[acousticrock87]

Originally Posted by ricechex

Thank u acousticrock87. Thats a great handle, by the way. Indifference allows this stuff to go down tho.

I agree, but it's a pick-your-battles type thing. While America is still quite free, it's not really in a state of easy change. Partly due to the president, and partly due the corruption that's always been there. Voting works, freedom of speech doesn't always mean freedom to effect change. When they put it on the ballot, I'll vote for it (or against it; you know what I mean). But I feel pretty strongly that there's nothing we can do right now about this kind of thing. I dunno. Call me disillusioned, maybe.

[ricechex]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

but ultimately the government is the one responsible for this shit-- the telecoms take their marching orders from the government. barring some negligence or abuse, why should they be held accountable for cooperating with the commander guy?

it's a grey area at best-- i think the telecoms would be made scapegoats while the real culprits laugh their way to the bank.

They should have all been like Qwest and denied spying. Its their problem but ultimately the admins. By having the suits against the telephone companies it brings out the "well they, the admin, told us its ok response" and forces officials to answer for it. It wasn't ok, even during wartime, the most important time to follow all laws to prevent unnec. power grabs. And u know, ok, you know, that these guys first enemy is progressives. They are spying not only for terror. I don't beleive that for a second after Plame and everything else.

[Cantankerous]

Originally Posted by acousticrock87

My opinion is that a) unless you're actually doing something wrong, this will not affect Americans anymore than the average fucked-up scandal could, and b) it's not really something that we can fix by caring. One person can make a difference in a lot of things, but this isn't one of them. Not right now, at least.

it pisses me off that they think they have the right to invade my privacy, but honestly i don't really give a rat's ass. the government has never done shit for me and it's not any better (more likely it's worse) anywhere else in the world.

and no, i'm not going to vote. i was, but then i thought about it for a bit and i don't really care.
to obama's credit he's much more personable than john mccain.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by ricechex

They should have all been like Qwest and denied spying. Its their problem but ultimately the admins. By having the suits against the telephone companies it brings out the "well they, the admin, told us its ok response" and forces officials to answer for it. It wasn't ok, even during wartime, the most important time to follow all laws to prevent unnec. power grabs. And u know, ok, you know, that these guys first enemy is progressives. They are spying not only for terror. I don't beleive that for a second after Plame and everything else.

yeah i know that, that's what bugs me. it's all ran by a secret court.

but while this is a useful device to prosecute, i think it doesn't necessarily have a legal foundation of its own.

im trying to understand what the democrats got in return though, if anything, and what kind of fucking pussies they are.

unfortunately, work is interfering with my reading of the newspapers.

[ricechex]

Here is a decent overview. Basically, the admin got there immunity, which was holding them up and allowed them to just revise the laws, and not revisit the initial illegal wiretapping. No acknowledgment or answer to why their fight on the war on terror means u can cite special laws to wiretap with no clearance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/wa...20fisacnd.html

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by ricechex

..

Sad, sad day, friends, for Democracy.

did you mean representative democracy? because there is no such thing as democracy in the world, it is a myth.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by ricechex

I guess complaining about breeches of law is a liberal moan. Wow. Anyways, did u really write to moan about using a 24 hr period?

You act like I find liberal moaning to be reprehensible. I don't. I do it often myself. Anyways when people say something like "bad day for whatever" they don't mean a bad day for them but like a bad day as in something happened. Just as I would it was a bad day for democracy when Bush was re-elected. I figured there was a specific even that you would like to share. Apparently there isn't. It's just a bad day FOR YOU, and a normal day in a democracy that has been have a bad DECADE.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by pbradley

It's just a bad day FOR YOU, and a normal day in a democracy that has been have a bad DECADE.

try a bad two hundred and fifty years.

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by ricechex

Here is a decent overview. Basically, the admin got there immunity, which was holding them up and allowed them to just revise the laws, and not revisit the initial illegal wiretapping. No acknowledgment or answer to why their fight on the war on terror means u can cite special laws to wiretap with no clearance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/wa...20fisacnd.html

Now if you didn't hound this all to yourself like some kind of less-apathetic-than-thou twat, we could have gotten somewhere.

[afreespirit]

Originally Posted by ricechex

After this wiretap "compromise", i am outraged. They should have to answer for their illegal wiretapping, and are not in any positions to make deals..

Outraged at the weak kneed Dems, esp. Pelosi. Who is she to say impeachment is off the table? A lot of people are outraged. Thanks to DK(Kucinich) for his relentless efforts on that.

Also, sad that on the heals of the above, the big oils are rigging up Iraq, with no bid contracts, to boot. They'll be mainipulating things for much longer and have more control on our oil dependancy, thwarting advancement of other energy sources et..

Sad, sad day, friends, for Democracy.

Hah!

This is nothing. Be glad you don't live in enlightened Swededn.

http://www.thelocal.se/12334/20080610/


Sweden's new wiretapping law 'much worse than the Stasi'

Published: 10 Jun 08 11:52 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/12334/
With just a week to go before the Swedish parliament is expected to pass a controversial wiretapping law, Pirate Party leader Rickard Falkvinge urges people to do all they can to block the legislation.

On June 17th the Swedish parliament is set to vote on the introduction of a new "signal surveillance" law.

