What is Digg?133 Comments
- stonebear, on 10/12/2007, -9/+132Apparently not when the government is the bad guys. ;^)
- burtonbe, on 10/12/2007, -5/+104I think we should employ surveillance technology against the government.
Install a small system in all police cruisers, which records data from existing systems to a small disc, which must be turned in at the end of a shift.
Police Chief: "It says here you were doing 10 over the speed limit with your lights and siren on, but you didn't make any radio calls or arrests."
Sergeant: "...well you see Chief, we were on our way to a very important..."
Police Chief: "donut shop according the GPS logs. You're on suspension."
That would be sweet. Why isn't this happening? - itsallgeektome, on 10/12/2007, -2/+91I think anyone advocating surveillance to "protect us" should have made all of their phone records public (including voice recordings), library records, video rentals etc. etc.
I mean, they have nothing to hide right? Lead by example or STFU. - arula, on 10/12/2007, -7/+66I always wondered why the gov would want to watch people who have nothing to hide. Shouldn't we be watching the bad guys?
- babylonian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+35It's good that Wired is at least one media outlet looking out for us.
- Elxx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29Sweet, every time I call a friend now, I'll go "Saddam WMD Terror attack 9-11 white house...Hello!"
Let's see how long before somebody shows up mysteriously at my door. - Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25"I think I read somewhere before that they have voice recognition software that are activated when a combonation of words are said during a conversation( examples: 9-11, saddam, bomb, taliban)"
...which doesn't seem very useful against people actually planning an attack, because they know to use code words. It would flag innocent people discussing the subject, though -- such as your post, and this one quoting it. - zweben, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20Great idea.
If they heistate, i'm sure the government would be more than glad to help out. - shawnz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Searches on wired are logged by the government. ;)
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19They do the things they do because they can. If you allow them to freely wire-tap people, without getting the warrents required by law, they will.
It's time to stand up, go to the window and wave your fist and say: "I'm made as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore". That's how I feel, and I'm 16 - people that can actually vote should be more up-in-arms than I am, but it appears that this is not the case. It's sad actually. - evilbob333, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23I'm going to go out on a limb here...but I don't think the bad guys are wearing their bad guy uniforms with bad guy badges like they are supposed to.
- sandrat44, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17@ webXL
How? you do your job. How do cops go after drug crews on the street? They have undercover agents, informants, investigate leads, get warrants and start collecting intelligence. Find the head, other connections, then take the whole operation down when they have the evidence that can stand up in a court of law.
Let me put it this way: Did you know you can't even joke about anything remotely hinting at terrorism at the airport? If they even hear you talking and take it the wrong way - out come the latex gloves and you are thoroughly searched - and it should be that way in an airport - can't take any chances there.
Now, by saying you'd be OK with government listening to you for security sake, that same thing going on at the airport could happen, but now it'd be at work, walking in the street, at the grocery store, while you talk on the phone, e-mailing a buddy, or here on digg. If they get it wrong and take what you say - even here on digg - out of context, I wonder what tune you'd be singing when they are investigating you and interogating you for hours to see what you meant? Or, I wonder how many of your neighbors or co-workers might not start acting weirded out around you because yesterday an FBI agent was asking questions about you but not saying why. Not knowing why, they'd wonder to themselves: is he/she a drug dealer? a child molester? criminal - then that neighbor/co-worker talks to others and soon the whole story is twisted and quietly your are branded. And do you think you'd have the money to pay lawers to correct this "mistake"?
Willy nilly just listening on anyone they want won't cut it. It's against the law and not a power given under The Consitution. This administration would do better supporting law enforcement, and the CIA. Quit blaming them for the mistakes the administration made in ignoring them. Many agents know what to do and are extremely proud of what they do, but nothing is more like a kick in the teeth to them when an administration comes in does not like the bureaucrats in charge and tries to shake things up, buy choking funding, putting their own cronies in, re-roganizing and putting another layer of bueauracracy on top of them, and basically punishing all for the wrongs of few. The agents knew something was going down, and were ignored. They knew what was going on in Iraq and were ignored. Even worse, the administration let leak the identity of one of the government's top secret agents??? And now the very same people we need to rely on to carry out their jobs and existing laws are at an all time low in morale, and have to do their jobs with both hands tied behind their backs while blind-folde.
