I am ashamed.

[Buddlespit]

I'm pretty sure it isn't possible to override the Constitution without a Constitutional Convention or passing an amedment. So far, the Fourth Amedment still stands, battered and bruised though it may be. The EFF and others are planning lawsuits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...s_Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
(Please read both)

Again, it was wrong. It 's something that needs to be changed. But it wasn't (isn't yet) illegal. It will remain a legal and viable tactic until a judge interprets the Fourth (and the PATRIOT Act) and finds for the EFF. You may not like it, I definitely don't, but until we take back out Constitution, preferably thru Judicial Constitutional interpretation (I'm getting to old to be a freedom fighter), what's being done is legal.

[GreyGeek]

...
There is a federal law that requires all encryption algorithms developed by all U.S. companies/individuals be turned over to the Government so they will have the means to crack any item encrypted with it, auspiciously to prevent the export of same.

H.R. 695 died and never became law. In his first term Pres. Obama wanted back doors to encryption algorithms.
http://boingboing.net/2010/09/27/oba...istration.html

Considering all that we've learned in the last 6 months about the abuses of the 4th Amendment his wish has been met exceedingly well. About a year ago Microsoft received a patent on software it called "Legal Intercept". When it bought Skype it changed the supernode from stealing client's RAM and bandwidth to one of stealing client's encrypted communications. MS moved the supernodes to a Linux server farm and installed Legal Intercept on the servers. It give MS and any person they allow access the ability to eaves drop on "encrypted" Skype communications. I've read that when the Utah data storage facility goes on line it will give the NSA the capacity to store ALL GLOBAL communications for the next 100 years. 1984 was only 29 years late.

Steve, you hold no blame.

I have a T-shirt in my closet. It says "I downloaded Internet Explorer". I got it for free by being one of the first 10,000 to ask for one. I was an unabashed Microsoft supporter. Then, one day I tried to install Windows 3 on top of my DRDOS 4.0. It gave me an error about an "incompatible" operating system and refused to load. I was heart broken because DRDOS 4.0 was much better (faster, more stable) than MSDOS. I replaced DRDOS with MSDOS and installed Win3. A little later I got my issue of DR Dobbs Journal. In it was a story about how Microsoft put a DRDOS trap in the Win3 install code. They proved it by using a binary editor to replace that section of the code with NOP's. Win3 installed beautifully on DRDOS and ran better on it (fewer crashes) than it did on MSDOS. I was enraged. I reformatted my HD, installed DRDOS and edited the binary install the way DR Dobbs did. That gave me Win3 on DRDOS. From then on I watched MS with a jaundiced eye.

When DRDOS lost market share (I didn't learn why until later - MS dirty tricks) I decided to run Win3 under OS/2. It ran better in that environment than it did on DRDOS. In Dec of 1997 I bought a new Sony VAIO desktop. It came with Win95, which is one reason why I bought it. Sony had installed a "service", called "Medi-Kit" between MSDOS and Win95. Win95 crashed multiple times per day. I got into the habit of saving every 5 minutes to minimize the amount of code I'd loose in a crash. Between Jan 1, 1998 and May 1, 1998 I had to reinstall Win95 FIVE times to restore even a little usability.

I thought my problems were due to Sony's hardware because its Medi-Kit often failed to do its job, which I learned later was to trap Win95 crashes and do a phantom reboot. In frustration I went to Barnes & Nobel to get the latest copy of OS/2. While there I found a paper back called "Learn Linux in 24 Hours", by BIll Brush. It was $25 and included a CDROM of RH5.0 in back. OS/2 was over $150. I installed RH5.0 on that Sony and suddenly it turned into the rock of Gibraltar. I never had another crash on that system while it was running Linux. In Sept of 1998 I moved to SuSE 5.3 because it featured KDE 1.0 Beta, which I liked because it was very similar to Win95's look and feel, and the mouse and menu worked the same way. I've been with KDE every since, and with Kubuntu since Feb of 2009. Kubuntu is the distro most true to KDE, IMO.

[sithlord48]

reading this thread and just gotta say damn i love this forum. everytime we have some topic on here where people would get all hot headed elsewhere on the net here @ KFN we all have a discussion about it and again unlike other places on the net we don't just flame eachother..

