Category: Domestic Policies

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Immigration Immigration Reform Pat Buchanan Politics

Pat Buchanan Warns – Immigration Reform Will Break Up America

Pat Buchanan has said some… dumb and questionable things at times. His apparent hatred for other races has come out on many occasions. So hearing him say again that immigration reform would be the end of America, the collective response is oh, there goes Pat again. Like it’s expected. But at what point do we stop giving these hate mongers a mic?

Pat’s has been attributing immigration reform to America’s destruction for quite sometime now. Back in 2007, he lamented that the America where most immigrants came from European countries “is gone forever.” He questions why “third world countries” are now becoming a major source for new immigrants.

And keeping true to form, Buchanan continued his be-afraid-of-the-immigrant warning, saying that America will break up just like the Soviet Union did.

The Daily Caller posts a clip of Buchanan warning that if “you put 100 million Hispanic folks in the United States,” the southwest will become “as much a part of Mexico as it is of the United States.”

“If they have a different language, different culture, different faith, basically you get two peoples and two peoples eventually become two countries,” he said.

Buchanan went on to offer an alternate history of the United States, which he said became “one nation back around 1960, when all the immigrants who had come from eastern and southern Europe 1890-1920 had been assimilated and Americanized” through the Depression, World War II and television programming. “That brought us all together, and now we’re falling apart,” he said.

What you get is a growing disintegration of the country, a fragmentation into different parts. And we see this happening all over the world in the last few decades, where ethnic groups and linguistic minorities, ethnic minorities, cultural minorities, given the pressures of ethno-nationalism, are breaking up countries all over the world. It’s happening all over the Middle East; it happened in the Balkans, where Yugoslavia broke up into seven countries; the Soviet Union broke up into 15 countries.

You put 100 million Hispanic folks in the United States, and say 70 million of them on the southwest border, that becomes as much a part of Mexico as it is of the United States. If they have a different language, different culture, different faith, basically you get two peoples and two peoples eventually become two countries.

This is what I see as the future of America is the balkanization and disintegration of the country that had become one nation back around 1960, when all the immigrants who had come from eastern and southern Europe 1890-1920 had been assimilated and Americanized. We’d all gone through the Depression together, heard radio together, went through World War II together, and American television together. That brought us all together, and now we’re falling apart. – See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/buchanan-immigration-reform-will-cause-us-break-soviet-union#sthash.RABfrSaR.dpuf

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Domestic Policies

Gabby Giffords Visit To Raleigh, NC

On the last leg of their Gun Control Tour and getting the message out for stricter gun regulations, Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband, former Astronaut, Mark Kelly were in Raleigh, NC Sunday.

After the couple had visited a shooting range, they sat down for lunch at The Pit Authentic Barbecue in downtown Raleigh with 14 hand-picked members of the organization she and her husband founded that promotes gun violence prevention called, “Americans for Responsible Solutions”. All are gun owners and are lobbying for expanded background checks. The group is attempting to drum up support at the ‘combat boot’ level by visiting key states that had voted Against background check legislation.

“Gabby and I are both gun owners. I’ve served in the military for 25 years,” Kelly said. “We are strong supporters of the Second Amendment.”

But Second Amendment protections shouldn’t stand in the way of common-sense gun controls, he said.

Kelly stated that they’re not fighting for stricter regulations because His wife was shot, but because of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Ct. which took the lives of 20 children and 6 staff members.

“In six months since Newtown, our national response has been to do nothing,” Kelly said. “It’s unacceptable.”

“We need to do a better job keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, the dangerously mentally ill, the way we do that is we expand background checks to gun shows, private sales and internet sales,” he said.

Of course, pro-gun rights critics were quick to oppose the visit. A group known as, “Grass Roots North Carolina”, criticized the couple for sitting down only with members of their organization rather than reaching out to All gun owners as a whole.

“They own guns, but I don’t believe they represent the majority of gun owners,” said Rick Foster. “I sympathize with (Giffords), but I believe her efforts are misdirected. She’s the victim of someone mentally deranged. Her efforts ought to be focused on helping to improve the mental health system.”

“Why are they hiding from the gun owners they claim to represent?” the group said in a statement Friday.

