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More Abuses of Technology - Government Surveillance - Computer Confiscation

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cranioscopical:
I was about to chip in again, but I've stilled my typing finger.

I know I've contributed to this thread but, in hindsight, I wish I had not.

FWIW I don't think DonationCoder is the best forum in which to air our different views on this.

Renegade:
Just to sort of bring this back around to tech...

...
No offense Deozaan but I've read stuff like this all over the net and yet no one has ever been able to tell me exactly what laws are doing all this damage.
Lots of hysteria but not one person has been able to give me any specific instance where their rights have been violated, and what I mean by that is what rights have you had specifically, that have been violated?
-Cpilot (May 18, 2008, 10:12 PM)
--- End quote ---

There are a few examples posted here. I started with 2.

The point here is that there is a lot of very warped legislation that's using/abusing technology to limit freedom. It's not the specific cases that we need to worry about -- it's the threat of it because the threat may be realized. (An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That sort of thing.)

Some of the basic fundamentals of technology that we all understand here are not understood by legislators. And that misunderstanding is leading to dangerous legislation that threatens normal, regular, everyday innocent people.

Anyone like Battlestar Galactica? The Cylons turned on mankind. Analagously, today technology is being turned on us as a sort of weapon. Violence only produces more of itself. This is not a good road to go down...

Basically were talking about how information is used or "regulated." The problem there is that regulating information as above is the equivalent of having "thought police." I don't think we need to debate whether or not "thought police" are a good thing or a bad thing.

Confiscating laptops for their contents is clearly a form of thought policing, and almost equivalent to book burning.

  
 
 

Deozaan:
As I was typing this, several other posts were made, including mouser's reminder to keep politics to a minimum. As such I'd like to make a response to the question posed to me, but have trimmed out much of the more political aspects of what I originally wrote.

In that regard, the terrorists have been very successful, because we've been full of nothing but fear since the September 11 attack. Freedoms and liberties have been restricted. Laws are being passed that contradict the constitution this country was built on. I love my country more than I can describe, and it makes me extremely sad (and scared!) to see where it's heading with these laws that disregard the constitution and ignore our "inalienable rights" as human beings.
--- End quote ---
No offense Deozaan but I've read stuff like this all over the net and yet no one has ever been able to tell me exactly what laws are doing all this damage.
Lots of hysteria but not one person has been able to give me any specific instance where their rights have been violated, and what I mean by that is what rights have you had specifically, that have been violated?
-Cpilot (May 18, 2008, 10:12 PM)
--- End quote ---

First let me say that it's the law itself that violates the Bill of Rights. I don't need it to be enforced against me before I'm allowed to decry the fact that it's not constitutional.

I haven't left the USA in 10-15 years, since I was maybe 10 years old. So for one thing border security wasn't very intense back then (to my memory) and I was just a child going along with my parents and family to visit Canada. I haven't been on an airplane since 2002, when airport security was still ramping up to the mess I've been told it is today. So I haven't had many "opportunities" to have my rights taken from me by border control agents.

However, last year I married an alien. She's from Romania. We're planning a trip to visit her parents in December if we can. This makes things doubly scary for me. I am a US Citizen, so I may still feel fairly secure in my rights to enter the USA, without much trouble from border/customs agents. But clearly my wife is not a citizen, doesn't necessarily have the right to enter the country, and Romania may not be a known terrorist country but isn't exactly a trusted country either (banks can't guarantee that money transferred to Romanian accounts will get there).

What if she is detained? Or what if we're flagged as suspicious for no reason other than because she's a foreigner? Or what if the border/customs agent just "feels like" giving us a hard time and copying our data, or confiscating our laptop(s) that we paid thousands of dollars for? I have no recourse of action protecting me from the potential abuse from the power granted by this law.

These are just a few of the fears that I now have, thanks to seemingly never-ending after effects (from the US Government and elsewhere) of the terrorism of 2001. Considering the purpose of terrorism, and looking at how this country changed since 2001, I personally think there was a lot more damage done (and still being done) by the 2001 attack than a couple buildings falling down and the deaths of all those people.

Cpilot:
Still all I'm seeing is a lot of "what ifs" and "what if they do so and so" or "well they could" kind of statements but no real concrete proof of anything.
Look I've read a lot of paranoid stuff over the years and have seen a lot of things. First off it seems that a lot of people regard others who work for the government (and soldiers also.....and I used to be one) as automatons guided by some kind of nameless, faceless "Dr Evil" who's sole purpose in life is to deprive others of their humanity, who are outside of citizenship, community and conscience. The majority of these people are as patriotic and American as anyone else who have families and lives.
The idea that all of them would be pawns in some nefarious plot to usurp the basic dignity of their fellow citizens is a phenomenon that seems to have grown along with the net.
When I was in the service I could still tell the difference between right and wrong, and the civil servants that I've talked to can also.
Potential is always different from reality, and it's easy to create scenarios in your mind that are worse than reality.
I suppose it's the nature of human beings to fret and worry, but until I see proof of actual wrong doing I'm not going to get my panties in a wad.
All of you here want to be considered people of honesty making comments in good faith, it would seem to me that others deserve at least that much until proven otherwise.

And that's all I got.

Shades:
Confiscating laptops for their contents is clearly a form of thought policing, and almost equivalent to book burning.

--- End quote ---

Aha! So from all the people that have experienced burning laptops....the governments sneakily replaced the batteries from those laptops. Now it becomes clear to me!

How is that for an inspector Clouseau impersonation?   ;D

More on topic:
Me and my brother were born and raised in Holland. While growing up life happened causing my brother to live the life of a thief. Me however was the example of a good citizen, paid my taxes, didn't escape the draft, always working, etc. etc. Than in an unguarded moment my brother lends my (first) car and he was caught checking out a "prospect".

Now I have to mention that every policeman/woman in Holland needs to have a certain amount of money on tickets each month (or will be fired), so anyone driving on the road gets stopped a lot nowadays. And with my brothers criminal record I have spent hours on police stations afterwards over the years explaining myself because cops think I am guilty of association...

It became even impossible to get any decent work anymore because of all this, so when I saw the opportunity I left for South America (yes, I see some irony here). Although Holland is not a police state, for me it became one already without having done anything wrong.

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