Posted on 07/11/2003 8:09:36 PM PDT by jern
Well, funny you mention that. The government collects all kinds of information on us (and wants to collect even more). The problem is, we can't see what they are collecting on us. They won't let us. They have all of this information on us, even those of us who are guilty of nothing, and they won't say why the collect it or what it is being used for.
Sure, every now and then we get a glimpse behind the curtain, and we see that they want to track what we buy, they want to track those who buy firearms and ammo, they want to track where we travel to and from.
What this man has posted on his website about cops is nothing compared to what the government has on us.
For the most part, the average American citizen does not realize just how much information the government has collected on them, or just who has access to that information.
Every person in the courtroom knows that all guns and all marijuana baggies are not sticking out from under the passenger's seat or the glove box, but the prosecutor routinely puts on this perjured testimony, the judge regularly pretends to believe it, and the evidence seized as supposedly in plain view but actually obtained from an illegal search is not suppressed. The whole farce goes on in thousands of courtrooms every day across the land. Our police are professional liars because if they weren't, they couldn't make enough cases to obtain federal aid money based upon the number of drug and gun busts made by each department each year. Those are the facts: like them or not.
You gotta admit, many are fat stupid and socially inept though. Those are the ones that are causing the rest of you guys trouble.
It's too bad the rest of you pay, but we don't soon forget when an officer of the law drags us around unjustly. Makes us want to return the favor.
Maybe we should pay them more or something, I dunno, I think it's a quality issue. It seems as though ya'll have no interest in policing yourselves from the attitude I see.
And the government posts that information on you for all to see?
So... Do you believe these officers are personally responsible for everything the state does??
Thank you barrister for the shysters view point.
Oh I know the cops don't make the laws, but they are an extension of the government, whether it's your local deputy or an FBI agent. I don't lump them in a special category.
I think it would be better, if not only information was collected about the cops, but about all government officials. They are certainly collecting it about us.
Ahh, James Dalton Bell or C. J. "Toto" Parker found out the hard way that the feds don't take kindly to that.
From sierratimes
[...]
"So what the government was left with was prosecuting a thought crime: intent. Because Bell had used his freedom of political speech to write such items as “Assassination Politics” and disclose IRS agents’ home addresses, he obviously had to have the intent to harass federal agents. And the harassment was loosely construed. Any attempt to find or disclose any personal information about an agent can be made to fit federal law against “intention to harass or injure” an agent."
"Several times during the trial, the prosecutor made it clear that such an investigation was inappropriate and illegal merely on the basis that the subjects of such investigation were federal agents. Numerous times he cited the special privilege that agents hold that ordinary citizens don’t possess. Federal agents are, indeed, a breed apart and must be specially protected, he insisted. While they could surveil and investigate ordinary citizens, it was illegal for ordinary citizens to do the same to them."
[...]
"The law that made stalking federal agents a crime will continue to be used with increasing frequency. The law, enacted in 1996 and amended in 2000, has already been upheld in the Fourth and Eighth Federal District. Stalking itself is defined based on the slippery slope of intention, not on action, which brings up the specter of an increasing number of Stalinesque thought-crime trials in the future."
Do a web search on either name for the full story, several years ago this was a daily topic on the cypherpunk listserve.
Since they've brought out their big guns, a self professed defense attorney, and Fred's remind me to tell you story (wink, wink), there's just no way I can hang around to defend the jackbooted thugs against such intellectual firepower.
Either that or I'm just going to bed...but if it might make them feel more imposing to run me off.
Hang in there, as you said...fortunately there are very few like them in the real world.
No, they don't .. protection implies prevention. Criminals aren't scared of the cops anymore. Criminals DO FEAR a well armed populace.
Cops are criminal historians. Of course they could concentrate on nailing murders rather than speeders and stupid seatbelt or fireworks laws.
That's the crux of the matter - we don't know what they collect on us, or who sees that info or what they do with it. For all we know many many people may have access to that information. You or I don't know because the government doesn't feel that we have the right to know who knows what about us.
I'll throw out a specific example about some of the ways the government (at various levels) wants to use the information it collects on you. Let's say you live in Florida. You purchase a firearm. That information ends up in a database. You move to Chicago. They may decide they want to check up and see who is living in the city limits that may have firearms. Guess what, your name pops up when they comb through various databases. They may have a ban on the type of firearm you legally purchased in Florida, or pass a ban, or they just may want to know a bit about you or why you own a firearm. You'll get a visit from the police or if you are stopped for some reason, your name might be flagged, and you'll get a little extra questioning.
Think it's farfetched? It's not. The TIA started out as a way to compile lots of data on everybody and to make it available to those agencies that request that info. They may change the name to "Terrorist" instead of "Total", but I doubt little else has changed.
I may sound tin-foilish, but I work in the IT industry, I'm fully aware of what current databases and computer systems/servers are capable of. I keep up on security and privacy matters. They may spread the contracts around to various universities or companies, but when you look at it as a whole, they want to know all they can about you or I, regardless of the fact that we have done nothing to warrant their inquiries.
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