It should be added as a footnote that the group offered 100 rounds of free ammo to the first person to track down where Giffords would be. Yes, you read it correctly. “Track Down” is how it was reported. (And they wonder why Gabby and Mark didn’t divulge their meeting location).

I Pray for Success to the Gifford-Kelly campaign of Awareness and Change for this Serious and Important regulation to bring about stricter Gun Laws with a No-Brainer approach to background checks.

Too Much Gun Violence. Too Many Deaths. Too Much Talk. “Fight, fight, fight, be bold, be courageous, the nation is counting on you,” Giffords told the crowd. The Time Is NOW Washington!

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Abortions Domestic Policies women's rights

THIS JUST IN: Republicans Have Run Amok

HEADLINE: BREAKING NEWS: THIS JUST IN: Use whichever ‘Stopper’ you prefer but the News is Official – The Republicans have Run Amok! All across this great nation, Republicans are doing the dastardly deeds of taking into Their hands, a Woman’s Right to Choose, Voter’s Rights at the Polls, gerrymandering, gay rights and more.

From Texas to Ohio to North Carolina to California, the Republicans are in a dog fight and the American Citizens are being held hostage. Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, whose 12-hour Filibuster speech on the abortion issue made even Rand Paul proud. She is locked in against one of the greatest orators of Texas, Gov. Rick Perry (Sorry, I had to do that ). Gov. Perry is undoubtedly attempting to strike down any opposition when it comes to abortions in his state. But he’s relentless in capital punishment. Last week, Texas performed execution #251, the most under any sitting Governor.

Republican Gov., John Kasich, signed stringent abortion restrictions into law on Sunday night citing it was part of his “budgetary” planning. His bill requires women to take an unnecessary ultra-sound before having an abortion, requires physicians to read a Speech written by politicians to women seeking abortions, restricts workers at rape crisis centers from sharing with rape victims their legal rights.

In North Carolina, the General Assembly was lined with protesters as the State Senate voted on and passed sweeping legislation on an abortion bill, requiring physicians to be present during the procedure. The Republican Majority, under the hush of night, slipped this provision in under a bill that would prohibit the use of foreign law – Sharia Law – in the courts of North Carolina. Even the newly elected Governor, Pat McCrory (R), seemed taken aback by Tuesday nights events leading to Wednesday mornings outcome.

“When the Democrats were in power, this is how they did business. It was not right then and it is not right now. Regardless of what party is in charge or what important issue is being discussed, the process must be appropriate and thorough”, Gov. McCrory said. Interesting, coming from a man who reduced Unemployment Benefits length from 26-weeks to 13 and the Benefits amount from a maximum $535-week to $325 a week, without, mind you, support from the Democratic minority. Oh, and by the way, HE is why the #MoralMondays Movement has begun in North Carolina. His unpopular and targeted legislation has struck a cord, even in some Republicans that voted him in. If the House approves this measure, the bill becomes law without the Governor’s signature.

In California, gay marriage is placed on hold temporarily. A conservatives based lawyers group called, Alliance Defending Freedom out of Arizona, claimed in a petition that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals acted too early in letting same-sex marriages resume. Opponents are feverishly attempting to dissuade momentum of this historic ruling by the Supreme Court last week. Kansas Republican, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, has introduced a federal constitutional amendment banning All same sex marriages nation-wide. He has compared this fight to the Roe v. Wade fight legalizing abortions.

And to finish off the Republican agenda, they are beginning to gerrymander or redistrict voting locations for their benefit. A few states, Texas and North Carolina to name a couple, have begun changing the maps in key voting districts and also have added stricter voting laws requiring All registered voters show a pictured I.D.

Yep, the Republican base is showing its hand. They are standing united in every corner of the country. From Congress, to Senate, to House, to local government, they stand united with the same message – “People be damned, it’s Our Agenda, No Compromise, No Backing Down”. But remember America, they didn’t walk into office…some of you voted them in.

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Domestic Policies News Politics

The Complicated Court

I think we were all warned that the final week of the Supreme Court term would turn us all into hypocrites, and it certainly delivered on that promise. The conservatives had to like the Voting Rights Act case decision and liberals had to like DOMA, and both sides had something to like and dislike about the Affirmative Action and the California Proposition 8 results.

