It does make me proud to be an American. Separation of powers has a
lot to do with the robust survival of freedom in this country
throughout our history.
I do think traffic analysis is a huge camel to let under the tent; as
an Information Visualization guy I appreciate the potential of finding
patterns in vast databases. There would have been no Deep Throat if
Nixon's staff knew who Woodward and Bernstein had communicated with in
years past.
My other suggestion is that we take a step back and consider what the
real issues are. Treating this as freedom versus security in the
abstract is naive at best; we need to think about the motivations of
the actors. IMHO the Bush administration admitted to TSA not because
they hate freedom, but as a political ploy, a cheap way to set up the
following scene:
White hat: We are being strong for our family, defending America no
matter what anyone says.
Black (pink?) hat: We don't want to defend America from terrorists;
we care about some namby-pamby constitutional rights instead.
This political theater has been quite successful at obscuring the
reality: that the Bushies have shown neither commitment nor competence
in the War on Terror. In case this isn't obvious to all, consider the
following.
Commitment: financially the War on Terror is #3 at best, behind
their pre-9/11 priorities of tax cuts for rich supporters and a war in
Iraq.
Competence: Early successes in Afghanistan (largely squandered
since) are almost the lone plus. Iraq is a huge, festering,
self-inflicted wound. The real target of our enemies is the minds of a
generation of Arabs/Muslims: if they grow up believing the West is out
to get them and radical Islam is the answer, our grandchildren may
still be fighting this war. Here the other side is running circles
around the Bushies, and they hardly seem to notice.
Nuclear proliferation: remember Bush ignored Kim when he was ready to
deal and Iranian democrats who had mullahs on the defensive -- now he
seems sure to leave 1-2 brand-new potential sources for an al Qaeda
nuke. International relations: incompetent where not catastrophically
bungled. We have enormously less available military power, respect,
and leverage on foes and friends alike than when these losers came
into office. Homeland security: little or nothing done on so many
important areas. On communications and surveillance specifically, I
liked Richard Clarke's suggestion in _Against All Enemies_: if the
goal is effective and sustainable surveillance in a free society, the
security defenders and freedom defenders need to sit down and
negotiate. Yet again, these jokers chose short-term political gain
over the security of our country.
Now if the Democrats would just get a clue....
Take care!
Howie Goodell
On 8/17/06, James M. Atkinson <jm..._at_tscm.com> wrote:
>
> What a country!!!
>
> Only in the United States could a small number of citizens use the legal
> system to shutdown a multi-billion dollar illegal program such as this.
>
> -jma
>
>
>
> http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/eGov/taylorpdf/06%2010204.pdf
>
....
--
Dr. Howard Goodell howie...._at_gmail.com http://goodL.org
Info Vis, Bioinformatics UMass Lowell Computer Science
--
I would rather be exposed to the Inconveniences attending too much
liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. --- Thomas
Jefferson
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:16 CST