Why are we talking about giving the government more power to invade our privacy?
The 192 million passport files maintained by the State Department contain individuals’ passport applications, which include data such as Social Security numbers, physical descriptions, and names and places of birth of the applicants’ parents. Otherwise, the files provide limited information; they do not contain records of overseas travel or visa stamps from previous passports.
To test the extent of the snooping, investigators assembled a list of 150 famous Americans and checked how many times their files were accessed over a 5 1/2 -year period. Investigators found that the records of 127, or 85 percent, had been searched a total of more than 4,100 times.
The report said that “although an 85 percent hit rate appears to be excessive, the Department currently lacks criteria to determine whether this is actually an inordinately high rate.”
Before we go giving the NSA powers to do sweeping warrantless wiretaps, shouldn’t we focus first on giving the State Department some criteria to determine whether an 85% privacy breech rate is an historically high rate or just par for the course?
I’m sure they were all card carrying members of the
CommunistIslamofascist Party, and thus they have no rights to speak of.should the 15% of celebrities whose privacy was respected worry about the status of their careers?
and the o man won’t fight the retroactivity!
we haven’t for a long time.
it is becoming increasingly clear that our concept of “privacy”, much like “democracy”, have long been nothing but an illusion…or delusion, if you will.
we’re living in a proto-fascist state, where …”The State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential…” mussolini c. 1932.
ergo, it’s important to maintain the appearance of democracy by maintaining the illusion of it by having elections every 2 years…low-intensity democracy is a better tool for keeping a diverse population under control than is an outright dictatorship, however, the mechanisms and tools of fascism are still applied, albeit, quietly.
this too will pass, the msm inspired cw being: they’re celebrities, what did they expect? and the sheeple will move on to the latest american idle offering.
happy independence day.
Kiss your privacy behind, one step at a time:
Viacom lawsuit: Google told to hand over all YouTube user details
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/04/youtube.google
I don’t know if any of you were following this case…I did not even know about it till I read this article.
It’s not about kitties and children’s videos, it’s about how now people can be endangering their lives to publish controversial videos…from isolated nations or occupied territories. No privacy left.
All I can say is WOW, who is this judge?
I’m not sure how they are going to get the “unique internet address” (by which I guess they mean the IP address) or the e-mail address of everyone who has ever watched a video on Youtube. While some IP addresses are static and do not change over time, most are dynamic and do not remain the same. And they can’t get your e-mail address if you don’t give it to them. I’ve watched lots of videos on Youtube, and have never given them any kind of information.
However, I DO agree that this sets a terrible precedent, and could lead to serious consequences.
I finally finished nursing my independence hangover, and made a no-telecom-immunity flyer for people to print out. Please rec this diary, or at least follow the instrux and flyer your neighborhood: the flyer & instrux.
(I used Caslon, the typeface the Declaration of Independence was set in. This makes me happy, although I suspect only like 5 other people on the planet would care.)