Obama Passing Laws to Search Citizens Computer.

[Elvis]

Yea what I meant earlier was that the formation of our foreign policy is not centered around a single individual. I think most would agree with me here - it's common sense.

There are several vested interests in blah blah. That's not to say that Obama can't deviate - but I doubt he will. He's already said that the Bush strategy in the ME has given him an idea of what he'll do.

More troops to blah. And continued support of blah. Oh, I did read this, this morning.

A Last Chance For A Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement: A Bipartisan Statement on U.S. Middle East Peacemaking

[Summary stolen from my favorite political blog, Mondoweiss]

The report was created through Henry Siegman's U.S./Middle East Project and written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chuck Hagel, Lee H. Hamilton, Carla Hills, Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, Thomas R. Pickering, Brent Scowcroft, Theodore C. Sorensen, Paul A. Volcker and James D. Wolfensohn. Not a too shabby a lineup. If they can't budge U.S. policy, we might as well pack up shop.

Click for relevant digression. I didn't want to spam up the thread with Israel-Palestine stuff too much.

Spoiler: show

The report is worth reading, but a few things stand out. First the time line, from the report:

Failure to act would prove extremely costly. It would not only undermine current efforts to weaken extremist groups, bolster our moderate allies and rally regional support to stabilize Iraq and contain Iran, but would also risk permanent loss of the two-state solution as settlements expand and become entrenched and extremists on both sides consolidate their hold. In short, the next six to twelve months may well represent the last chance for a fair, viable and lasting solution.

Emphasis mine. The clock is ticking, Obama, and you have the ball. It's no coincidence the Cohen's article on the report was titled "The Fierce Urgency of Peace." In the past few days it has appeared that the incoming Netanyahu government senses that the endgame is here, and it would seem that this distinguished panel would agree.

So, if this is true, what would stop the Obama administration from standing in the way? Rhetorical questions aside, they take this on as well:

Regardless of how the new administration organizes to deal with Arab-Israeli matters it will not avoid domestic political controversy. There are Jewish-American and Christian Zionist groups that feel comfortable amplifying the positions of Israeli politicians hostile to hard compromise and painful concession. At times the administration may take positions coordinated with an Israeli Prime Minister who may nevertheless feel unable, for domestic political reasons, to acknowledge his or her complicity. Moreover, there are virtually limitless ways in which actions and words emanating from Arab parties can make constructive American behavior look ridiculous. A disciplined American diplomatic approach can inadvertently yield bouts of domestic political unpleasantness that can spill over onto other priorities.

We do not, however, believe it is beyond the capability of any American President to explain to the American people why this long-running dispute must at long last be ended and why it will take much diplomatic heavy lifting and public expenditure to make it work. In the end the stakes are too high to pursue a hands-off or arm’s-length approach.

Translation: "The Israel lobby will try to stop you Mr. President, but it's time to put U.S. interest over short term electoral considerations and traditional alliances. You are the person to explain this to the American people." Is he up to the task? We'll see, but so far the signs are doubtful.And even if he is, can he move fast enough to make a difference?

This report ignores the question of what happen in a year when the window has closed - what next? There will be many questions on the table - postmortems of the failed plans of the past and new possibilities for the future. That thinking has already started and will continue this weekend in Boston at the conference "One State for Palestine/Israel: A Country for All Its Citizens?" I'll be there and will post reports - reports from the future.

[Kuya]

Common sense somehow doesn't seem to stop this thread from heading towards the whole Bush-Obama deal again, which if you've noticed, happens in practically every political thread that isn't related to guns or abortion. Somehow all debates end up with one side attacking Obama and the other defending Obama, in this case i'd like to hear what groups are lobbying for this legislation, i think that's far more important.

edit: of course, the thread does have Obama's name on it, but that sort of reinforces what i'm saying.

[Zosi]

The reason people are getting so defensive about Obama is precisely because of the thread title. It's completely inaccurate, and pretty obviously an attempt to scare people into thinking that Obama's passing laws left and right to let the government spy on their home PCs. If you want a serious discussion, don't make dumbass flamebait titles like that.

The leaked draft of ACTA from 2007 (available on WikiLeaks) covers border searches of electronic devices for "illegal" intellectual property. This isn't new, there's been discussion about that particular provision for a while. In case there's any doubt, I don't support such searches and think that they're blatantly unconstitutional. I'm not alone on that, and IF this ever reaches the point where it becomes law, there will be serious constitutional challenges. A lot of the rest of the leaked draft actually (/shocked) covers issues more directly related to counterfeiting and "real" IP theft like industrial espionage.

We have no info at all on the *current* draft, and we're unlikely to until the final treaty is negotiated. Obama recently denied a FoIA request for the current draft, which isn't surprising given that there's an exemption for foreign policy/national defense matters. Also, contrary to what the article linked from the YouTube video claims, trade treaties do NOT have the force of law in the US unless they're reconciled with US laws, which this treaty would require.

[Tomk]

Apparently an organization called "The Electronic Freedom Foundation" requested information about this twice from both Bush and Obama and both times they were denied by claims of Executive Order #12958.

Executive Order 12958 on Classified National Security Information

Both Bush and Obama are equally involved here as far as I'm concerned.

On the other hand and agreement made with other Countries cannot give the US Government more power over US citizens.

Edit: Darn you Zosi and your fast typing.

[BRP]

This looks fake. Second source?

Especially one that actually references what laws, not just "laws".

Youtube is not enough for you? Next you'll tell me you wouldn't trust Sun magazine. I swear to god people are too obsessed with the facts.

Anyway, I refuse to let government officials access to my computer which contains thousands of perverted, but legal photos of Asian women feet.

[Jer]

Hate to burst some bubbles here, but how are they going to search your computer remotely? They will either need to hack it first or install a trojan.

Conficker? Considering it infects machines with pirated copies of windows, it would be a good bet they also have other illegally obtained software/music/movies on it.

Obviously the answer is that everybody who downloaded the 'racy' photos of Miley Cyrus had a backdoor installed. And everybody downloaded those. Right?

[Khamsin]

Well, it should be obvious who's lobbying for this.


Wouldn't Obama be more relevant to this forum's demographic? Could always be that Zigma just doesn't like Obama, but i don't think it's really worth arguing about that over say this whole computer searching business.

This forum probably cares more about Obama than other world leaders, but the mention of that fact is to keep this news from being a "Obama is just like Bush, he hasn't changed anything at all!" type story.

[guartz]

Hate to burst some bubbles here, but how are they going to search your computer remotely? They will either need to hack it first or install a trojan. This stipulation alone will make large scale searching infeasible or financially prohibitive, let us not forget this is not some Hollywood movie where hacking into NSA only takes about 5 minutes and a $199 dell netbook. Also, There are some federal cases recently that set the precedence that you do not have to give up your password to your encrypted HD because it falls under the 5th amendment of the constitution. I don't think this will be as much a threat as everyone thinks.

I will answer your questions.

First of all,

Global Information Grid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(possibly)
Nanotechnology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and
DARPA | About DARPA
Sun knocked out of DARPA supercomputer project | Tech News on ZDNet

and
NASA's Intelligent Archives Project
A Testbed Demonstration of an Intelligent Archive in a Knowledge Building System

[guartz]

oh right, although officially struck down, TIA still exists too.

EFF: Total/Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA): Is It Truly Dead?

but you make your own decision.

[Suburbanelite]

This isn't Obama's creation. Bush didn't write this shit. All they do is look at a bill and decide if it's got any viability or not. That's it.