“The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen — a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person’s] life.” – Justice William O. Douglas
Saffo analyzes waning privacy among all citizens of the world and discuss the danger of privacy becoming a priviledge of the elite.
Perhaps the best line though comes at the very start of the interview, almost as a throw away driven by the interviewers opening remark:
“… well you know, the terrorist aspect and the war aspect, no… our collective intelligence in this country drops 20 IQ points whenever we’re at war and then when the war ends we usually come back to our senses…. now its a little troublesome cause this one shows no sign of ending so maybe we never get those 20 points back.”
And in the the State of the Union Address, the President maintains not only is the practice legal but that the key people of the legislative branch were advised, and all is right… I'm still confused as to why the appropriate search warrants couldn't be obtained within the 72 hours after the taps were first made… since this argument doesn't seem to be debated very much (rather just the yes he can, no he can't factions seem to be vocal)…I must be missing something… what?
“It
was only a matter of time. For several years, electronic devices in
cars have monitored acceleration and braking to save fuel and improve
safety. Now, they're saving some of that data to give automakers and
police a better idea of how you drive.” …..
“This is another example of where technology has outstripped the law and certain assumptions of how the world works,”
says Jay Stanley, director of communications for the Technology and
Liberty Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.” ….
David
Appell comments on potential hazards when “special circumstances manage
to drill their way into every reasonable policy..” his case in point
…. Yahoo under attack by the parents of a Marine (killed in Iraq) who
want to read his email.
– goto
originally Posted to cep.weblogger.com by David Soul on 12/26/04; 9:00:43 PM
in the Privacy section.
Carl Kaplan writes in the NY Times about an article by Daniel J.
Solove, an assistant professor at Seton Hall Law School (“Privacy and
Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy”) that
claims that the battle of the metaphors is much more than a literary
parlor game…… in fact, the way a problem is framed determines its
solution….. – goto
originally Posted to cep.weblogger.com by David Soul on 12/26/04; 8:55:34 PM
in the Privacy section.
This image shows a cutting-edge solar-electric propulsion thruster in development at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., that uses xenon ions for propulsion. An earlier version of this solar-electric propulsion engine has been flying on NASA's Dawn mission to the asteroid belt. This engine is being considered as part of the Asteroid Initiative, a proposal to robotically capture a small near-Earth asteroid and redirect it safely to a stable orbit in the Earth-moon system where astronauts can visit and explore it. This image was taken through a porthole in a vacuum chamber at JPL where the ion engine is being tested. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Read More
