Posts tagged “civil liberties”
I don't think PRISM is a big deal, but here are eight things that genuinely threaten democracy: whistleblower persecution, National Security Letters, gutting the Voting Rights Act, partisan redistricting, corporate personhood, SuperPACs, attacks on abortion rights, and enshrining anti-gay discrimination in state constitutions. (Update: I was wrong about PRISM. Shut it down.)
I defended PRISM on Twitter and caused a shitstorm. My position: surveillance isn't inherently abusive, the government has been doing this for a decade without evidence of misuse, and the real outrage should be Bradley Manning's treatment. If they can read our emails, we should be able to read their cables.
We and al-Qaeda have found common ground: neither of us believes in transparency. The White House actually argued we can't discuss rights violations because it would help terrorists. That's a reason to *stop* violating rights, not to hide it. Can 2008 get here already?
Bluewater's hoodie ban is a lazy, blunt instrument that will catch chemo patients and cold-eared tourists alongside actual troublemakers. Give security staff the discretion to make real judgements. Zero-tolerance policies are an abdication of responsibility, not a solution.
Tanks apparently rolled into LA to intimidate anti-war protesters. The video looks real, sourced from IndyMedia via AlterNet. Protesters immediately struck Tiananmen Square poses, which is both funny and depressing. I'm skeptical but can't explain away the footage.
I support the Iraq war but still oppose Bush for plenty of other reasons: drilling in wildlife preserves, tax cuts for the rich while exploding the deficit, the PATRIOT Act's police-state overreach, blurring church and state on gay rights and abortion. Also, he's just a big dumb clumsy Texan.
Linking to a great piece about America's baffling assumption that everyone loves them. Not everyone wants to be American, not everyone agrees America is the best, and sometimes America gets things completely wrong. Apparently these are radical ideas.
Bush may bring back the draft to staff an Iraq occupation that experts say could require up to 480,000 troops. Meanwhile, the government's insistence that the Constitution doesn't apply at Guantanamo has backfired, making it impossible to prosecute an accused spy for treason.
Responding to Bob's comments on censorship: we can't make value judgements about information because we lack the context to predict what will prove useful, or to whom, or when. The SARS cover-up illustrates my point perfectly. Allow free flow of information; punish misuse instead.
Reading a critical article can get you FBI-investigated now. Plus, shredding documents is no longer safe thanks to reconstruction software. Glad I'm not in the States. Also, A Straight Person's Guide to Gay Etiquette is hilarious - go read it.
I predicted the Economist's position on Britain's child pornography laws before they published it. Smug? Maybe. But the issue matters: criminalizing computer-generated images punishes thought, not action, and statistics suggesting pornography availability correlates with declining abuse rates raise questions worth taking seriously.
The US government is now censoring scientific information to placate anti-abortion and pro-abstinence lobbies, on top of spying on citizens and trampling their rights. It's too horrifying to embellish. Land of the freaking free, indeed.
Surveys show nearly half of Americans want to gut the First Amendment in the name of national security. Freedom of speech, press, religion, academic freedom -- all apparently negotiable. Honestly, people who'd so eagerly surrender these rights deserve exactly what they're asking for.
Alanis is back with *Under Rug Swept*, a fantastic return to form. Also: America's treatment of Camp X-ray prisoners violates the Geneva Convention, the USA PATRIOT Act is being abused to silence dissent, and the "land of the free" is looking pretty hypocritical right now.
The first DMCA arrest just happened: a guy exposed a flaw in Adobe's security and got arrested for it. Improve your security, don't criminalize people who point out weaknesses. If Microsoft follows Adobe's lead, I'm in serious trouble.
