Any ‘voluntary’ program coming from Congress needs to be very carefully watched. I promise it won’t be voluntary for long.
We must stand up and demand that Congress exit the business of monitoring and permanently storing extensive details and private communications of businesses and individuals in America.
They have played the “we can’t tell you what we know, but we need to act, act decisively, and it must be RIGHT NOW” card before. And what did we get? An 800Bn bailout that the Fed unilaterally expanded to 7 Trillion dollars–much of it to foreign corporations. We got things like Patriot Act I & II and an authorization for military force that includes every country in the world and will never end. We got things like a CIA-built network of secret torture prisons across the world that are still buzzing with activity to this very day. We got wars that most American’s don’t even know about– did you know we’re running active military campaigns in places like Somalia, the Phillippines, and Yemen?
This current drum beat– one which they are beating seemingly on a weekly basis now that they haven’t simply been handed all that they want– is about ‘cyber’ threats.
What this means– and let me be crystal clear here– this means the military wants access to, details of, and to receive copies of ALL INFORMATION about ALL NETWORKS whether public or private. They want “voluntary” information sharing about the content of those networks. EVERY SINGLE DATA POINT will be recorded, probably in the NSA’s currently under construction uber multi-billion dollar data center in the deserts of Utah, and retained indefinitely. Encryption is not a concern given the power and size of the computing machines inside. Plus, once they get even faster computers they will simply be able to go back and decrypt information at will. The result of all of this? The ultra secret intelligence agencies of the US which now operate far outside of Congressional or Presidential knowledge or control will have a complete information file about every person, every business, and every network in the US and abroad.
One doesn’t simply ‘nod’ and grant Congress approval to do something like this. We must not hand Congress a hammer and a box of nails with an accompanying instruction to nail shut the coffin containing our Constitutional Republic.
And to those of you that think “they are just good people keeping us safe from bad people, and I have nothing to hide so I have no qualms about being monitored,” I would recommend dedicating some of your free time to reading quality history books.
You might start with what the Soviets were doing in Poland in the lead-up to WWII. The Soviets used intelligence to figure out which men were the most likely to resist the planned Soviet take-over– in other words those people who were the most educated, most respected, and the freest-thinking upstanding members of society. These 50,000 or so of Poland’s finest were all eliminated. In actually very recent news it was finally confirmed that the U.S. did in fact know of this massacre back in the 30s but pretended not to since we needed Soviet help to fight the Germans.
So this is just one of a very long list of reasons why it is an atrociously bad idea to have secret government agencies compile very extensive dossiers on every single person which are retained indefinitely.
Think about this– what are the potential results if someone knew every web site you visited (and when and how often and what you did and saw on that web site), the contents of every email, text message, & phone call, your actual physical location history over extended periods of time (remember that retroactive immunity for the telcos??), your vehicle info and vehicle location history (via OnStar, RFID-enabled Toll Tags, license plate scanning stations, and intersection cameras), every book you’ve checked out at the library, everything you’ve ever bought with a credit card, and a complete picture of your social media networks.
What do you suppose a person or organization or government– or a malicious party who surrepticiously accessed such a database– could do with this information? They can do things like identify potential opposition supporters before the support manifests itself. They can identify and neutralize anyone emerging as a potential leader of any political or other undesirable opposition. They can easily categorize and sort the population into lists. Remember our disgraceful placement of Japanese-Americans into internment camps? How EASY would that be with a database like this!
And, once the people as a whole figure out the extent and risks of the surveillance state, the self-censorship and suppression of freedom of expression and ideas will be more stifling than a leaden blanket.
I think the best litmus test for any sort of planned or desired information-gathering or database building is to think about what a monstrous leader could and might be able to do with such power. What would Stalin look like with the Patriot Act? How would Hitler have used the ability to instantly know anything about anyone including their complete social networks and friends?
We need to stop playing with fire, and Congress needs to stop fearfully cowing to the Pentagon’s demands for ever more power.
Why is it that the Gov’t handles things in this manner? Instead of destroying the country from having access – we must give up our rights once again? This is hog wash! When there is a problem – handle the problem instead of making everyone else jump through hoops! We already do when we travel, when we drive, the Gov’t can see inside our houses if they want to. Its not about having nothing to hide – its about allowing us our privacy which is part of our rights as an American! Stop going to third world countries for commerce and lets worry about our own countries economy!
The U.S. government also detained all Japanese during WWII. They got that information from the census, information voluntarily provided by those people. Remember – the only thing required on the census is the number of people in your house. All information released to the government, can and will be used against you. Fight for your privacy!
We have beene beholden to China since forever. Jobs are continually shipped over there and our precious iphone is contructed there. Russia is reverting back to cold war tactics as Putin seems resolute in resurrecting the USSR at its worst.
Any ‘voluntary’ program coming from Congress needs to be very carefully watched. I promise it won’t be voluntary for long.
