Isn’t it nice when the US Government decides that the Fourth Amendment isn’t really useful anymore?
Category: Politics
Who thought this was a good idea?
WASHINGTON — Representative Darrell Issa calls it a way to promote transparency: a request for the names of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, business executives, journalists and others who have requested copies of federal government documents in recent years.
In short, he wants to get a list of everyone who requests anything under the Freedom Of Information Act. Who they are, what they requested, and of what department the request was made. He’s sent out these meta-requests to 180 agencies. Isn’t this just a little Big Brother?
The Misused Word Of The Day For Today Is: ‘Fascist’
A lot of people in today’s time apparently fail to realize that there is a very specific definition for fascism, none of which relate to The Man, or not at least as we know The Man in the United States today. Nor is it a right wing ideologue who dumps verbal diarrhea on a 24 hour cable “news” show. Also, a cop beating up a demonstrator is not a fascist. That cop is someone who deserves neither rank nor freedom, perhaps, but not a fascist. To borrow a little from Wikipedia:
Fascists believe that a nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.
I’m getting really sick of the New American Conservative. The ones who rails on the Democrats and the Obama Administration about the need to stop wasteful spending, but scream bloody-fucking-murder if the Democrats don’t extend a massive tax cut. The ones who tell us they want a smaller, more efficient government that doesn’t tell it’s constituents what kind of health care they need to have or what food is safe to eat, but still want to tell you who you can marry and who you can take into your bedroom. Either stick to your principals or get some new ones – using the old ones in name when you don’t really follow them doesn’t work.
All that said, I don’t think the Democrats are angels with the wisdom and vision of the Philosopher Kings either. Their inability to make a decision – even when they have an unassailable super-majority – is criminal. They almost never think about the repercussions of their actions.
(Spitzer, Emanuel, Blagojevich, Edwards). To make matters worse, their conflicting goals of strong labor unions and a strong middle class don’t work when the reality is that BMW can build cars in South Carolina for half the hourly wage than it takes GM to build a car in Detroit.
Facebook has gotten a lot of attention recently for their changes to the default security settings for user’s information, as well as comments made by founder Mark Zuckerberg. The most notable comment he’s made is that “the default is sharing, not privacy.” It does help to keep in mind that he runs a company that’s lifeblood is based on people sharing every aspect of their personal lives. In fact, much of Facebook’s value can be directly measured by how much personal information it’s users are comfortable sharing with each other and the world.
One of the problems that stems from sharing all of your personal information with the world is that it becomes very easy for identity theft scams to target you. Google has a long memory, and many password reset mechanisims ask for your email address, your birthday, your parent’s names, pet’s names, or favorite movie titles. This is exactly the sort of information people are scrambling to share on social networking sites. In many cases, it’s present on user’s main profile pages, which is often indexed by Google and other search engines unless you opt-out. It’s also, by default, available to anyone who creates an account, which are free and easy to get. It’s probably time to tighten down your security settings.
The other problem is the willingness of users to broadcast every detail of their lives online. Where they were last night, who they were hanging out with, what they think of their bosses, their friends, and their families are all online for anyone to see. This violates one of the cardinal rules of the Internet: everything you put online will be seen by everyone, especially people who you think shouldn’t. If you wouldn’t email the picture or the post directly to every member of your family, each of your bosses, your professors and the police, don’t post it to YouTube, Facebook or your personal blog. This is 2010 – they are all online, and they will eventually see it.
I’m not saying you should be paranoid and abandon social networking sites – just use reason when posting. A lot of employers now check Facebook for information on new hires. What will they see if they look for you?