Category: Politics

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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.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney Wanted Hurricane Sandy To Come Another Time

Forget the 285 who died because of Hurricane Sandy. As far as Mitt Romney is concerned, they’re not that important. What’s important to the 2012 Republican presidential candidate is the timing of the Hurricane. You see, Mitt thinks Sandy’s timing was wrong. If it was left up to him, Sandy would have made its appearance another time… preferably after the November 7th election.

In an appearance on… wait for it… Fox News, Romney spoke about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and his new found friend in President Obama, after Sandy destroyed the East Coast;

“…I’ve been a governor, and I know what happens when there’s been a national disaster — and that is, you look for help from the federal government. You want the president and you want the other agencies of the federal government to step in and provide help.

“And Gov. Christie did what he thought was best for the people of his state, and I don’t blame him for that at all. He was helpful to me and my campaign every way possible. I consider him a good friend. He has a great future, he’s a terrific governor, he’s doing a good job in New Jersey. I have no ill will.”

When Fox host Neil Cavuto asked Romney if Christie got too “chummy” with Obama after the hurricane struck the east coast, and whether that hurt his campaign, Romney replied;

“I can tell you the Hurricane didn’t come at the right time, that’s not because of Chris Christie. That’s because one of the advantages of incumbency is that when there is an event like that, you get to see the president in a fatherly roll and showing his sympathy for people who were harmed, who had been victims of the storm. And obviously, that gives a little boost to the president’s efforts.”

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Politics twitter

@HillaryClinton Joins Twitter With A Teaser Profile

While many outlets went crazy today trying to decipher what the “TBD” on Hillary Clinton’s new twitter account means, we will let the profile speak for itself.

SIDENOTE: “TBD”… it’s simple. Future President of the United States. Why are they still trying to figure this out? It’s as clear as day!

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Politics trayvon martin

Jury Selection Begins in The George Zimmerman / Trayvon Martin Case

It is the case that shocked the nation, shocked the world for that matter. And today, the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial officially began with jury selection.

Zimmerman, 29, is charged with second-degree murder and faces up to life in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty, contending he acted in self-defense during a confrontation with Martin, 17, in a gated community in this central Florida town on February 26, 2012.

After a brief opening session in the courtroom, where Zimmerman was joined by his wife Shellie, Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson called a recess so that she, the prosecutors and defense attorneys could meet briefly with a pool of about 100 potential jurors.

The jurors were then to fill out a questionnaire before being summoned one by one into the courtroom for individual questioning.

It is unclear how long it will take for the judge and lawyers to select a panel of six jurors.

At the time of the Martin killing, Zimmerman, a light-skinned Hispanic, was the self-appointed neighborhood watch captain in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community. During a struggle, he killed Martin with a single shot to the chest from a 9mm handgun.

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edward snowden Politics

Edward Snowden – NSA Whistleblower Comes Forward – Video

A 29-year-old man who said he is behind the leaks exposing NSA surveillance on American citizens revealed his identity Sunday in an interview with The Guardian.

Edward Snowden, a former CIA communications expert and current defense contractor living in Hawaii, said that he released the documents to alert the American public about what is being done in their name.

“I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,” Snowden said to The Guardian.

Snowden told his superiors at Booz Allen and Dell, a firm where he earned $200,000 a year working on a contract with the NSA, that he was seeking treatment for his epilepsy and would need some time off. He then left on a plane bound for Hong Kong.

Snowden set up a meeting with Guardian reporters in his hide out after releasing documents last week on the NSA collecting telephone information from Verizon Wireless customers, and the PRISM program, which allows the government to tap into the servers of major internet companies in the U.S. and UK.

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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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Politics

Jesse Jackson Jr. Could Spend Up to 4 Years in Jail

Politico is reporting that the Federal prosecutors are seeking a four-year prison sentence for former Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who has pleaded guilty to illegally diverting hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to personal use.

Under the Justice Department recommendations, Jackson would have to forfeit the $750,000 he stole from his campaign, and pay back another $750,000 to his reelection committee. Prosecutors are asking that someone not related to Jackson be appointed to run the campaign, which would then be “wound down.”

Jackson, the son of well-known civil rights advocate Rev. Jesse Jackson, is scheduled to be sentenced early next month.

In a break for Jackson and his wife — former Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson, who also pleaded guilty in the case — prosecutors have requested that their prison sentences be staggered so that both aren’t in prison at the same time. Sandi Jackson faces up to 18 months in federal prison as part of the couple’s illegal scheme. The couple have two young children.

Once a rising star in Democratic politics, the 48-year-old Jackson pleaded guilty in February to using more than $750,000 from his campaign to cover a stunning range of personal expenses in thousands of transactions, including including home renovations, furniture, school tuition, groceries, a $43,000 Rolex watch, fur coats and memorabilia associated with Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Bruce Lee.