We must stand up and demand that Congress exit the business of monitoring and permanently storing extensive details and private communications of businesses and individuals in America.
They have played the “we can’t tell you what we know, but we need to act, act decisively, and it must be RIGHT NOW” card before. And what did we get? An 800Bn bailout that the Fed unilaterally expanded to 7 Trillion dollars–much of it to foreign corporations. We got things like Patriot Act I & II and an authorization for military force that includes every country in the world and will never end. We got things like a CIA-built network of secret torture prisons across the world that are still buzzing with activity to this very day. We got wars that most American’s don’t even know about– did you know we’re running active military campaigns in places like Somalia, the Phillippines, and Yemen?
This current drum beat– one which they are beating seemingly on a weekly basis now that they haven’t simply been handed all that they want– is about ‘cyber’ threats.
What this means– and let me be crystal clear here– this means the military wants access to, details of, and to receive copies of ALL INFORMATION about ALL NETWORKS whether public or private. They want “voluntary” information sharing about the content of those networks. EVERY SINGLE DATA POINT will be recorded, probably in the NSA’s currently under construction uber multi-billion dollar data center in the deserts of Utah, and retained indefinitely. Encryption is not a concern given the power and size of the computing machines inside. Plus, once they get even faster computers they will simply be able to go back and decrypt information at will. The result of all of this? The ultra secret intelligence agencies of the US which now operate far outside of Congressional or Presidential knowledge or control will have a complete information file about every person, every business, and every network in the US and abroad.
One doesn’t simply ‘nod’ and grant Congress approval to do something like this. We must not hand Congress a hammer and a box of nails with an accompanying instruction to nail shut the coffin containing our Constitutional Republic.
And to those of you that think “they are just good people keeping us safe from bad people, and I have nothing to hide so I have no qualms about being monitored,” I would recommend dedicating some of your free time to reading quality history books.
You might start with what the Soviets were doing in Poland in the lead-up to WWII. The Soviets used intelligence to figure out which men were the most likely to resist the planned Soviet take-over– in other words those people who were the most educated, most respected, and the freest-thinking upstanding members of society. These 50,000 or so of Poland’s finest were all eliminated. In actually very recent news it was finally confirmed that the U.S. did in fact know of this massacre back in the 30s but pretended not to since we needed Soviet help to fight the Germans.
So this is just one of a very long list of reasons why it is an atrociously bad idea to have secret government agencies compile very extensive dossiers on every single person which are retained indefinitely.
Think about this– what are the potential results if someone knew every web site you visited (and when and how often and what you did and saw on that web site), the contents of every email, text message, & phone call, your actual physical location history over extended periods of time (remember that retroactive immunity for the telcos??), your vehicle info and vehicle location history (via OnStar, RFID-enabled Toll Tags, license plate scanning stations, and intersection cameras), every book you’ve checked out at the library, everything you’ve ever bought with a credit card, and a complete picture of your social media networks.
What do you suppose a person or organization or government– or a malicious party who surrepticiously accessed such a database– could do with this information? They can do things like identify potential opposition supporters before the support manifests itself. They can identify and neutralize anyone emerging as a potential leader of any political or other undesirable opposition. They can easily categorize and sort the population into lists. Remember our disgraceful placement of Japanese-Americans into internment camps? How EASY would that be with a database like this!
And, once the people as a whole figure out the extent and risks of the surveillance state, the self-censorship and suppression of freedom of expression and ideas will be more stifling than a leaden blanket.
I think the best litmus test for any sort of planned or desired information-gathering or database building is to think about what a monstrous leader could and might be able to do with such power. What would Stalin look like with the Patriot Act? How would Hitler have used the ability to instantly know anything about anyone including their complete social networks and friends?
We need to stop playing with fire, and Congress needs to stop fearfully cowing to the Pentagon’s demands for ever more power.
Why is it that the Gov’t handles things in this manner? Instead of destroying the country from having access – we must give up our rights once again? This is hog wash! When there is a problem – handle the problem instead of making everyone else jump through hoops! We already do when we travel, when we drive, the Gov’t can see inside our houses if they want to. Its not about having nothing to hide – its about allowing us our privacy which is part of our rights as an American! Stop going to third world countries for commerce and lets worry about our own countries economy!
The U.S. government also detained all Japanese during WWII. They got that information from the census, information voluntarily provided by those people. Remember – the only thing required on the census is the number of people in your house. All information released to the government, can and will be used against you. Fight for your privacy!
And who was it the fired the first shot in this Cyber War? Remember Stuxnet? If not, look up Stuxnet on Wikipedia.
We reap what we sow.
We have beene beholden to China since forever. Jobs are continually shipped over there and our precious iphone is contructed there. Russia is reverting back to cold war tactics as Putin seems resolute in resurrecting the USSR at its worst.
Is this why Romney wants to give $200B more to the military if elected? I say NO! Gobama 2012!
I’m voting for Uncle Floyd
You might as well just stay home then.