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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEugene Robinson: The End of the Right of Privacy?
from truthdig:
The End of the Right of Privacy?
Posted on Jun 6, 2013
By Eugene Robinson
Someday, a young girl will look up into her fathers eyes and ask, Daddy, what was privacy?
The father probably wont recall. I fear weve already forgotten that there was a time when a U.S. citizens telephone calls were nobody elses business. A time when people would have been shocked and angered to learn that the government is compiling a detailed log of ostensibly private calls made and received by millions of Americans.
The Guardian newspaper of Britain reported Thursday night that the U.S. government is collecting such information about customers of Verizon Business Network Services, one of the nations biggest providers of phone and Internet services to corporations. The ho-hum reaction from officials who are in the know suggests that the government may be compiling similar information about Americans who use other phone service providers as well.
The Guardian got its scoop by obtaining a secret order signed by U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Since we know so little about this shadowy courts proceedings and rulings, its hard to put the Verizon order in context. The instructions to Verizon about what information it must provide take up just one paragraph, with almost no detail or elaboration. The tone suggests a communication between parties who both know the drill. .............................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_end_of_the_right_of_privacy_20130606/
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)but the Bush administration unplugged the life support and the Obama administration was annoyed that it was still clinging to life, so they put the pillow over its face and wish it would hurry up and stop twitching already.
The part that utterly disgusts me are the number of "Democrats" who were outraged and screaming bloody murder when Bush did it, who are now perfectly OK with it since the guy they voted for is doing it.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)reformist2
(9,841 posts)Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 7, 2013, 10:15 AM - Edit history (1)
jump through multiple hoops to invade someone's privacy. To intrude on our rights. Government should not work to knock those hoops down. Not even in the name of national security.
There should be no blanket invasion but only targeted searches, and then only with reasonable cause they can back up with facts and evidence. All done through legal and accountable channels.
So it's not so much about an expectation of privacy as it is an expectation of maintaining our civil rights. Maintain our civil rights and we will have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
randome
(34,845 posts)That's why there is Congressional review and approval every 90 days. Are we going to start second-guessing every legal warrant that's issued now?
It was Bush who tried to do this without jumping through hoops and he got slapped down for it.
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[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
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Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)policies, who passed the "Patriot" Act , and who failed to hold Bush accountable in any way, are being defended as a protector of my rights because they jump through hoops they made easier to jump through with the Patriot Act.
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/reform-patriot-act-myths-realities
randome
(34,845 posts)But metadata collection of phone records doesn't rise to the level of 'outrage' to me.
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
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Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)For me, it's about what people grow comfortable with, so acceptable of.....so conditioned to.
shudder
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)MineralMan
(146,192 posts)They often are quite sweeping in nature.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)He would be more correct if he also historicized its origins. The problem with noting the end of privacy is usually wrapped up in not acknowledging its beginnings. The modern right to privacy is not some universal human feature that has been with us since Hammurabi, but a notion of recent vintage, tied to all kinds of culturally and historically contingent factors, including, of course, technological factors. Anyone who has been paying attention to any of this for the last 20 years knows that data tracking and storage technologies have steadily eroded a concept of privacy, and a practice of information gathering. Of course privacy will be different in 40 or 100 years. That should go without saying.
For awesome primers on some of these questions, I'd suggest
Elizabeth Neill's Rites of Privacy and the Privacy Trade: On the Limits of Protection for the Self (McGill, 2001)
and
Julie Cohen's excellent Configuring the Network Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice (Yale, 2012), available via Creative Commons license here: http://www.juliecohen.com/page5.php
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)kentuck
(110,950 posts)that people think they can lose their 4 Amendment right and keep all the rest. If one is threatened, they are all threatened.
Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)And the other one is, "is all privacy the same?" Because Roe v Wade is predicated on a right to privacy also.
Robinson's always on the money.
Russ Feingold told us that this was going to happen in the anti-patriotic act that was rushed through after 911. Nobody I mean nobody would listen to him, if I recall correctly the vote for this anti-American act was 98 for and just one against. The American people must stand up now and demand that it be changed.
Myrina
(12,296 posts)Russ should have run for Prez in 2004.
Daniel537
(1,560 posts)But of course, that's assuming he would have kept his word on all these issues. I don't trust any politician on anything.
Myrina
(12,296 posts)I'm a 'founding member' of his org Progressives United (PU for short LOL) and he issued a pretty scathing statement yesterday when this all hit the news. I like to think he'd have fought the good fight had he stayed in national politics, but knowing where the money and the power really lies, he would likely have been neutralized in one way or another.
Exultant Democracy
(6,594 posts)Our children will speak of it tomorrow they way we speak about the telegraph today. The only question is who will hold the power, little brother or big brother.
randome
(34,845 posts)The Internet gives us all access to the world's data.
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font]
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Exultant Democracy
(6,594 posts)CanonRay
(14,036 posts)Predictable and sad. Noe re-examination, no apology, no nothing but force.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Skittles
(152,964 posts)I love his writing style - very intelligent, yet easy to read
jwirr
(39,215 posts)ever since.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)typo perhaps?
jwirr
(39,215 posts)am wrong about the date. I was born in 41 so it was probably 65.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)because Mr. Robinson very much reminds me of him; they had a similar writing style
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Raspberry
jwirr
(39,215 posts)things.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)I have always been forgetful but now that I'm older I tend to assign more meaning to it - but I'm sure we are overreacting though!!
jwirr
(39,215 posts)was 15 probably isn't really relevant.
Initech
(99,913 posts)Then in the same breath wonder why their private lives are being spied on by the NSA and FBI?