Mozilla Refuses to Drop Domain Seizure Circumvention App

zehydra

New member
Oct 25, 2009
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Therumancer said:
I'm a big supporter of Homeland Security, and actually felt that "The Patriot Act" does not go far enough in what it needs to do. I supported Gitmo, and all kinds of things that make left wingers uneasy to even think about.... however in reading this, and similar things, I can't help but say "WTF Is Homeland Security doing involved in this?". There is no justification for using what is supposed to be an organization intended to defend the country against terrorist threats, acting as a punkhammer for anti-piracy slapfights. It's sort of like how the definition of "Terrorism" is extended and trampled on to deal with any kind of major case that law enforcement needs a bit more oomph with.

It's like this, unless Homeland Security can prove that there is some direct connection to terrorism, they need to butt out. By this I don't just mean hypothetical exploitation by terrorists.

It's this kind of irresponsibility, and the breadth of operations of "Homeland Security" that cause people to have so many problems with them. I believe such organizations can operate without abuses of their authority, or taking undue advantage of a broad mandate, but actions like this certainly make my defense of them being a lot more difficult. Piracy revolves around private businesses losing money, NOT about threats to our nation as a whole, Homeland Security has no part being involved here, heck there are plenty of criminal cases that they get involved in where they shouldn't besides this.

I might not care for piracy, but this while thing just generally stinks. Piracy might be wrong, but you can commit greater wrongs in the course of going after it, and abusing authority given to deal with terrorists so some company can save a few bucks is one of
those greater evils.
What's interesting is that you are in favor of the patriot act, but you fear the abuse of power.
 

Kargathia

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Jul 16, 2009
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I have no idea what "No True Scotsman" is...
Explained short and sweet: you disagreeing with their opinion does not mean they aren't "True" Americans/Scotsmen.

You do realise that if I'd ask one of them I'm pretty liable to get an answer declaring that you're "a traitor to the American People"?

I do, however, agree with that terrorism is no excuse to start secret police practices. Just keep in mind that according to the democratic principle even people you think are idiots have an equal vote =)
 

samsonguy920

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Mar 24, 2009
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Frankly I am with Mozilla on this one. I am tired of federal agencies in the US acting like they can do whatever they want with the internet, when it is actually an international entity. Now while servers within the US are within jurisdiction of said agencies, there have been many cases of the FBI and such trying to shut down or peek into servers outside of the US. Then there is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has no place telling people what to have in their domain name. Not in the US, and frankly shouldn't be anywhere else.
I hope the DHS takes this to court. Mozilla will be more than happy to take this all the way to the Supreme Court, where many of the DHS's policies will get put under the magnifying glass and maybe we can finally get rid of that crap of paper called the Patriot Act completely.
HG131 said:
CM156 said:
HG131 said:
For once, I respect a lawyer. He should be crowned "The Greatest Lawyer. Of All Time."
Not a hard title to get, seeing as what some lawyers do now-a-days.

OT: I don't really use FF or this app, but I can say that they asked some good questions.
Yeah, but Lincoln was a lawyer.
And he stuck to his guns and chose to not allow the Union to be divided, even though it was decided before he took the oath of office(South Carolina seceded a month after Lincoln was elected and a month before he was inaugurated). Mozilla's lawyer is doing the same thing here, sticking to his guns and telling DHS to get a warrant. DHS is in the practice of doing things without judges involved, so they are probably going to try to bluff Mozilla out before trying to make a court case out of this.
 

Nurb

Cynical bastard
Dec 9, 2008
3,078
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I think this is a good thing.

We need a good, public, and visible exposure of a government agency called "homeland security" doing the bidding of corporate interests by seizing domains that have nothing to do with terrorism or national security.

Go mozilla
 

samsonguy920

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Mar 24, 2009
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Eri said:
Raiyan 1.0 said:
If the domains are not in the US, Homeland Security has no jurisdiction over them.
You can say that all you want, but that's not going to stop them if they want something down.
It will stop them when the owners of the foreign domains take it to their government leaders, and those leaders threaten trade sanctions against the US. That would be when the White House tells the DHS to go sit in the corner.
 

McMullen

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Mar 9, 2010
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HG131 said:
tanis1lionheart said:
Therumancer said:
I'm a big supporter of Homeland Security, and actually felt that "The Patriot Act" does not go far enough in what it needs to do. I supported Gitmo, and all kinds of things that make left wingers uneasy to even think about.... however in reading this, and similar things, I can't help but say "WTF Is Homeland Security doing involved in this?". There is no justification for using what is supposed to be an organization intended to defend the country against terrorist threats, acting as a punkhammer for anti-piracy slapfights. It's sort of like how the definition of "Terrorism" is extended and trampled on to deal with any kind of major case that law enforcement needs a bit more oomph with.

