Analysis of New Internet Wiretap Laws

securitas writes: "The most controversial part of the Combatting Terrorism Act of 2001 is Section 832 (full text) that would expand government powers to capture information about your Internet activities. A UCLA law professor and the former NSA general counsel debate the pros and cons at Slate in a series of e-mails this week (see the upper left hand side for links to each day's exchange). Here's an overview at the NY Times Archive (no registration required)."

US control

I'm french and getting really worried by these laws. They won't stop terrorists, because these huys are ready to die for their "success", but they will deprive anyone else, especially law abiding citizens, of the freedom and privacy they deserve.

Its only the begining

And it will get worse

All you can do is ask your congresswoman/congressman to not vote for it... and try to tell people whats wrong. Don't shout- these laws are about hysteria and thats what has to be fought.

Stop Whining

Obviously wiretapping is not a perfect solution. In an ideal world, all communications would be 100% secure, and would never be read by anyone but their intended recipients. However desperate times call for desperate measures.

I value my privacy as much as anyone else, but SOMETHING must be done to protect the safety and security of this country.

Given the choice of having the NSA/FBI read my e-mail, and having more terrorist attacks like those on 9/11, I would gladly concede a bit of my privacy. If it would save the lives of other innocent people, I would personally print out all of my communications and had them to the FBI.

If you value your privacy more than human life, you should seriously consider reevaluating your priorities.

Does anybody find it ironic...

...that an article on security is publihed by microsoft?

Six of one, half dozen of the other...

In case we haven't all looked out our windows and peeked around recently, this world is pretty fucked up for the most part. As much as I am for privacy and anonymity, I question whether or not I'm willing to trade it for my (and my family's) safety. I absolutely despise the idea of the government being able to peek at what I view and who I send email to, but with the people there are in the world today I question whether or not I really care. I guess anymore I've grown to accept the fact that the government is having to weigh between individual privacy, or universal safety. Which is more important to you?

Is this something that could open doors and lead to abuse of the law or even more invasion into our private lives? Absolutely. However, I'd prefer the government know which porn pages I visit rather than risk a plane crashing into MY town or my childrens' school.

This sums up Congress right here:

1. We must do something
2. This is something
3. We must do this

[QED]

Encryption is the only thing to worry about

As long as we are allowed to have strong encryption your web browsing can still be private. All you need to do is go through a proxy server that many other people go through. As long as your connection with the proxy server is encrypted all the feds will see is one connection to it.

Many people..

In that news survey, said they were willing to give up some privacy if it would have prevented the attacks. Well.. what a loaded question.

Would they also be willing to give up that privacy if it would have both prevented those attacks, and meant the government now recorded everything you say? I doubt it.

What if they had outlawed any interstate travel wtihout a license to be presented at each state border? Hmm.. I doubt it.

Also... what's with all the buzz about increased airline security? These hijackers could have used *anything* and accomplished their mission. They did not have big, scary guns or deadly weapons. They had tiny sharp objects, and the threat of a bomb.

I wonder if any changes will be made to FAA regulations regarding travelling without presenting identification (You CAN do this, perfectly legally, by the way... the airlines are NOT allowed to demand identification.. though they have different procedures to follow if you don' thave any, regarding handling of your bags)

Blanket Terms, Expanding Power

In section 832, there is a part that expands the circumstances under which the new powers can be used:
"...(E) an attack on the integrity or availability of a protected computer..."
How they define 'protected' could have a lot of impact on the scope of the law. Does this only apply to military computers? All government machines? Or how about any machine that is encrypted, eventually important systems on a machine that are encrypted. With the SSSCA (which required built-in copy protection), will every new machine be 'protected'?
While that is probably not the aim of the framers of this bill, there are plenty of other instances where powers of slowly expanded through the use of such words, and there are other such places in this bill. Interpreting the what the law means will be up to the courts.

Poorly timed email

Baker, Sept. 17, 10:30am: But frankly, I don't hear a lot of calls for sacrificing civil liberties today.

Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sept. 17, 7:30pm: In a press conference earlier today, Ashcroft indicated that he would be asking Congress to expand the ability of law enforcement officers to perform wiretaps. EFF believes this broad legislation would result in unintended negative consequences for civil liberties of law-abiding ciizens by making it unnecessary for law enforcement officers to obtain a court wiretap order before requiring ISPs to release e-mail message header information and Internet browsing patterns of their subscribers.

