FBI Collecting your Information

[Belushi]

Most of you guys are North American, so this may come as a bit of a shock to you all. This is a dangerous world we live in and you pay a group of people to protect you. To do that they have to have information. To get that information they have to ask.

You want to complain about cameras on street corners? WE have them in the UK. It reduces crime - considerably.

You want to complain about your rights to free speech? At least you can complain about the enforcement agencies in your countries, WE have the Official Secrets Act. It means if we complain about police brutality or declare that we want to be Jedi Knights as a religion (dont laugh, it has been added to the religious list) we get visits from the authorities.

If we want to complain about our government's treatment of religious groups, we can be detained by a wonderful group call Special Branch, who do not give anyone your whereabouts, or allow you a phonecall for three days.

But these people are paid to serve the interests of the country and the majority of people accept this. Those who dont, can go to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park in London and voice their opinions. But expect a call from the authorities afterward.

Some of you talk about infringements of your civil liberties because the FBI is trying to compile a list of scuba divers, that may swim up your rivers, enter your coastal regions. If they protect/save one life from any mad person trying to blow up your country who cares.

In reality you have no civil freedom. Everything you buy with your credit card is logged, every phone call you make is logged somewhere. How do you think that they send you direct marketing mail, because of what you buy and where.

Everytime you log onto your computer and surf, people are collecting data on the sites you visit.

Civil freedom is the ability to complain about the lack of civil freedom. Visit Burma/Laos or Zimbabwe and then talk about lack of civil freedom.

 

[seaangel]

Just my $0.2, those oppossing video camera surveillance must not use banks, ATM's, or shop anywhere because guess what we are on cameral all the time these days. Do you even think about it when shopping, buying gas or getting cash to go on a dive trip. I doubt it. Hey, maybe even the LDS has surveillance set up. I know my husbands store does, and the monitors are in his office. I don't think about it when I go there but I sure do watch the monitors to see who enters, and I even pointed out a suspicious guy. He is part owner in a large jewlry store and yes they profile some of the customers that are just looking. I don't want to get a call from the authorities to inform me that he has been shot, because they were robbed and no one saw it coming.

 

[rstone]

Originally posted by seaangel
Just my $0.2, those oppossing video camera surveillance must not use banks, ATM's, or shop anywhere because guess what we are on cameral all the time these days. Do you even think about it when shopping, buying gas or getting cash to go on a dive trip. I doubt it. Hey, maybe even the LDS has surveillance set up. I know my husbands store does, and the monitors are in his office. I don't think about it when I go there but I sure do watch the monitors to see who enters, and I even pointed out a suspicious guy. He is part owner in a large jewlry store and yes they profile some of the customers that are just looking. I don't want to get a call from the authorities to inform me that he has been shot, because they were robbed and no one saw it coming.

Umm last time I checked your LDS didnt have a direct wire connection to the Government or for that fact the local grocery store, etc... Nice try though

 

[wannabe]

Originally posted by Belushi
Most of you guys are North American, so this may come as a bit of a shock to you all. This is a dangerous world we live in and you pay a group of people to protect you. To do that they have to have information. To get that information they have to ask.

You want to complain about cameras on street corners? WE have them in the UK. It reduces crime - considerably.

.....

Civil freedom is the ability to complain about the lack of civil freedom. Visit Burma/Laos or Zimbabwe and then talk about lack of civil freedom.

It flat out isn't our way of life.

If you noticed I said the cost of not trampling our rights are acceptable to me (and most good Constitutionalist).

We packed up and left a civilized part of the world for our freedoms.

If we wern't butting in where we had no business in the first place we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Nothing is safe. I sure don't want anything taken away from me in the interest of safety. I prefer to look out after my own safety and my retierement money. I can do it better than anyone else can. Even If I can't, I'll take the responsability. People want to be protected, you are not. The police will not stop you from being harmed, they wiil punish the ones who harmed you. No help to you. We can't carry the pocket knife at work that we have had in our pockets since we were eight years old because it is a feared weapon. The cowardess of the general population sickens me. If you want to be safe in your home at night, learn to fight. The protection and safety some seek does not and never will exist. It is merely an excuse for some to have more power over the rest than they should. Too many want others to take the responsability. Same reason we have so many law suits, it's always somebody elses fault.

