yow

[rm]

I didn't have much to say when the LJ person got a visit from the Secret Service or FBI or whatever because of things said in their LJ, mainly because it's not the first time it's happened, and I didn't think I, or anyone else, was surprised by now. It also didn't strike me as that weird -- unfortunate sure, and a bit silly, but it's how you don't joke about bombs in airports -- there are just some things we don't say anymore, and the reality of that is probably a different discussion for a different time. Here we are now.

Then there's this -- which is unbelieveably freaky to me:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/resonant8/71077.html

Summary: Romance novelist's house is raided due to research she was doing on terrorism in Cambodia for a fiction project. Read it.

Comments

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

This bothers me a lot more than the other post. Because frankly, there was nothing unusual in the other event, nothing that violated anyone's civuil rights- it was just Standard Operating Procedure even before 9/11. But this thing with the romance writer- THAT is an example of what is scary and bad.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

The only thing notable about the first event was that an LJ person felt the need to report it, and like the other similar case I know about, it seemed like more a way of fucking with someone's life than general concern, which just makes the whole affair stupid all the way around.

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

Yeah, something similar happened to artvamp a few years ago- someone reading her journal decided to take a humorous comment she had made and report it as a terroristic threat. The feds came to her door and just sat and talked with her, telling her that they had to investigate every report no matter how silly it seemed, etc.

The whole thing was stupid, and the hysteria being generated is stupid too. Argh.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

I'd heard about this, but hadn't read it yet. Thank you. I am linking to it, now, too.

This is particularly chilling for those of us who fact-check and do copyediting research for books. Think of what the Homeland Security people would think if they took a look at some of my research patterns on any given day -- for a book about the Middle East. Or terrorism in a historical context. Or crytography. Or computer hacking. God. That's frightening.

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

Considering all of the funky research I end up doing for my stories and my (not so nice) characters, this is kind of disturbing. For example, recently, I ended up doing research on the Ottoman Empire following it from where it was in the 1800's to today. That in and of itself is not scary. The tangents I went off of while researching (because I'm a tangenting type of person) is. Especially when it led to modern day religions and terrorism.

[orien.livejournal.com]

Christ.

We've done in depth research on depleated uranium, atomic bombs, and chemical weapons before (specifically those used in Vietnam).

And then I went to see Team America, so obviously, I've got problems.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Similar happenings at Defcon this year. A so called hacktavist ( he wasn't he was just a tool ) went on and on about how he was going to fuck up the RNC in NYC. Someone said something about what about if they arrest you or take away ( something ) and the guy made a comment about bombs and so on. He was hauled away.

On the one had it's stupidity to even talk about stuff like that. Anyone with a brain can differentiate what to say and waht not to say - however as the fed pointed out - every report has to be investigated. This rule has been around for a LONG ass time.

There was a comment in a friends LJ about what would happen to him if he wrote a piece about exactly where in hell Dante would put a particular political figgure. Heh.

This reminds me of when I was in the military, and over a holiday many of us flew home. We were told expressly " If you see a friend of yours named jack, say HELLO , not hi ".

We live in scary times, and we need to take that into consideration daily. That does not mean we hide under the blankets in our plastic and duct tape rooms and never speak our mind, but it does mean that when we speak our minds we do it intelligently and with forethought for the new world we live in.

[lllvis.livejournal.com]

Here's another to add to the list of absurdity:

http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

A game company developing a game called "Hacker" gets raided.