] U.S. Attorney Stephen Patrick O'Meara said late Monday
] that the investigation focuses on unlawful entry onto
] military property at Camp Dodge on Nov. 16, and whether
] plans were laid for that at a conference the day before
] at Drake.
]
] Suggestions that the investigation is related to the
] Patriot Act "are not accurate," O'Meara said.

This was covered on MemeStreams.

FBI explains request for data about war protestors

] Congress is considering a good bipartisan compromise
] known as the SAFE Act (short for Safety and Freedom
] Ensured) that was introduced last fall by Sens. Richard
] Durbin (D-Ill.) and Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho). The
] measure, S1709, would add judicial oversight to rein in
] the FBI's overly free hand.
]
] The bill also extends the Patriot Act's sunset
] provisions, for example requiring periodic
] reconsideration of circumstances in which agents can read
] someone's e-mail or peruse their credit card purchases.
]
] In a letter last week, Ashcroft preposterously asserted
] that the SAFE Act would "make it more difficult" to stop
] terrorists "than before the Patriot Act," and said he'd
] recommend that Bush veto it. Lawmakers should ignore this
] bluster as they take modest steps to protect civil
] liberties while continuing to fight terror.

Ashcroft appears to be seriously opposed to even a moderate approach to the Patriot Act.

Safer Option for Civil Rights

] The Supreme Court yesterday declined to hear an appeal by
] civil liberties groups seeking access to basic data about
] hundreds of individuals detained by the federal
] government after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a
] decision that allows officials to continue withholding
] the names of most detainees, as well as other information
] related to their arrests, indefinitely.

At least these ones were allowed a hearing. This capability combined with the ability to detain without hearing and deny access to counsel would be extremely dangerous.

Secrecy Allowed On 9/11 Detention (washingtonpost.com)

] The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1
] ruling, said only the U.S. Congress can authorize such
] detentions and it ordered the government to release Jose
] Padilla from military custody within 30 days.
]
] The court said that the government can transfer Padilla,
] a U.S. citizen who has been held incommunicado in a Navy
] prison, to a civilian authority that can bring criminal
] charges against him.
]
] "Presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum and
] this case involves not whether those responsibilities
] should be aggressively pursued, but whether the President
] is obligated in the circumstances presented here to share
] them with Congress," the court said.

ABCNEWS.com : Appeals Court Says Bush Can't Hold U.S. Citizen

Jeremy wrote:
] While I appreciate the entertainment value, I think that
] "Sneakers" offers a futurist's vision of the situation. It's
] supposed to make you think ... but it's not trying to be
] "right."

I know, I was just trying to be funny... Perhaps a bad time as you seem to be dawning on some sort of revelation, but I couldn't resist.

] When I see the popular debate repeatedly circling around the
] same targets, bookending the variously weak and/or alarmist
] arguments with portentous excerpts from "1984", I am reminded
] of Flatland.

I must admit that I'm not sure what you're getting at with the juxtaposition you are making. I must still be thinking in 2D.

In any event, while that article's arguments may have been weak and alarmist (it was a liberal newsweekly) the perspective wasn't wrong. It doesn't matter if you've got a bunch of illegal mp3s in your ipod as long as you don't listen to them, but assuming that you do, we've got a problem, and probably an intractable one.

Total information awareness is a solution to the "problem" of super-empowered individuals that leaves a bad taste in my mouth for much the same reason that I don't like Bill Joy's book burning. It attempts to respond to the maturity of the individual by arming the state.

There are two ways that feudal societies handled the development of books. One was to become republican. The other was to become totalitarian. One response accommodated the increased power of individuals by providing a means to wield that power without resorting to violence. Its was a mature, realistic response to the situation, and ultimately successful. The other was an attempt to regress the empowerment of individuals through more effective "safeguards" that continued to buttress the old nature of the state. It was a way of band-aiding an obsolete system because that arrangement had certain benefactors, and it caused widespread human suffering where-ever it was attempted.

