ginny Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 The following apparently is from HB. Am I nuts, or are his marbles rolling on a slow boat to China?"I agree with the The Wall Street Journal: there is nothing inherently wrong with the government having collected "meta data" about phone calls and such. The collection of this information has, reportedly, enabled the government to quash planned terrorist attacks, e.g., an attack on the NYC subways that was in the works in 2009. (Some are objecting that the PRISM data-collection program was not a necessary input in the foiling of that attack; but even if it wasn't, it's better to have all the the sources of information we can.)In general, I'm not scared by government invasions of privacy. I have no secrets. Those who raise the specter of Big Brother are not on a wrong basic premise, but they are being unrealistic: when and if we fall into the grip of totalitarianism, there will be nothing to stop the dictatorship from spying on us by any means it wishes. Such a regime does not require that the tools have been set up in advance.This is not to say that the present government should be given carte blanche. And some reining in may well be called for. But alarmism here is unwarranted and counter-productive." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmj Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 In a sense I agree with what he said, in that the mere collection of data represents no threat unless that data is used against individual in ways previously considered 'unconstitutional' or out of bounds in a civilised society, meaning against principles such as due process, nonassumption of guilt , nonwarrantless searches/seizures ect. But on the other hand.. these abuses would only be possible with the accumulated data in hand, so as I do not think the accumulation itself represents a threat, I just do not like the idea of letting corruptible individuals have the data with which to do potential harm, so perhaps I am a pragmatist after all.If the accumulation itself is benign, then why have it?. And since it seems the accumulation has begun , if it was benign , why was it 'secret' or at least not widely discussed. Added to that , why does it seem that this guy, Snowden , was the first and only one out of thousands who reasoned the way he did? What were/are the majority of the other people with the same clearances and knowledge thinking, "nothing to see here people, move along'..??I don't think I am as scared of accumulated data, as much as people with it, and if that is the threat , I say take away the data, Anonymous hack these guys please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginny Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 Listening in on everyone? You're kidding. If I'm on the phone or email someone discussing my latest fantasy, I'd appreciate everyone else keep their damned nose out of it. No arguments. No exception. Unless there is a reasonable belief that the person being monited has commited a crime or represents a danger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Jacob Biodrowski Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I don't think I am as scared of accumulated data, as much as people with it, and if that is the threat , I say take away the data, Anonymous hack these guys please.I think it is fairly safe to assume that Anonymous won't be the only group attempting to hack the NSA... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmj Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Listening in on everyone? You're kidding. If I'm on the phone or email someone discussing my latest fantasy, I'd appreciate everyone else keep their damned nose out of it. No arguments. No exception. Unless there is a reasonable belief that the person being monited has commited a crime or represents a danger.I think one has to realize what 'modern' technology entails, if voice transmission is possible so too is storage of such transmission or at the least the ability of that transmission to be 'heard' by a third party. Fifty years ago one could assume the operator was listening, but why would AT&T spend money to record and archive my convo(or care)? The paradigm has shifted , we could probably find a way around the current commercially operated communication systems, but only until those that want to archive it, can figure out how to do it. If it comes to choosing between assured privacy and the convenience of 'modern' communications, today I still choose the latter fully acknowledging the possibility of compramising the former,begrudingly. It's hard to get people to not do what they know they can do, just cause we would rather they did not, act accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginny Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 They are going through email and internet accounts already. Years ago, I ordered cigarettes inexpensively through the internet. Perfectly legal. Apparently Mayor Adolph Daley of Chicago didn't like the loss of tax revenue. He busted into personal accounts. I got a letter from the city demanding several hundred dollars. He RETROACTIVELY made it illegal to buy cigs through the internet while it was still legal and came after all of us. BTW, not implying that the jackass controlled the press in