08/17/2002

	Sometimes I wonder about the health of our country. Everyone's
	so worried about their safety and day-to-day lives that they're
	willing to sacrifice their privacy, social security, rights of free
	speech and fair use right out the window to government and big
	business.

	Bush wants powers for the Office of Homeland Security so he can
	make changes, add powers and fire anyone even though the president
	is not the office's head and without congressional or senate
	intervention. Not only that congress (both democrats and republicans)
	are pushing bills funded the entertainment industry (daresay
	oligarchy) and microsoft (and others) that will pretty much eliminate
	privacy in any form (what you watch, what programs you use on your
	computer, etc); and they even want to put a bit of hardware on your
	computer that will monitor what you run on your computer (ie,
	approved software). Under the newly proposed law it would be illegal
	to bypass or ignore this new hardware. Since Open source and/or free
	software systems such as linux would not likely support it, if disabled
	in any way, the proposed penalty would be 5 years imprisonment. *

	Isn't it our computers? I mean, yeah stealing software is theft-but
	is it worth the sacrifice of privacy to protect it? Is the possibility
	of another terrorist bombing something worth the price of big brother
	constantly watching you? I would think the way to prevent terrorism
	would be to have better security at likely targets. I think the
	combination of good police/government investigation WITH privacy and
	WITH government getting court orders is best.

	Not only that the entertainment "industry" is seeking to pass a
	law where they are exempt from so-called "cyber crime" as a retaliatory
	action against people who download movies and music off of the internet.
	So instead of the government and Department of Justice investigating
	crime, the entertainment industry is asking for legal vigilanteism.

	We are currently in an era where both the Republican and Democratic
	parties are both for a government controlled by big business, where
	the private citizen comes second to the politician and CEOs, and where
	rights guaranteed by the constitution are paid only lip service. The
	rights of the correctly funded are more important than the
	rightly minded.

	Thomas Jefferson said a revolution every 20 years is healthy for
	government. I am starting to think that we need to worry more about
	the enemies at home rather than the enemies abroad--and I'm not
	talking about Al Qaeda terror cells. I'm talking about the Elitists
	operating under the guise of Republicanism, Democracy and Safety
	("I'm safe but not free").

	Seriously, what good is safety without freedom?

	We are locking ourselves in a guilded cage.








	* formerly called the SSSA proposal.
	See Also, Microsoft Palladium.