MozillaQuest the on-line computer magazine

26 January, 2006

Office and Productivity Software

SCO IP, SCO v Linux, & Caldera v IBM

Is Alito a Threat to Internet and Computer Privacy and Freedom?

Hold Off on Alito Nomination

Alito Nomination Threatens Freedom and Liberty

Sam Alito . . . evaded answering questions looking into his readiness to defend and enforce the Rights granted to American citizens by our Constitution. Thus, we do not think Judge Alito should be a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

MozillaQuest Magazine Op-ED

26 January 2006 (C)

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To learn why Linux is so much a better choice than is Microsoft Windows, please see our article Gaël Duval Tells Why Mandrake Linux Is Better Than MS Windows

Office on the Linux Desktop

A Glimpse of OpenOffice 2.0 -- Now Available for Free Public Downloading

OpenOffice 1.1 -- A Complete Office/Productivity Software Suite for GNU-Linux, FreeBSD, MAC, MS-Windows, Unix, and more

Creating a Simple Newsletter with OpenOffice/StarOffice Writer - a free word processor

Creating a Simple Contact or Personal Information Manager with OpenOffice/StarOffice Calc - a free spreadsheet

Creating a Personal or Company Budget with OpenOffice/StarOffice Calc - Part 1: Basics

United States Constitution Excerpts

Article I, Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Article II, Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

Article III, Section 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Bill of Rights

Amendment IX. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X, The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Amendment IV, The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Warrantless Eavesdropping Not Necessary and Not legal.

President Bush and his cronies say they need to spy on American e-mail, telephone, and Internet communications and to spy on American Internet use, Web surfing, and so forth in order to protect us from the terrorists. However, when and if they have articulable and reasonable cause to believe a person is engaged in terrorism (or any criminal activity for that matter) Bush and his cronies can get a warrant to snoop. And if exigent circumstances are involved they can snoop without first obtaining a warrant. We do not see any reason why complying with the Constitution and the duly enacted laws of the United States of America hampers the ability of the U. S. government to protect us from terrorists. However, that is another issue for another day.

Fault Democrats and Republicans.

When it comes to the Alito nomination, both the Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans are a cluster flop! The Democrats know that Alito should not be appointed to the Supreme Court. But they do not have the guts to filibuster the appointment. Many Republican Semators know that Alito should not be appointed to the Supreme Court but they do not have the guts to buck Bush, the lobbyists, and the Republican bosses and vote against the Alito nomination. We need to kick them all out in their next elections.]

Promoting Judge Alito to the U. S. Supreme Court could cause problems for Internet and computer users. President George Bush and his regime are engaging in activities that are tantamount to unconstitutional intrusions upon the privacy rights of American citizens, including our Internet use and our Internet communications. It's likely a Justice Alito would let Bush and associates get away with illegal spying on Americans.

We carefully watched most of the Judge Sam Alito nomination for U. S. Supreme Court hearings. He showed good legal knowledge and judicial temperament. He also evaded answering questions looking into his readiness to defend and enforce the Rights granted to American citizens by our Constitution. Thus, we do not think Judge Alito should be a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Bush has directed the NSA to spy on e-mail, telephone, and Internet messaging of Americans without obtaining a search warrant as required by the United States Constitution and FISA. This issue likely will work its way up to the U. S. Supreme Court.

The Bush regime already is snooping into your Internet search engine activities by obtaining search activity information from MSN and Yahoo. And it wants to intrude upon your Google searches too. This issue likely will work its way up to the U. S. Supreme Court.

Under the U. S. Patriot Act, computer-wise and technology-wise:

"The Government can monitor an individual's web surfing records, use roving wiretaps to monitor phone calls made by individuals "proximate" to the primary person being tapped, access Internet Service Provider records, and monitor the private records of people involved in legitimate protests." (The USA PATRIOT Act, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Emphasis added. Link in the Resources section at end of this article.)

Additionally the United States Patriot Act:

"gives sweeping search and surveillance to domestic law enforcement and foreign intelligence agencies and eliminates checks and balances that previously gave courts the opportunity to ensure that those powers were not abused. [The] PATRIOT [Act] and follow-up legislation now in development threaten the basic rights of millions of Americans. "(The USA PATRIOT Act, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Emphasis added. Link in the Resources section at end of this article.)

These issues likely will work their way up to the U. S. Supreme Court too.

President Bush and his regime claim the United States Constitution gives them the authority to do these things. Not so! These issues likely will work their way up to the U. S. Supreme Court also.

We agree with President Bush and his regime that Article 2 of the United States Constitution does give the President of the United States lots of powers and responsibilities. However, Article 1 and Article 3 of the U. S. Constitution put limitations, checks, and balances on the powers of the U. S. President, now George Bush.

And even more so, the Bill of Rights and other Amendments to the United States Constitution put substantial limitations on not only the President of the United States of America but also upon all of federal and state government. For example, Amendments IX and X to the United States Constitution clearly limit the powers of the President, to-wit George Bush at this time, to only those powers expressly provided by the Constitution.