Chicago, but not a single word of this was reported. We are so far past intrusive government. THAT is a bit more than a bored operator listening in to calls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuturistNow Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I am not worried about 1984, I am worried about the stupid crap that happened to ginny. Maybe some theoretical limited government that was based in classical liberalism and was fairly apolitical could handle having a huge datamining project. However our government is way to corrupt to trust with that crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmj Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I meant that years ago, unless Hoover had it out for you Tom ,Dick, and Harriet only had worry or think about a bored operator. The earlier technology took more man hours to snoop around, that was probably the safeguard. For those who intend to snoop today its just a click away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Biggers Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 The following apparently is from HB. Am I nuts, or are his marbles rolling on a slow boat to China?"I agree with the The Wall Street Journal: there is nothing inherently wrong with the government having collected "meta data" about phone calls and such. The collection of this information has, reportedly, enabled the government to quash planned terrorist attacks, e.g., an attack on the NYC subways that was in the works in 2009. (Some are objecting that the PRISM data-collection program was not a necessary input in the foiling of that attack; but even if it wasn't, it's better to have all the the sources of information we can.)In general, I'm not scared by government invasions of privacy. I have no secrets. Those who raise the specter of Big Brother are not on a wrong basic premise, but they are being unrealistic: when and if we fall into the grip of totalitarianism, there will be nothing to stop the dictatorship from spying on us by any means it wishes. Such a regime does not require that the tools have been set up in advance.This is not to say that the present government should be given carte blanche. And some reining in may well be called for. But alarmism here is unwarranted and counter-productive."One of the few things that is more depressing and alarming than the NSA's PRISM data collection on all Americans, is to see self-styled Objectivist spokesmen like Harry Binswanger defending what is probably the most dangerous threat to free speech in America, not to mention a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution (Go get 'em, Senator Rand Paul!).Although Ayn Rand, if she were still alive, would have put NSA/PRISM at the top of The Objectivist "Horror File;" and be issuing blistering condemnations of Mr. Thompson's (sorry, it's hard to separate her fictional character depiction of the "Head of State," in Atlas Shrugged, from the all-too-real current U.S. President) blatant Orwellian travestry. And, what she would have done to Harry Binswanger's self-appointed claim to represent her philosophy is, well,....(fill in the blank).Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Binswanger has twisted Objectivism to fit his own authoritarian predilections. His requirement that prospective subscribers to his online "List," sign a "loyalty oath"(!) that they will never post or subscribe to "prohibited" (libertarian, tolerationist, Kelleyite) publications that do not fit his model of Objectivism (i.e., total agreement with his views) is the most blatant example.His suck-up to the Wall Street Journal's "endorsement" of PRISM is a disgrace. I haven't seen such groveling sycophancy and apologetics since certain "liberal" intellectuals attempted to justify's Mao's Cultural Revolution, or the Stalinist Trials in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. To be more specific, virtually every sentence of Binswanger's defense of NSA/PRISM listed above, is not only untrue in its presentation of the facts, it is a betrayal of every principle of freedom established in the U.S. Constitution, and is in radical contrast, diametrically opposed, with every statement Ayn Rand ever made on human freedom, individual rights, including the right to privacy.I challenge anyone to find anything in Rand's essays (in particular, "Man's Rights," "Collectivized 'Ethics'," "Colllectivized Rights,"or anywhere else, for that matter), that would justify this type of government intrusion into our lives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginny Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 I swear, ARI is working on a single collective brain cell. Thanks, Jerry. I just can't figure it out. They want to bomb mosques and at the same time they approve the government's stripping away any remnant of privacy and dignity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljane Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 They are going through email and internet accounts already. Years ago, I ordered cigarettes inexpensively through the internet. Perfectly legal. Apparently Mayor Adolph Daley of Chicago didn't like the loss of tax revenue. He busted into personal accounts. I got a letter from the city demanding several hundred dollars. He RETROACTIVELY made it illegal to buy cigs through the internet while it was still legal and came after all of us. BTW, not implying that the jackass controlled the press in Chicago, but not a single word of this was reported. We are so far past intrusive government. THAT is a bit more than a bored operator listening in to calls.Cripes. I am wondering if you could send me the electronic cigarette, or would we both go to jail? It is not sold here, even though guns are, although not many.Binswanger is such an ass. Even if you have nothing to hide you still have the absolute right to hide it if you want. Why do the ARi all want to be seen as such |Good Citizens within a system Rand would never have approved of|? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Biggers Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Curiously, neither ARI nor The Atlas Society have issued any public statements on the NSA/PRISM mega-data grab (although Yaron Brook has a video where he roundly condemns the IRS for its investigation of rightwing groups - but says nothing about NSA - yet the video has a date after the information on NSA broke). Anyway, there was nothing that showed up in a search on The Atlas Society site, nor on ARI or ARCSo, I don't know how to put these glaring discrepencies,...how about WTF ??!!.I don't know where Binswanger made the statement on NSA, but it was not ARI or ARC, perhaps Forbes, where he has a column or maybe in the Wall Street Journal. They make it difficult to access their complete sites without forking over some $$, but I'd like to see the link and if there was any reaction to his amazingly stupid comments on that site.Do I have to turn to Fox for the righteous indignation? Neil Cavuto has, and hard, seehttp://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/index.html. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginny Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 It's on his website: www.hblist. But you need to pay to get at this nonsense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Ginny's situation is just an example of what will happen to millions of people who have quietly "forgotten" to pay sales tax they "owe" for internet purchases. I've been getting some "reminders" for 2-3 years, but no enforcement from either the vendors or the State. However...Once the national internet tax law is passed, does anyone believe that the Feds will not "cooperate" with the States in using the NSA data bases for scouring our email confirmations for book and other merchandise orders on which we "should have" paid state sales taxes during the past several years? After all, those of us who have failed to comply with the "obligation" to pay those state sales taxes are engaging in willful "tax evasion." We know we're supposed to pay it "voluntarily," and we've been reminded, but precious few of us have complied with those laws. That's a crime, and there's an awful big pool of criminals out there to go after. In the NSA data base, they already have connected the email addresses and STORED THE CONTENT. They know THAT we communicated with amazon and B&N by email, so they KNOW we made PURCHASES. It just remains to be seen what they DO with that knowledge. What do YOU think they will do with it?To me it's obvious that, once it's a federal law, all they have to do is identify people PRESENTLY making internet purchases, take that as "probable cause" of past tax evasion (they could get a list of that miniscule number of people who HAVE voluntarily complied with paying State sales tax on online purchases.) Then they could get a warrant to forage around in emails of those people PRIOR TO the law's effective date, gather up all the relevant purchases data, and share it "cooperatively" with their LITTLE BROTHERS in the various States.If this federal law passes, and you've been making internet purchases for the past few years, get ready to write some really BIG checks to the statists in your State.REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Biggers Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 It's on his website: www.hblist. But you need to pay to get at this nonsense.Not to put too fine a point to it, but the hell with him! Although perhaps the HBL subscribers deserve this sort of crap. On second thought, maybe HBL subscribers will tear up their loyalty oath, and not renew!.Neil Cavuto (who I don't think is an Objectivist) said it much better today on Fox...what the hell, I'll give the link here, again:http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/index.htmlARI/ARC and TAS should have been first to jump on this! Ayn Rand must be revolving in her grave! