Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on February 24, 2008, 02:27:48 pm
-
Wiretapping has resumed (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2229053420080224)
-
"Although our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the ongoing uncertainty and have indicated they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists," the statement said.
At least the telecomm companies might be growing a spine. I just hope they flat out refuse to continue the program when they get the chance. It's just completely unnecessary for the government to be sticking its nose in everywhere they **** well please.
On a side note...The ad at the top of the screen asks, "Is your love cheating on you?" :lol:
-
Well now you have a way to find out! :p
-
So wait a second, the phone companies decided to comply with an illegal order that could potentially lose them business amongst the net savvy to encrypted VOIP products rather than comply with the law as it stands?
-
Day for day, I hear of something more that makes me think even more of you americans being poor bastards under a terrible regime. Except for the ****ing pro-Bush morons of course which I wish hell and a 3 meter wide anal probe to them. Oh yeah, a 500 °C hot probe.
With spikes.
Rigged spikes.
Of doom +4.
-
Funny, I think the same of the British, not in any offensive way of course.
I mean it seems like they're banning things left and right.
-
Funny, I think the same of the British, not in any offensive way of course.
I mean it seems like they're banning things left and right.
Just following America's lead......
-
Careful now, don't start a war here :P
-
Now when I need to voice my opinion to the president... I'll just pick up the phone :D
-
Makes you think...i wonder what bush's phone number is? :D
-
Makes you think...i wonder what bush's phone number is? :D
1-800-IMF-UKED
-
555-NUK-ULER
-
1-888-KIL-IRAQ
-
666-BOM-IRAN
-
"What will you do, when i am through with you?
I'll bomb another country thats nastier then you!!"
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb iraq...
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb KABOOM!!!"
-
So wait a second, the phone companies decided to comply with an illegal order that could potentially lose them business amongst the net savvy to encrypted VOIP products rather than comply with the law as it stands?
You surprised...Democracy and the current society as they are (in the west) are killing the drive of the people.
When you her in the news "President misusing power! Government spying on us! The war we fighting is illegal!" and you're average citizen goes "Meh" and switches the channel to watch the latest reality show - democracy is in coma already.
People are becoming inert and used to being f*** by the government. In a dictatorship at least you know where you stand :doubt:
-
People being inert, I'm used to. A major corporation bending over to take it in the arse from the government I'm less used to.
-
People being inert, I'm used to. A major corporation bending over to take it in the arse from the government I'm less used to.
Yeah thats a good point...with all of the talk of the corporation forming the dominant cultural hegemony it seems that quite a few corporations have been given the smack down old fashioned national government style. I'm hoping that the wiretapping thing is just a phase and they will be out of it soon by electing a more rational government to replace it who might have some actual good ideas about security.
-
Elaborate on these "good ideas for security" please. I'm curious.
-
As you see, even democracy goes down the drain.
COMMUNISM FTW
-
Funny, I think the same of the British, not in any offensive way of course.
I mean it seems like they're banning things left and right.
Just because somethings banned, soesn't mean we're gonna do what we're told you know? :pimp:
No smoking ban for example, my office bods seem to have developed an immunity to security telling them off.
:nod:
Asbo's will be Asbo's and i guarantee we are less socially compliant by nature than other developed countries. ;)
-
As you see, even democracy goes down the drain.
COMMUNISM FTW
There is no proper way to run a country, there will always be a sufficient amount of people opposing the government in some way.
Anarchy FTW.
-
no, anarchy ftw
-
Post nuclear zombie society ftw.
-
no, anarchy ftw
Thats what i said...
-
Elaborate on these "good ideas for security" please. I'm curious.
In short...because I'm not an expert...stop wasting money on pointless things like beefing up the Canada/US border and spend it on port security and local effort measures like more resources for local police and emergency responders. Maybe spend some of that money on bringing industry back to the US so that the ports aren't so overloaded and security can go up because more crates are being checked. If you were leading the country I'd expect them to have a more far reaching plan...some of which is not immediately obvious as a direct security effort but has a long term gain. Foreign policy included.
-
Well democracy now a days is worse then a dictatorship. Personaly im almost starting to wish for a return to dictatorship over here. At least there a ihad a few more right then i do now under a democracy. And a job security.
Man with america and the uk banning more and more rights from the ppl how can they even have the nerve to say to other countries that they should respect the rights of the ppl. With all due respect miss Rice and mister Bush but f*** off. Human right and **** like that well because they respected too many human rights they got theyr own population into a world of hurt.
