Amid the controversy brewing in the Senate over Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reform, the Bush administration appears to have changed its strategy and is devising a bold new plan that would strip away FISA protections in favor of a system of wholesale government monitoring of every American’s Internet activities. Now the national director of intelligence is predicting a disastrous cyber-terrorist attack on the U.S. if this scheme isn’t instituted.
It is no secret that the Bush administration has already been spying on the e-mail, voice-over-IP, and other Internet exchanges between American citizens since as early as and possibly earlier than Sept. 11, 2001. The National Security Agency has set up shop in the hubs of major telecom corporations, notably AT&T, installing equipment that makes copies of the contents of all Internet traffic, routing it to a government database and then using natural language parsing technology to sift through and analyze the data using undisclosed search criteria. It has done this without judicial oversight and obviously without the consent of the millions of Americans under surveillance. Given any rational interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, its mass spying operation is illegal and unconstitutional.
But now the administration wants to make these illegal activities legal. And why is that? According to National Director of Intelligence Mike McConnell, who is now drafting the proposal, an attack on a single U.S. bank by the 9/11 terrorists would have had a far more serious impact on the U.S. economy than the destruction of the Twin Towers. “My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens,” said McConnell. So the way to prevent this from happening, he claims, is to give the government the power to spy at will on the content of all e-mails, file transfers and Web searches.
McConnell’s prediction of something “horrendous” happening unless we grant government this authority has a tone similar to that of the fear-mongering call to arms against terrorism that President Bush sounded before taking us to war in Iraq. Now, Americans are about to be asked to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights because of a vague and unsupported prediction of the dangers and costs of cyber-terrorism.
The analogy with the campaign to frighten us into war with Iraq gets even stronger when it becomes evident that along with the establishing of American forces in Iraq, the cyber-security McConnell is calling for was, all along, part of the strategic plan, devised by Dick Cheney and several other present and former high-level Bush administration officials, to establish America as the world’s supreme superpower. This plan, known as the Project for the New American Century, unequivocally recognized “an imperative” for government to not only secure the Internet against cyber-attacks but also to control and use it offensively against its adversaries. The Project for the New American Century also maintained that “the process of transformation” it envisioned (which included the militarization and control of the Internet) was “likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor.” All that appears to be lacking to make the analogy complete is the “horrendous” cyber-attack-the chilling analog of the 9/11 attacks-that McConnell now predicts.
Apparently, the Bush administration had hoped to continue its mass surveillance program in secret, but as many as 40 civil suits were filed against AT&T and other telecoms, threatening to blow the government’s illegal spying activities wide open. Unable to have these cases dismissed in appellate court by once again playing the national-security card, the administration drafted and tried to push through Congress a version of the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 that gave retroactive immunity to telecom corporations for their assistance in helping the government spy en mass on Americans without a court warrant. The administration’s plan was to use Congress’ passage of this provision of immunity to nullify any cause of civil action against the telecoms, thereby pre-empting the exposure of the administration’s own illegal activities.
Two versions of the FISA bill emerged, one from the Senate Intelligence Committee drafted largely by Cheney himself, which contained the immunity provision, and another from the Senate Judiciary Committee that did not contain the provision. Although Senate Majority leader Harry Reid inauspiciously chose the former to bring to the Senate floor, the bill was surrounded by much controversy. There had been well organized grass-roots pressure to stop it from passing, and the House had already passed a version that did not include the retroactive immunity provision. Thus, in the face of a filibuster threat by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Reid postponed the discussion until the January 2008 session.
Now Reid has tried to put off the FISA Amendments Act once again by asking Republicans to extend, for one more month, the Protect America Act of 2007, an interim FISA reform act that is due to sunset in February. However, Cheney has urged Congress to pass his version of the FISA Amendments Act now. “We can always revisit a law that’s on the books. That’s part of the job of the elected branches of government,” Cheney said. “But there is no sound reason to pass critical legislation … and slap an expiration date on it.”
Cheney’s point about the possibility of later revisiting the FISA Amendments Act after it becomes law may foreshadow replacing it in the coming months with a law based on McConnell’s plan, which is due to emerge in February. This would mark a gradual descent into divesting Americans entirely of their Fourth Amendment right to privacy-first by blocking their ability to sue the telecoms for violating their privacy and then by giving the government the same legal protection. After all, the FISA Amendments Act still requires the government to get warrants for spying on American citizens even if it does not afford adequate judicial oversight in enforcing this mandate. McConnell’s proposal, on the other hand, would make no bones about spying on Americans without warrants, thereby contradicting any meaningful FISA reform.
President Bush has already made clear he would veto any FISA bill that did not give retroactive immunity to the telecoms. However, if McConnell’s soon to be unveiled spy-at-will plan is turned into law, a separate law giving retroactive immunity to the telecoms would be unnecessary. All Bush and Cheney would need to do to protect themselves from criminal liability would be to make the new spy-at-will law retroactive in effect from the inception of the illegal NSA surveillance program. This would also be sufficient to deflate the civil suits filed against the telecoms because the past illegal spying activities that these companies conducted on behalf of the government would then become “legal.” Indeed, the Bush administration has already done this sort of legal retro-dating and nullifying of civil rights and gotten it through Congress. For example, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 conveniently gave Bush the power to decide whether someone-including himself-is guilty of torture, irrespective of the Geneva Conventions, and it made this authority retroactive to Nov. 26, 1997.
Whatever the final disposition of FISA in the coming weeks or months, the administration is now bracing to take a much more aggressive posture that would seek abridgement of civil liberties in its usual fashion: by fear-mongering and warnings that our homeland will be attacked by terrorists (this time of the menacing hacker variety) unless we the people surrender our Fourth Amendment right to privacy and give government the authority to inspect even our most personal and intimate messages.
