Catonic wrote:
Pentagon expands domestic surveillance.

And Bruce Schneier weighs in as well.

Oh, this is baaaad, bad, bad, people... wake up... wake up....

You guys must all be criminals - because I see no problem with this. There's always the exception where people can abuse their powers, but shit, people can abuse powers they don't have just the same.

Spy on me - I ain't got nothin' to hide - I might be pissed off that you are wasting *MY* tax dollars spying on me, but hell, I don't care.

ibenez wrote:

Spy on me - I ain't got nothin' to hide - I might be pissed off that you are wasting *MY* tax dollars spying on me, but hell, I don't care.

How about, don't spy on me because I have a right to privacy? Better yet -- why post under a pseudonym if you have nothing to hide? Why not just post your entire credit history on Memestreams right here and now so we can make a note of it for the future.

Catonic wrote:

ibenez wrote:

Spy on me - I ain't got nothin' to hide - I might be pissed off that you are wasting *MY* tax dollars spying on me, but hell, I don't care.

How about, don't spy on me because I have a right to privacy?

As far as I'm concerned you are worth as much to me dead or alive, and I care not about your rights. I do care about national security.

Now that said, as a fellow American your opinion does matter. I would not want you to be spied on ... however spying may be neccessary to prevent a terrorist attack by a legal American citizen. The problem is .. how do you discern whether or not they are a terrorist without doing a little spying first?

So, I'm all for not invading privacy .. but I'm more interested in preventing an attack ... and yes, even if that means pissing you off.. I mean, honestly ... what are you gonna do about it?

Catonic wrote:

ibenez wrote:

Spy on me - I ain't got nothin' to hide - I might be pissed off that you are wasting *MY* tax dollars spying on me, but hell, I don't care.

How about, don't spy on me because I have a right to privacy? Better yet -- why post under a pseudonym if you have nothing to hide? Why not just post your entire credit history on Memestreams right here and now so we can make a note of it for the future.

Actually you don't have a right to privacy. There's nothing in the constitution or the bill or rights that grants anything in the way of privacy. So privacy is not a good reason to rub this out.

Ibenez says he doesn't care whether the g'ment spies on him cuz he's got nothing to hide. He's a law abiding citizen, and I'll take his word at that, despite the fact that he probably speeds from time to time and looks the other way when the grocery store forgets to ring up those bananas. But one thing that he probably is concerned about that this would eventually enable is denying of other things based upon his behavior.

Maybe he can't get access to Medicare or Medicaid because the g'ment knows he smoked once. Maybe he can't get an FHA mortgage because he read Mein Kampf once. Maybe he can't get that deduction on his taxes because his kid didn't support the war. All of these things are not far out of reach with this kind of power. Today, they are very out of reach because g'ment surveillance is not too powerful. That's why we should keep it that way.

You don't need to spy on your own citizenry to prevent a terrorist attack. You DO need to build an educated and happy society to prevent a terrorist attack.

flynn23 wrote:
Actually you don't have a right to privacy. There's nothing in the constitution or the bill or rights that grants anything in the way of privacy. So privacy is not a good reason to rub this out.

With respect to the matter of government surveillance there absolutely is a specifically enumerated Constitutional "right to privacy." Its the 4th amendment. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has ruled that an intent to protect a general "right to privacy" is obvious in a reading of the Constitution and the 9th Amendment gives it teeth. I'm quoting here from Griswold vs. Connecticut:

Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, as protection against all governmental invasions "of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life." We recently referred in Mapp v. Ohio, to the Fourth Amendment as creating a "right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully and particularly reserved to the people."

We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of "privacy and repose." These cases bear witness that the right of privacy which presses for recognition here is a legitimate one.

Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
Actually you don't have a right to privacy. There's nothing in the constitution or the bill or rights that grants anything in the way of privacy. So privacy is not a good reason to rub this out.

