Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged last year

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise wrote (in ) about 'Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged last year', on Sun, 1 May 2005:

Of course, he was telling the absolute truth. (;-)

Making hoax bomb calls would be 'making terroristic threats', and you know how disruptive and costly they can be.

I read in sci.electronics.design that Bob Monsen wrote (in ) about 'Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged last year', on Sun, 1 May 2005:

Any time now (in the US)?

Of course, in England we've had a state religion for about 450 years. Successive Protestant and Roman Catholic rulers didn't need wire-taps to have a go at the opposition.

there?

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Keep death rates in proportion.

Far more people are killed on the roads every 12 months.

Far more people are killed by bullets every 12 months.

Far more people die by natural causes every 12 months.

I don't agree that it is about armed globalisation, this don't actually say anything. My view is that the whole terrorism thing is simply to get people elected, i.e votes. To be elected you need to have some agenda. The west is so rich now, that there is not a lot of causes that one can tell the voters that they can do better then the other party at. Since there are so few agendas, they are simply invented. The other classic example of an invented vote getting agenda is the "war on drugs". Its abundantly clear to any but a fool, that people commit crimes to pay for drugs, which are highly priced because they are illegal.

Terrorism is a non event. I don't remember the last time I want to the pub, and had to leave because of a bomb. The issue is that mass communication makes minor issues known worldwide to everyone. This gives the illusion that it is in abundance. Its actually based on the rouge meme copying idea.

If all drugs were legal, just imagine what a vacuum there would be in Candidates campaign manifestos.

Politicians *have* to have something to base their campaigns on, so they just make something up. Its that simple really.

I wasn't justifying wire taps with the mentioning of the numbers being so low. My view, is that any violations of privacy should only be in extreme cases, requiring the Governor of the state to personally authorise it.

I am absolutely with you. I am well convinced on the argument of "if you give up freedom for the interests of security, you will end with neither freedom or security", or some similar such quote from the founders.

One must protect all basic freedoms. If someone makes an exception, i.e makes it illegal to say "I hate n****rs", based on an alleged assumed "incitement to racial violence", then they *will* make other exceptions where it is not so clear cut as to "moral correctness". Indeed, in the UK the "incitement to racial hatred" is a crime. This is effectively, a "Thought Crime" as in "1984". Hate is an internal personal emotion, only perceived in the mind. Whether we agree or disagree with such emotions is no reason to legislate against them. It irrelevant whether or not such emotions *may* lead to racial violence. It the actual violence that should be the crime, not the expression of the emotion, like "I think n****rs should be shot".

Again, one must protect the *principle* to say things that people find offensive, whatever those things may be. With such protection, freedam is meanigles. Who needs protection against something that no one finds offensive?

For referance:

(2) After section 5 there shall be inserted the following section:- "Incitement to racial hatred. 5A.-(1) A person commits an offence if-

(a) he publishes or distributes written matter which is threatening, abusive or insulting; or (b) he uses in any public place or at any public meeting words which are threatening, abusive or insulting,

The idea that it is criminal simply to insult people is about the most disgusting abridgment of basic freedoms that I can imagine. I am patiently waiting to see a test case in the European courts of human rights to see if the freedom of speech under EU Law will overule such a disgusting state of affairs.

Kevin Aylward snipped-for-privacy@anasoft.co.uk

Certain drugs should remain illegal. If methamphetimines were more easily available, lots of damage would result, probably a lot worse than the considerable harm that cigarettes and alcohol already do.

And it's only a matter of time until somebody synthesizes a new drug that's wonderful, irrestible, and even more dangerous.

John

Naaaah! Just let 'em take anything they want. Help clean-up the gene pool ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Lots of drugs have been developed for medical purposes that later turned out to have ghastly side effects; so they were made illegal. You don't approve?

This sort of qualtitative argument is common. The reality is in the numbers. If we allow anyone to manufacture/synthesize/sell any drug they wish to, what effect does it have on public health? Do we want all the wimpy schoolboys to shoot steroids to make themselves more manly (or for the girls, more "toned")? Do we allow unlimited use of escasy to make dancing more fun, at the cost of massive outbreaks of Parkinson's? Legalize crack cocaine and give away free AIDS drugs?

