I can't even feign surprise or get my eyebrows to raise themselves......

All hail discordia! (there, that's me tagged now..I'll expect a visit soon...)

As we're told /ad nauseam/, the right to bear arms exists to prevent dictatorial abuse of power from "those in charge". Shurely an insurrection is to be expected before the end of the year, then. C'mon, plantigrade-armed people, put your act together and do your duty.

I'm not surprised, either...

What if we emigrate to another country? Will our data be kept for 15 years as a citizen or 75 as a foreigner?

Say Billy Ray ... what would you prefer you LibTard; Bombings in the streets of NY, Washington DC (no not the daily shootings because the lib blacks run the city), Chicago (no not the daily shootings because the lib Dems run the city), LA (no not the daily shootings because the lib Mexicans and Blacks run the city); or maybe Bus Bombings like London or Israel or Train Bombings in Spain because you LIBTARDS are affraid to scrutinize your own shadow let alone the shadows that the radical Muslims cast??

The ONLY people that fear being watched, are ones that HAVE A REASON to be Paranoid because they ARE doing something wrong. What are you Bill Ray doing wrong? LIBTARD.

Libtards and Democrats, clueless like Paris Hilton.

I get what they're going for, but man, they have a real knack for missing the obvious ways their plans could be misused...

...or maybe they're counting on it...

I'll second the inability to be at all shocked by this turn of events. Hell I can't say I'll even be surprised when this gets enacted. The sad fact is this kind of activity is ever increasing and will continue unless folks who have the power to actually force these kinds of Orwellian measures out of our lives come to the party.

So stand proud and tall, lets all drop trou and submit to the inevitable body cavity searches that are coming. After all we are all guilty until proven innocent right???

I'd ask for my coat but it's been confiscated along with everything else by homeland security because I failed to properly genuflect at the presence of Der Fuehrer bush.

Given that history shows "being liberal in the 1950s" and "being in favour of peace in the 1970s" were previously perfectly reasonable grounds for opening an investigation, does this really change much?

Sigh.

Yes, we know. And no, we don't appreciate the reminder. We're trying to forget. Only 5 months 1 days 19 hours 12 minutes 41 seconds to go.

Quote:

"The border-crossing database being created in the name of Homeland Security came to light last month in a Federal Register notice, and is intended to form a record which can "quite literally, help frontline officers to connect the dots", according to a Homeland Security spokesman."

Anyone who knows statistics also knows that in a group of dots, you can draw many lines, and not all of them fit correctly.

Anyone who knows how to abuse statistics also knows that you can connect the dots and come to any conclusion you want.

If this passes, it will be the CrystalYolk (The Night of Breaking Eggs). Everyone knows that you need to break some eggs to make an omelet, but this law proposes breaking all the eggs to get at the right yolk.

Actually, the comparison to CrystalNacht is eerily similar on more levels than that, now that I think of it. Next, I suppose there will be jack-booted government agents coming in the middle of the night to take away all the undesirables, including intellectuals like me, simply because free-thinking is the most terrifying thing of all to a government intent on absolute order (and absolute power). Add to this that any petty crime can be considered terrorism (it terrifies the public), and this is the kind of knee-jerk reaction that ensues.

This isn't the America I grew up in. If I live long enough, I might write a history of America over the past 25 years, so when we get our democracy back, the words "never again" will have a new meaning in the US.

So when exactly will Congress roll over on this one? Immediately -- or after a decent mourning period of a month?

"When there exists a legitimate public interest in the disclosure of the information."

Hints, leaks, winks and nudges and "unnamed government spokespersons"...

What passes as "legitimate public interest" these days?

Well, there was a "legitimate public interest" in the disclosure of any information in the passport file of Gov. Bill Clinton's that could be used to make the people "connect the dots" into thinking that he might morph into a dirty commie bastard once elected president.

There was a "legitimate public interest" in the disclosure that Bruce Evins, now being railroaded as The Lone Anthrax Man, had a private P.O. box in which he received photographs of blindfolded women. This obviously relevant info is used to make the people "connect the dots" into thinking that he might be a pervert psycho bastard obviously keen to brew up those potent anthrax letters, so useful in justifying hot bomb, bomb, bomb action.

etc...

FS: US Constitution. Priced low to sell fast!!

