USA, the next nazi germany.

[mjg]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/11/nsa.phonerecords.ap/index.html

i mean i always knew it was true but we really live in a brave new world and their is no apology over that, is there?

Aint it scary.. i mean, persistant storage has been cheap for awhile, and low fidelity records are cheap space wise. so why not... it was possible even back in the late 90's

[mjg]

my attempt at a political thread... no one cares?

bah humbug. not even dusty to make a sneering comment at me? fuck you guys... serious.... i'm going to pout now.

[hungrych]

Ugh.. Bush needs to realize he isn't the king.

[Nanoha]

I'm looking forward to the next Watergate. Unfortunately it probably won't come out of the recent deal with Bush and snopping though. Meh. Politics can be fun and interesting. But see, Bush's actions are provocative but they're absolutely not fun. They're almost too boring to discuss.

[Dusty Chalk]

bah humbug. not even dusty to make a sneering comment at me?

I'm a slow reader.

[ojnihs]

Great, now I have to watch what I say on the phone.

[TheSloth]

Great, now I have to watch what I say on the phone.

Why, what do you have to hide? I know that it isn't a huge step from that kind of snooping to a big brother kind of world and the objections and concerns at such a move are understandable and completely obvious; OTOH, it is completely impossible IMO in the age of terrorism and war from within to maintain all of the kinds of civil liberties that we have enjoyed for many years now without also providing those liberties to those who might seek to destroy us. It is fundamentally impossible for any internal monitoring system to notice and skip over an ordinary citizen in the process of trying to protect people. It ends up spying on the wrong people as well as the right people, but how would you feel if it had no idea what anyone in the country was doing? Because that is the only way to make sure that your phone call is never, ever, ever sifted through by a government authority. If they don't have the right to snoop through your telephone calls, they don't have a right to snoop through the calls of Al Qaeda operaties in the US either. That presents an impossible, lose - lose situation for the average citizen, but usually one of those losses is less detremental to the quality of their lives than the other.

Remember the days when we didn't need firewalls for our computers, and even Windows users didn't really need virus scanners, malware eliminators and even popup blockers? And look how much all of that 'security' gets in the way of the simple operation of those computers - the printer doesn't work because the firewall doesn't understand that it's not a virus, the computer gets so bogged down it barely functions anymore etc. No-one has yet found a middle ground, and I don't know if one is possible and if so how it would work, but turning it all off and hoping for the best certainly isn't the answer...

[ojnihs]

Well it's not that there's anything that I have to hide, it's more you have to be careful that you don't slip something, like "Fuck Bush," which they could take as a threat. Sure it's a bit of a stretch, but that's all I meant. But I completely see your point, haven't really sat down and thought that much into it and was good to read your thoughts.

[mjg]

I would not trade a grain of freedom for a bowl of fascism. In a fair world this wouldn't even be a consideration. Shit happens all the time. The government is to be given soverignty by the people, not the other way around. Ignorant lawmakers who close their eyes and let a "terror" sitution enable people to practice outside the bounds of our laws in the name of security means , we volunteer our own freedom and agree to allow peoople with a very skewed perception of the world make unfair decisions about our lives for us. I'm not shocked to read about this kind of stuff... What does bother me though, is the general ignorant attitude most people towards the kinds of practices going on which enables it to only get worse. I don't care how paranoid people are, if you don't know what the patriot bill is enabling the government to do, do not support it. People need to accept responsibility for themselves for the state of the way this country is. It is our fault we let the government do such fucked up stuff. Brushing off stuff like this in the name of security will not improve our situation, as there no doubt we had the very same intelligence back when clinton was president.

It's not what I have to hide, it's the fact I don't, and shouldn't have to hide from anyone.

[Jeff Wong]

Why, what do you have to hide? I know that it isn't a huge step from that kind of snooping to a big brother kind of world and the objections and concerns at such a move are understandable and completely obvious; OTOH, it is completely impossible IMO in the age of terrorism and war from within to maintain all of the kinds of civil liberties that we have enjoyed for many years now without also providing those liberties to those who might seek to destroy us. It is fundamentally impossible for any internal monitoring system to notice and skip over an ordinary citizen in the process of trying to protect people. It ends up spying on the wrong people as well as the right people, but how would you feel if it had no idea what anyone in the country was doing? Because that is the only way to make sure that your phone call is never, ever, ever sifted through by a government authority. If they don't have the right to snoop through your telephone calls, they don't have a right to snoop through the calls of Al Qaeda operaties in the US either. That presents an impossible, lose - lose situation for the average citizen, but usually one of those losses is less detremental to the quality of their lives than the other.

Remember the days when we didn't need firewalls for our computers, and even Windows users didn't really need virus scanners, malware eliminators and even popup blockers? And look how much all of that 'security' gets in the way of the simple operation of those computers - the printer doesn't work because the firewall doesn't understand that it's not a virus, the computer gets so bogged down it barely functions anymore etc. No-one has yet found a middle ground, and I don't know if one is possible and if so how it would work, but turning it all off and hoping for the best certainly isn't the answer...

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1056.html

[TheSloth]

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1056.html

You might wish to note that, the brilliant man he was, he realised the need to put in the word 'essential' to make such a phrase relevant to a governed society. It is a word that can be interpreted in many ways, but it suffices to say that there is no such possibility (that any human has yet been able to realise...) as a society with absolute liberty. Where you draw the line at what elements of liberty are 'essential' or not is a matter of personal politics, but the word can't be overlooked. We voluntarily sacrifice all kinds of absolute liberties for personal security in any civilised society, and have been doing so under different guises for centuries.