Perhaps Mr. Baker should have said "I didn't hear a lot of calls yesterday," just to be on the safe side.

Weak technology v's Eschrow

Seemt to me there are two important distinctions which have to be made in these privacy arguments:

1. Limiting available "secure technology" (e.g. strong ecryption export restrictions in the US) VS something like mandatory key eschrow.
2. National government having access to communications in its own territory / between its own citizens VS across national boundaries.

With the first I'm refering to attempts to criple available encryption software (e.g. through US export rules) which would basically mean that communication can only be weakly encrypted w.r.t to anybody (i.e. Joe Bloggs can crack my communications with my mother if he is determined enough). This is different to the UK's RIP laws which aim to force people to give copies of their keys to some government institution. The later solution means Old Joe is locked out whilst the government can still spy. (until somebody cracks the bank of keys...)

The second point is that it is fine and dandy for the US to wish to monitor all communications - do they expect to do this in China? in Russia? in the UK? Many of the communciations which might be involved in terrorist or illegal activity planned in one country may take in other juridictions. No doubt there is/will be inter government cooperation but it is unlikely to extend to sharing access to all communications in a given country.

Poor security technology (1. above) puts everybody at risk - governments would not be able to communicate safely, indivuduals would have their privacy compromised to anybody (not just the government). So you might be left with (at best) forced key eschrow and in the long run governments may be able to monitor their own citizens but they certainly wont have global access - those cryptologists will still have work to do.

"All your keys are belong to us..."

Dishonoring those who died

The acts of the political profiteers in this country who are using the deaths of thousands to push their pre-existing anti-civle liberties political agendas are only surpassed by the heinous acts of the terrorists themselves. Both parties are waging war against the American citizens.

There is no evidence, nor plausible scenario, in which internet wiretapping of American citizens could have prevented the horrific events of Spetember 11. All of the acts, as well as planning and support, was carried out by non-citizens, many who were apparently here illegally.

Question

Any ideas on what exactly this would mean for companies such as Anonymizer [anonymizer.com]?

At least on Congressman has a clue..

From a news.com [news.com] article [cnet.com]. Congressman Bob Goodlatte equates encryption backdoors to giving you house key to the local police. He's also pushing for more encryption not less inorder to make U.S. companies/systems more secure against cyber attacks.

Nice to see at he's got the right idea. Check out the article [cnet.com] for more of his comments...

IPv6

soon we'll have IPv6 where we'll be communicating securely by default. Is the US going to forbid the deployment of IPv6?

congressional oversight...

Quoting Baker on Carnivore: "What is the Internet equivalent of acquiring every phone number the target dials? The Justice Department thinks that's an easy question-it's the Internet address of the sites he visits, the "to" line on his e-mails..."

But what is to stop the FBI from actually reading the content of the message sent in that email? We need more than congressional oversight on projects like Carnivore. When they have this much technical capability, the ability to ensure that it be used properly must also be stronger. Hell, the judicial system requires a jury of the accused's peers; why can't we call on the same private sector to provide security professionals to verify the legal use of information gleaned from Carnivore. This way, the checks and balances that were built into the government from day one are upheld, and they get their toy.

In a separate thread, the loudest message I seem to hear so far is regarding the trade of small amounts of freedom for lives. These people seem to be trying to make the point that 'we are in a war, sacrifices must be made from every American.' If this holds true, than the war has been raging for years. The unfortunate sacrifice was the 6000+ people in the WTC. Let us all honor their sacrifice, and uphold our freedoms that much stronger. America is not simply the land, the buildings and the people who occupy it, but also an intangible property that gives it's citizens freedom and rights. To paraphrase a movie, the politicians think the people of this country exist to give them power, but we think the power the politicians wield exists to provide those people with freedom.

PS - the subject line is as intended.

Expectations of privacy

I find this amendment and the analysis by the New York Times really interesting (If you skipped the NYT article, read it, it makes sense of the language in the amendment). It seems, in my reading (note that I am not a lawyer) that this amendment is formalizing a power that has been granted to U.S. Attorneys for a long time, namely that the tracing of addressing information is subject to a lower standard than an invasive search.

