Taken from the content of the Wikipedia, the definition of "terrorist" is as follows:

"The term is often used to assert that the political violence of an enemy is immoral, wanton, and unjustified; and terrorist attacks are commonly characterized as "indiscriminate", "targeting of civilians", or executed "with disregard for human life". According to the definition of terrorism typically used by states, academics, counter-terrorism experts, and non-governmental organizations, terrorists are actors who don't belong to any recognized armed forces, or who don't adhere to their rules, and who are therefore regarded as "rogue actors".

Because of this connotation, those accused of being terrorists rarely identify themselves as such, and instead typically use terms that refer to their ideological or ethnic struggle, such as: separatist, freedom fighter, liberator, revolutionary, vigilante, militant, paramilitary, guerrilla (Spanish for "small war"), rebel, jihadi or mujaheddin ("struggler"), or fedayeen ("prepared for martyrdom")."

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism

My question is simple, are they simply protecting "us" from "them", or "us" (in this case, some might stipulate that "us" are corporations and governments alike) versus "us" (that being, the people).

In a war that we cannot win, in a series of battles that we cannot afford, why do they keep stipulating that this is for our own good? Who's good is it that they're saying that we need to protect? To me, this proves nothing except that yet more liberties and protections of this country are being taken away from the "individual", and empowering more towards the "corporation" (which includes the government, since all governments, state, national and federal, are "corporations" themselves). From a "big picture" perspective, none of this makes any sense, except that it's a slow deterioration of our country (as a whole). The "Securification of America" -- for those who've never read this series in high school, read a book series called "U.S.S.A" (or the "United Secured States of America"). We're only a few years away from that...

Realistically, if you want "privacy", this means "encryption", and any type of encryption done over telephone lines is *immediately* tagged as suspect. The same may hold true for VOIP and all Internet traffic in the (very) near future. If you submit encrypted traffic, expect to have it intercepted and deciphered. Interestingly enough, one friend of mine made a comment that stated, "If you want privacy, stay inside your home. You, realisticaly, are *outside*, which means you are in a public area. You have no privacy. The only privacy you have is in your own home." Now that looks like that, too, may be in trouble, if they start monitoring Internet, continue to further monitor telephone, and soon will be monitoring media usage, into and out of your home.

-r

"...as always, Mr. Phelps, the IMF will disavoy any knowledge of your whereabouts. This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds..."

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/403/33608#33608