I have GOT to learn my Bill Of Rights. My first reaction was “4th amendment… wait, who’s saying that the Obama Administration is forcing people to quarter troops in their homes?”
Well, now they’ve gone too far. Especially since my wife’s going to make me clean out the playroom to use as it a guest room…
Which has the potential to keep you from boarding an airplane? Which has the potential of you getting your door kicked at 4:00am? Which has the potential of being used against you in a court? Which has the potential of you getting placed onto many different watchlists that will have unknown future consequences for you?
All as a result of creating a pattern that gets you watched or investigated.
And who’s suffered from any of those things? I know the TSA had some problem with their watch lists, but IIRC those were cases of mistaken identity. Furthermore, were these TSA cases a direct result of NSA data mining?
Screaming? You mean BLAWG?
Those are private businesses targetting you, not the government.
No shit. Last time I checked, this was a public message board. It’s the online equivalent of having a conversation in public. Anyone around you can hear what you said.
And of the two, which has been more intrusive in your life?
As an example, I can browse for toasters on Amazon, decide not to buy one, then click on over to any given website and guess what the Amazon advert is trying to sell me over there in the right hand corner?
Toasters.
Funny that.
I don’t recall the Government asking me why I’m so interested in toasters.
I do find the illusion of online/electronic anonymity unsettling (I’m one of those people who refuse to own ‘membership’ cards for grocery stores, etc). However, the internet became such a vital part of every day life with both implicit and explicit assurances that some information, while passing through the hands of corporate entities, will remain unlooked at by human eyes. And, if I ever feel like I don’t trust, say, google, I can simply and easily stop using its services.
My expectations of, and ability to avoid the government are quite different.
As to your second paragraph, I agree that in the modern age we need to re-think and discuss what privacy means, and what is appropriate and isn’t in terms of how the government collects data about its citizens. The fact that we are collecting this information before having a public discussion about it is what appalls me.
(For me, I start from the position that the fact that the government ought not be collecting any information about me other than demographic and tax-related details. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise, but that’s where I approach this from.)
A woman called into a radio show this morning who said, basically, that anyone who cares about this should take a chill pill, and that this is not Eastern Europe, and that in America we have nothing to worry about, and that our government would only use this information for good, because it’s America.
My jaw hit the floor.
Did you look to see who was ordered to give up personal information about members? Facebook, Apple, Google, etc.? You do know that the FISA court can demand compliance to provide personal information or face prosecution, right? You have few secrets in today’s world. I don’t like the sweeping intrusion into our lives. I also don’t like terrorists targeting our citizens. There has to be a middle ground; collecting phone calls to overseas numbers seems to be on the lower level of intrusion, and I can’t get too worked up over it. The danger is in having a paranoid zealot ascend to the White House at some point, who decides to abuse the rules. Can you imagine what Nixon would have done with this capability?
You don’t really believe this, right? Suffered? How exactly have we “suffered” from being stalked by Amazon ads? Ads that can be avoided, by the way. Annoyed, yes, but suffered?
Who knows if the TSA cases were a direct result of NSA data mining. What is important is the US government has a blanket program of pattern recognition and behavior analysis of all forms of electronic communication and internet activities of the entire United States population. There is no oversight or warrants. Both political parties are equally guilty of creating and expanding this monster. I repeat: this program has a potential of you getting placed onto many different watchlists that will have unknown future consequences.
A previous generation had HUAC. This generation has the Patriot Act and all that it spawned.
Yes, annoyed would be a better word. My point being, companies are doing more with this information than the Government is. And they (the government) do have oversight, the FISA courts.
Like Chefguy says, something has to give. I’m fine with this datamining if it means we can avoid a few mindless deaths.
I normally don’t appreciate silly YouTubes too much, but these are of my favorite Gene Pitney song.
And yes … they do speak indirectly to the issue of Gun Rights, or rather the perverse views on guns admired by the Ignorati.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Osama Bin Laden) and the Man Who Didn’t
Another gunslinger from out of the West – (this Youtube contains an authentic photograph of Jesus the Nazarene with a rifle. I’d like the baby-killing gunhaters to explain why God gave Him a rifle if He didn’t approve of the Second [del]Commandment[/del] Amendment.)
Hmm, Benjamin Franklin or Shakes? I think I’ll go with Benjamin.
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Something some guy said over 200 years ago should be given total relevance as to how we live our lives today.
Do you still live by the literal reading of the Old Testament too?
Didn’t you start this thread out with an appeal to the second amendment?
No I didn’t. If you read the last part of my OP, you’ll see that I am FOR gun control.
My question is, why is it reasonable to ask the 2nd amendment lovers to cut us some slack when we say we want to ban assault rifles, large magazines etc…
Yet, when it comes time for us to make some concessions on the 4th amendment, “Oh noes! We can’t be having any of that!”
It smacks of hypocrisy to me.
To further expand: I think the Constitution is is great when used as a very rudimentary compass for where our principles lie.
But when it comes to complex problems like: “Technology and how do we govern it fairly?” Those questions should only be answered by intelligent, rational people of the current age.
Not by some relic that lived 200 years ago.
In the 21st century, the 4th amendment still seems like a pretty good principle of public policy, relevant to our current situation. The 2nd, by contrast, might have been a good idea in the late 18th century, when militias were important to America’s defense, but in the social conditions that obtain now, any rational person not blinded by a lust for the destructive power that guns give them can see that the 2nd amendment is a terrible principle of public policy.
Of course they are both the law, and, while they are the law, should be followed. That is not the issue. The issue is one of public policy and morality, and on those grounds the 2nd amendment is a terrible law that no longer serves its original purpose, and has long since been revealed to have dreadful unintended consequences, such that it ought to be repealed forthwith. So long as its repeal remains politically infeasible, it is good policy to interpret it in the weakest way legally possible, and to take what measures one can to lessen its malign influence on American society.
The 4th amendment, by contrast (like most of the others) still functions as an important bulwark in the defense of justice and freedom, and ought to be upheld rigorously. The value of the government going against it, whether in the letter or the spirit, has not been demonstrated, and even it were to prevent the odd terrorist attack (which are very rare incidents in any case, and very rarely harm more than quite small numbers of people) it is not at all apparent that that would outweigh the freedom and privacy lost by everybody under surveillance.
You’re making some assumptions here though. How do you know how effective this datamining has been? How do we know that the very reason it’s been relatively quiet since 9/11 is due in part to this data mining?
Also, not only did we get OBL, but our acumen for getting top terrorist leaders has been spot on. I have no idea if this is due to data mining, but if it is, allow me to quote the cult classic Team America: *Team America, Fuck Yeah!"
*