It would be a mistake to underestimate the resolve of the Bush administration. But it would be a bigger mistake for Americans not to stand united against this familiar pattern of government scare tactics and manipulation. There are grave dangers to the survival of democracy posed by allowing any present or future government unfettered access to all of our private electronic communications. These dangers must be carefully weighed against the dubious and unproven benefits that granting such an awesome power to government might have on fending off cyber-attacks.
Elliot D. Cohen, PhD, is a media ethicist and critic. His most recent book is “The Last Days of Democracy: How Big Media and Power-Hungry Government Are Turning America Into a Dictatorship.” He is a first-prize winner of the 2007 Project Censored Award.
Copyright © 2007 Truthdig, L.L.C.
The administration is going to seek to make liberals look weak, naive, silly and mushy on these kinds of things all year long. Security stuff will be trotted out continuously to try to trick Democrats into either voting for bad bills in Congress or being portrayed as “milquetoast” types. I believe Barack is strong enough to weather this during the campaign and show Americans what is being attempted on the right. Hillary?
Probably not.
the corporate empire must know everything about its serfs to control them during permanent war.
I hate watching my country being destroyed
On the lighter side, we already are experiencing cyber-attacks. It’s called advertising.
In other countries, people don’t timidly ask for permission to take to the streets, nor do they all join hand and sing ‘Kumbaya’. If ‘We The People’ don’t start acting like ‘We The People’ we are doomed.
If the government is interested in preventing cyber attacks, great. But citizens had better be interested in preventing a gross asymmetry of power. Time for a new ammendment to the Bill of Rights: granting citizens the means & right to snoop as well.
Obamma and Hilary are a HUGE part of the problem. I will not put Edwards in that category just yet, as I have promised Kem Patrick I would dig deeper than I already have, into the Edwards campain. This is big DD, because I believe its time for a woman or a candidate thats non white to lead our country. But the right woman or non white candidate. Not just the first or second. If these two get into this office they better understand that if thet F#$K up, you wont get another woman or nonwhite candidate elected for another 100 years. Its not only liberals that are weak, I know you said (makes them look weak)its the whole working class american public along with the poor that is weak. But who can maintain strentgh, when the ones elected to be our protecters, are conatantly beating us down. Difference of opinion is good, because it makes us think, come up with new ideas. You have a right to your opinion. I just don’t agree with it. But you know bro, we’re all in this together. And I think there’s more of us than there are of them, they just have more money and power. Even Rome fell. Arrogance is a sin, and their sin WILL be their downfall. Thanks Texrey
Go for it, lemmings–keep Cheney running the show and don’t bother to whimper when you jump off the cliff into the abyss of history.
THESE IDIOTS CANNOT STOP A CYBER ATTACK ANY MORE THAN THEY CAN STOP SPAM ATTACKS, THEY ARE THE SAME METHOD.
All of us are being cyber attacked every day…just check your mailbox.
I got a Mac for the very reason that Windows sends out scary updates every week.
“Your computer can be taken over by this “takeover virus”…
I had to get a Mac for security and I believe the government uses Windows so they are getting more and more paranoid every day.
I got certified as a windows network engineer many years ago and learned that their network system that they sold or tried to sell to governments and businesses was a total scam and a hundred times more vulnerable than the simple email we use every day.
instead of inventing Homeland Security, all the president had to do was tell all agencies to share national security threats among themselves freely on email and burn all windows networking software!
Now they want as usual to use their own incompetancy to subject us to more of their terrorism.
I’m not a lawyer, obviously, but I thought that retroactively granting immunity for committing a crime is the same sort of thing as drafting a law to punish an action after the act had been committed.
Whatever happened to the traditional respect for the rule of law? And don’t conservatives know that without that protection a society descends into either dictatorship or absolute monarchy?
Once upon a time we were ‘citizens’ but now we are only ’subjects.’ Why do we go through the illusion of voting?
…our homeland will be attacked by terrorists (this time of the menacing hacker variety) unless we the people surrender our Fourth Amendment right to privacy and give government the authority to inspect even our most personal and intimate messages.
The U.S. will collapse from the burden and weight of its staggering stupidity. I’m sick of this country’s stupidity, so much so that I don’t even care if the U.S. is attacked again, whether it be by “terrorists” or by George Bush et al. as in 2001.
Am I going to attack the U.S.? No, I’m a retired scientist. I study. That’s what I like to do whenever I can escape the noise of 300 million morons, their televisions, their mowers, their countless high-powered automobiles and their screaming, drunken mouthes. But there are six billion people in the world who absolutely hate the U.S., and many of them are planning attacks right now. I really don’t care.
in the meantime, here’s a message for anyone who is employed by the U.S. government, and you don’t need a court order for it: GO TO HELL. You know who I am.
ANYBODY who works for the U.S. government should be shunned, denied service and treated with contempt.
skippyagogo41 said “And don’t conservatives know that without that protection a society descends into either dictatorship or absolute monarchy?”.
See, we all assume that dictators and monarchs are a BAD thing. Not so for ultra-conservatives, and probably most middle of the road conservatives. They just act as if these are bad things. And no wonder they think that…look at their religious institutions (and I’m definitely NOT referring to Jesus the person).
Lie to power!
Vote for the Dems, they will use a lube and a condom when they do you. Master wants you to vote for the Dems but first you must convince yourself that they “different”. Master suggests you stand in front of a mirror and repeat to yourself 25 times every day until November, “Dems are Different. Dems Love me. Dems Want me to be Happy. I love Dems.” After November, Master don’t give a damn what you think, and neither do HIS Overseers.
