Reknamorken wrote:

] Technology is not developed in a vacuum. It's important that
] Poindexter is involved. Now, granted, it's not as important a
] point as Tim May's point but it's still A) valid and B)
] important.

I agree, but its a separate issue. Poindexter is about Poindexter and not about TIA.

] ] This project would be a bad idea if it was run by Mother
] ] Teresa. Don't let people get it in their head that this
] would
] ] be OK if he wasn't running it.
]
] Who said that?

Tim May did.

] Who would essentially be unaware of any backdoors, trojans,
] flaws, information leakage, poor design, intentially poor
] design, and god know's how many other possible security
] issues. Ones exploitable by outside or internal agencies.
] It's not like the feds are white knights, dude.

Would this problem be any different if Poindexter wasn't running the show? The problem is the project, regardless of who is running it. I would be opposed to it even if you were running it. :) (This issue, however, is sort of a side topic...)

] Now this is where we diverge significantly. How are you going
] to stop them?

I haven't thought enough about it. Its not really the goal of my post to argue this specific matter. I'm more interested in the general ideas about who has what rights. I'll file this specific thing for more thought later.

The reality is that:
Most of what you really want is available in open sources if you can amass the resources to collect and sift it.
You will run into the law if you decide to start surveilling people.

] How do you know this is Gilmore's intention? I didn't read
] that in the posting. I guess I'll go back and see.

Gillmore's suggestion is that the government ought not to be building something like TIA. This implies a policy decision. I am extrapolating that this is not bad BECAUSE its the government, its bad because its bad, and therefore TIA's shouldn't exist period.

] Here is where I disagree with you 100%. This is a kind of
] typical libertarian stand: "Everyone should be allowed to do
] X,Y, and Z" or "Everyone should be protected from X, Y, and
] Z."

This isn't a libertarian stand. Its a fundamental precept of democratic government. Statues of "lady justice" have a blindfold on because we are all supposed to be on equal footing with respect to the law.

There is certainly a serious problem with differences in the sort of legal council that people can afford. I think the answer to this problem is that public interest law should be better subsidized. I actually happen to think this is very baddly needed. (A good example of why I'm not at all a libertarian.) However, I don't think that this means that the poor should be allowed to engage in actions that would otherwise be considered crimes simply because they are poor.

] This is because in the past unscrupulous corporations took
] advantage of investors. It's because unchecked power or
] authority without oversight is subject to abuse. This is the
] way it has always been and always will be.

Not really. Their finances are public because they are publically owned. How can you make a decision about whether or not to own a company if you don't have access to it's financial records? Abuse may be a factor, but its not the core reason. The core reason is that if you don't have access to the financial information then you don't know what you are buying. (This is a side issue. If you decide to drop it I will not consider it a concession.)

] Those with power and authority should be
] closely monitored such that when they are abusing said
] privileges everyone knows about it.

What you are proposing goes far beyond checks and balances. The FBI specifically isn't allowed to do certain kinds of surveillance because in the past this was used to target political groups. What you are talking about doing is using the exact same sort of tactics against people for the exact same reasons (political). You just happen to think its different because the people you are surveilling carry a blue flag instead of a red one.

] Right now the level of control (whether self-imposed or no) of
] the traditional oversight mechanisms (media) is ridiculous.
] This is a society in peril of it's own implosion.

I agree. Society is not democratic enough. The people don't have access to enough information about the decisions being made and they don't have enough input into the process. I think the answer to this problem lies in information technology. This is how you get people access to the information, and this is how you collect their perspectives and filter them down. Computers don't "solve" the problem. They create capabilites that we might be able to use to attack the problem. They are already working. The Ken Star report is an annoying example, but it is an official government document that nearly everyone read. In the past they couldn't read it because there was no way to distribute it. Same goes with recent British reports on Iraq. You wouldn't have seen these things 5 years ago.

I don't think the right answer is to start taping the phones of democratically elected leadership.

] And then who will be protected? OK, everyone, but do
] I give a -bleep- if John Doe down the street is abusing his
] power? Perhaps hurting his children? Maybe. A little
] certainly.