In the end, none of these decisions should have been surprising. The liberal era that reached its height in the late 1960s has been declining for years and the court has done its best lately to rein in what the right sees as its excesses, especially when it comes to government power. They’ve also set back abortion rights, the rights of the accused, and have ruled fairly consistently for the rights of religious organizations to participate in the public square. To think that any of these issues is sacrosanct would be foolish, but to also think that the court’s decisions mean an end to liberal programs would likewise be incorrect.

But the conservatives have also done wonders for the gay rights movement. Not only did they finally strike down anti-sodomy laws, but yesterday’s marriage equality ruling is a huge step forward for the recognition that homosexuals must be treated with respect under the law. I know that many African-Americans don’t like the comparison between the Civil Rights Movement and today’s gay issues, but on a human scale they are exactly the same. It’s important that every citizen be welcome and be able to feel relaxed in our society. If you’re straight, the world generally works for you. If you’re gay, some parts of it don’t. Being a member of the majority or the power structure bestows on people a sense that they have control over their destiny. Everyone deserves to feel this way.

I’m looking forward to the day when people are simply married; not same-sex married or married with equality, but just…married. That’s the beauty of the court’s ruling. I also look forward to the day when all people have access to higher education and the vote. We need to work to make these happen, but I have confidence that we will.

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Domestic Policies News Politics

Now Who Are The Activists?

Remember when conservatives across the nation accused liberal justices of being activists? Of making law without interpreting it? Of imposing their political ideology on court cases instead of taking a uniquely 18th century view of the constitution? Good times, no?

Welcome to the conservative majority.

Today’s ruling in the Voting Rights Act case shows that the right can be just as activist, just as ideological and just as dismissive of the democratic process as they accused the left of being. It was evident during arguments in March, and the decision was not far off from what many feared would happen.

The court declared that Section 4 of the act (which determined the formula to identify states that needed voting oversight) was unconstitutional. That renders Section 5 moot, because without jurisdictions that are required to get preclearance from the federal government before they enact laws that might violate voter’s rights, there is no need for, well, preclearance in the first place. So why not simply declare Section 5 unconstitutional as well? There was at least one vote for that as:

Justice Thomas called for striking down Section 5 immediately, saying the majority opinion had provided the reasons and merely left “the inevitable conclusion unstated.” 

The most disturbing part of the decision came from Justice Roberts, who claims to care about originalism and reliance on the past, except in cases where he doesn’t. Thus,

The current coverage scheme, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, is “based on 40-year-old facts having no relationship to the present day.” 

“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions,” he wrote. “It cannot simply rely on the past.” 

What makes sense in light of current conditions is a product of the past. That’s the bedrock assumption of every history class I’ve ever taken and one that serious historians would surely agree. It’s like saying that Paula Deen said what she said only in light of what’s happening in the country in 2013 and forgetting that she is a product of a specific time, place, history and upbringing.

As usual, it took a liberal justice to remind the court why the Voting Rights Act had been passed in the first place and why we still need it today: History. From Justice Ginsburg:

“The great man who led the march from Selma to Montgomery and there called for the passage of the Voting Rights Act foresaw progress, even in Alabama,” she said. “’The arc of the moral universe is long,’ he said, but ‘it bends toward justice,’ if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.” 

“That commitment,” she said, “has been disserved by today’s decision.” 

Ginsburg also laid out a chilling future based on today’s decision.

She said the focus of the Voting Rights Act had properly changed from “first-generation barriers to ballot access” to “second-generation barriers” like racial gerrymandering and laws requiring at-large voting in places with a sizable black minority. She said Section 5 had been effective in thwarting such efforts. 

As if on cue, and wasting no time in trying to disenfranchise the next generation,

“With today’s decision,” said Greg Abbott, Texas’ attorney general, “the state’s voter ID law will take effect immediately. Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government.”

Finally, you know that things are seriously awry when a liberal has to remind the conservatives of the bedrock of right wing originalist dogma:

In any event, she said, Congress, which reauthorized the law by a large majority in the House and unanimously in the Senate, was the right body to decide whether the law was needed and where. 

Exactly.

