Homeland Security

[Phillip Tanaka]

I think I can post polls, so here we go. With the concern over Homeland Security, ASIO, or whatever force your country has in place to fight terrorism, I thought I'd set up this poll to see what everyone thinks.

 

[Aries]

i'd be willing to join up, if they needed me. I personally think that the people who compare this department of the gov. to the Nazi SS and Gestapo (SP?) are just trying to incite riots or something by playing off the fear that it will turn into a Nazi-style group, which is bullshit. however, that don't mean that if they do become overbearing and Nazi like i won't turn my support against it, but i don't think that will happen

 

[Skyfire]

I can tend to be an advocate of extremely different political philosophy's (and cling to them both in different concepts/situations, ect.) and think that this whole, "Uh, we're turning into facist" thing is rather whiny on our part. I've yet to have anyone conclusively prove to me "all the rights that are being taken away from us." I'd actually be interested in hearing them...and seeing if they could stand against logic.

 

[Quarto]

I think the "we're turning into fascists" argument has become so cliched that most of us don't quite understand what its original point was. And that point isn't that the Homeland Security, or the ASIO or whatever are fascist organisations, or that they endanger our freedom per se. The argument is - things are fine the way they are now, the government has enough power to pursue criminals, and it doesn't need any more power. Therefore, giving them more power will not serve a useful purpose, but on the other hand will set a precedent that can later be used to obtain more power.

 

[ChrisReid]

It's generally not a good idea to have too many poll options. They just blur together and make it more difficult to get a sense of where people are voting.

 

[Phillip Tanaka]

Hmmmmm? Oh, sorry, you caught me napping. The poll options, was it? Yeah...if it was something that wasn't as complicated as what to do about terrorism, there wouldn't be so many, um, options. Sorry, I didn't sleep at all on Christmas. You're right, though, I'll try and remember that in the future.

 

[ChrisReid]

It's not really terrorism. Those options aren't complex or organized. They read like a list of random overlapping wordy thoughts. I could knock it down to three options and you'd get both more votes and more meaningful data.

 

[Phillip Tanaka]

Ah well. I could have probably done it in two, but geez, it's the day after Christmas. Give a little slack someone tired, hung over and hung out.

 

[ChrisReid]

What exactly is hanging out? On second thought, don't answer that.

 

[Ender]

I'm opposed to such organizations on the grounds that they are:
1) Making for a bigger, more invasive government. (I thought conservatives were against that, but oh well, this is war after-all.)
2) What do we stand for if we are willing to compromise the principles our nation was supposedly founded under in order to gain a tenuous sense of security? (Until the next "terror alert" anyway.)
3) The anti-terror laws are being enforced in an extremely racist fashion. Why don't we use the statutes to go after white-supremacist groups?
4) The guys in charge of some of these agancies have a rap sheet.
Admiral Poindexter, in charge of a new information security agency was a major player in the Iran-Contra fiasco. He lied to congress, but was able to exchange untold information for immunity. The man should be in jail.

There is a reason that it is called the Bill of Rights, and not the Bill of Privliges. Dissent is not only a right, if you disagree with the actions of your government, I consider it a civic duty to try to change things. Within the law.

And, speaking of dissent, I'm going down to DC on Jan 18 for part 2 of that huge- ass rally that I participated in back n Oct. Will I see anyone from here? Doesn't matter which side you're on, I just like to see people expressing something other than apathy.

 

[Ladiesman^]

I think Homeland Security is the most logical thing we've ever done. From what I understand, it's simply making an area where all the information the government already had or can get with the established laws to all flow into the same location, so it's easier for the other governmental organizations to access it. I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why we didn't do this a long time ago.....

Instead of the CIA, FBI, NSA, DOD, INS, SGC and NID p ) all having their own seperate databases with their own information for their own purposes, we'll now have an organization which collects all of the information from all of these and allows everyone to access it.

I fail to see why that's fascist.

[q]And, speaking of dissent, I'm going down to DC on Jan 18 for part 2 of that huge- ass rally that I participated in back n Oct. Will I see anyone from here? Doesn't matter which side you're on, I just like to see people expressing something other than apathy.[/q]

I'll very rarely protest anything, mainly because I generally think the government is doing a fairly good job and haven't had a reason to protest anything. The only thing I would protest against are the protesters.

 

[Ender]

So I'll see you there?