So. Vote early. Vote often. They don’t count them the first time.
Peace.
First, it’s beyond naive to believe the government hasn’t been keeping track of web usage since day one - they did invent it, remember? Second, the NSA has been “monitoring” American citizens for eight - count ‘em, 8 - years, without a lick of oversight, and what the hell have they come up with? Nothing. Why?
Cause there ain’t no Islamofascist jihadist terrorists here. What they’ve found is that we’re one of the most boring countries on the planet. We got no terrorists, no revolutionaries - we got a CODE PINK and some grannies and whatnots. But bomb plots? Hijacking conspiracies? Poison gas attacks? Are you kidding? In this docile country of consumerist sheep?
Yea, it sucks that the government still could give a f**k about our rights… after not giving a f**k since 1789 or so. But the NSA is gathering info, the credit card companies, your supermarket, sixteen other bored intel agencies, et al - and, still, they have not used it for nefarious purposes.
Time to get over it - our “privacy” is gone. Protect what you can, and focus on the real issues, like why no one seems to be all that upset by the 935 overt lies used to illegally invade a sovereign nation while bankrupting this one.
I was once fired for telling one lie. A little white one. 1. Not 935. And no one died when I told my lie.
It’s worse than that. The Government has thought reading technology and have been using it since 1994. And they are ‘practicing’ on ways to change the personalities or actions of people that they thought read (thru active dreaming and microwave broadcasting). Also planting false memories. That’s two Presidents, Clinton and Bush, and their administrations, God knows how may Senators, and every government employee involved who knows this, authorize this, or are actively involved in prepetrating this. Where have the heroes gone?
Once again, “the economy” is being used as the alter upon which to sacrifice individual rights in favor of the American corporate collective. Private banks should pay for their own security - they can surely afford it. As for preventing terrorists from communicating within the U.S. - even total surveillance of the internet will not stop them. What’s to prevent someone from writing a message on a piece of paper, putting it in a stamped envelope, and, um, mailing it? There’s no foolproof way to track everything in the postal system.
skippyagogo41 January 25th, 2008 1:26 pm:
“I’m not a lawyer, obviously, but I thought that retroactively granting immunity for committing a crime is the same sort of thing as drafting a law to punish an action after the act had been committed.”
Yes, skippyagogo41, it is. Since retroactive laws are unconstitutional in the US (I think it’s section 1 of that quaint document) you’d think Democratic lawmakers would know that.
As for drafting a law to punish an action after the act has been committed, the Democrats have beaten you to it (retroactive laws may be habit forming).
Many Americans have contributed to Islamic American charities, raising funds for the widows and orphans of the Israeli bombing victims, only to be prosecuted under ex post facto laws that blame them for not knowing that their perfectly legal tax-deductible donations would, in future, be criminal.
Seig Heil! Seig Heil! Seig Heil!
America, America - parting is such sweet sorrow!
The end of a dream formed 2 1/2 centuries ago.
R.I.P.
Our new motto should be :
Arise Workers of the World - we have nothing left to lose except our shackles!
It is not difficult to foresee the outcome of this: the practices of “cyberterrorists” will evolve to evade the surveillance techniques used so that the real criminals will continue to evade detection, while the average citizen and honest activists will be under constant surveillance.
Combine this with the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and the result will be an effective means to suppress any opposition to the coming Thought Police State.
“But now the administration wants to make these illegal activities legal. And why is that?”
So, in the event that the Bush Crime Syndicate is hauled into Federal Court on charge of violating the Constitution, their crimes can now be “grandfathered” in and therefore, skate free of the crimes.
I hate to say it, but Ted Kaczinski was on to something …
Well, they want to snoop on all the internet traffic… let’s give them something to look at. EVERYONE should end every email, forum post and IM message with at tag line that looks something like this:
“Bomb kill bush terrorist wmd nuclear explosion attack osama plot murder americans”…
Do that with EVERY email and they’ll get flooded with such crap that they’ll have to hire 100,000 people just to sort through them all.
…an attack on a single U.S. bank by the 9/11 terrorists would have had a far more serious impact on the U.S. economy than the destruction of the Twin Towers. - Mike McConnell, National Director of Intelligence.
I do not agree. We would not have gone to war in Afghanistan or Iraq if a single bank had been hacked or bombed.
There’s an amusing free plugin for Firefox called TrackMeNot (http://mrl.nyu.edu/~dhowe/trackmenot/). The internet is inherrently non-private. Whoever owns the wiring and routers owns all unencrypted data passing through. (Assuming that public-private cryptography doesn’t also have inherrent weaknesses of its own.)
But TrackMeNot offers a novel design. It causes your browser to conduct period and random internet searches. So to any snooping entity, even if they had 100% snooping capability, they can’t quite tell if it’s you behind the keyboard or a random program doing it. Privacy isn’t guaranteed this way, but it lends a little camoflague.
Of course, if you’re REALLY worried about being spied on, just obey your orders, trust your government, buy lots of things and be a good German.
This is a repeat comment from another article which is relative to this one:
The “Protect America Act of 2007″ should be re-named to:
“Protect the Traitors Act of 2007″, which is more in line with what it was designed to accomplish.
“Although Cheney touted these companies as patriotic partners in the administration’s “war on terror,” they are breaking several U.S. laws, including FISA itself, Title III, the Communications Act, and the Stored Communications Act, as well as the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution.”
Has anyone every read “Friendly Fascism” by Bertram Gross? He talked about how technology and corporate central government power would turn this country into a totalitarian police state.
