Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on December 13, 2005, 09:53:06 pm
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316/
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What can I say, people seem to want the increased security..this is part of the cost.
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Patrick Henry must be rolling in his grave.
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spinning more likely and spewing something smelly.
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O RLY?
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YA RLY!
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NO KIDDING.
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Pfff. The CIA has been doing that since the ****ing 40's. Germans, Japs, communists, hippies - any US citizen whose affiliations were counter to the regime.
And if I gave a **** about the US, I'd be more scared if they weren't spying on anti-war groups. They've got to try and keep recruitment figures up and the best way to do that is develop effective counter-strategies against the anti-war groups propaganda campaigns.
At worst, it's equivelant to corporate espionage.
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Gotta agree with An0n on this one, I can't believe this would come as a surprise to anyone, absolutely every government does something along these lines.
Of course, getting caught doing it is another matter, and I find it somewhat amusing ;)
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In other news:
Shock as Pope declares 'I am Catholic'.
Scientists declare after 5 years study; Bears do, indeed, **** in woods.
Just insert that good old Benjamin Franklin quote here about liberty security something something. Anyways, haven't you people heard of the PATRIOT act? And the ensuing record numbers of wiretaps?
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Patrick Henry must be rolling in his grave.
And McCarthy must be laughing in his.
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For the record, elements of the DoD, such as able danger, knew about terrorist cells in the US prior to 9/11 and the Clinton Administration, because of the exact sentiment displayed here, told them to STFU. Even funnier, members of the 9/11 Commission had direct involvement in this catastrophe. :mad:
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I know I am quite biased in this regaurd but, I wouldn't exactly put all "peace activists" in the same basket. There are your garden variety peace activists that are peaceful. Then you have these nut job fringe communist groups which are infact anarchists of the bad variety. Point is that maybe monitoring the these groups isn't all that bad. Everyone has their biases one way or another. Many of you, I think, assume that all anti-war groups are completely harmless.
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I think there are fringe elements or people that are borderline in just about every group.
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No more than we are certain that all pro-war groups are interested only in returning Democracy to Iraq, I can assure you.
As I said earlier, I'm not surprised or offended in the least by it, it would be foolish for a government not to monitor it's own dissent, ignoring it certainly won't change anything and can, when extreme elements are involved, be dangerous.
Personally, I can't see any situation where this kind of action wouldn't be required, but I suppose it depends to what level they are doing it. The example given is of a group of anti-war Quakers. Maybe these come under the blanket of religious extremists to the Pentagon, I'm not sure.
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For the record, elements of the DoD, such as able danger, knew about terrorist cells in the US prior to 9/11 and the Clinton Administration, because of the exact sentiment displayed here, told them to STFU. Even funnier, members of the 9/11 Commission had direct involvement in this catastrophe. :mad:
As always, you have no idea what you are talking about. Yeah, why not blame hurricane Katrina on Clinton too while you are at it? :rolleyes:
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I think there are fringe elements or people that are borderline in just about every group.
I am sure there are. There is the KKK example. The government strictly monitors their activities along with many other arian organizations in the US. Are their Civil Liberties being infringed upon, absolutly not. They are allowed to say what they want, and meet as they please. But, I am sure the intelligence officers at the Pentagon are just being thorough. They take their job very seriously.
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For the record, elements of the DoD, such as able danger, knew about terrorist cells in the US prior to 9/11 and the Clinton Administration, because of the exact sentiment displayed here, told them to STFU. Even funnier, members of the 9/11 Commission had direct involvement in this catastrophe. :mad:
As always, you have no idea what you are talking about. Yeah, why not blame hurricane Katrina on Clinton too while you are at it? :rolleyes:
As always you don't back up your obviously inflamatory comment. In response, I conjecture that you are the one that has "no idea" what he is talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger
I am certain it would be possible to blame Clinton Administration for some of what happened, but the whole response issue resides with the flagrantly irresponsible Bush administration. And in regaurds to 9/11, there are alot of organizations that ****ed up. I am sure plenny of blame can be brought to bear on the Bush Administration.
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I think there are fringe elements or people that are borderline in just about every group.
I am sure there are. There is the KKK example. The government strictly monitors their activities along with many other arian organizations in the US. Are their Civil Liberties being infringed upon, absolutly not. They are allowed to say what they want, and meet as they please. But, I am sure the intelligence officers at the Pentagon are just being thorough. They take their job very seriously.
