Senators To Terrorists: Please Keep Your Communications More Private
from the getting-it-backwards dept
There's a simple rule of thumb we like to use to figure out if a certain technology could be used by terrorists: if it can be used by people and business it can be used by terrorists. This means, of course, that every technology ever invented could theoretically be used by terrorists. Of course, that hasn't stopped politicians from vilifying certain ones as being particularly conducive to terrorism, because at some point they happen to be used in the process of putting together a terrorist plot. It's not particularly new, but once again, Senators are warning that the internet is becoming a haven for terrorists and that something must be done about the problem. The Senators are right that terrorists, like everyone else, are using the internet, but is this really such a bad thing? Wouldn't it be preferable for terrorists to communicate over the internet, where they can be hacked, as opposed to harder-to-track communication networks? If anything, the problem is the opposite, that not enough terrorists are making their intentions known online, which makes the intelligence community's job that much harder. The same goes for worries that terrorists are taking advantage of new digital money technologies to fund their operations and move around the assets. Again, they probably are, but would it be preferable if they used cash, which is virtually impossible to track? Of course, if terrorists stop using the internet, then the pen and paper industries better watch out for politicians' scorn.
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And I'm not going anywhere my senator wouldn't go, too.
Ladies, do you accept PayPal ?
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Worst President Ever
Can you list these 42 websites?
Can you give me their daily traffic statistics?
Can you list a Google query that would take me to these websites?
If you can't find them, then how do other find them to be radicalized? How can you be radicalized by something you can't find to read?
Sounds like they're trying to blame the internet for their incompetent leaders.
Bush *really is* the WORST PRESIDENT EVER, it's not propaganda it's fact.
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Re: Worst President Ever
How on Earth could such an idiot, I mean a truly retarded man, become the leader of one of the most powerful countries on this planet. Unless he's a puppet?
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Re: Re: Worst President Ever
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)
"If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates."
Jay Leno
These quotes explain my vies on the topic better than i ever could.
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Re: Re: Worst President Ever
hmmmm....
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Re: Worst President Ever
Abraham Lincoln was treated the same in 1861 (by who else but the stinking democratSS). GWB is up against insane idealogues that have their own special interests at heart just as Abe did in the 1860s. Truth and reality will be OUR saving grace.
And, just as Lincoln, GWB will at some point in time be recognized as one of the greatest leaders in US history. That is of course if the DemocratSS don't get us all killed first.
Remember, we know who YOU leftycratSS are and we will not recall fondly your Seditious acts during the fall of the USA.
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Re: Re: Worst President Ever
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
You must be out of your tiny mind!
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Re: Worst President Ever
Can yu back this up? And I mean pointing out the HUGE number of things he's done which no other president has done. I love how you guys say he's the "worst" pres ever w/o giving REAL examples. It's just the new in slogan people like to chant. Fact is Bush Jr. hasn't done anything any other president hasn't done. The problem is most of the general public has been ignorant to the tools and methods used by each administration to monitor activity inside and outside of the US. But you go on with your irrational and uninformed hate of the current president. Be like all the others and don't let something as minor as truth get in your way.
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Re: Re: Worst President Ever
Real Examples:
1. 9/11.
2. Invasion of two nations that posed no threat to the US.
3. Creation of an American Gulag.
4. Destruction of the Rule Of Law.
5. Signing Letters.
6. Treason.
7. Incompetence.
8. Ignoring existing law.
9. --Fill In The Blank
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Air
I couldn't quote any sources though.
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From Spain
How could you re-elect bush as a nation? It was clear to the world he was an idiot after the first 4 years.
Nearly every american poster I've seen online thinks bush is a moron. Every american I have spoken to thinks bush is a moron.
Who voted for this guy? Are the majority of your voters nationwide really inbred morons who have no access to the internet and no education?
Say it ain't so.
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Re: From Spain
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Re: Re: From Spain
If this is true, then Bush's re-election did represent the American public at large, or at least suggest that more should have voted to stop the re-election...
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Re: From Spain
I always replied that I didn't vote for him (absentee ballot before we left). I did spend a lot of time in Rome explaining that not all of us think he was a good choice. (We also explained that the opponent was not much better.)
We were attended a conference in Rome that had a seminar on "What the rest of the world thinks about America" that had been set up months in advance. Initially, no Americans went. The organizer interrupted the other seminar's program to say that this class was not intended for Europeans to talk with themselves and asked for Americans to attend the other seminar.
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Re: From Spain
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Re: From Spain
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Re: From Spain
What do you know about the goings on in the US besides what you read in the media? Oh yeah I forgot the media is so impartial and 100% factual. If it's on TV and the internet it MUST be true....
Sorry my bad. What WAS I thinking?!
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So terrorists using the internet is a good thing because they can be hacked?
OK, what do you think the whole NSA communication monitoring program was (is) all about?