What the law means is that all telephone and internet operators will be forced to attach a large cable to the state's supercomputer, where the state will be able to keep a record of everything said in telephone conversations, surfed on the web or written on the internet.

The law can best be described by the more explanatory term "general surveillance". Instead of just criminal suspects having their phones tapped, now everyone will be tapped via their phones, emails, web surfing, faxes etc.

But the state won't keep a record of everything. First it will scan all phone calls, emails and so on, in real time. Anything that is "considered interesting" on the basis of 250,000 search criteria, will be saved for further investigation.

All our phone calls, emails and surfing habits will be observed by Sweden's National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets Radioanstalt - FRA), which is why the proposed legislation is known as the "FRA law".

There are no courts involved, and the government and all its agencies - including the police and the security police - will be able to snoop around in the tapped phone and email correspondence of its citizens.

This is much, much worse than the East German Stasi, which was only capable of tapping a small sector of the population. This is also something that has been pointed out by German members of parliament with first-hand experience of the Stasi.

Proponents of the law say it "only concerns cross-border communications". Unfortunately this is a bare-faced lie. Records of communications will be kept at 20 nodal points, strategically placed to capture all communications that cross Sweden's borders. But any internal communications that happen to come into contact with any one of these nodes will also be analyzed by the state. Essentially this means that everyone will be affected since, for technical reasons, most phone calls and emails between two Swedes pass through another country.

Proponents say that "this has absolutely nothing to do with Swedes; FRA isn't allowed to investigate Swedes if there is no substantial cause". This is a dishonest formulation. Another way of saying exactly the same thing would be: "FRA may snoop on Swedes as part of this mass wiretapping scheme if certain criteria are met". In fact, the entire statement is dishonest, since the legislation up for debate only concerns signal surveillance for the military. What these people don't mention is that the FRA already carries out surveillance for the police using exactly the same staff and the same wiretapping network.

Proponents say that "only a very small amount of information will be listened to", and refer to the pieces of information that will be sifted out for further examination. This is also a direct lie. Everything will be listened to. Whatever information is then selected for further examination is irrelevant; the violation of personal integrity occurs when the state gives itself access to its citizens' private communications, not when one of the search terms it uses to filter the data happens to match.

Democracy is reliant on the transparency of power, not the transparency of citizens. All places where the opposite has been the case - where it has been impossible to examine the powers that be, while citizens lack any right to a private life - have been really nasty places to live.

Signal surveillance is supposed to protect us against external threats. In reality, however, it is the surveillance itself that constitutes a direct threat against Swedish democracy.

Aftonbladet has written about the law today (the first time old media have really contributed to the debate). Unfortunately they present the proponents' propaganda as fact. Proponents of the law have shown themselves to be completely unreliable. On May 31st I put forward evidence [in Swedish] showing that they know they are breaking the constitution but they just don't care.

The Pirate Party has long campaigned for the right to a private life. For example, we held a demonstration in central Stockholm recently demanding the right to civil liberties and for an end to all plans for general surveillance.

A campaign site has just gone online called stoppafralagen.nu (Stop the FRA law) with more information about this draconian piece of legislation.

It's high time to get involved. Write to your local member of parliament, talk to friends and acquaintances about what's happening. Anything. Just do something. Before it's too late.

The law was passed.

[ricechex]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

did you mean representative democracy? because there is no such thing as democracy in the world, it is a myth.

No. No, I meant Democracy. Democracy is a system of government by which political sovereignty is retained by the people and either exercised directly by citizens,* or through their elected representatives*.

But if you mean a simple, every vote counts the same, and that is used as the sole baromoter, hell, we would be out of Iraq by now, and Bush out of office by now.

[ricechex]

Originally Posted by pbradley

You act like I find liberal moaning to be reprehensible. I don't. I do it often myself. Anyways when people say something like "bad day for whatever" they don't mean a bad day for them but like a bad day as in something happened. Just as I would it was a bad day for democracy when Bush was re-elected. I figured there was a specific even that you would like to share. Apparently there isn't. It's just a bad day FOR YOU, and a normal day in a democracy that has been have a bad DECADE.

What are you talking about? There were specific events that made it a bad day for Democracy. You sound like a strange cat, hung up on the most irrelavant of things.

[ricechex]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Now if you didn't hound this all to yourself like some kind of less-apathetic-than-thou twat, we could have gotten somewhere.

Well, like i said, i expected people to know about it. It was big news, really. But i guess its something that people that are more politically aware would only know instead. I think there's a lot of apathy towards Bush's trampling of the const. It happens so freq that he's giving the finger to laws in general, whether it by by witholding info, editing reports and the like, that it comes and goes w/o much notice.

People don't like people getting on a soapbox, or the appearance thereof, which i think is what's happening with this thread. That, and they don't like the message. So instead, they argue the semantics of a 24 hour day, and seek to minimize the travesty by comparing it to situations around the world that are worse, which only serves up more indifference.

But like i said, bad day for democracy.

[!@#$%!]

so anyway apparently this law puts a leash on El Presidente in all areas except for wiretapping for a week.

so it's good in that it puts a leash on him but bad in that it gives him room to play with the lives of others.

that's a fucking weak tea.