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We are told that it's better not to know what our government is doing in our name, for security purposes. Meanwhile, our government is becoming omnipresent, spying on us whenever it deems it necessary.


In America today, Big Brother is watching.

He's watching because President Bush told him to. Shortly after 9/11, Bush secretly authorized warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens making or receiving international calls and e-mails.


Bush is unapologetic. The president believes he has the legal authority to spy on American citizens without a warrant, and he plans to continue to reauthorize the program "for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens." But when the enemy is poorly defined, who determines when the threat is over? In this case, the same government that secretly taps our phones.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_3337465

Our phones aren't being tapped...enemy phones, or those suspected of talking to the enemy are, and rightly so. If you are having a discussion with Al Qaeda operatives overseas, we ought to know about it.,..what's being said, and what indformation is being passed, etc.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

That's what they want you to think. Read this article by the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/politics...html?oref=login

I also posted it here: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=59713

This is what they want you to believe...most likely because it's the truth. It's a tough sell for some people. They just don't understand the difference between criminal law and war-time obligations of a President of the United States.

The article, which is well known by now, doesn't happen to mention the salient facts with any specificity.

This is not wiretaping governed by FISA rules, and this intel is not being gathered for use in criminal prosecutions. If it were, it would indeed be illegal without appropriate warrants.

This is what is called Signal Intelligence. It is the obligation of any President to utilize this in time of war, and is not governed by the rules about wiretapping citizens for the collection of evidence to be used in criminal prosecutions. The Constituition is the governing document, and it's pretty plain and simple.

There are, of course, and were, a lot of dead ends in such a process, especially in the initial phases... which were dropped. A faction of people don't want to believe that, of course...especially those that wish to impeach the President for something.
If he wasn't doing this, and something occurred, that would be impeachable behavior. This Signal Intel is completely justified, and is an obligation of the President. No one's rights are being violated.

Orwellian society hasn't arrived yet...

The entire theory that we live in orwells 1984 falls apart when you realise that we are still allowed to think and voice our opinion .

Don't be so gullable

"All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it... Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."
Adolf Hitler 1935 Mein Kampf, p. 197. 14th Edition

Some great quotes from President Nixon were in my local news paper, the Wisconsin State Journal November 17, 2005 in the article titled ‘Nixon’s deceptive ways revealed in documents’ on page A3.
The first paragraph says:

"Even after Richard Nixon’s secret war in Cambodia became known, the president persisted in deception. “Publicly we say one thing.” He told aides. “Actually we do another” and in another paragraph, he says, “That is what we will say publicly.” He asserted. “But now, let’s talk about what we will actually do”. "

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." Henry Kissinger, New York Times, Oct. 28, 1973

Big brother is like the mafia that will burn down your store if you don't buy protection from them. He is not in your best interest.

It's OK, Ignorance is bliss. Sorry for trying to burst the bubble in your imaginary made up world.

Are we really? Please elaborate how so. The internet is pretty much the last true form of 'freedom of speech' we have. And who knows where that will end up with Internet2. I hope the U.S. doesn't come up with an internet control policy like China already has.

Bush is also trying to make it a crime to protest. If he get's what he wants, anyone who wants to speak their opinion or speak out will be thrown in jail.
[Link Here: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=60137 ]

Also, at a George W. Bush speaking event some time ago, two men were removed from the speech for having anti-Bush stickers on their automobiles.

don't you people understand what's going on here Bush is trying to have total power, how you ask, a few weeks ago he said that any debate on the war ,oil prices, wire tapping, should be
"civilized" a nice way of saying not anti my opinion.

I agree with you. This only serves to further underline what I was reading earlier (was it on this post?) about George Orwell's 1984 and Newspeak. Its happening now as we speak.
Freedom means fascism, safety means torture, war means peace. Security is killing democracy.

A century from now historians will reflect back on what we are witnessing now and and wonder how we could have been so blind to the rise of an insidious and fascist authoritatian regime around us.

Democrats? Bad joke indeed. I was one for quite some time, then I realized: there's no difference. Democrats shouldn't insult my intelligence but saying they're an opposition party. For that matter I dont believe there can ever be effective opposition within the current political frame. Thus I've chosen to be outside it all together. Foucault and Goldman and all that...perhaps I'm reverting to an angsty 17 yr old (politically), who knows.
But I guess this is all way off topic isn't it...

okay another party is elected and impeach's bush

No no I mean I've totally given up on the system. TOTALLY. I'm leaving the country and aren't sure if i'll come back.

Its near impossible to incorporate into your daily life, but if you apply it to politics and if you feel you're disenfranchised enough, then get a copy of Emma Goldman's "Anarchism and other Essays" Everyone should have a copy.
Lots of BS would stop.

okay how about canada I here it's a nice place

If Canada were warmer, it would be the perfect society.

true, so what do we do about Bush there has to be a way to stop his terror, short of a time machine

NYPD turns on surveillance cameras
City aims for 'ring of steel,' drawing ire of privacy advocates



NEW YORK (AP) -- Along a gritty stretch of street in Brooklyn, police this month quietly launched an ambitious plan to combat street crime and terrorism.

