At 05:34 PM 2/3/2006, Bob Maxey wrote:
Fact: Nobody on this list is likely on the inside. Everyone on this list can Google. Most (if not all) of people you find with a Google search are not on the inside. Those on the inside do not talk. Those that talk are perhaps not reliable or they exaggerate, or they lie about being on the inside in the first place.
The true insiders on this list (if they are) could possibly flag the others on this list worth mentioning to a superior, and chances are, it will be 2009 before they are seriously investigated. If you are flagged, 2009 will come and go and you will likely be dismissed as a not worth the expenditure.
We take away a passenger's rat tailed comb or his tweezers or pliers because as we all know, a pair of pliers is a perfect weapon to use against a trained pilot, a bunch of angry flight attendants, an unidentified federal marshal, and a load of scared passengers probably capable of tearing someone apart if provoked. Ever watch how a crowd behaves when someone yells fire?
We think it is a good idea because who knows how those pliers could be used. Rather, we become upset when traffic between a country hostile to the United States is monitored and a US citizen. We have always accepted "unconstitutional" laws because it helps keep the peace. We get into trouble when someone takes the strict verbiage in the constitution, thinks it should apply in every case, and happens across an ACLU office. The constitution does not say that we have a right to keep and bear arms except in a school or post office or jet airplane. We do not allow it because, well, DUH! It makes sense.
When someone devises a plot that includes taking over three commercial airliners, flying two into the WTC, toppling both towers, and flying the third into the Pentagon, they are (would have been) branded as wacky. Then it actually happens and others ask why we did not do this or that. We are curious about why we allowed "them" to take suspicious flying lessons. We ask how come we did not learn of their activities before the event. When we try to learn about possibly enemies, we are told no, that is domestic spying.
The rest are conspiracy nuts. Those that think our leaders are wrong about something have likely not bothered to read the constitution and the applicable laws. They think the government was responsible for 9-11 and they see the devil in the smoke. They live in a sound bite world and the facts never enter their arguments. They prefer to worry about library searches being turned over to some alphabet agency and those intrusive cameras in a high crime area. We have someone wearing a T-shirt in the senate chamber and ushering her out is a terrible thing. The news runs with it, and it is so very terrible. Some moron brings up the free speech issues which do not apply. What is wrong with decorum and perhaps dressing properly as not to offend? The offender has had her spotlight and day in the news and I would have tossed her out on her arse.
When I ask why this (library searches) is a big deal, I am told it is an invasion of privacy issue. Forgetting that few if any such searches have actually been turned over, people are still concerned. Give me a break, your library data is of no interest to "them." Besides, if I were in law enforcement, I would want to know if someone is looking at blueprints of a sports arena and has checked out books about bomb making, poison gas dispersal, and related materials.
When it is discovered later that a tragedy might have been avoided, people will ask how come we did not know. Well, that would be "domestic spying"(?) and we cannot have any of that.
We are monitored. Have been for decades. I am monitored every time I make a cell call. Or every time I am talking to another Ham on two-meters. The bad guys know who is (supposedly) doing the monitoring and how it is being done, (probably) and they will take steps to avoid being taped. They buy cell phones from the 7-11 and so what if these phones are monitored.
Despite what you see on the ten or fifteen CSI variants, it is not that easy to find out who bought a particular cell phone. By the time they figure it out, it is probably too late. Chances are, they will not be monitored because it takes some pretty amazing technology to monitor every cell phone transmission. From listening to others, the thought is that every telephone conversation will be monitored. Get over it folks, what you have to say over the telephone does not matter.
It takes quite an imagination and a complete lack of technological understanding to assume that Bush's programs will include monitoring the phone calls of every cell phone user. Perhaps what will happen is some calls will be monitored and if you say "Kill" or "Bomb" and it might trigger some magic monitor machine that can pick up on key words, but shouldn't it?
Decent people are generally safe, bad guys are growing less safe because we are paying attention. Decent people are sometimes caught in the middle, but so what? It will always be this way and it is part of the price we pay. Some innocents will be touched. Some think we have no right to pay attention, hence, the whole monitoring issue.
We want security on our streets but we do not want surveillance cameras on every street corner. We want answers but we dare not torture...er, I mean question some very real suspects. We fall under attack and we ask why wasn't this person or that caught before the tragedy. Why wasn't more done to protect our security? We then suggest perhaps paying attention to their phone calls might help, and suddenly, the actual tragedy almost becomes a secondary story; the real story becomes listening to suspect phone calls.
When we try, we end up debating how terrible it is to monitor those cretins that should be included on a list of suspects. With cheap phone calls and a "234,666,096 hour Free Trial AOL" disk glued to every magazine or arriving daily in our mailboxes, we have no other choice but to carefully consider email, web sites, and cheap cell phones when we try to get a handle on the problem. To say we should never consider monitoring is to say, I am clueless and I do not care about domestic safety.
If another major American city is damaged, people will start asking why we were not able to catch the bad guys and some will say it is because we did not monitor "them." When we do monitor overseas calls, we are told how terrible it is; how much we must protect the "civil rights" of those not living in our country. We want to be safe and prepared and on guard, but we do not want to pay the costs associated with the protection.
Hell, if we had the net way back when, Ben Franklin would probably devise a way to monitor it and provide for it in the Constitution.
Eventually, we will cool down, let the tragedy pass, and we will be back here arguing this again and again and again. We are, in part, trying to protect the feelings of those folks that recently declared war on those countries that dared to publish a silly cartoon and those that might have read it. But we should not monitor them because they have rights. Huh? Rights?
If they wanted you, you would already be in custody.
Bob
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