US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies

[Victor Galis]

Hmmm... perhaps they should call this the Stop Terrorism with American Spies Initiative.

(Grad school in the UK is looking more and more appealing by the moment.)

[drake]

Trying to empower the people a bit. Sounds reasonable to me.

Just because someone watches his neighborhood for suspicious characters doesn't mean hes gonna turn into some power hungry witch hunter.

[Victor Galis]

Yeah, but so many such people, and statistically it's certain that there will be a certain number of witch hunters empowered to do more harm than the terrorists ever could.

[MarkG]

who's geting the job for all those huge and probably worthless databases?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Well all is fine, the question is - What are they gonna do with the person neighborhood watch finds suspicious???

Wit the new law outlined there that your flat can be searched over without letting you know that at all? or you can be listend too as long as the state wants sounds like communism to me

What if they find something there that is not yours, but you can squeek as much as you want and still - who will believe you, the neighbors certainly wont.

Doesn't sound nice, you can only hope that the inspectors are decent people who will not have a grudge againt you, as many more things will become "fixable" with such system. That is just human nature.

[DanS]

1/24?

I'm afraid Americans just don't have the knack for spying.

OneFoot: You still need a warrant to do those things, IIRC.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by MarkG
who's geting the job for all those huge and probably worthless databases?

worthless... nooo, that is all marketing research.

One day you say to your friend, I have just warezed win XP, next day you come home and you get a bill in the post. Saying - your credit card has been charged for $500 - $199 for OS , and $301 piracy charge.

[DanS]

But I do appreciate the doubleplusungood reference.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by DanS
1/24?

I'm afraid Americans just don't have the knack for spying.

OneFoot: You still need a warrant to do those things, IIRC.

well as in any society more fundamentalist/ conservative /nationalistic people will go into those services and keep a check over the rest, well if there is less than 1/50 "fundies" in your society than those informants will be good lazy and uselles. But you will always find the nitty-gritty people having their fingers putting in your lives trough such services.

Hopefully not, but the doors might be opening.

And for the warrant, wouldn't neighboorhood watch advice be enough to get one and search your house without your knowledge and tap your phone? What if those people don't like you for some other reasons?

[Jon Miller]

the fundamentalist would hate doing the spying (they would be more worried about losses to the freedom of religion)

it is only the ultranationalists who would get into it

JOnMiller

[chequita guevara]

You know, when they open up the concentration camps, there are gonna be people on Apolyton saying that people are just overracting.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Many key figures of the Reagan era are part of the Bush Administration.

Except for Powell, who?

--

And Lincoln, I agree somewhat.

[drake]

concentration camps, give us all a break please.



A country that looks out for itself is better off than a country that sticks its head in the sand and prays all the problems go away.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Didn't you dislike the 'snitch' in grade school, drake?

[Lemmy]

but aren't the American concerned about the possibility that this program could be used by people who just don't like their neighbours?

[drake]

Big difference between someone snitching about who pushed billy off the monkey bars and who is plotting to murder thousands of people.

Someone in a neighborhood watch program does not take on the role of the police officer, they simply keep an eye out for people who look out of place or suspicious. How that can be detrimental I'm not sure.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by drake
concentration camps, give us all a break please.

See what I mean.

Drake you do know that the government has plans to establish such camps dating back to the '50s. One of the tidbits that came out during Iran-Contra was that North had updated the plans. During a planned invasion of Nicaragua, the Constitution was to be suspended, and half a million leftists (real and suspected) were to be rounded up and "concentrated."



You know you can boil a live frog right? If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, the frog jumps out. But if you drop the frog in a pot of cool water, and slowly turn up the heat, a little bit at a time, the frog's nerves can't tell that it's getting too hot. So the frog sits there, and eventually dies.

We are frogs, and the heat was just turned up a little.


edit: fixing typos.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oooooh, cool frog analogy!

That deserves a

[Jon Miller]

I will agree we are heading that way, but I do not think we are their yet

Jon Miller

[drake]

This isn't the 50s che. Though you might not want to acknowledge it, a lot has changed since then.

What you never heard that one Immy?

[chequita guevara]

True, but Iran-Contra was less than 20 years ago, and a lotta folks from Reagan's administration are holding the reigns of power again.

You know Cheney and Rumsfeld were the two people in charge of trying to keep Congress from hearing Nixon's tapes back during the Nixon Admiistration. These fookers in our government have a long and deep history of anti-democracy in the US. Do not trust them. They will betray you and every other American.

[drake]

Government aside....how is it fundamentally a bad idea to want to keep an eye on suspicious characters and keep your neighborhood and city safe?

This may not be the best solution to anything but I can guarantee that playing the see no evil, hear no evil game is certainly not any better.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Che, I always wondered about this 'Reagan Administration in power again' claptrap.

Cheney and Rumsfeld weren't in Reagan's inner circle. All the people who were don't work for Bush.

[Lemmy]

This may not be the best solution to anything but I can guarantee that playing the see no evil, hear no evil game is certainly not any better.

But who's advocating that idea?
Just that someone is opposed to this idea means he wants to ignore the evil?

[DanS]

Living in the city, I see a whole lotta evil.

[mactbone]

"I swear officer, she was the one doing all the work."

[Victor Galis]

Government aside....how is it fundamentally a bad idea to want to keep an eye on suspicious characters and keep your neighborhood and city safe?

-Depends on your definition of suspicious. I for one, don't want to suddenly wake up in an Alaskan gulag.

This may not be the best solution to anything but I can guarantee that playing the see no evil, hear no evil game is certainly not any better.

-Wanton throwing away of civil liberties is a lot worse than doing nothing.

[Lemmy]

ok, another thing that bugs me:
The US government is prepared to "recruit" millions of people to stop a possible terrorist act which is likely to happen, to only question would be how long would it take before it happens, and how bad would it be.
9-11 costed ~3000 lives? And that was a one time event.

Now there were 15517 murders in 2000 alone, what is being done about that?
Link: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm

[Victor Galis]

My point exactly. The terrorists killed less people than tobacco does in one week, yet now we're all paranoid.

[drake]

Whos paranoid? You?