@Steve i feel for you but sounds to me more like you should feel used since they used you. unless of course you knew and were just covering for them, then you should feel ashamed.( something tells me that its the first one )

[Buddlespit]

Kinda-sorta good news:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/us...pagewanted=all

[GreyGeek]

For all practical purposes the 4th Amendment to the Constitution is dead. The only reason why YOU haven't realized the danger to our democracy yet is because a TSA VIPR team hasn't yet stopped and search YOU and YOUR car without probably cause or a warrant. But, they have stopped hundreds of thousands of other Americans. This travisty used to take place in what the ACLU calls the "Constitution Free Zone", the 100 mile wide buffer around all of our borders and international air terminals. In it, law enforcement can stop you for any or no reason what so ever and search your car, without a warrant. This zone puts 1 out of every 3 Americans outside their full Constitutional Rights, supposedly "unalienable". Along the coasts ENTIRE states are in that zone.

Another reason why you might think that the 4th Amendment is still valid is because you are not aware of the GROSS Constitutional violations that have been done by the NSA, the IRS, the DOJ and other agencies. Your ISP or bank doesn't tell you when a government spy demands access to your account and reads and monitors your email, examines your bank account records, records your phone calls, monitors your "encrypted" Skype communications (using Microsoft's patented "Legal Intercept" spying software).

And, I just read this morning where the TSA is now searching vehicles left in valet parking at air terminals without warrants.

The 1st Amendment is dead if you are a practising Christian, or a member of the press, or not a "professional" journalist. The 2nd Amendment is on life support for you and I. Even though almost 4% of all American own fire arms, and tens of millions are buying guns each day, and more people are obtaining concealed carry permits than ever before. Yet, ammo has been difficult to get for seven months and part of it is because the DHS has purchase orders for 1.6 BILLION rounds of 9mm & .40 caliber hollow points, plus purchases of 2,700+ "Personal Defense Weapons", a.k.a. AR-15s, and several thousand armored vehicles. That's about 15 times the number of bullets fired in the Iraq war.

Our government is closer to becoming a tyrannical dictatorship than any time in its history. Justices Suter and O'Coonor and Pres. Carter think so. So do many others.

The problem is that most Americans of voting age today have never had a serious Civics class in high school or college in the last 30 years. They do not understand the Constitution or the structure of our government (it's checks and balances), so they see nothing wrong with a president abusing "Executive Orders" as FDR did when he ordered the arrest and imprisonment of 250,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry.

We are just one major disaster away from being stripped of ALL of our Constitutional Rights and Martial law imposed "for our safety". See E.O. 13603. The purpose is very clear. To replace Rule Of Law under the Constitution with a Socialist agenda under the UN.

[jlittle]

... The purpose is very clear. To replace Rule Of Law under the Constitution with a Socialist agenda under the UN.

I followed you all the way to here. Socialist? In the US, you don't know the meaning of the word. The UN? The UN is a joke, ignored by the most powerful states (the US, China, Russia, the UK, at least); US lunatic fringe hangups about the UN taking over are 100% delusional, you've far more to fear from the Fox-brainwashed right.

Oh, I get it now, you were joking

Regards, John Little

[GreyGeek]

.... The UN? The UN is a joke, ignored by the most powerful states ... you've far more to fear from the Fox-brainwashed right.

You watch Fox News? :eek: I'm shocked, I tell you, completely shocked!

As far as media goes, Fox News has a greater percentage of center and left wing on-air personalities than CNN or NBC or CBS or PBS have center or right wing personalities.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/personalities/#s=a-d
so their claim of being more "fair and balanced" is closer to the truth than any claim the other media might make to that title. Geraldo Rivera, Juan Williams, Bob Beckel and Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, to name just a few. Greene insulted Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson as a “bow-tying white boy", and Fox didn't fire him, but when Williams said that people in Muslim garb on airplanes he was riding on made him nervous (considering 911, Richards and others, a fair fear), PBS fired him. Fox didn't doctor the Zimmerman 911 tapes and put racist terms into Zimmerman's mouth. blah, blah, blah.

Basically, ALL the news media, and Fox leads them all in viewers by 2X or more, slant the news to their own agenda. People generally listen to the news that they are comfortable hearing. That's a given, and all stories by any media have to be checked against other media. Even "fact checker" are biased. They all lie or distort the news at one time or another. In previous generations it was called "yellow journalism", and it goes all the way back to the founding of America. Media is partisan. There is NO such thing as "fair" reporting because all media have fallible people doing the reporting. Even people who think they are reporting fairly can inadvertently allow their own bias to color how the see and interpret the news.