[Jeff Wong]

I thought the following was a very interesting read:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history

[TheSloth]

I thought the following was a very interesting read:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/profile/story/9961300/the_worst_president_in_history

That is an interesting article. Though, I wasn't actually arguing for Bush's policy, but more on the principle involved. Geroge Bush has an amazing way of taking a concept/policy that could be justified from a particular, viable point of view and then implimenting it in such a way as to completely destroy any legitimacy that the original idea could possibly have had.

[Yikes]

The NSA has a secret and most knowledgeable people feel illegal domestic spying program. Investigators at the justice department were attempting to investigate this secret spying program to determine if it was legal. The NSA replied that you need a security clearance to have access to the program. Where do you get the clearance? Why from the NSA of course. The NSA denied the justice departments request for clearance to see the program. Since the Justice department could not gain access to the required information they dropped the investigation. True.

So our current administration can do ANYTHING that they want with no concern about whether it?s legal or not. All they have to do is call their actions ?Secret?. Since they seem to be able to dictate who has the ability to see any classified information.

We are living in a fascist plutocracy. Our Government has become the enemy of the people.

[Tyll Hertsens]

Recently Bush gave a commencement address where he caustioned the student not to become so enamoured of technology that they forget their humanity. "WHAT!", I said to my self. The guy who uses million dollar missiles to blow up pick-up trucks in the desert, and who brings all the technological might of the CIA to listen to peoples phone calls is going to caution us about letting technology get to our head. Un-fucking-believable!

[acs236]

I fear we've become numb to it. Every couple of weeks it seems, we learn about some new and worse invasion of our privacy. Yet, I must confess, each time I feel certainly less suprised but also less moved. I've come to expect it. And I don't think I'm alone. I have no doubt that the country, as a whole, is angry. But it seems that we feel powerless, like there's nothign we can do. Vote them out? You bet. But that's many months or years away. Meanwhile, will the next revelation be?

[hungrych]

The simple fact that the NSA can authorize itself to do anything is absurd, and ruins the entire system of checks and balances in the government..

[Mercuttio]

Bush is a pretty tremendous fuckwit. Anyone read the New York Times on Wednesday though (I think that was the date)? He's pretty much fucking over the republican party for years to come. His approval ratings are tied with his dad's right now, and only two presidents have had lower approval ratings:

Nixon

Carter

Uh oh. And he's still got two years. I think he'll manage to beat Carter at the very least.

[eric343]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/federal_source_.html

1) Remember, use your right arm. Palm flat, pointing towards the ground, with the edge of your hand over your heart. Salute by swinging your arm out stiffly until pointing forwards. "Sieg Heil!" has been deprecated in favor of the English translation, "Hail Victory!"

2) Back rigid and straight. Legs as stiff and straight as possible. Raise one leg until it is at a 45-degree angle to the other (which is vertical). Step forward.

3) Nucular, not nuclear.

[grawk]

You're suggesting that using phone records to go after someone who leaked classified information to the press is somehow comparable to killing 6 million jews? Godwin's Law seems to apply here.

[TheSloth]

Godwin's Law seems to apply here.

Nice...

[mjg]

nevermind, i fired too fast... sorry.

[bhd812]

You know when I read about the phone records I was sick, I mean sick to my stomach about it..

I could not care about the phone records themselves but to me it was the icing on the cake sort to say about 9-11 being setup by someone or some group in gov to just get what they want. I mean I thought about it before and played with the conspiracy theories and what not but when I read that last week it just made me sick.

regardless if one believes or not about what happened 9-11 or w/e is not the point, the point is this phone record shit makes it look like it was a setup..just a huge fucking setup..hell I would not doubt there was not one "terrorist" on any of those planes that day after finding out about this phone shit starting rite after that day.

its like those mother fuckers are using 9-11 to track the calls My mom makes, wtf is that? that's not even cool to think someone tracking your moms calls, let alone using the worst day in Americas history (at least in my life time) as an excuse..

Like I said before and I will say it again..

I am not saying I think this way or that about 9-11 and that's not even my point..My point is this latest shit from the GOV comes to be like a icing on the cake after everything that has gone on..

sad I looked at my own Government that way..

[eric343]

You're suggesting that using phone records to go after someone who leaked classified information to the press is somehow comparable to killing 6 million jews? Godwin's Law seems to apply here.

No, it doesn't. I'm not talking about the Jews -- the people comparing the current administration to that aspect of the Nazis are anti-immigration activists (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50198).

I'm referring to the means that the Nazi Party used to root out "partisans" and muzzle members of the press who published things unfavorable to the Party.

I believe my grandmother said it best, albeit in German -- "Listen to the BBC? You must be joking -- they shot people for that."

We're not that far, just yet. On the other hand, if you compare the liberties we enjoyed just five years ago to those today, the trend is rather disturbing. And "black listening" wasn't a capital crime until Germany started losing the war.

[TheSloth]

I'm referring to the means that the Nazi Party used to root out "partisans" and muzzle members of the press who published things unfavorable to the Party.

The fundamental difference is that despite what so many have said in retrospect, the Nazi party enjoyed the continued support of the majority of the German people. They had a democratic mandate to behave that way. George Bush does not, and will therefore not be able to push through any policy to that extent. He also cannot conceivably remain in power in 2 years time, and has his actions moderated by the rest of the political system which is still in tact.

Hitler was not a dictator in the vein of a Stalin. He did not keep his power through fear; he exercised it through fear, to the ranting cheers of the majority who were not doing it just for show. The reference to Nazi Germany in the title of this thread is largely irrelevant, and does not add to the weight of the genuine concerns expressed by the OP, as well as yourself and others.