Okay, if you've been reading some of the posts, you knew I was going to write about this.
WikipediaSlashdotArs TechnicaBBCMost of these links related to Bush authorizing wiretaps on Americans without a court order. At this point, I'm pretty sure it doesn't really matter if this is illegal or not, it just happened. I happen not to like it, but that is where this world is going toward. The Ars Technica article is interesting because it talks a little bit about the history of automated wiretaps and how far back the various organizations potentially had the capability to automatically scan for "bad things."
Now, I would say the main thing that bothers me is the "whatever it takes" and that argument that always comes up, "people who don't commit crimes don't have anything to hide." For the latter, it comes down to one poem that has buried itself into my memory and drive a lot of my opinions about "eroding" rights:
First they came...This also relates to the social engineering concept I'm slowly forming. if you want change, you need to make small steps. Buckmeister Fuller talked about this in a few cases (in one of the books I read about him) but it was dealing with technology. He apparently "mapped out" the time between a new technology and when people accepted it. I'm curious to see if you could map out social acceptance of things, taking into account people like me who rant endless by do nothing significant, or the more serious politicans. Actually, I do things. I write to my senators and I do my best to actually dig deeper into the stories; mostly this is limited to actually reading the various laws and trying to see why they really wanted them. That and pay for organizations such as the ACLU.
