Boomhauer
11-26-2011, 03:05 PM
Wired magazine offered a quick recount of National Security intrusions on liberty Thursday...
9 Reasons Wired Readers Should Wear Tinfoil Hats David Kravets - November 24, 2011
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/reasons-to-wear-tinfoil-hats/#more-33429
summary
1) Warrantless Wiretapping - "The government refuses to acknowledge whether the National Security Agency is secretly siphoning the nation’s electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants... a former AT&T technician Mark Klein ... showed that AT&T had installed a secret spying room in an internet hub in San Francisco. The spying got so bad that Attorney General Ashcroft threatened to resign over it." Congress has repeatedly 'legalized' these actions and prevented lawsuits against telecoms from moving forward. Little-O voted for these actions as a Senator, later signed by W, and signed them as Prez.
2) Warrantless GPS Tracking - "The Obama administration claims Americans have no right to privacy in their public movements." This allows GPS transponders to be placed on vehicles indefinitely and without probable cause or warrant. (Would this also apply to tagging individuals?)
3) Tracking Devices in Your Pocket - "Once-secret software developed by a private company pretty much chronicles all you do on your smartphone and sends it to the carriers. The carriers themselves keep a wealth of information, such as text messages, call-location data, and PINs ... Law enforcement can get at much of that historical data — and often get real-time tracking information without proving probable cause to a judge."
4) Fake Cell Phone Towers - "The devices, about the size of a suitcase, spoof a legitimate cellphone tower in order to trick nearby cellphones and other wireless communication devices into connecting to the tower, as they would to a real cellphone tower. The government maintains that the stingrays don’t violate Fourth Amendment rights, since Americans don’t have a legitimate expectation of privacy for data sent from their mobile phones and other wireless devices to a cell tower."
5) The Border Exception - "The government argues, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court agrees that searching through a person’s laptop for copyright violations is no different than looking through their suitcase for cocaine — and thus fits squarely with what is known as the ‘border exception’ to the Fourth Amendment. That means a border agent doesn’t need reasonable suspicion, probable cause or even a hunch to open your laptop, seize it and make copies of your data."
6) The “6 Months and It’s the Government’s” Rule - The 1986 Electronic Communications Security Act allows unlimited access to e-mails more than 6mos old on servers. A recent proposal to require warrants was iced by the Senate and opposed by little-O.
7) The Patriot Act - At least 200,000 National Security Letters have been issued by the FBI since the Patriot Act was signed 6wks after 9/11. This provides all electronic data from any company, without a pesky court order, and prevents the company from disclosing they received a letter.
8) Government Malware - "The FBI’s version, the last time we checked, was called CIPAV. Once an FBI agent convinced a target to install it (by clicking an e-mail attachment or link on the web), the spyware reports back everything that computer does online."
9) Known Unknowns - Feel free to speculate what else is 'legally' allowed.
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... bringing up the fundamental difference between Law and Justice and how the former can act in opposition to the latter. How many times has an guilty individual walked because of legal technicalities? How many times have the innocent been convicted? How can laws, policies and mandates be 'legal' when they are in clear violation - most pointedly as the US's institutionalization of crimes against humanity?
All this is possible because many confuse law as justice, but justice is actually an ideal and law merely the attempt by societies to structure a means of achieving it. Of course law shouldn't be expected to achieve accurate justice - all the time, in the same way a painting/sculpture will never be exactly what the artist envisioned (see; Plato's Forms), but if law and the legal system becomes a means to avoid or assault justice, than they no longer deserves the respect and compliance of the society that created them to achieve justice.
To put in a way most Americans should understand, consider the System/Ideal parallel between Law/Justice and Government/Security spelled out over 200yrs ago;
"... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness), it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it ..."
9 Reasons Wired Readers Should Wear Tinfoil Hats David Kravets - November 24, 2011
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/reasons-to-wear-tinfoil-hats/#more-33429
summary
1) Warrantless Wiretapping - "The government refuses to acknowledge whether the National Security Agency is secretly siphoning the nation’s electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants... a former AT&T technician Mark Klein ... showed that AT&T had installed a secret spying room in an internet hub in San Francisco. The spying got so bad that Attorney General Ashcroft threatened to resign over it." Congress has repeatedly 'legalized' these actions and prevented lawsuits against telecoms from moving forward. Little-O voted for these actions as a Senator, later signed by W, and signed them as Prez.
2) Warrantless GPS Tracking - "The Obama administration claims Americans have no right to privacy in their public movements." This allows GPS transponders to be placed on vehicles indefinitely and without probable cause or warrant. (Would this also apply to tagging individuals?)
3) Tracking Devices in Your Pocket - "Once-secret software developed by a private company pretty much chronicles all you do on your smartphone and sends it to the carriers. The carriers themselves keep a wealth of information, such as text messages, call-location data, and PINs ... Law enforcement can get at much of that historical data — and often get real-time tracking information without proving probable cause to a judge."
4) Fake Cell Phone Towers - "The devices, about the size of a suitcase, spoof a legitimate cellphone tower in order to trick nearby cellphones and other wireless communication devices into connecting to the tower, as they would to a real cellphone tower. The government maintains that the stingrays don’t violate Fourth Amendment rights, since Americans don’t have a legitimate expectation of privacy for data sent from their mobile phones and other wireless devices to a cell tower."
5) The Border Exception - "The government argues, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court agrees that searching through a person’s laptop for copyright violations is no different than looking through their suitcase for cocaine — and thus fits squarely with what is known as the ‘border exception’ to the Fourth Amendment. That means a border agent doesn’t need reasonable suspicion, probable cause or even a hunch to open your laptop, seize it and make copies of your data."
6) The “6 Months and It’s the Government’s” Rule - The 1986 Electronic Communications Security Act allows unlimited access to e-mails more than 6mos old on servers. A recent proposal to require warrants was iced by the Senate and opposed by little-O.
7) The Patriot Act - At least 200,000 National Security Letters have been issued by the FBI since the Patriot Act was signed 6wks after 9/11. This provides all electronic data from any company, without a pesky court order, and prevents the company from disclosing they received a letter.
8) Government Malware - "The FBI’s version, the last time we checked, was called CIPAV. Once an FBI agent convinced a target to install it (by clicking an e-mail attachment or link on the web), the spyware reports back everything that computer does online."
9) Known Unknowns - Feel free to speculate what else is 'legally' allowed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... bringing up the fundamental difference between Law and Justice and how the former can act in opposition to the latter. How many times has an guilty individual walked because of legal technicalities? How many times have the innocent been convicted? How can laws, policies and mandates be 'legal' when they are in clear violation - most pointedly as the US's institutionalization of crimes against humanity?
All this is possible because many confuse law as justice, but justice is actually an ideal and law merely the attempt by societies to structure a means of achieving it. Of course law shouldn't be expected to achieve accurate justice - all the time, in the same way a painting/sculpture will never be exactly what the artist envisioned (see; Plato's Forms), but if law and the legal system becomes a means to avoid or assault justice, than they no longer deserves the respect and compliance of the society that created them to achieve justice.
To put in a way most Americans should understand, consider the System/Ideal parallel between Law/Justice and Government/Security spelled out over 200yrs ago;
"... That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness), it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it ..."