It's always amusing to see the reactions of people and organizations to the increased terror alert. The reaction at NYU was to buy plastic sheets and duct tape for the dorms. The Stevens reaction is even better:

STEVENS ALERT
Stevens Institute has been notified by the State of New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services of a change in the National Threat Level from Yellow to Orange. With this heightened alert it was felt that for a short period of time the southern entrance to the Howe Center should be closed and that all customers, faculty, staff, students and vendors should enter through the main entrance into the lobby area. Once this alert is lifted the Howe Center will be returned to the normal course of operations. I would like to thank all those individuals and groups who use the Howe Center for their understanding in making the temporary change. You may call me at extension 5340 at any time if you have any questions or comments on the above.
Thanks!
Henry P. Dobbelaar, Jr., P.E.

So, basically, the whole of Stevens campus is safe now because they closed a door to the Howe center. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I feel safer with that door closed. Because even if there were some kind of attack initiated from Stevens (there won't), if it's chemical or biological, access to the building isn't needed, and if it were a bomb, the Stevens police wouldn't know what to do. It's not like there's any more security at the one door they have still open, you could carry almost anything in there and not be questioned about it, or even looked at. Not to mention that it's a glass door, and the way up to it is blocked off with yellow Caution tape. I'm sure that anyone intent on large-scale destruction would, of course, not disregard the tape and break the door if they felt like it.

This is just another of a long string of foolish and nonsensical overreactions to a 'very specific threat' about which we don't know date, time, place, or method. This isn't just limited to Stevens, though. In DC, anti-aircraft missiles were deployed around the city, Congressmen have been given gas masks and are being told to keep $1000 at home (I fail to see how this really matters, if there is some kind of attack, money becomes much less of an issue (unless, of course, you're Starbucks)), and the security guards at the Capitol are now carrying submachine guns. What good is a submachine gun going to be? We all know from James Bond movies that if you have a submachine gun, you always miss, but with a pistol, one shot kills. Seriously, though, I can't see any circumstance whereby the security at Capitol Hill would be better off armed with submachine guns.

So we have a serious of moves with no practical purpose, that we're told are done to 'increase security', when in actuality, they do nothing more than inconvience people unnecessarily (as with what Stevens has done), or make people more afraid of the 'specific' general information our government claims to have.

From Granma International:

Frightened by the growing organization of resistance movements, from Tuesday, February 11 onwards the New York Federal District Court has banned all public demonstrations against the U.S.' announced war on Iraq.

Our first amendment tells us that "[Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting ... or abridiging] the right of the people peaceably to assemble". While this says nothing of our court system, I think we can all agree that freedom of assembly was specifically mentioned as a right that could not be taken away. Yet here we have a clear case of a judge doing exactly that, coincidentally involving a protest to Dubya's war. I'm not going to even claim there's any connection, the fact that this is happening is bad enough that it should cause everyone to take a long look at exactly what what we're allowing our government to get away with.

The first European settlers in America came because it was a place they could be free from the laws & discriminations of their homelands. When the Revolutionary War was fought, it was for freedom. The Bill of Rights is a testament to the fact that those who wrote the Consititution wanted to preserve our rights and freedoms, and specifically named some of these, and those which were not named, and not specifically given to the government in writing in the Constitution, were given to the people.

So when did the American people stop caring about the rights and freedoms that our nation's founders fought and died to obtain and preserve? When did we let the government start walking all over our natural rights? And why do we keep letting this happen?

On a slightly more positive note, though, House and Senate negotiators agreed on a Senate amendment to freeze programs like TIA, saying it won't get any funding until the program and it's impact on Americans can be thoroughly examined by a Congressional oversight board. At least there's some good news to come out of all this.

Quoted off a /. post:

That splashing sound you hear is immigrants swimming BACK to where they came from

What does that have to do with? The leak of the text of a proposed 'PATRIOT 2' act. For those unfamiliar with what the original act is, it's quite possibly the single largest finger given to the Constitutional rights in this country. Hastily thrown together in the wake of 9/11, the PATRIOT act expanded the powers of police and federal agents to conduct surveillance/wiretap/etc. without needing a court order to do this.

The lack of a court order means that 'probable cause' is no longer need to initiate these activities against an individual/group/etc., requiring in it's place the lesser standard of 'reasonable suspicion'. The end result - if someone, somewhere decided they don't like you, you can become a terrorist and be subject to a complete and total invasion of your privacy.

Perhaps the biggest example of the full effect of this law is the case of jose padilla, accused of plotting to make a dirty bomb. Arrested in Chicago, he was promptly labeled an 'enemy combatant' and locked up without being able to contact an attorney. Despite the fact that he had absolutely no means of making a bomb in his possession, he was still put into jail. When the government realized they had no evidence against him, they transferred him to military jail where he is still being held. Last month, a judge determined he could contact his lawyers; within a few days, the government was asking the judge to reconsider.

But enough about the original act. The issue at hand here is the potential for a second act with only makes these things worse. Some of the alarming things present here:

• the use of encryption during the commission of a crime would be a felony
• possible expatriation for joined a suspected 'terrorist organization'
• engaging in intelligence-gathering for a foreign power, even if this intelligence-gathering is not a federal crime, is grounds for classification of that person as an 'agent of a foreign power'
• allowing suspected terrorists to be detained without bail prior to a hearing

These are provisions that run completely contrary to America being a 'land of the free'. It seems that what the current administration is trying to do is make America such a locked-down police-state that no one will want to attack us.

EDIT: Forgot to link to the draft of the new act, check it out here.

EDIT2: Found an HTML page with the full text here.

ok, so I'm not god, but i think that living with someone close to it is enough to justify the title.

anyway, on to an explanation of what this is and why it's here. i'd been meaning to do something like this, but with life with mr. moiron and arsjerm, i finally got around to doing it. and so, without futhur ado, i present to you version 0.0 of chaotic. why chaotic? why the hell not, and i couldn't come up with anything better, and if i should find a better name, changing it here is trivial.

content will be added whenever i feel like it, figure on every couple of days, with periods of both increased and decreased activity. and since this is probably the only chance i have to provide some tech stuff about the site, i'm going to take full advantage. currently, the back-end of the site is perl & mysql powered. this script doesn't do a whole lot, it basically grabs the stuff from the db and makes it look somewhat nicer. eventually i'll make my own life easier and add an admin part, which will have a larger textarea than phpmyadmin does.

as for other stuff to see here, basically for now, there is nothing, but i'm working to add more useless stuff to the internet, i feel it's my duty. an about me section, pictures perhaps, and assorted files should be available as my laziness lessens (typically due to an increase in boredom of work). i'm working on adding some kind of comment system here, so you can bitch at me after i post something, if you should so desire. i'll probably come up with a whole long list of deluded ideas, and then never get around to implementing any of them in more than a half-assed way, but hey, it's the thought that counts, ain't it?