How to Revote the Patriot Act (Warrantless Wire Tapping aka Prism)and restore the appearance of freedom to the united states

[wanamingo]

Obviously, if we don't agree with them on certain political issues then we [strike]don't agree with them on anything.[/strike] aren't Americans.

 

[dogman_1234]

You guys are adorable.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I like the vid on risers link, it mentions terrorists more times by government officials other than republicans than Ive heard since waaaaaaaaaaaay before the election.
Now I guess its OK to take out and dust off that word.

PS I dont want to suffer fools, and is why Im against many dems who follow the party line, like before the election, terrorism and terrorists werent to be mentioned, and now, they want to defend why they need to spy on us.
I know, many republicans thinks its OK as well, get rid of them as well, way I see it, its 4 to 1, dems lose

 

[musical marv]

I do worry about my country, I worry that my people are subecting themselves to ignorance, to social engineering. We are the terrorists in the governments eyes...not those rag-head @$$-hats.

What happened on September the 11 was trajic. So was Pear Harbour, the Civil War, 1812, and the lives lost during our Revolution.

This is clice' but I think it wa ol' Benny Frank who said: "A nation that desires security over freedom deserves neither."

We cannot live in a perpetual state of fear. It is not only bad for our country but for our health. We are already the most unhealthy nation on earth. Add the stress to these 'terrorists', who are just mere murderers in my eyes. They take the souls of their fellow man and crush it. I respect the fact that we as a nation must defend ourselves against threaths of violence, but there is a limit to how much the government can help the people. As a liberal, I see the government as a helping hand in times of need. We the People are the helping hand to our fellow patriots and it is our duty to serve, protect, and enforce the Constitution and our God-given rights.

The USA PATRIOT Act is a boil on the face of liberty. It is a disease on our feedom. If we allow this contovery of an operative government that spies on itsw people, destroyes the lives of their fellow man, and end the lives of our greatest patriots...then the USA PATRIOT Act has failed to save us from the 'terrorists', for what is happeing is what they always wanted. It was the goal of Osama Bin Ladin to see that the US destroy itself internaly: Socially, Politically, and Economically. So far he and his men have been successful without the slightest bit of voilence on US soil. They are winning the war on terror.

Our forefathers died with blood on their faces, chest, and hands. They died knowing not what this nation would become and we are letting their souls live in vain. I cannot say we should allow them to harm us, but we must be resilient against these foregin murderers. They use their ideologies to justify their actions. They are cowards. I can tell you to rest assure that there is more courage and bravery in the heart of a child than these bastards.

We must not let them win. To effectively end the war on terror, we must ride the wave of voilence, of defeat, and of pursecution. Their souls will be striken with the upmost palgue no man or angle can imagine. Hell is where we live, but it will be their demise.

I say to them "Come at me bro!" I have nothing to lose but my life.

"Pain it temporary, Glory is eternal."

In essence the U.S. Government cannot be trusted any longer.Sad indeed.

 

[dogman_1234]

I do worry about my country, I worry that my people are subecting themselves to ignorance, to social engineering. We are the terrorists in the governments eyes...not those rag-head @$$-hats.

What happened on September the 11 was trajic. So was Pear Harbour, the Civil War, 1812, and the lives lost during our Revolution.

This is clice' but I think it wa ol' Benny Frank who said: "A nation that desires security over freedom deserves neither."

We cannot live in a perpetual state of fear. It is not only bad for our country but for our health. We are already the most unhealthy nation on earth. Add the stress to these 'terrorists', who are just mere murderers in my eyes. They take the souls of their fellow man and crush it. I respect the fact that we as a nation must defend ourselves against threaths of violence, but there is a limit to how much the government can help the people. As a liberal, I see the government as a helping hand in times of need. We the People are the helping hand to our fellow patriots and it is our duty to serve, protect, and enforce the Constitution and our God-given rights.

The USA PATRIOT Act is a boil on the face of liberty. It is a disease on our feedom. If we allow this contovery of an operative government that spies on itsw people, destroyes the lives of their fellow man, and end the lives of our greatest patriots...then the USA PATRIOT Act has failed to save us from the 'terrorists', for what is happeing is what they always wanted. It was the goal of Osama Bin Ladin to see that the US destroy itself internaly: Socially, Politically, and Economically. So far he and his men have been successful without the slightest bit of voilence on US soil. They are winning the war on terror.

