On Monday 28 August 2006 17:10, JD Fenech wrote: > Well, a new update on finding the positional data on those wind turbines > in central Iowa to put into FG. > > How compatible is flightgear with US homeland security? > When I asked Mid-American Energy (or should it be Mid-CCCP Energo now?), > I was refused any real information, being cited that it was for > security. Fast forward about two weeks, and I'm getting a call from the > Iowa State Police wanting to know why (and how I feel about the US). Has > anyone else had a similar experience to this, how did they deal with > that, and how does one express disapproval with a corporate entity which > acts in this manner (without getting further attention from the usual > parties). > > JD
What I would do is give the nice officer the URL for the FlightGear web site and invite him to join us here. He will fish around a little and realize that there are no Islamofacists here and that all we are is a bunch of nerds trying to make a "game" better. End of story. I have heard of people getting hassled for taking photographs of bridges and other things like that. The "authorities" (at least some of them) consider this to be suspicious. On the other hand I know of people who photograph nothing but bridges because these are very interesting material for photography. I do this sometime myself for this very reason. And no I have not been hassled photographing a bridge. I would personally consider it suspicious if I saw someone who appeared to be a 20 to 35 year old middle eastern male photographing a bridge from multiple angles using consumer level equipment. I know some would consider this to be "profiling" and it is I guess but notice that there were a number of conditions that needed to be in play to consider the behavior suspicious and only one of them was race related. I just can't see anyone being concerned about a 60 year old white (or black) man (or woman) spending a few hours shooting photos of a bridge with high end equipment. The fact that the "authorities" don't see it that way is pure political correctness that is totally divorced from logic and if the PC think does not end soon the WOT will end badly for the US. There were lots of things that we used to be able to do without getting hassled that are no longer an option and the strangle hold of the "authorities" keeps getting stronger. I remember in the 1960s, 1970s and even early 1980s being able to just walk around airports looking for interesting airplanes and almost every airport has at least a few of these setting around. No one even batted an eye or the most that would happen is someone would ask you what you were doing and when they found out they would tell you were the interesting planes were. Now to get onto the airport (even a small one) you need to go through security, show ID and have an explicit reason to be there (to look for interesting planes does not work). This is just one example. This all started with the War On Drugs (WOD). Now don't get me wrong I don't think anyone should be using drugs (other than those prescribed by a doctor) but we have been steadily trading away our liberties for decades because of the WOD. Now we have property seizures when no one has even been convicted of a crime and no knock warrants served in the middle of the night by teams of militarized police and .gov has not even put a dent into the drug trade. Now comes the WOT and they start taking this to the next level. At this point I would end the WOD in a heart beat if I could also return all of the liberties lost as a result of the WOD. Don't start thinking that I am some sort of leftist or liberal (as that word is used now days) as I am not and a more apt description of my political leanings might be limited government conservative. But I do believe in liberty (and the responsibilities that go with that liberty) and this has been steadily eroded since the 1930s here in the US. Even with this the US still has a higher level of liberty than all but a few other countries. Makes me feel really sad for most of the population of this planet. Hal > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? > Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job > easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache > Geronimo > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 > _______________________________________________ > Flightgear-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Flightgear-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-users