With respect to the matter of government surveillance there absolutely is a specifically enumerated Constitutional "right to privacy." Its the 4th amendment. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has ruled that an intent to protect general "right to privacy" is obvious in a reading of the Constitution and the 9th Amendment gives it teeth. I'm quoting here from Griswold vs. Connecticut:

Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment in its Self-Incrimination Clause enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, as protection against all governmental invasions "of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life." We recently referred in Mapp v. Ohio, to the Fourth Amendment as creating a "right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully and particularly reserved to the people."

We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of "privacy and repose." These cases bear witness that the right of privacy which presses for recognition here is a legitimate one.

Ask David Koresh or anyone who's crossed the IRS about the 4th or 5th amendment's support of 'privacy'. I know that there's ample legal precedent to support the interpretation of privacy as a 'right' when reading the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but as we've been seeing over the last few years, those precedents don't mean jack shit given the current government climate. Without it being explicit, which it isn't, then it's open for interpretation. I'm all for the concept, but it's vague, and so not easily defensible.

flynn23 wrote:
Ask David Koresh or anyone who's crossed the IRS about the 4th or 5th amendment's support of 'privacy'. I know that there's ample legal precedent to support the interpretation of privacy as a 'right' when reading the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but as we've been seeing over the last few years, those precedents don't mean jack shit given the current government climate. Without it being explicit, which it isn't, then it's open for interpretation. I'm all for the concept, but it's vague, and so not easily defensible.

I could not agree more. Most western states have an explicit constitutional privacy protection. There is a reason that Canada's DNS WHOIS policy is more sane then ICANNS and its not that they are generally less statist then Americans. The problem is that in the US the "right to privacy" has been tied to abortion, and the US is a wee bit more fundamentalist then most western states, and so the entire idea of Constitutional privacy protection has been slaughtered on the altar of theological morality. Its a non starter. And we're going to pay for that. This is going to have real costs for our culture in the information age. I don't see an easy way out. All I can do is reference Griswold, which seems quite obvious to me in it's conclusions about privacy, in the context of the Internet and hope people get it and that the abortion debate moves closer to its actual roots, the question of when life begins. (Frankly, I suspect the reason that the fundies like to attack Griswold is that if they succeed they don't just get abortion, they get homosexuality and a vast array of other "perversions" they want to regulate. If they focus on the matter of life specifically they won't gain any other ground from their victory...)

ibenez wrote:
You guys must all be criminals - because I see no problem with this.

Why should criminals be the only people concerned about Constituional rights? Why have a Constitution at all if it only applies to criminals? What is the point of having a "free country" if freedom is only something that one enjoys when one breaks the law and isn't caught? I see multiple concerns here:

1. The FBI and DHS are doing just fine on this front. Any technology projects these people wish to pursue can be pursued in that context. There is no evidence of need.

2. Domestic spying requires 4th Amendment proceedures, which the Pentagon is not designed to handle and will not handle well.

3. The purpose of the Military is to protect the citizens from external threats, not to protect the government from it's citizens or to protect the citizens from eachother. We handle those different situations in different ways because we have a system of limited government which respects the rights of citizens. When you blur the lines between these different situations by taking organizations which are not designed to respect people's rights and having them deal directly with citizens on the government's behalf, you are essentially concluding that you will not respect citizen's rights anymore. If you don't respect citizen's rights, you're not a "free country."

4. The arguement that only criminals need bother with rights is a invitation to a police state, in which everyone is always suspect and everyone is always looking over his shoulder. This was the lesson of East Germany... that an omnipresent surveillance creates a culture of fear and suspicion.

Decius wrote:

ibenez wrote:
You guys must all be criminals - because I see no problem with this.

Why should criminals be the only people concerned about Constituional rights? Why have a Constitution at all if it only applies to criminals? What is the point of having a "free country" if freedom is only something that one enjoys when one breaks the law and isn't caught? I see multiple concerns here:

1. The FBI and DHS are doing just fine on this front. Any technology projects these people wish to pursue can be pursued in that context. There is no evidence of need.

2. Domestic spying requires 4th Amendment proceedures, which the Pentagon is not designed to handle and will not handle well.

