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Excellent article. I think the best thing to take away from it is this little, innocent sounding line: "No matter what the reason, don’t ever write..." This s

Excellent article. I think the best thing to take away from it is this little, innocent sounding line: "No matter what the reason, don’t ever write..." This says it all. If we must fear our government when engaging in innocent activity, then we have given our government too much power. Schneier addressed this in one of his many posts on privacy: "How many of us have paused during conversation in the past four-and-a-half years, suddenly aware that we might be eavesdropped on? Probably it was a phone conversation, although maybe it was an e-mail or instant-message exchange or a conversation in a public place. Maybe the topic was terrorism, or politics, or Islam. We stop suddenly, momentarily afraid that our words might be taken out of context, then we laugh at our paranoia and go on. But our demeanor has changed, and our words are subtly altered." - http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_pr.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/the_value_of_p...

swolchok 16y ago
You forgot the implied "...and then cross an international border while carrying said journal entry."
- Vivtek 16y ago
  And you forgot to mention that the vast majority of international borders don't include philosophical loyalty tests or religious screening. It's not a club I think America should belong to. Do you?
  - swolchok 16y ago
    It's not entirely clear to me that I don't want a person who crosses our borders in the circumstances that the author of the article did and carrying the things that the author of the article carried grilled to see if he cracks. Can you imagine what would happen if someone carried those things across a border, did NOT get grilled based on the "would be really inept" arguments, and then committed a terrorist act? We'd be calling for the screeners' heads, and quite probably would be right to do so.
    - Vivtek 16y ago
      Do you think white Christians who have been to Idaho should be prevented from buying fertilizer or renting trucks? Just in case they're going to repeat Oklahoma City? If not, I suspect you need to examine your priorities. Your attitude will be the downfall of this nation. I'm not kidding. It is killing us. Please stop. Read something. Learn about the world. Get outside and realize the sun is still shining and we still have Ferris wheels and there are no freaking terrorists trying to kill you in your bed. Really. I am up to here with this crap. Do you really understand the meaning of freedom so poorly? Sometimes you have to man up and accept a truly vanishing amount of danger in order to have a world you can live in like a real human being. Read up on road statistics, or infant mortality, or malaria, or actual wars in other places, then come back to me and tell me we have to toss out the entire freaking point of America in order to combat something none of us is ever actually going to see, but whose political fallout certainly does benefit a few powerful people. Benjamin Franklin would probably have been mildly surprised that America lasted so long - but he saw clear as day how it was going to end. I just wish it hadn't been in my lifetime.
      - swolchok 16y ago
        Your analogy does not hold, as the guy was not prevented from doing anything. He was questioned, searched, and spied on by the FBI. As far as we know, no direct, material harm came to him.
        Vivtek 16y ago
        Do you think white Christians who have visited Idaho should be confronted verbally at length by policemen whenever attempting to rent trucks? Especially if they're carrying a Bible? Should the rental truck police demand to know whether they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, implying that if they do, they should definitely not be allowed to enter Oklahoma? Should the mothers of white Christians renting trucks have their phones tapped by the FBI? You could already have constructed this analogy. Instead you choose to be disingenuous about it. Don't you think America should be capable of doing better than this?
oiuyhgthyjuki 16y ago
I was part of a school exchange program to Moscow for the 1980 olympics - as part of the pre-trip briefing we were told not to write anything about our visit while we were there because anything we wrote would be checked by the Russians when we left and we could get our hosts into trouble. Of course being from a free country we laughed at this ....

swolchok 16y ago

You forgot the implied "...and then cross an international border while carrying said journal entry."

Vivtek 16y ago
And you forgot to mention that the vast majority of international borders don't include philosophical loyalty tests or religious screening. It's not a club I think America should belong to. Do you?
- swolchok 16y ago
  It's not entirely clear to me that I don't want a person who crosses our borders in the circumstances that the author of the article did and carrying the things that the author of the article carried grilled to see if he cracks. Can you imagine what would happen if someone carried those things across a border, did NOT get grilled based on the "would be really inept" arguments, and then committed a terrorist act? We'd be calling for the screeners' heads, and quite probably would be right to do so.
  - Vivtek 16y ago
    Do you think white Christians who have been to Idaho should be prevented from buying fertilizer or renting trucks? Just in case they're going to repeat Oklahoma City? If not, I suspect you need to examine your priorities. Your attitude will be the downfall of this nation. I'm not kidding. It is killing us. Please stop. Read something. Learn about the world. Get outside and realize the sun is still shining and we still have Ferris wheels and there are no freaking terrorists trying to kill you in your bed. Really. I am up to here with this crap. Do you really understand the meaning of freedom so poorly? Sometimes you have to man up and accept a truly vanishing amount of danger in order to have a world you can live in like a real human being. Read up on road statistics, or infant mortality, or malaria, or actual wars in other places, then come back to me and tell me we have to toss out the entire freaking point of America in order to combat something none of us is ever actually going to see, but whose political fallout certainly does benefit a few powerful people. Benjamin Franklin would probably have been mildly surprised that America lasted so long - but he saw clear as day how it was going to end. I just wish it hadn't been in my lifetime.
    - swolchok 16y ago
      Your analogy does not hold, as the guy was not prevented from doing anything. He was questioned, searched, and spied on by the FBI. As far as we know, no direct, material harm came to him.
      - Vivtek 16y ago
        Do you think white Christians who have visited Idaho should be confronted verbally at length by policemen whenever attempting to rent trucks? Especially if they're carrying a Bible? Should the rental truck police demand to know whether they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, implying that if they do, they should definitely not be allowed to enter Oklahoma? Should the mothers of white Christians renting trucks have their phones tapped by the FBI? You could already have constructed this analogy. Instead you choose to be disingenuous about it. Don't you think America should be capable of doing better than this?

oiuyhgthyjuki 16y ago

I was part of a school exchange program to Moscow for the 1980 olympics - as part of the pre-trip briefing we were told not to write anything about our visit while we were there because anything we wrote would be checked by the Russians when we left and we could get our hosts into trouble. Of course being from a free country we laughed at this ....