Letters to the Editor
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Mukasey: EVERY crime is terrorism-related
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/ag-mukasey-says.html
AG Mukasey Says IP Theft Threatens Public Safety, Fosters Terrorism
By David Kravets
March 28, 2008
Intellectual PropertySAN JOSE, California -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey talked tough on intellectual property crime, telling Silicon Valley executives here Friday that the theft of their inventions poses a threat to the nation's "health and safety" and fosters terrorism. [...]
- - "Threat Level" blog
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@ sysprog
http://www.crypto.com/blog/wiretap_risks
As someone who began his professional career in the Bell System (and who stayed around through several of its successors), the push for telco immunity represents an especially bitter disillusionment for me. Say what you will about the old Phone Company, but respect for customer privacy was once a deeply rooted point of pride in the corporate ethos. There was no faster way to be fired (or worse) than to snoop into call records or facilitate illegal wiretaps, well intentioned or not. And it was genuinely part of the culture; we believed in it, even those of us ordinarily disposed toward a skeptical view of the official company line.
- - Matt Blaze
Matt Blaze is now an engineering professor at Penn, and he recently was one of the co-authors of a study of ways that the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" -- based on what is publicly known about it -- may actually be making us less safe.
I take the rules, the respect for privacy, and in fact even the laws quite seriously ... even when my job might be made easier if I were to take a little peek at the folks being surveilled.
The law says that, for system and maintenance purposes, monitoring calls and other such troubleshooting can be done ... but woe be unto the person that goes beyond the job and that uses this for purposes other than that. Similarly with other confidential information. If I receive it, I can't divulge it.
My desire that others don't break the law means that, no matter how well intentioned (and how "harmless" I might deem it), I should strain to keep from bending the rules myself.
Cheers,
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SNAFU -- FUBAR -- SOP
it would take a lot more than the hysteria of folks who've long since given in to their feelings of powerlessness to convince me that anything more was active on 9/11 than the usual SNAFU. -- William Timberman
All these after-the-fact types who insist that 9-11 could have been stopped or mitigated, if only......
appear to have never worked in any large organization. I don't care if it's a private corporation, a university, or whatall --- large organizations don't prevent these kinds of radical breaches. Individuals do -- if they're allowed to. The customs officer who stopped the guy at the Washington state border who was trying to get into the U.S. to bomb LAX is a case in point -- she acted on a hunch and on individual initiative.And don't get me started on the ones who imply 9-11 was set up by the powers-that-be -- their self-indulgent idiocy is so extreme they deserve positions in the Bush DoJ.
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That Goddamn Mukasey
Really, what can I say about the lying, neofascist Mukasey except--well, piss on him!
Yes, I know America's helpless at present. The Army and Marine Corps have stood down; the Fleet is in port; and the Air Force is grounded. The entire defense apparatus of the United States has been rendered meaningless because of Congress's failure to renew the so-called "Protect America Act."
Lord have mercy!
It behooves each and every one of us to be especially vigilant for signs of "Islamofascist" invasion and/or infiltration. We must not flag or fail!
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@ Glenn Greenwald re: ad copy
I've worked extensively in copy & technical writing and I think the first thing any professional copywriter will tell you is that the draft text, while good, is waaaaay too long and dense even for a 60 second ad. The voice-over, when read at breakneck, breathless speed (borderline incomprehensible) comes in at 59 seconds. The copy below is a fairly brutal editing of the original but hits all the major points & comes in at under 30 seconds. (I excised the bit about future presidents as a distraction to the central thrust of the ad - which is to replace Carney. Muddying the issue by even tangentially referencing the Presidential race is, IMO, distracting/counterproductive.)
Anyway, here's the edit:
(Image, voice-over & music directions unchanged.)
"Foreign dictatorships spy on their own citizens without any limits or oversight.
America is free & great because even our largest companies & most powerful politicians must obey the law.
But the Bush administration & the largest telcos demand they be given un-American powers: To spy on Americans; to listen to our calls; to read our e-mails without warrants; to break our nations laws at will.
That's not America.
And it's not just Bush demanding these powers. Congressman Chris Carney has voted repeatedly to give Bush whatever he wants.
We elected Chris Carney to fight for us, to keep our nation strong and free - NOT to be a rubber stamp for whatever Bush & his corporate cronies demand."
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smelliest bullshit of all
I'm also not too fond of the other half of this thesis, which states that only those who once risked getting their asses shot off in one of our dirty little wars of self-aggrandizement understands the true meaning of freedom and democracy. That is the smelliest bullshit of all.
-- William Timberman
Got the right.
(from movie Big Trouble, where that line is all one hit man ever speaks)
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Which I think an Obama win in November is unlikely.. (Aycharaych)
Combine bigotry/racism/anti-intellectualism and anti-liberalism and you have a potent mixture that many are going to have a hard time overcoming in the privacy of the voting booth when confronted with war-hero-conservative-maverick-McBush and the ni**er, ni**er, ni**er dogwhistle the Republicans are going to be blowing like a steam calliope on steroids.
-- Aycharaych
I respectfully disagree. I know Republicans inside the family and outside, who are going to vote Obama if he is one the ticket and McCain over Clinton if that is the choice.
Obama is sounding a lot like the later Nixon, "declare victory and come home". That sells; he can tap a huge reservoir of anti-war sentiment from the Republican base. And remember, we do not need them to actually vote Obama; only to not vote. A vote for Obama would be nice, but just a non-vote by a large minority of Republicans will hand Obama the election in a landslide.