Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Worth Reading: Trevor Pott's editorial on NSA PRISM and its real ramifications
app103:
PRISM v2.0 will be fun, colorful, and voluntary. Come one, come all, and submit all your email data. We will figure out who you know and communicate with, even if you don't volunteer. We are pretty sure your friends will think the infographics are cool looking and want their own....and you'll be on it.
Stoic Joker:
PRISM v2.0 will be fun, colorful, and voluntary. Come one, come all, and submit all your email data. We will figure out who you know and communicate with, even if you don't volunteer. We are pretty sure your friends will think the infographics are cool looking and want their own....and you'll be on it.-app103 (July 08, 2013, 08:37 PM)
--- End quote ---
First 300 to sign up get a free "I was water boarded at Gitmo for posting something stupid on FaceBook" T-Shirt!
40hz:
PRISM v2.0 will be fun, colorful, and voluntary. Come one, come all, and submit all your email data. We will figure out who you know and communicate with, even if you don't volunteer. We are pretty sure your friends will think the infographics are cool looking and want their own....and you'll be on it.-app103 (July 08, 2013, 08:37 PM)
--- End quote ---
First 300 to sign up get a free "I was water boarded at Gitmo for posting something stupid on FaceBook" T-Shirt!
-Stoic Joker (July 08, 2013, 10:39 PM)
--- End quote ---
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
...And all I have to show for it is this bloody T-Shirt
(So if I was "just waterboarded" why is there blood on my T-Shirt?)
;)
IainB:
Justification for the NSA surveillance is apparently based on "The war against terror" - as Bush declared it (though I am not so sure whether it is politically correct to call it that now as it may risk marginalising Islamist extremists, or something).
Anyway, I read an interesting review by a retired NYPD police officer (on a book in Amazon) that makes some good points about what happens when you declare "war" on things: (my emphasis)
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces
by Radley Balko
Edition: Hardcover
Price: $17.86
36 used & new from $11.40
46 of 46 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read!, July 1, 2013
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces (Hardcover)
In his new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, author Radley Balko provides a detailed history of our decline into a police state.
He works his way through this history in a sound way describing police raid upon police raid gone terribly wrong, resulting in a useless loss of life. He discusses police agencies that serve populations of only 1,000 people but receive federal funding for military-type weapons and tank-style vehicles. We have also seen a total disregard for "The Castle Doctrine" which has been held dear by our citizens since the colonial days. The "Castle Doctrine" is the idea that a man's home is his castle and a warrant signed by a judge is necessary to enter and search the "castle." Balko cogently explains the reason for all of this: The war on drugs and the war on terror are really wars on our own people.
A profession that I was once proud to serve in has become a militarized police state. Officers are quicker to draw their guns and use their tanks than to communicate with people to diffuse a situation. They love to use their toys and when they do, people die.
The days of the peace officer are long gone, replaced by the militarized police warrior wearing uniforms making them indistinguishable from military personnel. Once something is defined as a "war" everyone becomes a "warrior." Balko offers solutions ranging from ending the war on drugs, to halting mission creep so agencies such as the Department of Education and the FDA don't have their own SWAT teams, to enacting transparency requirements so that all raids are reported and statistics kept, to community policing, and finally to one of the toughest solutions: changing police culture.
Police culture has gone from knocking on someone's door to ask him to come to the station house, to knocking on a door to drag him to the station house, to a full SWAT raid on a home.
Two quotes from the HBO television series "The Wire" apply quite appropriately to this situation:
"This drug thing, this ain't police work. Soldiering and police, they ain't the same thing."
"You call something a war and pretty soon everyone's gonna' be running around acting like warriors. They're gonna' be running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs and racking up body counts. And when you're at war you need an enemy. And pretty soon damn near everybody on every corner's your enemy. And soon the neighborhood you're supposed to be policing, that's just occupied territory."
Detective John J. Baeza, NYPD (ret.)
Manhattan Special Victims Squad
Manhattan North Narcotics
32nd Precinct, Harlem
--- End quote ---
40hz:
^ Exactly.
"Give a baby a hammer and everything soon starts looking like a nail." :-\
"The simple existence of a weapon system creates the justification for it's eventual use."
"Power corrupts."
"This is not the America I grew up in."
And exactly what is going on in this country that our government now believes every police department in the nation needs to look like this:
...and respond to even fairly minor incidents and peaceful protests by behaving like this:
Sorry kiddies, but these are not police. These are paramilitary assault units.
:o
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version