Privacy

Wiretap Fiction

This entry was posted in Privacy on by

Here are the Rasmussen poll results:

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.

Pretty straight forward and not particularly surprising. However, here is how one writer revised the results:

More Rasmussen: 64% Say Warrantless Eavesdropping OK

With only 23% disagreeing.

After the 2002 midterms — sheesh, that seems like it was almost three years ago or something — William Kristol offered his opinion that the Democrats had, basically, gone crazy. Hatred of Bush and frustration at being frozen out of power had simply driven them batty.

It’s stuff like this — sort of predictable, you know, that Americans aren’t going to sweat eavesdropping on terrorists without warrant — that really bears Kristol out.

Note that the poll results say nothing about warrantless eavesdropping. Apparently, though, Ace wants this result so badly that he must write into the results what is not there and present fiction to his readers.

It’s to bad Reynolds did not note Ace’s misreporting of the Rassmussen poll when he linked to it.

Some even suggest that 64% isn’t very good news for the police state bush. (via)

Well, I’m going to let this post stand as written even though Ace changed his title a few minutes ago:

Second– I changed the title of the thread like fifteen minutes ago. I was just wondering how long you retards would keep on shrieking about such a ticky-tack point.

Ticky-tack point indeed.

Red Book Hoax

This entry was posted in bush administration Journalism Libertarianism Privacy on by

A couple weeks ago in regard to the story about a college student being visited by the FBI because he had checked out a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book Kip noted:

FULL DISCLOSURE: There are some who are insisting that this story is a hoax. But if it is then that means that an MSM reporter, or two university professors, are risking their jobs on a lark. Sounds unlikely to me. The reporter, Aaron Nicodemus, has publicly insisted that the story is genuine.

Well it turns out they were right:

The reporter writes about how the student’s story eventually started to unravel under intense questioning (only after the initial story was written), and how the tale “came at a perfect storm in the news cycle” due to the recent New York Times story about government surveillance. It doesn’t mention the paper’s failure to speak with the student prior to publishing the piece, nor does it offer up any kind of admission or apology.

Here is the retraction article which was published on 12/24. It is 4 days later and until I ran across the article in Regret the Error linked above I still thought the original story was true. I wonder how many will continue to cite this as an example of bushian governmental badness (which it would be if true). For instance this entry was posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2005 at 3:29 am UTC.

Privacy, Why Worry?

This entry was posted in CAPPS II Federal Government Government Information Privacy Technology War on Terrorism on by

James Joyner finds this NYT article “interesting if somewhat chilling” and then goes on to say that he’s pretty much bought into the idea of feeding the maw of the information brokers:

I make all manner of similar choices. For example, I use credit cards rather than cash virtually everywhere that doing so is an option. Theoretically, this creates the ability for Big Brother to track my spending habits and movements. I take comfort in the ubiquity of such information and the belief that it’s incredibly unlikely that government resources will be allocated to track the purchase habits of 290-odd million citizens.

Well, James, its not for lack of desire. The Total Information Awareness project in its 1st bush term incarnation was squashed but there is no reason to believe that this work is not ongoing and that federal and state folks are not eager for more similar tools to accomplish their ends, for example, a database of all 16-18 year olds for military recruiting purposes.
You should take discomfort in the ubiquity of such information.
Use cash as often as you can. It is often but not always quicker and leaves no electronic tracks…though you are probably on the security cam anyway. Disrupt the flow of information about you whenever possible.