Now, expiration of these powers aside, if my assumptions are correct, much of this boils down to what the expectation of privacy is when you communicate via the 'net. In my opinion, it's very low. That's why I use encryption for private communications (e-commerce, private emails).

I go back to the post card analogy, especially with respect to email. Email is sent in clear text and through a potentially variable path in attempts to deliver it. I wouldn't send packets containing private data without protection. Encryption is the envelope, so to speak.

Now, the issuance of new legislation without built in checks and expirations is concerning, but the body of SA 1562, sec 832 doesn't really strike me as heinous. I fear the slippery slope, of course. Perhaps the better argument is that this information is subject to stronger requirements of proof before a warrant is issued (anyone know what case law is the basis for lower standards of proof for this "Tap and Trace" kind of warrant).

Laws that may affect my ability to keep private that which I want to keep private are more concerning, IMHO.

This sort of thing will definitely define what I'm going to be thinking about all day. Gotta decide whether to write to my elected officials about this one (Of course, both of the senators from my state (AZ) are sponsors of this). I'm going to have to get a postage meter to keep track of all this snail mail I'm sending to Washington).

Once again, Ben said it best:

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

what worries me...

After these laws are in place, and the fight against terrorism is successful (let's assume), what's to stop them from being used for other crimes?

We can use it to fight pedophelia. How about monitoring for words that suggest the writer likes young boys and girls, and searching his home, looking for kiddie porn. Maybe he made a joke, maybe he just has a desire for kiddie porn but would never think of downloading any and breaking the law, maybe he was writing an article on pedophelia. Better check him out, just in case. Maybe since it costs us so much money to check these guys out, we better make sure we make a few arrests, right?

Drug use: careful, if you tell your friends you're going to smoke a few bowls tonight after the show, you might find the police at your door. What's that? You don't smoke pot and never will, just trying to be cool? Son, you've wasted our time tonight. We better put you in jail for the evening anyway..for this bag of pot we happened to find in this drawer. Yeah, we have no idea how it got there either..now come along.

How about the RIAA/MPAA asking to monitor for illegal copying? It's illegal right? So how could anyone argue against it? Just check filenames and URLs going by and if they match up with a copyrighted work, shut down the ISP account. Since there are SO MANY of these infringements every day, we can't possibly verify each one by hand, so maybe a few innocent people get shut down, so what? You'll have a chance to show that copy of Oops, I did it again [tigerbeat6.com] was actually not by Britney Spears (but thanks for pointing out that trademark violation).

Another different example.. speeding is illegal. So why not just wire up the speedometer so that when the speed limit is exceeded for 10 seconds or more, you get a small fine. I mean, speeding is against the law so there's no argument here. Sure, you might be passing that big truck and have to gun it for a while, but you'll have your day in court, the surveillence video will show your innocence. Unless of course someone abuses their power, but that never happens in government right?

So my fear is not so much when we're fighting terrorists, it's when we're at peace again and the power these laws may grant gets abused. Power corrupts.

Of course this is all a little extreme but we have to be vigilant because corruption comes little by little, piece by piece...

Check out Salon.com

Salon [salon.com] has an article on its front page [salon.com] addressing these same issues. Check it out.

This is totally out of line...

There's no reason for this. There's no reason to believe that giving the government these powers is going to help stop terrorism at all. Do I like the fact that 5000+ people died? Hell no! Am I going to give up my freedom, the freedom that so many more have died trying to protect? Hell no!

Sure, these people did not ask to die protecting our freedom, but if these people are looking down on us right now and seeing what their deaths are causing to happen to our freedoms do you think they'd be happy? I believe it would be the opposite. I believe that they'd be sickened to know that our government is using their deaths as an excuse to push forth an agenda they've been trying to push forth for as long as I can remember. I think they'd be sickened to know that their families' privacy was going to be thrown away. If it were me that had been killed in that blast I would be looking down and be greatly saddened to see that my death was a catalyst for a large step in the annihilation of our freedoms.

I have said it before and I will say it again. I'd much rather die defending our freedom than killing it. I hate to tell these people this, but criminals don't care what the laws are. You create backdoors in encryption and the bad guys will simply create one that doesn't have backdoors. You tap phone lines and Internet communications and they'll simply use postal mail or just meet somewhere. They didn't respect the no-fly zone over Washington when they crushed part of the Pentagon! Why should they be scared by laws they can easily get around even if it is illegal to do so?