People talk about how incompetent the government is yet when they try to do things everyone complains that it is an invasion of privacy, that the constitution is being destroyed and so on.
You really can't have it both ways. Wonder how long it will take for someone to quote Ben Franklin. Here is a hint, in Bens day, enemies of the state couldn't plant one devise and take out a major city in an instant.
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Number one this came from Senators, not George Bush - its fun to blame him and Iraq for terrorists but America wasn't in Iraq on 9/11 or the many other attacks before so the truth is George Bush hasn't invented terrorism, this came from a Democratically controlled Congress, which makes it even harder to pin on Bush.
Now, Bush is stupid? I know this is a reflection on the media and blogging industry, they're all anti-Bush, but come on - the guy is a pretty big failure, I don't believe any one needs to resort to vitriolic name calling to scorn what is possibly the worst presidency America, and the world, has ever seen - he makes plenty of material for you to fairly attack him on, but instead people just say moron and idiot.
I think the stupid and moronic thing to do would have been to ingore CIA, British, Russian, Egyptian and various other intelligence saying Saddam wanted weapons, but what do I know? When I hear their is a weapon aimed at me, when nobody is allowed to inspect wether a weapon is there and when the guy himself keeps throwing out the message he has weapons, I would most likely take offensive action.
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Re: Ridiculous
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Re: Re: Ridiculous
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Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
Is it free speech for someone to try and actively recruit terrorist on a website. Or to teach people to make explosive with in depth instructions. Or to simply teach extremist propaganda to disenfranchised Arabic youths who would otherwise be harmless. That is the real question to ask yourself. How much protection should the law provide these hate mongers that would destroy everything we hold dear. And can someone who has never held a gun be a terrorist based solely on the thoughts expressed in their website. That is the real question.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
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Re: Re: Ridiculous
You really beleive that he just gave them up because the UN said so....
So let me put this nicely- he moved them to Syria he knew he was dead meat. He also knew he could do more harm by giving them to his "peace Loving Muslims" in Syria - the only reason he did not give them to Iran was he knew they would use them on him.
So now all of you guliable idjits can get with the UN and sing Kombaya you Kofi and all the other "peace loving Muslims"...
As for me I will keep my guns ready cause once we leave Iraq they will come here- and they will come with a Vengance cause you idjits allowed them to regroup and rearm themselves with even deadlier toys.....
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Re: Re: Re: Ridiculous
The there are the clowns who are fool enough to believe myths such as "Saddam moved the to Syria".
Yup.
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Re: Re: Ridiculous
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The Office of Special Plans
People complain about knives but when the government tries to ban spoons everyone complains..... they really can't have it both ways! We have to lose our freedoms to save them folks! Funny, every President before this one did his job without being such a miserable failure at it. Terrorism is not new.
"I think the stupid and moronic thing to do would have been to ingore CIA, British, Russian, Egyptian and various other intelligence saying Saddam wanted weapons, but what do I know?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2010014,00.html
"An "alternative intelligence" unit operating at the Pentagon in the run-up to the war on Iraq was dedicated to establishing a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, even though the CIA was unconvinced of such a connection, the US Senate was told yesterday."
Not only did he ignore the true evidence he got from the CIA, he created a department (the Office of Special Plans) to concoct false evidence to back his incorrect world view.
Worst President Ever.
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I used to enjoy Techdirt. Someone let the idiots out this morning and they've infested Techdirt with sophomoric political name calling and Bush bashing. Grow up or take it to AOL or some other Blog forum. Keep it out of here. It is mind blowing to me that otherwise intelligent, technically skilled and articulate people can generate such great discussions out here on Techdirt, but the minute there's an opportunity to slide in some Bush zingers, all logic and intelligence goes out the window. It's nothing but name calling or whining because Bush really didn't win the election. Wa wa wa...boo hoo... Sounds like we're back in Kindergarten with all the name calling.
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wow
t.jefferson's quote seems fitting. 'my temperament is sanguine. i steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.'
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Best president ever
A well known mass murderer (Sadam) was believed to be threatening the United States and US interests. Do I want irrefutable proof before I defend myself with deadly force? Hell no...the guy already demonstrated he's a cold blooded murder who's strung out on drugs. Thank God for a strong president who stood up to Sadam and took him out. No more footsie.
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Re: Best president ever
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does anyone actually believe
who creates and writes history anyway? since human nature is the same now as it was 4000 years ago, and humans create and write history, we know the outline of the future. it's inevitable.
smarter, more capable people than us have tried to change the course of the world in the past. and failed. so tend your own garden, vote your own conscience, influence with good those around you, and enjoy life!
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I say you're the morons
You're the morons.
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Bush is the Best
Bush is my hero.
If there is criticism of Bush on the Internet then it must be from terrorists.