 

[Quarto]

Heh. That's actually the other reason why I think Homeland Security is a dumb idea. The problem is the rivalry between agencies so... you establish another agency? It seems to me that's a surefire way of making things worse. Especially since the CIA and FBI will be eager to prove that they can handle the job in spite of their past screwups. Their cooperation with Homeland Security is probably going to be patchy at best, and completely non-existent at worst.

Why would you protest against the protesters, BTW? And since you'd be a protester, wouldn't that mean that you're protesting against yourself?

 

[Ender]

Yeah, new agancy, same turf-fighting weenies in charge of it. Bigger government, more fiscal irresponsibility. So much for conservatism.

BTW, the agency isn't by itself a facist entity. The methods it uses (ie: illegal search and siezure, depriving suspects of due process, racial profiling, etc.) are.

Question: If 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, why do Saudis living in the US not have to register? If you're going to be profiling people, at least do a good job of it.

 

[Aries]

Originally posted by Ender
Question: If 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, why do Saudis living in the US not have to register? If you're going to be profiling people, at least do a good job of it.

Simple. We don't want to piss off our peace loving friends, the Saudis, who in fact are giving money to Al Queda.

 

[Ender]

If they're giving money to AL Quaeda already, how could we possibly piss them off more?

Well-other than nuking Mecca...

 

[Aries]

how we piss them off; make them realize they are not as important as they think they are and/or start treating them the way they deserve. if we do that, they would openly support Al Queda and cut off our oil supply. course it doesn't matter cause we have enough oil here in the US to compensate, and we'd just buy more oil from Russia.

 

[cff]

You probably heared this already, but it sums up me feelings pretty well:
"1984 - Orwell was just off a decade" (or two) ...

The government (and even more so their secret agencies) and also larger companies already got waaaaaaaaaaay too much power over each individuum. No matter on what grounds should they be given even more.

When I hear that hacking can be punished by execution in the USA by now or that I can just vanish from earth if I am a suspected terrorist without a lawyer or any other rights remaining then I get really scared personally.

Also to be quite honest terrorism doesn't really scare me at all. If I compare how many deaths had been caused by crashed airplanes in contrast to terrorist attacks to airplanes then the second number is neglectable.
By this whole hysteria that makes us change our life and that takes our liberties the terrorists already achieved their goals.

 

[Phillip Tanaka]

I was going to stay out of this and let everyone go at it. But I was reading the WC3 novel and had enough after...the part where most everyone I'd imagine would have had enough, and I wanted to take my mind off things. So...

You are right, in a way. The Taliban may have won in terms of causing a constant fear. I know what Americans are going through. In Australia, where I live, we are exactly the same, especially after the Bali bombing and Jimar Islamia (sp?). But, our countries were two of the most friendly and accessible countries in the world. In many countries in Eurpope I believe it is much harder to travel, and countries over there are crawling with spies who keep an eye on Americans, especially fit, well dressed ones in case they are military or government. The situation in the Middle East is so bad that in some places even looking like an American or Westerner an get you killed. Or experiance the nearly legitimate business of kidnapping and slave labour in parts of Asia. And Africa? You're kidding, right? The people there live in third and forth world conditions, conditions that good people such as Christian Children's Fund are desperately trying to make better. I'm not trying to put down these countries, we have our own problems too.

Hacking can be punished by execution? Where'd you hear that? As a victim of hacking, I have mixed feelings on that one. Does the possibility of the government becoming Nazi like scare me? Honest answer? A little. But think positive. You are not a terrorist, are you? The only possible connection with a terrorist would be from the business end of a gun in one of your video games, right? Well, I say if you truely innocent of any crimes then you have nothing to fear.

 

[ChrisReid]

Originally posted by cff
If I compare how many deaths had been caused by crashed airplanes in contrast to terrorist attacks to airplanes then the second number is neglectable.

I just read there wasn't a single US commercial airline fatality in 2002... down from like 525 in 2001 for obvious reasons.

I would say that if you're also scared by what the government is doing to increase security, then you're also serving the terrorists' goals as well. It takes years and millions of dollars for a state to actually execute someone. I think only like half the states allow capital punishment, and they've only done like one federal execution in decades. They don't even bother with the hassle unless you're a really bad dude. In Seattle they just caught the Green River killer last year. He was a prime suspect 15 years ago, but they just now got the really clinching DNA goo to top off all their previous evidence. And the bastard's legal team has already been granted like four million dollars in public defense money to keep him from getting the death penalty. If you're screwing around hacking into banks and stealing intelligence from CIA computers or otherwise undermining national security, then it's rather unfortunate that you probably won't be executed.