On Tuesday, April 30, 2002, at 12:55 PM, Michael Motyka wrote: > As a simple illustration of the inability to separate the "Good Guys" > from the "Bad Guys" I use my experiences with my Visa card company. I > use the damn thing to buy gas a few times a week and every so often I'll > use it for a big ticket item like a PC or a Spa for example. At which > time I generally have to spend 20 minutes on the phone with the numbnutz > at the credit company explaining that despite the fact that their SW > tells them I behave like a credit card thief ( testing the card at the > relatively low-risk gas pump then buying a laptop ) I really am the > customer, the card is in my posession and I really do want to use it. I > usually get a warning about my language at which point I am allowed the > priveledge of speaking with some sort of manager. Maybe I am a bad guy > since I curse and almost never carry a credit card balance. Very > unpatriotic.
This has never happened to me, even the time I bought my $23,000 Ford Explorer on my VISA card. (This really happened.) There may be some difference between our types of cards or backgrounds, etc. But you make a good point, that the "net" to snare bad guys is snaring vastly more ordinary people. The seizure of funds in politically incorrect bank accounts is of course another example. > I remember that in the weeks post 9-11 Safeway or one of the other > grocery store chains offered to profile customers. What are they going > to do? Question everyone who buys olive oil, chick peas, garlic and > sesame paste? The whole surveillance thing is bound to proceed at > breakneck speed and bound also to be a useless waste of effort. The next > terrorist event will probably be something quite unexpected and not > easily detected. Which was obvious on the evening of 9/11, that the next attack would be something quite different. But the goals of establishing a surveillance state are still being accomplished, so why argue? --Tim May > - "The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789
