My Inherent Right to Privacy

Author: FourMajor
Date: 2006-02-09

With all this recent talk of domestic spying, we’ve been hearing some pretty interesting things about how the NSA and the federal government operate. Most of these facts aren’t new to anyone, especially me. But the recent happenings have gotten me thinking nonetheless.

The NSA has taps on every major information pipe in the country. This isn’t even a secret.

You are restricted on the level of encryption you are allowed to use in this country. You aren’t allowed to use an encryption key larger than 256 bits. Why? Because the NSA wants to be able to crack your communications if they choose to.

Well, my viewpoint on all of this is not only does the government not have an inherent right to monitor my communications, but I have an inherent right to my own privacy. There is a concept called “innocent until proven guilty”, which isn’t always practiced in this country. Many people will say “Well, why does it matter if your communications are being monitored? If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.” Yeah? Well on the same note, if I am assumed innocent then the government also has nothing to worry about.

Why does the federal government get this special place in our lives that they evidently have a right to know everything we say and do? I personally call for civil disobedience. Use methods such as anonymizers to protect your identity (tutorial here). Use strong encryption to protect your communications. It is a shame that these technologies aren’t built-in to our everyday communication systems.

US Budget

Author: FourMajor
Date: 2006-02-07

I don’t want to hear another politician bitch about the budget until we fix this:


image source: www.globalissues.org

Chomsky quote

Author: FourMajor
Date: 2006-01-31

I have been reading Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky. What a great book. I’ll probably write more about it later, but here is a quote from it that I really like (page 188):

“Look, part of the whole technique of disempowering people is to make sure that the real agents of change fall out of history, and are never recognized in the culture for what they are. So it’s necessary to distort history and make it look as if Great Men did everything — that’s part of how you teach people they can’t do anything, they’re helpless, they just have to wait for some Great Man to come along and do it for them.”

pwned

Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-11-06

Ralph Nader wrote the following letter to President Bush. You can find the original here.

Dear Mr. President:

A humanitarian catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportions is unfolding in the Himalayas, yet your administration seems remarkably unorganized in applying more resources. Has anyone shown you the wire service photos of frightened children standing in the rubble with nothing between them and the impending winter but a blanket? Reports tell of 2 to 3 million people who are without homes, hundreds of thousands who have received no aid whatsoever, and helicopter flights facing cutbacks because they have no aid to deliver. Is the world community prepared to turn its back on these people? Are you, the self proclaimed leader of the compassionate forces in the world, looking askance?


While hundreds of millions of dollars in aid have been promised by the international community, only a fraction of it has been received. What is urgently needed are tents for shelter and equipment for removing rubble, reconstruction and other materials in advance of the approaching winter. Lack of medical care is causing relatively minor infections to fester to the point where doctors are forced to resort to amputation. Reports from the scene tell us that the 80,000 dead from the earthquake may be matched by a second wave of preventable deaths, deaths attributable to disinterest and neglect among those who have the capacity to preserve these lives.

Our nation has large and well-organized communities of both Indians and Pakistanis. If the reports and the images of this tidal wave of human disaster do not move you, perhaps you and your party should prepare to explain to these communities why their brothers and sisters were not worth saving. The aid pledged by your administration so far amounts to a few hours worth of what you are spending on the boomerang Iraq War opposed by a growing majority of the American people. Please spare us from the suggestion that you, our history’s largest tax-cutter for the wealthy, including yourself, cannot afford to do more.

You have often loudly and publicly proclaimed your Christian beliefs, most recently in your support for Ms. Meyers’ nomination to the United States Supreme Court. Perhaps your religious beliefs could offer you some guidance in determining what is the decent course of action for the President to do in this moment of grave crisis for so many helpless families.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

Non-automatic respect

Author: FourMajor
Date: 2005-10-16

You have probably heard the following countless times: We must respect everyone’s beliefs. Well that is, of course, unless such beliefs have already been deemed taboo.

It is unacceptable to subscribe to a belief system that does not allow equal rights for all, and I do not respect any such belief system. Take, for instance, gay marriage. Why should I respect the viewpoint that gays do not deserve equal rights? Calling gay people second-class citizens, which is essentially what such a viewpoint is doing, is hateful. It doesn’t matter that the majority of our country holds such beliefs, or that many sects of Christianity advocate such beliefs. These beliefs are still hateful and those who hold them should be called on it.

At the same time, why not listen to the arguments of a belief that you don’t respect, at least once? However twisted or wrong these particular individuals may be, some of them are very intelligent and aren’t just talking out of their ass.

See, here we have two extremes. If a belief is taboo, then we aren’t even supposed to listen to and carefully consider the arguments for said belief. On the other hand, if a belief is mainstream, then we automatically have to “respect” said belief.