Quite the little country we’re becoming.

[paramount]

CAR, etc…would you call this doom porn or is it fairly realistic (it relates to the OP):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tsUZinrCo8

[CA renter]

[quote=paramount]CAR, etc…would you call this doom porn or is it fairly realistic (it relates to the OP):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tsUZinrCo8%5B/quote%5D

Truth. The only question is when.

[edited to add]…when, and to what extent. I think we can minimize the pain for the masses to an extent, but the PTB are doing their darndest to distract J6 from what’s really going on.

The **original, non-co-opted** Tea Party and OWS were on the right track, but were intentionally diluted and taken off-track by those who use emotional issues and/or propaganda to diffuse the “revolutionary” folks who have been trying to reduce the pain for the masses as we go through the transition.

[FlyerInHi]

About NSA metadata mining, why not write legislation to force the industry to form a consortium to store all phone,Internet and other communication metadata.

Make that available to all levels of law enforcement under court order. So if a guy is suspected of drug dealing, local law enforcement could get a court order to see who’s he’s talking. Kinda creepy but it would help solve lots of crime.

[paramount]

I was surprised to hear the Bank of America Chalker was acquitted.

[spdrun]

FlyerInHI – What’s the need for a consortium? A single database introduces a single possible point of failure. Why not just have the individual carriers store the data (for a limited time, not to exceed several years!!!!!!!!!), subject to release upon court order? Civilian courts, of course, none of this FISA Star Chamber nonsense.

Secondly, some level of crime (and yes, even terrorism) is the price we pay for a relatively free society. I’d rather have law enforcement’s hands tied and civil liberties respected than “solve lots of crime.”

[mike92104]

[quote=spdrun]FlyerInHI – What’s the need for a consortium? A single database introduces a single possible point of failure. Why not just have the individual carriers store the data (for a limited time, not to exceed several years!!!!!!!!!), subject to release upon court order? Civilian courts, of course, none of this FISA Star Chamber nonsense.

Secondly, some level of crime (and yes, even terrorism) is the price we pay for a relatively free society. I’d rather have law enforcement’s hands tied and civil liberties respected than “solve lots of crime.”[/quote]

Why not laws preventing the storage of any of our personal communications or metadata not needed for billing purposes?

[spdrun]

^^^

That would be ideal, but the next best thing would be heavy restrictions as far as time limits and authorization to release records.

[FlyerInHi]

spd, just playing devil’s advocate. A mega metadatabase would allow law enforcement to cross-reference data very quickly. It would lower crime.

I pretty much agree with w/ Glenn Greenwald when he wrote of Bush in 2006. Today, we have a continuation of the surveillance and security institutions that Bush put in place. Those institutions have become so entrenched that walking back will be extremely difficult no matter who is in power.

“Over the past five years, a creeping extremism has taken hold of our federal government, and it is threatening to radically alter our system of government and who we are as a nation. This extremism is neither conservative nor liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of unlimited presidential power that are wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governed this country since its founding”; for, “the fact that this seizure of ever-expanding presidential power is largely justified through endless, rank fear-mongering—fear of terrorists, specifically—means that not only our system of government is radically changing, but so, too, are our national character, our national identity, and what it means to be American.”

Maybe the American character has so changed that there is no returning to any kind of pre 9/11 normalcy.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=mike92104]

Why not laws preventing the storage of any of our personal communications or metadata not needed for billing purposes?[/quote]

good idea… but good luck with that.

The business community will not support it because that will eliminate all marketing efforts. That would be the end of location marketing, and individually targeted marketing, big areas of growth.

And what? you want to regulate how businesses keep data on their consumers? That sounds like socialism!!!

[spdrun]

As far as mandatory non-retention of data and corporate cries of “socialism…”

There could be a way around it. The default rule would be no retention, but if you sign up for a store discount card or a long-term cell plan, you could sign a contract allowing retention of certain data. This would satisfy both businesses and privacy advocates.

This being said, government should be a special case, and any release to a governmental entity should require a warrant.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=spdrun]
Secondly, some level of crime (and yes, even terrorism) is the price we pay for a relatively free society. I’d rather have law enforcement’s hands tied and civil liberties respected than “solve lots of crime.”[/quote]

I agree with you, but that’s not the general consensus.

I think that, as a free society, we should try alleged terrorist in civil court. But it seems like Americans want to throw the book at time in military courts.

The character of our nation has changed. The world changing also. As we back off of liberties, and fight terrorism, other totalitarian regimes (such as China) are using the pretext of terrorism of fight dissent. We no longer have the moral high-ground influence them.

I’m afraid the world will end up with a system where commerce and security dominate. There won’t be any real freedom because all our movements can be tracked. As long as you don’t upset the apple cart, you’ll have the freedom to make money and consume. For a lot of people, that’s freedom enough.

[spdrun]

I agree with you, but that’s not the general consensus.

I think that at as a free society we should try alleged terrorist in civil court. But it seems like Americans want to throw the book at time in military courts.

The character of our nation has changed.

As the extent of the NSA pigs’ spying programs comes out, more and more ordinary people are angry about it. I actually don’t think that the character of the average American has changed much, and there will be a backlash at some point, as there was in the 60s. All the same, I’m proud to be a dual citizen, since I can always move to an EU country like Germany which has stricter privacy protections than the US.

Secondly, the latest posterboy for stupidity, Tsarnaev, is in fact being tried in civilian court.

[FlyerInHi]

That’s what we have now spd.

If you don’t agree to the privacy policy, you don’t get the credit or the discount. Essentially you have no choice.

Want privacy, use cash. But if you use cash, you’ll raise a red flag. If you pay for an air ticket with cash, you can be sure, the metadata database will be looking into you.

[spdrun]

Of course you have a choice. I have a bunch of store discount cards in the name of:

Guy Fawkes
666 Gropekent Lane
London W1 England
(020)7234-5678

If I pay cash when using those cards, then good luck matching them with an ID.

I’ve actually paid cash for an air ticket before with no problem — on American Airlines, you can hold till midnight of the next day without paying. I reserved a ticket online the previous day, then actually bought it when I showed up for my 6 am flight at LaGuardia. No one searched my bags or even looked at me funny.

Generally, I’ll pay with a credit card because airlines other than AA won’t let you reserve the Internet price without inputting a card #.

[FlyerInHi]

spd, you underestimate the power of databases.

If your credit card does not match the rewards card, the business can deny the transaction (they won’t because they want the sale), or they could send you an offer to join.

you can pay with cash or whatever to obfuscate your tracks, but databases look not for the rule, but for outliers. So you may cause yourself trouble by being different than the average. And in the mean time, you give up air miles. I now have enough for 2 free tickets around the world.

I have a white English Canadian friend who, every time he comes into the US, is given extra scrutiny. Why? because as a teenager he was sort of a genius and hacked into some databases. He was never arrested or charged, but the police came and seized his computers. they returned the computers 1 year later.

Canada shares data with USA. His family, parents and siblings, visit the USA frequently but they are watched more carefully than other Canadians.

Of course, we don’t know for sure exactly why his family is given more scrutiny. But why pick on him? He’s harmless.

The security argument is that foreigners who come into the country are guests so they have no rights. They have the choice to not travel here.

computers are worse than the days of J. Edgar Hoover. They run constantly in the background looking for suspicious, out of the ordinary activity. In the case of businesses, computers look for incremental sales opportunities.

Did you read about license plate readers that track the movements of cars in real time?

Maybe, one day, we’ll live in a Minority Report type security society.

[Author]

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