'm not, but even when i'm at uni i never feel that confined by cameras even when there are alot about the place. This is because if i'm on camera i care very little, i can see where your coming from but personally 99% of the time i don't see the cameras and even when I do I in no way feel that they are an issue.
i will elaborate more possibly on certain bits by editting this post as requested in your post Haven however i've gotta get to work.
JC
I do not feel monitored, i realise there are many electronic checks and all the other devices u have mentioned. i think a large amount of my possible conceived lethargy on this subject has a large amount to do with where i live, i am very fortunate to live in the suffolk countryside and to this effect i've never felt the possible constrictive nature of this monitoring thus it has not greatly affected me. so from that point i am biased and possibly a little ignorant to the extent that this monitoring has say in big cities.
This is very interesting as i see perhaps one camera a day and thats if i'm working.
As i've already mentioned the electronic checks that take place don't both me at all, however i couldn't agree more that your viewpoint on government is spot on. Politicians are the perfect example of where a better wtcher of the watchers system has to be introduced, as media do in my opinion an annoying less than affective job of this, the media in some attempt to monitor those who monitor us do so in a frustrating in your face manner that actually does bother me. there there is massive invasion of privacy and with thuis i have major issues.
Ity may just be me but my mind set is if i don't notice the monitoring then it doesn't bother me. I might change my opinion if i was constantly surrounded by the cameras however i'm not, but even when i'm at uni i never feel that confined by cameras even when there are alot about the place. This is because if i'm on camera i care very little, i can see where your coming from but personally 99% of the time i don't see the cameras and even when I do I in no way feel that they are an issue.
i will elaborate more possibly on certain bits by editting this post as requested in your post Haven however i've gotta get to work.
JC
U
UArch
Guest
dont worry, people will learn the hard way
i dont want to lose my freedom or feel that i cant do anything without the fear of being watched/judged, remember that what you may think of as an innocent activity can be made not-so innocent by anyone, a simple private conversation about terrorism, bombs, pedophiles ,child pornography other sensitive subjects, which we have the right to discuss could be turned against you nomatter what context it was in
i wouldnt like to be shot by security forces who thought i was a terrorist (har har, anyone watch the news?..its happening more often now) because i was talking to my friend about how a bomb is constructed after reading something on howstuffworks.com
on top of that, how can we ensure the QUALITY of the media they are watching us with?....it wouldnt be nice for the government to hear something you actually didnt say because of poor audio quality, for example
theres so much other things which come into this, its not black and white
governments WILL do what it takes to monitor you in any way they can and get away with (and lets face it, they can get away with alot..cant they)
monitor me while im outside doesnt bother me all too much, but thats a biased opinion..i dont go out as much as most people, but that doesnt mean i want to see a million cameras on the street, your opinions and views should apply to all people, not just your own personal situation
you may not have 50 cameras on your street watching you, but there may be another street in the world which does, and because you say "theres not much cameras, i dont have a problem with more" that other street gets another 50...
i definately dont want my privacy broken in my own home.
when i walk into my "home" i want it to feel like home, not a recording studio
i want to be able to say to my friend in the privacy of my own home "i think the government sucks" or "i disagree with the government on X subject" without being harassed for it, or being judged on something i did in the past which is now illegal in the future due to some law change
i also dont want the possibility that all this "private information" is being sold for marketing, lets face it..its gotta happen sooner or later
when i sign up to a website my "private information" (which according to an agreement isnt made available to anyone else) is made available to others through some loophole, fancy having advertisements come through your door because some company saw you saying/doing something that related to what they are selling, i rarely ever put genuine information into a website when i sign up, and i always use a "junk" email address which (coincidence?) collects all the spam, while my primary one stays mostly free, this email address isnt posted up on the net anywhere for bots to pick up either
i cant help but also think back to one line spoken in the matrix
"i cant help it morpheus, what if all this..the prophecy..what if its all bullshit?"
"then tommorow we may all die, but how is that different from any other day?...but what if the prophy IS true?..what if tommorow the war could be over?..isnt that worth fighting for?..isnt that worth dying for?"
what if all this privacy stuff is all bullshit, what if we are being paranoid?..what if our freedom never is taken away?...surely they cant get away with that, it will never happen!
on the other hand, what if it isnt bullshit, what if they can get away with it, what if our freedom IS taken away?.....sure it may not happen soon, mabey you wont even live to see the day..but i guess that means we dont need to give a crap about it right?..wrong
theres a high number of people on this planet with the same view
"i dont care if what i do causes the entire world to die or explode randomly, so long as i get rich have a big house and lots of cars before i die, i dont care"
i dont want to lose my freedom or feel that i cant do anything without the fear of being watched/judged, remember that what you may think of as an innocent activity can be made not-so innocent by anyone, a simple private conversation about terrorism, bombs, pedophiles ,child pornography other sensitive subjects, which we have the right to discuss could be turned against you nomatter what context it was in
i wouldnt like to be shot by security forces who thought i was a terrorist (har har, anyone watch the news?..its happening more often now) because i was talking to my friend about how a bomb is constructed after reading something on howstuffworks.com
on top of that, how can we ensure the QUALITY of the media they are watching us with?....it wouldnt be nice for the government to hear something you actually didnt say because of poor audio quality, for example
theres so much other things which come into this, its not black and white
governments WILL do what it takes to monitor you in any way they can and get away with (and lets face it, they can get away with alot..cant they)
monitor me while im outside doesnt bother me all too much, but thats a biased opinion..i dont go out as much as most people, but that doesnt mean i want to see a million cameras on the street, your opinions and views should apply to all people, not just your own personal situation
you may not have 50 cameras on your street watching you, but there may be another street in the world which does, and because you say "theres not much cameras, i dont have a problem with more" that other street gets another 50...
i definately dont want my privacy broken in my own home.
when i walk into my "home" i want it to feel like home, not a recording studio
i want to be able to say to my friend in the privacy of my own home "i think the government sucks" or "i disagree with the government on X subject" without being harassed for it, or being judged on something i did in the past which is now illegal in the future due to some law change
i also dont want the possibility that all this "private information" is being sold for marketing, lets face it..its gotta happen sooner or later
when i sign up to a website my "private information" (which according to an agreement isnt made available to anyone else) is made available to others through some loophole, fancy having advertisements come through your door because some company saw you saying/doing something that related to what they are selling, i rarely ever put genuine information into a website when i sign up, and i always use a "junk" email address which (coincidence?) collects all the spam, while my primary one stays mostly free, this email address isnt posted up on the net anywhere for bots to pick up either
i cant help but also think back to one line spoken in the matrix
"i cant help it morpheus, what if all this..the prophecy..what if its all bullshit?"
"then tommorow we may all die, but how is that different from any other day?...but what if the prophy IS true?..what if tommorow the war could be over?..isnt that worth fighting for?..isnt that worth dying for?"
what if all this privacy stuff is all bullshit, what if we are being paranoid?..what if our freedom never is taken away?...surely they cant get away with that, it will never happen!
on the other hand, what if it isnt bullshit, what if they can get away with it, what if our freedom IS taken away?.....sure it may not happen soon, mabey you wont even live to see the day..but i guess that means we dont need to give a crap about it right?..wrong
theres a high number of people on this planet with the same view
"i dont care if what i do causes the entire world to die or explode randomly, so long as i get rich have a big house and lots of cars before i die, i dont care"