lookin

A thread I can't even kibitz in. The ACLU says it all.

According to a Pew poll conducted over the last few days, 56% find the NSA's blanket phone call tracking to be an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism. Personally, I belong to the 41% who doesn't. Not only is there what I believe to be a healthy wariness of unbridled government intrusion, but I also am not aware of any tangible benefit offered by the government in return for giving up even some, let alone all, of my privacy. I hear, along with everyone else, that giving up privacy is one of the sacrifices we must make to keep us safer from terrorists. But those statements are nothing but fluff. The phrase "more wiggle room than an anorexic belly dancer" comes to mind. Before I would consider making such a deal, I'd want to know what we'd get in return. For example, how many terrorists would be neutralized if we repealed the Fourth Amendment in its entirety? Has anyone every heard even a single quantifiable benefit we'd receive in return for unending surveillance? And would the NSA stop asking for further loss of rights even then? Is it unpatriotic to ask what kind of a deal we're making before we make it? I also think the paranoid/trusting dichotomy is not a very useful one. Are we ever really one or the other? I have no trouble at all being, at the very same time, both trusting of the intentions of the vast majority of government officials and wary of the intentions of others; and both optimistic about today, and cautious about tomorrow. In fact, if I ever lost the ability to be both, I'd seriously consider upping my sessions to at least twice a week.

I can't believe we won a free trip. Wow! I've never been to Chicago. That Mr. Hormel's such a nice man.

This isn't, of course, the first time the NSA has overreached. I may have posted this link a few years ago, probably over at Daddy's, to the 2007 Frontline program, Spying on the Homefront, after the NSA tapped into AT&T's internet lines at their Folsom Street building in San Francisco. Yes, that Folsom Street. You can watch the program on-line, and click on the "Interviews" tab for some interesting reading. From the interview with Mark Klein, a technician who got access not only to the secret NSA equipment, but also to some documents that were carelessly left lying around: How do you know that it wasn't just some kind of newfangled AT&T thing that was going beyond what had already been established for its security purposes elsewhere? First of all, they wouldn't need the NSA for that purpose, and we would be allowed in by union contract to service the equipment as we always were. So anyway, there's that question right off the bat: Why NSA? Now, in October, while I was working and learning the Internet room, I came across these three documents, which were documents that the technicians had that were given to the technicians so they would know how to install things like the splitter cabinet in particular, because it tells how things are wired up. Those documents were left lying around. Some of the technicians still had them. One of them was just left lying on top of a router. I picked it up, and I looked at it, and I brought them back to my desk, and when I started looking at it, I looked at it more, and I looked at it more, and finally it dawned on me sort of all at once, and I almost fell out of my chair, because this showed, first of all, what they had done, that they had taken working circuits, which had nothing to do with a splitter cabinet, and they had taken in particular what are called peering links which connect AT&T's network with the other networks. It's how you get the Internet, right? One network connects with another. So they took 16 high-speed peering links which go to places like Qwest [Communications] and Palo Alto Internet Exchange [PAIX] and places like that. … These circuits were working at one point, and the documents indicated in February 2003 they had cut into these circuits so that they could insert the splitter so that they can get the data flow from these circuits to go to the secret room. So this data flow meant that they were getting not only AT&T customers' data flow; they were getting everybody else's data flow, whoever else might happen to be communicating into the AT&T network from other networks. So it was turning out to be like a large chunk of the network, of the Internet.

We don't have to follow the Constitution. We're the NSA!

Well, for one thing, I'm no longer getting logged out every five minutes. Thanks!

Then perhaps it's time for him to step aside and let someone more capable have a crack at it. If he thinks that setting aside the Fourth Amendment is appropriate in order to make his job easier, he's been in the position way too long. In fact, I think it's time for the Administration to come at this from a different direction and start thinking about how much security it can provide in the absence of the unfortunately-named Patriot Act, and in the presence of full respect for the Fourth Amendment. We should not be asked to decide between our civil rights and some undefined level of security. I think we need, and deserve, a better definition of the issue than that. It will require some heavy lifting, no doubt, and those who are not up to the task should think about making room for those who are.

It never made sense to me to put my info or my applications under anyone else's control. Even my email is erased from my ISP's server once I download it. Not only do they have you over a barrel with future pricing, but the recent publicity around Snoopgate has highlighted the fact that the government has access to any stored information it fancies, now and forever. I expect that those companies who are building their business models around storing user info will be among the first to start screaming about government intrusion. When the 1% starts taking it in the shorts, we might begin the necessary discussion around the value of privacy.

And they call me snoopy !

Perhaps he stumbled across my February post. Could Osama Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri have imagined, in their wildest dreams, that the destruction of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the rule of law could all have occurred within a single generation?

Sounds liked he prefers to be buzzed. By a long shot, my favorite pizzas are the take 'n' bake ones. Cheaper too.

For me, my user name above the F4F banner is the one that stays lit. It's my user name below the banner that switches off after a few minutes. The user name above the banner stays on, even though the site logs me out. I usually log in only on the Message Forum page. But, when I log out above the banner, it boots me back to the Main page. Then I have to come bage to the Message Forum page and log in again. Rinse and repeat. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't happen every few minutes.