It's like this, unless Homeland Security can prove that there is some direct connection to terrorism, they need to butt out. By this I don't just mean hypothetical exploitation by terrorists.

It's this kind of irresponsibility, and the breadth of operations of "Homeland Security" that cause people to have so many problems with them. I believe such organizations can operate without abuses of their authority, or taking undue advantage of a broad mandate, but actions like this certainly make my defense of them being a lot more difficult. Piracy revolves around private businesses losing money, NOT about threats to our nation as a whole, Homeland Security has no part being involved here, heck there are plenty of criminal cases that they get involved in where they shouldn't besides this.

I might not care for piracy, but this while thing just generally stinks. Piracy might be wrong, but you can commit greater wrongs in the course of going after it, and abusing authority given to deal with terrorists so some company can save a few bucks is one of
those greater evils.
This is troll, yes?
Cause, if not - must be Kim Jon Ill, Mao, or Stalin in disguise.

No AMERICAN - who support the US Constitution would be a fan of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. A.C.T 2 - unless they're traitors.
Ok, you owe me my sanity, as now I have to defend this guy, even though I dislike hate what he said. You just used the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. There are plenty of Americans who do support the PATRIOT act, which does not make them traitors. It certainly makes me and many others think much less of them, but it doesn't make them traitors.
I appreciate you taking that bullet so I didn't have to. Still, at least the guy who supports the Act acknowledges that DHS has definitely overstepped its bounds, if not legally then certainly in its original purpose. That's farther than many are willing to go towards questioning the wisdom of post-9/11 "security".
 

RA92

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Jan 1, 2011
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Eri said:
Raiyan 1.0 said:
If the domains are not in the US, Homeland Security has no jurisdiction over them.
You can say that all you want, but that's not going to stop them if they want something down.
Just like how Homeland Security sent their Special Ops Division to Sweden to neutralize the TPB and Wikileaks servers... oh wait, they didn't.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Atleast common sense ain't dead yet, everyone should bow to the censorship whims of some agency in some country, how about we start implementing Chinese ideas everywhere too...

I think Anon got some work to do.
 

McMullen

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Mar 9, 2010
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tanis1lionheart said:
HG131 said:
tanis1lionheart said:
This is troll, yes? Cause, if not - must be Kim Jon Ill, Mao, or Stalin in disguise. No AMERICAN - who support the US Constitution would be a fan of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. A.C.T 2 - unless they're traitors.
Ok, you owe me my sanity, as now I have to defend this guy, even though I dislike hate what he said. You just used the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. There are plenty of Americans who do support the PATRIOT act, which does not make them traitors. It certainly makes me and many others think much less of them, but it doesn't make them traitors.
I have no idea what "No True Scotsman" is...
.
What else would you call any American citizen that thinks its fine and dandy to use the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, Judicial Precedence, The System of Checks & Balances, and 'Common Sense' (get it?) - as toilet paper or a blunt roll...
.
.
....Which is basically what the PATRIOT Act does...
.
.
Unless, you could argue, it just makes them inbreed, ignorant & ill-informed, "Special E.D." types.
Which, I could go ahead and agree with.
.
.
.
However, to me, anyone who claims to be an American but supports polices that go against everything that has made/makes this nation so amazing in the past/present/future...
Well, they're a traitor - maybe not to the American Government - but to the people and spirit that of the 'American Way' we all aspire to.
.
.
.
TL/DR?
Americans should be better than this, it's insulting.
Hi. We are sort of on the same side. At least, we agree that the Patriot act, and many other excesses of post 9/11, are not good ideas. However, I think I should point out the following:

You. Are not. Helping.

You seem to have a very poorly developed understanding of the issues, or at least you communicate your case very poorly, and in a manner that will only serve to make people listen less to you and those who generally agree with you. Please don't talk to anyone about your views until you learn to do so effectively, because all you will accomplish is to convince the patriot act's supporters that they are right.

And also, in response to your comment that you don't know of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, I would like to point out that you are on the Internet. One of the marvelous benefits of being on the Internet is that it is possible, with the investment of a minimum of time and effort, to look up just about anything you can imagine and educate yourself on what it is. A popular place on the Internet for people to do so is a site called Wikipedia. Google is also a fantastic tool for acquiring information. Please take advantage of these resources instead of telling someone you are unfamiliar with something as if it's somehow their fault.

Thank you.
 

Bobzer77

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May 14, 2008
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America..... fuck yeah.

