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from the use-virtual-reality,-instead? dept.
Federal agents have persuaded police officers to scan license plates to gather information about gun-show customers, government emails show, raising questions about how officials monitor constitutionally protected activity.
Emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency crafted a plan in 2010 to use license-plate readers—devices that record the plate numbers of all passing cars—at gun shows in Southern California, including one in Del Mar, not far from the Mexican border.
Agents then compared that information to cars that crossed the border, hoping to find gun smugglers, according to the documents and interviews with law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the operation.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/gun-show-customers-license-plates-come-under-scrutiny-1475451302
First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Muslim.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:42PM
But who they are targeting, as determined by looking at the actions rather than listening to the justifications, are legal firearms enthusiasts, buyers, sellers, even just window-shoppers. They think that somewhere in this massive crowd of americans going about their business completely in accord with the law there might be a smuggler who does not, so they stalk everyone there. By the same logic they could arbitrarily decide that there was probably an enviro-terrorist active inside the green party HQ and therefore target everyone that visits it.
"As far as my understanding of the motives of gun owners, that mostly has to do with talking to the friends of mine who are gun owners, who often talk about those kinds of things."
Either your friends are idiots, or you systematically misunderstand what they say. Just from observing others, I'd have to guess the latter is more likely, but either is possible.
"My experience is that those gun owners that are really paranoid about the government knowing they are gun owners is that these aren't the folks that want a pistol to protect themselves or a rifle for hunting, but the guys who think their very survival depends on being able to fight the US government."
Yeah you sound like you don't get it at all.
The point to an armed citizenry is not to fight the government. It's to deter tyranny. Very different things.
If you look historically, Germany, Turkey, USSR, Cambodia, etc. there was a chain of dominos. Weapon registration preceded weapon confiscation, and weapon confiscation preceded full scale tyranny, and there's a reason for that. A government which rules a disarmed and helpless populace feels less need to act with restraint. A government which knows its own population is armed and could, in the extreme, resist it, is simply by virtue of that knowledge a government which is better behaved, more desirable. No shots need to be fired, it only needs to be aware that its people are not helpless before it, is that distinction too fine for you?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:04PM
So let me get this straight: You aren't actually prepping to fight the government, you are only threatening to fight the government but aren't actually willing to carry it out. And somehow, the government won't notice that this is an empty threat, and respond as if it were a real threat.
I have a much simpler way of deterring tyrannical governments in democracies such as the US: Vote for somebody who won't do that and will stop those who try. This has been working well enough regardless of available guns for a couple of centuries.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:17PM
Till now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by redneckmother on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:25PM
Respectfully, I must disagree with your assertion that voting can or will change anything.
To me, it is painfully obvious that the electoral system is rigged in the US.
Few people who SHOULD be elected ARE elected, and those in power remain in power.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:46PM
Respectfully, I must disagree with your assertion that voting can or will change anything.
The problem is that democracy requires an informed participating public to work as intended. We have neither in the US. Too many people do not vote in primaries and general elections. Too many people have no interest in issues that will truly affect them, if they become politically concerned at all it is in getting outraged over mirage issues. People are convinced to vote against their own interests not for altruistic reasons, but because they fear someone they consider undesirable will benefit as well. It requires personal effort of every person to be informed, we geeks and nerds discovered long ago that science, math, nature, tech, etc. are far more interesting and important than Keeping Up With The Kardashians, too many people would rather take the easy way out.
We have roughly a 90% retention rate for a Congress that has roughly a 10% approval rating. They should be voted out, every one, in the primaries. In the House every two years, in the Senate every six years, the President every four years, at least until things start to change. Combine that with 90-100% voter participation, and we would bring the current power structure crashing down.
(Score: 2) by J053 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:55PM
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:14PM
Would you rather be hanged with a red rope, or a blue rope? You get to vote!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1) by Arik on Wednesday October 05 2016, @05:06PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @06:19PM
Wow, its like you deliberately misunderstand the point in an attempt to make the point sound ridiculous. People prep to fight and simply hope it doesn't come down to that. Some are empty threats, some are not. Regardless, history has shown that it is entirely possible for a country to go from freedom loving awesomeness (har har) to oppressive fascism with a very short period of time.
I haven't heard too many stories about preppers going crazy and killing people, but I have heard plenty of stories about government agencies abusing their power. I can ignore a prepper, but I can't ignore a cop pulling me over and confiscating the cash I took out from the bank to buy a used car.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Wednesday October 05 2016, @06:47PM
> By the same logic they could arbitrarily decide that there was probably an enviro-terrorist active inside the green party HQ and therefore target everyone that visits it.
There was that whole COINTELPRO thing. In the 1980s there were reports about plate numbers being written down during meetings of leftist groups. A group called Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) was investigated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CISPES#FBI_investigations [wikipedia.org]
Here's a report about plate numbers being written down as part of that. Sorry for not having a more credible source:
As a result of the FBI's operations, tens of thousands of names have been added to the bureau’s terrorism files- names of people whose only offense has been to write a letter in support of the nuclear freeze movement (which the FBI obtained by virtue of a mail intercept on the post office box of freeze organizers) or to attend a meeting of CISPES or other groups (where the FBI recorded and traced license plates and other information in order to identify activists)
The FBI’s five year, nationwide investigation did not result in the arrest of a single activist for criminal or terrorist activities.
-- http://thoughtcrimeradio.net/2014/10/cointelpro-in-the-80s-the-new-fbi/ [thoughtcrimeradio.net]
Other groups, says another questionable source, were also investigated:
The Committee of Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and 200 other anti- Reagan groups also were targeted by the intelligence community. FBI Director William Sessions - - who eventually moved over to head the CIA -- denied that these operations were ordered by the Reagan White House or that they were politically motivated. When the General Accounting Office attempted to investigate CISPES, the FBI refused to allow the files to be reviewed. However, the GAO did obtain files on 18,144 FBI international terrorism cases between 1982 and 1988.
-- http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book16Ch.1.html [angelfire.com]