Yup - they will gradually destroy the freedoms of U.S. citizens by side-stepping constitutional laws in the name of “national security” - “wars on terror” and any other slogans they can create to instill fear among the weak-minded drones with the mentality of children who are looking for mommy and daddy to protect them from all those evil people who are allegedly “jealous” of the way we live. I’ll bet they just can’t wait to take on our national and personal debts. If anything, they are probably laughing at how stupid we are!
The question remains: Will the Democrats and Republicans in both the House and Senate defend the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence, or will they expose themselves as “subversives” to the United States Constitution and destroy every law and ethical principle this country was founded upon?
i like paul’s idea, if even just 1million of us use this program it will really make those NSA analyists WORK for their cushy government checks. the only inteligence they have gotten during all these past 8 years is what you like on your pizza when you call pizza hut delivery!!
oh by the way, window media player asked me not once but twice, if i would like to send my download info to Microsoft. of course they don’t really need it. the backdoor entrance was designed to be WIDE OPEN with windows Vista. FEAR the CorpoFascists, they KNOW what you like on your pizza!!!
Only criminals have reason to fear a camera in their living room. God fearing citizens have nothing to fear but God himself, and he apoproves of living room cameras. He sees everything and he wants the same for your government. It’s better for you.
This kind of abuse will only lead to greater abuse if it is not stopped. The Repug’s are not afraid of the Dems, and the Dems are not afraid of us. Impeachment is the only legitimate way that I can see to stop these people. The time has come where no rational person should impede Impeachment. Someone with clout needs to stand up and lead this effort. Someone needs to step forward now. Where are the American Patriots?
1. Bank attack? They’re worried about a cyber-terrorist attack on a bank? The financial industry loots the entire country of hundreds of billions of dollars right under their nose and they’re worried about a bank attack?
So they refuse to examine a shred of the massive financial fraud and corruption going on right in front of their eyes, but they have no problem spying and drilling down on every individual resident in the U.S. with massive amounts of mined data gleaned from every conceivable source?
2. Prevent another 9-11? Cheney, claims the retro-active immunity is needed to prevent another 9-11? AT&T was collecting the information before 9-11 and it did not prevent that 9-11. How is it going to prevent another 9-11.
With these incompetent, fraudulent goons at the helm, we may well face another attack, and to them will go the full credit for the same.
Interesting comments: GAIL, LUCKY LEFTY (you’re lighter today!), BUGHUNTER & ELMYSTERIO.
Now for some real irony… they say this program is to protect national security, while the banks ARE tanking! How about that trader who lost how many billion in a day in France? Wonder if he got the idea from the military geniuses who lost wasn’t it 7 BILLION in cash shipments to Iraq? Security is such a quaint concept when the polar ice caps are melting, when the world hates the US, when it’s economy is equivalent to a hot air blow-up balloon, and criminals are STILL at the wheel. It almost makes me laugh… spying on OUR email. More fingers placed into a dam about to burst! Just keep sending those rebate checks, hush money is always a favored organized crime tactic!
Hey, Jim, is it true that if I get a Mac that my web stuff and e-mails won’t get swept up? I’m tech challenged, so keep it simple please.
curmudgeon99: I like your style
Toto, I don’t think we’re in America anymore….Jeez, where did I put those ruby slippers?….
Frank 1569 ~
I’d like to THINK that there are no islamofacists in America, but a little bit of research tells me that I’d be wrong.
By what virtue do you proclaim that there are no Islamic extreamists within our borders? Has it been hyped? Yes. Has it been used for political purposes? Yes.
That doesn’t mean that none exists! Right?
Dennis Kucinich has introduced an”Impeach Cheney” resolution
which, seemingly, will die with his presidencial candidacy.
Indeed, where are the Patriots?
Actually Rebel,
I have learned that if you get a Mac based on the Unix ( orig developed by At&t) flavor known as Darwin, you are actually more vulnerable to attacks because the software has more capabilities but that there are basically no attacks since 1) Few people are familiar with macs and 2) There’s a huge bunch of guys in white hats called the open source community that quickly repair and patch up any vulnerbilities for free which is one of the reasons I’ve never had a virus or even a crash in two years!
It’s damn shocking how stable the mac platform is. Each program gets its own huge memory bank to run around in, instead of sharing it with a bunch of greedy neocon programs who spend all their time trying to steal memory from each other.
I highly advise switching to mac just to knock down the crappy microsoft monopoly if for no other reason. As for privacy, we need to realize there isn’t any because there’s nothing this government isn’t capable of. They get the blueprints and the backdoors of every chip intel puts out before it is even released.
So I recommend slam the government as much and as loudly as you can. It’s your right. And if they want to snoop in our files, they are going to find out just how unpopular they are, and that if they don’t start following the bill of rights bad chit’s going to happen.
Remember! These are The Intolerable Acts!
The Patriot Act
The Military Commissions Act
The pending FISA legislation
please add to this list for me here guys.
pacplyer
“eavesdropping listeners rarely hear good of themselves.” - Ben Franklin
The more I think about it, the very concept of ‘Islamofascism’ is a silly, self-contradictory set of terms.
Fascism is a right-wing form of government. Now, Islamic governments can be conservative, so that alone doesn’t rule things out. But, its Mussolini who created the first fascist government and thus also defined it. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.html
“Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace.”
This seems to be in contradiction to what I know of Islam. Islam strives to create a state of peace. It certainly strives to create a state of peace amongst believers in Islam. And there are many passages in the Koran that speak of reaching a peaceful accommodation with non-believers. This is one place where the definition of fascism and the beliefs of Islam directly contradict each other.
“Fascism should more properly be called ‘corporatism,’ since it is the marriage of government and corporate power.”
This to me contradicts anything I’ve ever seen or heard of in any Islamic state. The Islamic states I’ve seen are much more likely to restrict corporate power than to dedicate the state to serving it.