As if you guys don't look bad enough already. I should imagine it will be a full on police state in 5 year.
 

Tanis

The Last Albino
Aug 30, 2010
5,264
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McMullen said:
you are on the Internet
You are as well...so don't think you can tell someone else what to do and or & how to write.(unless you're the owner of the site)

Not everyone pussyfoots on an issue and use 'high level language' and all that other PC/liar/think-before-you-speak stuff.

I'm blunt, say/write what's on my mind - no self editing so I can tell a 'white lie'.

Often times this means I come across as a jerk and while I don't mean to come across as a total asshole, it's how I am.

Folks who support the PA, and things related to it, need an 'Italian love tap'.

The USA has NOT RIGHT to 'control' the internet while, at the same time, talk trash about other governments that do the same.

President Bush Jr. was SUPPOSE to be a 'conservative' and support SMALL government.
Obviously he turned out to be more 'liberal' and BIG government than even Biden.
In doing so he betrayed those who voted for him and what he claimed/was suppose to represent.


Those that continue to support PA have nothing but my utter and total contempt and anger.

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
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0
zehydra said:
Therumancer said:
I'm a big supporter of Homeland Security, and actually felt that "The Patriot Act" does not go far enough in what it needs to do. I supported Gitmo, and all kinds of things that make left wingers uneasy to even think about.... however in reading this, and similar things, I can't help but say "WTF Is Homeland Security doing involved in this?". There is no justification for using what is supposed to be an organization intended to defend the country against terrorist threats, acting as a punkhammer for anti-piracy slapfights. It's sort of like how the definition of "Terrorism" is extended and trampled on to deal with any kind of major case that law enforcement needs a bit more oomph with.

It's like this, unless Homeland Security can prove that there is some direct connection to terrorism, they need to butt out. By this I don't just mean hypothetical exploitation by terrorists.

It's this kind of irresponsibility, and the breadth of operations of "Homeland Security" that cause people to have so many problems with them. I believe such organizations can operate without abuses of their authority, or taking undue advantage of a broad mandate, but actions like this certainly make my defense of them being a lot more difficult. Piracy revolves around private businesses losing money, NOT about threats to our nation as a whole, Homeland Security has no part being involved here, heck there are plenty of criminal cases that they get involved in where they shouldn't besides this.

I might not care for piracy, but this while thing just generally stinks. Piracy might be wrong, but you can commit greater wrongs in the course of going after it, and abusing authority given to deal with terrorists so some company can save a few bucks is one of
those greater evils.
What's interesting is that you are in favor of the patriot act, but you fear the abuse of power.


tanis1lionheart said:
[]

This is troll, yes?
Cause, if not - must be Kim Jon Ill, Mao, or Stalin in disguise.

No AMERICAN - who support the US Constitution would be a fan of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. A.C.T 2 - unless they're traitors.


Alright hopefully this copy/paste worked since I'm not sure how to get multi-quotig to work otherwise (having failed before).

To explain myself:

I consider the potential for power to be abused, and the actual abuse of power to be two entirely differant things. If you go after POTENTIAL for abuse, by definition you can't have any laws or enforcable rules, since anything can potentially be abused.

I have no objections to the existance of something like Homeland security, as long as they are kept an eye on, and are forced to keep within their mandated area, as opposed to being allowed to extend their area of influance to other areas of law. As I see it, Homeland Security has a lot of power, but is intended to have a very limited jurisdiction within which to use that power, and they need to be called on it when they start going outside of their allowed sandbox.

My attitude on "The Patriot Act" is similar. Simply put, when dealing with a nation, and the needs of dealing with other nations and opposing cultures in an adversarial fashion, national security becomes a concern. In times of outright conflict, the need for national security is nessicarly going to be very high. A lot of the rights and freedoms we posses by their very nature cannot exist in a time of national crisis if we want to preserve the nation as a whole. This is why the goverment has always had access to war powers, and the abillity to do things like declare martial law. Our rights and freedoms were never an absolute, and could always be taken away from us under such circumstances, albiet temporarly. Whether you like what happned or not, this is how the goverment got us through World War II. They quashed free speech and freedomn of the press, US Nazi supporters and anti-war isolationists were prevented from expressing themselves, the goverment turned propaganda into overdrive, and while a huge moral issue, it did things like round up and hold the Japanese citizens for the duration of the war (and incidently they WERE freed, a point a lot of people tend to forget when talking about the abuse of power. Exactly what was supposed to happen, is what happened there, even if it was distasteful).

