DISQUS

galapagolarry · 1 year ago

There is so much disturbing about this article, including the reporting. Where to begin?



"...analysts who access a dozen data bases...": exactly which data bases? Do the maintainers of these data have the authority to share them? Did they have legal authority to gather them? (Disregarding the ultimate question posed later in the article: where does the CIAC get its authority?)



"...if a report is not deemed to merit further inspection...": Deemed by whom? By what level of personnel?



"...CIAC workers make a log of the event.": Which workers? What are their qualifications? Are they securitized? Are ehey diligent? Why is this log not maintained automatically by software?



"...sharing information with other information gatherers...": Hey, I'm an information gatherer; please put me on the list to receive this information. Or have they already sold it to my insurance carrier?



"It's acautlly the federal government that's encouraging and directing them now." "CIAC falls under the command of the state patrol." "...policy decisions are made by the board." Hmm. Which of these statements is true? Any of them? As German says, "There are very ambiguous lines of authority. It's unclear who's in charge." What an understatement. Obviously, it's not the U.S. Constitution governing this bunch.



Oh, and this, most disturbingly, in re. Civil Liberties: " 'We don't think we have to give up the privileges [!] that come with being a law abniding citizen in order to be safe'," says Ben Stone, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa." Privileges????!!!! Those aren't privileges in the Constitution. They're rights !!!! And this from someone in the ACLU. Oh well, he's been listening to the fascists too long.



Now, as for who's in charge: Gov. Ritter, et al.; Mayor Hickenlooper, et al.; Rep. Diana Degette, et al.; Sen. Knighthorse Salazar, et al. Contact them. Holler. Loud. Who know's: you may become an event deemed to merit further inspection. Go for it.

galapagolarry · 1 year ago

Sorry for the transposed letters and misspelling in the hurried post above. This whole CIAC got me a bit "energized."

erinrosa · 1 year ago

Not at all, galapagolarry. Those are very good questions.

eric blair · 1 year ago

If I were writing a novel I would have the demonstrators set up "CON-FUSION" centers and would give these spying Poindexters something to worry about. I would, in my novel, encourage "dangerous surfing" and any other activity that these oppressors would find suspicious. I would have heroic computer jockies searching how to make Molotov cocktails and nuclear bombs. They couldn't find a real threat if the Presidential Daily Briefing said "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the USA". Why spy on us now because you didn't do your job on and before 9/11/01. There is no good reason to give up our naturally bestowed rights for just another totalitarian police state. The juxtaposition to the Chinese Olympic crackdown on dissent and our country's similar behavior is not to be dismissed. What was it Benjamin Franklin said? "A people that give up liberty for security deserve neither." We are getting what we deserve.