Hey muslam dude or any other citizen that is not a cristian or the works you get probed even in the arse to see if you have any bombs there. They should of done beating interogations of the bastards every supected one to get the truth out of them. sure you will say im crazy but how can you aknoledge the right of all these ppl while at the same time taking more awy from your own and causing harm to your own ppl because you dont have the backbone to rip the skin off the bloodi bastards that bommbed one of your schools or hospitals or other stuff like that.
Also isnt wire tapping suposed to be a vialation of some sort of privacy laws even some sort of constitutional rights???
-
People are just embarassed about the fact that the government heard over the phone how badly they want to **** their girlfriend. What really over the phone are you saying that matters? Unless you're a terrorist i think you're scot free. Then you can go back on the phone talking to someone how badly you want to **** your girlfriend...this time not embarassed. Think about internet usage at the same time as well. People know what you're doing on the net all the time, where you go, and what you download. You're isp does, people who make advertisements do, search engines especially know what you do, yahoo does, RIAA, MPAA...etc. Is the phonecall thing really that bad? I mean ****, a whole bunch of higher up people know how much you want to **** your girlfriend even before you said it on the phone. :nod:
-
Its not that ! Its the fact that pretty soon you wont even be able to think anithing that goes agains gouverment policy. You know the old sayng today they steal and egg tomorow they steal a horse.
Pretty soon american citizens will be nothing more then brainless fat burger eating cola drinking idiotic zombies who know and think what the gouverment tells them to think. Personaly i dont really give a crap but the problem is other countries such as mine are actualy starting to pull the same bulls*** over here. And that bothers me. Hell il blow the house of parliament before i end up a brainless idiot who thinks the gouverment is mother the gouverment is father hell why bother with that il just move to antarctica at least there il be a bit more free.....zing..:P.
But then again lets just hope ppl over here grow a spine and actualy start demang\ding theyr rights. :D
Ore better yet just blow every politician you can get your hand onm cuz they are all teh same to me. whis is no good.
This gives me an idea for brainwashing politicians to actualy do stuff for the ppl they were aelected to represent......i wonder if that will work???
Thats wishfull thinking aint it??
-
Who cares, everyone knows everything that you do on the net already. Why is phonecalls different? IM, email, blogging, there really just nothing more than cooler ways to do your phonecalls.
-
Its not that ! Its the fact that pretty soon you wont even be able to think anithing that goes agains gouverment policy. You know the old sayng today they steal and egg tomorow they steal a horse.
The only problem is that there aren't enough jails and police officers for the government to arrest everyone talking against it.
Pretty soon american citizens will be nothing more then brainless fat burger eating cola drinking idiotic zombies who know and think what the gouverment tells them to think. Personaly i dont really give a crap but the problem is other countries such as mine are actualy starting to pull the same bulls*** over here. And that bothers me. Hell il blow the house of parliament before i end up a brainless idiot who thinks the gouverment is mother the gouverment is father hell why bother with that il just move to antarctica at least there il be a bit more free.....zing..:P.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
This gives me an idea for brainwashing politicians to actualy do stuff for the ppl they were aelected to represent......i wonder if that will work???
Great idea. I'll start researching some brainwashing techniques and hypnosis, you get a soundproof room and some rope ready.
-
I live pretty close to the antarctic circle. Yeah we got freedom up here :yes:
-
People are just embarassed about the fact that the government heard over the phone how badly they want to **** their girlfriend. What really over the phone are you saying that matters? Unless you're a terrorist i think you're scot free. Then you can go back on the phone talking to someone how badly you want to **** your girlfriend...this time not embarassed. Think about internet usage at the same time as well. People know what you're doing on the net all the time, where you go, and what you download. You're isp does, people who make advertisements do, search engines especially know what you do, yahoo does, RIAA, MPAA...etc. Is the phonecall thing really that bad? I mean ****, a whole bunch of higher up people know how much you want to **** your girlfriend even before you said it on the phone. :nod:
Ah, the old you have nothing to worry about if you aren't a criminal defence. Do you really need it explained that governments and individual law enforcement officers can easily abuse the system without a proper system of checks and balances?
No one is saying the government shouldn't have the power to do wiretaps. Simply that they should have to make a case why they are doing it rather than listening in to anyone who takes their fancy.