The reason Fukuyama is wrong is because we just empowered the individual again, by as much of a relative jump as we did in the 1500s, and we are going to have to through this process all over again. Some will wisely choose to find ways to ratchet down the concentration of formal power so that it comes in balance with reality, and some will choose to buttress the present status quo.

The danger I find long term, living in America as I do, is that we're the benefactors of the present arrangement, and so we are most likely to resist change despite our previous successes and the obvious reasons for those successes, and we're got guys like Fukuyama telling us that its not even something worth thinking about. So our ideas are all statist. Unfortunately, we're also on the cusp of this thing. I don't think I know of anyone who is coming up with alternatives. Other then maybe the cypherpunks.

RE: On Privacy

] "We are beginning to see a shift in the traditional
] privacy debate from simply focusing on an individual's
] right to privacy, to also including consideration of
] society's right to protect itself," says a letter from
] ChoicePoint CEO Derek Smith in the company's most recent
] annual report. "ChoicePoint as a company and I as an
] individual continue to believe, however, that in a free
] society -- particularly in today's society -- we do not
] always have the right to anonymity."

This is a loaded perspective coming from someone who has a financial interest in the erosion of privacy. (I'm reminded of Scott McNealy's comment that privacy is dead. Easy for you to say asshole, the computers you sell are being used to kill it!)

As you read into this article it just gets worse. Their next trick is to claim that they "self regulate" access to this information better then the government would. If Mr. Lee really believes this then he doesn't have a basic understanding of economics. The money that the feds pay you to do a search would be reflected in the overall costs of running their own system anyway, so no, you aren't prohibiting access in any way. PR at its best. Say something simple, and wrong, which requires a complex response. Simple beats correct in public debate every time.

Then you find out about a large number of black people who were excluded from the 2000 election in Florida...

The fact is that we are building extremely effective systems for fine grained social control. They are coming out of the wood work at every level. We are using the 911 attacks to justify actions we considered reprehensible in the wake of the 1993 WTC bombing (proving that emotions are more significant then needs here), without any clear relationship between the absence of these technologies and the success of these attack (anything could have been helpful).

The fact is that these systems are already being abused.

The fact is that there will be more successful attacks against us, and that we will further use those attacks to justify more technologies of social control. Eventually those in our society who desire to control us will finally have the means at their disposal, and they will take upon those means to enslave us.

I hope this country has the god damn spine to stand up to these fuckers when they arrive. If not, the next terrorist attacks will be our Reichstag fire.

Creative Loafing Atlanta | COVER | BIG BROTHER'S LITTLE HELPER

] Revisiting a motion that had narrowly passed by a 4-3
] vote last month, Los Alamos County Council rescinded
] funding for the purchase of 17 Sequoia Pacific "Edge"
] touchscreen voting machines by a vote of 7-0 Tuesday.

A victory for the open source voting movement...

lamonitor.com: The Online News Source for Los Alamos

] The President's determination that an individual is an unlawful
] combatant receives deference and need only be supported by
] 'some evidence.'

The DOJ is apparently passing around a word document where they gloat about their court victories. Each includes a quotation from the judge in question. The formatting here is terrible, but its still worth a read. That above quote is a judge deciding that your constitutional right to do process can be eliminated by the executive as long as it has 'some evidence' that you are associated with an enemy force.

[Politech] Justice Department's list of terrorism-related court cases

] This event features a rare face-to-face meeting of a supporter
] and a critic of the Patriot Act:
]
] Assistant US Attorney Randy Chartash is responsible for
] enforcing the Patriot Act.
]
] Former US Congressman Bob Barr has been an outspoken critic.

IP3: Patriot Act event in Atlanta

] The Supreme Court said Monday that it would decide
] whether foreign nationals can use U.S. courts to
] challenge their incarceration at the U.S. military base
] in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first cases it will hear on
] the Bush administration.

Justices to hear Guantanamo appeals