Re: Losing our rights, very slowly.

Post #30,472 by nking 3/2/02 4:55:47 PM Reply	Re: Losing our rights, very slowly. Also I heard that the FBI was planning to have all Internet traffic go through their own proxy servers so they can record who is surfing what. If they do this, it will cost tons of money. But everything that they have done so far, how many terrorists did they catch in the USA? Or are we still looking for them overseas? Copyright laws are also being changed so that there is no more "fair use". If Santa Claus was invented today, by modern law, nobody else could use Santa Clause without permission from the copyright holder. There would be no Christmas as we know it, because one company would own the rights to Santa Claus. Am I insane, or are we just losing our rights very slowly? Since when did 1984 become a reality? More and more companies are installing video cameras to watch employees, etc. I guess there is no such thing as privacy anymore? "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
Post #30,483 by Ashton 3/2/02 6:22:16 PM Reply	I don't think it's insane to notice a trend. You may be exaggerating the actuality as of today - but not IMhO - the agenda of at east a few in positions of power. But as with SSSCA (whose trend you mention re the creation of a new Draconian interpretation of the idea of \ufffd) - remember the Founding Mothers' wisest exhortation to the fledgling Republic: Eternal vigilance is the price of ... Even locally - Ben T. for example in one post, has made it about as EZ as any lazy one could ask: to write one's representatives [and Hollings!] about the absurdity of Hollings' proposed SSSCA. (Do you know yours? and their addresses? - a link is there if you Don't). But hasn't it always been thus? Aren't there always 'forces' whose vision for the country is: more police, more restrictions on behavior; more 'enforced' homogeneity? (makes enforcement so much easier when everyone thinks, acts the same) Don't think that your letters (presuming only that.. there are more than a handful? which actually get sent) -- are unread and unheeded. Thinking that - is merely the lazy person's rationale for sitting mutely and bitching. It's not too late to eviscerate, ridicule -- Kill SSSCA. Good logic and good writing are your armament. Use It. (You'll Know later.. if you just skipped the letters, and this sucker passes. Then: Whom will YOU blame?) Cheers, Ashton PS - you can even boilerplate some of the cogent arguments which others have created. I think it's best though.. to add at least a few original angles of your own, lest the screed seem to be a carbon copy = less credibility when the tallies are made. You'll feel better after you do it. US Mail is worth the 34\ufffd for its effect, IMhO - but e-mail is LOTS better than silence.
Post #30,487 by nking 3/2/02 6:50:26 PM Reply	It is true, after all [link\|http://netsecurity.about.com/library/weekly/aa121901a.htm\|Magic Lantern is the FBI's latest plan to combat terrorism] but it can be abused to keep track of innocents, or raise red flags on someone that visits the AYB web sites and all of a sudden they see "Someone set up us the bmb!" and the B-word flags them as a potential terrorist. Lord knows what will happen to this same person reading posts on IWE's WOT forum, or the Microsoft is Guilty Forum, and any combinations of other forums. It is the red scare all over again, I wonder how many innocents will be victim to this? When I did a search for Magic Lantern, and virus and trojan I came up with this site [link\|http://www.dojgov.net/USDOJ_Main.htm\|[link\|http://www.dojgov.net/USDOJ_Main.htm\|http://www.dojgov.net/USDOJ_Main.htm]] I cannot verify how accurate it is, but basically it says that innocents are getting hit as hard or harder than the guilty. Now I am not sure who runs it, but there are all sorts of sites on the Internet. Apparently there is a law [link\|http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/laws/pl096456.htm\|CLASSIFIED INFORMATION PROCEDURES ACT PL 96-456] that allows them to do this? Now if I was working on a programming project, with a few of my friends, and we sent email using PGP to encrypt the source code, the ML server would have all of our keystrokes and have all of our trade secrets listed on it. Then all my competition need do is hack the ML server or run a packet sniffer on the ISP between my dial-up or DSLAM or whatever before it goes to the ML server, and they can get all of our trade secrets and copyright them before we could. Even if we have proven that they have stolen our work, the copyright would still stand. They may face criminal charges for hacking into ISP equipment, but they'd make a bundle off of our ideas that we spent R&D on, and they didn't. "Will code Visual BASIC for cash."*

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