You can't have Freedom and Safety

The quote by Illmatic67 is a clich� now, but it still rings true some 245 years later...

I don't have a problem with phone taps; even on my own phone lines. What the problem stems from is that now the regulations on taps are so loose its just waiting for someone to abuse it. Considering that all this is in the efforts to thwart terrorism, the definition of terrorism is very loose at best.

Fancy this, I say offhandedly in perhaps a bar that I see where some of angst towards the US from the middle east comes from. A fellow in the buisness of Intelligence overhears this, and the ensuing conversation where points are made about some of the US's foreign policy snafus. That person decides that hes worried enough from that converstaion to start the ball rolling to pull my records. Oh, whats this, hes a specialist in computer science, big into crpytopgraphy and security, and he has a fascination with guns of all sizes, makes and calibers. So I'm now considered a potential problem, an evaluation of the potential threat gets done, and apparantly theres room for one more on the watch lists. We can all see where this is going, its not the most likely, and it seems a bit far fetched. Now lets define a few things here, the crowd of persons engaing in the political discussion have an olive complexion and appear to be of some middle-eastern descent. Add to this that the Intelligence guy is quite blatanly a racist, so he decides "it serves those [insert crude statements here] right, I'll just shuffle them into the pile on monday" Tada, the system has just been abused!

Taps without warrants, no good reasons other than "suspected of terrorist ties" searches without warrants or consent and notice, and indefinite stays in jail without being given reason are not that productive to anything but pissing the populace off. When they start turning up credible, reliable, and accurate intel that GETS USED IN TIME then maybe I would think differently of things like the Patriot Act, but untill then it gets a big from me.

Sorry you dont see the humor...maybe just a poor attempt on my part

However, I still see the connections. I guess this is one we will have to "agree to disagree" on. No problem with that as Im sure neither one of us wants to admit we are wrong! I see the connections, and if the sources themselves dont see it I'm still going to have to disagree with them as well because there are clear ties here.



Again, sorry if my humor was not up to par....afterall its after 10:30 pm here

taibunsuu, i assume you're speaking of the people at gitmo. i do agree the thought of being taken of the street and being put in prison for 2 years without explanation is horrifying. BUT, the people being taken off the street aren't being taken for no reason or because they look arab, it's because they're suspected of working with the terrorists. i agree they should be charged, or not, much sooner, and why that's not happening i don't know. when we imprisoned japanese people in camps after Pearl Harbor we did it for no reason. they were put there simply because they were japanese. but gov't control never escalated past that back then, when they had no reason for what they were doing. why would it escalate now when the gov't is actually imprisoning people under reasonable suspicion. i understand your "what if" worries. but at the same time i think you're being too suspective. in either case though i do appreciate the "looking out for" you're doing.

Originally posted by Kaiser617
This is my point of view and you can all feel free to try to argue that is what i love about this website is the fact that we can debate and yet we can continue thinking our point of view is correct but ever so often we are shown a new perspective which we never realized could sound so good in other words thank you ATS

My point of view is that you cant have both freedom and have a perfectly safe world with no terrorism or any other sort of things of that sort. The United States of America is trying to limit the freedom of its citixens very much like the Soviet Union controlled the rebelous areas of their south eastern border whos countries did not get along very well and were always fighting but as soon as the soviet Union stepped in they knew that they wernt going to mess around with anyone because the Soviet Union has a tendency to kill people. The United States is going in that direction in my belief.

The United States is limiting our rights by going through 6 constitutional rights. My logic is this" you cant tell your child ok you can drive but youre not going to get in a car crash" that reasoning is illogical. If the USA continues going forward with its plans preety soon youre not going to have a lawn or a pool or other things why? Because it doesnt take nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons to make a bomb you can make a bomb with household iteams you can get a ath the hardware store. The USA is becoming apolitical state and we need to do something about it. I hope i have convinced some people out there and i will probably come back and post something else to further explain and clarify my point of view. Feel free to discuss any points you think are incorrect or maybe where my logic is wrong.

LOL. WE USED TO BE SAFE AND HAVE OUR FREEDOM.
You are just what this government is hoping for....

jazzerman...agree to disagree...cool with me. yeah it's late here too. later.

I feel like vomiting.

The politicians are your servants. They are not your masters.

The police are not your lords, you do not live in a prison - and they are not prison guards.

You are innocent until proven guilty - and rights are not privileges.

You have sovereignty, as do all of us, over yourself, and noone else owns you.

Either live by and defend your constitution which gave you the freedoms you're apathetic about, or kneel and lick the boots of your masters now, and spare me your new-speak.

Jazzerman, you're a sobering oasis in this MiniTru thought-police-lover thread, and before I get swallowed up by the beast under the quicksand, I'm outta here.

