From the Liberal Media: Ben Franklin rolls over in grave.

[Victor Galis]

And your point? They do a far better job of killing people than the terrorists, yet somehow I am to believe that my liberties and tax money should all be thrown away to combat something that doesn't even come close to the Top 10 most likely ways I could die.

[Whoha]

If you don't want to die from any smoking related problem the best course of action is to not smoke. As for car accidents, there are steps you can take, but thats about the sum of it. And if you were hoping for fiscal conservatism in government, you're SOL. Finally, throwing away all of our liberties would be quite foolish, one of the reasons I oppose that whole national ID crap. But which numbers called which other numbers doesn't seem entirely too critical to me.

[chequita guevara]

Why should the government know to whom it is I'm talking?

[Drake Tungsten]

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety - Ben Franklin"

"The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged. All that remains for me to add is that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon secrecy success depends in most enterprises of the kind, and for want of it they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue." - George Washington

[Whoha]

Because if they don't ... Then the terrorists have won. I'll go out on a limb here and say that they don't know who is calling who with what numbers, and that they'd much prefer to just listen to terrorists were it possible.

[Q Classic]

Here's the thing. As in favor of liberty as I am, I suppose that if I could be guaranteed that all the conversations would be filtered so only the right ones get listened to, and by the right people, and have the whole thing done right... I suppose I wouldn't be so disturbed about Uncle Sam listening into my conversations.

...but then I realize just how incompetent government is, period (not just this administration), how stupid people are, the fact that people will have to be involved, that computer systems are retardedly dumb (because they're programmed by computers), and that the whole thing will never be done right...

...and I think to myself, well, better safe than sorry. Get rid of the program.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety - Ben Franklin"

"The necessity of procuring good intelligence is apparent & need not be further urged. All that remains for me to add is that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon secrecy success depends in most enterprises of the kind, and for want of it they are generally defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue." - George Washington

George Washington was attacking British positions. He was going after the enemy.

George Bush is monitoring the every day conversations of huge numbers of Americans dispite the fact that there is a legally enacted law which says he cannot do so.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Here's the thing. As in favor of liberty as I am, I suppose that if I could be guaranteed that all the conversations would be filtered so only the right ones get listened to, and by the right people, and have the whole thing done right..

The thing is this won't happen. Instead it will be used by corrupt politicians to listen into the opposition party's conversations, to monitor political enemies, or even just people they don't like. That's what Nixon did and that's what will happen again if such abuses are allowed to continue. In fact I believe such abuses have already occured; the administration lied about torturing people and now it is likely they're lying about their warrentless wire taps. Wire taps which are absolutely illegal under federal law.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
Here's the thing. As in favor of liberty as I am, I suppose that if I could be guaranteed that all the conversations would be filtered so only the right ones get listened to, and by the right people, and have the whole thing done right... I suppose I wouldn't be so disturbed about Uncle Sam listening into my conversations.

...but then I realize just how incompetent government is, period (not just this administration), how stupid people are, the fact that people will have to be involved, that computer systems are retardedly dumb (because they're programmed by computers), and that the whole thing will never be done right...

...and I think to myself, well, better safe than sorry. Get rid of the program.

I will grant that this program depends on trust, or about as far as one can throw the President, but again, this program doesn't bother me.

[Dauphin]

If you're a terrorist wannabe and know that your calls may be monitored then you use a different method of communication than your own phone. You use different call boxes each time. Trace that you ****ers! You'd have to be under proper surveillance to know who made what call and when - and that ain't gonna be actioned against the people en masse.

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Whoha
If you don't want to die from any smoking related problem the best course of action is to not smoke. As for car accidents, there are steps you can take, but thats about the sum of it. And if you were hoping for fiscal conservatism in government, you're SOL. Finally, throwing away all of our liberties would be quite foolish, one of the reasons I oppose that whole national ID crap. But which numbers called which other numbers doesn't seem entirely too critical to me.

I'm not just talking about this. I'm talking about the general paranoia Bush started about terrorists. Am I seriously the only person that doesn't think terrorism is that big of a deal? I mean of all the things to worry about, that some Arab is going to blow me up is probably among the least of my concerns. Then again, I'm rather worried about where I'll be living in a few weeks' time

[Ned]

Re: From the Liberal Media: Ben Franklin rolls over in grave.

Originally posted by Q Cubed

-Clearly, the government has never, and will never, betray our trust and ever been seen as incompetent. Therefore, a system like this where trained professionals and advanced machines browse through private conversations--it's all shiny.

AFAIK, the records have no information at all about the content of the phone calls. Just what number called what number. Not even the owner of the number is in the data. That is a in a separate DB which was not shared with the government -- at least, not yet.

According to the Supremes, people have no privacy interest in their phone records. Of course, the Supremes were wrong, so I would not be adverse to adequate Congressional oversight of this matter and oppropriate legislation to control it.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Let me throw this into the mix: all of this is being justified by the notion that "we're at war." CNN (which some peopel still persist in seeing as a liberal, Bush-hating channel, despite all evidence to the contrary) yesterday joined the chorus by showing that phone companies did the same thing during WWII. I'm sure we'll hear the "oh yeah? Do you know what Lincoiln did?" defense very soon.

So here's the thing that bugs me: we're not at war. Not in any conventional sense. War hasn't been declared, for one thing. But more importantly, the "war" we're in has an ill-defined enemy and no realistic definition of victory (we're never going to get rid or terrorism, after all).

The "war" we're in will be, by defenition, a war forever.

Which means that whatever we're justifying as necessary because "there's a war on" is not a temporary measure. It's a new, permanent way of doing business.

This isn't the Civil War or WWII -- this is 1984.

And it's not the America any of the Founders (except maybe that crypto-monarchist son-of-a-b*tch Adams) ever imagined.

[korn469]

Re: Re: Re: From the Liberal Media: Ben Franklin rolls over in grave.

Originally posted by Victor Galis


Is terrorism really worth giving up that much liberty over? I mean the terrorists killed what under 4k people on US soil in the last 5 years. How many people have traffic accidents killed? Where's the war on traffic accidents, or tobacco for that matter.

I agree with you completely. The threat of direct harm posed by terrorists to people living in the united states is very small. Better government policies could fight terrorism just as effectively without compromising our liberity.

[Zevico]

[quote]This isn't the Civil War or WWII -- this is 1984./quote]
Yeah, except without the concentration camps and Doublespeak, let alone MiniPax, MiniLov, and all those other wonderful contraptions. But otherwise you're absolutely right--this is 1984.