Relevant to the discussion about security and spying and data mining and all the rest, I urge folks to head on over to www.schneier.com and click on his Blog link and scroll down to the title Schneier Talk at Macalester College. There's an audio and video link. Noted security expert Bruce Schneier gave a talk at Macalester College in April.

Here's the link to the audio:

http://www.macalester.edu/whatshappening/audio/guestspeakers/macguest20070503.mp3

I'm not Schneier, nor do I work for him or even know him. His talk is very inciteful, and a good source of information. The focus of Schneier's discussion is security and security trade-offs, what security means, under- and overestimation of risk, security and the media, and so on.

Good stuff.

No kings,

Robert

Something just occurred to me--maybe another reason for Bush to "stay the course" is him not wanting to give up these "war powers" that gave him and the DOJ these unprecedented powers to do whatever they please. Maybe they're not finished with some "project" they need in place before the war ends.

I didn't mean it to sound like you or your letter was off topic - just the amendment. I am against any legislative action now because it might mislead people into thinking that we don't need investigations. But we do, badly - the lawbreakers need to be held accountable.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the rest.

I'm trying to decide whether I should spend the next couple of days publicizing information and filing a patent because something I told someone might get snapped up for commercial use and taken out of the public domain if I don't. But all I really wanted to do was get someone excited about the subject matter.

Why does every damn thing have to be about money and power, power and money, all the time?

Makes me think of bebop-o's image of the neocons doing the Satyricon scene.

Well, if they still love to hear the sound of Greek while they're eating, there may yet be room for us in the New World Order.... :-)

And as someone pointed out upthread, the private exploitation of our personal data is also a huge problem that is continuing to operate under the radar.-- Paul Dirks

There were a couple of mentions of this issue. The best one briefly highlighted some of the players in the information-industrial complex, introducing a few under-publicized corporate names. But for the initial mention.... you will have to h/t shooter242. Given your strict sense of responsibility I know that you will do so post-haste. ;)

prunes, Kitt, L.W.M.: I've pan-fried smelt that rose to the bait less readily than you do. How about keeping the thread on-topic by granting Jake the "respectful" silence he deserves?

What's the difference between a war here and a war there...the names may change, but people will still be dead.

Contrafactuals are inaccurate by their nature, especially as time goes on. However, you seem to imply that no wars would have occured if we had dropped Abombs on the Soviets. It is much more likely that they would have occurred, but elsewhere.

I was reading somewhere that conservatives are more realistic than liberals because they take into account that bad things can happen. Obviously, that means you are a liberal, and I am a conservative.

Working backward from page 8 of 18, because I sort by newest, I am trying to catch up on the latest comments on this thread,

but I'm beginning to get more than a little creeped out by the trolls this time, and really wish everyone would just stop feeding them.

There's something about the tone that makes me think they get excited by making the regular commenters, especially the women, react. Is it just me? because I don't usually notice things like that... maybe because I don't feed trolls.

If everyone would just ignore them, eventually they would go somewhere else, and the discussion thread wouild be at least one-third shorter, and much more concise.

Holly,

I apologize. I will stop, also. Contrafactual history is a hobby that I didn't want to see abused by secret agent man.

Fraud Guy

We aren't going anyplace that fast....

Karen, I apologize to you, also.

Fraud Guy

This much is true:

If they can, they will.

Of course nobody's paying attention to the loss of our privacy rights. There's a "War against Terror" on.

Problem is, whose terror and who's fighting it? Seems like we're the ones who ought to be terrified at the immense powers of the administration, which grow expotentially everytime I turn around.

Next they'll wiretap your sandwich at Mickey D's to make sure you buy the right kind of food. Not enough that you can't have trans fats!

I am not trying the “creep” anyone out, and I was the first to admit that dropping a nuke on Stalin and/or the Red Army may have led to even MORE being killed. Not sure how that makes me a "liberal" rather than a "conservative" (I'm actually registered Independent). Somehow, the point I was making with the counter-factual was lost in all the name-calling.

Nonetheless, I am glad to stop with the counter-factuals as well, but I’m not going to apologize.

It's not just for breakfast anymore.

In my previous post I wrote "inciteful," when it should have read "insightful." Schneier's talk is "insightful."

Robert's spelling is "appalling."

No kings,

Robert

I did find this insightful: “Wholesale surveillance is not simply a more efficient way for the police to do what they've always done. It's a new police power, one made possible with today's technology and one that will be made easier with tomorrow's. And with any new police power, we as a society need to take an active role in establishing rules governing its use. To do otherwise is to cede ever more authority to the police.”

Never really thought of it that way before. As long as we don’t make it EASIER for terrorists / criminals to evade detection, I’m fine with making sure that police / government don’t abuse more efficient ways to collect info that was always perfectly legal to collect before (i.e. Bruce Schneier was discussing automated license plate cameras that can scan 250 plates per minute). I'm sure there's common ground on many of these subjects. Would you at least agree that REAL terrorists need to be spied on if they are in this country?

I think this was a similar approach Professor Dershowitz was trying to reach some compromise on as well. What do you think about torture warrants, so that SOME court at least has to review and approve the use of torture to prevent something like a ticking-timebomb scenario?