Rosenzweig Now Chairman of DHS Privacy Board 214
An anonymous reader writes "Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative lawyer and prominent proponent of the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness project, has been
appointed the first chairman of the Department of Homeland Security's privacy board. This follows the appointment of an executive of Gator to the board. Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that, rather than viewing protection of privacy as priority, Rosenzweig 'tends to view privacy as something to be circumvented.' Are the foxes guarding the henhouse when it comes to government and privacy?"
I could have told you something was wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sir Humphrey Appleby (Score:3, Insightful)
Quote Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister:- I need to know everything in order to know what I need to know
The beaurocrat's excuse for invasion of privacy never realy changes.
Write and get help! (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I look at this issue like I do with European software patents. If ordinary people don't stand up and lobby their government representative, then nothing will change. If you believe strongly about this, then try to do something about it. Make your views known
Re:Write and get help! (Score:5, Insightful)
When will you folks learn. In the US, our reps won't listen unless there's a huge PAC donation included with your letter.
Oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy is something that is entirely the opposite of the DHS's goal - therefore, isn't it obvious that they will hire experts in how to remove privacy? The DHS's privacy department isn't about protecting privacy (because that would be counter to the DHS's mission) but rather how to remove privacy so the DHS can do its job. Of course they will mask this in doublespeak - just like what was called the department of war half a century ago got renamed to the department of defence.
Re:Are the foxes guarding the henhouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Along the lines of the ministry of love being where you go to get the living shit beat out of you it seems the ministry of privacy being formed in america is where all of your privacy will be stripped away.
Freedom is Slavery? (Score:5, Insightful)
The way things are going in the western world at the moment I do fear that we are sleep walking towards some kind of Orwellian nightmare. We face a determined foe who are willing to die for what they believe in. Yet we are willing to throw aside our own hard won values of freedom and justice in the interest of "safety".
Freedom is Slavery was a propaganda slogan from the book 1984, designed to keep the masses happy with being oppressed. Every time I hear Tony Blair or George Bush reducing our rights to "protect freedom" I'm reminded of this.
Re:Are the foxes guarding the henhouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I could have told you something was wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop thinking like you're in the 20th century. It's a brave new world and white is the new black.
Re:Are the foxes guarding the henhouse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither "side" believes in freedom. (Score:3, Insightful)
The political landscape can be dumbed down to a simple Cartesian coordinate system: personal freedom on one axis, economic freedom on another.
Whereas a liberal will tend to deprive you of economic freedom in order redistribute wealth and fund social programs, a conservative will tend to deprive you of personal freedom in order to control your behavior.
Take this test, it's interesting: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html [theadvocates.org]
Re:I could have told you something was wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
As we can see, they're only for cutting so-called liberal programs. States' rights have seemed to lose style because those Massachusetts liberals can let gays marry (the horror!).
Whenever any party is in the minority, they rail against any expansion of federal government powers because they know it won't be expanding in the way they like. As soon as the tides turn, government expansion is a nessary evil.
Re:if you don't like it, do something about it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a clue, folks... most Congressmen do listen. If you call them, if you write them, your opinion is taken into consideration. Even if there is no money attached. Do corporations have too much power? You bet they do. Does that mean we are powerless? Not in the slighest.
The slashdot effect can do more than take down webservers. You have political power. 500,000 emails each from a private individual going to DHS will be hard to ignore. A flood protesting phone calls to relevant Senators, a flood so big it knocks out phone service to the capital for the afternoon... that will cause lots of conversation in the halls of Congress.
The biggest complaint of every politician I know of is this: the people do not communicate enough. That's a blank check slashdot.
Now, go back to pricing plane tickets. Much easier that way.
Re:I'm glad i don't live in U.S. (Score:3, Insightful)
Which raises the questions (Score:5, Insightful)
When will people start leaving their parties (Republican or Democrat) when their parties move away from what they believe?
The answer is probably when there is a no longer a two party system. The Republicans can treat their conservative base with contempt, and then still get their support by fear: "look at what the alternative would be!" The Democrats do the same thing on their side of the fence.
Re:I could have told you something was wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention pornography, sex toys, gay rights, minority rights, etc.
Conservatism is the defense of the status quo. Today and in the past. Anything else is sophistry and revisionism.
Not sleepwalking, an illusion (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll give you a quote:
"It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." --Hermann Goering
See, here's the real lie. People believe they are protecting the values, not throwing them away. Of course the original quote was about war, now it is about terror.
"Pacifists" are opponents of the politic. In this context, civil rights activists. They get discredited like dreamers, idealists which will expose the country to danger just like pacifists.
"Lack of patriotism" is of course a good mix of nationalism (American/Non-american), racism (Caucasian/Arab) and religion (Christian/Muslim). It plays on basic "Principles are fine, but now we have to protect our own" self-preservation.
Finally, "exposing the country to danger" is no longer about war, it is even "better". With war, you always know roughly who, where and how it will play out. With terror, the "danger" is everywhere, all the time and invisible. How can you argue that you are NOT exposing it to danger?
Noone dares speaks of such things. It is not "politically correct" to quote Nazi leaders, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and other examples of people that have manipulated great crowds. Naturally, we don't want to inspire more. But it also means people are oblivious to the fact that they are being manipulated. It cuts both ways.
Kjella
Americaphage (Score:4, Insightful)
(not actually anonymous; one more observation) (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, one more observation on this topic: conservatives tried to excuse all of the above inconsistencies by saying thay they were for the sake of fighting communism. What are we doing today to keep the charade going? Fighting terrorism! That's really the most relevant parallel between 1984 and today's situation: just like Ingsoc, the U.S. always needs an enemy.