But instead of cops on the beat, wireless video cameras peer down from lamp posts about 30 feet above the sidewalk.

They were the first installment of a program to place 500 cameras throughout the city at a cost of $9 million.

Hundreds of additional cameras could follow if the city receives $81.5 million in federal grants it has requested to safeguard Lower Manhattan and parts of midtown with a surveillance "ring of steel" modeled after security measures in London's financial district.

Officials of the New York Police Department -- which considers itself at the forefront of counterterrorism since the September 11, 2001, attacks -- claim the money would be well-spent, especially since the revelations that al Qaeda members once cased the New York Stock Exchange and other financial institutions.

"We have every reason to believe New York remains in the crosshairs, so we have to do what it takes to protect the city," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said last week at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The city already has about 1,000 cameras in the subways, with 2,100 scheduled to be in place by 2008. An additional 3,100 cameras monitor city housing projects.

New York's approach isn't unique. Chicago, Illinois, spent roughly $5 million on a 2,000-camera system. Homeland Security officials in Washington plan to spend $9.8 million for surveillance cameras and sensors on a rail line near the Capitol. And Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has increasingly relied on video surveillance.

Privacy advocates say the NYPD's camera plan needs more study and safeguards to preserve privacy and guard against abuses like racial profiling and voyeurism.

The department "is installing cameras first and asking questions later," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Police officials insist that law-abiding New Yorkers have nothing to fear because the cameras will be restricted to public areas. The police commissioner recently established a panel of four corporate defense lawyers to advise the department on surveillance policies.

"The police department must be flexible to meet an ever-changing threat," Kelly said. "We also have to ensure whatever measures we take are reasonable as the Constitution requires. That's the only way to retain public support and preserve individual freedoms."

Lieberman concedes cameras can help investigators identify suspects once a crime has been committed, but argues they can't prevent crime. She cited a 2002 study that concluded surveillance cameras used in 14 British cities had little or no impact on crime rates -- just as they didn't keep terrorists from bombing the London subway system last year.

"The London experience shouldn't be misconstrued that the 'ring of steel' prevents terrorism," she said. "But that's how it's being pitched."

Still, New York police were impressed that their British counterparts drew on 80,000 videotapes to identify and retrace the routes of the subway system suicide bombers and the suspects in a failed follow-up attack.

Timothy Horner, a specialist with the Kroll security firm and a former NYPD captain, said the measures make sense.

"It's not a cure-all, and the department is not thinking that way," he said. "But we really want law enforcement to use whatever tools they can to keep us safe."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Big Brother Is Watching


It took 21 years longer than expected, but the future has finally arrived.

And we don't like it. Not one bit.

We are fighting a war with no end to create a peace with no defined victory.

We occupy a foreign land that doesn't want us, while at home our civil liberties are discounted.

We are told that it's better not to know what our government is doing in our name, for security purposes. Meanwhile, our government is becoming omnipresent, spying on us whenever it deems it necessary.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

George Orwell was right after all.

In 1949, Orwell penned "1984," a dark, futuristic satire in which the totalitarian government used indoctrination, propaganda and fear to enforce order and conformity. His "Big Brother" — the face of this all-knowing regime — was never wrong, and to make sure of it, history was constantly being rewritten.

Orwell wrote his book as a cautionary tale to underscore the insidious danger of slowly eroded individual liberties. His Thought Police may not yet be on the march, but it's not hyperbole to point out the eerie parallels with today's America.

In America today, Big Brother is watching.

He's watching because President Bush told him to. Shortly after 9/11, Bush secretly authorized warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens making or receiving international calls and e-mails.

When it comes to fighting terror, Bush is totalitarian — remember, you're either with us or against us. Trust me to get it right, he says. Debate on the law is not only not needed, it's evil.

"An open debate about the law would say to the enemy, 'Here's what we're going to do.'" Bush said recently. "The fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy."

Then there's the Patriot Act, also created in the days immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. The Senate and House of Representatives voted Thursday to extend the law by a month. President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insist it's an indispensable tool in the war on terror and want it extended permanently.

"I'm as concerned about the privacy of American citizens as anyone, but we cannot allow libraries and use of libraries to become safe havens for terrorists," Gonzales said in July, defending one of the act's most controversial provisions.

Remember, too, that we invaded Iraq primarily because we were told Saddam Hussein was an immediate threat with his weapons of mass destruction. Now the Bush administration acknowledges that wasn't so, but insists there were (are?) other reasons to invade. History is malleable.

Orwell wrote of war without end; we're told the war on terror will last decades at least. Orwell wrote of a dumbed-down "Newspeak," and who could argue that our national discourse hasn't slumped? Orwell's "Ministry of Love" tortured dissidents real or imagined; our government decries Iraq's secret torture prisons while arguing over whether to ban torture. Meanwhile, we maintain our own secret CIA prisons.

