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The best thing the government could do to legitimately appease citizens is pass a statute that nothing gathered through these means will be used to prosecute an
by OldSchool 13y ago
The best thing the government could do to legitimately appease citizens is pass a statute that nothing gathered through these means will be used to prosecute anything but terrorism or threats to national security. If that's the real purpose, then they should have no problem putting it in writing.
- bilbo0s 13y agoJust playing Devil's Advocate here... What's to stop them from classifying... say .... computer hacking... as a threat to National Security?
- tsotha 13y agoThat's what happened with RICO. When it was passed they told us racketeering was only organized crime. Now you can get RICO charges doing just about anything.
- OldSchool 13y agoI'm guessing you're referring to something at the level of discussion of vulnerabilities as opposed to actually breaking into some government resource or an enterprise with enough leverage to affect the nation in some way. Yes, enough lawyer-speak combined with general ignorance could probably make a jury believe any kind of security talk is somehow threatening. I suppose that's where careful wording comes in, for example limiting a threat to include intent to act on at least some specific class of target.
- sneak 13y agoYou can use the information in ways to harass and intimidate even without using it for prosecution; e.g. the FBI threatened to publicize MLK's extramarital affair (which they'd discovered by putting him under surveillance (authorized by the then-Attorney General RFK)) if he didn't give up his civil rights work.
- OldSchool 13y agoSounds like we'd all need a broader term than prosecution in addition to clearly defining an actual threat. All documented by the same personalities who are often tasked with finding holes in such statutes.