On Thursday, October 25, 2001, at 08:42 PM, Mark Talbot wrote:

...

Dangerous? Yes, there are dangers to a mandatory national I.D. card, but there may be greater dangers without one. The fact is, to live in a society as vulnerable as ours, we may have to give up something - but I disagree that what's lost is freedom. Instead, it's privacy, and maybe not even that.

This guy is clueless: privacy is a form of freedom.

I have yet to see a post 9/11 scheme that would actually enhance my safety in any significant way. Even police states have terrorists.

The United States Government supported the Chechen "freedom fighters" who blew up a couple of apartment building blocks in Moscow. Hundreds died. But this was not terrorism...this was freedom fighting. Now that the U.S. has been hit so hard, the party line in the U.S.G. is shifting rapidly. As for the USA/PATRIOT law, about to be signed into law tomorrow, Friday, October 25, with enforcement to "begin immediately," I am not too worried about roving wiretaps. That's just technological evolution of the standard old judge-approved wiretap. No, what worries me a great deal is the all of the language about terrorist organizations and what happens to those who "provide support" for some claimed terrorist organization (including language about helping them to hide communicaitons, money transfers...sounds like anonymous remailers face civil forfeiture of their assets, plus imprisonment). There is even frightening language (available by grepping the text) about how the asset forfeitiures, arrests, detentions, etc. should not be done for ordinary first amendment practitioners! (Language like: "provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected bythe first amendment to the Constitution.'';") My translation of this language: Anyone may be arrested, held without charges, etc., but a positive defense, provided one can hire Gerry Spence, may be that the activity was a 1A activity and hence the Homeland Defense Troopers really should not have kicked the doors in, killed the wife in bed because they saw movement, stomped the cat, and put the anon remailer operator in a dark cell for 15 weeks without any charges being filed or evidence produced... The rest of the bill is filled with equally frightening stuff. Remember, folks, this stuff is not just directed at "Arabic-looking Middle Easterners with student visas." It applies to so-called right wing militias, to freedom fighters against unfair taxation, to gun dealers, even to those transporting their own fucking money! Someone carrying his own money faces forfeiture of the money and imprisonment, as if it were the King's money, not his! This grossly surpasses _anything_ the English masters did to the colonies. Far surpasses. Aspects of this have been the law for a long time, but this formalizes the issue that people cannot transport their own money around without the Crown deciding to seize their money. Fuck them dead. Fuck Washington. I pray for a massive enough attack to kill hundreds of thousands of these snakes in their den. Praise Osama, if this is what it takes. The USA/PATRIOT bill was hastily put together, with most Congresscritters have essentially no idea of its implications for building a police state. The U.S. Congress wastes more than a year debating the impeachment issue over the Lewinsky affair, blah blah blah, then races to construct an American Reich with barely any discussion. Disgusting. The nation is beyond salvation. America is preterite. --Tim May "Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice."--Barry Goldwater

Quoting Blanc (blancw@cnw.com):

Speaking of taking up full responsibility for one's preferred lifestyle, it makes me think that it will be an oddly strange, science-fiction kind of existence that some of us will be operating in, in the future, trying to survive and achieve our ambitions in between weasels, dogs of war, and missile fire. Something between "A Boy and his Dog", "Mad Max", and "Neuromancer".

That should be massivly entertaining for some people, and not quite so entertaining for others. Imagine the collateral damage of hundreds or even a few thousand people with nothing to lose taking out their fustrations in the malls and workplaces of America -- a sweet deal for the LEAs, to be sure. Regards, Steve -- Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.