Hito, the piece you seem to be overlooking is that the intentions of a government - or any organization - can change over time. Even if those currently in power remain committed to your freedoms, right up until the day they leave office, new officials will eventually be elected or appointed. And those new officials may not be as committed to the freedoms you enjoy today. What if someone decides in secret one day that you are a threat to the "Homeland"? While you may be unable or unwilling to consider that possibility, I'd encourage you to start paying some heed to it. History is full of examples of bad folks grabbing power from good folks, and of good folks turning into bad folks, and of folks who started out acting good and then ended up acting bad. Plenty of Germans were happy to see Hitler become a dictator, as he promised a renewed country with goodies for all but a very few. It was only after he became der Führer that the dangers of that form of government began to manifest themselves. Just because you're happy to open yourself up to those in power today doesn't mean you'll be happy if tomorrow's government officials become anti-freedom, anti-gay, or - Heaven forfend! - anti-Ferragamo. Unless we're all soothsayers, we can't predict that future. All we can do is try to set up a government that is based on the rule of law - law that we all get to know about, and law that we all get to vote on - and then fight like hell to protect that form of government. If we start giving up our active roles in how that government operates, there will be no shortage of folks who will be eager to mold that government to their own ends. If you are in a position to be one of the inner circle, you may be fine. But, should you find yourself an outsider one day, you may regret having surrendered your voice.

I'll say! My log-in used to last for an hour, at least. Now I get logged out before I can hit the 'post' button. And, by the time I get to the end of a long post, I can no longer hit the 'like' button. It says something about not having permission for that function. It's not even sure whether I'm logged in or not. In one part of the screen, my user name appears, just as if I'm logged in. In another part of the screen, my user name has disappeared. And I can't just log in again. First, I have to go to the screen where my user name appears, then I have to pull down the menu and hit 'log out', then it takes me to the main screen where I have to select 'Go to the message board', then I have to log in again on the message board. Then that whole process has to be repeated every five minutes. Not sure if these changes are intentional, or just something to keep us on our toes.

It sure seems there would be a market opening for foreign companies to begin replicating at least some of the services offered by U. S. communications and social media companies, and then adding a privacy guarantee that U. S. companies can't match. Not that foreign companies could yet replicate all of the communications infrastructure of U. S. companies, and not that they would remain forever free of NSA's tentacles, but they could certainly take some business from the U. S. companies whose brands are now being tarnished by their cozy relationship with the NSA. Even a modest flight of customers from the information sieve of U. S. companies to more secure communications through foreign companies with a stronger privacy story should get the attention of CEO's and stockholders in U. S. companies. Once these big-bucks campaign donors start seeing their bonuses and fortunes dwindle, maybe the politicians would start to get the message that U. S. voters have so far been unable to deliver. As for me, I've had to hold my nose the last few times I voted for Senator Feinstein. I'm not planning to vote for her again. In fact, I may not vote for any politician in the future who does not have a strong privacy element in her or his campaign platform. I'm also planning to cut back, just a little but whenever practical, in my phone use and to make a modest donation to the ACLU. Tiny steps, no doubt, but hopefully matched by others who are getting equally fed up with government intrusion into their personal lives. I'm willing to rethink my position if strong evidence is presented that these runaway surveillance tactics have borne substantial fruit, but I'm certainly not moved by mealy-mouthed statements that some unnamed 'terrorist' somewhere, somehow, was defused just as he was fixin' to stuff a cherry bomb up his ass and climb on a bus. Any politician or government official who thinks we are 'winning the war on terror' by dismantling the civil liberties of U. S. citizens might do well to look up the definition of 'winning'.

Bring back the short-arm inspection!

Do I repeat myself? Very well then I repeat myself.

TY, I hope this didn't come off as confrontational. I didn't intend it that way when I wrote it but realized, when I read it later, that it may have come across that way. I'm sorry if it did. I really am interested in what you and others think might be done before we find ourselves without legal protections. It's easy to think it could never happen, and I think the odds are against it, but I become less sure with the passing days. This is not a trajectory I'd like to stay on. AdamSmith, once again I'm grateful that you find and post these thought-provoking articles. I noticed that many of them come from The Guardian. I bookmarked their site a few months ago and will start reading it more regularly. Sometimes it seems that those outside the U. S. see us more clearly than we see ourselves.

TY, I hope this didn't come off as confrontational. I didn't intend it that way when I wrote it but realized, when I read it later that it may have come across that way. I'm sorry if it did. I really am interested in what you and others think might be done before we find ourselves without legal protections. It's easy to think it could never happen, and I think the odds are against it, but I become less sure with the passing days. That's not a trajectory I'd like to stay on. AdamSmith, once again I'm grateful that you find and post these thought-provoking articles. I noticed that many of them come from The Guardian. I bookmarked their site a few months ago and will start reading it more regularly. Sometimes it seems that those outside the U. S. see us more clearly than we see ourselves.

And who do you think will do these investigations? So far, I haven't seen anyone lining up to look into, let alone prosecute, these incidents that seem to smack of extralegal death sentences. My take on the article was that the author was concerned that extralegal activities carried out abroad are providing a template for extralegal activities to be carried out at home. As these appear in the newspapers with increasing frequency, but with very little reaction, I think the author can be forgiven a bit of hyperbole. Even then, it sure hasn't been enough to get anyone capable of launching an investigation to actually do so. If we won't so much as investigate, where is the hope that we will prosecute? And, if we won't prosecute, or even investigate, is it such a large step to actually condoning these activities? Anyone who rings the bell loudly to call attention to these possibilities gets a pass, from me anyway, for throwing in as much hyperbole as needed to get some attention.

Frasier, of course, especially during the Joe Keenan years.

I've already talked to police. Now I wish they would leave me in peace. They confronted me twice And were not very nice. It's the last time I'm coming to Nice.

If you liked that post, you may also enjoy this one.

Yo! Guess who failed his drug test with flying colors.

I used an older version of this one. And here's another one that looks like it might be better. But let me tell you that it was tedious. I think I was able to scan a half-dozen slides at a time, but each image had to be saved separately. Even in flat-out 'production mode', I doubt you'll spend less than a minute per slide. I did it because I wanted high quality, and the local scanning service was merely middlin'. Hope someone has a better suggestion. Or perhaps you could hire an eager college student to run them through for you over the summer.