3. The purpose of the Military is to protect the citizens from external threats, not to protect the government from it's citizens or to protect the citizens from eachother. We handle those different situations in different ways because we have a system of limited government which respects the rights of citizens. When you blur the lines between these different situations by taking organizations which are not designed to respect people's rights and having them deal directly with citizens on the government's behalf, you are essentially concluding that you will not respect citizen's rights anymore. If you don't respect citizen's rights, you're not a "free country."

4. The arguement that only criminals need bother with rights is a invitation to a police state, in which everyone is always suspect and everyone is always looking over his shoulder. This was the lesson of East Germany... that an omnipresent surveillance creates a culture of fear and suspicion.

Ok, on point 3... If people are working as part of an international terrorist organization, it's an international threat.. even if they are American born.

So your point 3 isn't valid in this context. I don't care if Jose Padilla was born in the US, if the f@#$ker is working as part of an Al Queda plot, anything is game - spy on him, torture him, FUCK DUDE I'LL TORTURE HIM.

In addition - a free country is worthless if you are dead. Therefore, protection SUPERCEDES freedom temporarily.

If you disagree with this perhaps we could try an experiment. I have several hanguns I can point in your face, and then let you choose a temporary restriction in freedom, or a bullet in your head. Which would you choose?

On your point #4 - Uhm, this isn't Germany.

A police state will not happen, unless of course a terrorist detonates a nuclear bomb on MY soil. And in that case, the constitution goes out the window.

So if you guys are so concerned about the constitution, why aren't you concerned about it being suspended? This is the DECLARED AND MANDATORY action the US Military will take upon nuclear or biological attack.

ibenez wrote:
Ok, on point 3... If people are working as part of an international terrorist organization, it's an international threat.. even if they are American born.

So your point 3 isn't valid in this context. I don't care if Jose Padilla was born in the US, if the f@#$ker is working as part of an Al Queda plot, anything is game - spy on him, torture him, FUCK DUDE I'LL TORTURE HIM.

The problem is that you don't know if he is part of an Al Queda plot until you've tried him. For non-citizens you get a presumption of guilt, or nearly so. You get Gitmo. If any U.S. citizen accussed of terrorism is presumed to be guilty, again I submit to you that you don't have a free country. Anyone can simply be accused any hauled away and there is no standard. You'll be torturing people who have nothing to do with Al'Queda, cause they said the wrong thing or talked to the wrong person. How many innocent citizens are you willing to torture to protect innocent citizens? That is the question.

In addition - a free country is worthless if you are dead. Therefore, protection SUPERCEDES freedom temporarily.

Need I haul out that Benjammin Franklin quote? First of all, there is nothing about what is being proposed here that is temporary. There are always risks. The war on terror is going to last a long, long time. If you are arguing that any "protection," no matter how ill conceived, ought to superecede any freedom, no matter how important, whenever a risk, no matter how improbable, exists, then you might as well toss in the Constitution forever. If that is not what you are arguing, then there is room for discussion. There were Russian spies living in the U.S. in the 80's. Those guys wanted to nuke us too. There has never been a point in American history when there wasn't a threat. So why did we have the 4th amendment then? Whats the point?

If you disagree with this perhaps we could try an experiment. I have several hanguns I can point in your face, and then let you choose a temporary restriction in freedom, or a bullet in your head. Which would you choose?

We're not talking about a temporary restriction on freedom. Thats the whole point of the objections raised here. We're talking about a permanent policy of getting an organization that doesn't have the processes to deal with Constitutional protections involved with domestic law enforcement. The problem here is that this will result in abuse. This isn't hypothetical. You take a big, snarling, pissed off dog and you unleash him on a bunch of school children, lots of them are gunna get hurt, even if there is only one you're after. Thats how it works. So, I don't see what the difference is. You've got a gun to my head on the one hand and a gun to my head on the other. Frankly, I choose not to play.

So if you guys are so concerned about the constitution, why aren't you concerned about it being suspended? This is the DECLARED AND MANDATORY action the US Military will take upon nuclear or biological attack.

Got a link for that? In general, a temporary declaration of martial law during a disaster is not the same as a permanent change to U.S. policy respecting domestic use of armed forces.