All this is going to do is make it easier to control the general populace by discovering all the skeletons in their closets and using it to shut them up, and to keep them from making insulting remarks about the government. I love this country, and I love its people, but I love what America stands for even more. If the government takes away the freedoms that so many have died to protect, then it is my country no longer, and I will leave it for England, Australia, Scandanavia, Switzerland, or some other country which does not have such needless and pointless laws.

I hear so many of those on here saying that without security you don't have freedom. I say to you that is absolutely false. They can take some of our lives away from us, but there are too many of us to take all of them. They however, CANNOT take away what it is that we stand for. We have to give that up, and I, for one, refuse to do so! Sure, there are some things that need to be improved upon. Airport security must remain tightened as it always should have been. Having an non-uniformed armed guard on all flights should be a no-brainer. Sure, it may make people feel a little anxious, but it doesn't violate their freedoms at all.

It's also been said that only those that have something to hide should be worried about this. Well, I have some news for you. I'm sure if you dig back way way into your past that you probably have something you'd rather not have revealed. Everyone has skeletons in their closets, no matter how small, and if you've ever looked at some of the former Soviet Union's and Hitler's propaganda from the past, you know that governments have an uncanny ability to make a mountain out of a molehill. Let's assume that you are the one exception and that you do have no skeletons in your closet. Well, all it takes is a slip of the tongue, or a misuse of words in your sentences sometime and it can make you sound really bad. If Big Brother wants to make you look like a bad guy, he can. Make no mistake of that.

If these revisions are made then I will probably be monitored by the feds because of some of the things I've said in this post because they don't sound very patriotic. Hell, I may be being monitored now for all I know, cuz, what the heck, abuses happen all the time. It worries me, but I'm not going to let it stop me from saying what I feel needs to be said.

Load the question in the other direction....

Would you be willing to tear down the White House and the Capitol, build a big effing mosque from the stones, with the Washington Monument for a minaret, and then invite the Taliban bastards to come and rule over us, if it would make us secure from terrorist attacks?

What about WebMail?

Suppose a terrorist (or other criminal) organization was planning to use the internet to communicate via e-mail. Suddenly, there is a backdoor in the latest e-mail encryption software. And for some reason they can't simply continue using the pre-backdoor earlier version.

What is to prevent them setting up a WebMail site on a web server somewhere? Only, make the site a "Secure Site" using HTTPS (SSL, is it?)

Or is there to be a backdoor in secure web documents too? Because it will blow eCommerce out of the water if there is. Just think of all those credit card transactions going to and from "Secure Sites" with a gaping backdoor in them!

Did the War on Drugs end drugs??

Will the War on Terrorism end terrorism? No matter how much money you throw at it no matter how much technology no matter how many rights and liberties you abridge or discard both drugs and terrorism will be with us.

At least Ronald Regan knew he was kidding when he "The Soviet Union has been outlawed. The bombing will begin in 5 minutes".

Throughout history we've many directors of homeland security: Robespierre, Himler, Lavrenti Beria, Vichy France, Cromwell, the Staasi. Not a good plan for us either.

Swiss cheese

I offer this to you all as an example of free speech. IMHO this is a really gutsy guy who's opinion is a valuble contribution to the situation. To those interested in alternative middle eastern-american views i reccomend the
Most magicians would admit that it's all done with smoke and mirrors. A few words for slash dot. Damn fine forums and reporting.