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 This internet sales tax law is just another example of government trying to be "fair" by extending state aggression to ALL people, rather than the smaller class of people currently subject to it. Back in the late 60s, we heard about the draft as "Selective Slavery" and that it should be remedied by making the slavery UNIVERSAL. Like hell! And the internet sales tax is a call for universal THEFT.IMO, we need to meet this head-on and radically -- and DEMAND that not only should the federal internet sales tax be defeated in the House, but that ALL sales taxes be taken off ALL materials protected by the First and Second Amendments. STOP THE THEFT NOW!Church contributions are already not taxed. Books, magazines, music and video recordings, AND GUNS AND AMMUNITION (as well as expenses for self defense and home security, should ALL be untaxed, whether they are purchased over the internet or at a brick-and-mortar place of business.STOP THE THEFT NOW! (If you've got a better slogan, let's hear it.)REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Biggers Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I'm tempted to say, "Brothers, you asked for it!" but that works better in fiction.STOP THE THEFT NOW! sounds pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ginny Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 "but precious few of us have complied with those laws. "Sorry Roger, but when I receive a threatening letter from the mayor's office I pay up. Are you trying to say that it was just a threat to see how many people they could scare? Worked with me, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Bissell Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 "but precious few of us have complied with those laws. "Sorry Roger, but when I receive a threatening letter from the mayor's office I pay up. Are you trying to say that it was just a threat to see how many people they could scare? Worked with me, anyway.No, sorry I wasn't clear, Ginny. I was referring to all the little reminders from amazon.com and articles in the paper that remind us of the law. No one is billing us for the taxes, no one is sending the information to the State governments. Until this year or next, I believe. It's all been "voluntary" and "self-policing" so far. That is all about to change.As for your case, I don't know what else you could have done than comply. Once you get a bill from the gummint demanding a specific amount "or else," there's very little wiggle room. Those are not bluffs. You either pay up, get a lawyer and fight it, don't pay it and go to jail, or leave the country.What I'm saying is that we need to stop this federal law NOW. It's all tied in (or tie-able in) to the NSA data base, just like the proposed National ("tamper-proof") ID card. Write your Congressman and help those who are fighting it.REB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 STOP THE THEFT NOW! (If you've got a better slogan, let's hear it.)REB"STAND AND FIGHT!" (NRA)--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Avoid strong drink since it could cause you to shoot at a revenuer...and miss!An old West Virginia Granny gave that advice to myself and my friend when we worked on that Kennedy Assassination group in 1964-1966.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljane Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Avoid strong drink since it could cause you to shoot at a revenuer...and miss!An old West Virginia Granny gave that advice to myself and my friend when we worked on that Kennedy Assassination group in 1964-1966.A...!!!! Which Kennedy were you working on assassinating? No, sshhh, you better not say... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Avoid strong drink since it could cause you to shoot at a revenuer...and miss!An old West Virginia Granny gave that advice to myself and my friend when we worked on that Kennedy Assassination group in 1964-1966.A...!!!! Which Kennedy were you working on assassinating? No, sshhh, you better not say...JFK ...by the time RFK was assassinated in 1968, we had pretty much lost the country. MLK, Wallace, Malcolm X all went down in that year. Only Wallace survived and he was paralyzed. You could pretty much see the handwriting on the wall by then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Biggers Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Avoid strong drink since it could cause you to shoot at a revenuer...and miss!An old West Virginia Granny gave that advice to myself and my friend when we worked on that Kennedy Assassination group in 1964-1966.A...!!!! Which Kennedy were you working on assassinating? No, sshhh, you better not say...JFK ...by the time RFK was assassinated in 1968, we had pretty much lost the country. MLK, Wallace, Malcolm X all went down in that year. Only Wallace survived and he was paralyzed. You could pretty much see the handwriting on the wall by then.Whoa! You mean that I have been in denial since 1968 - 45 years? So, I should have just pulled-up stakes and moved to some Caribbean isle, a la Humphrey Bogart in To Have, And Have Not?( No one has ever mistaken me for Bogart,...Lauren Bacall, neither,...Walter Brennan is more like it.. [sigh].). But I digress..."we had pretty much lost the country." - Who is the "we?" And which of the three, MLK, Wallace, Malcolm X (four, counting RFK) could haved saved the "we" you are referring to?And which "handwriting on the wall?" And what wall? Damn, I miss everything. Look, I don't have a lot of time left , given my age, and the impending Obamacare, so I wanna get this straight before I meet up with Ayn, Robert Welch, Bill Buckley, Norman Thomas, and Revilo,...er,...somewhere.I think that you may have got the real story at the last Bilderberger meeting,...So, what's the real stuff?.Don't make me contact Beijing for their total memory dump of PRISM! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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