30 Jun
2004
30 Jun
'04
7:26 a.m.
On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 16:59, Joe R. wrote:
At 02:13 PM 6/30/04 +0000, you wrote:
Holy Cow! I didn't realize that this had hit the news. A friend of mine
sold some GPS gear to someone in NZ and has been vistied by the FBI about
it several times since then. They told him that the buyer was building a
cruise missile so it has to be the same guy. FWIW the GPS stuff that my
friend sold was nothing special. It was made for tracking delivery trucks
and such.
Ha ha - nice to hear a bit more about events. I think the whole story
went largely unnoticed at the time - I just picked up on it as I'm a big
fan of off-the-wall backyard engineering.
I seem to recall the same chap in NZ builds a lot of his own jet engines
and bolts them to various things. He seems quite the creative type (and
seems reasonably sure of what he's doing)
>With a bit of ingenuity I suppose it's
surprising what can be done
>whilst still technically operating within the law.
You'd be surprised how easy it to to run afoul
of the law too! Especially
since 9/11. And with the "Patriot Act" you don't even have to break a law,
just do something that some bureaucrat doesn't like and you can be locked
up indefinitely without charges, a hearing or even access to a lawyer.
Count me as an EX-fireworks maker!
Yikes. It's not quite that bad here, but it's heading that way.
I'd be interested to see a report on how terrorist attempted attacks
have apparently increased compared to how much in the way of extra
resources are now deployed to discover such plots.
Personally I think I'd rather live how I wanted without all the extra
rules and regs and just take my chances - I feel I worry just as much
about being hit by a car, caught in a house fire or something like that
as getting a bomb drop on my head (which isn't worrying at all to be
honest - if it happens, it happens...)
cheers
Jules