Monday, January 14, 2008

Civil Liberties? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Civil Liberties!

Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Dancing Spychief Wants to Tap Into Cyberspace: "Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”

At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What exactly is a goat rope?

Unknown said...

Good question.

Brent McKee said...

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Perhaps a lesson that Mr. McConnell (and much of the current US administration) deserves to learn.

Unknown said...

Agreed. I suspect they never heard that.

Anonymous said...

I should have looked it up.
According to Wikepedia, "Goat rope is also military slang for a 'messed up' situation." And my Dictionary of American Slang defines goat f**k (or screw or rope) as "A very confused situation, operation, etc.; = Chinese fire drill."

Unknown said...

We should have figured it out from the context.