[MoonRise]

I can say, I've read this whole thread. I'm an analytical person. I tend to see things from different viewpoints. What I've learned is everything is subjective. An illusion. It goes to what a few have said here. Where do you draw the line? Again, subjective and meaning different things to many people. If I were to thow in my personal feelings, I would have to agree with Q and Snow on most aspects. But to the OP, I wouldn't feel that way. Not in anyway your fault. We are all lied to and do our best to "Trust" what we think is the correct thing. But that too I guess is subjective.

[Detonate]

How you see things an believing what you see has changed greatly for me over the years. I was raised in a time when we were taught to trust our sources, if someone from our government said something, or if something was reported in the news, we believed it without question. It was also a time of trust in our fellow man. Contracts were made and respected, even oral contracts. A man's reputation for honesty was of utmost importance.
Things began to change in the 1960's. Now I never trust anyone to tell me the truth unless I have developed trust in that person. The modern way of conduct of media and public officials has turned me into a complete cynic. I don't believe anything that I have not personally verified with research. Very sad.

The code of an officer in the US Military demands that I will never tell a lie, nor will I tolerate those that do. With great personal grief I see that code violated every day by those still in uniform. Is there no honor anymore?

[jlittle]

You watch Fox News? :eek: I'm shocked, I tell you, completely shocked!

I just follow links to reports and videos taking Fox news to task for various distortions, jingoism and general craziness. Also, one meets Americans who roll their eyes in reference to Fox news, and the general world view of most Americans.

As far as media goes, Fox News has a greater percentage of center and left wing on-air personalities than CNN or NBC or CBS or PBS have center or right wing personalities.

As an outsider looking in, their "center and left wing on air personalities" are straw men, there to make an illusion of balance.

Basically, ALL the news media, and Fox leads them all in viewers by 2X or more, slant the news to their own agenda. People generally listen to the news that they are comfortable hearing. That's a given...

I can't agree. It's no excuse for blatant bias, "Oh, the other guys are biased too." The idea that truth actually exists, independently of who utters it, is part of the heady mix that made the modern world, and underpins science. Your course in civics (a great idea) could cover some basic reasoning and the scientific method.

Regards, John Little

[GreyGeek]

.... As an outsider looking in, their "center and left wing on air personalities" are straw men, there to make an illusion of balance.

You need to fix your glass prescription. As a straw man left wingers Bob Beckel and Alan Colmes are a perfect fit. But, it's a leap to call Juan Williams a straw man, or Santita Jackson (Jesse's daughter, and a friend of "Rev" Jeremiah Wright), or Jehmu Greene, Claudia Cowan and probably one of the sharpest contributors to Fox New, Sally Kohn. To those Lefties I can add Kirsten Powers, Simon Rosenberg and the indubitable Marxist Dennis Kucinich, Straw men? Hardly. And, as I said, show me anyone one at CNN, ABC, MSNBC or ABC who have Right wing credentials as strong as the Left wing credentials of the folks I mentioned, which isn't the entire list of Lefties at Fox.

In reality, Fox isn't any more Right, or less Left than the other media. They just have a different shtick to generate revenue. Catch them behind the scenes, or during commercial breaks when they think the camera and mic are off and ...

Basically, I agree with what Detonate wrote.

[tek_heretik]

Protecting our freedom of speech and right to privacy with whatever means possible has no 'wing' (left or right), just sayin'. :-/

[Detonate]

Our freedom of speech is endangered by those who abuse that freedom. With that freedom should come the responsibility to use it wisely and truthfully.

[Snowhog]

...wisely and truthfully.

Two attributes that are at odds with Politics and Politicians!

[SteveRiley]

what's being done is legal

The "legal" authority for much of what's been going on lately is itself being questioned. Scholars such as Glenn Greenwald, Randy Barnett, and Christopher John Sprigman, and legislators such as Gordon Humphrey clearly articulate sound reasons that the government is acting outside its legal authority. The FISC admits that the NSA has acted illegally.

The courts really do need to step in here and do their jobs. When the government breaks its own laws and is not held accountable, where else can we as citizens turn?