Senators Call for Universal Internet Filtering 628
An Anonymous Coward writes "US senators today made a bipartisan call for the universal implementation of filtering and monitoring technologies on the Internet in order to protect children. Their statement came at the end of a Senate hearing in which civil liberties groups were not invited."
What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
1984 much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Children and terrorists (Score:3, Insightful)
What a nice blessing for any power hungry totalitarian government
Ironic Tubes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they completely out of touch with technology (it is often a guy in his 60s or 70s proposing the law) and they really see it as a menace and thing these things will solve it, or
Are they completely aware the program won't do one damned thing to solve any problem, but the propose it anyway just so they can put a blurb in their campaign ads about how they protect children.
I'm not a father (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, we MUST catch up with China!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't somebody think of the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
"There are ways for parents to keep their kids from the stuff we want to censor out, but we don't trust them to do it. Also, those darn kids are to sneaky for their parents to stop."
Whatever happened to letting the parents do their job and parent?
Who filters the filterers? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have Republicans in Congress propositioning their same-sex underage pages, others sleeping with prostitutes, and a Democrat president a few years back getting frisky with his intern and a box of (contraband) Cuban cigars -- and all this makes it onto the news.
Who's going to protect the children from being exposed to the examples from these pinnacles of morality?
The first thing they'll filter... mp3 downloads. (Score:5, Insightful)
VOTE 3rd party immediately.
Great Firewall of China (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm...
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
The majority of the push for this sort of thing is money. The allocations of taxpayer money to devote to these pet filtering and monitoring projects will be huge. One particular military subcontractor, Battelle, was already building an _ENORMOUS_ datacenter in Aberdeen, MD, when I left in '07. Why were they building? Most people working at the (existing) tiny site new that it would be mostly devoted to computer science technology but few people knew exactly what. The inside word was that there were going to be enormous contracts coming down the line for processing, indexing, storing, retrieving, and minin gargantuan amounts of data.
Politicians and top-level businessmen work together for years to figure out how to grant themselves a huge chunk of the taxpayer pie. When the news releases start making it to the headlines it's not a matter for debate anymore--it's after the fact justification. The insider trading knowledge that these folks have, by being able to both write the laws and determine the size of the checks and decide to whom the checks are written, is a golden gift from God for the gravy train.
Re:COPA Part Deux? (Score:2, Insightful)
For every content blocking filter you put up, I can simply encapsulate my content and go right through. Or will SSL/TLS, IPSec, SSH tunneling, PPTP, PPPoIP, L2TP, and a myriad of other available methods of encapsulation suddenly be outlawed?
Then comes the question of seeding the content filters themselves. How will it be done?
IP filters are a horrible method, since many websites utilize virtual hosting. The elimination of thousands of virtual hosts just to block a single bad host will simply anger too many people. Worse case scenario is that people stop using virtual hosting, causing an even greater need to the few remaining IP addresses available.
Image fingerprinting is also worthless. Simply take a lossless format such as BMP, IFF, GIF, PNG or TIFF and move the bitplanes around. Looks like garbage to a filter, but a simple restore will render a hidden kiddie porn surprise inside.
Heck, bittorrent the stuff. You can't filter what you can't see since the kiddie porn is simply bits of bits coming from all directions when you pull from the torrents.
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. It's called juxtaposition. See "Al Qaeda in Iraq"
Re:The first thing they'll filter... mp3 downloads (Score:5, Insightful)
Our only hope ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Absolutely Outrageous Proposal (Score:4, Insightful)
Let us ban internet content deemed obscene to save our sensitive childrens' eyes. What standards should we use?...Oh, of course, we already have the FCC's handy guidelines for obscene content on over-the-air TV and cable TV broadcasts. Let us just use a similar definition of obscene content to filter out the internet. That is very convenient since the FCC already has a lot of experience in this area, and of course we can apply old laws to new mediums in which they were never intended to regulate.
Oh, but how will we enforce these new filtering laws? We need to remove anonymity with internet postings (technologically, almost impossible, and if implemented this will essentially remove the best form of communication for whistle blowers that exists). Also, we need to block all foreign internet content if that is obscene, so maybe we should build a whitelist of sites without offensive content...
End sarcasm.
And people think the second amendment is outdated? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's becoming increasingly apparent that the second might need to be taken out and exercised in the near future.
Citizens call for Universal Senator Filtering (Score:1, Insightful)
The same can be said of the postal system (Score:5, Insightful)
And the same can be said of the fucking postal system.
While it's true that parents can screen the letters that arrive at and are sent from their home post office box to somewhat guard against their children using the postal system to solicit, receive, and exchange adult material, the practice of screening by parents is farm from universal and even when applied may not be fool-proof.
We had better start filtering and monitoring all domestic mail as well. And, my God, what about international mail? We'll have to screen that for sure, maybe even just stop it all.
And, and,
this is why (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm not a father (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, this internet filter thing is stupid, but your priorities need some adjusting.
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
"They" (Senators/Congress/most parents) didn't.
Parents used to know the locals in their neighborhood and that was enough to adequately monitor their children. Now the neighborhood is everyone on the internet.
Some of their fears are legitimate, so don't dismiss them out of hand.
"We" just need to make sure they don't do anything rash.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ironic Tubes (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully nobody. But Ted has to keep talking. He's got some interesting things going on right now [adn.com] and it's best for him to keep the topic on children.
It would be so much nicer if corrupt oil companies were to do a better job of wiring up unethical politicians' houses for Internet when doing them construction favors. We could have been spared all that tube talk. At least put in a kiddie filter for the guy, he's old.
Re:Say what now? (Score:5, Insightful)
He doesn't understand that the computer's not watching him. So then if "kids are being exploited online"
In other words the senator has no friggin idea what being online is actually like. The worst that happens is some 13 year olds find a few videos of adults at orgies. I've overheard the neighbor kids talking about that as they walk down the street. It's a curiousity, but obviously doesn't mean a lot to them. It wouldn't bother me if that stuff was blocked from such kids, but it doesn't bother me that it's not. It was just in the news that porn site revenues have taken a steep drop in the last year. It seems that our culture's been so saturated with the stuff that people just aren't motivated to buy it like they used to. Maybe the senators figure if they can create a more restrictive environment again, it'll revive the porn industry.
After all, that's worked well with recreational drugs.
time to buy websense stocks. (Score:1, Insightful)
Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully fossils like him will just die off or (even better) get thrown out of office and replaced by people who aren't utterly clueless. Our only hope in this situation is for him to kick off, unfortunately, because he'll never stop winning in Alaska as long as he keeps up with the "Bridge to Nowhere" pork projects.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Won't somebody think of the parents? (Score:2, Insightful)
Where are the parents at? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing I remeber most about the book is that it was an excellent and entertaining introduction to basic physics and geometry, apparently the thing that the "censors" disliked the most was the fact that witches were involved.
Seems to me that this kind of censorship can only end in tears. I could see an exception being make is for explicit (pre-pubecent) kiddy-porn, snuff-films and the like, since the material itself is evidence of a vile crime. OTOH: Leaving that material up has proven to be an excellent way to track down highly organised child abuse (re: Denmark in the 90's).
As a parent who kids are now adults, I agree that parents do/did have ligitimate concerns but somewhere in the back of my head is a voice that says Murdoch has more to do with this than your average parent. ("29,000 perverts deleted from MySpace" - today's coincidental headline).
As for growing up in a "dangerous world", I can assure you that what was "normal" behaviour in the 60's towards kids would now land you in jail.
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:freedom a threat (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that the world you want to live in!
Not just yes, but Hell Yes! The human body is nothing to be ashamed of, though specific people should be ashamed of thier own body.
FalconRe:Say what now? (Score:2, Insightful)
How does he jump from kids seeing pr0n to pr0n of kids?
Maybe because he is a child molester.
If congress was serious about internet pr0n, they would require all pr0n sites to use an "XXX" TDL.
Likewise, if they were serious about combating phishing, they would require all FDIC insured institutions to use a TDL of ".BANK".
The fact is they don't care about either issue, but merely in giving the appearance of caring about the issue.
Protecting Children Is Just An Excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they should just go ahead and call this what it really is - just another step towards a totalitarian police state.
Sponsored by two Senators in their 80s. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What should be legislated... (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't set children loose in a world of adults and expect them to be safe, whether that world be electronic or meatspace. The same dangers exist on the 'Net as in the Real World. These parents who think they're doing their children favors by setting them loose on the Internet without any sort of supervision should be set up in stocks for all of us to jeer and throw tomatoes at. That might be very fitting punishment for another stupid, archaic law meant to babysit "The CHILLLL-dren," which is ass coverage for, "I'm TOO BUSY to be an ATTENTIVE PARENT." The bloody thing has an on/off switch, and power cords don't grow on trees. If you're that worried about Junior seeing too much of Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee, use one or hide the other.
This is the same reason why I'm sitting here at 11 p.m., watching Ferris Bueller on VH1, a channel that I couldn't access without *paying for it*, and the bloody movie is censored to keep these same people from screaming too much about protecting "The CHILLL-dren." Fuck "The CHILLL-dren." You want them protected, they're your children, YOU PROTECT THEM. It's your job, stop pushing it off on the government and the rest of society.
Re:Help us, Obi Ron (Score:1, Insightful)
The thing about "free enterprise" doesn't mean that business are allowed to do whatever the heck they feel like, it's the freedom of people to engage in enterprise, selling and buying things with no coercion involved. That's all.
Whether a Libertarian party or candidate can reassure you of this, I dunno.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not that kind of insider trading like you hear about in the high drama of Wall Street. Though there is plenty of that also. Most inside traders don't get caught. 10% maybe. This is a whole 'nother economy in and of itself. Off the books and running parallel to the "official" economy. All business of this magnitude operate with more than one set of books. As long as the government is involved, and you can't sue it, none of these pirates will be held accountable, outside the one or two that will be thrown in front of the bus for good PR. And the government won't be held accountable because 99% of of you keep handing the power right over to them over and over. How are you going to deal with the crooked bankers that make all this happen as long as these same bankers hold the mortgage on your house? You're not going to do anything. It has been this way for thousands of years. There is no indication that it's going to change anytime soon. For them the risk is nil.
To Die from Over Eating (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a good hearty laugh. You are safer today than you ever were. Your generation will live longer then any of the humans that came before you, you most likely you are going to die of a very mundane and boring age related disease. Want to talk about scary? Imagine a world where stepping on a nail is potentially lethal, a scrap can lead to an amputated arm, you can die of a sore throat, or you are a few minutes away from nuclear Armageddon.
What do you have to worry about today? Over eating or smoking. Yeah, that is right... the thing to most likely kill you is stuffing too much food down your gullet or a voluntary behavior. Oh god, the horror... the horror. Your pool is dramatically more likely to kill you than a terrorist. You stand a far better chance of being killed in a car accident than being murdered, and the rate of murder and rape in respect to the overall population has been on a nose dive since the 80s*.
The only thing that has changed in this world is that you are far safer and far more likely to live to be a crotchety old bastard than ever before. We don't need politicians "protecting the children" and more than we ever have.
*http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html
Re:"normal behavior" (Score:3, Insightful)
But yes I see your point and yes my parents would order a "shandy" (50/50 mix of lemonade and beer) for my brother and I when we went out for dinner. Here in Australia it is still legal for a gaurdian to order wine/beer for a child provided it is served with a meal. - But since few people know about the law it's a rare occurance these days.
The statistic that puts a lie to the "think of the children and cripple the net crowd" is that in 80+% of ALL cases of criminal child abuse, the child's tormentor is related to, or known and trusted by, the child's family.
Re:I'm not a father (Score:5, Insightful)
It is definitely up to you to prefer one way or another for your children, but in my unqualified opinion there is nothing wrong with satisfying the temporary chemically induced desire with mere patterns of pixels. Even the most burning need can not withstand viewing of 10,000 pr0n photos that are easily available on Usenet or elsewhere. After the pressure dissipates the kid would be able to actually think before making a commitment. Hormones are a poor substitute for a well considered decision.
It is, of course, possible to argue that one-sided attraction to computers (or their screens) is unhealthy. It may be so. But anything one-sided is unhealthy, and a parent should ensure that dangerous activities are done in VR and reasonably safe activities are done in real life, and not the other way around.
Re:And people think the second amendment is outdat (Score:5, Insightful)
The really sad part is that your probably right.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Presumably you meant that as the number of child molesters actively using the Internet for "grooming children". Can you point me to a source for that statistic? I was under the distinct impression that the modus operandi of the vast majority of child molesters was to molest children who know them personally (e.g., their own children, or children they meet in their work).
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of the children!
Yeah--go ahead, install a huge monitoring and filtering system. I'm sure no one will abuse it by monitoring and/or filtering other content.
Zark off senator asshat. I am a responsible parent. I can watch out for my own children.
The USA isn't the Universe (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And people think the second amendment is outdat (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense, the third amendment is still going strong. You're not asked to quarter troops in your home, just support them with your taxes... and put bumperstickers on your car... and silence all political debate because it would embolden the enemy and put our troops at risk.
Nevermind
Bodies (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the only way that our elderly politicians will be able to retain their shabby dignity is if they're allowed to keep the bodies of attractive young folk safely hidden away, out of the public eye.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Senators Should Take a Page from RIAA vs P2P (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I still think it's a conceptually flawed idea, it's at least better than trying to either censor or round up all of the 'smut' and put it into some sort of a blacklist. Fundamentally, if you're trying to make a 'clean internet,' whitelists are the way to go; not blacklists.
Putting the 'kids' domain under the CC TLDs is even better, because it avoids having to create some sort of international consensus on what's appropriate for children, which isn't feasible. Whatever the Congresscritters decide is OK for kids (violence = okay!, sex = bad!) in the U.S. can get into
The problem with this is is that it's a solution looking for a problem that most people really don't seem to care about.
Re:That's a terrible point (Score:5, Insightful)
Absurd?
OK, we agree.
A 15 year old?
Abusrd?
A 14 year old?
Absurd? Questionable?
a 12 year old? EXECUTE THE FUCKER!
wait... what about a really big 12 year old.
What about a really stupid 17 year old?
Execute the fucker.
Wait, I have an idea, lets take an extreme case (a 2 year old) and then use it to justify an entire argument.
But wait... how many sex crimes are actually perpetrated against 2 year olds? 75% of "child sex crimes" are perpetrated against teenagers.
Execute them?
I'm confused.
Mark Foley? Surely he's a schmuck. But.... execute the fucker?
OK fine, but what about my best friend. He was 12 when he banged his friend's mom. He still talks about it like it's the freaking icing on the cake of his life and he's almost 30. Should she be executed?
Where do you get off thinking there is some icon of "evil" and some glowing halo of "not evil" and you can automatically decide one gets death and the other gets a medal?
Oh wait... your reaction was based on irrational, emotive impulse, not logic. I forgot.
Stewed
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:3, Insightful)
First, reject the assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
"Whenever 'A' annoys or injures 'B' on the pretext of saving or improving 'X', 'A' is a scoundrel." -H.L.Mencken
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like when parents get divorced. I, and most of those I know with divorced parents lived happily with parents in separate places, but the _drama_ surrounding the actual divorce hurt some. Those where the parents split up as friends had no problems, since they had a relaxed attitude towards it.
When we treat something natural as sacrilege, we get messed up! Just look at all those priests abusing kids...
On a semi-related note, I also remember seeing a great play called "Blackbird" once, that talk about a sexual abuse case. The question raised by the play is whether the court case, the police interrogation, the parents crying, the need for discretion and forcing the kid to lie to his/her friends did far more damage than the act itself could ever have. Worth having a look at when you feel like screaming "Somebody think of the children!" (thank you, South Park, for this amazing quote).
Note to those who wish to derail the argument: the last example is not to condone abuse of kids, but rather to poke at the way we go about handling such things once they happen.
Re:Won't somebody think of the parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a lingering feeling that I've been trolled one of the subtlest trolls I've ever seen. Hello, "Velvet Flamebait".
I find that to be somewhat encouraging, actually. Children as young as ten already know more about the Internet than Ted Stevens ever will! So maybe, in another 10 years or so, he'll lose his job and the world will be a better place.
