Indefinite Detention: The Baseball Bat to PCLoadLetter

The Senate recently took a giant deuce on the Constitution by passing S. 1867 National Defense Authorization Act, (read the ACLU's analysis here). They also failed to repeal it through the subsequent Udall (D-CO) sponsored amendment, which would have eliminated the indefinite detention of Americans. (Indefinite detention of non-Americans was always cool. We support our troops. Eagles cry and freedom and...stuff).

Basically, they want the government to be able to snatch-grab any "suspected terrorists" and hold them indefinitely without trial. Even American citizens. Yes, even on American soil. 

And it came from Senator John McCain, whose only qualification to lead this country discussed in the 2008 presidential race was: "I spent five-and-a-half years in the Hanoi Hilton during 'Nam."  A guy who spent half a decade being tortured as a prisoner of war now thinks all Americans should be eligible for indefinite military detention. Let that irony stew for a moment.

Hey,  John McCain! I heard you liked gettin'  SnatchGrabbed! Damn, dawg. Better hope you get a trial.

Anonymous, WikiLeaks, LulzSec

I want to discuss something. They are after a certain type of  'enemy combatant' now, and it is likely not you, anyone you know,  or even that cagey guy wearing Armani Exchange knock-offs from Beirut at your local shwarma joint. No, this is about something much more sinister: nerds. Nerds are angry and have started a nerd uprising. They are now hacking Sony (gasp!), and that is unacceptable. 

The US government, quite frankly, has its balls in a sling with the Bradley Manning case. On one hand, the little punk allegedly swiped some embarrassing diplomatic cables, and handed them off to WikiLeaks. If he had acted alone, he would have been tried in a military court, end of story. On the other hand, WikiLeaks has sent out the ingenious little concept of their "Insurance File". This highly encrypted file was sent out internationally, with instructions for the users to store it in case the staff of WikiLeaks were "Disappeared". No one knows what it contains. 

It's either:

a). an 8 bit gif of the Peanut Butter Jelly Time banana

b). Julian Assange's shopping list

c). concrete evidence linking Darth Cheney to 9-11

d). something far worse only the Senate knows about.

If something 'unfortunate' were to happen to Assange, WikiLeaks, or Manning, this file has already been stashed internationally, and will likely be decrypted as revenge. It's like a game of Russian Roulette where there is one live round, and several dancing banana gifs.

The only option they have in this game of cyber-chicken is to hold Manning indefinitely until they can get their hands on Assange. This does not appear to be happening. Worse, there have been escalating threats of copy-cat crimes, freelance "hacktivism" by groups like Anonymous and LulzSec. Each day that they keep Manning in custody, each failed diplomatic attempt to get their hands on Assange, is further angering sympathetic computer geeks (or Cyber-Terrorists, depending on where you get your paycheck).

These are not the pipe-bombers of yore. There will be no IRA inspired car bombings, no improvised explosives. No, this small enclave of unaffiliated nerds now have the power to single-handledly crash the stock market. Expose a senator's bank account. Install back-door access to massive investment firms. Deactivate drones. Ruin large corporations. And they are presumably so good it wouldn't be noticed until it was too late. 

The embarrassment could be enormous, far worse than WikiLeaks. America isn't under attack; senators' personal checking accounts are. Their online stock portfolios. Any private banking records they thought were secure, any personally humiliating diplomacy exchanges, any photos of them with that one transvestite hooker-- all could soon be laid bare. 

You should consider any senators who voted for this bill to be throwing themselves against their skeleton closets. And what better way for the senate to deal with those insufferable nerds than to bust into their dirty houses, yank them away from their World of Warcraft game, and hold them indefinitely in Gitmo without their precious Mountain Dew, or right to a fair trial.

And lo!, they first declared cyber assaults an act of war. Then comes the 'We can snatch-grab any US citizen (like those GeekSquad guys)' bill.

Enemy Combatant: PCLoadLetter!

Have you ever seen an old person trying to deal with email, or install a driver? Like a cat with a laser pointer, they just do not get it. It is beyond their mental capacities. They can't navigate a print driver error on their HP DeskJet, much less understand the insanely inaccessible art of hacking. 

And these idiotic dumbfucks (Carl Levin, John McCain), in their diapered, senile wisdom, decided that the solution to This Internets Thing, was to shred, burn and shit on the Constitution. 

This is not a man who understands SQL. "Fuck it, let's put them all in a gulag."

Kudos to you, guys. Go back to having your interns print off your emails.