Our forefathers died with blood on their faces, chest, and hands. They died knowing not what this nation would become and we are letting their souls live in vain. I cannot say we should allow them to harm us, but we must be resilient against these foregin murderers. They use their ideologies to justify their actions. They are cowards. I can tell you to rest assure that there is more courage and bravery in the heart of a child than these bastards.

We must not let them win. To effectively end the war on terror, we must ride the wave of voilence, of defeat, and of pursecution. Their souls will be striken with the upmost palgue no man or angle can imagine. Hell is where we live, but it will be their demise.

I say to them "Come at me bro!" I have nothing to lose but my life.

"Pain it temporary, Glory is eternal."

In essence the U.S. Government cannot be trusted any longer.Sad indeed.

Your statement in the sigma to my thesis. Well done!

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
I guess Jefferson was onto something here, tho of course, some people, and todays leaders knew soooo much more than he did, now, lets see them prove it to me, and alot, to regain my trust
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMbxICNEDao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_xNyrzB0xI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hY1eagq88

 

[teddymines]

Government is built on trust. It's the only way we will consent to be governed. They sure have done a good job of totally obliterating that trust haven't they?

All governments are made from people. The only chance I see for us to gain back trust in government is for the people running it to come forward when their line of work involves violating the constitution or laws. It breaks my heart to think that there are people getting paid to do something fundamentally wrong, and they keep quiet because of some sworn statement (I have to assume they didn't know the details before signing).

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I watched a guy on TV, lawyer, he was saying that Snowden did illegal acts.
He then went on to say he has represented others who stood against government policy, all classified, where in some cases we heard about it, and others where we hadnt heard about it, and his clients won, and therefore no leaks were surfaced.
But, to condemn Snowden just because he didnt come to this lawyer is what we see once again from our system, and some things need to be known and discussed, so our leaders can hear from us, and if such a person "wins" the peoples arguments side, or if this is also found unconstitutional, how then can a whistleblower be guilty?
Prosecuting Snowden is a step in the wrong direction for regaining our trust, because.....our constitution says, we are innocent until proven guilty, tho many in our government have also forgotten this

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Found this interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfFsy0w_-Hk

 

[dogman_1234]

Do we not sail on a ship of fools?

 

[musical marv]

I do worry about my country, I worry that my people are subecting themselves to ignorance, to social engineering. We are the terrorists in the governments eyes...not those rag-head @$$-hats.

What happened on September the 11 was trajic. So was Pear Harbour, the Civil War, 1812, and the lives lost during our Revolution.

This is clice' but I think it wa ol' Benny Frank who said: "A nation that desires security over freedom deserves neither."

We cannot live in a perpetual state of fear. It is not only bad for our country but for our health. We are already the most unhealthy nation on earth. Add the stress to these 'terrorists', who are just mere murderers in my eyes. They take the souls of their fellow man and crush it. I respect the fact that we as a nation must defend ourselves against threaths of violence, but there is a limit to how much the government can help the people. As a liberal, I see the government as a helping hand in times of need. We the People are the helping hand to our fellow patriots and it is our duty to serve, protect, and enforce the Constitution and our God-given rights.

The USA PATRIOT Act is a boil on the face of liberty. It is a disease on our feedom. If we allow this contovery of an operative government that spies on itsw people, destroyes the lives of their fellow man, and end the lives of our greatest patriots...then the USA PATRIOT Act has failed to save us from the 'terrorists', for what is happeing is what they always wanted. It was the goal of Osama Bin Ladin to see that the US destroy itself internaly: Socially, Politically, and Economically. So far he and his men have been successful without the slightest bit of voilence on US soil. They are winning the war on terror.

Our forefathers died with blood on their faces, chest, and hands. They died knowing not what this nation would become and we are letting their souls live in vain. I cannot say we should allow them to harm us, but we must be resilient against these foregin murderers. They use their ideologies to justify their actions. They are cowards. I can tell you to rest assure that there is more courage and bravery in the heart of a child than these bastards.

We must not let them win. To effectively end the war on terror, we must ride the wave of voilence, of defeat, and of pursecution. Their souls will be striken with the upmost palgue no man or angle can imagine. Hell is where we live, but it will be their demise.

I say to them "Come at me bro!" I have nothing to lose but my life.

"Pain it temporary, Glory is eternal."

