privacy – Doug's Views

April 16, 2015April 18, 2020

Progressive Love For Rand Paul Is Dangerous For Everyone Else

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)

Senator Rand Paul, a ‘libertarian’ darling, is running for President. Some on the left and some progressives seem to love him because he supports a few liberal issues like being against a Big Brother style government and against war. It’s dangerous to support a candidate running for a national office, like President, based only on a couple of narrow issues, especially ones that won’t help 90% of the rest of the country. It might be fun to get high with him but then you would need to put up with his non-liberal views on women, religion, and civil rights.

Most progressive love for Rand Paul goes like this recent exchange on Democracy Now!:

July 7, 2013April 18, 2020

Why Do We Have To Choose Between Privacy Or Security?

created image of guy looking in a window with POLICE on shirt

If you aren’t doing anything wrong then this should not be a problem, right?

The media coverage over what National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden did, by publicly revealing the large surveillance program conducted by the NSA, included ridiculously breathless stories about his whereabouts, if the guy is a traitor (he’s not), and if Glenn Greenwald should be jailed for doing his job of reporting the story. What still isn’t being discussed is the reasons and methods behind the program Snowden exposed and why there isn’t much discussion about the accountability of the program. We have been given a false choice between privacy or security.

Bob Sullivan, on the NBC News website wrote a good essay about the problem of having the false choice of privacy or security:

April 22, 2013April 18, 2020

Tell Your Senator: Just Say No To CISPA

Last week the US House passed the The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and like all of these types of bills that have come through Congress, this bill only seems to protect businesses at the expense of people’s rights. It also gives more power to the Government to violate your 4th amendment rights in the name of “cybersecurity”. The White House has threatened to veto the law but now is the time to contact your Senator and tell them to say no to CISPA.

What is CISPA and why is it a bad law. Let the Electronic Frontier Foundation explain: