Off-the-Record Messaging (IM plugin)
Nikita Borisov and Ian Goldberg have released Off-the-Record Messaging (http://www.xelerance.com/mirror/otr/), an IM plugin for private communication providing not only the usual encryption and authentication, but also deniability and perfect forward secrecy. Deniability avoids digital signatures on messages (while preserving authenticity and integrity), so there is no hard-to-deny proof you wrote anything in particular; in fact, there is a toolkit to help people forge messages, making it extra-hard to pin things on you. Perfect forward secrecy means that your past messages and conversations remain protected even if your keys are compromised. You can read the OTR protocol description, download the source code for the gaim-otr plugin, or grab a gaim-otr binary package for Debian or Fedora Core.
Type III Anonymous message
=== TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE BEGINS === remember to email [EMAIL PROTECTED] a ssh2 key... below is gpg key -BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (OpenBSD) mQGiBD4I1qARBADVJq/hf1mec9Ac+L/J1ZJcngJkw6REiOdLD5IOtO18SB2UxDMN Tait4AdhR7O1zHxmxUctNaiypdJwhEZhGDDBlY/k8h0tHNVoa7utUMOWgmtOe+gO hS4LjyfBGX4ExBw6ofdLTrkIkjVz+sDIlJFb4Y4IluDidfrDUPg1/qGkewCg/kK4 dq1W3ntl/PwsmOG1VztbTgUD/i0p95JMxfuAalS9VycYnXaGywFVEsDJDJdIOLYP kVzpimrh25mvf3h9BZpnb4+XFhlWr1NVEA30YWQQGkSYAoOzMfxzk8nXvxBExX+j b/6RZWqfW2/YEv5jUbu6Ud91KubMmfjTjnepuo+q1ZjKO4vZSJhUYs0cLx1lgyVZ lNgKBACYpp+cEsZMU/6JHGY/8Wbo9y+8MLrNkvno+d7QJ0i3u97k2mBe/9Ie9J+5 tiam9gx9CqhKfLM3ikFouJpNoW2mv+1FzSyXb7U4ijGcJx6dXN03wTAs+txVNbOx m/hvR+/UitIFLXSo37CDS9Ba6Pr/cPtgBMzPbg3NVmMtE/nk9rRgR3dlbiBIYXN0 aW5ncyAoUHJpdmF0ZSBkaXN0cmlidXRpb24gbG9uZyBrZXkgZG8gTk9UIHVwbG9h ZCB0byBrZXlzZXJ2ZXJzISkgPGd3ZW5AY3lwaGVycHVua3MudG8+iGAEExECACAF Aj4I1qAFCQeEzgAFCwcDAgEDFQIDAxYCAQIeAQIXgAAKCRBFSNreUZWDz/sBAKC1 jLhll2R4hJ2I7kDlDCzFH8WLGACgsVBDT/7kXP9Xw5xAwlFQgXCuJ3S5BA0EPgji uRAQAMTLx30NTz0ATg/83u1AKoYY3e/dVGcTn4+KTEJIws5d6j2UUR6zm0bT23jw N4lA2zRT5k988lwKtiSnFesV7Ezoe04pmQtD/k5vMaiEPgYoiUHZhCfySYt/dYf/ lvkbhpcLN8cEY38dGk1t2QcK5IeIsJSqOiKQY53932KRcU/xLlRZrjLrkM6Dg2D0 0C3484xMJYdXgaByg91DlJ6csY9w6FQnuxPM9e+pgLj7sv5mDESuUUAHPcwIZFQ3 sKAvSxwa0lc3E/MjeHld50NYB4Fn2cqMwi5Em2m4NqUrO0DgoOBlVJhtZGz5dgZ4 nqP1NpaVR1tc2GcHiTrj5Tr91Q0uOO8e6WpWdt2PjIUsC2OJLDaHgngPRKXKIH63 6V2qu5LPY/jnJABPWWlhU0ZDekbYF14H6buohiSXBHRYrflLwQlUpPA7wJlVlUig sAwiwugV6xrKa4gPEFB7sS7xhqhT8E0UC6I6s6LWoauCthCg4mjDcpEzupeW/vn9 VuUs5BEEokKm+lXg6n8UCFJa6Gtf5TGjpmTtVmRejVs3cft1QUxJ6kJjqlEm7iPU NmqEsGSbT6nkYQILWUrAabc4meQGJf3I/VZ5UUWtBeHA77IhOp56YogNYp0kl9SX mfVhRqsFhhiIpL+GYjTBuawjV/GB+kQQrTynm0Jq5ditErjPAAMHD/9a4mlrQqWR A6G5wgrfevg2axAhaJrl0CgnAT/ulUWF8iHNeq9LXkkNE0J1yQzWicOU4a+9TFat 8vo4MqFiUkyWfnI/683RUnUldGU9tZ9Skab6rBy9QWUqorqRfudiYKqZKhX44nmj vYb53DZg3VlfVN7X7kG2ZJkFNO9YeqB63Ah503LR7ArT2u8fwoXZ2gxYDFK+zd8o BgDW0hhHj6leV5pJeEYqd1uX7cN07gtmjGd3fPEzI7xSGqj5ottipSpyQlZZVcGH prSY1fuPh0KSrakvmEfK+I4dfe7Mb+rwu5rz6TYR5wpo56/F0Ikv5QjQX6k9J2YE 4K1+Uu1APg/LixJZVodTeV5CXZLwz+zwycP8hOw5mg0ngHCu8HimTIEI5/LxSWqD TlqfcKR72taJH9tiYByMA6uAV7XMrTmlE301LqoCYUc4EYKwWZZq+Xg0RTKIRasX adw1bBFkE1KrXKr78XbtLO8p2L28qMiyCfBy+N3V41iYcQStiJRG85gZD7KaHrUV UobSYWLbKr7KUue72fsdle8Ha6Ss5yOrD2AK5vWSLo+SbABY4Pjhw/GVWSJ3xihw ITAiSWRKqgWfPwwiOoIqrOi59wcPL+nCkNqLlVpHz2FCxkM1Ym5Cc8nSJSqR7vHy 4HXCwV6Vy/sAUU4y+NjucjdW+hmeqhUF+4hMBBgRAgAMBQI+COK5BQkHhM4AAAoJ EEVI2t5RlYPPbMwAoM7SrL6F1ql2M30o1p0noSbtAWniAKCcT5EBe3wTIjKaf3k0 RlQesjpsbg== =OFmm -END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK- TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE ENDS
Re: terror alert red
On Thu, 20 Mar 2003 08:31:59 -0600, you wrote: Has anyone heard any more about the announcement made by the NJ gov that if we go to the next level -- red -- that everyone is confined to their houses? Nope, but it's not surprising since there was NO announcement by the NJ gov that red means confinement to the house. If someone want to confine NJ residents to their homes, they need a conviction and sentence or a bond order from a judge that specifies that, or a legal declaration of martial law followed by such an order to the people. Surely you don't think some press announcement by a governor is sufficient to place millions of people under house arrest without due process, indictment, arraignment, etc.
Re: pledge of allegiance in schools
On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 06:17:25 +, you wrote: Look at this shit on fox news, look how they bias the question and mis-represent the issue. They ask Should children be allowed to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school?. As if the children wanted to, and were being prevented! http://q13.trb.com and the stats after voting no -- 88% yes. Adam The polls done by these news sites are not designed to gain an accurate, statistically valid measure of opinion, rather they are designed as user participation devices to get involvement by the user with the web site. Like Rush Limbaugh or Donahue, the networks magnify controversy to gain interest. Probably the same group that watches professional wrestling, thrives on this kind of rabble rousing. No one takes them seriously. They are about building readership and money, not learning and conveying the truth. ~~~
Re: cryptome log downloads
On Wed, 26 Feb 2003 23:50:06 +0100 (CET), you wrote: These IPs downloaded access log from cryptome during hacked state. list of ip's snipped Didn't everybody who wanted to know who had downloaded the log, which includes you, have to download the log? Idiot.
Heroic Airport Screeners, hospital shut down
Cologne Mist Sparks Pa. Airport Probe By DAVID B. CARUSO Associated Press Writer February 20, 2003, 10:33 AM EST PHILADELPHIA -- A Saudi Arabian traveler set the city's anti-terrorism machine into full gear when he sprayed three airport guards with cologne while trying to demonstrate that the liquid wasn't dangerous. The [heroic] security screeners were rushed to Methodist Hospital after being spritzed Wednesday as the [swarthy complexioned] student passed through a [fatherland] checkpoint at Philadelphia International Airport. Unsure whether they had a [vicious, freedom hating terrorist] biological attack on their hands, [heroic] hospital officials ordered a full quarantine. Ambulances inbound to the [freedom loving people's] emergency room were diverted to other hospitals. Patients and staff who had contact with the [heroic, crusading] guards were quarantined for nearly three hours. We didn't know what the [atomized chemical or bioweapon] substance was, said hospital spokeswoman Nan Myers. [Heroic] FBI spokeswoman Linda Vizi said the 22-year-old [so called] student, whose [arabic sounding] name was withheld by authorities, was detained and [interrogated under duress and coercion and] questioned, then released [for further, secret surveillance] hours later after [the people's] chemical tests confirmed that the [terroristic] vapors were harmless [probably due to an oversight on the part of the freedom hating terrorist swarthy complexioned so called student]. He was here legally. All his papers were in order. His flight plans were in order. [Shit, we tried like hell for three hours to pin some kind of heavy shit on the kid, but the FBI newbies kept talking about 'facts are stubbord' or some such shit.] No federal law was violated. He was released, Vizi said. He missed his flight to Europe. [We tried to fuck with him as much as we could, but time just ran out.] Initially, even the [heroic] screeners themselves didn't consider the [terrorist] incident worth reporting, Vizi said. But they had second thoughts about the sweet-smelling spray and called police [after we told them this was a free ticket to fucking with an A-rab, why not have some fun?], she said. Flights weren't disrupted and no one was evacuated from the terminal, said [people's] airport spokesman Mark Pesce. Copyright ) 2003, The Associated Press
Re: The Train Wreck is Proceeding Nicely
On Sun, 16 Feb 2003 23:02:41 -0800, Tim May wrote: I'm quite happy with the way the train wreck/clusterfuck is developing. Consider some trends/outcomes: * dissatisfaction with NATO, tensions within the U.N. They just voted unanimously to send the weaponry to Turkey, just like the US wanted. * American statism revealed nakedly: an America that _starts_ a war (never again can children be taught that the U.S. never initiates wars) Really? They teach children that the Civil War was about slavery, don't they? Most people believe it. They teach that the second amendment is about duck hunting, don't they? * the possibility that a clusterfuck in Iraq will spin out of control, possibly even resulting in nukewar over and around Israel. Israel will come out smelling like roses, regardless. They have nukes, a large military, and the total protection of the US military. It would just be an excuse to sterilie once and for all Ramallah and the West Bank. * increasing anarchist sentiments They can't get organized. * rising sentiment against Total Information Awareness, Homeland Security, the Reichsprotektorate, etc. Sentiment and $1.50 will get you a cup of starbucks. I never saw this much hatred toward the U.S Government by Europeans and Middle Easterners, even during the height of the Vietnam War and then the Cold War (where European pacifists were upset at the Pershing missile deployment, military bases, etc.). Like Bush cares. No effect, unless you are still hanging on to that will of the people bullshit. (BTW, we can help to feed this hatred in various ways. I've been spreading reports on Usenet groups and European chat rooms from a pro-U.S. point of view, talking about the SIOP nuke targetting plans for Iraq and Iran, mentioning CIA plans to implement regime change in France, etc. The astute in these newsgroups may realize I am yanking their chain, but it still inflames things. Which is good, for our goals.) Wow, that will motivate maybe 16 easily delluded people. Disorder is on the rise. If a war happens, lots of opportunities. For residential BE maybe. If the war is over too quickly, or fizzles, or the U.S. backs down, much is lost. The good war will have massive scenes of Iraqi casualties, graphic images of dead babies and women, and at least a few thousand dead American soldiers. An even better war will have the conflict lasting for many months, with U.S. stormtroopers occupying Baghdad. This will inflame the Arab street. Easy to keep CNN out. And the news media is the new lapdog of the war machine. NATO will unravel (which is good, as its mission ended when the Cold War ended). The U.N. may relocate its HQ to Wien or Geneve, which is appropriate...it is absurd that a world body be located in the heart of America. (This will be good for NYC, actually, though not economically.) Who cares. Fuck NATO. Fuck the U.N. Fuck the U.S. Security State. This train wreck is going better than I thought it would. That's strange.
Re: Supressed? speech by Sen. Robert Byrd
On Fri, 14 Feb 2003 15:29:57 -0800, Tim May wrote: About Byrd's speech, he is protected by the same Bush doctrine. If a less powerful person made these charges, he'd face a talking to by the FBI. And after PATRIOT II passes with an overwhelming majority, but after no debate, he'd face having his DNA removed with extreme prejudice at the least, deportation as the middle option, or a life sentence for violations of the Reich Protektion Act as the most severe (assuming he wasn't simply disappeared). We live in fascist times. --Tim May Well Tim, you are my canary. If the feebs ain't working you over, they sure as hell ain't coming for me yet. I mean when you write about people who need to be killed and lather people up with talk about fascists and stuff like that, you at least work your way above me on the list, if you know what I mean.
Re: Degenerate Political Pressure (was RE: The Wimps of War)
These guys were probably CIA. Now, since they are non-uniformed and not carrying arms visibly, and not engaged in hostilities qualifying under the Geneva Convetions, they are enemy combatants. They don't fall under the Geneva Conventions since they were not in qualifying hostilities. The torture and detention until they turn to fragments of dust, will begin now. Nice example the US govt sets. May God have mercy on them. BOGOTA, COLOMBIA A U.S. government plane with five people on board crashed Thursday in rebel territory in southern Colombia, and those aboard may have been taken away by leftist rebels, a Colombian official said. The Cessna had been headed from Bogota to the Florencia area, 235 miles (380 kilometers) to the south, when radio contact was lost eight minutes before its scheduled landing, said a Colombian Civil Aviation official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official told The Associated Press that he had received reports that Colombian army troops had located the plane but found no one on board, and that it was feared they had been taken by rebels. A U.S. Embassy spokesman told the AP that the U.S. government plane, a single-engine Cessna 208, crashed near Florencia during an attempted emergency landing shortly before 9 a.m. this morning. The cause of the crash was apparently engine failure. The embassy spokesman said the fate of the pilot, co-pilot and three passengers aboard was unknown. The Colombian Civil Aviation official said all five aboard were believed to be American, but the U.S. Embassy spokesman said he was unable to confirm the nationalities.
Re: Trap guns, black baggers, and Arlington Road
On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 18:43:26 -0800, you wrote: -- how does a property owner authenticate a person or group claiming to be cops? Flashing a badge is not enough, as badges for hundreds of jurisdictions are for sale by mail order, gun shows, and probably lots of other shops. (For the uninitiated, these are _actual_ badges and/or nearly perfect replicas...they are absolutely undistinguishable from real badges, so say concerned cops.) Apart from constitutional considerations, no-knock laws are bad. If its people are to have a respect for law, a nation must have respectable laws, and no law is respectable if it authorizes officers to act like burglars, and robs the people of the only means they have for determining whether those who seek to invade their habitations violently or by stealth are officers or burglars. United States Senator Sam Ervin of Watergate fame.
Re: Something conspicuously missing from the media survival lists
On Tue, 11 Feb 2003 10:44:13 -0800, Tim May wrote: But in postmodern America mentioning guns is simply NOT DONE. Not even on the Fox Network, a more rightward network than the others. (Being right no longer means mentioning guns, as Ashcroft and Cheney and the like would prefer that guns be in the hands of der polizei. There's a reason Hitler confiscated guns held privately by Germans.) You are correct about the conspicuous absence of the mention of guns. Just not politically correct. Too much connection to individual action and power, which whether good, bad or indifferent is the enemy of passive submission to the state. But you damage your accurate point by accompanying it with the erroneous, but often repeated claim about Hitler confiscating guns. The Waffengesetz of March 18, 1938 did not confiscate guns from German citizens. (Of course, Jewish people were not considered German citizens under the law at that time.) There was no need to confiscate guns from the population in general. Hitler was immensely popular with Germans, and the Weimar Republic had enacted some gun control in 1928, before Hitler gained power in 1933. The Hitler Confiscation of Guns is pure urban legend, that attempts to link gun registration and confiscation with evil's 20th Centure poster boy. It's bogus. The German law certainly was not an ideal one from the viewpoint of today's beleaguered American patriot, because it did have certain licensing requirements. A permit (Waffenerwerbschein) was required to buy a handgun (but not a long gun), and a separate license (Waffenschein), good for three years, was required to carry any firearm in public. Actually, the German law was less restrictive than most state and local laws in the United States were before the current campaign to nullify the Second Amendment shifted into high gear in 1993. More significantly, it ameliorated a law which had been enacted ten years earlier by a Left-Center government hostile to the National Socialists (the government headed by Wilhelm Marx and consisting of a coalition of Socialists and Catholic Centrists). The 1938 law irritated the Jews by pointedly excluding them from the firearms business, but it clearly was not a law aimed at preventing the ownership or use of firearms, including handguns, for either sporting or self-defense purposes by German citizens. As noted above, it actually relaxed or eliminated the provisions of a pre-existing law. The facts, in brief, are these: The National Socialist government of Germany did not fear its citizens. Adolf Hitler was the most popular leader Germany has ever had. The spirit of National Socialism was one of manliness, and individual self-defense and self-reliance were central to the National Socialist view of the way a citizen should behave. The notion of banning firearms ownership was alien to National Socialism. Gun registration and licensing (for long guns as well as for handguns) were legislated by an anti-National Socialist government in Germany five years before the National Socialists gained power. Five years after they gained power they got around to rewriting the gun law enacted by their predecessors, substantially ameliorating it in the process (for example, long guns were exempted from the requirement for a purchase permit; the legal age for gun ownership was lowered from 20 to 18 years; and the period of validity of a permit to carry weapons was extended from one to three years). They may be criticized for leaving certain restrictions and licensing requirements in the law, but they had no intention of preventing law-abiding Germans from keeping or bearing arms. The highlights of the 1938 German Weapons Law (which in its entirety fills 12 pages of the Reichsgesetzblatt with legalese), especially as it applied to ordinary citizens rather than manufacturers or dealers, follow: Handguns may be sold or purchased only on submission of a Weapons Acquisition Permit (Waffenerwerbschein), which must be used within one year from the date of issue. Muzzle-loading handguns are exempted from the permit requirement. Holders of a permit to carry weapons (Waffenschein) or of a hunting license do not need a Weapons Acquisition Permit in order to acquire a handgun. A hunting license authorizes its bearer to carry hunting weapons and handguns. Firearms and ammunition, as well as swords and knives, may not be sold to minors under the age of 18 years. Whoever carries a firearm outside of his dwelling, his place of employment, his place of business, or his fenced property must have on his person a Weapons Permit (Waffenschein). A permit is not required, however, for carrying a firearm for use at a police-approved shooting range. A permit to acquire a handgun or to carry firearms may only be issued to persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a permit. In particular, a permit may not be issued to:
Re: Something conspicuously missing from the media survival lists
On Tue, 11 Feb 2003 12:00:38 -0800, you wrote: At 10:44 AM -0800 2/11/03, Tim May wrote: But in postmodern America mentioning guns is simply NOT DONE. Not even on the Fox Network, a more rightward network than the others. (Being right no longer means mentioning guns, as Ashcroft and Cheney and the like would prefer that guns be in the hands of der polizei. There's a reason Hitler confiscated guns held privately by Germans.) Firearms permits were instituted in the late 1920s and were required for ownership of firearms, ammunition, or the legal ability to manufacture either. When Hitler came to power, he had the laws changed so that only members of the Nazi party could obtain a firearms permit. -- J. Eric Townsend -- jet spies com buy stuff, damnit: http://www.spies.com/jet/store.html This one just won't die. People keep repeating it. Not much different from Bush's Time is running out or They hate us because we love freedom. Would you like to show us the part of the twelve page German law of March, 1938 that limits gun permits to members of the Nazi party? Uh huh, I didn't think so.
Re: Patriot II would outlaw encryption
actually..noit isn't my bust. it is yours. it says: knowingly and willfully uses encryption technology to conceal any incriminating communication relating to a federal crime that they're committing, or attempting to commit. Thus, after the fact.I can send you an ecrypted email detailing my crime and I won't be upping the ante another five years. Sure you will. The ongoing conspiracy (an agreement to commit a felony) continues after various events. For example, if Ted and Alice have an ongoing implicit understanding that they will meet in the shed behind her house occasionally to tend the five marijuana plants growing there, that is an ongoing conspiracy to commit a federal felony. So if, a week after Ted's last visit, Alice sends him an encrypted email saying Come over and watch a video, or whatever, the prosecutor can clearly use that (if he can decrypt it) as 5 more years in prison, since it used encryption technology and concealed an incriminating communication (the crime being conspiracy) that they are commiting (ongoing). The prosecutors can get Ted's passphrase by granting him immunity (probably ONLY immunity from the encryption enhancement penalty, or best case, from that and conspiracy, still nailing him for the pot felony, or getting Alice to roll over on him for the whole deal) and forcing him to disclose it having eliminated his 5th amendment defenses. Then they have Alice for the pot felony, conspiracy, and the 5 year encryption booster. Of course, they will simply hang all of this draconian punishment over her head, her attorney will say they can fight for $75,000 and 2 years, during which she is in jail, or they can plead it out and become a felon with few further rights of citizenship. And if you detail a crime after the event in an encrypted communication, you've essentially included another person in the knowledge of a past crime in the expectation that such disclosure will remain secret from law enforcement. That is conspiracy to avoid prosecution and probably obstruction of justice. Conspiracy and obstruction are crimes, you've just used encryption in a federal felony, 5 year enhancement. Bye. For arguments re: protections from forced disclosure of keys, see http://www.rubberhose.org/current/src/doc/sergienko.html
Re: DoD badly protected web form lets users administer .mil domain names.
On Fri, 24 Jan 2003 19:05:45 -0800, you wrote: Care to register a .mil Web site of your own for free? The DoD has gone out of its way to make it a snap. An unbelievably badly-protected admin interface welcomes you to register whatever domain you please (http://Rotten.mil anyone?), or edit anything they've already got. That's great. How about kill-iraqis-regardless.mil or want-to- buy-some-oil-in-iraq.mil or we-lust-for-another-war.mil
Re: Deniable racial (etc) profiling coming to TSA, thanks to neural nets
On Thu, 23 Jan 2003 11:20:27 -0800, you wrote: acting on hunches vexes Tien. The holy grail is that these systems will learn and adjust their suspicion calculators on their own, untethered from human input, he said. But if you can't document the basis for a score or a decision, then you have a serious due process problem. How pre-911 can you get? There ARE no due process problems anymore. And no 6th amendment problems.
Re: Forget VOA -- new exec order creating Global Communications Office
On Wed, 22 Jan 2003 10:01:09 -0500, you wrote: This is also pretty clear, no? It basically says The truth is, our goal is to dominate the world, and we have operatives and cronies everywhere who share our goals, so stay out of our way and Don't Fuck With Us. Actually, it is reality not a goal. A better statement would be The US dominates the world, and if you act otherwise, we will kill you. If you think otherwise, we will find out and you will become a person of interest and placed on the no-fly and TIA watch lists. And if you are a US citizen, remember you are a check mark away from being an enemy combatant in a military prison of our choosing, with no lawyer, no judge, no appeal to anyone, anywhere, forever. The US is no longer content to be #1. It demands respect for being #1 thru #200, inclusive.
Re: Supremes and thieves.
On Tue, 21 Jan 2003 11:51:46 +0800, you wrote: The US Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws. Marc First, the US Constitution is a piece of paper currently being ignored by this administration, and most likely any administration going forward. The current stance of the US government is that power comes from the barrel of a gun, not from a grant of limited powers to the government by the people. Second, the now defunct prohibition of ex post facto laws regards criminalizing today what someone did yesterday, and imposing criminal penalties on that person for it. Bill Stewart wrote: There were documents that were _going_ to become public domain soon that will now stay copyrighted for another 20 years, and one of the issues addressed by the Supremes in Eldred was whether the grant of an extra 20 years of copyright monopoly to documents that already had expiration dates assigned under the old laws was appropriate, as distinguished from granting a longer monopoly to new documents, but I thought it was established law that if something once became public domain it stayed that way.
Re: Supremes and thieves.
On Tue, 21 Jan 2003 21:26:22 +0800, you wrote: Alif The Terrible wrote: On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Marc de Piolenc wrote: The US Constitution prohibits ex post facto laws. Which has not stopped them yet. Actually, that provision has held quite well so far. I can't think of one exception...unless it's this latest copyright extension. Marc Tax increases by the Clinton administration, passed well into the tax year, affecting income received prior to the passage of the increase. Avoidance of such taxes would be punished with criminal penalties. Or Being a US citizen of Japanese Ancestry. Lots of them.
Re: Pigs Kill Family Pet
On Thu, 9 Jan 2003 12:35:38 -0500, you wrote: No they don't; or they wouldn't have had the balls to stop the car in the first place. Most cops in Cookeville, TN have dogs. I wonder if they would mind them being shotgunned to death. If the dog presents a threat of any type like running up wagging its tail like it did on the cop's video it is procedure to shoot them. If it's good enough for passing motorists pets it's sure good enough for cop's dogs seems to me. You just can't allow that threat to go unstopped you know? Buck shot is best according to the cops.
Re: citizens can be named as enemy combatants
On Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:35:36 -0800, you wrote: I think you're overreacting a bit. The actual case involves someone who was in a foriegn country for years, and was in the war zone at the time he was fighting the US. The ruling says that he was squarely in teh war zone and discusses the issue that he hda been out of the US for a long time. Where in the Constitution do we learn that being in a foreign country for years separates a United States Citizen from the rights provided by the Constitution? Exactly what period of years triggers this denial of Constitutional rights? Please provide a map of the boundaries of the war zone for Mr. Bush's War on Terror. If the President may deny habeas corpus in the absence of a declared war, and if the geography of a war zone is fluid and undefined by the government, and if the time period of absence from the US and relationship to time of capture is undefined, please show how denial of habeas corpus cannot be applied to every US Citizen who has ever been abroad, upon declaration of enemy combatant status by the United States Military, solely, under this ruling. Last, if well established bedrock rights written into the highest law of the land like habeas corpus are denied by a government, please describe the moral authority underwhich that government may claim a right to be obeyed. Describing the power to capture, torture, imprison and kill, and the willingness to do so is not considered a moral authority in this question. I guess Citizens should wait on events, while dangers gather? Citizens should forgo any preemption of those who would attack freedom?
Re: No Ex Post Facto Laws, No Easy Loss of Citizenship
On Wed, 8 Jan 2003 23:07:50 -0800, you wrote: This man was and is a citizen. His presence overseas did not cause him to lose his citizenship. If he faces charges, he faces them in a U.S. court with full access to lawyers, full habeas corpus rights, full rights to face his accusers, and so on. But isn't the point of the Bush-Military that he does not face charges, he is like a captured German Luftwaffe Pilot in 1944 in France -- he is to be held in a prisoner of war prison until the end of hostilities (never, since you can't defeat a method like Terror), and repatriated to the country of his military commanders (never, since it is a group, not a country, and they will all be killed)? But the point is more dangerous. The point is that the military alone can decide if you are an enemy combatant, and if they do, you can be held in secret anywhere, without notice to anyone, with no legal representation, until the day you die. A person disappears. That's all we would know, if that's the way the military wants to play it. Land of the free, home of the brave.
Re: citizens can be named as enemy combatants
If Bush can decide alone whether or not we are at war, and if Bush can decide alone with whom we are at war, and if Bush can decide alone what the boundaries of the war zone are, and if Bush can decide alone what behavior makes one an enemy combatant, then we have one person, a totalitarian dictator, who can disappear you, imprison you, and kill you, at will, with no right of review by a court for any of it. That totalitarian dictator is Bush. Do his war powers extend to cancelling elections? Why not? Can't judges disappear as well as anyone?
Re: Singularity ( was Re: Policing Bioterror Research )
BTW, I think I read somewhere that when the water gets too hot the frog just leaves. Like someone already mentioned, all that is needed for the total collapse of the US government is that 90+% of sheeple abstains from TV and newspapers for 30 consecutive days (externally induced psychosis needs constant maintenance.) Such detox event would be the most dramatic social phenomenon in the last hundred years. But it's impossible promulgate even that simple idea and therefore the frog stays. ribbit
The Two Towers....