Why put out fires in cities, when it's inevitable that more fires will start? Why use antibiotics, when new, resistant germs will always emerge?

John

There's already a de facto state religion in the US: Antismokerism. If you really look at it, it has all of the symptoms of any other cult.

Thanks, Rich

I read in sci.electronics.design that Kevin Aylward wrote (in ) about 'Court authorized wiretaps in the U.S. surged last year', on Mon, 2 May 2005:

While the specific offence of 'incitement...' is relatively new, the criminality involved is nothing new at all, it's very old and used to be embraced in the offence 'conduct likely to cause a breach of the Peace'. I believe someone who shouted a Nazi slogan in a synagogue just after WW2 was dealt with very severely in this way, but was in fact lucky to escape with his life...

From

In 1195, Richard I ("the Lionheart") of England commissioned certain knights to preserve the peace in unruly areas. They were responsible to the King for ensuring that the law was upheld, and preserved the "King's Peace," and were known as Keepers of the Peace.

The title "Justices of the Peace" derives from 1361, in the reign of King Edward III. An Act of 1327 had referred to "good and lawful men" to be appointed in every county in the land to "guard the Peace." The "peace" to be guarded is the "King's Peace" or (currently) Queen's peace, the maintenance of which is the duty of the Crown under the Royal Prerogative.

Tell me, Rich, if you're walking down the street or sitting on the grass in a park or lying on the beach, and you finish a smoke, what do you do with the butt?

John

Well, obviously, if they're our enemy, then they don't.

John

In the US, you can be jailed for selling either if the sale is known to be for the purpose of administering the drug to a person.

Agreed, you don't see a lot of vials of cocaine serving prison terms.

There are many such. Do we provide them the means to damage themselves just because they're dumb? Is the the New Eugenics?

Raising the price has been shown to reduce consumption, just like anything else. The most effective way to keep kids from starting smoking addiction is to raise the price of cigarettes.

Crack and crank are major causes of AIDS.

Then you do advocate controlling drugs? Should Cipro be available to anyone who wants to buy it (or manufacture and sell it)?

Well, if everyone were as nice and as smart as you are, we'd hardly need laws at all.

John

Why? What evidence do you have for that claim?

In my observation, if they're fighting a political (rather than religious) cause, it's over the abuse of economic power. Globalization did not cause these abuses, and in fact is removing them. It's progressively levelling out the standard of living across the globe. [Obligatory on-topic note: That's why there are so many un(der)employed EEs in the USA.] Now that some of the previous generation's poor countries (India, China) are wealthy enough to afford proper education, there's real hope of the luxuries of democracy and freedom. Globalization will progressively extend that to the rest of the world - to the perceived detriment of last century's abusers of economic power. Not just, but including, the USA.

I suppose there might be religious terrorists worried about their countries becoming comfortable and bourgeois, and hence becoming less interested in religious fundamentalism, but that's a different concern.

Clifford Heath.

We in Europe are there already. Providers have to store the whole email trafic for at least 6 months. Somehow, I tend to appreciate SPAM in this respect. It fills their disks and makes it harder to sift through it. I planned a tool that automatically sends a bunch of mail at timed intervalls to selected adresses containg a random selection of triggering keywords from an editable list. That is going to be fun.

Rene

It's probably OK to make it illegal to give poison to another person, but I think "protecting people from themselves" is over the line.

Who will protect us from the protectors?

Cheers! Rich

On Mon, 02 May 2005 17:48:42 +0100, John Woodgate wrote: ...

Ah, yes. Education: The process of inserting abstract thoughts into concrete heads. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Stub it out and if there isn't a waste can near, put it in my pocket, and toss it in the trash later.

Not _all_ smokers are inconsiderate slobs, thank you very much.

Have you ever been in an elevator and some woman drenched in that cologne that smells like vomit steps on?

Thanks, Rich

"We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy's side of the front is always propaganda and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace." -- Walter Lippmann