The Privacy Candidate 593
Alsee writes "Wired News reports 'electronic civil libertarians' hearts are a-twitter' over US Presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton's bold stance on the right to privacy. Wired quotes Clinton: 'At all levels, the privacy protections for ordinary citizens are broken, inadequate and out of date.' Clinton gave a speech last June to the American Constitution Society (text, WMF) in which she addressed electronic surveillance, consumer opt-in vs. opt-out, cyber-security, commercial and government handling of personal data, data offshoring, data leaks, and even genetic discrimination." Would you consider a candidate's stand on privacy important enough to sway your vote?
Hilary, Hilary, Hilary... (Score:3, Informative)
So, um, no. I don't think I'd vote for her regardless of what her stance of privacy is.
Please try to remember... (Score:5, Informative)
She might be making noises about the "right to privacy," right now, but please try and remember that when Jack Thompson and the other usual suspects were screeching and crying about violence in video games, she supported that, too. She tries to determine which way the wind is blowing, and when she suspects that she has, then jumps on what she feels is the dominant voter bandwagon at any given point in time. But she is not the archetypical Slashbot's friend...or really anyone else's, for that matter.
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:2, Informative)
The best records in congress are held by Rep. Kucinich, Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Russell Feingold, and as always, Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont.....(Although I am glad to see a fellow Vietnam veteran, Hegel of Ohio, finally retracted his head out of his butt and is finally seeing the light on the illegitimate and unlawful invasion and occupation of Iraq - WHERE THE HELL IS OSAMA - hiding in the Bush family basement????)
Any Politician? Ron Paul (Score:3, Informative)
As far as I've read, Ron Paul has never made a campaign promise that he didn't keep. If he makes it onto the presidential ballot, he has my vote.
Did anybody read this? (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing new in the speech. She talks a lot about data breaches. Those are devastating, sure, but they're hardly an "issue." Being against data breaches offends no constituency (who *isn't* against them?) -- it's like being "tough on crime." She seems to be against a lot of things that nobody is for.
However, she spends very little time on what most of us think of when we talk about "privacy" -- that is, the government's prohibition, under the fourth amendment, against searching us without probable cause, and without a warrant. In fact, she comes to the conclusion that the warrantless searches the Bush administration are doing are probably fine. She believes in the same odious calculation that defines rights and security as mutually exclusive constraints, that have to be "balanced."
Rather, she only takes Bush to task for not letting congress in on the action. That is, had only Bush asked congress for "authorization" -- which would surely have been forthcoming -- everything would have been okay. "Let is in on the action," she seems to say, "and we'll make sure you get the warrants so your policies will be easier to sell to the masses." Instead of real criticism of a policy that's both illegal and that actually makes us less safe [schneier.com], we get criticism over tactics, and parochial self-interest.
The title and blurb for this are completely misleading.
Depends... (Score:2, Informative)
IMO, the US has had quite enough with the bush/clinton dynasty for a quarter century now to show that aristocracy doesn't work and is a bad idea. I'm sorry but we aren't supposed to have some sort of hereditary "lords" class. It's just slap wrong. 300 million and change now in this nation, how about we give some other folks a crack at it, eh?
How about a candidate who is concerned about ALL your rights, all of them up and down the list, and has the best track record bar none in Congress to protect your rights *and* your wallet, and really groks what national security and soverignty is really about and wouldn't try to pass off blood profits wars for the transnationals as being in our best interest, someone like Ron Paul, who has an exploratory committe open now?
If he got 1/50th of the news coverage Hillary gets from the controlled propaganda press, or even 1/10th the coverage that Obama dude gets, he'd be the next president handily. Well, given we clean up blackbox voting first of course.
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe the fact that she's a senator, and that the senate voted 98-1 in favor of the PATRIOT Act?
Nope, http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_l
A healthy distrust of politicians is not FUD nor cynicism but merely realism.
Re:Meaning what one says... (Score:2, Informative)
Hillary's record from ontheissues.org (Score:5, Informative)
So she supports privacy when it suits her agenda, just like everyone else in DC.
Re:The right to privacy is underrated (Score:3, Informative)
The Echelon program did not start under Clinton. From Wikipedia: "Reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its East Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early sixties, today ECHELON is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug-dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence."
Re:America!=USA (Score:1, Informative)
The two continents are NORTH America, and SOUTH America. If discussed as a single landmass they are... THE AMERICAS.
If we're discussing what "America" includes, then we have to rely on the vernacular, in which the most accepted usage (by far) is that America=USA.
You're wrong and a pedant. Kill yourself for caring about this enough to post it then get it wrong. How does it feel to care about something that doesn't matter AND be wrong about it? For you, it must feel like a Tuesday.
Very true, Hillary can't be trusted (Score:3, Informative)
I'd also warn everyone that the founder of Hillarycare - the mandatory socialized medicine boondoggle that would have banned private payer insurance - doesn't sound all that right-to-privacy to me (the right to privacy, not enumerated in the Constitution, was based on liberty). And let's remember that it was her hubby who authorized Echelon [wikipedia.org] and searching Aldrich Ames [wikipedia.org] without a warrant.
Legitimate invasions (Score:4, Informative)
That country invading an ally of yours. George H. W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was legitimate.
Any examples in mind? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Any examples in mind? (Score:3, Informative)
So - for instance - the veto should have been used when the ex post facto law that felons, already convicted, could not own firearms, because this adds to their punishment after conviction and is manifestly unconstitutional. There are other ex post facto violations that should have been defended as well.
While I agree that presidents should veto (and congress not vote for) laws which they deem unconstitutional, it's important to use proper terms here. The argument could be made that laws restricting felons' access to firearms is unconstitutional because it violates the second amendment [cornell.edu] (in fact, I think it does, despite how I might feel about armed felons). But it is not an ex post facto law; you seem to be confused about the meaning of the term.
An ex post facto law criminalizes past behaviour [cornell.edu]. The behaviour that of which felons were convicted was criminal at the time they engaged in it, which the law regarding firearms for felons does not change. It does prescribe an additional punishment, and if applied to felons with past convictions is adding punishment after the fact and in many cases after the sentence has been served. Quite apart from the issue of second amendment rights this arguably could violate those due process provisions enumerated in the 5th [cornell.edu], 6th [cornell.edu], 8th [cornell.edu], and 14th [cornell.edu] amendments (there are more pieces for due process but these are the amendments that seem most to apply to this particular case). Since many laws regarding the rights of felons are state laws, the 14th amendment is especially important.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that one might disagree with the constitutionality of these laws regarding felons, ex post facto is not really one of them.
Incidentally, rereading the 14th amendment I realized that what I had considered a far more egregious offence, that of removing the right to vote from felons, is actually provided for in that amendment. It says in part:
"But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state."
We should all read and become more familiar with the Constitution. It would be better for all were we to commit its words to memory. It's especially important that those who serve us know it well, but just as Jude [wikipedia.org] pointed out that the students he had bested at reciting the Apostles' Creed in Latin were at a disadvantage in determining whether he had recited correctly, we are at a disadvantage in rebuking our leaders for violating their oath to the Constitution when we do not learn it ourselves.