{"id":38310,"date":"2013-07-17T10:32:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T16:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/17\/the-law-is-not-good-with-fuzziness.html"},"modified":"2014-11-06T10:05:49","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T17:05:49","slug":"the-law-is-not-good-with-fuzziness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/17\/the-law-is-not-good-with-fuzziness.html","title":{"rendered":"The law is not good with fuzziness"},"content":{"rendered":"
People tend to think of the law as … well … black and white. \u00a0Something is illegal, or it is not. \u00a0Or some act is a crime, some item is a weapon of mass destruction, some person is a terrorist … or not.<\/p>\n

But definitions are fuzzy things, especially when you have a variety of people doing the defining, and especially when there's an incentive to keep expanding those definitions. \u00a0The citizenry shouting loudest to stop terrorists don't necessarily understand who's being defined as a terrorist (or what actions are prosecutable as terrorism) today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the NSA's surveillance programs, and the idea that they okay, because, well, it's only being used on terrorists ("But zey vere all bahd!")<\/i> \u00a0Terrorism is a fuzzy label, though, and, worse, once you justify use of pervasive surveillance techniques on terrorists, then who's next? \u00a0Child pornographers? \u00a0Murderers? \u00a0Drug dealers? Movie pirates? Inside traders? Income tax evaders?<\/p>\n

The pressure to use these tools, when available, is always there, and "Well, right now<\/i> we're only use them for X, we'd certainly never use them for Y" is unpersuasive, especially when some folks hear that and start saying, "Well, hey, Y is pretty bad, too, and we've already made the investment, maybe we should<\/i> …"<\/div>\n

\n

\n \n <\/div>\n

Mission Creep: When Everything Is Terrorism<\/a>
\n NSA apologists say spying is only used for menaces like “weapons of mass destruction” and “terror.” But those terms have been radically redefined.\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People tend to think of the law as … well … black and white. \u00a0Something is illegal, or it is not. \u00a0Or some act is a crime, some item is a weapon of mass destruction, some person is a terrorist … or not. But definitions are fuzzy things, especially when you have a variety of … Continue reading “The law is not good with fuzziness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-star-wars-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":983,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/28\/terrorism_by_an.html","url_meta":{"origin":38310,"position":0},"title":"Terrorism by any other name is … a blank check?","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 28-Oct-01 2:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The ACLU goes into the new, broad definition of terrorism in the newly-passed USA PATRIOT Act (somebody spent way too much time fiddling up that acronym). Even though the 9-11...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4813,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/12\/30\/radioactive_see.html","url_meta":{"origin":38310,"position":1},"title":"Radioactive Seeds","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 30-Dec-03 10:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"(I started thinking about terrorism, then the Farmers Almanac, then flashed on an old Gilligan's Island episode. Sorry.) From all quarters, Left, Right, and Center, comes general ridicule for the...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134044,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/06\/when-the-terrorists-win.html","url_meta":{"origin":38310,"position":2},"title":"When the terrorists win","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 6-Aug-17 10:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"There may be some nuances to this story that are only known or apparent to Australians, but the core message that \"You can't build a synagogue here because it might lead to a terrorist attack in the neighborhood\" sure sounds like those hypothetical terrorists have already won their point. A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133930,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/21\/wait-we-can-bring-al-qaeda-terrorists-to-civilian-trial-on-us-territory.html","url_meta":{"origin":38310,"position":3},"title":"Wait, we can bring Al Qa'eda terrorists to civilian trial on US territory?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 21-Jul-17 4:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Because for the last eight years (and several years before that), it was the determined position of the GOP in general (and among many Dems, too), and both Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions in particular, that such a thing was way, way, way too dangerous. A terror suspect might escape\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":885,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/05\/rush_to_judgmen.html","url_meta":{"origin":38310,"position":4},"title":"Rush to judgment (or at least to law passage)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Nov-01 10:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is, like most advocacy groups, more than a bit over-zealous in defending its ideological position. Its analysis of the USA PATRIOT Act, though, is both...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128873,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/17\/it-takes-two-to-terrorize.html","url_meta":{"origin":38310,"position":5},"title":"It takes two to terrorize","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Nov-15 2:45am","format":false,"excerpt":"Terrorism works because we allow it to work, because we allow an intentional, unanticipated act of violence to seize us with fear and drive us to emotional overreaction.'We are richer, and mightier, and far more deadly than any of our terrorist foes could dream of being. And yet we happily\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47061,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38310\/revisions\/47061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}