Mine is, actually, but that's not a solution. What that does is it means your kids will go to their friends' house, where you can't monitor them yourself. Or they'll get a DS or a PSP ("Playstation Pornable" was the sensationalist headline), even a laptop (for the schools that give them laptops), and hop on the neighbor's open wireless access point.
Really, as a parent, you have three choices when it comes to "bad" influences:
There's a lot more to parenting than that, of course. But you do need all three of those things.
It's a lot harder to raise a kid in the inner city than it is in the suburbs, so you do want to at least do some geographical isolation. That way, even if they know about hookers from GTA, there aren't any around, unless you're really looking.
More importantly: If they're really looking, they will find gangs, drugs, and sex. (Sex, drugs, and rock & roll.) Same with the Internet. If you are trying to fight a battle to keep them isolated, you will lose. The only sure way to prevent them from being corrupted by all the evil out there (or whatever you think will happen) is to make them incorruptible, and that is what I mean by "inoculate".
And even more importantly: Give it up. I don't care how diehard of a Christian you are, I don't believe in a God who will send them to Hell just for looking at a naked body, or the act of love. (Well, sex, really, most porn isn't about love...) You also have to figure there is a fair chance that they will not become Christian -- or Muslim, or whatever your faith is, but that's really the point. And the list goes on...
It's up to you where to draw the line, but I think if your child grows up to be happy, considerate, honest, productive, and successful -- maybe I forgot a few, but it's pretty simple -- in other words, if your child grows up to be a good person, you've done your job. For example: they may play violent videogames that you don't approve of -- but never even come close to hurting someone in reality. I call that a win.
Re:take off your tinfoil hat (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And people think the second amendment is outdat (Score:3, Insightful)
At least you understand its purpose. But I think education should come first. I mean, people actually voted _for_ Bush in the last elections, when I thought it was completely obvious that bad things had and would come of it. If you can't even get people to vote for a different candidate, what do you expect to gain by armed rebellion? Getting yourself a one way trip to Guantanamo Bay? Replacing the democratically elected government in a violent coup d'etat? You might say it's for the common good, but that's exactly what the folks proposing this universal filtering are saying.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:3, Insightful)
The reality is, if you are really concerned about what children have access to on the Internet, you should be able to activate a setting the would lock access to a separate DNS service and a set series of IP addresses that only provides content that has be accessed, reviewed and approved as fit for children web sites, as the web sites would have to be applicable to each of the age ranges for children, obviously what is fit for a young adult is not suitable for a toddler.
Leaving aside the fruitless bang-your-head-against-the-wall argument that it is the parents' responsibility to decide what is "fit" for their own children....."accessed, reviewed and approved" by WHOM? If it's the current administration, I smelleth a "faith-based" outsourcing here to insure that kids can only view appropriate history ("America is a Christian nation"), science ("We didn't evolve from no monkeys") and morality ("sex=bad and dirty; abstinence=good") to insure that the little tykes grow up to be good Republican Christians (and not agnostic Democrats or Wiccan Libertarians).
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:4, Insightful)
And the people who are in their teens and 20s today that eventually opt for a career in politics will be technological ignoramuses who will be passing legislation which is every bit as out of touch with the social issues surrounding emergent technologies from 40 years in the future as our lot are with what's happening now, and the equivalent of Internet forums from that era will contain the same claims about how it will all change when the old sods die off. Check out what things were like when Richard Stallman, Tim Berners-Lee, and Steve Wozniac were teenagers, and you'll see a period of notable political upheaval when youth activists could count on vast numbers of like-minded people to attend rallies and demonstrations, organise mass sit-ins, publish "subversive" magazines and newsletters, and generally stick it to "the man" despite heavy-handed and often brutal attempts by the police and government to stop them. They make today's youth look like a bunch of disorganised, cowardly whiners, yet their conviction that things would definitely change when the old guard died off turned out to be completely unfounded, and the same will happen again, and again, and again.
The reason for this situation is a simple one: those who tend to choose careers in politics mostly come from backgrounds in law, political science, business, and / or extremely wealthy and influential families (and increasingly, film and TV actors), none of which are renowned for their high level of technological awareness. Very few of today's young people in these categories have any real idea how venerable technologies such as steam engines, "land-line" telephones, radio and TV, or suspension bridges work, let alone complicated modern things like computers, cellular telephones, or the Internet, and it is they who will be governing in 30 years, not the sort of people who read Slashdot.