"The Patriot Act" inherantly does nothing that I disapprove of for the situation it was intended for. What it does is effectively give the goverment a middle ground between invoking full on war powers/martial law, and peacetime operations. That DOES represent something of a slippery slope, and I personally prefer an "all or nothing" attitude here, especially seeing as I think a lot of our current problems with "The War On Terror" are due to being half assed and not keeping domestic sentiment in line properly, but I can see why this was done, and why it's worth experimenting with.

If anything, by straddling the line between wartime and peacetime policy, it castrates itself by raising too many questions about civil law vs. emergency law, and what courts should have jurisdiction over specific things in this kind of situation.

For the most part it does work though, because it lets the goverment do things like round up societal enemies, and ignore a lot of the peacetime due process rights and civil liberties, while at the same time allowing things like free speech and freedom of the press to remain in play. Of course the problem is that you wind up with the issue of the free speech being using to try and castrate the govermental authority being allowed by these same laws.

As much as people might dislike war powers, we wouldn't be here right now if we didn't have them. What's more I trust our goverment when it comes to the "big issues" more than on the small ones, largely because after declaring martial law in World War II, it did wind up relinquishing those powers, and for all the whining, it eventually let The Japanese out of the camps rather than finding constant excuses to keep them locked up beyond the need.

Right now I think "The Patriot Act" needs to stay in play. If it's pulled, I think we're in a place right now that it should be done in the way of invoking full martial law in order to resolve the current problems, rather than returning to peacetime operations.

The issue when it comes to powers like this being why they are used. When it comes to Homeland Security for example, I fully support them stepping all over the "rights" of suspected terrorists. What they do being open to review, with all kinds of eyes on them. We did all kinds of nasty things during "World War II" in order to stop german spies and the like. Check out the US propaganda department at the Smithosonian sometime as well. To put it bluntly in that "good" war, we basically won by being bigger bastards than the Germans were. The problem is when Homeland security goes beyond it's mandate and starts using it's authority in purely civil matters. If it could logically tie it's behavior into stopping terrorism or enabling the US to win it's current wars, you wouldn't hear much complaining from me, but I fail to see how defending the IP rights of private businesses in any way involves anything but the bottom line of those businesses. At least if they pull some Muslim into a special national security subset of the legal system due to his social circle, backround, or recorded conversation, they can justify how that impacts national security when we're at war with The Middle East (similar to how doing it to a German could be justified when we were at war with Germany), what your seeing here can't be defended that way.

As far as claims like "OMG, Therumancer your a Nazi Stalinist, no real American would support some of the things you defend!", this is pretty much what "real America" is all about, we've already been here, we've already done these things, and we've had the abillity to do stuff like this since the country was founded. The USA during wartime, and the USA during peacetime are *VERY* differant entities... but again, people who make moral arguements typically don't have the remotest clue of what we've done, or why such things have had to be done. They operate under the illusion of a set of absolute freedoms that were never absolute and which have been removed temporarly in the past.

At any rate, this is long and rambling, but the bottom line is that I support The Patriot Act because it's there, and in play. After the current crisis, I do think he needs to be laid to rest, and in the future when such situations occur we need to just invoke Martial Law and be straightforward about it, because we've caused more problems than we solved due to trying to be nice and find a middle path when there really can't be one.

It's kind of ironic when people go off about "The Patriot Act" when they don't realize that it was started to preserve as much freedom as possible in a time of crisis as opposed to either having the glories of peavetime, or the complete removal of liberties that comes with wartime.
 

McMullen

New member
Mar 9, 2010
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tanis1lionheart said:
McMullen said:
you are on the Internet
You are as well...so don't think you can tell someone else what to do and or & how to write.(unless you're the owner of the site)

Not everyone pussyfoots on an issue and use 'high level language' and all that other PC/liar/think-before-you-speak stuff.

I'm blunt, say/write what's on my mind - no self editing so I can tell a 'white lie'.

Often times this means I come across as a jerk and while I don't mean to come across as a total asshole, it's how I am.

Folks who support the PA, and things related to it, need an 'Italian love tap'.

The USA has NOT RIGHT to 'control' the internet while, at the same time, talk trash about other governments that do the same.

President Bush Jr. was SUPPOSE to be a 'conservative' and support SMALL government.
Obviously he turned out to be more 'liberal' and BIG government than even Biden.
In doing so he betrayed those who voted for him and what he claimed/was suppose to represent.


Those that continue to support PA have nothing but my utter and total contempt and anger.

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin
Everything you just said is true, except perhaps the Italian love tap part, but that's a matter of opinion. But it is also true that you will not change any minds in your favor by being a jerk. For example, I was a jerk to you just now, and as you can see, I did not change your mind in my favor. It is an absolutely ineffective method of persuasion.

