A Peculiar Blog

There’s a saying to the effect that those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. I saw something today that I have to say is very disturbing. It was a tagline somebody used on a post:
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the [...]

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the fact that there are government agencies doing a lot of snooping on all manner of Internet traffic. It’s also safe to say that since 9-11 this snooping has escalated massively. Now, the FBI is trying to get access to data that the NSA has [...]

Recently I wrote about the feds wanting to collect DNA from everybody arrested. Well, I saw an EFF story that says the public comment period for this proposed rule will end on May 19, 2008. It’s important to get as much input on this topic against allowing this wholesale collection of DNA from [...]

Given the track record of federal agencies going out of their way to gain power they shouldn’t have, this news isn’t exactly a surprise. The Feds have finally managed to pull off something that I know they’ve been wanting to do for a long time. They’re planning to collect DNA samples from everybody [...]

This news isn’t exactly a surprise given the FBI’s known history of misuse of power. Including the power to issue National Security Letters.
A NSL is different that a normal subpoena in two important ways. First, they do not require probable cause and they don’t have to get a judge to sign off on [...]

In the “It seems like this stuff is getting more frequent all the time” department it seems that there’s another round of the FBI admitting that they’ve once again been improperly using “Security letters” to get access to phone and Internet records of U.S. citizens. (This time they’re talking about events that happened in [...]