US Domestic Spying

[BigMoneyJim]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Once again I remind myself why I don't participate in these discussions...

The ONLY point I was trying to make was that in the example you gave the fact that the "suspect" had his family along was not something I would consider reason to dismiss him as a potential threat.

Hey, did you hear the one about...

I also try to stay out of these, but often fail. I guess there's not much point as I've yet to see a convert ever.

If a person is suspicous, then no, a family doesn't automatically lift the suspicion. But in my example we're talking about someone who's already been through screening and is on a plane full of paranoid people with "let's roll" in our heads. To the best of my knowledge his ethnicity was the only reason to raise an eyebrow.

In CFB's case, if I am to take CFB's statements as fact, then I think they were overly harsh with him. But I really can't speak to that.

I guess my largest objection in general to everything here is that the domestic spying can create suspicion where none previously existed.

 

[retire@40]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

If you're going to racially profile, you should also take into consideration that terrorists aren't bringing their wife and kids along for the ride.

Did you forget the recent bombing at a wedding at the Jordanian hotel by the husband and wife team?

http://tinyurl.com/eql8y

For these fanatics, men, women, children, and babies are all fair game.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

What's to say a U.S. citizen ex-military type won't get ticked off and park a rented truck full of explosives in front of a federal building? Do you really want everyone watched all the time?

Gosh...did that actually happen?

We forget about it when they arent "extra muslim", dont we?

Does anyone else notice that the "paramilitary groups" in northern california, wyoming and montana seem to bear a lot of resemblance to some of the "terrorist training camps"?

We're in the process of putting a guy in jail because he MAY have attended a "terrorist training camp".

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/08/terror.probe/

As far as I can gather, these guys MAY have gone to a place, run around in camoflage, shot some guns and so forth.

They're going to need some more jails...most of my neighbors do that sort of stuff several times a year.

 

[HFWR]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Dang it, BMJ; I'm flying into Indy in a few weeks. Now you got me all paranoid... :

 

[Danny]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

I guess my largest objection in general to everything here is that the domestic spying can create suspicion where none previously existed.

http://wokeuptoday.blogspot.com/2007/03/customs.html

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Dang it, BMJ; I'm flying into Indy in a few weeks. Now you got me all paranoid...  :

Good luck! It's too scary for me here...I'm moving back to TX on June 10, so you're on your own as far as security. I don't think anybody will be watching the forests after I'm gone.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

I don't think anybody will be watching the forests after I'm gone.

I wouldnt be too sure...

Go here, down to the bottom and click the video "law and border"
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml

 

[HFWR]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

My guess is a buncha good ol' Hoosier boys are growing weed in them there forests and hills, and they wouldn't take kindly to terrorists... 

 

[wabmester]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

right now I'm remembering my friends with Japanese ancestory  who were hauled off to camps in WWII....

I guess that's what puts this in perspective for me.   We've got the nastiest administration in my lifetime, the worst encroachment on civil liberties in my lifetime, but we're basically getting our panties in a bunch over some spooks combing through our phone bills.   It could be much worse.

Obviously, the fear should be that we're on a slippery slope.   Frogs slowly boiled and all that.   So, vote your spineless congresscritter out of office.   Or run for office yourself.

Actually, I think Bush has gone a long way towards solving the problem for us.    Put a bunch of hacks with abrasive personalities into administrative positions, and then watch all the spooks quit their jobs.

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

My guess is a buncha good ol' Hoosier boys are growing weed in them there forests and hills, and they would take kindly to terrorists...

Heh, I don't know about that, but "mushroom hunting" is apparently popular down here. I guess there's a particular type of mushroom that's very tasty, and people go "hunting" for them in forests. A guy who used to work here was asking me if I thought he could get into trouble for mushroom hunting in the forests near the airport. I don't know if he tried it or not, but now that I think about it I haven't seen him in months! The forest terrorists must've got him!

 

[Nords]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Yeah, I know. Are the folks in Hawaii happier knowing that Japan is depending on their sons and daughters to die in defense of Japan, though?

Heck, some older Hawaii families still get upset if their Korean-American or Chinese-American grandkids are dating Japanese-Americans, let alone procreating. The sweetest little old aunties will suddenly reveal these vicious fangs of racism-- pretty unnerving.

I have no trouble finding grandparents (of kids at our middle school) who spent a few years growing up in relocation camps.

I think we'll have to give it all another century.

But I wonder-- are married/parental Islamic terrorists willing to sacrifice their families for the sake of 72 virgins? Wouldn't the Qu'uran be expected to have some prohibitory words on the ethics behind that motivation?

I'm guessing that motivation would be more likely to appeal to male Islamic terrorists...

 

[JB]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Also, not considering the possibility of a suicide attack by a hijacked airliner

Is was considered! The report Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why? was commissioned by the CIA and presented to the executive branch in 1999.

"Al-Qaida's expected retaliation for the U.S. cruise missile attack against al-Qaida's training facilities in Afghanistan on August 20, 1998, could take several forms of terrorist attack in the nation's capital. Al-Qaida could detonate a Chechen-type building-buster bomb at a federal building. Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaida's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House. Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters."

Sure it's doesn't contain specific intelligence of an impending threat, but Condi saying 'No one could have imagined...' is BS.

Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have all made very misleading statements (in some cases outright lies) that have resulted in great costs to the US. Now we're supposed to trust them to only spy on the enemy?

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have all made very misleading statements (in some cases outright lies) that have resulted in great costs to the US. Now we're supposed to trust them to only spy on the enemy?

A lot of people seem perfectly happy with letting them spy on us and fellow citizens.

 

[Nords]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

A lot of people seem perfectly happy with letting them spy on us and fellow citizens.

After years in the military it doesn't seem that different... except maybe without the urinalysis!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

It could be much worse.

It probably is. We just dont know about it yet. Nobody can know, because then the terrorists would be tipped off, and of course, the legislative and judicial branches cant keep a secret, so no telling them either.

Then theres the whole thing where it IS worse than most people think. They just havent run afoul of it yet. Like seeing what happens when you act really muslim, or taking pictures of landmarks, or getting a little too lippy with the wrong people.

I think a lot of people have NO idea how well undermined our civil rights are.

If the "but its to make us safer" horseshit was really true, I suppose I wouldnt mind much. Unfortunately these buttheads are long on bad PR and screwups and short on actual valuable accomplishment.

 

[Danny]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Businessweek had a piece about how The Snooping Goes Beyond Phone Calls
How the government sidesteps the Privacy Act by purchasing commercial data

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_22/b3986068.htm?campaign_id=search

Getting the same stuff that those damn direct marketers buy!
Wonder if the do-not call registry applies to them.

Departments of Justice, State, and Homeland Security spend millions annually to buy commercial databases that track Americans' finances, phone numbers, and biographical information, according to a report last month by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Often, the agencies and their contractors don't ensure the data's accuracy, the GAO found.

Buying commercially collected data allows the government to dodge certain privacy rules. The Privacy Act of 1974 restricts how federal agencies may use such information and requires disclosure of what the government is doing with it. But the law applies only when the government is doing the data collecting.

"Grabbing data wholesale from the private sector is the way agencies are getting around the requirements of the Privacy Act and the Fourth Amendment," says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington and a member of the Homeland Security Dept.'s Data Privacy & Integrity Advisory Committee.

But in the face of the uproar over the issue, others on Capitol Hill are pushing for more government data collection. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) is drafting legislation to require ISPs to amass information about users' Web-surfing habits to assist government investigations. Executives at companies that fail to comply could be subject to up to a year in prison.

Is there any way I can delete some of my posts

 

[Martha]

Re: How Do You Feel About US Domestic Spying

Wonder if the do-not call registry applies to them.

No.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Buying commercially collected data allows the government to dodge certain privacy rules. The Privacy Act of 1974 restricts how federal agencies may use such information and requires disclosure of what the government is doing with it. But the law applies only when the government is doing the data collecting.

Good to see we have some protections, and that the federal government closely follows the law as we all know.

I feel safer.

 

[wabmester]

Good to see we have some protections, and that the federal government closely follows the law as we all know.

I feel safer.

Hmm, so the only solution is to overthrow the government?   Gee, you're lucky we don't have one of those whistle-blower incentive laws on the books.   Turn in your neighbor for thoughts against the state, get $100!    This would be a very rich environment. 

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I was thinking more of employing the built in checks and balances of the three branches of government to enforce the laws, the constitution and the bill of rights.

That doesnt seem to be working out particularly well right now. Although I've been a lifelong republican voter, the current incarnation of the party and its existing representatives dont seem to want to pay much attention to the law and appear willing to substitute civil rights en masse for small perceptions of safety.

Not that i'm going to run out and vote democrat this year. Not that voting anything in california other than liberal will make much difference anyhow.

 

[samclem]

Well, I'm in favor of protecting civil liberties, too. But, does it really make sense to deny the government information that is freely shared between private companies/anybody else who wants to buy it? What next: The cops can't use the white pages to find a suspect because it is privately collected data?

I'd like to know how all theose charities find me within 2 weeks of a household move. If Unce Sam really wants to know where Usama bib Ladin is, I think they should donate $200 in his name to the Disabed American Vets and enclose a note saying "I'm moving now, please send me more of those return address labels to my new address." Then, just buy DAV's mailing list in three weeks.

 

[Danny]

Do you get the feeling that there are teams of gov't lawyers studying how to circumvent laws/rules

Although there is small comfort that the Government will never be as smart and clever as the direct marketers in finding me (like the terrorists pre and post 9/11 - this job should be outsourced to the DMs that are so good at tracking me down)

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Well, I'm in favor of protecting civil liberties, too. But, does it really make sense to deny the government information that is freely shared between private companies/anybody else who wants to buy it? What next: The cops can't use the white pages to find a suspect because it is privately collected data?

Mastercard cant put me in jail as a material witness without charging me, and citibank cant ship me off to guantanamo bay as an enemy combatant without telling anyone where i went, so the answer to your question is "yes, it makes sense to deny them likely bad or incomplete information". At best, they'll waste time following bad leads based on bad information rather than use well established police investigative techniques to find actual criminals. At worst they'll act on the bad leads and information.

 

[Nords]

I'd like to know how all theose charities find me within 2 weeks of a household move.

Hey, all those disillusioned career intelligence-collection officers still had to earn money after they quit the CIA...

 

[samclem]

Looks like they got more efficient after they went private!
(NSA readers--just kidding!!)