privacy

President Bush Discusses Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Legislation

Nobody who's read this blog for a while can have many doubts about my feelings on the current president and his policies. Here's another example of what I don't like. The President is pushing for a renewal/beefing up of something called the "Protect America" act which I guess semi-legitimized the illegal surveillance  his administration had done in the past. Now he wants his "get out of jail" card made permanent.

I know, I know. Wendy (and probably others) thinks I'm a "privacy nut." I digitally sign all my emails, and would prefer it if all the email I sent and received were encrypted as well. But read on.

Alan over at A Different Perspective calls for people to "please get upset" about the NSA's data mining of the phone records of millions of Americans. And I agree, we should be upset. Anyone who's read my blog will know that I'm an advocate of privacy. But I have to admit that I reacted more with apathy than indignation at the recent announcement.

Then I found out about the Washington Post-ABC News Poll which basically shows that 2 out of 3 Americans support this sort of privacy invasion, if it results in more security.

Now, I have a problem with the structure of the survey, which implies an inverse correlation between privacy and security. I don't think that relationship has been established. But, be that as it may, the results are what they are. A strong majority of Americans favor giving up some degree of privacy in exchange for an increased feeling of security. Am I wrong to see a problem with this?

President's Statement on H.R. 199, the "USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005"

(Thanks to The Carpetbagger Report for pointing this out)

I cam across these two stories today

GOP moves to kill deal about the Dubai Ports World deal, and

Republicans Kill Request for Spy Program Inquiry - Los Angeles Times

Yesterday, wnile listening to NPR, I heard a report about President Bush mentioning in a speech that a planned terrorist attack against a building in LA had been thwarted in 2002. The reporting focused mostly on the mayor of LA's outrage at not knowing the details of this long ago. My reaction was anger.

I can't not comment on this, given the other posts that I've made on the subject.

According to this article, a librarian in a public library near Boston refused to allow FBI agents to take the library's computers without a proper search warrant. (That looks like a temporary URL, since you normally have to subscribe to read this publication's content. So the link may not work by the time you try to read it.)

After my political diatribe, I thought it might be a good time to bring this up. ;)

As those of you who exchange email with me will know, all of my emails include an attachement that virtually none of you can read. That attachment is my digital signature, which proves (with the right software) that any email you receive from me really IS from me, and that it hasn't been altered since I sent it.

The New Work Times is reporting today that President Bush authorized illegal wiretapping of US Citizens. This as Congress debates renewal of the Patriot Act.