Give up our freedoms?

F

felix

Registered Senior Member
All right, I'm really peeved about the amount of support this added-jurisdiction-on-tapping-phones request seems to be getting. And the fact that the Government is going to demand that they are given a "back door" to all encrypted software.

It sounds reasonable when they say it. They just want the surveillance to follow the person. Because people use different phones or change locations, and all that crazy stuff. But what it sounds like to me, is that if one of their "suspects" is hangin' out in the laundry mat at the same time I am, and I'm shootin' the breeze with him, then they'll decide that means they need to tap MY phone too. Obviously the laundry mat is just a clever way to cover our planned meeting (or not so clever. whichever). Or a million other possible scenerios.

And we simply are no longer aloud to have private info on our computers? I mean, sure, we can have the info there, it's just that it can't be private if it IS there anymore.

If these requests go through, we lose. We talk about fighting for freedom at the exact same time we're surrendering it, if these requests go through. And under the guise of safety, to ease our fears.

I would rather take my chances than leave my freedoms.
 
Give up our freedoms? (reply)

I could not agree with you more, felix. If our civil liberties are comprimised by the recent evil acts of certain terrorist, then they have all ready won and all those people died in vain. I believe we should act swiftly and without quarter against the perpetrator(s) of this atrocity. However, I do not believe that the US government needs to rape the Bill of Rights to execute that goal. The knee-jerk reaction of some politicians(who can blame them?) is to remove some of our constitutionally protected rights to make their job easier. I do not believe that any of the proposed abdominable 'adjustments' to existing civil liberties are a direct attempt by politicians to degrade our civil liberties, but once enacted will represent a weak link in the armor of our rights. My heart goes out to the families of the victims of the Pentagon/WTC/Airliner trajedies. Their pain, I am sure, is unfathomable. I respect and admire the policemen, firemen and other rescue workers who have responded with great courage in the face of unthinkable pain and loss. These are men and woman who would spare no expense to save MY life if it were in jeopardy. Benjamin Franklin once said something to the effect " Those who would sacrifice any of their essential liberties to purchase some measure of safety, deserve neither liberty or safety." I am angry and I am hurt. I want revenge as much as anyone else. I think that the ultimate revenge will be the rights that remain intact regardless of the foolish desire for omnipresent safety. The true job of the federal government is to provide as much safety as possible within the constrains of the US constitution. To provide safety from foreign attacks and to provide safety from an oppressive US government. I believe that the hearts of our government leaders are in the right place, but that provides little assurance that the hearts of future government leaders will be in the right place. That provides little assurance that the hearts of our future government leaders will NEED to be in the right place. The victims of this cowardly, evil act have earned a place in my heart. I just hope that our leaders will not act upon the assumption that the laws passed in the heat of the moment will not provide a platform for future leaders to deceive and betray the very people they are trying to protect. It seems to me that that are some would be "prophets" in Washington who would try to fix some of the fundamentals of our personal freedoms that are in fact not broken, but strengthened by the recent events in NYC.
 
finally

Somone who understands. Good Benjamin Franklin quote, by the way.

What's got all riled up now is how many Americans don't deserve liberty or safety. We are giving the perps a win. I say "we" because I'm an American too, even though I strongly disagree with sacrificing our liberties.

This is getting really messy on a number of different counts.
 
Of course we need backdoors. What terrorist would be so foolish as to break American law and encrypt their information without a backdoor?

Ben
 
Doesn't matter if they backdoor encryption, their stegnography and the likes (Hiding information within files)

I did attempt to hide one some information within one of those disc camera's. (It was actually the name of and the address of the owner incase the camera got stolen as they were going on holiday.)

In old days spys would use microfilm pasted behind the stamps.

Or how about the microchip in the tooth, that always gets them, Especially when they capture the guy and they just exclaim they've been beemed up by martains and thats how it got there. They are then left to try and decode the pseudo-martian code.

Of course they could get to the point of making you get on aeroplanes naked, I'm sure that would boost flight sales in the recent recession.

I wonder, if I worked out which way the tidal streams were, I could send you an encypted message in a bottle. Of course it would look a bit suspect as you hav to walk down your miles of coastline looking for it, and since the message would just say "Please cancel my subscription to 'American Scientist' " It wouldn't really be worth while.

If your wondering why this post doesn't take this encryption thing to seriously, it is, it's just the nature of the post is proving just how absurd it seems through how it reads.

Of course for all you know I could of encoded something into the whole of my text (which I haven't), or perhaps at the start of paragraph 6, page 193 of "Neuromancer" by William Gibson. Published by Voyager publishing, 9th edition? BARCODE ISBN 0-00-648041-1/ 9 78006 480419 00699>
 
What you guys are worried about? For the last 10 years, we have been losing our freedom everyday to the point, it is all gone. You do not have any. So you are not losing anything. Only the bad guys have it. Let me explain.