 

[sharpenu]

I would like to point out that WE ARE NOT AT WAR! War can only be declared by congress. Everytime the president (whomever he is) decides he doesn't like something, we call it a war. War on poverty. War on drugs. War on crime. Yet, in the end all that ever happens is that we lose more of our rights in exchange for ... what? We still (40 years later) have poverty. 20 years later, we still have drugs. We still have crime. My bet is, we will still have terrorism. As a responder to terror incidents, I can tell you that terrorism has been present in the US for years. Most of them are domestic. The steps taken are only feel good measures for the press that will have little, if any effect on terrorism.

The truth is, there is no conspiracy to steal your rights by the government. It is simply the nature of governments (and humans) to increase funding and power. ie "We could do this if only we had more (money, authority, whatever... fill in the blank)"

Please don't think that giving up your rights will prevent terrorism. What it will do is erode your rights away until you wake up in a dictatorship. An old Indian saying went something like: "You can't boil a frog by throwing him into a pot of boiling water. He will jump out. The way to do it, is to put him in the pot of cold water and place the pot on the fire. He will be boiled without realizing it until it is too late."

 

[Spectre]

Originally posted by sharpenu
Please don't think that giving up your rights will prevent terrorism.

I have _yet_ to hear anyone actually convincingly argue that the FBI inquiring about suspicious individuals seeking scuba certification is giving up any rights?

If the FBI comes to my door to inquire about my scuba instruction, then go right ahead... They've been in my life before and it's not any big deal. I'd much prefer answering a few questions that could possibly prevent a bridge from being blown up, expecially since there are a couple bridges around here that if blown up will seriously screw my summer plans up!

 

[MNScuba]

Umm, yes... we ARE at war. Tell my nephew who is in the Army that we ARE NOT AT WAR.

Besides, if anyone thinks their lives are completely private they are kidding themselves. I'm not going to worry about someone finding out I am a diver any more than them finding out I have a driver's license.

Some people like to complain, I personally don't really care much about what the government wants to find out about me. Heck, they probably already know how many times a day I go to the bathroom anyway.

Freedom?
Do you really think that them checking diver records is loss of freedom? How about 'freedom of speech', that has to be one of the biggest jokes of them all. We basically have the right to say whatever we want, but only under certain circumstances and situations. Censorship is freedom? I don't think so.

We are not a "free" country, we are just more free than most others.

 

[Windknot]

Right ON......

My musings were obviously lost in all of the rhetoric.

I directly challenge anyone to show me what rights the FBI or any other law enforcement agency has violated.

I tried to broach the subject furtively in the hopes that a direct challenge would not be needed.

OK....ANYONE...tell me....what Constitutional Right has been violated by the FBI ASKING for information about scuba students?

Did the FBI take your LDS owner to a dark room and beat it out of him/her????

They simply asked for information. If the LDS gave it to them then be pissed off at them....not the FBI for doing their job to SAVE YOU.


COME ON PEOPLE.....SHOW ME THE PROOF.

____________________________________________

By the way.....I also concur...we are at war...ask my brother and all of the soldiers under him who are out there getting their heads blown off if we are at war.

 

[sharpenu]

Well, you ask what rights we are giving up by the FBI checking our records with NAUI. Well, MY copy of the constitution has a section called the Bill of Rights. Let's see what they say.

Amendment 4:
No right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue....and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

When I gave that paperwork to NAUI, I gave it with the expectation that it would be held in confidence. They have no more right to share that information with the FBI (unless there is a warrant) than they do to sell that information to a marketing company. I did not give them permission to share that information with anyone.

Maybe if the FBI were to start with the records they already have, thye would catch these people. You know, INS and customs records. In this case, the ones you are looking for are already on record. THEN you go to NAUI, PADI, etc and ask them if any of the following people have had SCUBA training. Don't go on a witch hunt of our citizens.

and MN Scuba-
As far as the statement about your nephew: Let me first express my hopes for his safe return and tell you that my thoughts are with all of our service members.

However, we are not at war. According to the constitution, only Congress has the ability to declare war. Perhaps I missed something. When DID we declare war? While I do agree that our troops are involved in COMBAT, they are not at war. A whole separate set of rules applies when you are at war. Even aside from the constitution, there is the Geneva convention. The enemy in this case is not the regular forces of any country, and as such the Convention does not consider them to be an army. They are MURDERERS. To call them an army by saying we are at war is to grant them a legitimacy and rights to which they are not entitiled. Closer to the truth would be to call them Pirates. The ones in Cuba are not POW's, because they were never soldiers.