They're Watching You......

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
Speaking of "They're watching you......":

Wash A Car In Your Driveway? You Might Get A Ticket

I have a solution. Put up a tent in the driveway. Drive the car under it. Drape sheets on all 4 sides. Presto. Car can't be seen. It's not being "washed in public".

Busybody neighbors are a monumental pain in the...............

(But then, so are smart mouth kids who rag on a LEO for doing what he has to do.)
 
OH. MY. GOD!

The reasonable man is screwed. The BIG question is, do we foresee a way back from this bullshit? The complacency of the average man is what has allowed extremists to write rules such as 'you are not allowed to wash your car in public view'.

I feel sorry for LEO's who (as in this case) must be utterly embarrassed by their job.
 
That's quite interesting Larry. Raises all sorts of questions. Again, the media reporting the story, has done a stellar job of not reporting the full story! people are expected to vote on all kinds of matters, rarely having been given, or being allowed access to, the whole story.

Surely this situation should not be so much about the right to shoot down drones, more about should there be drones. If you allow the wilful destruction of someone else's property, should there be clearly demarked no-fly zones for that particular town, carrying disclaimers, similar to those seen in car park, concerning responsibility for damage?

Who becomes responsible, should a drone be shot and fall onto a little girl's head, killing her outright? This can't be a simple yes/no vote for the right to shoot at drones.

Many people these days fly remote control aircraft, that carry go-pro HD video camera's. I suspect this is just the start of a much larger plan to introduce taxes for owning and operating such toys.
 

Larry L.

Lifetime Supporter
"Surely this situation should not be so much about the right to shoot down drones, more about should there be drones." - Mark

I think 'the town' is trying to make that very point...emphatically.
 

Keith

Moderator
Speaking of "They're watching you......":

Wash A Car In Your Driveway? You Might Get A Ticket

I have a solution. Put up a tent in the driveway. Drive the car under it. Drape sheets on all 4 sides. Presto. Car can't be seen. It's not being "washed in public".

Busybody neighbors are a monumental pain in the...............

(But then, so are smart mouth kids who rag on a LEO for doing what he has to do.)

I don't think these draconian laws are very new, but they get aired every now and then. Problem is, they don't get repealed. In the 1960's, I was washing my car in the street, when a policeman approached and told me I was committing an offence. I then learned three things: 1. Never piss off a neighbour by deliberately hosing down your car while he is lying underneath his, trying to fix something...:sneaky: 2. Any car parked on a public highway in the UK is technically guilty of Obstructing Her Majesties Highway and 3. Repairing or working on a car on the Highway is in breach of yada yada Regulations. (Naturally, the neighbour had snuck back indoors by this time).

So there you go. Never repealed and I guess useful in times of extreme neighbour strife. (I retaliated of course, with a kettle full of water into his gas tank the next morning.)
 

Pat

Supporter
It would appear you need to invite David over for a late night bagpipe serenade for your neighbor.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
NSA program stopped no terror attacks, says White House panel member - Investigations

So Jim, remind me again why the NSA needs to keep everyone's phone calls?


Dave,

Well, I think its good that a review of this part of the President Bush's Patriot Act be reviewed, if its not providing any helpful information, why have it?

I thinks its interesting that this House Panel Member did not say anything about the "internet" portion of the spying scandal, that would lead me to believe the internet portion perhaps has stopped terror attacks.

I read the rest of the report and then things become a little less clear.....


But in one little-noticed footnote in its report, the White House panel said the telephone records collection program – known as Section 215, based on the provision of the U.S. Patriot Act that provided the legal basis for it – had made “only a modest contribution to the nation’s security.”

So now the report says that the program made "only a modest contribution to the nation’s security.” Thats not quite the same as providing no contribution as the headlines would have you believe.


Stone declined to comment on the accuracy of public statements by U.S. intelligence officials about the telephone collection program, but said that when they referred to successes they seemed to be mixing the results of domestic metadata collection with the intelligence derived from the separate, and less controversial, NSA program, known as 702, to intercept communications overseas.

