The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth
is that we may listen the more and talk the less.
Zeno of Citium
Finishing Up 5 Years of the Blog
Tomorrow is my fifth blogiversary--over 1700 posts running. Periodically I have written about reorganizing older material; a lot of it is untagged, of different format, contains no longer accessible embedded objects, includes occasional non-political content, and/or has drawn limited, if any reader interest over the past 2 to 3 years. The reorganization will be phased in as time permits over the coming months.
The Neo-Cons Continue Their Assault on Rand Paul, Justin Amash et al.
Yes, the neo-cons know their priorities; while the Obama Administration makes disproportionate cuts to defense spending, ensures that openly gay recruits are able to fight for the right of gay pride parades and gay bars anywhere in America, and female combat soldiers have better-fitting unisex military attire. the neo-cons see the real danger is a very small number of libertarian-conservatives in Congress. Fellow Michigan Congressman Rogers calls Amash's attempt to llimit NSA surveillance to specific suspects instead of an unconstitutional general warrant "dangerous". Long Island Congressman King characterized Rand Paul's positions on individual liberty and scaled-back interventionist foreign policy as "madness", out to sabotage the GOP's hard-won credibility on national security, a potential McGovern in the making. King also managed to work in criticism of Congressman Amash. For that nonsense, King has entered the competition to my initial Bad Elephant of the Year Award.
First, as for Congressman Rogers: arguing that a generalized warrant has occasionally worked to prevent terrorist attacks is not unlike the British during the Revolutionary War justifying arbitrary searches and occupations of colonial homes by suggesting it worked in frustrating the objectives of British tax evaders. You cannot convince me that access to all metadata is any more effective than the TSA feeling up Grandma or small children. There are costs associated with any government benefit. Moreover we have the rule of law. It doesn't make any sense to argue a different set of standards on specific warrants for other crimes.
For King, frittering away more lives (not to mention the permanently injured) in either Iraq or Afghanistan than the number of deaths on 9/11, not to mention over a trillion dollars added to our national debt, does not make this country stronger or more secure. A "real" conservative realizes that government waste and mismanagement occurs across government, including the Defense Department. Many countries are freeloading off the US for their security, which constitutes moral hazard. Moreover, Rand Paul's less interventionist positions are consistent with the Old Right in the twentieth century, including Senator Taft. How is entangling America in the internal affairs of dubiously significant small countries in the Middle East/Gulf region helping us, diverting our attention from more salient global threats, not itself a betrayal of a strong national defense?
NSA, Web Firms and Passwords
As a techie, I've followed this story for days. As a DBA, I've had to deal with production issues involving user accounts in their absence. This is different because these accounts are authorized only by the business and there is no expectation of privacy. There were ways of resetting the password back to the original password without actually knowing it; otherwise, if the employee showed up, he or she wouldn't be able to get back into his or her account. However, imagine if a stooge of the Obama Administration got access to my blog administration account and replaced my commentaries with copy-and-paste of garbage from the Daily Kos or Media Matters...
We have this sample extract from CNET:
The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.
Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes e often associated with user accounts.There's an interesting summary of some of the legal battles, but it is clear where I stand: the government has no general right to access your data, on your hard or removable drive or cloud drive any more than it has a general right to search your home at will. There is also a question of whether things one has written could be the equivalent of self-incrimination.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez and Townhall |
The Beatles, "All You Need is Love"
