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Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

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Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#41

Post by stygianguest »

adventured wrote: post #36

Give a government trillions to spend in an era of massive government programs and vast new storage & surveillance technology, and it should be obvious what you're going to get. The only possible way to stop it is to starve the beast of funds to spend. Cut the government in half, and let's see if they can still afford all the shiny new big brother toys.

By this logic Europeans should be a total police state. To find a solution we need to discover what makes Americans so afraid that no gun is big enough, no military powerful enough, and due process can be suspended.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#42

Post by mrgriscom »

mtgx wrote: post #5
nnq wrote: post #2

> allow databases about U.S. civilians to be handed over to foreign governments for analysis, presumably so that they too can attempt to determine future criminal actions ...where on the line did these guys lost the "innocent until proven guilty" part?! (the possibility of your government handing personal data of innocent civilians to foreign governments sounds "out of your freakyn minds" even for a foreigner like me…

If I want to fly to Latin America from Europe, I'd rather make the stop for the second plane in Europe, and then go straight to Latin America, than make the stop in US. I just don't want to deal with TSA in any way, especially after stories that now they even have data on what you tweeted and stuff like that, and they can take you aside or even arrest you for a while because of that. Will TSA consider me "suspicious"…

I really wish people would stop mixing up TSA and USCBP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protect...)

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#43

Post by alastair »

nikcub wrote: post #32
buro9 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been happening in the other direction for a number of years now. My brother was turned back when he flew to Miami with his family to take his children to Disney World. It turned out that because he had been arrested aged 19 and failed to declare it that the border people felt that he had answered fraudulantly when challenged on "Have you ever been arrested?". My brother answered no because whilst he was arrested…

It sucks that this is how it works, but that is what the survey is for. They already know all the answers, they just want to see how you respond. For eg. they already know the date, your flight number, your passport number, your history - it is all about getting you in a situation where you answer questions and can be analyzed. The Isrealis are really good at it. They realized that security through innspecting every…

Article is here if anyone is interested (saves you a google) -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1336571/Terr...

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#44

Post by jlgreco »

buro9 wrote: post #40
buro9 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has a law called the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, within that is the notion of classes of criminal record being spent. I don't know the specifics, but you always have to declare the equivalent of felonies, but for misdemeanours you can lawfully not declare them after some period of time in which your debt is considered repaid and the record spent. The whole of the EU has such laws. I think most people with…

To reply to myself, the thing that I took away from his telling of this experience and watching his wife almost cry when they got to the part about boarding the plane back with the children... it's this: Every thing that you ever do is recorded somewhere. Every person has a file whether they think they do or not. This file will only ever be used against you. And Europe remembers such a thing... it was only 1990 that…

I think part of the problem is we have a perverted sense of "Godwin's law", such that making allusions to the past is considered "losing the conversation". The past it seems is no longer something that we are supposed to learn from, and the notion that there may be parallels between the past and the present is now termed 'offensive'.

In a lesser forum, you would likely be dismissed out of hand for mentioning the Stasi, even though your reasons for mentioning it are very sound. How can we hope to avoid the past if we refuse to talk about it?

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#45

Post by alan_cx »

mrgriscom wrote: post #42
mtgx wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I want to fly to Latin America from Europe, I'd rather make the stop for the second plane in Europe, and then go straight to Latin America, than make the stop in US. I just don't want to deal with TSA in any way, especially after stories that now they even have data on what you tweeted and stuff like that, and they can take you aside or even arrest you for a while because of that. Will TSA consider me "suspicious"…

I really wish people would stop mixing up TSA and USCBP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protect... )

Perhaps the worry should be that people just shorten all that to "USA", and give up. I know I would never travel there, and I don't really care which acronym is out to wreck my life.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#46

Post by jlgreco »

barking wrote: post #34
dirtyaura wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that a previous record and terrorist acts correlate significantly?

Yes. Membership of the domestic terrorist groups in my country correlates very strongly with a history of juvenile anti-social behaviour. These youngsters frequently come into contact with these groups either when subject to vigilante punishment or 'get taken under their wing'. Most terrorists aren't university graduates

> Membership of the domestic terrorist groups in my country correlates very strongly with a history of juvenile anti-social behaviour.

Is the reverse true?

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#47

Post by jlgreco »

barking wrote: post #27
a3_nm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence to suggest that the absence of 9/11-like attacks has anything to do with the TSA?

None. By their nature, measures like this annoy people. If this was the 12th of September 2001 would your opinion be different and if so, why?

When was the last time a locked cabin door annoyed you?

There is nothing inherent about security measures that cause annoyance. Security theater measures on the other hand...

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#48

Post by HannibalLecter »

I don't see the problem with this. The US seems to be building the pioneering efforts of a pre-crime unit. The philosophy is that if we're in the era of information whoever has the most information wins. What's wrong with USA taking all the info they can get? Anyone here could do the same thing.

Don't use the word innocent. Nobody is innocent.

Re: Massive New Surveillance Program Uncovered by Wall Street Journal

#49

Post by conradfr »

chmike wrote: post #17

I don't understand the critics. Do you think that terrorists or criminals are detected by oracles ? You ridiculed the security agencies after 911 for not beeing able to detect such a plot and now you are in shock because they do their job ? There is no way to detect a plot while staying eyes shut. There is a problem, more precisely a risk, but it is not in collecting the data and processing it to detect a plot. It is…

Didn't 9/11 seem more human mistake, power battle and inefficiencies between organizations rather than lack of intelligence data ?
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