If you rent x rated video tapes, the store keeps a record of the transaction. If you hack in to it, you got exactly what your taste is. You go to Safeway, you buy food. The data goes to a central computer, from that, i can tell you, how many people in your family, wheter you had a party last week and so on...i can go on and on, this is from your normal living and from business computers.

It is not the evesdropping I am worried about. It is the enforcement of bad laws via electronics means - I am terrified. The days will soon come, your car will give you a ticket for speeding or violating any traffic law such as rolling through a stop sign. You can not open a checking account in another bank, if someone stole your checkbook and cleaned out your account - without a court order. Once your DNA is in the national database, you can NOT throw a beer can anywhere except in a garbage bin (good idea). Basically every law in the books can be controlled by electronic means.

The argument for monitoring everything is that: Are you breaking any laws that you are so worried about? If you say NO, then you have nothing to fear, right? It reminds me of "Demolition Man" movie.

About the bad guys. Any comunication between two parties using standard encryption material is easy to detect because by law it will have a backdoor. But if you start speaking Klingon, the watcher has to find a person that speaks Klingon. Or the bad guys can spend the money a get a device outside of USA where the back door does not exist and is 3 times encrypted. It could be so simple: If a suspect goes to the super market and picksup a gallon of milk and on the phone says, my milk gone bad, I have to throw it, does it mean something? If you get 15,000 tips, can you really decipher what is what? Why is that, we spend so much money on drug interdiction, yet every high scholl student in this country can buy drug in 10 minutes? Sorry for my rambling...I am worried that every American citizen will be afraid to associate themselves with anyone with an Arab ancestry. That will cause some serious problems.

What do you think. Comments are welcome.
 
Originally posted by kmguru
What you guys are worried about? For the last 10 years, we have been losing our freedom everyday to the point, it is all gone. You do not have any. So you are not losing anything. Only the bad guys have it.
Click to expand...


Yeah, and it's been bothering me for as long as I've been old enough to understand what's happening everytime they chip away at our rights and freedoms.

And I don't plan on ever getting used to it. Or liking it.

This trend of diminishing liberties is the biggest threat the "American way of life" and the American people have facing them. Due, in no small part, to the fact that most Americans either don't recognize what's happening or don't care.

Did you know that we don't have the right to gather peacefully anymore? At least not if you plan on having more than 75 people at the gathering. A permit is required to do that now. Most don't know it, because, so far, they only enforce it on the organizations they want to give a hard time. So since it hasn't effected most people, does that mean we shouldn't care that that RIGHT is now gone? And that's just ONE example of liberties taken.

It's good to see other Americans that care. Sometimes I believe apathy reigns in my home land, and it gives me pain in the pit of my stomach.
 
Consider this. In another 100 years, there will be enough laws on the books that, you need special permit to sneeze. The police will use a computer to find out if you have violated any laws. We will come to a point where there will be a civil war to go back to simplicity since there will be no more virgin countries to start over.

The solution is to have a grass root movement to eliminate stupid laws. But that wont happen because, the new born does not know better. Like a frog, he will get used to the heat until the society literally kills him.

Marching towards our self destruction.....
 
Ignorance is no excuse....

Ignorance of a law is no excuse for breaking that law. There are over 5 million federal laws on the books as of now. At what point are we allowed to become ingnorant of some laws? There are probably very few people living in America that the feds could not detain if they wanted to. Don't get me wrong, I love this country. That is exactly why I see the federal government for what it is and despise it. If the federal governments response to terrorism is to suspend any part or all of my civil liberties(that have not all ready been plundered) I will view them to be every bit as dangerous an enemy to free Americans as the terrorist themselves. I do not believe all polticians are evil. But as time goes on and I do more research, it seems more and more like the federal government is using the recent terrorist attacks as a tool to garner public support for the waiving of rights that all American should enjoy regardless of foriegn threat. The federal government is intentionally fanning the flames of fear to increase its own power over the American people. I fear terrorist far less than I fear my own government. Look at some of the polls to see how many Americans support the relinquishing of "some" civil liberties to feel more safe. Like sheep they are far more concerned with the comforts and safety that the government can "provide" than there own personal freedom. I am scared for them. I am even more scared for our children and their children.
 
We say in China, people do not have freedom. But in reality, there are over a billion people going about their business everyday. They go to work, laugh, cry, get married, raise a family and so on. In China, terrorism is rare though they are not immune.

Is our government heading in that direction to keep everybody safe? - though there are no guarantees.

I do not know what to think. Someday soon, if you stand up for freedom, you may get branded as anti-government - and that day may not be far off.

As I have said many times: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. If someone sleeps at the wheel, before you know it, that liberty will be gone - like gone with the wind....
 
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