View Full Forums : Intel Official: Expect Less Privacy


Klath
11-12-2007, 08:50 AM
Intel Official: Expect Less Privacy (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071111/D8SRKO580.html)
Nov 11, 1:36 PM (ET)
By PAMELA HESS

WASHINGTON (AP) - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.

Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.

Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Lawmakers hastily changed the 1978 law last summer to allow the government to eavesdrop inside the United States without court permission, so long as one end of the conversation was reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S.

The original law required a court order for any surveillance conducted on U.S. soil, to protect Americans' privacy. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering because, as technology has changed, a growing amount of foreign communications passes through U.S.-based channels.

[More... (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20071111/D8SRKO580.html)]

Anka
11-13-2007, 08:48 AM
I hope congress is a better judge of what privacy means than this guy.

B_Delacroix
11-13-2007, 09:34 AM
I wouldn't expect they would.

The going phrase is: If you have nothing to hide, why not let anyone look at your stuff?

Erianaiel
11-13-2007, 02:08 PM
I wouldn't expect they would.

The going phrase is: If you have nothing to hide, why not let anyone look at your stuff?

Sadly the going phrase should be:
what is next, thought crime or people disappearing at nights?


Eri

Panamah
11-14-2007, 12:33 PM
We've already got both of those so what comes after that? :)

Klath
11-14-2007, 12:43 PM
We've already got both of those so what comes after that? :)
According to Naomi Wolf, the ten steps to fascism are:

Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
Set up an internal surveillance system.
Harass citizens' groups.
Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
Target key individuals.
Control the press.
Declare all dissent to be treason.
Suspend the rule of law.

I guess it's time to start working harder on some of the later steps. :(

B_Delacroix
11-14-2007, 04:08 PM
Looks like we only have half of 9 left and then 10.

Erianaiel
11-15-2007, 04:11 AM
According to Naomi Wolf, the ten steps to fascism are:

Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy.
Create secret prisons where torture takes place.
Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens.
Set up an internal surveillance system.
Harass citizens' groups.
Engage in arbitrary detention and release.
Target key individuals.
Control the press.
Declare all dissent to be treason.
Suspend the rule of law.

I guess it's time to start working harder on some of the later steps. :(

I think I need some more information that did not apparently make it out of the USA?

1- This seems to have been done, and a new external enemy is in the works
2- I thought that there were no American people (yet) being deported to these secret prisons? Of course, the prisons exist (but I think they already did before this whole war on terror thing started up).
3- I think I am missing something here, because I can not think of anything that would qualify as similar to the SA or the thugs that the Nazis (and Fascists in Italy and Spain) used to destabilise the government before they took over. I do not think the LAPD counts.
4- Definitely working on this one
5- I have seen some minor examples of this early on, but nothing that I can recall more recently. I am perfectly willing to admit I have missed something here thogh.
6- Again, while this does happen, it is (still) limited to foreigners and not (yet) used as a threat against the American population.
7- I possibly have missed evidence of this too. Are there any examples of this happening as a tactic, rather than as clumsy and very-heavy-handed attempts at damage control against critics?
8- I am afraid this can not really be blamed on the government, but on the fact that most of the press is controlled by a very small number of men and women who all are firmly part of the establishment and who have been hollowing out the idea of independent press for longer than the current government.
9- Some presidents and his closest advisors certainly seem to believe this is true, but they have yet to make it true.
10- In some ways this already has happend (hello Patriot Act 2) but in most regards the rule of law is slowly beginning to recover from the blow that was dealt it by the events of 2001 and its political aftermath (when congress and senate voluntarily suspended their role of supervising the president).


Eri