Tag Archives: privacy

Security Leaks Are Not Us

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

A 29-year-old kid, and I can call him a kid because I’m a 66-year-old grandparent, decides he should strike a blow for liberty and release highly classified information to the media and maybe directly to our adversaries.

So we’re again having an emotionally, politically, and ideologically charged debate over government secrets, national security, the public’s right to know, and the peoples’ right to privacy. It’s a good debate to have and keep having until we resolve some of the serious questions these incidents raise. Unfortunately, it will peter out soon after the next crisis erupts in the headlines.

It would be helpful, though, to break down those questions and focus on the most relevant.

The first question can be dispensed with rather quickly. Is Edward Joseph Snowden a hero or a criminal? Here’s a hint: Socialist filmmaker Michael Moore, libertarian Senator Rand Paul (who is already exploiting the incident to raise money), technology terrorist Julian Assange, the Russians and the Chinese think he’s a hero. Most legal and intelligence experts we’ve heard from think he’s a criminal. Senator Diane Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee called him a traitor. Continue reading →

A Changing World

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

The National Security Agency’s Prism revelations have contributed to America’s growing ambivalence and fear around privacy and personal data. Who knows what legislation may result from it all.

I know that, like many fellow citizens, I was not alarmed by our government’s data-gathering practices. I am more alarmed by what private enterprise can and may do with my data. But, for me, that’s an old saw.

Author Mitch Joel released a book, Ctrl, Alt, Delete, that attempts to establish a certain level of fear and foreboding in us by offering up some staggering statistics indicating how our world has changed, transformed by the digital revolution. It’s yet another police siren the digerati persists in blowing and I’m not sure why.

We know the world is changing, for God’s sake. Rather than dish facts, how about demonstrating some traction and results? Continue reading →

Tracking My Calls

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

I am trying to get spun up over the story about the National Security Agency tracking every phone call made by every customer using a cell phone over the Verizon network. But, I can’t.

I don’t think it’s a big stretch to think that the NSA is also tracking your calls if you are on AT&T’s network, T-Mobile, Sprint or the Harry’s Cell Phones & Discount Beer network.

As I understand it, the NSA isn’t listening in to our phone calls – or at least they haven’t been caught at it yet. They are tracking the number called, the calling number, the duration of the call, and the location of the calling and called phones. Continue reading →

Privacy in the Age of Exhibitionism

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Privacy is over-rated.

We say we want our privacy, but we really don’t care that much about it. The government wants the privacy to invade our privacy in order to sniff out terrorists. Despite the best efforts of Rand Paul and the ACLU, most Americans are just fine with that.

Polls show that when there is a competition between privacy and security, the American people pick security every time. Continue reading →

Mind Your Own Business

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

“Oh, the woman on our party line’s the nosiest thing, she picks up her receiver when she knows it’s my ring.”—Hank Williams

 . . . listening to my favorite radio station yesterday hoping for some perspectives on the presidential debate . . . lucky me . . . what I got instead was the just-released recordings of the 911 calls made from Accent Signage while crazed killer Andrew Engeldinger was slaughtering six innocent coworkers. Yum. Continue reading →