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Politics

It’s Official – Cory Booker Is Running for Senate

Newark Mayor Cory Booker on Saturday formally announced he’s in the race to finish the US Senate term of the late Frank Lautenberg.

The 44-year-old Democrat made his candidacy official at a news conference Saturday in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city. He was joined by former US Sen. Bill Bradley, a former pro basketball player who for 18 years held the seat Booker is seeking.

Bradley, who endorsed Booker, called him “the right person for the right office at the right time.”

Booker began raising money for a Senate run even before Lautenberg, who died Monday, announced retirement plans in February. He had raised $1.9 million by the end of the last reporting period in March.

Reps. Frank Pallone and Rush Holt are also planning to enter the Democratic primary. Booker is considered the early front-runner.

Pallone, 61, had $3.7 million in his campaign coffers at the end of March and has deep union support. Holt, 64, a former research physicist, had $800,000 on hand.

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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.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Politics Rape

Rape Suspect Buried Alive With His Victim

Police had identified the 17-year-old as the possible culprit in the rape and murder of a 35-year-old woman near the municipality of Colquechaca.

The chief prosecutor says more than 200 furious local people seized Santos Ramos and buried him in the grave of his alleged victim.

He says residents blocked roads into the village to stop police arriving.

A reporter for a local radio station, who would only speak anonymously for fear of reprisals, told the media that Mr Ramos was tied up at the woman’s funeral.

He said mourners threw him into the open grave alongside the woman’s coffin and filled the grave with earth.

Colquechaca is a town of about 5,000 inhabitants some 207 miles ( 333 km) south-east of the Bolivian capital, La Paz.

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China Foreign Policies News Politics

Xi Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Yes, that would be the number one hit on Radio Beijing this week as Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the United States on Friday to meet with President Obama. Their agenda will not be full of arms control or contentious issues like North Korea, Iran or who owns which teensy islands in the South China Sea, but rather, personal diplomacy. That’s right; President Xi (or is it her…I can never remember) is traveling thousands of miles to meet the chilliest, most standoffish, least huggable American leader since Richard Nixon in order to establish a personal connection on the superpower stage.

Further, Mrs. Xi (is that redundant? OK, I’ll stop) won’t be accompanying the Mr. to the Republican Dude Ranch, which is a shame because I’m sure there are many Americans who would like to meet her. Mrs. Obama also won’t be in attendance because it’s getting near the end of the school year and the Obama girls surely have some last minute exams to take. So, it will just be the guys at the Sunnylands retreat, where Ronald Reagan and other GOPers used to sun themselves and cavort with wealthy people who loved them.

As with all meetings between key world leaders, both sides will need to measure the success of the summit. It will be difficult to tell if Xi achieves his goal of making friends with Obama, but I give him credit for making the personal, instead of the political, his particular goal. China isn’t ready to take the lead on the world stage. Their economy is large and growing, but subject to volatility brought on by too much state meddling and the ever-present threat of shoddy, or even deadly products. Militarily, they could rival the US in sheer numbers, but their eyes are too big for their stomachs when it comes to how much they can push or bully other countries to do their bidding. At this point, they can’t even dissuade North Korea to make significant changes to their behavior. How are they going to challenge more savvy, well-connected and wealthier countries to take them seriously? Xi is most likely aware of this and is taking a slow growth approach to the United States.

Xi is also a member of the generation that came of political age at the time of the June 4th democracy movement in Tienanmen Square. The military crackdown on democracy protesters was a critical turning point, and presumably today’s Chinese leadership has learned the dangers of allowing too much freedom along with the warning that too much repression brings. Letting people to get rich in return for agreeing to a one-party state is a risky proposition because the truth is this: Not everyone can get rich, but everyone will be subject to the censors, the police and the Internet trackers. Xi must be looking at Turkey, Syria and Egypt and wondering how he can keep the lid on his country. In the end, it’s only a matter of time.

Let’s hope that  President Obama can establish a connection with our main rivals in the world, and engage Mr. Xi in a productive dialogue that the two men can use when relations get difficult, because they ultimately will. Then both of them can say that they found success.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest

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Mitt Romney Politics

Mitt Romney: 47% Comment Sounded Better In My Head

The 2012 election has long been in the history books, but Mitt Romney still laments some of the things he said in the campaign — like those secretly taped “47%” remarks.

In an interview with CNN airing Thursday, the Republican presidential nominee said he was “very upset” after his comments at a fundraising event about 47% of Americans who are “dependent on the government” and “believe that they are victims” came to light.

“There were a number of times that I said things like that — that didn’t come out right,” Romney told CNN’s Gloria Borger. “Now and then, things don’t come out exactly the way you want them to come out. They don’t sound the way you thought they sounded.”

Romney spent days last fall trying to explain that he wanted to help all Americans, but the damage was done by the taped remarks, which were published by Mother Jones magazine

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