Yes, we have an African-American president and we had more African-American participation in the 2012 election, and we have many more African-Americans in local and state offices. But we still have mischief and we still have false cries of voter fraud from the right. What will happen now because of this decision is that those laws will take affect and aggrieved parties will need to react to them after the fact. You were denied your vote? Oh well. Better luck next time.

Democracy indeed.

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Domestic Policies

Analysis of the Supreme Court Decision on Voting Rights

 

Spencer Overton

Spencer Overton is a professor The George Washington University Law School and a senior fellow at Demos, a liberal research organization, and he teaches and writes on voting rights. He is the author of the book Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression.

Below are four questions put to Mr. Overton regarding the The Supreme Court’s decision today to strike down a central part of the Voting Rights Act, Section 4:

Q. How would you summarize the decision in a single sentence?

A. The court effectively rolled back an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that the Act’s formula requiring federal pre-approval of election changes for some states but not others was outdated because it was based on data from the 1960s and 70s.

Q. Did anything in it — or in the justices’ votes — surprise you?

A. I was not surprised by the votes of the particular justices.

Q. How will the ruling affect elections and voting? How will it affect minority turnout and representation?

A. Overwhelming evidence shows that many state and local politicians continue to win elections by unfairly manipulating election rules, and the court’s decision will only make this problem worse. The biggest problem will be the under-the-radar manipulation of election rules for local offices like city councils, county commissions, school boards, and sheriffs. These offices are often non-partisan and escape national attention, but make important decisions related to schools, criminal justice, health and family services, and economic opportunity that directly affect our daily lives. Local manipulation is a real problem—over 85 percent of all election rule changes rejected as unfair under Section 5 were at the local level. In Nueces County, Tex., for example, the rapidly growing Latino community surpassed 56 percent of the county’s population, and in response county officials gerrymandered local election districts to diminish the ballots of Latino voters. Without Section 5 protections to block this type of racial manipulation, voters in many areas like Nueces County will lack the thousands (and sometimes millions) of dollars needed to bring a lawsuit and stop these unfair changes.

Q. What’s next for the Voting Rights Act?

A. Congress should update the Voting Rights Act. First, Congress should update pre-clearance so that states and localities that have recently violated voting rights or do so in the future are required to submit their election rule changes to federal officials for pre-approval. Second, Congress should streamline litigation, so that it is more efficient and effective in stopping unfair election rules before they are used in elections and harm voters. Third, Congress should require that states and localities with significant minority populations disclose information about the effects of their election law changes—more transparency would deter bad activity.

Source: New York Times

Congress should update the VRA. In fact, in my opinion it should have done so in the period between 1970 and 2006, when the act was up for renewal . The corrupt political situations that were evident in the 60’s, which prompted the creation of the bill, showed themselves to be alive and well during the 2012 election for President of the United States. ~ A. Conton

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Domestic Policies Education teacher evaluation

Hurry Up and Wait: Putting the Brakes on Teacher Evaluation

As if educators, including me, several times, haven’t been clear enough that rushing into an untested teacher evaluation system is a terrible idea, along comes our esteemed Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan to finally get the message: schools need more time to implement, experiment and, yes, evaluate the new system before it becomes operative and to see if it does what it’s supposed to do. It won’t, because it has fatal flaws in it, but at least giving teachers, administrators and school boards another year might just uncover the folly of using prescriptive tests for evaluative ends.

In any case, Duncan is allowing states to apply for waivers to their waivers, which would require that the Christie administration to do something positive for teachers and students, so I’m not holding my breath. After all, I’ve sat in a room with NJ Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf and heard him, and other DOE officials, wax rhapsodic about how wonderful this new system is. Meanwhile, the data crunchers don’t have all of the numbers, and the numbers they have are not representative of all types of districts.

Then there is this open letter to the New Jersey legislature from noted Millburn Superintendent James A, Crisfield, who makes a powerful case for letting the 2013-14 school year be a test case for every district in the state. That way we can observe how the system works and look to solve the obvious technical problems that the state seems to be ignoring. These include the funding restraints that will restrict districts from purchasing the computers necessary for all students to be able to take the end-of-year evaluations and the rather obtuse attitude the department has about ensuring that the youngest students have the necessary keyboarding skills to actually show what they’ve learned.