No, absolutely. A million John Doe's abusing their children produce 2.5 million children who will grow up to abuse others. This causes far more problems then Dick Cheney could hope to create on his own if he was satan incarnate. However, significant progress has been made with respect to this and will continue to be made. Social attitudes simply do not tolerate child abuse and more and more people are breaking that cycle as a result.

] No it shouldn't. It should be a law that's humanistic in
] design. One that protects the average person, but also avoids
] protecting those that essentially don't need it.

I don't think thats just. How is this any different from a Jim Crow law? Its one political faction trying to limit the rights of another.

] It hasn't "become" us versus them, Tom. It always was. You
] are not part of the circle of people who rule that nation and
] you aren't ever going to become one. The rules, laws, taxes,
] and just about everything else is set up to favor them.

This is the self-deception that keeps poor people poor. They convince themselves that social mobility is not possible because the man is trying to keep them down, and so they just don't try, and they get what they were expecting, no social mobility. The fact is that social mobility does exist. It exists in spades. It might not exist to the degree that we want it to exist, but operating as if it didn't exist is more destructive even then operating as if the situation was perfect.

The fact is that many of the rules, laws, and taxes are specifically designed to enable social mobility. This whole country is designed to provide a free public education system that enables people to be employable, along with an open credit system so that employed people can purchase a reasonable home. Do you realise how difficult it is to own a home in most European countries?

Its not perfect. In fact there are serious problems with it. But it is not reasonable to ignore it.

Similarily, if you kick ass, you can move forward even further. If you have the grades and the test scores, you can get a loan and get a law degree.

Look at Ross Perot. EDS started out in the seventies as a Dataway. I've met someone who worked there at the time. It became so big that the guy had enough money to actually run for president.

Look at Powell. The guy is not a token black guy. He is a critical part of the republican party. And I imagine he got there fighting tooth and nail. He is certainly not part of the group of "rich white guys" who founded the country.

You can be a ruler. Get a law degree, start networking like hell in the political space, and run for a local office.

If your daddy is a Bush this certainly makes things easier, but its not as if its impossible to do it without those resources at your disposal.

However, in most areas a radical left wing position is not going to garner enough support to put you in office. You've got a lot of groundwork to do in people's minds if you think thats the right direction. And if you garner enough support, then your position won't be radical anymore. Radical is the edge of the thought space by definition.

] This libertarian line of thought that attempts to pretend that
] class doesn't exist and that we live in an equal society is
] inherently flawed and basically not useful for moving forward
] into a society that is set up as a true meritocracy.

Again, this isn't a libertarian line. This is a fundamental idea about justice. Laws apply to everyone in the same way. There is no presumption that we live in an equal society. The presumption is that we ought to treat people fairly, and not based on our political biases, regardless of what those political biases might be.

There is no specific reason why we ended up in a situation where white people oppressed black people in the past in the US. The colors could have been reversed. If we create a situation that allows one political faction the opportunity to oppress another then thats exactly what we will see. We ought to strive toward a situation where this doesn't occur.

I've had similar debates in the past with people on the right wing. (BTW, you usually define the right wing as "rich people." In this context I am referring to the people who refer to themselves as the right wing. IE the christian conservatives, gun owners, and tax protestors... basically the rural poor.) The police in Georgia wanted to use digital signatures to obtain warrents through PDAs without having to go before a court. The right wing opposed the digital signatures law because they didn't want to eliminate beaurocracy for the police. I offered that if judges were giving out warrents too easily then this was a problem with the judges and should be addressed directly. One of the right wingers basically said that you have the fight the system on every level you can.

This basically seems to be the arguement you are making.

Instead of simply moving toward an egalitarian society, you are offering that by making things less egalitarian in the short run we can do more damage to the forces of evil and then we can establish an egalitarian society later once we've got the power.

My position is that power, once won, is rarely given up freely. Much like the french revolution, the "people" will become just as bad as the "man" they replace if they are simply able to come in and take over.

RE: Eyeballing Total Information Awareness