Recent change in circumstances means we no longer have any need for it, except for the second amendment which we cannot do without and which is not part of the sale. Constitution should operate well even with that part missing. Owner is leaving in a few months and needs to get rid of it before he goes, so any reasonable offer will be considered.

Thanks for looking!

Once we get a quality POTUS up in here, these new Anti-American laws will be dealt with.

For instance, the 1974 Privacy Act is specifically about issues like this.

Please, for the love of All Things Good In The World, isn't there a way we can get this twat out of office early? Send him on an extended cruise to Nowhere? Lock him in the bog until January? Give him a "Time Out" in the corner for the next few months? The man has been a source of hideous embarrassment and outrage to Americans since 2000, and I'm tired of it.

Can't we just tell him to please go away?

/Sad face, because I am.

In the United States, actions committed in public are not subject to privacy laws.

Walking across a border is not a private thing - it is publicly observed by 2 nations as well as by everyone standing around you.

The United States Constitution grants the right to Regulate Commerce to the Federal Government.

Moving across state lines, including to/from a foreign nation, is a Federal obligation to regulate since it is illegal for individual states to do.

These are pretty simple concepts, people don't seem to understand privacy in the United States.

My country did to make me proud...

Well, the ongoing space efforts.

That's it.

So we got NASA going on for us, at least. Until the TSA starts hassling astronauts.

I suggest you queue up for "The Man Under Surveilance" when it will be translated into English:

http://www.book.store.bg/c/p-p/m-481/id-18686/sledeniat-chovek-spomeni-predizvikani-ot-dokumenti-veselin-branev.html

This is a book done by one of the Bulgarian movie directors ( http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0105077/ ) in cooperation with the agents that were assigned to follow his activities during the "socialist" times. Quite an eye opener. It is unique amidst books about 1984/Animal Farm regimes as it is probably the only book where the "victim" and the "hunter" have cooperated to write it.

It will REALLY help you understand exactly what does a man have to fear when he has been put under surveilance and what does it end up with... And what do we owe the LibTards...

After all, we've just witnessed the reincarnation of J. Edgar hisself!!!

Dead vulture, because there is just so much carnage these days...

So even the Democrats are only worried about what happens to "an innocent American". And to hell with those funny foreigners, everyone knows they're not really human and have no rights whatever. And they turn round and resent the US when told they're not really human, so obviously they're not to be trusted.

When did a politician from any country really give a shit about someone from another country? I don't mean the soundbites, I mean the actions, the refusal to cow-tow to the party line or risk being seen as soft on terrorism?

The answer is never. Furriners are always treated with suspicion and contempt, no matter which country to chose to visit. Except Holland. In Holland they get you stoned instead. I suggest we adopt that model and right quick too.

There would be no more terrorism, I guarantee it.

"Yeah I'd love to blow up the building man, but all that noise would be far too hectic.. shit even I'm not even sure I have the energy to make a cup of tea and you want me to drive where and do what?"

As for privacy in the US, the Constitution guarantees very little. Democratic Congress? Fuck off, they won't stop this, they'll probably support it. Not one of them has the balls to stand up for anything in an election year. If they did they would have refused to fund Iraq, which they could have quite easily done with the majority they have and the fact the House of Representatives holds the government purse strings. They didn't even have the balls to do that with close to 90% of the public demanding they did so. And they wonder why they are held in more contempt than the President. They were told to end the war in Iraq by the voters, and didn't do it. The Republican Congress paid the price for cow-towing to the President and his abuse of the Constitution (an act of treason by the way, he swore an oath to protect it) and the Democratic Congress will face the same fate when they go up for re-election. Maybe the next lot will grow some balls, but I doubt it. I wonder how many times of throwing out a party it'll take before someone gets a clue and takes a risk.

I live in the South...in an area where liberal is a dirty word and republicans have an iron fist on the political processes. Guess what? There's still murder and mayhem on a daily basis.

I was also a soldier, and served my country. My family has a tradition of service; with very few exceptions ALL of my cousins have served. Some have died fighting in this "war on Terror". I served because I believe in the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. I am disgusted that Americans have been brainwashed to believe that "only the bad people have something to fear". I want the freedoms I served for, the freedoms my cousins have died for. Damn it, I want my country back.

"The ONLY people that fear being watched, are ones that HAVE A REASON to be Paranoid because they ARE doing something wrong."