But just in case you think that it’s only bitter teachers who are questioning the efficacy of the system, Crisfield reminds us that concerns reach across the education spectrum:

And speaking of fairness, there really needs to be another discussion about the efficacy of using student test scores to judge the effectiveness of a teacher. We’re moving so fast now that we don’t even have the opportunity to fully vet that very troubling (and in most educators’ opinion, highly flawed) aspect of the new system.

In fact, I can’t even explain to my teachers how, exactly, student test scores will affect their ratings, tenure, and pay (and I certainly don’t have the time to discuss with them the research behind, and/or the wisdom of, such ideas).

I like this guy.

This evaluation system has always been a political issue, not an education issue. If the governor was serious about true reform, he would have included far more public school teachers in the process, and he wouldn’t have exempted private and charter schools. If you are in a position to do so, please contact your legislator. I can tell you from personal experience talking to them, that members of the Assembly and Senate want to know how affected constituents are thinking on the issues. The only thing we have to lose is control over our profession.

Scary.

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Domestic Policies Education New Jersey News Politics teacher evaluation

The Lesson We Never Learn

After 29 years in the classroom, and with a pretty savvy political sense, if I may be so bold, I consider myself a keen observer of most things educational, but this story about Philadelphia’s schools made me shiver with anger from the first paragraph:

Andrew Jackson School too agitated to eat breakfast on Friday, an aide alerted the school counselor, who engaged him in an art project in her office. When he was still overwrought at 11, a secretary called the boy’s family, and soon a monitor at the front door buzzed in an older brother to take him home. 

Under a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, none of these supporting players — aide, counselor, secretary, security monitor — will remain at the school by September, nor will there be money for books, paper, a nurse or the school’s locally celebrated rock band. 

I know that this kind of mindless budget cutting has been going on for years and real reformers, as opposed to the self-styled ones on the right, have been warning us that children are in real danger, but somehow this story caught me. Or maybe it just represents the last straw on my particular camel’s back. Whatever. I have now officially had enough. If that’s the way that Philadelphia’s families are going to be treated, then we need an educational Tahrir/Taksim/self-immolating fruit-seller moment in this country. It’s that bad now, and it’s going to get worse.

Across the river, here in New Jersey, next fall is shaping up to be one of the worst for education since, well, four years ago when Chris Christie promised to destroy collective bargaining, and then made good on it, among other things. All of the polls point to a reelection win for the governor with a slight possibility that his coattails could enable the GOP to take over the state legislature. With a majority, even if it’s just the Senate, they can reshape the State Supreme Court, and with both houses they can further erode worker’s rights, eliminate seniority, impose radical cuts to public schools and stop funding for programs, like those in Philadelphia, that save lives, literally and figuratively.

What might save the state is a current challenge to the October U.S. Senate primary, forcing it to be held on the same day as the gubernatorial election. That would bring out more pro-education voters. Opponents of the separate election say they’ve found a clause that specifically addresses the issue. Let’s see if the State Supreme Court agrees.

And then, of course, there’s the new teacher evaluation system that’s set to go into effect statewide come the fall. Imagine a program that uses bad data in a manner that it wasn’t meant to be used, then include horse-trading politicians who have little idea what the legislation says, and put a Commissioner of Education in charge of the system who has little regard for anything other than his political standing and whether the State Board of Education supports him. Oh, wait…no need to imagine. New Jersey’s got it!

I’m all for teacher accountability, but this system was created by non-educators as a means of punishing state workers and unions, and making it easier to fire effective teachers who cost too much. If it was about education, then private and charter school teachers would be included in it. But they’re not, and that’s all you need to know about the intentions of its authors.

So enjoy your summer everyone. Let’s hope the shore businesses make lots of money and rejuvenate the towns and people who lost the most. Let’s hope that students and teachers find exciting ways to add to their knowledge, or to just forget about formal learning for a while and smell some flowers. In the fall, a new storm will be brewing, but it won’t be anything like Sandy. It will just be a lot of hot air.

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Domestic Policies News Technology

Where the NSA Scandal Is Heading

He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been good or bad… mostly by checking your Facebook status updates and by screening your calls. Because these days, it seems that Santa’s working for the National Security Agency. Or at least that’s where public opinion seems to be going, with more alleged revelations appearing of secret programs allowing the government to spy on its own citizens. And though these findings are polarizing the nation—with some finding shades of totalitarian overreach where others see a yawn-worthy media blowup—the true consequences of these allegations remain to be known.