The only time being an asshole will ever get people to work with you is when you are an asshole with power. If you don't have any means to harm those who don't like you, they won't see any reason to cooperate with you. To get your equals or superiors to agree with you requires charm and diplomacy.
 

Speakercone

New member
May 21, 2010
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sheic99 said:
Baradiel said:
sheic99 said:
Booze Zombie said:
America doesn't have jurisdiction on the internet, I don't really see how they could legally do this.
They do have it on the sites whose domain is in the US.
But not on, say, TV Shack. The offices are in Sweden and the servers are in Australia. Where is their jurisdiction there?

Not trying to be inflammatory, but this sort of thing seriously irritates me.
I'm no lawyer, but that can't be legal.
International politics is dicey that way. I'd be willing to bet that neither Sweden nor Australia feels like picking a fight with the United States on this issue. If they did though, here's how that would work:
Swedish and Australian diplomats send letters/have meetings with US diplomats to discuss the issue. US says something about it being in their national interest since the companies involved are largely pirating material whose lawful sale would benefit the US. If reported this way to Congress/Senate etc., this could be grounds for less cooperation with Sweden and Australia since such cooperation benefits the US less than it did before. If this costs Sweden and Australia more than what they stand to gain from continuing to pursue their issues, they'll leave it alone.

When you're thinking about international politics, it helps to think in terms of each country as a particularly entitled 11 year old.

What's that? Why yes, it is more depressing when you understand it.
 

aPod

New member
Jan 14, 2010
1,102
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tanis1lionheart said:
HG131 said:
tanis1lionheart said:
This is troll, yes? Cause, if not - must be Kim Jon Ill, Mao, or Stalin in disguise. No AMERICAN - who support the US Constitution would be a fan of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. A.C.T 2 - unless they're traitors.
Ok, you owe me my sanity, as now I have to defend this guy, even though I dislike hate what he said. You just used the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. There are plenty of Americans who do support the PATRIOT act, which does not make them traitors. It certainly makes me and many others think much less of them, but it doesn't make them traitors.
I have no idea what "No True Scotsman" is...
.
What else would you call any American citizen that thinks its fine and dandy to use the US Constitution, Bill of Rights, Judicial Precedence, The System of Checks & Balances, and 'Common Sense' (get it?) - as toilet paper or a blunt roll...
.
.
....Which is basically what the PATRIOT Act does...
.
.
Unless, you could argue, it just makes them inbreed, ignorant & ill-informed, "Special E.D." types.
Which, I could go ahead and agree with.
.
.
.
However, to me, anyone who claims to be an American but supports polices that go against everything that has made/makes this nation so amazing in the past/present/future...
Well, they're a traitor - maybe not to the American Government - but to the people and spirit that of the 'American Way' we all aspire to.
.
.
.
TL/DR?
Americans should be better than this, it's insulting.
I agree with you to an extent. I heavily disapprove of the Patriot Act and the fear mongering and the disregard for personal liberties and the fact that i probably am considered by the US government a renegade because of that.

However, there are many people in america with many different values and ideologies and even though i disagree 100% with the poster in question it's his right to feel that way.
 

McMullen

New member
Mar 9, 2010
1,334
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Therumancer said:
zehydra said:
Therumancer said:
I'm a big supporter of Homeland Security, and actually felt that "The Patriot Act" does not go far enough in what it needs to do. I supported Gitmo, and all kinds of things that make left wingers uneasy to even think about.... however in reading this, and similar things, I can't help but say "WTF Is Homeland Security doing involved in this?". There is no justification for using what is supposed to be an organization intended to defend the country against terrorist threats, acting as a punkhammer for anti-piracy slapfights. It's sort of like how the definition of "Terrorism" is extended and trampled on to deal with any kind of major case that law enforcement needs a bit more oomph with.

It's like this, unless Homeland Security can prove that there is some direct connection to terrorism, they need to butt out. By this I don't just mean hypothetical exploitation by terrorists.

It's this kind of irresponsibility, and the breadth of operations of "Homeland Security" that cause people to have so many problems with them. I believe such organizations can operate without abuses of their authority, or taking undue advantage of a broad mandate, but actions like this certainly make my defense of them being a lot more difficult. Piracy revolves around private businesses losing money, NOT about threats to our nation as a whole, Homeland Security has no part being involved here, heck there are plenty of criminal cases that they get involved in where they shouldn't besides this.

I might not care for piracy, but this while thing just generally stinks. Piracy might be wrong, but you can commit greater wrongs in the course of going after it, and abusing authority given to deal with terrorists so some company can save a few bucks is one of
those greater evils.
What's interesting is that you are in favor of the patriot act, but you fear the abuse of power.


tanis1lionheart said:
[]

This is troll, yes?
Cause, if not - must be Kim Jon Ill, Mao, or Stalin in disguise.