I use to like Techdirt before people started making comments I don't agree with. Mike please consider removing them, they're most likely Al Qaeda operatives trying to turn Americans against their beloved President.
Senator Lieberman is right, the terrorists are on the Internet, I did a search on [al qaeda] and Google says they're hiding in Wikipedia.org!
We need to invade Wikipedia at once!
Even better still the search [wikipedia oil] returns nearly 10 million results. They've got bags of oil to pay for the reconstruction!
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Interesting Read...
http://www.thinkingpeace.com/Lib/lib007.html
And in response to the "From Spain" post, Bush was re-elected for two primary reasons IMHO, 1) 9/11 - he took a hardline stance that most people could get behind. Few saw what a HUGE disaster it was going to become, 2) Lack of opposition. Kerry was not the one to be running against Bush. I still wonder how Kerry got to where he is now, and wonder even more so how he was chosen to run against Bush.
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Clintons CIA
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Back to the topic: Just because Al Jackass and His Brotherhood of Bitches have a GeoCities site doesn't mean jack. Most of the important people in power realize this. Hell, they probably want more of these groups to have websites -- gives the Good Guys a quick, easy way to gather intel.
A handful of opportunistic politicians may use news items like this to justify their power hungry fantasies, but... eh... I just don't see it happening, or lasting for long.
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Senators & Pres. Bush
President Bush is just a figurehead of the goverment.I am sure he was re-elected per our goverments doing not the peoples choice,what choices have you seen that may make a difference?Now ask yourself,who was the last good president the US had???That everyone agreed was a good president.If presidential candidates were not from big money,do you think they would have been elected?NOT! Take a course in US goverment and it's structure,what an eye opener.
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I heard...
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Re: Best President Ever
I'd like to see how half of these real "idiots" in these postings would deal with even half of the pressure that President Bush is facing. Almost from his initial entry into office, his life has been facing one crisis after another.
Gore lost the race fair and square. After every recount and illegal action he took in getting the votes counted and recounted (each recount showed him losing by more and more) he then resorted to shifting the blame on to the senior citizens for not knowing how to punch a hole in a piece of paper.
Senator Kerry lost the race on his own (or should I say lack of) merits. This Kennedy wannabe was the real joke from the get go.
And ask yourselves - if you've ever actually gotten up in front of a group of people and had to give a speech. Did you stumble over any words? I'm willing to bet you've never tried (outside of high school - for those who have left HS by now). When you have the whole world listening to you - it can be quite overwhelming.
And don't try to tell me that actors do this all the time. One it's what their paid for - they are talking heads and two - they are performing in front of a very small crowd that is filming them. Just look at how foolish they sound when up in front of a real crowd or in front of a live mike.
President Bush is a good man. Using the advise he was given on the intel at the time he made the decisions he had to. Deposing Sadam Hussein was a good thing. This was not Mother Theresa working in Iraq - this was a black hearted SOB who took more joy in torturing his own people, than he did in their welfare.
Where are all the whiners and moaners when Clinton decided to depose the head of Yugoslovia - and he wasn't half as bad as Hussein. But that was OK, he needed a distraction after cheating on his wife and then lying about it under oath.
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As Bush not winning, wether he had more votes or not, Al Gore freely chose to accept defeat, who else was going to be crowned the winner? As I recall Bush in 2004 was the first president in a while to win a stern majority ...
I don't get why people hate him, he screwed a war up, so that brutal dictator who launched a few wars and killed thousands of people was lying when he said he had weapons to kill people with, dang, we should have aplogized and given him the throne back - "We're sorry, we thought you wanted to kill us. Never mind, carry on - I see a few Kurds over there - do your thing :)".
The conspiracy nuts are insane - Bill Clinton thought Saddam had WMDs, that conservative liar! The director of the CIA was the same guy from the Clinton admin - it must have been planned decades ahead.
Oh an steel does melt, it happened to a Californian road a few days ago ... although, I guess Ahnuld could have done it, he is awfully close to Bush.
Criticize Bush for being an incompotent leader who has a failed war on his hands, or a man unable to get aid to New Orleans, or a person who has deflated the US dollar to record lows, or developed a massive trade debt to China, or maybe just a person unable to speak English well ... I honestly can't see why somebody needs to make up material to criticize him, he gives enough material every day!
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You have to be kidding me.
Now, just to clarify, I'm not exactly a fan of Bush, I'd put him in a very mediocre category at best, but you people are the reason there are problems like this.
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1. 9/11 - Failure yes, but 3 attacks under Clinton?
2. Invasion of two nations that posed no threat to the US - wait, was 9/11 not planned, executed and aided by Al Qaeda who were based in Afghanistan with the support of The Taliban, the rulers of said Afghanistan?
