From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 08:38:00 +0800
To: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Subject: Re: Surveillance State Delayed
In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970529165544.0378ce64@panix.com>
Message-ID: <199705300023.RAA15917@netcom11.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>The gloom and doom types like to claim that it is trivial for the almighty 
>Feds to find out everything about every one, look inside the souls of all of 
>us, separate the good from the evil and unerringly punish the evil.  
>Omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence. Oddly enough, this claim is often
>made 
>by people who, otherwise, don't believe in God.
>

not sure if you are referring to TCM here as a "gloom and doom" type.
but it seems that we ought to be able to design a government that
does not rely on the supposed inherent incompetence of bureacrats
and or humans in general for security of the citizen. in other words,
your general argument that "see!! feds are really STUPID!! they 
wouldn't be SMART enough to infringe on your rights!!" is a pretty
lame argument overall.

>But this article on citizenship revocation gives lie to this claim of state 
>power.

state power in the US, as it stands currently. but what the past shows
is that government can change abruptly. it only matters who is in 
power. I think what people here are worried about are abrupt changes
in the government, which can happen quite fast 
with e.g. new laws that are legislated. there are plenty of cases
where the entire government has changed radically *without* even
law changes. the manipulation of the ITAR and e.g. the recent
changing in policy relative to the amount of money that is reported
to FinCEN by banks are good examples. the government can change its
mind on a dime. 

  Citizenship applicants have submitted vast quantities of information 
>about themselves to the Feds.  They have undergone years of a staged and 
>complex process to move from nonresident alien to resident alien to citizen.  
>At every point, they NARCed themselves out in detail directly to the federal 
>government.  And yet, that same government can't even tell if these people
>are 
>"criminals."
>
>If they can't efficiently surveil and regulate this group, what chance do
>they 
>have to regulate and surveil the other 260 million of us?

a totalitarian state is quite possible, although difficult to conceive
of. it's a problem that some people
are interested in solving. what is most difficult is an "invisible
tyranny" in which the inhabitants are not even aware of their
imprisonment, and perhaps even defend such a situation.
 a system that we live in right now, imho. (but to elaborate on 
this would rely on conspiracy theories)