No AMERICAN - who support the US Constitution would be a fan of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. A.C.T 2 - unless they're traitors.


Alright hopefully this copy/paste worked since I'm not sure how to get multi-quotig to work otherwise (having failed before).

To explain myself:

I consider the potential for power to be abused, and the actual abuse of power to be two entirely differant things. If you go after POTENTIAL for abuse, by definition you can't have any laws or enforcable rules, since anything can potentially be abused.

I have no objections to the existance of something like Homeland security, as long as they are kept an eye on, and are forced to keep within their mandated area, as opposed to being allowed to extend their area of influance to other areas of law. As I see it, Homeland Security has a lot of power, but is intended to have a very limited jurisdiction within which to use that power, and they need to be called on it when they start going outside of their allowed sandbox.

My attitude on "The Patriot Act" is similar. Simply put, when dealing with a nation, and the needs of dealing with other nations and opposing cultures in an adversarial fashion, national security becomes a concern. In times of outright conflict, the need for national security is nessicarly going to be very high. A lot of the rights and freedoms we posses by their very nature cannot exist in a time of national crisis if we want to preserve the nation as a whole. This is why the goverment has always had access to war powers, and the abillity to do things like declare martial law. Our rights and freedoms were never an absolute, and could always be taken away from us under such circumstances, albiet temporarly. Whether you like what happned or not, this is how the goverment got us through World War II. They quashed free speech and freedomn of the press, US Nazi supporters and anti-war isolationists were prevented from expressing themselves, the goverment turned propaganda into overdrive, and while a huge moral issue, it did things like round up and hold the Japanese citizens for the duration of the war (and incidently they WERE freed, a point a lot of people tend to forget when talking about the abuse of power. Exactly what was supposed to happen, is what happened there, even if it was distasteful).

"The Patriot Act" inherantly does nothing that I disapprove of for the situation it was intended for. What it does is effectively give the goverment a middle ground between invoking full on war powers/martial law, and peacetime operations. That DOES represent something of a slippery slope, and I personally prefer an "all or nothing" attitude here, especially seeing as I think a lot of our current problems with "The War On Terror" are due to being half assed and not keeping domestic sentiment in line properly, but I can see why this was done, and why it's worth experimenting with.

If anything, by straddling the line between wartime and peacetime policy, it castrates itself by raising too many questions about civil law vs. emergency law, and what courts should have jurisdiction over specific things in this kind of situation.

For the most part it does work though, because it lets the goverment do things like round up societal enemies, and ignore a lot of the peacetime due process rights and civil liberties, while at the same time allowing things like free speech and freedom of the press to remain in play. Of course the problem is that you wind up with the issue of the free speech being using to try and castrate the govermental authority being allowed by these same laws.

As much as people might dislike war powers, we wouldn't be here right now if we didn't have them. What's more I trust our goverment when it comes to the "big issues" more than on the small ones, largely because after declaring martial law in World War II, it did wind up relinquishing those powers, and for all the whining, it eventually let The Japanese out of the camps rather than finding constant excuses to keep them locked up beyond the need.

Right now I think "The Patriot Act" needs to stay in play. If it's pulled, I think we're in a place right now that it should be done in the way of invoking full martial law in order to resolve the current problems, rather than returning to peacetime operations.

The issue when it comes to powers like this being why they are used. When it comes to Homeland Security for example, I fully support them stepping all over the "rights" of suspected terrorists. What they do being open to review, with all kinds of eyes on them. We did all kinds of nasty things during "World War II" in order to stop german spies and the like. Check out the US propaganda department at the Smithosonian sometime as well. To put it bluntly in that "good" war, we basically won by being bigger bastards than the Germans were. The problem is when Homeland security goes beyond it's mandate and starts using it's authority in purely civil matters. If it could logically tie it's behavior into stopping terrorism or enabling the US to win it's current wars, you wouldn't hear much complaining from me, but I fail to see how defending the IP rights of private businesses in any way involves anything but the bottom line of those businesses. At least if they pull some Muslim into a special national security subset of the legal system due to his social circle, backround, or recorded conversation, they can justify how that impacts national security when we're at war with The Middle East (similar to how doing it to a German could be justified when we were at war with Germany), what your seeing here can't be defended that way.