Media Matters

A quick rewind first. Before exploring where this latest scandal is going, we need to know where it began. Mainly: the media. Or rather, media reports of documents leaked by a whistleblower (and more on that in a minute). The ball started rolling June 6 when British newspaper “The Guardian” published the first in a series of major scoops alleging that the NSA—America’s largest intelligence-gathering agency—has been collecting million of phone records from mega communication corporation Verizon’s US customers.  Classified documents then showed that this exchange had been going on for seven years, and that AT&T and Sprint Nextel were also part of the massive observation program. Further reporting from “The Guardian” uncovered the existence of an Internet surveillance system called PRISM, tasked with monitoring private user data from key tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Since then, reports of more alleged government prying have been bubbling over the Internet, with “The Guardian” and other newspapers leading the charge. It’s no wonder that a reader’s first reaction might be to go sell your iPhone 4 or other piece of tech that could serve as a window for the seeming peeping Tom that is the government. But as with any allegation, the back story is only the tip of the iceberg.

Consequences

Now that the charges of creepy Big Brotherism have been publicly levied against the government (with all three branches seemingly in cahoots), the next part of this long saga is figuring out what will happen to all the players, and what policy changes will spring from this. First up on the list is the man who leaked the incriminating documents, 29-year-old former CIA employee Edward Snowden. After publicly outing himself as the secret source behind “The Guardian’s” reports, Snowden fled the country and hid in Hong Kong… which may not have been the smartest first choice, as pundits were quick to find that the Chinese territory’s extradition policies almost always allow for the deportation of wanted criminals. This, of course, would depend on the whistleblower actually being branded a criminal. As of early June, no formal charges have been filed, though the chances are high that a warrant will be issued for Snowden’s arrest under a 1917 anti-espionage law. Snowden himself has acknowledged as much, as has famed informant Daniel Ellsberg—of Pentagon Papers fame—who referred to Snowden as a hero while recognizing his chances of being prosecuted are pretty high.

And then there’s the matter of the policies that have caused all these problems. While the president himself has publicly defended them, saying the agencies are not actually reviewing citizen data, public opinion on the subject remains mixed. A recent poll by “The Washington Post” found that 56 percent of Americans believed the NSA’s collection of phone records to be acceptable, while 41 percent saw the practice as unacceptable. Pundits are equally divided, with an odd coalition of Obama-detracting conservatives, freedom-first libertarians and privacy-protecting liberals all raging against the NSA programs. Others (especially long-time Obama supporters and, oddly enough, security minded neoconservatives) have begun their own media campaigns against the scandal, swapping away at Orwellian accusations of a surveillance state and refusing to call Snowden’s actions heroic.

More to Come?

As the more emotional aspects of the fiasco settle, it’ll be up to either Congress or the courts to review what’s perceived as the most troubling aspects of the policies. Individual suits against the telephone companies or the government itself may lead to the further declassification of secret documents, as could any possible congressional inquest resulting from the leaks. Once this treasure trove of information is made public, there’s no knowing what new scandals will erupt, and whose careers will be ruined. Only time—and more transparency—will tell.

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Domestic Policies News Politics Technology

The High Tech Flower Children Are High

The naivete of the computer geniuses who thought they were extending the ethos of the counterculture by creating an open, honest, democratic society with the Internet is rather stunning. The tech giants were the ones who promoted connectivity, but were never quite as open as they purported when it came to how they were using our data. A look through history should have warned them that any technology from telegraph, the telephone and video started out unregulated and public, but ultimately was taken over by the hucksters, the monetized and, yes, the government. Never forget that the government can open your mail if they suspect a plot, and always remember that the government has opened mail even if they didn’t have a reason. So it is today with computer technology.

And even when the tech people did warn us, we didn’t listen.

“In 1999, Scott McNealy, the chief executive of Sun Microsystems, summed up the valley’s attitude toward personal data in what became a defining comment of the dot-com boom. “You have zero privacy,” he said. “Get over it.”