The Iranian
* Editorial policy
Truman's legacy

Presidents become president when they have their war
By KayArash Serri
September 21, 2001
The Iranian
Few people in the world are not aware that at 8:45 a.m. local time on
11th of September 2001, a passenger liner, which had been had been
previously
hijacked, crashed into one of New York City's World Trade Centre Twin
Towers.
Eighteen minutes later another hijacked plane crashed into the Southern
Tower; subsequently both towers collapsed. The Pentagon was attacked an
hour later in the same manner. Camp David just missed total destruction.
The world caught its breath and watched. American airspace was closed.
The U.S. armed forces were put to high alert just short of war status.
There
were reports of more hijacked planes, unconfirmed reports of attacks
against
the State Department and the Congress were coming in. It seemed as if the
mighty U.S. was unable to stop these terrorists from attacking wherever
they wanted to, whenever they wanted to.
It was the perfect doomsday scenario Hollywood films were trying to
portray
over the years, and the world watched on, mesmerized, while casualty
estimates
ran well into four figures at the least, a fact that distresses every
human
being.
Instantly all fingers of accusation were pointed at Osama Bin Laden,
the exiled Saudi millionaire who's living in Afghanistan. But
interesting
enough this mastermind of the 1998 attack on U.S. embassies in Africa, who
always proclaimed his feats loud and wide, denied any involvement --
though
he praised the attacks.
As the drama ended and the shock subsided, questions started to form
in the minds of people everywhere across the world. Questions such as
how,
in spite of mobile phones from passengers in the planes to the outside
world
informing them of their plight and the fact that all four planes had
changed
course and all radio contact had been broken, there was no leak of the
hijackings
until the first one crashed into the Northern Tower? There were
reservations
on how, all of a sudden, at least four planes, and according to some
accounts
eight planes, were hijacked at one go with no hitches?
Hardly 24 hours had passed before FBI officials stated that they had
caught a number of Arab suspects with many more identified and that a
hired
car supposedly used by the hijackers had been found with an Arabic
manual
for flying in it. Which itself raises the question that how was it
possible
that four groups of hijackers evaded the vast and efficient American
security
services successfully for who knows how long and then they leave behind
such incriminating evidence and that their accomplices are being rounded
up
in such a short time.
American officials are saying nothing on how these terrorists evaded
their security and intelligence forces for so long, but all of them,
right
up to President Bush, believe that this was not act of terror but an act
of war, a war the likes of which the world has never seen. In their
opinion
the whole civilized and democratic world faces an adversary that hides
in
the dark and strikes when you are least prepared. A new kind of warfare
indeed, but then the Americans are used to ingenuity in warfare methods
as the Cold War bears out.
On August 17th 1945, just three days after the announcement of Japan's
surrender, Harry S. Truman, the then U.S. president, declared that he
would
ask Congress to approve a program of universal military training for all
healthy American youth. As he explained a few days later: "If we are
to maintain leadership among other nations, we must continue to be
strong
in a military way." A statement that rang with an interventionist
policy.
But the American people were traditionally against interventionist
policies,
so much so that Congress resoundingly defeated Truman's call for
universal
military training. An end to U.S. internationalist policies? Not so.
Louis J. Halle was one of the new breed of thinkers in the State
Department
in 1945. In Halle's view, which can be taken to represent the State
Department's
non-ideological, "realist" approach to foreign affairs, international
relations deal with "such a distribution of power among a number of
centres
as prevents the acquisition by any one of enough power to make itself
masters of the rest.". Obviously for the American statesmen at least
no one centre should be more powerful than the U.S.
"The American people," Halle writes, "shaped by their
long tradition, could not accept considerations of power politics as
reasons
for going to war," either in 1945 or at any other time. Nor Halle nor
any other American statesman, whose career has been devoted to
international
politics, would assume that the American people could possibly be right
in having such non-interventionist perceptions. Thus, says Halle, since
the American people would not accept what members of the State
Department
felt was a realist's explanation of the need for interventionism, the
people
had to be given some other explanation. And so, for example, the World
War
I was advocated as a "war to make the world safe for democracy".
Interestingly even Halle believes that there is "a sort of fatality
about these matters. If the American people had been told the truth in
1917,
if they had fed on the reality instead of on dreams, then" -- so Halle
asserts -- "'they would not have fought, and the war would have been
lost, and anarchy" -- open to debate -- "'would have triumphed
and would have prevailed over the world. So the American people were
