JeffBC
Posts: 5799
Joined: 2/12/2012 From: Canada Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: dcnovice Point taken, Jeff, but I can't help noticing your sleights of hand: I honestly didn't mean them as debate tricks so let me try to clarify. (a) Polite mentioned terrorist attacks, which you downgraded to "nutty" behavior. You make it sound like the concern is drunks singing in a fountain rather than hate-filled, twisted souls aiming to kill as many as possible. Would you honestly describe Timothy McVeigh's actions as "being nutty"? Yes, I would. And yes, sometimes when a nut job is particularly sociopathic and violent then you get crap like McVeigh... or 9/11... or whatever. I understand that lives will be lost... sometimes lots of them. But if I asserted to you that I could keep you completely safe from these dangerous killers by putting you in prison would you go? (b) On the other hand, you've put "less privacy"--those irksome airport rituals that I dislike* too--on such Armstrong-size doses of steroids that it's swelled to a full-fledged "Orwellian police state." That makes me wonder how much Orwell you've actually digested. You may want to check out Politics and the English Language before misusing his name again. Actually, it never occurred to me to think about "irksome airport rituals". Those I simply see as a hugely expensive waste of taxpayer money more designed to line some donors pockets than protect anyone from anything. This thread is not about airport rituals. It's about surveillance. What concerns me more are things like broad-scale surveillance and, of course, the 2012 NDAA. The whole issue with DHS authority in "border zones" (you know -- where 80% of the population lives) is also fascinating. In short, I want the rule of law... law which starts with the constitution. Generally... what I know about govt. surveillance comes from some small amount of actual inside knowledge, a wealth of geek and data security knowledge, and an avid interest in same. In this particular case there is no "tinfoil hat" going on. The things I worry about are completed projects or projects that are actually funded and in motion. They are well documented in mainstream media (think PBS and the like). The points are not argued by the govt.
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I'm a lover of "what is", not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. -- Bryon Katie "You're humbly arrogant" -- sunshinemiss officially a member of the K Crowd
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