I really think we have a very long way to go until we are living in a police state. The FBI has the right to set up many kinds of surveillance including wire tapping, tailing, reading out mail, listening to our phones, all of which can be used as evidence. Them having the ability to read my email as well isn't going to make me head for Montana and join the an extremist group. Keep this in perspective: Our government has all the tools it needs to create a very efficient police state and has had the ability to do so for some time. The fact remains that we don't have a police state yet and are not heading in that direction. In fact, when new surveillance techniques have conme out in the past there was always talk about what it would do to our freedoms. The supreme court has had many landmark decisions in the past limiting the use of these techniques in a way that most Americans can live happily with, and this one will be no different. I personally am very satisfied with the system we have: a system that is strong enough to provide good services and defense to most of it's people yet flexible enough to let an incredibly diverse group of people work and live together to create the most powerful nation on earth. I don't think Omnivore is going to send us on the slippery slope into opression. I will let the FBI set it up and rely on the mechanisms of Democracy limit it's use. Greg Pendergrass -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Paul Vixie Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 3:26 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: [NEWS] FBI To Require ISPs To Reconfigure E-mail Systems (fwd) Warning: dangerously irrelevant and completely off-topic for the NANOG list.
I'd never have guessed that Vixie was a supporter of a police state.
You've got me all wrong. I support the police in my state (country).
I'll stop supporting democracy when they pry my vote out of my cold dead hands....
Right. When my kids and I line up for exercises at the local school most mornings, you'll find me, hat in one hand and the other over my heart, facing the flag, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and meaning every word of it except maybe the part about God which I consider to be ambiguous. And when paying taxes I am particularly glad that the cost of my family's security comes at merely a cost measurable as a fraction of my income. YMMV of course. If you don't like the deal you're being offered you should find a better one. Somewhere along with the power to vote particular politicians in or out must come some respect for the laws those people create, even the ones we don't think are perfect. The FBI has a hellish job on their hands right now. Actually it's been a hellish job for a long time but it seems like only recently we're all aware of how hellish it is. I don't think that redefining what an ISP is in order to blunt the obvious intent of Omnivore (or whatever) is a useful exercise of democratic power.