Re:Americaphage (Score:2, Insightful)
No,no,no,
this guy LOVES AMERICA!
Corporate America that is....
I remember privacy... I think. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't remember, but I think when I was a kid (20 years ago) didn't we have the right to privacy here in America. In fact wasn't this always one of the key items that made America so great?
Economy 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
If a country sells you ore for 1 million dollars, the value of that million dollars is _only_ what they can buy in return with it. No more, no less. If they can't buy much, then they're giving away their ore to you for free.
So I wouldn't put much hope in an economy that _only_ exports cash. That's an economy that in reality exports _nothing_.
If all you export is printed bits of paper, expect the value of those to plummet very very fast.
The dollar until now did have the saving grace of being perceived as _the_ international standard, and as something worth having reserves of. But again, on the assumption that they can at some point buy stuff with those dollars.
As that perception starts to fade, well, you're already seeing the effects. A huge trade deficit == a fast drop in currency value, until the value of _real_ exports matches that in imports. If you ever wondered why the dollar took a nose dive recently, now you know why: because of that trade defficit.
Want to export even more money? Well, then be prepared for the dollar value to fall even more.
Just keep it up. By the time your salary will be worth a tenth of what it's worth today, well, maybe you'll see what was wrong with that policy.
"Countries don't refuse to do business with other countries because they don't like them much."
True. But they might limit how much they're willing to sell you, based on how much you can actually afford to buy. And by "afford", I mean the value of your _exports_.
"Money is money"
Precisely because of that. What they're interested is what you can get for that money, not how fast you can print bits of paper.
"America is now and will always be a huge market"
China and India are both even bigger markets, and you don't see them being able to afford the same level of imports as you do.
A huge market that can't pay is not much of a market.
Re:Which raises the questions (Score:3, Insightful)
I've gotten the distinct impression that US politics, in conjunction with the media, has become such that any issue is now a "black" (x)or "white" issue. IOW, it's easier to pick a view on a seemingly dichotomous issue rather than have to confront and think about the grey tones of real life.
Re:Are the foxes guarding the henhouse? (Score:3, Insightful)
This reminds of when during the election Bush "said" he wanted to reinstate the draft. I dont care which way you swing, I just care when mindless banter gets passed off as fact and even worse, other people believe it.
Oh yeah this is slantdot =)
Conservative Contradiction (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Which raises the questions (Score:3, Insightful)
my buddy ben... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ben Franklin
Stop calling Bush people conservatives (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who considered themselves conservative before the religious right got involved, these people are an affront to true conservatives. Changing the ethics rules to favor one of their own crooked leadership, labeling someone who volunteered for service in Viet Nam "Hanoi John" because he later protested a loser war while promoting a dope-smoking, draft-dodging, Conneticut Yankee pretending to be a Texan, running up record federal deficits, and passing legislation to try and override state courts are all actions real conservatives should find hugely revolting.
Conservatives are not your enemy. The Republican party pays lip service to its conservative roots the same way it pays lip service to the religious right. The Republicans are all about money and power at a time the Democrats have gone completely nutless. A lot of times these days you're picking the party that sickens you the least.
And what's with the religious right? Why aren't all those right wing protestants having a fit about Bush kneeling in front of the Pope's body? Hello, McFly! All the world wondering after the beast...any of that ringing any bells? Or are you just all up about gays getting married these days?
Re:Are the foxes guarding the henhouse? (Score:4, Insightful)
The timeline of a board/commission/department/[whatever] that is supposed to deal with a problem:
1. Concerned citizens see a problem/crises and demand that their reps "Do something about it!"
2. The legislature creates a [whatever] to "Do something about it!"
3. The concerned citizens see that something has been "Done" and get bored with the issue, moving on to another issue that's now in the news.
4. The new [whatever] looks around for "experts" in the area they are supposed to be dealing with.
5. The affected industry, ngos and other special interest groups are the ones who actually have the "experts" to supply.
6. They also actually have a stake in what the [whatever] does, so they stick around and do whatever is necessary to control the [whatever]. Since no one else cares, they typically gain control within 0-3 years of [whatever's] existance.
7. ??? (Traditional
8. Profit! (for the special interest groups, because now they can use [whatever] to stick it to any new competition and preserve and expand their own power.)
Take a look at just about any [whatever] that is "supposed" to be regulating something and you'll pretty much see the above pattern.
Re:Which raises the questions (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think many people would advocate this position, fortunately.
By some interpretations of the word "conservative", this is probably true. The conservatives who've become disaffected with the administration and its policies have spoken out against the expansion of executive power, new law enforcement capabilities, the growth in spending, and the activist foreign policy. All of these might be considered anathema to some conservatives; certainly Goldwater didn't care for the direction his party was going, and some of the Reaganites were actually principled in their belief in smaller government.
However, I've never really taken the conservative opposition to these seriously, because I honestly don't believe most conservatives oppose them (except maybe for spending, but that's tricky). There's a strong strain of authoritarian conservatism in this country - to be fair, there are plenty of authoritarian leftists too - and they only support limited government when the other guys are in power. Take someone like Paul Weyrich, who's currently in league with the ACLU in opposing the PATRIOT ACT. Weyrich doesn't believe in limited government - he actually thinks the government *should* bust down doors to stop gays having sex - only in restricting the federal government in case those goddamn liberals get ahold of it again.
While I'm happy to see conservatives like Weyrich standing up to the Bush administration, I don't for a moment believe they're on the same side as me.