To me, I know of three states that have either been fascist or very close to it. All three have been Christian nations. While Islmofascism seems to be a self-contradictory fiction created by propagandists, Christian-fascism is a proven threat that we’ve seen before in the world. And we most certainly have ‘Christofascists’ in America. In fact, our government would seem to be under the control of some of these people.
Your connection to the internet is independent of your operating system. The internet is based on set of standard protocols that any app doing the same task follows. Thus, an email program sends and receives the same format of data based on the same protocol, and what OS you are running on makes no difference at all. Or a web browser sends and receives data based on the same protocol no matter the operating system.
The time you’d need to start worrying about your OS is when you are considering whether an outside entity can gain access to your computer. This is a completely different problem than the question of whether the government is monitoring web traffic between computers.
What the heck is a ‘neocon program’? ‘neocon’ is a political philosophy and agenda. What that has to do with being an adjective to the noun of a software ‘program’ completely escapes me.
Windows XP is very stable and almost never crashes on me. I routinely notice I’ve gone weeks without rebooting my computer. I don’t have Vista, so I can’t speak to that.
Avoiding the MS monopoly is a good idea. But I’d recommend the Linux open source OS created by a community over any corporate OS like a Mac.
Paul Bramscher is one of the finest minds at CD.
If there is a new Revolution for the Free on this planet it is going to be fought in cyberspace by geeks against the “One Percent Club.”
And it is going to be fought for one thing only: THE AMERICAN BILL OF RIGHTS
Print it out. Tape it up where all friends and family can read it often (even if you are not an American.) This is the embodiment of freedom for the common man the world over. THE BILL OF RIGHTS IS THE KEY. This caused world governments to fall into revolt. French Tyranny fell in 1799 after Ben Franklin hatched his views for America for all to read in papers there.
The first ten amendments to the constitution is all we have.
pac “1776″ plyer
An old technique used by the fascists was to disrupt the political meetings of opponents. In those days, people had to meet in person. So they’d send disruptive people into those meetings to make it harder for political opponents to organize against them.
I would think that this thread would be an important place to organize. Here’s a news report of a dangerous government program, and a free space where free people can meet and talk about this would seem to be a place and an opportunity for political opponents of this to talk and organize.
Then I read the comments and I see so many stupid and crazy comments that almost seemed designed to deflect any conversations away from the real topic of this article and the dangers it represents. And, given the old fascist technique of deliberately disrupting the attempts of your political opponents to organize, I wonder if that’s an accident.
The Bill of Rights is vital. And its very important to understand how they came to be a part of the Constitution. The writers of the Constitution went off into closed sessions and completely rewrote the government of the age with our Constitution being the result. THIS WAS REJECTED BY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. That is very important to understand. The Constitution itself, as written by its authors is the Constitution without these 10 amendments. The American people greeted this as with a resounding NO!
The American citizens had just fought a long and nasty revolution against an all-powerful central government that was out of the control of the people of the nation. These citizens viewed the proposed Constitution as being too close to this. Thus it could not be ratified. The solution was that reached was the addition of the Bill of Rights that specified the rights that American citizens had that could not be violated by the government.
Its important to understand that this was a fundamental key part of the deal. The American citizens only accepted this Constitution under the condition that the Bill of Rights were an integral part of the deal. Without the Bill of Rights, the Constitution was not ratified.
Now think about that a bit. The very core concept of America is that it is a government of the people, by the people and for the people where the citizens had certain unalienable rights. The government was created to protect and defend these rights. Since in America, power and sovereignty resides with the people, it is clear that the Constitution is a contract between the people and the government they created to protect and defend their rights.
So, if a key part of this deal has been broken, wouldn’t it follow that the deal itself is broken? The citizens of America only accepted this government IF certain rights as specified in the Bill of Rights were protected. And the last ones are very important, because they explicitly say the government has no powers that are not directly specified by the Constitution and that just because a few rights are expressly listed, the American citizens do not cede the rest to the government.
The Constitution was only accepted once the Bill of Rights were added. If the Bill of Rights are now violated, then it seems within the rights of the citizens of America to declare the contract itself null and void. The citizens of America can decide that this government is illegitimate and that it is time for us to once again to gather to create new forms of government to protect and defend our unalienable rights.
Of course, this amounts to a total loss of communications privacy for Americans and anyone else using US-based networks. Google maps gives us an idea of what’s next - constant satellite video surveillance of every square foot of America, then the world. You can bet your bottom they are working to achieve audio and radio surveillance from the same satellites.
It’s going to take a whole lot of denial for Americans to accept all this. But Americans seem capable of denying everything that isn’t about their “right to property”. Happy accumulating, America. Smile and wave to Big Brother. He’s up there in the sky. You just can’t see him.
My posts are disappearing. Did CD not like my rants against conservatives?
Pacplyer: While the ammendements may be all we have you really should see them for what they are. These ammendments are meant tp protect the rights of landowners, not the people. As an example, the right to bear arms within a well regulated militia means the militias of landowners, since only those are well-regulated. The rabble can’t take up arms, that’s crazy. Blackwater is allowed. You and I are not. In New Orleans Blackwater disarmed the citizenry. That is how the ammendment works. It is the same for the whole bill of rights. Yes, sometimes the people sneak in…but,really, the constitution is not for them, it’s for the landowners.
Comarc,
A couple of questions. Do you have a degree in Computer Science? Not that it matters, but I do. To state that different hardware and different operating systems are identical makes me wonder if you know what you’re talking about. It seems you don’t have much background in the allocation and opening of ports, which are not the same on mac vs. PC and are usually much more numerous on mac and therefore can accidentally be left open or can in fact, can be commanded open if the attacker knows how. These ports are controlled by the operating system as I understand it.
