Amara Graps wrote:
>
> Samantha wrote:
> >I humbly request that people of good will that care
> >about preserving our freedoms read the following and seriously
> >think about the ramifications (outside of characteristic
> >ideological posturings if possible). I don't think we have a
> >lot of time left to wake up and act.
>
> Too late :-(
>
> The rest of the world's governments don't have the power to resist
> the actions of the U.S. government, and these other governments
> are already acting to restrict more our freedoms.
>
> Germany used to have very strong laws (with some exceptions, see
> below) for protection of privacy. Now legal wiretapping, in the
> interest of "The war against terrorism" is under serious discussion
> here, and will probably be passed into a new law.
>
> Some trivia:
>
> Many years ago at the Munich Olympics and following, there were a
> number of terrorist actions, and the German government initiated a
> new law to "register" people, in the interest of "tracking
> terrorists". This law applies to all people, not only to foreigners
> like me. So if a German citizen wants to move one floor down in an
> apartment building, for example, they would be breaking the law if
> they didn't register their new address within a short period of time.
This is the law in most all countries. It is the law here in the US. In
most states, it is the law to report any change of address to the DMV
within 10-45 days after moving. It has been this way for decades. The
difference is that most all police will only treat it as an advisory
thing. I don't know of anyone they've actually prosecuted for not doing
so.
>
> Did it help "track terrorists" then? Does it now? People here can
> figure out the answer quick enough, and see the high price
> that a nebulous goal of "tracking terrorists" costs.
It only works when the players are already bought in to a high trust
mindset, which demonstrates the failure of most forms of state control:
they are only really effective when everyone plays by the rules, and
they assume, wrongly, that those baddies they are designed to protect us
against will also play by the rules. Criminals are criminals
specifically because they don't play by the rules.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:20 MDT