3. Creation of an American Gulag. - Example?
4. Destruction of the Rule Of Law. - Example?
5. Signing Letters. - Wow!
6. Treason. - Wow, you sound like the Bush administration on Harry Reid.
7. Incompetence. - Accepted.
8. Ignoring existing law. - Which law?
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Re:
1. Bush was the President on 9/11/2001, Bill Clinton was not. So basically, Bush was the CinC on the day of the greatest defense failure in US history perpetrated by goat herders with some razor blades. Maybe we should have spent $50 trillion over 50 years on something else.
2. I don't know Bob, I try to deal with facts not myths or innuendo. Credibility is not applicable to the Bush Administration at this point in history. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Whether "Al Qaeda" and Afghanistan did is dubious at best.
3. Gitmo.
4. Can you spell "habeas corpus"?
5. Have you ever read Article 2 of the US Constitution and/or do you know what the President's Oath of Office states?
6. The Bush Administration has no credibility.
7. We are in agreement.
8. Just about all of them. Signing letters (which have no legal basis) are in effect the President telling the Congress that he is ignoring the law. Try one of these on your employer and see where it gets you.....
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I doubt they were there, we can only speculate, but its certainly possible he had them and shipped them out to Syria in the year it took of diplomatic prodding and game playing.
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You're all missing the big spin picture
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021701980.html
"De fense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday called for the military and other government agencies to mount a far more aggressive, swift and nontraditional information campaign to counter the messages of extremist and terrorist groups in the world media."
This is the same message Senator Lieberman is touting, the idea that the US needs to spin like crazy to counter some imaginary threat. These obscure forums nobody can find or read are not a real threat (because nobody can find them to be demonized by them!).
The real threat is from letting ordinary people have access to information.
This is the same idea behind the suppression of military blogs and the suppression of speech from government scientists.
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0407/042507m1.htm
Opinions aren't important, you can think Bush will be viewed as Abraham Lincoln, and I'll think future bad presidents will compared to him. ("Well at least [future President] is not as bad as Bush Junior!").
Credible verifiable information though is very important:
Look at the recent Iran capture of British naval staff, Iran were adamant they were in Iranian water, but the GPS coordinates they gave were all over the place (one in Iran water, one in Iraq water, neither matched the ships location so they were clearly wrong). Britain was adamant they were in Iraq water, and showed GPS coordinates to prove it.
Both sides absolutely sure they were in the right, both peoples banging the war drum.
Yet there is the third possibility, GPS spoofing, a feature AWACS has and US has via it's satellites.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/barnett/b5appb.htm
"Nigeria's cruise missiles use GPS to update their en route navigation system. The US degrades Nigeria's cruise missiles by manipulating GPS civil mode within 1,000 NM of Nigeria. "
If you wanted a war with Iran and tried to create an incident by manipulating GPS, you'd better make sure people don't know you can, have, and often do, manipulate GPS. When people can simply search for [SAASM], read and understand what SAASM is, you can't pretend the coordinates the GPS gives you are proof of location.
Of course there's another possiblity. That the US Exec always tell the truth, then no matter how much information they have, it will simply confirm their story. But, hey, this is Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. we're talking about here.
Worst President Ever.
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I think you will find that Geneva Conventions and habeas corpus, do not extend to terrorists picked up on the battlefield .... Firstly the majority of Gitmo subjects are there because their home country won't take them back, there are British subjects there which Britain doesn't want back, what can we do with them? Secondly under Clinton all these people would have been sent to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, UAE ... is that better? If not Gitmo or the Arab world, then where? Do you really want the legal system that has OJ Simpson playing golf tommorow afternoon controlling people who can and would kill 3,000 people?
As for credibility, its tarnished, but their is no doubt that 9/11 came from Afghanistan, under Taliban and Al Qaeda rule, find one credible intelligence agent or even journalist who disagrees, we have video after video of Bin Laden warning, document after document tracking it back to Bin Laden.
Clinton himself implicated Bin Laden in every single terrorist attack under his reign - is he not credible.
He is incompetant, no doubt, a failure, but liar, no, wrong, yes.
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hey norman
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Ha!
If it weren't for GWB we'd all be speaking Iraqi right now!
Ladies and Gents - This is the best argument! Shows exactly how much the people who run the foreign policy know!
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Joe, nice job with the article
More importantly, just mention any reference to "a politician," and the bottom-feeding, glue-sniffing conspiracy theorists seep out from the woodwork like a plague of pestilence!
Ha haaaaaaaaaaa!
(Is George Tenet posting comments anonymously again?)
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That would be the people offering up supportive statements right?
*rim shot*
How about them Republican Supporters? For years, the manta was all about smaller government, yet when the government grows under Republican leadership, the support continues!
*rim shot*
Thanks, got 100's of observations about the body poly-tick! Remember to try the veal and to tip the waitstaff
OVER!
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Writing about speaking about language
....Veal? I'd much prefer to eat light. In this case, I'll just have a bowl of "primordial soup," and a side of "manta."
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