-
They can really do as they please with the wiretaps. It's a little extreme for extra protection to make sure we don't have anything gay like home grown terrorits happening. But, do they actually find people who need to be arrested from listening to phonecalls? I know i'm not going to get arrested for talking on the phone. Hell probably none of us will be, because we don't really hold any risks that would weed us out from the rest of the population when the government listens to our phonecalls. Another way of interpretting the situation is that only the people who have something to hide will be complaining about the wiretaps. However that's a little much to say and i'm sure people will get extremely pissed off at me. We americans already don't have that much privacy in our lives, especially on the internet (on the net everyone has the same amount of privacy). Does it really matter "if" the government happens to be listening to your phonecalls? They're just waisting their money and time in listening to my calls. I guess i should be extremely pissed off about that because what a waste of money, but since i don't care as much as any other citizen shouldn't care about the wiretaps (unless they got something to hide and that could be a reason why they're *****ing). But, yet again, who cares, the next presidential election is so near. Now's a great time to not care as opposed to when the wiretapping started.
Then again with a president like bush, we can't really control some things like him proposing and doing the wiretaps. He'll just use the money freely for getting something done, and based on that decision since we are all taxpayers, should we still not care? Perhaps over the things that we can't change currently. But, really again, who really cares, it's wasted horsepower or not, we don't really know, they're not going to tell us the results of the wiretapping. Perhaps over the phone they'll tell us how much a certain percentage of the population really wants to **** their girlfriends. Now see that's a good effort for people right there, get so many of the population on the phone at the same time just talking about how much they want to **** their girlfriends, and maybe the government listening people will have finally found something consistent and just maybe have a good laugh. Maybe even post the statistics on the news about how much people want their significant others :lol:
Sure the system can be abused. I guess that's all people will want to pay attention to here as opposed to which system is being abused. Then maybe they'll make their case next time, and maybe they wont, we don't know when there'll be another situation like this in future history. Next thing you know, the system's being abused because the secret service have the right to take service ****s in public when escorting the president. That'll definitely keep people away from the president when he's escorted, except for those who must have an agenda because they can't stay away from the smell of **** in open air when the president does something.
-
The "I have nothing to hide" defense is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Seriously, when the police haul you off, do you think the "I didn't think it was bad" defense is going to hold up?
The government decides who it will arrest and for what reasons. Talk about blowing up the White House, get arrested. Talk about doing harm to US politicans, get hauled off. Eventually they'll take you away for just making stupid anti-Bush jokes over the phone if someone doesn't stop this.
Look, as a member of the US military, I don't believe in dropping our guard or banning wiretapping, but there are more sensible measures we can take to ensure security.
1) Secure the southern border. Build a wall, deploy the National Guard from all the border states, tell Mexico to close the border to all but commercial trade, whatever. We're so exposed at the border that I'm more worried about terrorists slipping in through there than at JFK or LAX. Speaking of...
2) Sensible airport security. Patting down 85 year old ladies in wheelchairs isn't security, it's stupidity. Having people take off all of their shoes/belts/anything with a zipper isn't security, it's insanity. Yes, metal objects should come out of pockets, and your backpacks should go through a screener, but it's just gotten ridiculous.
3) If we have to wiretap, go through FISA. Seriously, it exists for a reason. We can wiretap 100% legally, if we only took the time to go through the court systems. Reagan said nothing in a democracy should ever be done in secret, and I 150% agree with that, especially when it comes to home defense.
-
Don't ever...ever...ever...fall back on the ideal that "I have nothing to hide so I have nothing to fear" idea. They will keep moving the goal posts back until they will get you for something. To use the previously used example "****ing your girlfriend"...well what if the laws are changed...that is totally illegal (and if it was a theocracy then it very well could be) and you'll now be hauled off.
Rights, freedoms, privacy, and security are tough concepts and the people who formed countries like the US and Canada were pretty intent on protecting all of these things. Trading the first three for security is a bad idea. Doesn't mean we roll over and play dead either so that is not a counter argument. Balance has to be maintained.
-
No what i said is not so retarded. Basically we don't know really what we will say that will tip off the wire tapping listeners. Aside from the obvious terrorist stuff. And with that going on you might as well just live your every day life. If any of us get hauled off for some random reason because of something we said on the phone like how much we want to **** our girlfriends or something, well that's really something that we can't foresee and or predict. If you do get hauled off for having an average conversation with one of your friends on the phone, well then that's life. For now basically we don't know what we will say on the phone that will tip off wire tapping listeners. It's unkown goal posts currently you are talking about right now. The best known theoretical goal post that we know of is talking about plotting terrorism on the phone. That's probably an obvious one, there's definitely others that we don't know. It's not that you should go around with the "i've got nothing to hide" stuff, you really don't know what you'll get hauled off for. So why not just try continuing daily business in the mean time until this wire tapping problem gets solved.
As far as that goes, i guess nobody here cares about how much less privacy they have compared to a phone when using the internet :) I'm not trying to switch the topic, it's just a point of realization. The US government does crack down on internet spawned terrorism as well. And since we're talking about a major form of communication technology here, then why shouldn't the internet apply as well. People very well could get hauled off for whatever the **** they post on their blog or even myspace, maybe even emails that have been sent?
