67 senators support crime

Here's the tally of how the Senate voted on striking the provisions that would shield telecom companies from legal liability from past violations of wiretap laws.

Of local interest: Both of New Hampshire's senators, Gregg and Sununu, voted to protect the lawbreakers. Both of Massachusetts' senators, Kennedy and Kerry, voted to keep them legally liable for their actions. All four voted with their parties.

Of national interest: McCain voted for the lawbreakers, and Obama voted for justice. Hillary Clinton couldn't be bothered to vote.

Danish papers show some courage

Congratulations to the three Danish newspapers that had the courage to reprint one of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in the face of an alleged plot to murder the cartoonist who drew it.

This is the correct way to respond to threats -- not by caving in to them, not by dragging people down into a pointless war, but by refusing to surrender one's liberty. It's disappointing that I couldn't find a single English-language article online to match the courage of these Danish publishers and show the cartoons; the terrorists continue to be successful with their censorship. But here's a link to one of the Danish sites.

"You have no rights"

It's said that the reason for "security theatre" is to make people feel safe.

That's wrong. It's to make them feel scared and guilty.

Take the experiences of travelers returning to the United States, cited in this Washington Post article. Records of calls were gratuitously erased from a traveler's cell phone. An engineer was forced to violate employee confidentiality and enter the password of the company-owned computer he was carrying. An outgoing traveler had her computer taken from her for no stated reason beyond "security concern."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is filing an FOAI suit to get public records which Homeland Security is withholding regarding the questioning and searching of travelers at borders. The EFF press release states:

ALC, a San Francisco-based civil rights organization, received more than 20 complaints from Northern California residents last year who said they were grilled about their families, religious practices, volunteer activities, political beliefs, or associations when returning to the United States from travels abroad. In addition, customs agents examined travelers' books, business cards collected from friends and colleagues, handwritten notes, personal photos, laptop computer files, and cell phone directories, and sometimes made copies of this information. When individuals complained, they were told, "This is the border, and you have no rights."

"You have no rights." That is the message which the arbitrary searches are designed to get across. The rules keep changing, you may be asked to turn over private information which is placed in your trust, anything you have may be taken away from you. "You have no rights," says the government of the United States of America.

This creates an atmosphere of fear in two ways. First and more obvious is the fear of government authority itself. The exercise of changeable, unpredictable whims is a well-known technique for frightening people into submission. People can adjust to a routine, no matter how humiliating. But when they don't know whether they'll be waved through or have a government agent looking through all their personal files, people will feel frightened and intimidated.

It's also to create a disproportionate fear of terrorists, in order to justify arbitrary government power. Many people would rather believe that the government must have some good reason for acting this way, rather than face the fact that they're dealing with arbitrary, senseless power. As a psychological defense, they assume there must be a constantly lurking terrorist threat in every corner, which the government is steadfastly protecting them from.

And thus, those who object that their rights are violated are made to feel guilt at their protests. They're caricatured as Al Qaeda sympathizers and leftist wackos. True Americans will, they're told, submit without question to any governmental intrusion into their lives.

Once Americans recognize this fear-and-guilt game for what it is and reject it, there will be a chance for restoring some of the liberties we've lost in this decade. We need to tell the government, "We have rights and we're going to reclaim them."

A few more dustdiary.com thefts

Here are a few more items stolen by dustdiary.com, with links to the originals (and NOT to dustdiary.com, whose search engine rank I'm not going to help):

The stolen goods	The victim
cogiantsfan.dustdiary.com	MostProper (caution: adult content)
koondog518.dustdiary.com	Project Management
vactguy.dustdiary.com	List Semester
heybigguyg.dustdiary.com	Book Notes New Hampshire

The latest on "Steve at CBCS"

"Steve at CBCS" is still at it, leaving messages on people's answering machines and then trying to make them pay alleged debts. But he has reportedly shifted his tactics. When I was getting his calls in 2005, he left mysterious messages with no explanation, saying I should call back on some unspecified important matter. Now, according to RJC, he's telling them that by not being at home and answering the phone, they have assumed responsibility for a debt.

In the case cited, they also sent a letter. In my case, "Steve" was just calling blind, and I never got any letter or other communication identifying me by name or asserting a debt. At that time the trick was apparently to get people to call back and then make up a debt. Now "Steve" is getting more aggressive.

But the way to deal with his phone messages remains the same. Ignore them. I haven't seen one of Steve's letters, so I can't say how to deal with those. But definitely keep the letter; with hard copy in hand, you may be able to bring charges of extortion.