So... that's how it's done my friend. You get to have your privacy respected and are more secure from enemies both foreign and domestic.
Now that I've said my 2 cents - I'll either get buried on digg or have my butt investigated or heaven forbid, both! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16Very well written. It will be interesting to see how the NSA spying on us will eventually turn out.
+Digg - edverb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Really, who's acting like they have somthing to hide? At various times, here's what Bush administration officials have said about domestic spying, NSA wiretaps, data mining, all this Fourth Amendment busting stuff they're supposedly doing for your safety.
Bush: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order."
When first he addressed the issue, Bush said that Congress gave him this authority in the Authorization to Use Military Force in Afghanistan. Not so. Look it up -- not only is there nothing in there about domestic operations, it was actually considered and REJECTED by Congress then, and rejected again when the debate over Total Information Awareness came up.
Alberto Gonzales compared the datamining and wiretapping of American citizens without a warrant to actions taken by George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Imagine that.
Dick Cheney and Bush have both said that the program was only focused on overseas calls, then they said that it was one end orignating overseas, now they admit it's with both ends in the US. Karl Rove has suggested that Democrats don't want to wiretap al Queda, and Gen. Hayden suggested that if they'd had this in place, they could have prevented 9/11.
They have all said that FISA was too slow in granting warrants. It turns out that they can tap first and get a warrant later. They said that it was too hard to get a warrant. It turns out that the court has only denied a whopping total of five requests of the tens of thousands they've looked at since the 1970s. It's a rubber stamp.
They claimed to have "briefed the Congress" but really they only briefed a handful of members, who were bound to secrecy even over their objections.
Every single on of these statements they have made were misleading at best or outright lies at worst.
The CRS has said that their so-called justifications had no legal merit. But the CRS is not a court. FISA judges have protested, some have even resigned over this. In every case where the issues raised could be adjudicated, the Bush administration has made it impossible for the case to be heard in a court of law to determine it's legality -- either they've had their allies blocking Senate legislation, or they've invoked state secrets to prevent the evidence from being aired in court, or they've simply classified the victim's identities and gotten the courts to deny a hearing to anyone who's affected, on the grounds that the fact that they are affected is classified.
So ask yourself, who is acting like they have something to hide?
They want it secret from even our own secret courts, they want the evidence to be buried (by selective classification), and they want to operate without the oversight of Congress, even in closed session. Bush acted illegally in violation of his oath and the Constitution, by ordering the NSA to break the FISA law.
And here's my opinion on that -- One, if you don't have a problem with the President breaking the law (given his massive ability to ask for changes to the law, as he should need to meet new challenges), you have no business calling yourself a patriot.
Secondly, if you trust ANYONE, be they from any political party, with this much unchecked power, you may as well move to North Korea.
If you're not concerned about your own freedoms...fine. There are plenty of places in the world where you can live under the arbitrary power of a single man, or a group of men. You wanna live in that country, fine. Don't dare screw with mine. That doesn't just include the Second Amendment, but the Fourth too, and all the others. - treed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14You realize that SBC and AT&T are the same company, right?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14the government sure loves to waste our hard-earned tax-paying money on irrelevant matters. they're wasting our money as if it magically grows from trees.
- Silencer7, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I can't escape the conclusion that all of this is simply because the watchers have so much to hide. It's much easier for them to find leakers, whistleblowers, influential opposition figures and protest leaders if they have full access to everyone's communications, all the time. Having to get individual wiretap privileges approved by a judge each time exposes the process to too much scrutiny and risk of exposure. If this was really about stopping terrorists they'd have no trouble at all getting each instance approved. What they are trying to push through, and have nearly gotten away with, is the ability to snoop, identify, discredit, blackmail, and neutralize opponents.