Another saying is HUMAN NATURE CAN NEVER BE SATISFIED.

 

[amdfangirl]

Can I say I told you so?

I so told everyone so. Just down in the paranoid penguin parade.

Us crazy open-sorcerers trying to get PATRIOT revoked.

Last few paragraphs are the most important ones.

So the EFF was right. Surprise surprise.

This week, a flurry of amendments were introduced to try to salvage the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a “cybersecurity” bill moving through the house that’s been criticized as giving companies free rein to spy on personal communications and pass unredacted content (like emails) to the government. Though numerous amendments were suggested, a package of five amendments were put together by the bill’s primary author Mike Rogers (R-MI) and are likely to get accepted without much debate. Below is an overview of what’s in the Rogers package and how it fails to address the grave civil liberties concerns inherent in CISPA.

Before we dive into our analysis, it’s worth noting that this bill has faced a storm of controversy since EFF and other civil liberties advocates launched a week of action 11 days ago. This week, a group of security experts voiced concerns about the civil liberties concerns in the bill. The Free Market Coalition criticized the bill as “unduly expanding federal power, undermining freedom of contract, and harming U.S. competitiveness in the technology sector.” Presidential candidate Ron Paul was equally critical, calling CISPA “Big Brother writ large.” And President Obama has sided with the civil liberties groups. In a statement issued yesterday, the Administration stated that “Without clear legal protections and independent oversight, information sharing legislation will undermine the public's trust in the Government as well as in the Internet.” It also warned that if CISPA were to arrive at the President’s desk in its current state, “his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.”

Minimization Retention and Notification Amendment This amendment has a somewhat misleading title because it does little to actually “minimize” the retention of sensitive user data. In short, the amendment states that if a department or agency receives information that actually isn’t related to cyber security threats, they shall “notify” the entity that gave them the information. This amendment also says that data won’t be kept for purposes other than what has been outlined in the bill—but doesn’t actually narrow the expansive reasons that data can be kept.

The bill also states that the government “may” choose to “undertake reasonable efforts to limit the impact on privacy and civil liberties.” There’s no mandate to do so and no explanation of what constitutes “reasonable efforts.”

Definitions Amendment—We’ve been highly critical of the overbroad ways in which “cyber security” is defined in the bill. We’re concerned that typical privacy-protective measures like using Tor or pseudonyms might be deemed “cyber threat information” under the vague definitions of CISPA. The good news is that this amendment excludes intelligence pertaining to efforts to gain unauthorized access that “solely involve violations of consumer terms of service or consumer licensing agreements and do not otherwise constitute unauthorized access.” This is a step in the right direction because at least signing up for Facebook with a pseudonym is unlikely to get you reported to the FBI for attempting to gain “unauthorized access.”

Unfortunately, this amendment doesn’t address the serious problems with the vague definitions. Even after amendments, “Cybersecurity system" defines the system that “cybersecurity providers” or self-protected entities use to monitor and defend against cyber threats. This is a “system” intended to safeguard “a system or network.” The definition could mean anything—a Local Area Network, a Wide Area Network, a microchip, a website, online service, or a DVD. It might easily be stretched to be a catch-all term with no meaning. For example, it is unclear whether DRM on a DVD constitutes a “cybersecurity system.” And such a “cybersecurity system” is defined to protect a system or network from “efforts to degrade, disrupt or destroy”—language that is similarly too broad. Degrading a network could be construed to mean using a privacy-enhancing technology like Tor, or a p2p protocol, or simply downloading too many files.

Liability Amendment Liability exemption is one of the biggest problems with this bill. As we wrote in a post published yesterday:

the bill creates expansive legal immunity that makes companies and the government largely unaccountable to users. The bill provides “good faith” immunity for using “cybersecurity systems” to obtain information, for not acting on information that a company learns, and for making any decisions based on the information they learn. If a company learns about a security flaw, fails to fix it, and users' information is misused or stolen, companies cannot be held liable as long as the company acted “in good faith” according to CISPA. Companies “acting in good faith” are also excused from all liability for engaging in potential countermeasures, even if they hurt innocent parties.

So what did Rogers do to address these egregious issues? He changed the phrase “for using cybersecurity systems or sharing information in accordance with this section” to “for using cybersecurity systems to identify or obtain cyber threat information or for sharing such information.”

Basically, he didn’t fix it at all.

Limitation Amendment Frankly, this amendment doesn’t address any of the civil liberties concerns. It states: “Nothing in this section shall be construed to provide additional authority to, or modify an existing authority of, any entity to use a cybersecurity system owned or controlled by the Federal Government on a private-sector system or network to protect such private-sector system or network.’’ We suspect that this amendment is attempting to address the issue of black-box style network intrusion detection systems like Einstein being placed on private networks. However, this amendment doesn’t actually prohibit privately owned versions of Einstein being placed inside of networks – it just said that there’s “no additional authority” to do so.

Use Amendment The final amendment has to deal with the usage of data collected under cybersecurity programs. Under the current version of CISPA, although data collected by companies may only be shared for “cybersecurity” purposes, the government can use it for unrelated purposes because the bill allows the government to use it for “national security purposes." Provided “at least one significant purpose” is a cybersecurity or national security purpose, it may be used for other unrelated purposes. The only other restriction on the data is that it not be used for “regulatory” purposes—a term the bill leaves undefined.

The amendment narrows this usage—but not nearly enough. It still allows data collected under cyber security programs to be used for cybersecurity purposes, for the investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crimes, to protect individuals from death or serious bodily harm, for protecting minors from child pornography or other sexual exploitation or serious threats to their physical safety, and for national security.

“National security” is at best a nebulous term—and, at worst, a catch-all excuse for government snooping. As we’ve explained in our recent post on the topic, “the amorphous phrase 'national security' has invaded many arenas of government action, and has been used to justify much activity that did not involve legitimate terrorist threats. The most obvious (and odious) example is the unfortunately named USA-PATRIOT Act, a law that was sold to the American public as essential to combating terrorism, but which has overwhelmingly been applied to ordinary American citizens never even suspected of terrorism.”

There are several other amendments that are going to be considered, but it’s unclear whether those will be successful and EFF doesn't believe those amendments can ameliorate the core civil liberties concerns with this legislation—namely, the overriding of all existing privacy law to allow companies to share sensitive user data with the government. For now, we’re calling on the Internet to continue to call, email, and tweet at their Representatives urging them to support privacy-protective amendments and oppose CISPA as a whole.

Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/even-rogers-amendments-cispa-still-surveillance-bill

Bolded the important for you

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/238033-50-threats-freedom-freedom

 

[Reynod]

Sometimes, I can't sleep at night because someone on the internet is wrong. 😀

Gotta love XKCD.

@Oldman Chill out its the news and leisure forum.

FACT: The internet is full of rubbish and there are few gems out there.

You need a decent education and a decent upbringing.

Do we really need more paranid tripe ?

Really?

Starting a thread with references to Nazis and Israel?

Seriously ... If I were Jewish and I deleted every thread with a reference to Israel or the Nazis the internet would likely shrink by 30% ... add the extremist Islammic rubbish and all that would be left would be a bucketload of porn, anime, and illegal music, tv and Glenn Beck videos ... wait no ... I'd delete them too.

wiki is full of twisted rubbish and since nobody pays to access reputable databases, encyclopedias, and one can't find (due to the search engines being bought out by advertisers of penis enhancing medication) anything of worth inside the first pages on any given search its just time to give up.

I'm depressed now so I am going back to Freelancer ...

 

[riser]

And that last post is all crap except about Rey being depressed. 99.8% of the stuff on the internet has been checked out by Snopes and confirmed to be true.

 

[dogman_1234]

Do we not sail on a ship of fools?

Sometimes, I can't sleep at night because someone on the internet is wrong. 😀

Gotta love XKCD.

@Oldman Chill out its the news and leisure forum.

FACT: The internet is full of rubbish and there are few gems out there.

You need a decent education and a decent upbringing.

Do we really need more paranid tripe ?

Really?

Starting a thread with references to Nazis and Israel?

Seriously ... If I were Jewish and I deleted every thread with a reference to Israel or the Nazis the internet would likely shrink by 30% ... add the extremist Islammic rubbish and all that would be left would be a bucketload of porn, anime, and illegal music, tv and Glenn Beck videos ... wait no ... I'd delete them too.

wiki is full of twisted rubbish and since nobody pays to access reputable databases, encyclopedias, and one can't find (due to the search engines being bought out by advertisers of penis enhancing medication) anything of worth inside the first pages on any given search its just time to give up.

I'm depressed now so I am going back to Freelancer ...

Can I give another vote to reynod for being one of the most funny SOB s here please?? :lol:

p.s. why can't we have a digital archive of encyclopedias and dictionaries from around the world? Reputable sources that anyone can access but NOT alter.

Free books? Free education!??!

SOCIALISM!!!!!

That's why. No pay, no way...

 

[musical marv]

Sometimes, I can't sleep at night because someone on the internet is wrong. 😀

Sometimes i wish this dam internet never existed period. It is nothing but trouble and aggravation.

 

[MU_Engineer]

My two cents:

This is absolutely not surprising if you look at basic human nature. There are two major reasons to want to be in a position of power in a group. The first reason is to obtain personal power and influence by using the power of the group to benefit yourself and your backers. The second is to fight with the dominant group in power to decrease their power/influence over you and your supporters. Many folks here also get the side benefit of increasing their own personal influence by being notoriously noisy in opposition and that's really why they do it.

The power and influence of government is cyclical. Governments start out small and with limited powers but then grow as the citizens want the government to "do more" to help them. This attracts the power seekers who continually increase the power of the government as it benefits themselves. The massive government then becomes too unwieldy and collapses under its own weight or becomes too onerous to the citizens who then overthrow it. A small, limited government gets installed in reaction to the excesses of the previous huge government. This new government then undergoes scope creep yet again as people want it to "do more" and the cycle continues. The founders knew this and tried to put a hard limit on the expansion of the government to stop the cycle since that hadn't really been done before and they thought it might work, or at least was better than the alternative. But even that effort still fell victim to the cyclical nature of governments due to human nature.

We are currently in the "massive onerous government" stage of the cycle. The current government is mainly comprised of power seekers which is obvious in looking at the reaction to this PRISM scandal. You see a bunch of folks from both parties supporting the PRISM program as it increases their power. They viciously attack anybody who opposes them. That's why the Tea Party was targeted by the Democrat-controlled government in the IRS scandal and in coordinated media attacks during the election- they were an organized oppose-the-power-seekers group. That's why some Republicans are implying that folks who oppose the PRISM program are aiding and abetting terrorism. Our government being huge and dominated by power seekers explains why little actually changes when there are large numbers of people voted out of government and new ones take their place- the newly elected are mostly the same kind of power seeker as the people they are replacing.

The only way anything will change is when the government collapses under its own weight by running out of money to borrow to fund itself. That certainly seems to be the way things are headed as the current power seekers in power have realized that doing the "soft" Big Brother state and not getting too onerous like past states did is the best way to prolong their reign of power. They'd also like to be able to safely retire if they are still in power when the party ends rather than being voted out of life with a plurality of bullets. My guess is that the significant shrinking part of the cycle happens in 20-50 years depending on just how much power the power-seekers cling to when we are in serious financial trouble. If they keep going full speed ahead like they are now, it will be a pretty quick collapse in around 20 years. My prediction is that we follow Europe's path starting in about 10 years when we end up Europe's current situation of a do-or-die debt crunch situation. There will be some significant decreases in the size and scope of government that accrued since the post-WWI era over the subsequent several decades, dictated by financial constraints. Then we will end up with a smaller government for a couple of generations until the majority of the populace forgot what happened in the early-mid 21st century and again wants the government to "do more."

Unfortunately to most of the folks reading this who are probably between the ages of 15 and 35- you are very possibly going to spend most of your productive adult life in the crap part of the governmental cycle. It really started in 2001 with the massive power grab from the 9/11 related laws and the generally continually poor economy since the tech bubble burst that same year. However your grandchildren or great-grandchildren will probably be able to live in a better situation so there is some hope for the future. TEACH THEM WELL so they have half a chance of remembering what happened during our lifetimes and push the screwing it up back a generation or so.

 

[dogman_1234]

Here is a question for the THG community: I don't like people spying on me. I vale privacy. However, it seems as though we lump together criminal/wrongful activity with privacy. IIf I have nothing to hide, why do I need to wory about the government spying on me? I am not doing anything worong. They won't use my information against me? Anyone who challenges this is a conspiracy theorist. However, I am not a conspiracy theorist. Bunch'a loonies,( no, rey, we are not talking about money here,) who think the NWO is here to destroy us...etc...What I see is an overcomplicated attempt to stop 'terrorists'. What scares me is what is the legal defenition of 'terrorist'? Anyone who inflicts terror! so, by that logic...if the government fears the people, then we are the terrorists? Right?