Originally posted by astroblade
taibunsuu, i assume you're speaking of the people at gitmo. i do agree the thought of being taken of the street and being put in prison for 2 years without explanation is horrifying. BUT, the people being taken off the street aren't being taken for no reason or because they look arab, it's because they're suspected of working with the terrorists.

Holding Americans from Japan during WW2 while their kids were in our armed forces was extremely reactionary and not completely unlike the handlings of today's so-called enemy combatants. Hindsight's 20/20 and we know we shouldn't have done that, and measures have been taken to atone for it. However the best thing to come from that would be to apply the lessons of that sad act to today and the future.

As far as all those people being held because 'they're suspected of working with terrorists,' well it's easy to label them all terrorists if there's never a trial to find the truth. The thing is, no government is ever going to try to justify the arrest, interrogation and imprisonment of innocent people - they will always be arresting, interrogating, and imprisoning 'terrorists, spies, and enemies of the people.'

The steps being taken against our liberties today are unprecedented in the history of the country, and combined with information technology they are quite sobering.

No need for warrants for searches and wire taps? Imprisonment, torture and interrogation? Unconditional arrest and indefinite imprisonment without charges, right to counsel, or a trial? Librarians and book stores informing the government what people are reading? Attempts at Operation TIPS? Total Information Awareness Databse - recently renamed Terrorist Information Database (and far more accepted with the added word 'terrorist.' Kind of like how no one minds a government imprisoning 'terrorists' like they do 'people.')?

One of the aims of a terrorist act is to cause the targeted government to become more reactionary, thereby losing the popular support of the people and ultimately weakening the targeted government.

What I would like to know is how long did it take people to realise mussollini was a faschist?

Was it too little too late?

What will our future generations say about Bush co?

Originally posted by Tesla
We Used to have freedom and safety.

This is true in a relative sense. I'm old enough to remember.

Originally posted by stoneskull
I feel like vomiting.

The politicians are your servants. They are not your masters.

The police are not your lords, you do not live in a prison - and they are not prison guards.

You are innocent until proven guilty - and rights are not privileges.

You have sovereignty, as do all of us, over yourself, and noone else owns you.

Either live by and defend your constitution which gave you the freedoms you're apathetic about, or kneel and lick the boots of your masters now, and spare me your new-speak.

Jazzerman, you're a sobering oasis in this MiniTru thought-police-lover thread, and before I get swallowed up by the beast under the quicksand, I'm outta here.

I couldn't agree with you more. The best way to keep it this way is to protect your Second Amendment rights.

Originally posted by taibunsuu
This is being done in 'exceptional' cases with so-called 'enemy combatants.'

I may be wrong, but I believe this applies to "illegal enemy combatants." I believe that the Geneva Convention allows these individuals to be summarily executed.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by taibunsuu
This is being done in 'exceptional' cases with so-called 'enemy combatants.'

I may be wrong, but I believe this applies to "illegal enemy combatants." I believe that the Geneva Convention allows these individuals to be summarily executed.

Probably, but it's also dealing with rules of engagement between two warring parties, and I'm talking about domestic things.

This debate about security is all very well but it is worth remembering that even the most repressive regimes in the world are not crime, drug or terrorism (whatever) 'free'.

You cannot merely sacrifice your freedoms and guarantee your safety, that simply doesn't work, ultimately the only 'guarantee is to remove the cause of the terrorism.

(.....and IMO having personal firearms does not equate to being free....check out many ME countries, they are awash with guns and 'free' is hardly the first adjective I'd use in relation to those guys)

[edit on 19-8-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

The nature of man is not essentially greedy and bad! THATS A CAPITALIST MYTH! We are brought up like this at the moment 'coz capitalism revolves around GREED! The "gimme, gimmie" attitude is not a natural state of man.

Sure you can have a safe world that is free.

The key here is "free". When dollars and power rule things are unsafe.

When every thing is free well.. thats it: its free!

Ok you can never guard against the exceptions (there will always be a nutter) but in genreal people are not "bad". We are all looking for contentment, fullfillment if you will.
Once someone has a full belly and got his thing on the night before he is happy and content. The only thing that could get him to move his butt would be someone trying to take his happiness away.

Insecurity arises when contentment is not equally distributed (see 1st world vs. 3rd world), as this genreates jealousy and I don't think I need to explain where that leads to.... the wonderful mess we have now!\

So please try to think outsude the box, yes you are right in the situation we have now safty and freedom is impossible but thats part of the plan: Pretend that buying more guns (in the case of the US sell guns to yourself) will make things more safe and the try to tell people that this "safety" is the closest thing to freedom we'll get.