Is there not a fundamental issue of who this investigation is directed against, though. It's one thing to assess an anti-governmental (either anti-party political, anti governmental system, etc) group, it's another to decide upon a prolonged surveillance and classify them as a threat, or store their data after they have been determined as peaceful. To be recording and storing simple peaceful political dissidence at protests, would raise a lot of questions as to why this information is being held.
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Well, it might be a simple issue of policy or law. They probably are not allow to simply destroy investigation material. For example, in the Acquisition and Procruement Office of the Pentagon, we have to keep the simplest contract for a total of 3 years after it has been closed. I suggest the same thing is at issue here with keeping data long after they are determined to be a non-threat.
I suggest, maybe they record the protests to see if they are infact peaceful. But then again, I haven't fully read the article.
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For the record, elements of the DoD, such as able danger, knew about terrorist cells in the US prior to 9/11 and the Clinton Administration, because of the exact sentiment displayed here, told them to STFU.
I notice you don't mention that Bush gave them no permission to start speaking in the 8 months he was president. :rolleyes:
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Well, it might be a simple issue of policy or law. They probably are not allow to simply destroy investigation material. For example, in the Acquisition and Procruement Office of the Pentagon, we have to keep the simplest contract for a total of 3 years after it has been closed. I suggest the same thing is at issue here with keeping data long after they are determined to be a non-threat.
I suggest, maybe they record the protests to see if they are infact peaceful. But then again, I haven't fully read the article.
The article notes data being kept on 230 protests after the event, and when they were declared 'not a threat' (“US group exercising constitutional rights.”), i.e. peaceful. Apparently data is also kept on the people and vehicles who attend these protests.
I believe, incidentally, that the reason Able Danger were barred from providing/keeping information on the likes of Atta was regulations against spying on civillians dating back to the Vietnam war era, and the outcry then from spying on peace activists and protestors.
Although it's worth noting from the wikipedia article itself that the evidence of identifying Atta, etc, could just be apocryphal; in particular Curt Weldon (who made the allegation IIRC) has recently restated he is no longer sure that he did in fact see Atta (on a chart; the chart itself also doesn't exist anymore). Pentagon officials (according to the Time report linked in the wikipedia article) deny Atta was ever identified by the group. So it's not a clear cut case as far as I can see; the absence of physical evidence could be either a coverup or simply that there isn't any.
But I have not seen any evidence so far that says, if there was a legal intervention to prevent use of said info (if it existed), that the reason for said legal intervention can be placed in any way upon the then Clinton government.
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I also ask if the bush administration was aware of the standing policy. But on the same token, you bring up a good point. Did they attempt to to inform the administration of this restriction in communication and why? Were they not heard? But the original policy was instituted by previous administration. I am not trying to simply give Bush any slack on the the issue either. But I think you and Kosh are missing the point, being worrying about civil liberties and public perceptions of surveilance sometimes needs to take a back seat when there is a "Clear and Present Danger." At the same time I don't suggest the type of extreme that LA's gang injuctions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_injunction) are known to be.
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But I think you and Kosh are missing the point, being worrying about civil liberties and public perceptions of surveilance sometimes needs to take a back seat when there is a "Clear and Present Danger."
Actually, that's exactly the point; the 'Clear and Present Danger' to our freedoms - that is, the inherent freedoms required of a democratic society with freedom of belief, speech, and under the eyes of the law - is from the fearmongering and legislation of so-called protective measures that in fact suspend, undermine, circumvent or just plain ignore the tenets of what we are supposed to be 'fighting for'.
At a time when the threat is deemed to be so large (even though it in all likelihood is not - but fear can be an effective political tool, as we can see in both the US and UK), surely it is the worst time to begin diminishing our civil liberties and human rights?
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Shock as Pope declares 'I am Catholic'.
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Considering the number of conspiracy nuts with too much time on their hands, Wikipedia can't be considered a reliable source of information.
It was a good idea originally, but if you let everyone contribute without filtering out the bull****, you end up with a lot of bull****.
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For the record, elements of the DoD, such as able danger, knew about terrorist cells in the US prior to 9/11 and the Clinton Administration, because of the exact sentiment displayed here, told them to STFU. Even funnier, members of the 9/11 Commission had direct involvement in this catastrophe. :mad:
As always, you have no idea what you are talking about. Yeah, why not blame hurricane Katrina on Clinton too while you are at it? :rolleyes:
To be honest I'm surprised the victims didn't blame Clinton :doubt: