Government now has right to track you using GPS

[Adios]

So, is the upshot of all of that, Jenne and Khara, that you are still insisting that "most" minorities in the United States are impoverished?

Why? Is it just to be "right" about something that could easily have been blown off as merely a poor choice of wording?

Because I'm starting to be pretty fucking offended.

Hush you poor smudgy person, we just want to help you.  Now admit that you are poor.

Is this helping?

Damn. A one line response.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I had a big long post, but fuck it.  You're right, Nigel, most poor are White.

Sigh. That's not even the point I was trying to correct. The point I was trying to correct was that in the USA, most brown people are not in fact poor.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

So, is the upshot of all of that, Jenne and Khara, that you are still insisting that "most" minorities in the United States are impoverished?

Why? Is it just to be "right" about something that could easily have been blown off as merely a poor choice of wording?

Because I'm starting to be pretty fucking offended.

Hush you poor smudgy person, we just want to help you.  Now admit that you are poor.

[Don Coyote]

So, is the upshot of all of that, Jenne and Khara, that you are still insisting that "most" minorities in the United States are impoverished?

Why? Is it just to be "right" about something that could easily have been blown off as merely a poor choice of wording?

Because I'm starting to be pretty fucking offended.

Hush you poor smudgy person, we just want to help you.  Now admit that you are poor.

Fuck the smudgy people. I'm poor give me free shit.





Is a joke. Don't shank me.

[Phox]

So, is the upshot of all of that, Jenne and Khara, that you are still insisting that "most" minorities in the United States are impoverished?

Why? Is it just to be "right" about something that could easily have been blown off as merely a poor choice of wording?

Because I'm starting to be pretty fucking offended.

Hush you poor smudgy person, we just want to help you.  Now admit that you are poor.

Fuck the smudgy people. I'm poor give me free shit.





Is a joke. Don't shank me.

*shank*

Seriously though, this whole "poor" argument is pointless and pedantic. I have now officially used that word twice on this board. In the same day.I need to learn a new word.

[Triple Zero]

Well, I wanted to comment on this thread, but apparently the topic is now about racial demographics


I'm gonna give it a try anyhow.

1. Cain, everybody ignored that bit you said about the government killing you dead. What was the context of that event?

2. This all reminds me of the film "Enemy of the State", which I can recommend for those who haven't seen it. Even if it's mainly an action flick starring Will Smith. I watched it long ago (before 2001), back then all the stuff they did to him seemed really over the top, though all I could think of was "this may seem over the top, but the technology is available and systems are already in place, they *could* potentially do all this" (except for the MovieOS computer interfaces).

The only reason I could come up with for why, then, why aren't they already doing all of this, was that probably the big security and intelligence agencies were too fragmented, left hand not knowing what the right hand does, because you need(ed) a LOT of central coordination to do the kind of tracking shown in that movie. So yeah I was a good little proto-Discordian back then, familiar with the Law for Escalation of Order

I should really watch it again to check which bits make me go "holy fuck, they ARE doing that already right now"

3. I wonder why they need to place GPS on cars? Because they can already track people via their mobile phones. Even the ones without GPS, by triangulating the relative strengths of the cells. And the ones with GPS, even easier of course. Quite sure that a GPS query transmits a ID number tied to the phone or subscription with the request.

4. For the people that'd rather talk about demographics, here is a histogram I made for Roger a while back, from a big US data website called BLS that gave lists of occupation groups, by county, and how much an occupation group earns on average in a certain county and how many people are in that group in that county. That gave me tens of thousands of data points, enough to create a reasonable histogram for the actual income distribution in the US 2008:



It's not sorted by race, sorry.

[Cain]

Trip

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations

In late January, I wrote about the Obama administration's "presidential assassination program," whereby American citizens are targeted for killings far away from any battlefield, based exclusively on unchecked accusations by the Executive Branch that they're involved in Terrorism.  At the time, The Washington Post's Dana Priest had noted deep in a long article that Obama had continued Bush's policy (which Bush never actually implemented) of having the Joint Chiefs of Staff compile "hit lists" of Americans, and Priest suggested that the American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was on that list.  The following week, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, acknowledged in Congressional testimony that the administration reserves the "right" to carry out such assassinations.

Today, both The New York Times and The Washington Post confirm that the Obama White House has now expressly authorized the CIA to kill al-Alwaki no matter where he is found, no matter his distance from a battlefield.  I wrote at length about the extreme dangers and lawlessness of allowing the Executive Branch the power to murder U.S. citizens far away from a battlefield (i.e., while they're sleeping, at home, with their children, etc.) and with no due process of any kind.  I won't repeat those arguments -- they're here and here -- but I do want to highlight how unbelievably Orwellian and tyrannical this is in light of these new articles today.

http://opiniojuris.org/2010/02/06/are-obamas-assassinations-of-us-citizens-constitutional/

It is an article of faith of many critics of the Bush policies that the detention of U.S. citizens as enemy combatants is almost always illegal, that the U.S. is bound by constitutional requirements even when acting abroad in a war zone, and especially when it is acting against U.S. citizens.   But if one believes all of these things, then one cannot possibly believe that deliberately assassinating U.S. citizens is constitutional.  As I've said before, if the U.S. cannot designate a U.S. citizen as an enemy combatant without a hearing (and this is now a requirement of U.S. law), then I can't quite see how the U.S. can at the same time deliberately assassinate that same U.S. citizen without a hearing.  Am I missing something?