Talks amongst yourselves!

 

[MU_Engineer]

Here is a question for the THG community: I don't like people spying on me. I vale privacy. However, it seems as though we lump together criminal/wrongful activity with privacy. IIf I have nothing to hide, why do I need to wory about the government spying on me? I am not doing anything worong. They won't use my information against me? Anyone who challenges this is a conspiracy theorist. However, I am not a conspiracy theorist. Bunch'a loonies,( no, rey, we are not talking about money here,) who think the NWO is here to destroy us...etc...What I see is an overcomplicated attempt to stop 'terrorists'. What scares me is what is the legal defenition of 'terrorist'? Anyone who inflicts terror! so, by that logic...if the government fears the people, then we are the terrorists? Right?

Talks amongst yourselves!

The issue is that the government isn't only interested in surveillance to identify criminal activity. They are clearly interested in surveillance of perfectly legal activity for their political purposes. The reporter wiretapping scandal involving the Associated Press, Fox News, and now it sounds like CBS as well, identify this. The government wanted to do that surveillance in order to be able to pre-emptively deflect and/or discredit any news that came out that made it look bad (in this case, with the "green energy" and Benghazi scandals). So you may not be doing anything illegal but if you do things they merely don't like such as support an opposition candidate or yourself run for office and oppose them, they could very easily go back through their records and find something that you said/wrote/texted/posted at some point in the past, take it way out of context, blow it way out of proportion, and absolutely beat you over the head with it to take the public's eyes off of the real policy issues and turn them to some non-"scandal" about you until you drop out of the race. I call it the Herman Cain effect, although I don't know if Cain actually had any wiretapping done to him. But the premise is the same. You absolutely have the right to oppose the current elected officials and their spying on you in order to perform a character assassination lest you ever oppose them is a very chilling effect on the political system, not to mention unconstitutional. THAT'S why you have something to "hide" even though you are not doing anything actually illegal.

The whole "conspiracy theorist" bit is yet more propaganda put out there by the government for its own benefit. They want to automatically discredit anybody who opposes them so they can get away with as much as possible. By the way, something is not a conspiracy theory when it has been demonstrated to be very much true on multiple occasions.

 

[riser]

Here is a question for the THG community: I don't like people spying on me. I vale privacy. However, it seems as though we lump together criminal/wrongful activity with privacy. IIf I have nothing to hide, why do I need to wory about the government spying on me? I am not doing anything worong. They won't use my information against me? Anyone who challenges this is a conspiracy theorist. However, I am not a conspiracy theorist. Bunch'a loonies,( no, rey, we are not talking about money here,) who think the NWO is here to destroy us...etc...What I see is an overcomplicated attempt to stop 'terrorists'. What scares me is what is the legal defenition of 'terrorist'? Anyone who inflicts terror! so, by that logic...if the government fears the people, then we are the terrorists? Right?

Talks amongst yourselves!

What if you are doing something like many other people and the government didn't like it after spying on your "nothing to hide" scenario. Then they pass a law making it illegal and come after you?

My buddy used to buy his cigarettes from the UAE. One day, Homeland Security sent him a letter stating if he ordered any more items from the UAE they would prosecute them. He was elminating the middle man when ordering his cigarettes and the US Gov't didn't like their loss of revenue on that one.

 

[MU_Engineer]

What if you are doing something like many other people and the government didn't like it after spying on your "nothing to hide" scenario. Then they pass a law making it illegal and come after you?

My buddy used to buy his cigarettes from the UAE. One day, Homeland Security sent him a letter stating if he ordered any more items from the UAE they would prosecute them. He was elminating the middle man when ordering his cigarettes and the US Gov't didn't like their loss of revenue on that one.

Your buddy probably was already violating import duty laws and Homeland Security simply found out about it. If he was being 100% legal, he should have replied to DHS and told them that what he was doing is legal and they are very free to lose any case they would take up against him. The only odd thing here is that it was DHS trying to enforce customs laws instead of the agency that is actually in charge of this, the Immigration and Customs Service.

 

[riser]

There was nothing illegal about it. They later on passed a law against it because so many people started buying cigarettes when the bans and increased taxes went into effect. This would have been around 2002-2003 time frame. That's just it, they pass laws when they find out people have other options around it.