-
You are the cancer that is killing democracy.
-
The "I have nothing to hide" defense is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Seriously, when the police haul you off, do you think the "I didn't think it was bad" defense is going to hold up?
The government decides who it will arrest and for what reasons. Talk about blowing up the White House, get arrested. Talk about doing harm to US politicans, get hauled off. Eventually they'll take you away for just making stupid anti-Bush jokes over the phone if someone doesn't stop this.
Rampart paranoia. They will never do that. There aren't enough jails IN THE WORLD, let alone in the US for all the people badmouthing Bush.
And there's a limit to thing they can do. They can't arrest for telling Bush jokes.. There aren't enough courts and lawyers to process all that. You're jumping the gun from wiretapping to total dictatorship. Police still needs grounds to arrest you. They still need valid charges that will hold up at court.
And you still got enough media and independent organizations that will put the heat on them if they f** up.
-
For now.
-
How about not spending billions of dollars on security theater - at ports, airports, borders etc. as well as on wiretapping and data mining - and more money on actual anti-terrorist operations.
Which is plain old bribing agents in source countries, plain old detective work. How about a foreign policy, that accepts the fact the it's a product of long term negotiations and therefore seeks to create stable relationships based on mutual interest. Long term coexistence will lead to understanding and trust.
You can't bully or force the world into that - not while while trying to maintain a virginal facade of righteous and noble intervention. If there's a place for the counter pressure to escape, it will. Only total (and therefore totalitarian) show of force can bring about such massive changes. Unfortunately this tends to be you plain old genocide since a lot of people are *that* inflexible.
-
Yes, Trashman, because I forgot all the Gitmo detainees that are getting lawyers. My mistake, of course the government wouldn't arrest someone on terrorism charges without a trial.
Oh wait.
Patriot Act. That's right.
This isn't paranoia, this is a rational fear based on what the government has been doing in my country.
And no amount of independent media or third party sources can change the fact that 75% of the 300 million American people just don't give **** enough/know any better to do anything to stop it. CNN, MSNBC, and all the newspapers in the country can scream bloody murder all they want, but there are still those who want to spread the "evil liberal media out to destroy America" bull**** and have the people blow off all of the warning signs of a police state.
Bomb al-Qaeda back into the stone age, put a bullet in Osama's brainpan, clamp al-Zarqawi in leg irons and cage him like an animal for the rest of his natural ****ing life, fine. Don't betray your countrymen's trust and fear and make them all guilty until proven innocent.
And no, at the rate the government is expanding its anti-terrrorism powers, we may be at a point soon where there won't be any checks or balances left to stop them. I'm not saying we should kill our domestic terror investigations or hogtie our police forces, but we have got to get a sensible head on our shoulders about these matters. Wiretaps have stopped domestic terror plots and led to the capture of CIA moles before, and they can be done legally. What Bush has done is violate checks and balances on his power (there, see? already disappearing) by going around the courts to wiretap our citizens.
I don't really appreciate the naïve "It can't happen here, that's all stuff for fiction". It very well can, and it is happening. And it needs to stop, now.
-
Fiction may be 'made up', but it is made up based around what we know, yes, the society in '1984' by Orwell was an exaggeration, and deliberately so, it was to emphasise the plight of the main character, but the society it is built in, even if a caricature of a Police State, is still based on a real and tangible possibility. Just like the story for Bioshock is not, in any way, factual, and yet is also a caricature of a society built purely upon the extremely capitalist views of Ayn Rand.
It's not just today that we have to concern ourselves with, say you are a staunch Republican and you are perfectly accepting of wiretapping as authorised by a Republican President. What happens if Obama gets in next time? You'll see a massive swing of opinion between the party supporters, all of a sudden it'll be those 'evil liberal Democrats, trying to move the Government into my front room'. And that's a best-case scenario.
It's not a question of what you have to hide really, it's a question of what will you have to hide in the future, the potential for a government to abuse that kind of surveillance, and the likelihood of them doing so is too great.
-
Rampart paranoia. They will never do that. There aren't enough jails IN THE WORLD, let alone in the US for all the people badmouthing Bush.
The RIAA will never sue anyone for music piracy. There aren't enough courts IN THE WORLD for all the people downloading music.
-
Rampart paranoia. They will never do that. There aren't enough jails IN THE WORLD, let alone in the US for all the people badmouthing Bush.
Fun fact: The United States has the largest prison population in the world. 2.1 million, to be exact. That's more than 1% of the entire population behind bars. That's not because of rising crime, but rather harsher punishments, too.