As some of the commenters have pointed out, the nationality of the victim is not that important from the perspective of international law.  Under international law, the main question is whether there is legal authority to kill or assassinate anyone, much less one's own nationals.  But even under international law, as readers of Ken Anderson's posts here and at Volokh know, it is still not all that clear.   Indeed, there seems a more than plausible argument that certain kinds of assassinations, as currently executed by the Predator drones, could indeed constitute a violation of the law of war.

http://original.antiwar.com/fisher/2010/02/05/legal-experts-slam-assassinations-of-us-citizens/

In an admission that took the intelligence community and its critics by surprise, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a congressional hearing Wednesday that the U.S. may, with executive approval, deliberately target and kill U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism.

The American Civil Liberties Union is among those expressing serious concern about the lack of public information about the policy and the potential for abuse of unchecked executive power.

Attorney George Brent Mickum, who has defended a number of Guantánamo Bay detainees, told IPS, "I guess my sense is that it's just more fear mongering. They kill somebody and don't need to offer any justification."

"We have killed thousands of innocent civilians while attempting to target alleged operatives. And let us not forget how frequently our intelligence has been wrong about alleged operatives," Mickum noted.

He added, "My clients Bisher al Rawi, Jamil el-Banna, Martin Mubanga, abu Zubaydah, and Shaker Aamer all are alleged to have been operatives based on intel. In every case that intel was incorrect. I don't have any expectation that our intel with respect to alleged American operatives is likely to be any better."

Another constitutional scholar, Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois Law School, told IPS that "this extrajudicial execution of human beings" violates both international human rights law and the fifth amendment of the U.S. constitution.

"The U.S. government has now established a 'death list' for U.S. citizens abroad akin to those established by Latin American dictatorships during their so-called dirty wars," he said.

The human rights advocacy community was equally forceful in its pushback. Daphne Eviatar, an attorney with Human Rights First, told IPS, "The short answer is that combatants can be targeted and civilians cannot under international law. Their citizenship isn't relevant. But just being a 'suspected terrorist' doesn't necessarily mean they're a combatant."

She added, "The key question, and where there may be serious disagreement, is whether the person targeted is 'directly participating in hostilities'. If not, and they're targeted, it's a war crime."

Chip Pitts, president of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, told IPS, "As with its embrace of the [George W.] Bush approach to indefinite detention, the Obama administration's even greater reliance on targeted extra-judicial killing – including of U.S. citizens – is a tragic legal, moral, and practical mistake."

"Even for those who accept the legitimacy of the death penalty, this further undermines the rule of law that is our best weapon in the fight against true terrorists, while completely subverting due process and constitutional rights of U.S. citizens," he said.

Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said, "It is alarming to hear that the Obama administration is asserting that the president can authorize the assassination of Americans abroad, even if they are far from any battlefield and may have never taken up arms against the U.S., but have only been deemed to constitute an unspecified 'threat.'"

Testifying before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Blair said, "We take direct action against terrorists in the intelligence community."

He said U.S. counterterrorism officials may try to kill U.S. citizens embroiled in extremist groups overseas with "specific permission" from higher up.

In response to questions from the panel's top Republican, Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, Blair said, if "we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

Blair's remarks followed a Washington Post article reporting that U.S. President Barack Obama had embraced his predecessor's policy of authorizing the killing of U.S. citizens involved in terrorist activities overseas.

The Post reported that "After the Sep. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for example, has to pose 'a continuing and imminent threat' to U.S. persons and interests."

The Obama administration appears to have adopted exactly the same policy as its predecessor.

The Post, citing anonymous U.S. officials, said the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Joint Special Operations Command have three U.S. citizens on their lists of specific people targeted for killing or capture.

Blair said he was offering such unusually detailed information in public because "I just don't want other Americans who are watching to think that we are careless."

I just find it hard to get outraged about surveillance when, well, this is ongoing.

[BabylonHoruv]

The way in which these are being pursued is different enough that I certainly think the GPS thing is worth getting upset about.  The Kill list is compiled by very high government officials and, so far, has only been implemented overseas.  The GPS thing is decided by local police and is implemented at home.  Two different bodies acting in two different inappropriate ways.

[Elder Iptuous]

Anybody catch this story that is related to the surveillance state?


Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/08/24/full-body-scan-technology-deployed-in-street-roving-vans/

it's about the backscatter type imaging devices like what caused a stink in the airports, which have been set up on mobile units for the purpose of scanning vehicles going down the road.
apparently the company that makes them have sold 500 of these units to US and foreign govt agencies.

i like this quote from the article:

Though Reiss admits that the systems "to a large degree will penetrate clothing," he points to the lack of features in images of humans like the one shown at right, far less detail than is obtained from the airport scans. "From a privacy standpoint, I'm hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be," he says.

that's great.... "we can barely see your package, so you shouldn't be concerned about privacy."

[Jenne]

I had a big long post, but fuck it.  You're right, Nigel, most poor are White.

Sigh. That's not even the point I was trying to correct. The point I was trying to correct was that in the USA, most brown people are not in fact poor.

I think you had a two-pronged argument, as I went through the posts.  But I didn't want to prolong this because people like Hawk who started the OP were getting annoyed.  In the end, we actually AGREE, but I refuse to spend longer clarifying a point that's not a misconception on my part but in fact a misstatement.  You're right:  only about (a little less than) 1/4 of blacks and Latinos, according to wikipedia, are at or below povery level.  The actual definition of "poor" can really vary, though, and I'm not getting into that, either, anymore (though we can start a new thread).  And the majority of ANY level of income tends to be whites, by sheer volume of whites in the country.

This varies state to state, however.  Which was the thrust of my original point about the OP, as well as the disenfranchisement of the non-whites when it comes to our legal system, and their lack of wherewithall to make that different.

I don't disagree with you...ymmv, and seems to do so.  (Hawk, if you want this business lopped out of this thread, please ask an admin, that might make it better, dunno)

Trip, I like your post.  I'm interested in Cain's answer to #1 especially!~~>  Which I am reading now!

[Jenne]

Anybody catch this story that is related to the surveillance state?


Full-Body Scan Technology Deployed In Street-Roving Vans

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/08/24/full-body-scan-technology-deployed-in-street-roving-vans/

it's about the backscatter type imaging devices like what caused a stink in the airports, which have been set up on mobile units for the purpose of scanning vehicles going down the road.
apparently the company that makes them have sold 500 of these units to US and foreign govt agencies.

i like this quote from the article:

Though Reiss admits that the systems “to a large degree will penetrate clothing,” he points to the lack of features in images of humans like the one shown at right, far less detail than is obtained from the airport scans. “From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be,” he says.

that's great.... "we can barely see your package, so you shouldn't be concerned about privacy."

Nice...see, this is what I was talking about re: spy shit going to the government (and of course non-gov't, whom I bet still work as an unofficial OFFSHOOT of the gov't)...

[Jenne]

I just find it hard to get outraged about surveillance when, well, this is ongoing.

Ok, so...is this NEW?  I'm wondering if this is stuff they've ALWAYS done (CIA/FBI/WhoeverTF), but is only now being made public?  Or is this something that 9/11 opened up so that "justifiable lawlessness" is now the name of the day?

[Adios]

I just find it hard to get outraged about surveillance when, well, this is ongoing.

Ok, so...is this NEW?  I'm wondering if this is stuff they've ALWAYS done (CIA/FBI/WhoeverTF), but is only now being made public?  Or is this something that 9/11 opened up so that "justifiable lawlessness" is now the name of the day?

No, it isn't new. What concerns me the most is before they at least had to sneak around to do it. By the government 'giving' themselves the right to do it by association erodes our rights. Another brick in the wall of a police state.

If evidence gathered this way previously was introduced as evidence the judge would have to throw it out as a violation of our rights. Now the judge will have to view it as the government exercising their right.

[Triple Zero]

By the way, I think I can answer my own point 3:

3. I wonder why they need to place GPS on cars? Because they can already track people via their mobile phones. Even the ones without GPS, by triangulating the relative strengths of the cells. And the ones with GPS, even easier of course. Quite sure that a GPS query transmits a ID number tied to the phone or subscription with the request.

The difference is they don't need a warrant to place a GPS tracker on cars because it's (supposedly) the same as stalking someone, which (apparently) the US police are also allowed to do if they feel like it.

Tracking mobile phones and triangulating positions can be done but requires a little more paperwork, so it's probably reserved for the bigger crime gangs.



And Cain, thanks for the quotes+links, I haven't had time to read them yet, but I will later.

[Jenne]

I just find it hard to get outraged about surveillance when, well, this is ongoing.

Ok, so...is this NEW?  I'm wondering if this is stuff they've ALWAYS done (CIA/FBI/WhoeverTF), but is only now being made public?  Or is this something that 9/11 opened up so that "justifiable lawlessness" is now the name of the day?

No, it isn't new. What concerns me the most is before they at least had to sneak around to do it. By the government 'giving' themselves the right to do it by association erodes our rights. Another brick in the wall of a police state.

If evidence gathered this way previously was introduced as evidence the judge would have to throw it out as a violation of our rights. Now the judge will have to view it as the government exercising their right.

Right.  That's what I meant by "justifiable lawlessness."