Nowhere does the U.S. Constitution expressly convey upon the President, the Congress, or the Judiciary the authority to spy upon American citizens. Moreover the Constitution expressly forbids the President, the Congress, and the Judiciary the authority to spy upon American citizens without first obtaining search warrants in the absence of exigent circumstances. That includes our e-mail, our Web surfing, our Internet communications, and so forth. Whether George Bush and his regime are exceeding those powers likely will work their way up to the Supreme Court.

The issues relating to the NSA warrantless spying on American e-mail, telephone, and Internet communications are prohibited by the privacy rights enumerated in the Fourth Amendment. So are the government intrusions relating to Google and other search engine records prohibited by the privacy rights enumerated in the Fourth Amendment.

And so are the intrusions relating to ISP records of your Web surfing e-mail, and other Internet activities prohibited by the privacy rights enumerated in the Fourth Amendment. These issues likely will work their way up to the U. S. Supreme Court

The Fourth Amendment does not use the word "privacy". But if you look at its wording, the Fourth Amendment clearly makes the rights of privacy inviolate!

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . ."

That means government (including George Bush and his regime) keep your snoots out of our private affairs without probable cause and a search warrant or probable cause and exigent circumstances.

Bush and the radical right wing of the Republican Party want Judge Sam Alito on the Supreme Court because they expect him to destroy the Rights of Americans to privacy. Please remember that the Roe v. Wade decision is based upon the privacy rights of women. Thus, to attack Roe v Wade, they need Supreme Court Justices who will NOT uphold the Right to Privacy!

The unacceptable collateral damage of Alito's anti-Roe and anti-abortion leanings are that he likely also will attack our overall rights to privacy and our rights to surf the Web, trade e-mail, engage in Internet chatting, participate in IRC (Internet Relay Chat), communicate via the Internet (including VOIP), use search engines, and so forth without warrantless intrusions upon our privacy.

These issues very likely will be decided by the Supreme Court and we do not want Sam Alito to be on the Supreme Court when it decides these issues. The United States Senate should not and must not confirm the nomination of Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court!

What You Can and Should Do

You can and must take immediate action to stop the nomination of Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court! To do that call, email, snail mail and/or telegraph your U. S. Senators now! Or do all of those things.

Tell your U. S. Senators that if they vote in favor of the nomination of Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court, you will vote against them whenever they run for re-election! Voting for nomination of Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court is the wrong thing to do!

And tell them if they vote against the nomination of Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court, they will be doing the right thing and you will vote for them whenever they run for re-election! Throwing out the nomination of Sam Alito to the United States Supreme Court is the right thing to do!

You can get the names, addresses, and phone numbers of your U. S. Senators from the EFF, please see the resources listed below.

Resources

Call Today and Tell Congress to Vote NO TO SAM ALITO and No on PATRIOT Renewal!

Renewing the Un-Patriot Act is the wrong thing to do! - - Junk the Un-Patriotic Patriot Act

Solutions for Identity, Credit Card, Bank Account, and Personal Information Theft -- Part I: Overview

U.S. Constitution

Books

The Linux books listed below will help to show you why Linux-based, GNU operating system is a better operating system than MS Windows. And they describe and help you to use much of the free software that comes with most Linux-based distributions.

Most of the book links listed below lead you to Web pages about the books that also, there, have links to things such as Tables of Contents and sample chapters. The sample chapters are free and well worth reading.

Some Interesting Linux Books

Acing the LINUX+ Certification Exam, Patrick Regan, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0131121553. $88

Beginning Linux Programming, 3rd Edition, Matthew and Stones, (Foreword by Alan Cox), Wiley. ISBN: 0-7645-4497-7. $40

Building Applications with the Linux Standard Base, Linux Standard Base Team, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0-13-145695-4

Building Clustered Linux Systems, By Robert Lucke, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN: 0-13-144853-6. $50

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 Bible, B. Harris and Jaldhar Vyas, Wiley, ISBN: 0-7645-7644-5. $40.

The Debian System: Concepts and Techniques, Martin F. Krafft, ISBN 1-593270-69-0. $44.95

Expanding Choice: Moving to Linux and Open Source with Novell Open Enterprise Server, Jason Williams/Peter Clegg/Emmett Dulaney, Novell Press, ISBN: 0-672-32722-8. $30

Fedora 4 Linux All in One, By Aron Hsiao, Sams, ISBN: 0672327074. $40.

Fedora 4 Unleashed, By Paul Hudson, Andrew Hudson, Bill Ball, Hoyt Duff, Sams, ISBN: 0672327929. $50.

Knoppix For Dummies, Paul G. Sery, Wiley, ISBN: 0-7645-9779-5. $29.99

Knoppix Hacks - 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools, By Kyle Rankin, O'Reilly, ISBN: 0-596-00787-6. $30