Wouldn’t you agree?
If you think the government confines their surveillance only to packet transmission at the router location, I find you understanding of IP forensic investigation to be non-existent. Mining for data, true, occurs on the net, but once a target router IP is identified, further isolation is accomplished and then a campaign of intrusive attempts are made to gain access to a port, spin your hard drive, and then doctor any event logs to cover the intruder’s tracks. This is a corporate technique as well as was demonstrated at HP last year.
Format of most email carrying a trojan horse virus for example, will not effect the operating system of a mac because the malicious program portion is not coded for Unix, but that same trojan horse (Windows/DOS) embedded in email will shut down your PC if you open it (as an example.) The architecture of operating systems is everything in order to secure your hard drive from all but the most sophisticated spyware attempts. Marketing cookies are a succinct example of robust spyware that are coded for most known operating system architecture. Adware for example (now owned by google) is the mostly successful attempt to determine what sites you’ve been looking at. If you are a PC user, go to spybot dot com to get free spyware removal software that slips by most firewalls and most virus programs. The advanced portion will explain which company created this bug and what they say it is for. Many of you will be shock how much spyware is sitting on your hard drive right now. These malicious forms of code are not getting their info from the net, or from your email packets alone. They are getting it from the event logs put out by either your browser, email program or by the operation system itself that are stored on your hard drive. The ones that spin your hard drive are the ones we are not supposed to know about, but you can be sure that something as porous as Windows which overlays DOS is very vulnerable in very many ways. One technique for example is to overflow the register buffer that controls gateway access causing a reboot of that portion of the software to the default setting which “leaves the shields down” so to speak.
Didn’t you ever see the movie “TRON?”
Can’t you see humor when its written? I guess I should add a smiley face when I draw out the charade of a program stealing resources from another like a Republican might do.
I believe you are confusing separate data mining missions of the government into “it has to be one or the other.”
Think like a neocon COMarc: All is fair….
Am I wrong in my knowledge of the warfare of spyware?
Cheers,
pac
Lizard,
Good points. But to say the Bill of Rights was not for the common American is not a comprehensive view of what happened. Land was given to any man who would homestead it in the territories. Therefore, most anyone who wanted land could get some. Gun rights, contrary to liberal’s adversions, were for the common man as well. In fact, all of the Bill of Rights were demanded by holdout North Carolina (who along with other states earlier refused to ratify the constitution without the promise of a bill of rights) because of fear that the new government would let Readcoat-like federal troops abuse the population, disarm them, and search through their possessions on fishing expeditions like the British used to do under direction from Rich Loyalist Governors appointed by the Crown.
The founding fathers were smart guys. We should all read their writings and not pick which ten rights we agree with. Demand them all!
We can and do take up arms Lizard. The assault riffle ban was allowed to expire a few years ago by the Republicans (the only thing I agree with them on.) You are allowed in most states, to purchase semi-automatics of fearsome power like the 50mm Cannon or the .762 caliber Ruegers.
The south is armed to the teeth. I would advise you to do so too while you still can. No you can’t win against Blackwater. But you can defend your own residence.
Redcoat, BlackCoat, What’s the difference?
Just because one city got it’s azz kicked doesn’t mean you give up your rights.
now is the time for a write-in campaign. email kucinich and ask him to stand as a write-in candidate. he’s not perfect but head and shoulders above the others.
Pacplyer:
The founding fathers were smart guys. If you mean Hamilton,Jefferson nad Adams, remember they didn’t write the constitution. I like the spirit of your post. I do agree that the people have managed to get something out of the bill of rights, and that overall it is great to have. It is the best part of the constitution, and makes it seem something it is not.
wikipedia:
In 1918, [Eugene Debs, a staunch socialist], ran a write-in campaign for President from his federal prison cell in Atlanta, and received almost a million popular votes out of approximately 26 million cast.
In 1964, a write-in campaign organized by supporters of former U.S. Senator and vice presidential nominee Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. won Republican primaries for President in New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, defeating declared candidates Barry Goldwater, Nelson Rockefeller, and Margaret Chase Smith.
Strom Thurmond was elected in 1954 to the United States Senate in South Carolina as a write-in candidate.
In 1930 Republican Charles F. Curry, Jr. was elected to the [United States House of Representatives] as a write-in from Sacramento, California.
Dale Alford was elected as a write-in candidate to the United States House of Representatives in Arkansas in 1958.
Republican Joe Skeen was elected as a write-in candidate to [the United States House of Representatives] in New Mexico in November 1980.
“McConnell’s prediction of something “horrendous” happening unless we grant government this authority has a tone similar to that of the fear-mongering call to arms against terrorism that President Bush sounded before taking us to war in Iraq.”
“Fear-mongering” is what neocons on both sides of the isle do best. One only needs to look at legislation like the PATRIOT ACT; MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT; FISA AMENDMENT ACT; and the most recent “power grab” legislation to hit the floor of the House and Senate is of course THE VIOLENT RADICALIZATION and HOMEGROWN TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT.
As Lewis Lapham, long-time editor of Harper’s Magazine and author of many books once declared: “Under the pretext of rescuing people from incalculable peril, the government over the last fifty years has claimed for itself enormously enhanced powers of repression and control.”
No question about it, Mr. Lapham!
The only “meaningful” reform to a corporate-controlled government neocon would look like something that was taken from a Dictator’s Pocket Manual.
Lizard,
Actually, you’re just about as wrong as you can be. Either you are not an American, or just unread.
Many founding fathers contributed much of the constitution in the articles of confederation and in their respective state constitutions. The U.S. constitution was largely a rewriting of these documents provided by Franklin (Pennsylvania,) Jefferson (Virgina,) Adams (Massachusetts) and Madison in combination with the Virginia Plan. Hamilton and Thomas Paine too were prime players in the Federalist papers and the Anti-Federalist papers of which many elements of our government are derived.