But the naive attitude continues:

Mr. McNealy is not retracting that comment, not quite; but like Mr. Metcalfe he is more worried about potential government abuse than he used to be. “Should you be afraid if AT&T has your data? Google?” he asked. “They’re private entities. AT&T can’t hurt me. Jerry Brown and Barack Obama can.”

AT&T and Google can’t hurt me? Think again Scott. They can raise my bill with bogus charges or keep track of ads I click on and use that data against me if they want. It’s then up to me to cleanse my own record. The government can go after me too, but they don’t have the financial incentive to do so. Guess which one I’m more afraid of?

The people who brought us the computer revolution were smart, but were perhaps too smart. Their bias was toward maintaining data and recovering information if the system crashes. That’s why you truly cannot erase the footprints you make on your machine or in cyberspace. Now that the Congress has passed laws and the courts have upheld their legality, it should surprise no one that the government is mining the data in the name of national security.

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Immigration Immigration Reform Politics

President’s Weekly Address: Fixing a Broken Immigration System

President Obama says that the United States Senate will soon take action to fix our broken immigration system with a commonsense bill. He also cautions that the new bill will not make everyone happy, not Democrats, not Republicans. But urges Congress to act quickly to pass the bill.

The bill before the Senate isn’t perfect.  It’s a compromise.  Nobody will get everything they want – not Democrats, not Republicans, not me.  But it is a bill that’s largely consistent with the principles I’ve repeatedly laid out for commonsense immigration reform.

This bill would continue to strengthen security at our borders, increase criminal penalties against smugglers and traffickers, and hold employers more accountable if they knowingly hire undocumented workers.  If enacted, it would represent the most ambitious enforcement plan in recent memory.

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Bush Dick Cheney Domestic Policies News Politics Technology

And This Is A Surprise, Why?

Yes, I try to be a good liberal every chance that I can, but honestly, I can’t help but think that this NSA surveillance business is a big yawn. We live in an electronic, connected world. We provide information via phone, cable TV, Internet, e-mail, texts, check boxes (especially after we’ve all thoroughly read the 28 page privacy statement that all website provide us with), billing address is same as mailing address online forms when we buy something, credit card information (stored on a third party server), Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Tumblr, picture sharing sites and on and on and on.

Now we learn that the government, in the name of national security and with the acquiescence of the executive, legislative and judicial branches, has gathered this data (I believe that “scooped” is the reigning cool-person way to describe it) and could use it to discover patterns in our behavior. If they wanted to. It’s disturbing, but I cannot share the outrage. I saw it coming, and when I was a corporate technology trainer in the 1990s, I made a point of warning every student who sat in my class that everything they did on a computer, whether on the Internet or in a Word document, was fair game for any eyes that wanted to pry. This is ever more true today. People ignored or minimized this at their peril. And this was before September 11, when the corporations and government had even less of an excuse to watch us.

Okay, perhaps I’m being naive and obtuse and blind and I’m ignoring dangers that other can clearly see, but I don’t think so. Maybe this article is absolutely wrong, but again, I don’t think so.  Yes, I understand that there’s a difference between willingly giving your data and the government mining for it, and I certainly don’t want the government to get used to taking data that citizens have not freely given it, but in a way, we have.

This is also part of our history, and has been going on since the Alien and Sedition Acts. And the 1917 Espionage Act. When we signed on to Truman’s Doctrine of containing Communism, we tacitly agreed that the government could check that we were loyal. Joseph McCarthy went too far and was too reckless. Richard Nixon did similar things, but he was elected VP and president and had J. Edgar Hoover to both support and threaten him. When they went too far, the Congress reined them in. So it will be today.

The problem now is that the threat of attack is too real and the consequences too terrible to let our guard down for even a second. The Chinese and Iranians are conducting cyberattacks that threaten our systems. How would you like the government to respond? By only following the bad people? That’s like asking the police to only shoot or arrest bad guys. Most times it happens, but when it doesn’t we react with a fury that sometimes ignores facts or circumstances. The same is true today. The NSA’s job is to conduct information-gathering and use that data to find patterns of behavior that might lead to terrorism. To say that they should not be gathering all of the data that they can is counterproductive.

That the press has reported this story based on a whistle-blowers actions shows that our system still works. The government will be held accountable. At this point, that’s good enough for me.

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