told
the opposite of the truth, and they fought for it, and the war was won."
Deception, Halle believes, is not a lamentable by-product of foreign
relations, but rather an essential precondition of having any foreign
relations
at all; only thus will an ignorant people allow their leaders a free
reign
to pursue a "realistic" interventionist foreign policy.
This from the nation that claims it stands for truth and democracy.
In whatever light one considers interventionism, there is a fatality
to Halle's way of thought, too: having laid the foundations of foreign
policy
on deceptions, it is difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to avoid
becoming
the captive of a policy that is untrue and unrealistic. However, Halle's
basic perception of post-World War II America was nonetheless true. The
President and his men in the State Department were interventionists; the
rest of the country was anti-interventionist. The situation looked bleak
for the statesmen indeed.
Fate intervened. On Friday afternoon, February 21st, 1947 a member of
the British embassy in Washington, First Secretary H. M. Sichel arrived
at the State Department with two notes for General George C. Marshall,
secretary
of State. What the two notes reported in essence was the final end of the
Pax
Britannica. Rule Britannica existed no more. The
Empire had, as Hitler intended, bled to death. This was the chance all
American
statesmen had waited for, a chance to take over Britain's imperial role.
On February 27th, Truman met with Congressional leaders in the White
House. Dean Acheson, the then undersecretary of state, was called upon
to
deliver a speech for taking up Britain's role, the undersecretary's
oration
left the congressmen stunned and silent. At last Senator Vandenberg
spoke
up. He had been much impressed by Acheson's speech, he said, but, if the
president really wanted to sell this program to the American people, he
would have to "scare hell out of the country."
The Truman Administration had long ago commenced to do just that, and
their first step had been to invite Winston Churchill -- then leader of
the opposition party in Great Britain -- to deliver his famous "Iron
Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri on March 5th, 1946. Stalin,
unwittingly,
helped advance Truman's plans even further with his desire for more
power
and complete domination over Eastern Europe.
With the world beginning to realize that the end of World War II would
not bring peace and tranquillity, President Truman addressed a joint
session
of Congress on March 12th, 1947, his speech later became known as the
Truman
Doctrine: "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States
to support free people... If we falter in our leadership, we may
endanger
the peace of the world -- and we surely endanger the welfare of our own
nation."
The Cold War, with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as its
prologue, had started. Truman had his war at last and with the full
backing
of the Congress and feeble resistance of a frightened nation, he was
free
to pursue his interventionist policies as he deemed fit. According to
Lyndon
Johnson, war, whether hot or cold, is what enables a President to assume
maximum amount of power. "Roosevelt," said Johnson, "was never President
until the war came along." Similarly, Truman was never
president until he had his war.
Four decades later, after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. faced the
same predicament, but was saved by Operation Desert Storm, the conquest
of Iraq, whose invasion of Kuwait was effected only after they thought
they
got an encouraging nod from the American Ambassador in Baghdad. With the
break-up of the Soviet Union and the subduing of the Middle East, it
seemed
as if there were no more excuses for an internationalist policy for
American
statesmen.
Until September 11th, 2001, which was interestingly described by another
congressman as "Pearl Harbor II", whether he also meant to "scare
the hell" out of the country is purely an academic question, since the
instigator of these attacks has succeeded in that aspect at the least.
This attack also managed to create the perfect public tone for the
pursuance
of interventionist policies. With President Bush stating that this, the
first war of the third millennium, is a crusade that will continue for
many
years and with the fact that campaigns against terrorism are a
never-ending
battle as several thousand years of experience has shown, it seems that
the events of September 11th are, for the American statesmen even if for
no one else, a godsend.
If one takes a look at that Machiavellian principle of the end
justifying
the means, which has been the basis of diplomacy for all governments,
specially
Western ones, since conception, one must take into account that the
definition
of "means" is not only what we use or do, but also what we refrain
from using or doing.
Even if hard fact evidence is procured showing that Bin Laden or some
other extremist group was the main mastermind behind these events, the
question
still remains, Why were the American security and intelligence services,
which are the most capable in the world and who have shown their
competence
in the last week to the full, so dormant in the weeks and months leading
up to this atrocious episode?
Comment for The Iranian letters
section
Comment to the writer KayArash Serri
The Iranian
* Editorial policy
Truman's legacy