"Bad laws make criminals out of honest men" - Unknown

"give me 5 lines written by the most honest man, and i will find something in it to hang him." - Cardinal de Richeleu

"They only need a small excuse To put us all away" - Andrew Lloyd Webber

In short, look at anyone hard enough, you can find a crime to pin on them, no matter how innocent they may think they are, if you're determined to arrest them.

is the Anti-New-World-Order Screensaver, get a bit of distributed computing power we can use against these bastards. On both sides of the Pond, and anywhere else where they work their evil.

@amanfromMars - I remember hearing a few years ago (sorry, no references) that somebody's research showed that "top" politicians and businessmen share a psychological profile with psychopaths, with the same scary fixation on their objectives. You and the Canadian are right. Maybe we should all be taking scary fixation lessons so we can fight back more effectively.

Somebody get working on that screensaver. I'll get myself a bigger CPU specially when I read about it in the Reg.

"Somebody get working on that screensaver. I'll get myself a bigger CPU specially when I read about it in the Reg."

I've got ~30 perfectly good Xeon PII and PIII here that sit around doing litterally nothing (they're stacked in a cardboard box). I also have ~30 moboes that happen to accept 2 PII or PIII each. Plus a handfull of SCSI HDs, a few tens GB of RAM in 128M and 256M tiny (but server-grade) packages, cases, network cards and a good hub.

So sign my soon-to-be Beowulf thinggy in (as soon as I can be arsed to put the parts together, that is. -I'll also need a better 'tarwub connection).

PS I know, using this (overly unimpressive) computer power to work on cancer, cystic fibrosis -or watever else is fashionable at the moment- would be better for the Human kind. But that's already what I do for a living, so I'll stick to the liberty-enhancing thing in my free time, thanks.

PPS actually I just realized that this, hum, "screensaver" probably already exists: just install Windows and visit a few questionable sites based in China or Eastern Europe, you'll be enrolled faster than you can say "botnet". And you'll even be able to claim innocence (in the old-fashionned meaning of the term) if probed by the Feds.

Every now and then, I actually understand the occasional fragment of one of your posts. In this case:

"And it is simply complex folk like you and me who idly chat and exchange simply complex views on the Internet that they cannot stop"

You're very wrong, though. The Internet isn't some independent global Freedom Network Of The People. It's owned and run, lock stock and barrel, by the US Government and a few major corporations. If it was ever considered to be a serious enough threat -rather than the fantastic bread-and-circuses distraction it's been so far - it'd be gone.

But I don't think we've much to worry about on that score. The Internet might carry a few defiant messages to and fro - but they're a tiny drop in the ocean of millions of people broadcasting excited news of every fart and piece of navel fluff. Most of the ones that do get noticed can be safely written off as the rambling of conspiracy theory nutcases. After all, what's the average Net user going to care about the obsessions of a bunch of tinfoil hat merchants, as long as eBay and Facebook and YouTube still work?

Argh.

I really, honestly think that the word 'literally' ought to be rejected outright by anyone hoping to be taken seriously on anything.

How on *Earth* have people managed to take a word that so definitely carries a meaning of 'true exactly as stated' and made it mean precisely the opposite?

@Christoph, 'So even the Democrats are only worried about what happens to "an innocent American".'

Former Democratic President Bill Clinton, during his Administration, created a rule to keep the FBI from accessing CIA Terrorism information. The result of this executive branch rule resulted in the World Trade Center 1993 bombing, Oklahome City 1995 bombing, and ultimately 9/11 2001 bombing.

After 9/11, this executive rule was removed by the G. W. Bush Republican Administration and the FISA courts ruled that there was legal for the FBI to inquire with the CIA for existing terrorist information before the Clinton Administration as well as after the rule was removed, after 9-11.

Democrats seem to care more about what happens to terrorists... which is why global terrorist organizations overwhelmingly support Democrats over Republicans in the United States, both in rhetoric as well as in funding.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52747

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/22/which-terrorists-support-which-democratic-presidential-candidate/

I agree with you. I have a bet going with an american friend of mine as to whether or not there is going to be a Presidential election come november.

I just hope he and his family have gotten out before then so I'll have a chance to collect.

is it just me or is amanfrommars suddenly making a lot more sense in his posts?