Peace is possible, always!

Originally posted by stoneskull
Jazzerman, you're a sobering oasis in this MiniTru thought-police-lover thread, and before I get swallowed up by the beast under the quicksand, I'm outta here.

What is that supposed to mean..."a sobering oasis"...I truely am curious as I have no idea if your trying to take a swing at me or what?

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by taibunsuu
This is being done in 'exceptional' cases with so-called 'enemy combatants.'

I may be wrong, but I believe this applies to "illegal enemy combatants." I believe that the Geneva Convention allows these individuals to be summarily executed.

Get real! The geneva convention says nothing of the sort! I thought it (first convention establishing the red cross) was adressing the war wounded civilian or military. I might be wrong of course... let me call my lawyer

Dgtempe i dont seem to understand what you mean that i am exactly what the government is looking for? And to Skullbones i reccomend you read Plato's Cave Allegory.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by stoneskull
I feel like vomiting.

The politicians are your servants. They are not your masters.

The police are not your lords, you do not live in a prison - and they are not prison guards.

You are innocent until proven guilty - and rights are not privileges.

You have sovereignty, as do all of us, over yourself, and noone else owns you.

Either live by and defend your constitution which gave you the freedoms you're apathetic about, or kneel and lick the boots of your masters now, and spare me your new-speak.

Jazzerman, you're a sobering oasis in this MiniTru thought-police-lover thread, and before I get swallowed up by the beast under the quicksand, I'm outta here.

I couldn't agree with you more. The best way to keep it this way is to protect your Second Amendment rights.

\

I agree with both of you

What more can I add? Nothing really except to say that those falling all over themselves to give up their freedoms DESERVE the chains they are forging around their own wrists and I wish them happeness in their slavery.

Originally posted by TrueLies


What I would like to know is how long did it take people to realise mussollini was a faschist?

Was it too little too late?

What will our future generations say about Bush co?

Not too long truelies after all he was head of the facist party. I mean thats kinda like asking how long did it take germans to realise hitler was a nazi.

O.K. first of al the wiretap provsions of the patrot act does not mean what many of you seem to think it does.
source is www.epic.org...

The patriot act did in fact give the government and its agents addtional powers in terms of using both "Pen regsters" and "trap and trace devices" however before we can discuss what those powers entitle the government to do we must first define what these two items are.

Pen regsters - a pen register collects the outgoing phone numbers placed from a specific telephone line (in effect a pen register is no dfferent from your phone bill.)

Trap and trace devices - a trap and trace device captures the incoming numbers placed to a specific phone line -- a caller-id box is a trap and trace device

Now that we know what these devices are its time to examine how the goverments abillity to use them has been expanded.

For one thing the patriot act has changed the definition of what a "pen register" and a "trap and trace device" is

Pen register - a device or process which records or decodes dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information transmitted by an instrument or facility from which a wire or electronic communication is transmitted."

trap and trace device - a device or process which captures the incoming electronic or other impulses which identify the originating number or other dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information reasonably likely to identify the source or a wire or electronic communication.

Now you may be asking why this change of defintion is important, well the awnser is under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) while the government is required to get a court order to use either a pen register or a trap and trace device on yur communications there is NO requirement for "probable cause" and the court is required to authorise use of these devices provided the government attorney certify that "information likely to be obtained by such installation and use is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation."
However it is intersting to note that the provision under Title 3 which prohibits the capture of "content" without showing a judge "probable cause" still stands.

So what does this mean to us the citizens of the U.S. well the government can not listen to the "content" of our telephone or electronic comuunication withot a court order whch can only be obtained by showing " probble cause" However they can record and decode all electronic dialing, routing, addressing, or signaling information from our computers and phone lines, as well as capture the incoming electronic or other impulses which identify the originating number or other dialing, routing, addressing, and signaling information.

So what does this all mean in the practical sense?
They can not tap your phone and listen to your conversation any easier than they could before the "patriot act" was passed, nor can they read any e-mails without showing probable cause.
They can however, without showing probable cause, at any time keep a record of every webpage you visit, Phone number you dial, numbers of any people who call you, as well as who you send e-mails to and who e-mails you.

Now in and of itself is this a major violation of our rights to privacy? Yes and no it terms of phone communication all they can do is track who you call and who calls you which is no different than what the phone companies have been doing for years.
However on the electronc/internet side the abillity to keep track of every web page you visit means that the government can in effect keep track of all of your interest and possibly even show probable cause based on what you access online.

So no they cant listen to your phone calls ,but yes they can find out a lot about you without needing probable cause.

Whether or not this is a power you wish to grant to your government is up to you however there should be more debate about the Patriot ct as it will either go the way of the dodo or be extended very soon.