From: olson@dstl86.gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul Olson)
Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.privacy,talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.usa,news.admin.policy
Subject: Re: [comp.org.eff.talk] Latest FBI Wiretap Bill
Date: 4 Sep 92 15:38:00 GMT
Organization: Mission Operations and Data Systems
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <j6@byu.edu>, gritton@byu.edu writes...
>jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
> 
>> This is the Big Brother bill that's been circulating previously.  See
>> the original article in comp.org.eff.talk for the bill itself.
> 
>This has no more to do with news administration policy than it it does
>with American culture. Keep the garbage out.
>--
>James Gritton - gritton@byu.edu - I disclaim

James,

Who are you trying to kid?  Who runs the FBI and the NSA?  Not Congres.  Not
you and me.  Guess what?  It's the ADMINISTRATION!!!

What worries me is the cause behind such moves.  I feel that in the
administration's overzelous attempts to control "The War On Drugs" (a HIGH
visibility, BIG public relations boondogle) they're stomping all over the
rights of the honest private citizen.

The fact that a bureaucracy cannot react as quickly as private firms.  Hardware
is rapidly outpacing the NSA and FBI's ability to keep up with it.  Things were
fine when we all used rotary switches for phones.  All they had to do was hook
up a couple of wires.  Nowadays, things are quite different, what with digital
and cellular communications, and they can't keep up.  The bureaucracy is losing
control of the sheep (read the American public) which they feel is their job to
lead by the nose.  The FBI wants to keep the celluar phone industry from going
encrypted because "... lots of drug dealers use celluar phones...".  The NSA? 
Well, they lost one of their main reasons for existance.  You guess who they
want to look at now.

If you want more evidence of this type of legal bullshit, just look at the
siezure laws which allows law enforcement to sieze your property, evidence of a
crime or not.  You don't think this law is on the books?  Look again.  How else
do you think the government has warehouses full of "drug crime property"?  Much
of that property was siezed from private citizens who were never charged with a
crime, nor proved they commited one.  The government turns around and auctions
off the property, feeding it back into the "War On Drugs", because Congress
wrote the law to make it too expensive to get your property back (10% property
value bond + legal expenses).   Why do I see a "Who shall guard these self-same
guardians" problem here?  And wasn't illegal search and siesure built into the
Bill of Rights?  Seems the administration and Congress has forgotten to read
that document before taking office.

No, I'm not for drug use.  No, I'm not a screaming liberal (a frustrated,
screaming conservative is more like it).  No, I don't think that having
childeren gunned down in the streets is a good thing.  But the "War On Drugs"
is slowly killing this country, and the government seems oblivious to what it's
doing in the name of "saving the country".  You can't save the country by
destroying its foundations.  Face it, the drug war is a guerilla war.  And just
like Vietnam, it isn't going to be won by a large, slow moving, bureaucratic
body.  Instead of concentrating on intervention, the government should work on
prevention, reform and getting the guns off the streets.

Yes, all this from someone who used to be a Republican, but whose views have
changed dramatically in the last three months.  What happened three months ago? 
The Presidential campaign started in ernest, and I'm seeing things from both
sides I _DON'T_ like!

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Newsgroups: alt.society.civil-liberty,talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.usa