When it comes to the imposition of a fascist police state!!!!
And CUI BONO, huh?
"National security and free speech" by Harvey Silverglate | August 16, 2008
Harvey Silverglate is a criminal defense and civil liberties litigator and writer.
.... This bizarre court intervention is rooted, as are many other recent civil liberties violations, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The MBTA's court complaint highlights "the role of the MBTA in Homeland Security efforts" and claims that the hacking threat "affects a computer system used by a government entity for national security purposes." A supporting affidavit of MBTA personnel adds that "in 2007 the MBTA received $4 million from the Department of Homeland Security . . . for use in emergency communications initiatives." Thus the T, in reality just another local transit system struggling under crushing debt and long-term mismanagement, transmogrified a temporary threat to its fare collection system into something so urgent as to override the First Amendment....
Ironically, this constitutional violation is for naught, since the order will not stop other bright minds from making the same discovery. Knowledge and its spread, for both constitutional and practical reasons, are not subject to court injunctions. The MBTA would have been better off hiring, rather than suing, the MIT trio to solve the electronic flaw. The students (and their professor) could doubtless do a better job of patching the security hole than the T's security officials, consultants, and vendors who designed the vulnerable system. But with the ghosts of 9/11 and "national security" hovering, the students and the First Amendment didn't stand a chance.
None of us do.
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