Re:kids are seeing boobies!! (Score:2, Insightful)
I would really like to know what purpose this serves. If they're pandering to parents who don't want to explain what a penis enlarger is, why include the scene at all? But to bleep out the formal reference to a body part, just because it happens to be a reproductive organ, makes me sick.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well which is it? Those are two separate problems with very different solutions. Even if you accomplish the one, you don't necessarily make progress on the other.
Either you enable a passive filter, and essentially tag (to use a web 2.0 term) the net to help parents with their parenting, or you actively scour the dark corners of the net trying to find predators and child pornographers. How likely do you think it is that a child pornographer is going to get caught in a passive filter? If they were that easy to find they'd be shut down already.
So which is it senator, do you want to combat child porn, or do you want to help parents parent? If it's the latter lay off the child porn red-herring. Oh wait, you won't get any support from your porn surfing colleagues if you want to filter everything? Too freaking bad, make an honest argument for god's sake.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that kind of insider trading like you hear about in the high drama of Wall Street.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to filter something when it looks like "(*#U(*YkaJH(*&F()*&G(SER". (Clearly that's a naked 12 year old boy.)
If the legislators in question REALLY wanted to do something effective they'd allocate funds for more traditional investigatory agencies, like the FBI. Social engineering is how these people get caught; their pursuit of their perversion is ironically their greatest weakness, which can be exploited. But I'm assuming that Congress isn't a logic-free zone, and that they actually want to do something useful.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Incidentally, it was brought to my attention recently that the government doesn't need a warrant to know the sites you've visited; it only needs a warrant to determine the content of those communications. This goes back to a "pen register" precedent that was set decades ago regarding phone wiretaps.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Still a problem. It gives the government the ability to censor content the government finds objectionable for anyone using the software. That could be millions of people. Plus, once adopted and accepted you would eventually see the same people who are suggesting this suggesting it be mandatory in schools and libraries and later all government systems. Eventually they would start holding people liable if a child saw content they shouldn't have and create a de facto requirement that everyone who might ever have a child access their computer use the database.
Once you give the government a sanctioned way to censor information it will be abused. It is always a bad idea, just as it is a bad idea to give the government ways to track its citizens and their actions (they like to use law enforcement this way).
Do something?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
How about instead of spending billions on even more police to act as parents, we get more money to the PARENTS!
Like 2-3 year paid maternity leave for working moms/dads, benefit supplementation for part-time working moms/dads, or greater daycare/workcare allowances. Tax breaks for businesses to encourage working from home? THERE are some GOOD ideas on where we should be spending our tax monies, not adding even more damned police and making this an even bigger police state.
And just to be clear, so as to avoid the flame wars, I do not have a problem with police. In fact, I fully support and often pity them for the shiet they are forced to go through dealing with the masses. I just have a big problem with how we are using them these days.
Re:Ok, the end of the Internet is here... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:take off your tinfoil hat (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, well, some of us retain our memories of past transgressions, and would like to prevent future ones. Others choose to forget the the pain of, say, Vietnam(that other great war for profit) and Watergate, and "political enemies" lists, and jump right into Iran/Contra, Savings and Loans, crooked Arkansas land deals that mysteriously disappear off the radar when a fat chick enters the scene, Enron, Iraq II, and addition to that, see to to it that those criminals are able to keep their ill gotten gains, and give them their old jobs back. All so we can put on a happy face and wear the flag proudly. No, sir, I don't whine. I laugh as I watch you sink into the morass so willingly. Apparently you don't like it when the slaves get uppity. Makes you feel just a little uncomfortable, doesn't it? Just a little scared we might "ruin everything" when your life is going so smoothly? Hehehe. I like watching you(editorial) squirm, as you all come out of the woodwork to defend the monster that enslaves you. It really is quite a show from my POV. Always remember, the safest place to be is in the center of the herd. Of course that's the position you all fight each other for. Everybody knows what happens to stragglers.