The actual man who drafted the bill of rights was James Madison in 1789. He was a founding father and fought for your freedoms (assuming you are part of the free world.)
Just because a monkey has been turned loose in the oval office does not mean that we won’t get these freedoms back. It does not mean the foundation of the country has changed; it’s only been hijacked.
Here is what Wikipedia says:
James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American politician and the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817), and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Considered to be the “Father of the Constitution”, he was the principal author of the document. In 1788, he wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers, still the most influential commentary on the Constitution. As a leader in the first Congresses, he drafted many basic laws and was responsible for the first ten amendments to the Constitution (said to be based on the Virginia Declaration of Rights), and thus is also known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights”.[1] As a political theorist, Madison’s most distinctive belief was that the new republic needed checks and balances to limit the powers of special interests, which Madison called factions.[2] He believed very strongly that the new nation should fight against aristocracy and corruption and was deeply committed to creating mechanisms that would ensure republicanism in the United States.[3]
As leader in the House of Representatives, Madison worked closely with President George Washington to organize the new federal government. Breaking with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in 1791, Madison and Thomas Jefferson organized what they called the republican party (later called the Democratic-Republican Party)[4] in opposition to key policies of the Federalists, especially the national bank and the Jay Treaty. He secretly co-authored, along with Thomas Jefferson, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in 1798 to protest the Alien and Sedition Laws.
I like Madison.
It really shocks me how illiterate my country has become. Is history, civics and government no longer taught? All of you should read The bill of rights and click on the Wikipedia links, or use google or ask dot com.
And here is the link. Hopefully it will not screw up your carriage return.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
The fact that we are all part of a fascist state is clearly established.
We are all now fascists, we are all brown shirts.
Peasants still enjoy privacy.
LIZARD
Please tell me you were being ironic!
If not, do you know now what will be declared a crime in 5 years? in 10? and prosecuted retrospectively? Have you looked at some of the new patriot and security acts issued over the last few years? Are you aware that they were being formulated before 9/11?
To get a better feel for this issue, substitute the word, “safety” for “privacy”. Get it now?
What we should truly be afraid of…
God damn uncle sam, he will.
I was to say, eh, I have not followed the candidates very closely, but with the immensity of the truth there is no halting. Kucinich is the one man who brings up what is truly going on. The others seem to push the “change” theory with no information! It’s mainstream. Just like Kucinich not being allowed on the media debates. In my college text books often they cover the concepts, but do not bring up information that is “controversial.” You can observe an impeding lack of diversity in their examples and real life connections.
It’s not merely controversial, for everything matters. You will not find another honest man on the Earth (jimi), and now we can’t trust anything because it is someone elses perspective? Why not take it into account in order to open up? It’s like negativity and positivity. Lies, lies, lies, and the real ones are within greed. If people understood that moral foundation then things would become clear. Kucinich has that moral understanding, the perspective that listens, rationalizes, creates, and commits.
How do we keep ourselves safe? No where to hide now. We will have to come together in the truth of what improvement was meant to be.
Peace
PACPLYER: Excellent, informative posts. You computer genius, you!
GAIL: I love Lapham and consider him a true statesman. Thanks for sharing the quote. I am so behind with Harper’s due to the time I spend writing and reading C.D.
The only reason Bush and his gang want to monitor our accounts and emails, etc. is so that he will know just how much money we have in saving, CDs, etc. When a government has control of your money and property, then you have a Fascist government and that has been happening for years. Even back in the 50’s the goverment read your mail if they saw fit. Our living in a Democracy has been a myth for years. Bush just wants access to our money so he can rob use even more. I hope he reads this “BUsh is a criminal, thief, coward, and phoney and the worst President this country ever has been sorry to have elected. Read this Bush, you COward, draft dodger, liar, moron and madman.
If the US government wants to waste billions on checking on everybodys inboxes, good for them but the people must do somthing to keep them entertained.
Here is a hint give all people in your inbox the email…
meet me at _____ (name of bank) at ___ (time and date) so we can ____ (method of terrorism eg. bomb hostage takeover robbery ect.) it.
(random number of spaces)
this email is just to test the governments paranoya do not meet me there this is a solo operation.
make sure you only give this to people who can take a joke
As the government continues to privatize, and as invasions of privacy continue to rise, how can we be certain that the real aim of invading our privacy isn’t to gain illegal market advantage? Insider trading information, stealing corporate secrets, patent infringement, etc?
It would seem that whoever sits on the heap of the most private information could make best a fortune at the stock market.
I guess we’re just supposed to trust that the police and police themselves here. No citizen oversight needed, eh?
WHERE ARE THE HACKERS????????????????