The comparison between 702 overseas interceptions and 215 bulk metadata collection was “night and day,” said Stone. “With 702, the record is very impressive. It’s no doubt the nation is safer and spared potential attacks because of 702. There was nothing like that for 215. We asked the question and they [the NSA] gave us the data. They were very straight about it.”

***************

Like I said its not quite as cut and dried as the headline would have us believe.

Still I have to believe that if there is a terror attack, here is the US some time in the future, it might be helpful to be able to go back and see who the terrorists has called.

But then thats just my opinion, I'm willing to let those with all the information make these decisions.
 
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I have no problem with individual phone records being accessed with a warrant. Government storage of all domestic phone calls is absurd and unconstitutional. Cheney obviously fed the domestic spying mentality in the intelligence community and it took Snowden to uncover all this. Snowden should be given complete amnesty and a medal. On top of that spying on foreign leaders that were not a threat to us is stupid. No wonder the President of Brazil cancelled orders for civilian and military aircraft from us.
 

Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
I have no problem with individual phone records being accessed with a warrant. Government storage of all domestic phone calls is absurd and unconstitutional.Posted by Dave

Dave, I'm not so sure about your "absurd and unconstitutional" comment, in a previous Supreme Court ruling........

In 1979, SCOTUS ruled in the case of Smith v. Maryland that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy for who you called, just the content is protected:
…The fortuity of whether or not the phone company in fact elects to make a quasi-permanent record of a particular number dialed does not, in our view, make any constitutional difference. Regardless of the phone company’s election, petitioner voluntarily conveyed to it information that it had facilities for recording and that it was free to record. In these circumstances, petitioner assumed the risk that the information would be divulged to police. Under petitioner’s theory, Fourth Amendment protection would exist, or not, depending on how the telephone company chose to define local-dialing zones, and depending on how it chose to bill its customers for local calls. Calls placed across town, or dialed directly, would be protected; calls placed across the river, or dialed with operator assistance, might not be. We are not inclined to make a crazy quilt of the Fourth Amendment, especially in circumstances where (as here) the pattern of protection would be dictated by billing practices of a private corporation.
We therefore conclude that petitioner in all probability entertained no actual expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed, and that, even if he did, his expectation was not “legitimate.” The installation and use of a pen register, [442 U.S. 735, 746] consequently, was not a “search,” and no warrant was required. The judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals is affirmed.

This is all somewhat murky, we shall see.

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Dave, as far as your comment: "Snowden should be given complete amnesty and a medal".

There are a number of laws governing the handeling of intelligence. Anyone who is in a position to access secret government intelligence goes through a very close screening and background checks. Additionally they all signed a very specific contract, which clearly states that divulging any clandestine data is illegal and punishable by.........


Dave, do you think it wise to make these sorts of security laws and pledges only "suggestions".

Should they add words to the effect........

I promise not to divulge any secret data, unless you don't like something, then its OK, and you will be given "amnesty and a medal"?

*************
Dave

Back in the 1980's, J Walker told the Soviet Union that we had put a bug on one of their underwater Naval Comunications lines...................

Then as now, we were not at war..........

Dave, should Walker have been given amnisty, a medal or both?

 
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So what has Snowden revealed that has really threatened our national security? Doesn't upholding the Constitution overrule his security pledge? I remember secrecy arguments from the Nixon gang over Watergate and Daniel Ellsberg. Also Oliver North's obstruction in the Iran contra affair. Certainly Cheney was the master of secrecy and the destroyer of the Constitution. Concerning Walker he helped an adversary of the U.S. Snowden divulged data mining of U.S. citizens. The 1979 SCOTUS ruling will be revisited. At that time the ability of the intelligence community to scoop up everyone's phone records was unknown. What's wrong with warrants? We may be talking past each other, but would we be a better country without Snowden's revelations?
 
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