Monday, December 23, 2002

I need a new category.... to track this stuff. Government Spying (on You) Keeps Growing. The Bush administration's ardent desire to spy on us is no longer news. But a New York Times report Friday,... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 7:59:16 AM

Drudge, move over Blogs Make the Headlines. It's been said that newspapers write the first draft of history, but now there are blogs. These days, online scribes often get the news before it's fit to print. By Noah Shachtman. [Wired News] 7:51:04 AM

Heinlein had it right. An End to the Southern Strategy?. Trent Lott's demise as Senate majority leader is a chance for the Republican Party to decide if it wants to continue to exploit racial inequality. By Linwood Holton. [New York Times: Politics] Heinlein wrote that "politics ... is sometimes dirty"  and is "hard work".  Too often the politcally expedient route is taken to the shame of integrity and principle.  Politicians play to the emotions of people as that is easier than engaging in an intelligent, thoughtful conversation.  We are seeing such a play take place in Georgia, where everyone from the new governor-elect to the White House are trying to affect the selection of the speaker of the Georgia House.  Even thought representatives have publicly declared commitments to one candidate, the Republicans (while supporting the principles espoused by Steven Covey in his books) are telling elected officials it is ok to break their commitment.  And, we wonder why the public is so cynical towards the entire process. 7:43:09 AM

We really need good conversations about surveillance. Many Tools of Big Brother Are Already Up and Running. The Pentagon's effort to detect terrorism by electronically monitoring could rely largely on technology that is already in place. By John Markoff and John Schwartz. [New York Times: Technology] The tech community has been talking about surveillance tools for years.  But, this conversation needs to go mainstream.  It has to be a topic at the kitchen table if we, as a country, are going to make a sensible decision about how the watchers are going to be watched.  Basically, the article says TIA is mostly using commercial tools to create a composite surveillance system.  All the Open Systems standards work to create a tool of which we are very wary.  7:33:15 AM