Presidents become president when they have their war
By KayArash Serri
September 21, 2001
The Iranian
Few people in the world are not aware that at 8:45 a.m. local time on
11th of September 2001, a passenger liner, which had been had been
previously
hijacked, crashed into one of New York City's World Trade Centre Twin
Towers.
Eighteen minutes later another hijacked plane crashed into the Southern
Tower; subsequently both towers collapsed. The Pentagon was attacked an
hour later in the same manner. Camp David just missed total destruction.
The world caught its breath and watched. American airspace was closed.
The U.S. armed forces were put to high alert just short of war status.
There
were reports of more hijacked planes, unconfirmed reports of attacks
against
the State Department and the Congress were coming in. It seemed as if the
mighty U.S. was unable to stop these terrorists from attacking wherever
they wanted to, whenever they wanted to.
It was the perfect doomsday scenario Hollywood films were trying to
portray
over the years, and the world watched on, mesmerized, while casualty
estimates
ran well into four figures at the least, a fact that distresses every
human
being.
Instantly all fingers of accusation were pointed at Osama Bin Laden,
the exiled Saudi millionaire who's living in Afghanistan. But
interesting
enough this mastermind of the 1998 attack on U.S. embassies in Africa, who
always proclaimed his feats loud and wide, denied any involvement --
though
he praised the attacks.
As the drama ended and the shock subsided, questions started to form
in the minds of people everywhere across the world. Questions such as
how,
in spite of mobile phones from passengers in the planes to the outside
world
informing them of their plight and the fact that all four planes had
changed
course and all radio contact had been broken, there was no leak of the
hijackings
until the first one crashed into the Northern Tower? There were
reservations
on how, all of a sudden, at least four planes, and according to some
accounts
eight planes, were hijacked at one go with no hitches?
Hardly 24 hours had passed before FBI officials stated that they had
caught a number of Arab suspects with many more identified and that a
hired
car supposedly used by the hijackers had been found with an Arabic
manual
for flying in it. Which itself raises the question that how was it
possible
that four groups of hijackers evaded the vast and efficient American
security
services successfully for who knows how long and then they leave behind
such incriminating evidence and that their accomplices are being rounded
up
in such a short time.
American officials are saying nothing on how these terrorists evaded
their security and intelligence forces for so long, but all of them,
right
up to President Bush, believe that this was not act of terror but an act
of war, a war the likes of which the world has never seen. In their
opinion
the whole civilized and democratic world faces an adversary that hides
in
the dark and strikes when you are least prepared. A new kind of warfare
indeed, but then the Americans are used to ingenuity in warfare methods
as the Cold War bears out.
On August 17th 1945, just three days after the announcement of Japan's
surrender, Harry S. Truman, the then U.S. president, declared that he
would
ask Congress to approve a program of universal military training for all
healthy American youth. As he explained a few days later: "If we are
to maintain leadership among other nations, we must continue to be
strong
in a military way." A statement that rang with an interventionist
policy.
But the American people were traditionally against interventionist
policies,
so much so that Congress resoundingly defeated Truman's call for
universal
military training. An end to U.S. internationalist policies? Not so.
Louis J. Halle was one of the new breed of thinkers in the State
Department
in 1945. In Halle's view, which can be taken to represent the State
Department's
non-ideological, "realist" approach to foreign affairs, international
relations deal with "such a distribution of power among a number of
centres
as prevents the acquisition by any one of enough power to make itself
masters of the rest.". Obviously for the American statesmen at least
no one centre should be more powerful than the U.S.
"The American people," Halle writes, "shaped by their
long tradition, could not accept considerations of power politics as
reasons
for going to war," either in 1945 or at any other time. Nor Halle nor
any other American statesman, whose career has been devoted to
international
politics, would assume that the American people could possibly be right
in having such non-interventionist perceptions. Thus, says Halle, since
the American people would not accept what members of the State
Department
felt was a realist's explanation of the need for interventionism, the
people
had to be given some other explanation. And so, for example, the World
War
I was advocated as a "war to make the world safe for democracy".
Interestingly even Halle believes that there is "a sort of fatality
about these matters. If the American people had been told the truth in
1917,
if they had fed on the reality instead of on dreams, then" -- so Halle
asserts -- "'they would not have fought, and the war would have been
lost, and anarchy" -- open to debate -- "'would have triumphed
and would have prevailed over the world. So the American people were
told
the opposite of the truth, and they fought for it, and the war was won."
Deception, Halle believes, is not a lamentable by-product of foreign
relations, but rather an essential precondition of having any foreign
relations
at all; only thus will an ignorant people allow their leaders a free
reign
to pursue a "realistic" interventionist foreign policy.
