Euro two-fer!!!

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

I linked to an entire article on the subject...

Yep, you did, and it was quite amusing. Europeans willingly giving up credit card infos to gov but hestitate to give it to companies, and yanks quite opposite. next time a yank complains some company has abused this info, only one reaction will be appropriate :

[Imran Siddiqui]

I personally don't think we should allow wiretapping as freely as they do, but I also don't think that the wiretaps approved by the President are a grave threat to freedom in America. England, Italy and the Netherlands all remain free countries, despite their extensive use of wiretapping.

Depends on your definition of 'freedom', I guess.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
I personally don't think we should allow wiretapping as freely as they do, but I also don't think that the wiretaps approved by the President are a grave threat to freedom in America. England, Italy and the Netherlands all remain free countries, despite their extensive use of wiretapping.

The point is legality. Wiretapping by the secret service is legal here. In the US, it requires a warrant. As Mr. Gonzales said, it would take too much time practically. Even if this is a state of war ( ), warrants are still meant to be sought. Bush hasn't.

If he changed the law first, I can't see as many people caring.

[Drake Tungsten]

Damn you Drake!! You should be trolling my gay marriage thread, not wasting time on this irrelevant rubbish!!!!11!!!

Your wish is my command...

I'm still curious as to exactly how greater wiretapping authority, or the erosion of our civil liberties in general, would've stopped 9/11.

And it's good that you brought up 7/7, since the Brits aren't known for their reticence to use wiretaps.

Increased use of wiretapping isn't the only difference between French national security measures and those used in America. The French don't **** around when it comes to tracking down and intercepting terrorists, which I'm suggesting is the reason why they haven't suffered the large-scale attacks that more permissive states like the US and England have.

At least their wiretaps are, you know, based on actual law rather than some half-witted legal theory about the inherent authority of the leader to spy on domestic persons outside of legislative authorization.

A half-witted legal theory that arguably has legal precedent.

Not that I'm saying it was legal or illegal; I don't know. It's a complex question that will need to be sorted out by legal experts, not the black and white, OMG! BUSH IS DESTROYING OUR FREEDOMS!!! issue that so many wish it was...

Depends on your definition of 'freedom', I guess.

I'd argue that I have the more practical and reasonable definition.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'd argue that I have the more practical and reasonable definition.

And I'd argue you'd be wrong, but c'est la vie .

[DanS]

One thing to note is that even with the recently revealed wiretapping (or whatever it is, we do not know), the feds wiretap rarely.

[Last Conformist]

So, according to Imran Siddiqui, I live in an unfree country? Interesting.


Regarding Europe's malaise, I don't think creativity as such is what's lacking. Seeing the numbers of patents that are granted here (where getting a patent is tougher than in America) but never attempted to bring to the market, I think the problem is more one of lacking entrepreneurial spirit than of lacking innovation.

Anyway, with a few exceptions, we unlikely to see anything more than relative economic decline in Europe in the next decade, which is hardly news.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Ramo
To hell with Republicans who want to frenchify our civil liberties.

OMG teh racism!

[Sandman]

Until el freako turns up:

1. EU population growth has been consistently underestimated.

2. EU states collect more of their tax revenues from consumption taxes than America, lessening the impact of large bouts of retirement.

3. The EU has a better fiscal situation than the US. More room for borrowing.

4. The EU has cheaper and better healthcare.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Europe will be bolstered by growth from new states... in 20- years US will be wandering what happened to its economic suprmacy as there will be EU, China and perhaps even India ahead...

I'd say that the first "growth impact" for the whole EU will be seen in about 3-4 years from the new member states... and the EU economy as a whole will be seen in different light. There is a lot of difference between the Euro countries just as well.

[Sikander]

The wiretapping rules currently under discussion have only been in force since 1978. They were written in response to political abuses largely by the FBI and to a lesser extent by the CIA, though they have ended up impacting the NSA much more than the other two organizations. The rules were written more with a law enforcement perspective than an intelligence gathering perspective. This has been problematic from the beginning. I was amazed to learn (when I worked for the NSA) that if I stumbled across a conversation between (let's say) a KGB officer and a KGB agent in the U.S. that anything said by the agent would have to be redacted before the report could be passed up to those who might act upon it. There are provisions for getting a warrant and being able to utilize both ends of the conversation, but keep in mind that the warrant requires that the rules of evidence be followed, which effectively means that you have to have other evidence to support the request for the warrant. Information gathered from the intercept itself is inadmissable.

This is all well and good for an organization (like the FBI) which is a law enforcement agency whose purpose is in large part getting convictions. For an organization like the NSA for whom job one is preventing surprise attacks like Pearl Harbor or 911 it is a problem. With no internal capabilities to investigate beyond its intercept capacity it is uniquely unsuited to utilize the warrant system. Nor should its focus be changed to improve its capabilities in this regard. The NSA is our most effective intelligence agency. Its method is to build vast amounts of data into useful databases. The FBI is perhaps our least effective intelligence agency in large part because intel has always been its secondary mission (if that), and because the culture of the FBI in many cases stresses opposite values and methods. The FBI has always relied on conservative (stodgy) personnel (in order to reduce threats of infiltration) while the NSA has always been more interested in the sort of creative people who better support their need for cutting edge technical and language capabilities. The FBI are detail oriented (anal) to a large degree, while the NSA are quite happy with vast seas of information which can only be analysed statistically. It amused me to no end to hear the FBI complain about the number of leads that are forwarded from the NSA now that they have to pretend to be working together. Not much has changed in the 20 years I've been out of the business apparantly.

I'm for allowing the international intercepts as they've been described by the administration. It's worth allowing a few intercepts in order to keep an eye on people who could do great harm to us, particularly as I also trust the NSA (more than the FBI) to stick to their knitting when it comes to politically motivated requests for information. The largest problem with this approach IMO is keeping intel from contaminating evidence in situations where it is decided that action rather than surveillance is required.

This is a sticky enough area as it is. The administration takes a typically maximalist approach to this on occasion by detaining people (effectively) as PoWs under the much reduced rules of evidence that come with the designation. They don't seem very confident that this approach will withstand much scrutiny by the courts in the long run though (and I agree). On the one hand I agree with them that many people are waging war upon the U.S., but on the other hand this sort of war is likely to be an open-ended commitment that cannot be easily accomodated by the bill of rights. Which means that the administration and congress are going to have to put their heads together and come up with an alternative that best serves all of our needs. So far instead the administration has taken the lazy approach and so has congress. I hope that they can do better, even if it's an election year.

[Drake Tungsten]

Good post, Sikander. Not sure this was the proper place for it, though...

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Sandman
2. EU states collect more of their tax revenues from consumption taxes than America, lessening the impact of large bouts of retirement.

But consumption taxes are bad for the poor!

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Good post, Sikander. Not sure this was the proper place for it, though...

Thanks. I've got nowhere else to go so....

[Saras]

Originally posted by Spiffor
I don't really believe in the economic decline of Europe. There will be a relative decline of western Europe, but I think it'll be offset by Central Europe reaching higher levels.

2005 GDP growth

Lithuania 7,3%
Latvia 10%
Estonia 9.3%