- theLEGENDisBACK, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Ive said this before, The Government wants to build bars around you and try to convice you there keeping you safe and not caged in... I dont trust or believe one word the government says.***** EM
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12They should also have to have fiscal responcibility, just like everyone of us has to do. Imagine if I tried buying a car with money I didn't have. I can't do it, so why can they?
- Homunculiheaded, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12@mirunit Perpetual surveillance without knowing when exactly you are being watch forces the individual to internalize authority. Soon they watch themselves. see- panopticon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PanopticonnPeople talk about the impossibility of monitoring the actions of 300 million people and then accurately processing that information. But that is a pointless argument because the real aim is to internalize that watching eye, to watch yourself. The monitoring the general population will never be about capturing terrorists, but about controlling the general population with very little effort and no confrontation.
- argoff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11"A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right."
This quote struck me as funny, because doesn't the constitution also say:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. - mirunit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Well technically it does grow on trees, we keep printing more and more with nothing to back it up - and the government borrows from other countries who are already in debt (Japan mostly and China too) considering Japan is over 100% of its GDP in debt how much sense does it make for us to borrow from them. I have come to the conclusion that debt matters not because almost every 1st world country has +30% or more of their GDP is debt.
- mirunit, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17How would they keep track of 300 million people, all on an individual level to determine if they are "bad guys" or not.
- elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15"Sweet, every time I call a friend now, I'll go "Saddam WMD Terror attack 9-11 white house...Hello!"
Let's see how long before somebody shows up mysteriously at my door."
Already tried it. Every day, I write an email to somebody about MY PLANS TO KILL THE PRESIDENT ON MEMORIAL DAY ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE WHITE HOUSE. Still, nobody's confronted me about MY PLANS TO BOMB THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE ON THE 12th OF JUNE or MY PLANS TO KILL THE PRESIDENT. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Enjoy the police state, you deserve it.
- alphacoder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9No Chicken, if you are upset, you can do quite a lot. For starters, you can volunteer - along with a handful of your friends - at a local congressional candidate's office who shares your views. You can also make this a talking point in your school and social circles and ensure that in two years, you and your classmates register to vote and then vote in an informed manner. I know none of these things might seem earth-shaking but they can make a qualitative difference in your life and enrich our political process.
- will42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9at Homunculiheaded: This is very true. Taking a historical example, most people when studying the Gestapo are surprised to find how few agents there were actually in the field - just thirty-thousand, at the organisation's peak, for the whole of Germany. Any success they had have relied on willing cooperation from the people. If you have propaganda reinforcing an atmosphere of oppression - that you *are* being watched at all times - the government doesn't have to have a man on every corner (or a tap on every phone in this case), only create the impression that they do. Thus self-censorship, as you've said; there wouldn't be too much of the turning-your-colleague in in this field.. one hopes.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+16I think I read somewhere before that they have voice recognition software that are activated when a combonation of words are said during a conversation( examples: 9-11, saddam, bomb, taliban)
- iSEPIC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Technically, the US money is made of cotton/linen, not paper, so it doesn't grow on trees.
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I never said that I'm not doing anything, just that I couldn't vote. On a side note, my parents agree with the wiretapping because "We have nothing to hide, so what do we care". Most people just don't care about the law - unless they can use it to their advantage. That's why I am saddened.
- Silencer7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Amendment IX says that the people have more rights than are given to them in the Constitution(which includes, I'm fairly certain, all other Amendments), and Amendment X says that the federal government only gets the rights specifically listed to it.
So if rights listed for the people = X and rights listed for the national government = Y and all range of mutually exclusive rights = Z, then
People(and their state/local representatives, I suppose) have X+Z-Y, and the national government just has Y.
Right? - edverb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"Give me liberty or give me death." - Patrick Henry
- critic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Gosh you'd really think so wouldn't you. But remember how J.Edgar Hoover was just fascinated with Martin Luther Kings sex life.
