Date: Thu Dec 29 20:39:01 2005
From: pauls at utdallas.edu (Paul Schmehl)
Subject: complaints about the governemnt spying!

--On December 29, 2005 3:06:35 PM -0500 Michael Holstein 
<michael.holstein@...ohio.edu> wrote:

>> The security directives are secret because you don't
>> show your hand to the enemy (except if you work for the New York Times.)
>
> Uh huh .. so the newspaper informing the public about an illegal
> government program (after holding the article for a year at the
> government's request) is "helping the enemy"
>
Yes, because 1) the program isn't illegal and 2) the program was top 
secret.  In order for the Times to print the story, they had to encourage 
people who had sworn a secrecy oath to break the law.  Then, knowing that 
what they were publishing would tip off the terrorists to what the 
government was doing to capture them, they published it anyway.

And the funniest thing of all is that they got stupid Americans all riled 
about about civil and privacy rights in the process, completely losing 
track of what's really important - preventing another attack on our soil.

Or have you already forgetten that terrorists have been killing us (and 
many others around the world) since the 1970's without pause?  Do I really 
need to publish the litany of people that have died - people like Leon 
Klinghoeffer, a wheelchair-bound elderly Jew who was pushed off a boat to 
drown in the ocean simply because he was a Jew?  People like Petty Officer 
Stethem who was beaten, shot in the head and dumped on the airport tarmac 
for the crime of being a member of the US military?  Do we really need to 
review the bloody history of Islamic terrorism for you to get the point?

Thousands had died before 9/11, yet the world slept.  Now the world is 
going back to sleep, insisting that the *real* problem is repressive 
governments, not people who slaughter innocent men, women and children of 
every race, creed, nationality and sex without discrimination and without 
mercy.

> It seems so many have forgotten who the true enemy is.
>
Yes, they have.  Especially the anti-war bozos who think they can tame a 
Zarqawi by giving in to his demands.  And apparently many more who think 
terrorism is no menace at all.

> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Jefferson, 1759).
>
Note the modifiers "essential" and "temporary".  You give up liberties all 
the time for the better of society.  Or have you forgotten that you can get 
a ticket for speeding, be arrested for getting drunk or go to jail for 
burning down your own house?

Society has rules for a reason.  Sometimes those rules impose limits on 
what you can and can't do.  We could remove the ID checks for airports and 
just let the terrorists blow planes up willy-nilly.  I suppose there are 
some people who wouldn't be too bothered by that, so long as it isn't the 
plane they are on that's being blown up.

Paul Schmehl (pauls@...allas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/

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