As far as claims like "OMG, Therumancer your a Nazi Stalinist, no real American would support some of the things you defend!", this is pretty much what "real America" is all about, we've already been here, we've already done these things, and we've had the abillity to do stuff like this since the country was founded. The USA during wartime, and the USA during peacetime are *VERY* differant entities... but again, people who make moral arguements typically don't have the remotest clue of what we've done, or why such things have had to be done. They operate under the illusion of a set of absolute freedoms that were never absolute and which have been removed temporarly in the past.

At any rate, this is long and rambling, but the bottom line is that I support The Patriot Act because it's there, and in play. After the current crisis, I do think he needs to be laid to rest, and in the future when such situations occur we need to just invoke Martial Law and be straightforward about it, because we've caused more problems than we solved due to trying to be nice and find a middle path when there really can't be one.

It's kind of ironic when people go off about "The Patriot Act" when they don't realize that it was started to preserve as much freedom as possible in a time of crisis as opposed to either having the glories of peavetime, or the complete removal of liberties that comes with wartime.
I appreciate you taking the time to write this. This is the first coherent explanation I've heard from a Patriot Act supporter. It was refreshing.

I still don't agree with a lot of what you said, mostly for moral reasons, but your opinions at least make sense.

I did note a recurring theme of "this is the way it has to be done if we're going to make it". I'm curious to know if the alternative has ever been tried. I know that in the history of our nation, it hasn't. The Patriot Act has better or worse but very similar counterparts for every war, cold or otherwise, we've ever been in.

The other major reason I didn't like the Patriot Act was that the administration at the time was one that I didn't trust with that kind of power, and if the behavior of the Justice Department during that time was any indication, it was a very well placed distrust.
 

Littlee300

New member
Oct 26, 2009
1,742
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BiH-Kira said:
America.
World police that can't keep order in their own country.
Oh my god piracy trouble! I need to hide in my bunker!
___________________________________________________________________________________
This really should go through a court and not be done without a second thought.
 

ZeroAxis

New member
Apr 11, 2010
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post="7.282227.11064289"]
zehydra said:
Therumancer said:
I'm a big supporter of Homeland Security, and actually felt that "The Patriot Act" does not go far enough in what it needs to do. I supported Gitmo, and all kinds of things that make left wingers uneasy to even think about.... however in reading this, and similar things, I can't help but say "WTF Is Homeland Security doing involved in this?". There is no justification for using what is supposed to be an organization intended to defend the country against terrorist threats, acting as a punkhammer for anti-piracy slapfights. It's sort of like how the definition of "Terrorism" is extended and trampled on to deal with any kind of major case that law enforcement needs a bit more oomph with.

It's like this, unless Homeland Security can prove that there is some direct connection to terrorism, they need to butt out. By this I don't just mean hypothetical exploitation by terrorists.

It's this kind of irresponsibility, and the breadth of operations of "Homeland Security" that cause people to have so many problems with them. I believe such organizations can operate without abuses of their authority, or taking undue advantage of a broad mandate, but actions like this certainly make my defense of them being a lot more difficult. Piracy revolves around private businesses losing money, NOT about threats to our nation as a whole, Homeland Security has no part being involved here, heck there are plenty of criminal cases that they get involved in where they shouldn't besides this.

I might not care for piracy, but this while thing just generally stinks. Piracy might be wrong, but you can commit greater wrongs in the course of going after it, and abusing authority given to deal with terrorists so some company can save a few bucks is one of
those greater evils.
What's interesting is that you are in favor of the patriot act, but you fear the abuse of power.


tanis1lionheart said:
[]

This is troll, yes?
Cause, if not - must be Kim Jon Ill, Mao, or Stalin in disguise.

No AMERICAN - who support the US Constitution would be a fan of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. A.C.T 2 - unless they're traitors.


Alright hopefully this copy/paste worked since I'm not sure how to get multi-quotig to work otherwise (having failed before).

To explain myself:

I consider the potential for power to be abused, and the actual abuse of power to be two entirely differant things. If you go after POTENTIAL for abuse, by definition you can't have any laws or enforcable rules, since anything can potentially be abused.

I have no objections to the existance of something like Homeland security, as long as they are kept an eye on, and are forced to keep within their mandated area, as opposed to being allowed to extend their area of influance to other areas of law. As I see it, Homeland Security has a lot of power, but is intended to have a very limited jurisdiction within which to use that power, and they need to be called on it when they start going outside of their allowed sandbox.