...and for those of you who think the Kennedy's and Dems are above it all...
"Attorney General Bobby Kennedy personally approved FBI wiretaps to make sure that King stuck to strategies and associations that suited ruling class interests. The FBI gathered tapes of King's sexual activities--a tactic they had refined for controlling people through blackmail and destroying them through public scandal."
Sexcrime - 1984 - Euryithmics - ajb2015, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Dugg for being ***** right. Jesus, it's time people understood this. It shouldn't be that hard to ***** grasp. I'm sorry, too many fellow Americans piss me off.
- boredzo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7treed: The turning over of call logs to NSA began in 2004, before SBC and AT&T merged.
- justinvt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Mike,
Lot's of stuff on Digg is not explicitly tech news, and because the surveillance techniques have a lot to do with technology (monitoring internet traffic, wiretappping, video surveillance, facial recognition, etc) it is certainly relevant to Digg content. Just my opinion.
Justin - critic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Whenever I sit down at a pc to use the web [ and I've thought this way for the last 10-12 years ] I consider *everything" that I type to be a matter of public record. I have zero illusions of privacy. And the really funny thing is I'm not a Luddite, but a dyed in the wool techhead. When the ATT/NSA thing finally came out, I just nodded my head and thought hmmm ***** I was right again. Yup me and the rest of the tin foil hat crowd are just sitting here quietly watching the world self destruct. NBC4 News Los Angeles Tuesday 11pm.
- gocleaver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Not sure whether someone already made this point or not but:
What happened to "Innocent until proven guilty"?? - endy64, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6What happens in reality is that as video cameras aren't everywhere crime (or rather the smarter criminals) moves to places where there aren't cameras. The only people left to film are law abiding citizens.
Where are the places that don't get cameras? The most impoverished places where crime has the biggest toll. Out of site, out of mind. - blankman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5everyone's like "we have to stop this", but we can't do anything. The only way to change anything in government is to get most of the population on your side and they have to be willing to do something. (protests, voting, etc..) That's something that will never happen since most of the population is either oblivious or too busy with other stuff to care.
- clumsyninja, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That article made the most sense of anything I've read this year.
- curufinwe741, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I find this subject especially interesting in light of the fact that Orwell's "1984" is one of the most popular "intellectual" books in America and required reading for most high schools...shows you people don't pay any attention to/think about what they read.
- DigitalBrian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5But how are they going to find the bad guys if they do not monitor everybody? not like everybody bad is hanging a cross and skullbones on their flagpole *lol*
I agree though that if they look long enough they find something. wow are the jails gonna fill up fast. - Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You mean like those police that waited 6 hours to enter Columbine high-school after the shooting stopped and some of their own children were dead? You mean putting their lives on the line like that? Police do NOT protect your "right to live". Police are not there to protect anybody except themselves, and if you think so, you're deluding yourself. Police arrest people that they believe have broken the law. There is a BIG difference.
- nickrosencrans, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You've probably already seen this... but if not check it out. A good example of just how far things could go.
http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf - spliznork, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It is a cute point, but it is a bluff, because regardless of what they do with their privacy, I still value my own. I choose not to give them a chance to even call the bluff. My privacy is mine to keep, regardless if they choose to subject themselves to public ridicule by making their own lives an open book.
- bitcloud, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah - you're a number.
24601 - chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6on a cellphone, it was probably just random noise.. anyway, if they were tapping your line, i'm sure you wouldn't hear anything.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Um no, because some of the people the cops deal with are found to be INNOCENT. Yet putting their arrests on the internet will amount to slander and libel for these innocent people. It will also jeopardize the lives of the law enforcement officers by having all their personal details, MO etc put out on the internet.
- SIDSI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This all stems from 911, the old way of getting info was working just fine many field agents knew that a terrorist attack was comming, but could not get their superiors to further investigations. The NSA really needs to find out why the FBI doesn't follow leads.
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