Blah blah blah wrote... My hunch is that the new towers will never be filled and will turn out to be a business catastrophe Who gives a crap? Despite the fact that the original towers were as ugly as hell, they were a giant Fuck You to the rest of the world and we New Yorkers loved 'em. (I still say to NJ-based relatives that All of you conspired to knock down the towers...I refuse to distinguish between bin Laden, gov Florio (or whoever), and George Bush. All I know is that it was you non-New-Yorkers who did it 'cause you hate us and all our cool food, culture, filth and crime.) And until I stop paying taxes entirely, I might as well SEE something my tax $$$ may have been used to build, as opposed to stealth buildings and giant storage schools. (I always used the same argument to support the superconducting supercollider) oops, I said business, when in fact it is the Port Authority, a weird melange of jurisdictions which is probably constitutionally invalid). The PA is certainly one of the more lecherous groups in these parts, including the mob. They were supposed to dissappear after the tolls paid for roads and bridges to be built. But using that ole' loophole (something to do with refinancing), they've maintained their incpometant and corrupt stranglehold on most of our major thoroughfares for lo these many years (increasing the pollution like crazy, too). I wasn't sorry to see those Bauhaus boxes go. Bauhaus? I guess. More like that 70s warmed over post-Bauhaus fascist crapola. Nobody in NYC really thought they were beautiful, but we do miss 'em (see above!). And Peter Trei wrote... One thing I liked in particular was that most of the designs weren't afraid to go high into the sky this time around. Building high is an expression of confidence. This I more or less agree with. And it's not a government thing, not a business thing, just a New York thing. We need replacement towers for sure, and that design by David Rockwell Co (with those odd empty tower-structures) might be good. They have the additional advantage of not casting such a dark shadow over downtown and Brooklyn Heights. PT wrote... The WTC was a landmark for a huge part of the city; you could see it easily from most of midtown and downtown. but Blah Blah Blah wrote... Hideous boxes. Again, you miss the point. We New Yorkers navigated by them, and when traveling out in th'sticks (ie, New Jersey and west of the hudson) those ugly boxes would come popping up over the horizon welcoming you home, just like your ugly ole' Mom. Somebody wrote, and I really don't remember or care who. Hell, let's say Tim May wrote it just to piss him off... My own initiial idea was to rebuild the towers as they were, but in goldtone instead of silver. Now, I'd like to be a little more respectful of the pre-WTC street grid (If you weren't actually going to the WTC, it was a huge obstacle to get around, either driving or on foot). But I still want towers which rise far above the skyline. That original twisty-towers design brought forward in response to how shitty the original official designs were by that Amalgamated Architects was the best design, but for some reason it didn't make it into the official final round. One hopes not a single fucking dime of taxpayer money will go into rebuilding anything on that site. (Oh, I won't scream if $25,000 is allocated to hire that Chinese architect to replicate her Vietcong wall with the names of the dead so that the weepy ones can do their tracings and all. But nothing more should be spent out of the taxpayer's pocket.) Like I said, you can either SEE your tax dollars build something (even if its useless), or else they'll just dissappear up some buereucrats (I can never spell that word) nose. Unless you pay zero taxes of course. (Ayn Rand loved the Twin Towers, ironically, and typically, and disgustingly. But, then, she thought cigarette smoking was a symbolic affirmation of Man's control of fire and his striving to reify A or Not-A through purity of essence! A read through a couple Ayn Rand books and none of this should be suprising. As far as I'm concerned she wasn't exactly von Neumann. Tyler Durden
Re: 60 years to rights restoration
This is the best explanation of the behavior of the Democratic Party I've ever seen. On Tue, 10 Dec 2002 20:01:37 -0500, you wrote: 1. Put a bunch of gorillas in a cage. 2. Put a nice stack of boxes in the cage. 3. Then, string a big bunch of bananas from the top of the cage hanging within arm's reach from the top of the stack of boxes. (3a. Okay, put the gorillas in last, or you'll never get to steps 1 and 2 :-).) 4. When the first gorilla climbs to the top of the boxes to grab the bananas, do something extremely unpleasant to all the gorillas, like, say, deluging them with icy water from sprinklers at the top of the cage, or something. Pretty soon, they stop climbing the boxes completely. 5. Then, replace the one gorilla. Watch the others physically restrain him if he tries to go for the bananas. Repeat 5 until all the gorillas have been replaced. 6. The gorillas will physically assault anyone who climbs the pyramid, and they won't know why. :-).
