Entries Tagged 'privacy' ↓

(via Marc Ambinder) His name is Barack Obama, and I endorse his message [e.a.]:

Jake Tapper: Governor Palin and her husband issued a statement today saying that their 17 year old daughter Bristol who is unmarried is 5 months pregnant. Do you have a comment?

BO: I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible. I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics, it has no relevance to governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off limits.

A lot of Obama’s supporters do not understand that, but I forgive them [even when they make fools of themselves after being reminded of the fundamentals of biology, and still want a doctors letter? Yes, even then. And I'm not even a Christian! ---ed.] They’re passionate about their candidate, and they’re human.

On one level, it’s good that they care enough to get engaged in the messy process that is our democracy—a process that, alas, also gives rights to those caught up in a mob mentality.

The proper remedy to their antics is to outsmart them, and to accomplish your goals: the success of your cause is always the best revenge.

The strong counter-terrorism efforts undertaken by the British government are announced by officials and covered by the press, and so it’s logical to assume that the British people are aware of the various programs, right?

Probably not, Timothy Garton Ash suggests:

This has got to stop. Britain’s snooper state is getting completely out of hand. We are sleepwalking into a surveillance society, and we must wake up. When the Stasi started spying on me, as I moved around East Germany 30 years ago, I travelled on the assumption that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world to one of the least free. I don’t think I was wrong then, but I would certainly be wrong now. Today, the people of East Germany are much less spied upon than the people of Britain. The human rights group Privacy International rates Britain as an “endemic surveillance society”, along with China and Russia, whereas Germany scores much better.

What degree of infringement on our freedoms are we willing to tolerate in order to feel secure?

It seems quaint now (shamefully so) to think of how outraged I felt only ten years ago when, in conversation with friends, I heatedly accused Rudy Giuliani of being a “fascist” for his Orwellian installation of surveillance cameras in Washington Square Park (in an effort to keep out drug dealers and other undesirables).

Like many people, since 9/11 I’ve traveled a long road in search of answers to these questions—without success so far.