This from the nation that claims it stands for truth and democracy.
In whatever light one considers interventionism, there is a fatality
to Halle's way of thought, too: having laid the foundations of foreign
policy
on deceptions, it is difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to avoid
becoming
the captive of a policy that is untrue and unrealistic. However, Halle's
basic perception of post-World War II America was nonetheless true. The
President and his men in the State Department were interventionists; the
rest of the country was anti-interventionist. The situation looked bleak
for the statesmen indeed.
Fate intervened. On Friday afternoon, February 21st, 1947 a member of
the British embassy in Washington, First Secretary H. M. Sichel arrived
at the State Department with two notes for General George C. Marshall,
secretary
of State. What the two notes reported in essence was the final end of the
Pax
Britannica. Rule Britannica existed no more. The
Empire had, as Hitler intended, bled to death. This was the chance all
American
statesmen had waited for, a chance to take over Britain's imperial role.
On February 27th, Truman met with Congressional leaders in the White
House. Dean Acheson, the then undersecretary of state, was called upon
to
deliver a speech for taking up Britain's role, the undersecretary's
oration
left the congressmen stunned and silent. At last Senator Vandenberg
spoke
up. He had been much impressed by Acheson's speech, he said, but, if the
president really wanted to sell this program to the American people, he
would have to "scare hell out of the country."
The Truman Administration had long ago commenced to do just that, and
their first step had been to invite Winston Churchill -- then leader of
the opposition party in Great Britain -- to deliver his famous "Iron
Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri on March 5th, 1946. Stalin,
unwittingly,
helped advance Truman's plans even further with his desire for more
power
and complete domination over Eastern Europe.
With the world beginning to realize that the end of World War II would
not bring peace and tranquillity, President Truman addressed a joint
session
of Congress on March 12th, 1947, his speech later became known as the
Truman
Doctrine: "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States
to support free people... If we falter in our leadership, we may
endanger
the peace of the world -- and we surely endanger the welfare of our own
nation."
The Cold War, with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as its
prologue, had started. Truman had his war at last and with the full
backing
of the Congress and feeble resistance of a frightened nation, he was
free
to pursue his interventionist policies as he deemed fit. According to
Lyndon
Johnson, war, whether hot or cold, is what enables a President to assume
maximum amount of power. "Roosevelt," said Johnson, "was never President
until the war came along." Similarly, Truman was never
president until he had his war.
Four decades later, after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. faced the
same predicament, but was saved by Operation Desert Storm, the conquest
of Iraq, whose invasion of Kuwait was effected only after they thought
they
got an encouraging nod from the American Ambassador in Baghdad. With the
break-up of the Soviet Union and the subduing of the Middle East, it
seemed
as if there were no more excuses for an internationalist policy for
American
statesmen.
Until September 11th, 2001, which was interestingly described by another
congressman as "Pearl Harbor II", whether he also meant to "scare
the hell" out of the country is purely an academic question, since the
instigator of these attacks has succeeded in that aspect at the least.
This attack also managed to create the perfect public tone for the
pursuance
of interventionist policies. With President Bush stating that this, the
first war of the third millennium, is a crusade that will continue for
many
years and with the fact that campaigns against terrorism are a
never-ending
battle as several thousand years of experience has shown, it seems that
the events of September 11th are, for the American statesmen even if for
no one else, a godsend.
If one takes a look at that Machiavellian principle of the end
justifying
the means, which has been the basis of diplomacy for all governments,
specially
Western ones, since conception, one must take into account that the
definition
of "means" is not only what we use or do, but also what we refrain
from using or doing.
Even if hard fact evidence is procured showing that Bin Laden or some
other extremist group was the main mastermind behind these events, the
question
still remains, Why were the American security and intelligence services,
which are the most capable in the world and who have shown their
competence
in the last week to the full, so dormant in the weeks and months leading
up to this atrocious episode?
Comment for The Iranian letters
section
Comment to the writer KayArash Serri

"routing, addressing and signalling data"

As the artical pointed out, this is supposed to be extending the existing phone number logging web access. Given that is the intent of the law, the govt agencies would be well advised to not interpret it literally. If they do, there is a good chance of having their cases tossed out of court... I would think that the most they could conceivably use safely would be the domain name portion of a URL and even that carries some content. The IP address (without the domain name) sounds like it would be covered, though.

Re:Multiculturalism VS Freedom

So, um...you're a Klan member, right?

No You are a moron

Without multiculturalism the America would not be the superpower it is today.

Where do you get this from?