c’MON..Man! Where are you? We MUST have a Virus, Email program..etc..etc..YOU TELL ME! that implants, multiplies and transmits key Words and Phrases etc..etc…into the MILLIONS of times a day…SIMPLY OVERLOAD THERE LITTLE AUTHORITARIAN FANTASY…ADD TO YOUR EMAILS..EXPLOSIVES THE PRESIDENT ALLAH….WITH EVERY EMAIL…AND DON’T PAY YOUR TAX’S…THER I’VE DONE IT..I AM NOW BEING WATCHED…THINK OF IT PEOPLE..THE REALITY…COULD IT BE THAT ATT IS AT THIS VERY MOMENT SIFTING AND COLLECTING AND TAGGING…OR RED-FLAGGING THIS VERY POST…???? COULD IT BE???? THEN WHO CARES…AND WHEN THEY COME TO MY DOOR…WELL..WHAT IF THEY HAD TO GO TO EVERY DOOR IN THE STATE…WAKE-UP AMERIKKKA….THEY ARE DOING IT..IT IS HAPPENING…HOW BLATANT AN ATTACK ON THE CONSTITUTION IS THIS? HOW BLATANT DOES IT HAVE TO BE TO SHAKE THE SUBURBS ENOUGH TO MAKE THEM GIVE A SHIT?..THE SIMPLE ERADICATION OF FREE SPEACH? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THIS REALLY IS..BECAUSE HOW DOES A MACHINE DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN DISCUSSION AND PLANNING??? HOW..AND EVEN IF THAT CAN BE DONE..THERE IS THE SIMPLE REALITY OF…’UNWARRANTED SEARCHES’ AND HAIR SPLITTING IS NOT REAL. TO SAY THAT AN EMAIL IS NOT A POSESSEION FOR EXAMPLE ETC..ETC…IS JUST BULLSHIT…AND NOT…REALITY..THE REALITY IS THAT WE ARE IN A NEW COLD WAR..A COLD “CIVIL” WAR WHERE-IN WE HAVE THE CONSTITUTIONALISTS (READ “LIBERAL-PROGRESSIVES”) AND THE LOYALISTS (READ NEO-CON LOYALIST REPUBLICAN BUREAUCRATS)
WE ARE ONE STEP AWAY FROM “ROUND-UPS” PRIVATE SECURITY DETAILS BREAKING DOWN THE DOORS OF EDUCATORS, ACTIVISTS…ETC…) THAT IS THE LAST AND POSSIBLY NEXT STEP..THEN THE COLD CIVIL WAR WE ARE IN NOW…GOES….HOT..AND THEN…IT’S ALL OVER..IS THAT EASIER THAN SIMPLY DOING WHAT YOU CAN TO STOP THIS ADVANCING TIDE OF SHIT NOW?
JEEZUS…WHAT IS HAPPENING.??
Right on target as usual Paul.
Motive here is everything.
That’s exactly what has been happening as the earlier price fixing on mutual funds scandal proved earlier this year. Insider knowledge.
America won most of her cold and hot wars with intel. Cracking the Japanese Naval code, Cracking the Soviet undersea transmission cable info, eavesdropping on the cellphones of South America and China.
The problem now is that that same parental government is now the same thing as predatory big business is. They have morphed together. And big business wants to know all about your health status (so their insurance companies don’t have to pay out or even write you a policy,) your financial situation, your employment data, your children…….. nothing is sacred.
How is this “legal” one might ask?
Outsourcing. Outsourcing what used to be government maintained custody of sensitive private information on citizens to companies who can sell or set any damn privacy policy they desire.
First of all, I’m not trying to scare you guys; I just want you to be aware of that big brother has been able to do these things for a long time now. But if they’re spying on most of us, damn, are they going to be bored reading the long-winded opinons and drivel of a guy like me! I hope I did not offend COmarc above, because I think his posts are great and I love reading him. But I feel we should all be cognizant of the great levels of sophistication our seventeen spy agencies now posses and that many of them are beholding to the Fortune 500. A revolving door is spinning between government intel agencies and corporate executive positions; nothing is outside their capabilities to snoop.
So what to do?
Simple. Always assume your stuff is being looked at. Even the machines without modems or transmitters radiate a weak signal if they used SCSI cables (RS-232 stuff) that could be picked up if the spooks wanted to. And that was about 1985. I don’t know about USB vulnerabilities, but hey, our PC’s are so complex, it would be child’s-play even to embed a NSA subroutine in either the software or a ROM chip somewhere on the board.
You are safe as long as you obey the supreme law of the land: the constitution. “Congress shall pass no law” means that these intolerable Acts are null and void because they are illegal. Just because the gov has been stuffed full of corporate crooks the last 150 years doesn’t remove my right to discuss how my government is run. I am a taxpayer. If I feel the property tax in California, for example, should be reduced by 2/3 then that’s my right to discuss that cause. If I feel the Federal Government should be a weak one as the Anti-Federalists maintained and that it should be cut by 99%, then there is ample precedent in the nation’s history for me to endeavor in that as a political goal.
I always survived my very dangerous struggles and job actions as a Union activist because of one thing: I stayed within the Law.
I recommend all progressives legally arm themselves to the teeth as the colonist did, and continue to legally criticize public figures in the government as the colonist did.
PAC“LIBERTY or DEATH”PLYER
Sorry, that HTML bold activated by accident up there. nspire will have to enlighten me what I did wrong on the subscript command.
jcrumb, thanks! That post made me spurt milk all over the keyboard!!
Remember guys,
“To criticize those in power, is the highest form of patriotism.” - Thomas Jefferson
jcrumb,
seriously,
I think you and others who advocate exercising our right to lampoon the absurdity of unreasonable search and seizure are right on.
I’m sure every time I write “monkey bush” I’m flagged and some gov soup nazi in chrome-plated helmet with a pointed spike on the top goes: “damn it’s that phucking pacplyer again! How many times a day do I have to moniter this SOB!”
Free Speech - use it or loose it.
The private sector has been invading peoples privacy for years. Where I used to work, they came in one day with a form to authorize a background check. Not just criminal records but everything. Financial, educational, medical, etc., it was a pretty open document and it included a release of liability for misuse of this information. When we said “why do you need to know this stuff other than the criminal background?” they answered “Oh, we won’t be looking at that stuff so sign.” A few of us were in a union and we fought it successfully. But at the next contract negotiation they bargained it in for all new hires under our CBA based on the fact that this is standard operating procedure for all large modern corporations. The private sector is always leading the way in reduction of our civil rights.