My attitude on "The Patriot Act" is similar. Simply put, when dealing with a nation, and the needs of dealing with other nations and opposing cultures in an adversarial fashion, national security becomes a concern. In times of outright conflict, the need for national security is nessicarly going to be very high. A lot of the rights and freedoms we posses by their very nature cannot exist in a time of national crisis if we want to preserve the nation as a whole. This is why the goverment has always had access to war powers, and the abillity to do things like declare martial law. Our rights and freedoms were never an absolute, and could always be taken away from us under such circumstances, albiet temporarly. Whether you like what happned or not, this is how the goverment got us through World War II. They quashed free speech and freedomn of the press, US Nazi supporters and anti-war isolationists were prevented from expressing themselves, the goverment turned propaganda into overdrive, and while a huge moral issue, it did things like round up and hold the Japanese citizens for the duration of the war (and incidently they WERE freed, a point a lot of people tend to forget when talking about the abuse of power. Exactly what was supposed to happen, is what happened there, even if it was distasteful).

"The Patriot Act" inherantly does nothing that I disapprove of for the situation it was intended for. What it does is effectively give the goverment a middle ground between invoking full on war powers/martial law, and peacetime operations. That DOES represent something of a slippery slope, and I personally prefer an "all or nothing" attitude here, especially seeing as I think a lot of our current problems with "The War On Terror" are due to being half assed and not keeping domestic sentiment in line properly, but I can see why this was done, and why it's worth experimenting with.

If anything, by straddling the line between wartime and peacetime policy, it castrates itself by raising too many questions about civil law vs. emergency law, and what courts should have jurisdiction over specific things in this kind of situation.

For the most part it does work though, because it lets the goverment do things like round up societal enemies, and ignore a lot of the peacetime due process rights and civil liberties, while at the same time allowing things like free speech and freedom of the press to remain in play. Of course the problem is that you wind up with the issue of the free speech being using to try and castrate the govermental authority being allowed by these same laws.

As much as people might dislike war powers, we wouldn't be here right now if we didn't have them. What's more I trust our goverment when it comes to the "big issues" more than on the small ones, largely because after declaring martial law in World War II, it did wind up relinquishing those powers, and for all the whining, it eventually let The Japanese out of the camps rather than finding constant excuses to keep them locked up beyond the need.

Right now I think "The Patriot Act" needs to stay in play. If it's pulled, I think we're in a place right now that it should be done in the way of invoking full martial law in order to resolve the current problems, rather than returning to peacetime operations.

The issue when it comes to powers like this being why they are used. When it comes to Homeland Security for example, I fully support them stepping all over the "rights" of suspected terrorists. What they do being open to review, with all kinds of eyes on them. We did all kinds of nasty things during "World War II" in order to stop german spies and the like. Check out the US propaganda department at the Smithosonian sometime as well. To put it bluntly in that "good" war, we basically won by being bigger bastards than the Germans were. The problem is when Homeland security goes beyond it's mandate and starts using it's authority in purely civil matters. If it could logically tie it's behavior into stopping terrorism or enabling the US to win it's current wars, you wouldn't hear much complaining from me, but I fail to see how defending the IP rights of private businesses in any way involves anything but the bottom line of those businesses. At least if they pull some Muslim into a special national security subset of the legal system due to his social circle, backround, or recorded conversation, they can justify how that impacts national security when we're at war with The Middle East (similar to how doing it to a German could be justified when we were at war with Germany), what your seeing here can't be defended that way.

As far as claims like "OMG, Therumancer your a Nazi Stalinist, no real American would support some of the things you defend!", this is pretty much what "real America" is all about, we've already been here, we've already done these things, and we've had the abillity to do stuff like this since the country was founded. The USA during wartime, and the USA during peacetime are *VERY* differant entities... but again, people who make moral arguements typically don't have the remotest clue of what we've done, or why such things have had to be done. They operate under the illusion of a set of absolute freedoms that were never absolute and which have been removed temporarly in the past.

At any rate, this is long and rambling, but the bottom line is that I support The Patriot Act because it's there, and in play. After the current crisis, I do think he needs to be laid to rest, and in the future when such situations occur we need to just invoke Martial Law and be straightforward about it, because we've caused more problems than we solved due to trying to be nice and find a middle path when there really can't be one.

It's kind of ironic when people go off about "The Patriot Act" when they don't realize that it was started to preserve as much freedom as possible in a time of crisis as opposed to either having the glories of peavetime, or the complete removal of liberties that comes with wartime.[/quote]

Sorry to come out of nowhere, as I usually only come here for Zero Punctuation and a few news articles, but this thread is so interesting I had to chime in. To the above post, I say google "Patriot Act/German Enabling Act". I have actually read both for a research paper and one is almost a copy/paste job of the other. I'm sure the german civilians of 1933 felt the same way you do now prior to hitler taking over, and unfortunately there are more parallels between our country now and that country then than you'll want to believe (especially economically).

PS: Please actually google and read before flaming, thank you.[quote="Therumancer"