Bush is unapologetic. The president believes he has the legal authority to spy on American citizens without a warrant, and he plans to continue to reauthorize the program "for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens." But when the enemy is poorly defined, who determines when the threat is over? In this case, the same government that secretly taps our phones.

Turns out the truth is no stranger than fiction.

We think it's time for Congress to heed the warning of George Orwell.

To that end, we're asking for your help: Mail us or drop off your tattered copies of "1984." When we get 537 of them, we'll send them to every member of the House of Representatives and Senate and to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Feel free to inscribe the book with a note, reminding these fine people that we Americans take the threat to our liberties seriously. Remind Congress that it makes no sense to fight a war for democracy in a foreign land while allowing our democratic principles to erode at home.

Remind President Bush that ours is a country of checks and balances, not unbridled power.

Perhaps our nation's leaders can find some truth in this fiction and more carefully ponder the road we're traveling.

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http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_3337465

this is a politically minded artical against the persident it is against the war in Iraq and is suggesting that we are in a nuclear nightmare. If you want to study conspiracies i would advise you to keep away from politically slanted articles such as this. im sure i will be getting many hateful posts against what i say. Bring it. Im just voicing my opinion.

This thread was not originally in the Conspiracies forum, it was in the Science and Technology forum. I felt this was the most appropriate place for it and so I moved it here. In this aspect of your post your criticism of dnb420 is unfair.

It seems to me most conspiracies are, almost by definition, political in nature and so you can not discuss one without the other. The whole point of freedom of speech is that you are allowed to criticise your leaders, the moment you attempt to suppress that is the moment dnb420 becomes right.

Gullible, eh?

You quote Hitler and Nixon, both of whom are recognized quite adequately for their less-than-virtuous conduct (although of very different natures, of course), as if they are akin to what Prsident Bush is doing.

I think fighting an unjustified war in Iraq puts Bush right under Hitler in the catergory. Hes not doing anything for the american people but forcing us to fight a war that isn't necessary. We're the world police and going into a country under lies and not finding evidence of weapons and such seats Bush in the same category as the two.

dude how does that put him under the same pretext as hitler. I mean if you thought somone was going to bomb your country to smithereens whether they were or they werent you would just sit back and watch it happen. Also that i dont blame him for attacking saddam. I mean seriously dude now that hes already there why dont we get rid of saddam. think of how many people would have died if it wasnt for getting rid of him. I can tell you this that it would be a heck of alot of more people dead.

don't you people understand what's going on here Bush is trying to have total power, how you ask, a few weeks ago he said that any debate on the war ,oil prices, wire tapping, should be
"civilized" a nice way of saying not anti my opinion.

By Deborah Charles

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will soon use more behavioral profiling at American airports to detect suspicious activity, a top official said on Thursday.

TSA Director Kip Hawley said the agency would expand a pilot program that has trained officers to observe passengers' behavior currently at about a dozen airports. He said it will be expanded after the summer travel rush.

"We are looking at expanding ... as another layer of security," Hawley said. "We have been very pleased with its effectiveness. We expect it to be an important part of our security going forward."

TSA officials would not identify which "highest risk" airports will be included in the expanded program.

The program began at Boston's Logan International Airport -- the departure point for the two hijacked airplanes that were crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11. It is also being implemented in Miami among other airports.

George Naccara, the federal security director at Logan, said the TSA program is modeled on behavior detection systems used in Israel and some other countries.

"It's been very effective overseas," Naccara said, where the effort "is much more confrontational and much more aggressive."

Officers are taught to look for abnormal behavior in passengers, such as people wearing coats when it's warm in order to disguise bombs, or people acting fidgety or nervous.

Naccara said they look for signs of "stress, fear and deception."

"We associate that with people who are doing something wrong -- some kind of criminal or terrorist intent," he said.

The officers must be able to differentiate between nervous travelers and those having something to hide, he added.

Some civil rights groups have complained the program involves racial profiling. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Massachusetts Port Authority over its behavior pattern recognition program.

TSA officials said race is not used to monitor passengers. Officers fill out a score sheet identifying behaviors that trigger extra screening for a passenger or police attention.

"The vast majority of those referred to law enforcement ... do in fact have something wrong," said Hawley. "They are either illegal for false ID, immigration status, drugs or prohibited items."

Link to article: US to moniter behavior at more airports: Reuters

Are we really? Please elaborate how so. The internet is pretty much the last true form of 'freedom of speech' we have. And who knows where that will end up with Internet2. I hope the U.S. doesn't come up with an internet control policy like China already has.

Bush is also trying to make it a crime to protest. If he get's what he wants, anyone who wants to speak their opinion or speak out will be thrown in jail.
[Link Here: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=60137 ]

Also, at a George W. Bush speaking event some time ago, two men were removed from the speech for having anti-Bush stickers on their automobiles.