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Way OT - Makes Me Sad and Angry...

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jgreen:
I agree with King.

While it's outrageous that our elected (or appointed) officials can (by implication) spy on us, as JimH said, privacy disappeared a while back.  That doesn't mean we give up the fight, but I think it's time we pick our battles.

In L.A. hospital staff routinely scan the medical charts of celebrity patients.  This info, in excrutiating detail, is then sold to the tabloid press, who then First Amenment it in front of the world.  Anything on the chart is fair game.  You think you have more to fear from our incompetent, bloated bureaucracies monitoring our phone calls?

In one hospital, 50 people, doctors, nurses and techs, got an eyeful of Britney Spears private info.  While some were reprimanded, NO ONE has been charged with anything, or even fired.     

Anyone who has posted a resume on Monster, or personal details on Facebook, etc, can rest assured that criminal gangs are building a profile on them for future use.  They use web crawlers to slowly but surely put the pieces of the puzzle together.  Oh yeah, and your government is not allowed to, even when the profiles are uploaded from Syrian terrorist camps.

Anyone who has ever applied for a credit card,  sent in a rebate form, subscribed to a single magazine, EVER, can rest assured that he or she has made a difference in this world.  Companies are busy compiling lists of anyone, living or dead, in the hope that one day it can be used or sold.  You think that a commercial buyer of personal data has to provide ANY proof on honest intent?  Oh, please.

So yeah, Glynor, "EPIC FAIL".  The failure, however, is our own.  We've willingly traded our privacy for cheaper credit cards and easier background checks.  And you're right, it WILL come back to bite us.   

bob:

--- Quote from: glynor on July 10, 2008, 06:08:48 pm ---True... I was being overly dismissive of the immunity provision.  The thing is, I can actually see the point in that.  If the government came to you guys right after the bridge collapsed and told you, despite what you saw on the news, that someone may have really blown it up, and they needed some confidential employee (or forum) info right away... What would you do?

--- End quote ---

Unfortunately, they approached Qwest BEFORE 9/11.

And the existing FISA law allowed 15 day exemptions with NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Finally, during those 15 days, all they had to do to get a long term authorization was to show need to the FISA court which only rejected a couple of requests in 20 years.

The bill passed yesterday wasn't designed to meet some need. It was a coverup to prevent the trail of lawbreaking to be tracked back to the White House. As it stands we may NEVER know what data mining was going on and to what uses it was being put.

KingSparta:
jgreen

Don't get me wrong

I think there is to much government in our lives now

However one of the first sentences in our constitution is

"provide for the common defense".

That requirement is to require the government to provide the appropriate level of defense for any perceived threats.

No matter if we as individuals like it or not

As Spock Said

"The Needs of the Many Must Outweigh the Needs of the Few or the One"

jgreen:
I'm trying not to get you wrong, King.  I also think there's too much government in our lives, but granting immunity to telcos who cooperate with government requests in the name of defence is not a sign of too much government--which I believe you agree with.

My second point--not clearly marked as a "second point"--was that compared to the level of government intrusion, commercial intrusion in our lives is off the chart, and in a way the Founding Fathers (seven feet tall, every one of them) could never envision.

This is why, even if the government were acting capriciously, which it frequently does, the net effect of this latest bit of intrusion pales in comparision to "Check 21", the recent revision of banking regs. 

Now that I think of it, Glynor may have ranted against that also. 

JimH:

--- Quote from: jgreen on July 11, 2008, 07:56:03 pm ---Now that I think of it, Glynor may have ranted against that also. 

--- End quote ---
He tends to cover a lot of ground.

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