Rosenzweig Now Chairman of DHS Privacy Board

An anonymous reader writes "Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative lawyer and prominent proponent of the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness project, has been appointed the first chairman of the Department of Homeland Security's privacy board. This follows the appointment of an executive of Gator to the board. Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that, rather than viewing protection of privacy as priority, Rosenzweig 'tends to view privacy as something to be circumvented.' Are the foxes guarding the henhouse when it comes to government and privacy?"

Comments

I could have told you something was wrong...

[ImaLamer]

As soon as I read the first line of the summary:

conservative lawyer and prominent proponent of the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness project

I'm not trying troll - but usually "conservative" and proponent of "Total Information Awareness" doesn't go together. I mean, I'm a liberal and I can remember a time "conservatives" were for more privacy rights (ok, forget the fight over sodomy laws).

Re:I could have told you something was wrong...

[koreth]

Get with the newspeak, bub. Today's new improved doubleplusgood American conservatives are for smaller government in the form of increased federal spending, more privacy in the form of total surveillance, state's rights in the form of Congressional meddling in individual state court cases, isolationist foreign policy in the form of overseas force projection, government transparency in the form of increased classification of documents, and high moral standards in the form of flagrant House ethics rule violations.

Stop thinking like you're in the 20th century. It's a brave new world and white is the new black.

Write and get help!

[Richie1984]

I'm sorry, but after the news that a Gator executive was being appointed to the board, did anyone really expect this Privacy board to be anything of the sort? I'm not an American, but if I were, I'd be writing to my government representative now asking for help on this issue.

Personally, I look at this issue like I do with European software patents. If ordinary people don't stand up and lobby their government representative, then nothing will change. If you believe strongly about this, then try to do something about it. Make your views known

Re:Are the foxes guarding the henhouse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow these appointments remind me of 1984.

Along the lines of the ministry of love being where you go to get the living shit beat out of you it seems the ministry of privacy being formed in america is where all of your privacy will be stripped away.

Freedom is Slavery?

[Andy Mitchell]

The way things are going in the western world at the moment I do fear that we are sleep walking towards some kind of Orwellian nightmare. We face a determined foe who are willing to die for what they believe in. Yet we are willing to throw aside our own hard won values of freedom and justice in the interest of "safety".

Freedom is Slavery was a propaganda slogan from the book 1984, designed to keep the masses happy with being oppressed. Every time I hear Tony Blair or George Bush reducing our rights to "protect freedom" I'm reminded of this.

Hiding stuff.

[scottzak]

It seems to me that privacy only matters if there is a threat of sanction for the private behavior. Hiding stuff tends to add a layer of unhealthy psych because of the continual threats to the integrity of the cloak.

The real need is to roll back the ability of the mob to make your life miserable if you choose to think or do something that is unconventional.

In the long run, which is going to leave us in a better position? Should we be fighting to maintain privacy in the face of increasingly efficient snooping, or fighting for freedom of thought and action?

Not that anyone's really going sacrifice much to achieve either of those goals . . . .

Re:Are the foxes guarding the henhouse?

[AdrainB]

Not only is the henhouse being raided at the DHS, but Bush has packed the EPA and FDA with industry cronies. He has turned agencies created to protect consumers and citizens into agencies that work to protect corporate malfeasance. And it's really worse than the fox guarding the henhouse. It's like the first fox inviting other foxes in because there are too many chickens for one fox to eat.

Not sleepwalking, an illusion

[Kjella]

Yet we are willing to throw aside our own hard won values of freedom and justice in the interest of "safety".

I'll give you a quote:
"It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." --Hermann Goering

See, here's the real lie. People believe they are protecting the values, not throwing them away. Of course the original quote was about war, now it is about terror.

"Pacifists" are opponents of the politic. In this context, civil rights activists. They get discredited like dreamers, idealists which will expose the country to danger just like pacifists.

"Lack of patriotism" is of course a good mix of nationalism (American/Non-american), racism (Caucasian/Arab) and religion (Christian/Muslim). It plays on basic "Principles are fine, but now we have to protect our own" self-preservation.

Finally, "exposing the country to danger" is no longer about war, it is even "better". With war, you always know roughly who, where and how it will play out. With terror, the "danger" is everywhere, all the time and invisible. How can you argue that you are NOT exposing it to danger?

Noone dares speaks of such things. It is not "politically correct" to quote Nazi leaders, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and other examples of people that have manipulated great crowds. Naturally, we don't want to inspire more. But it also means people are oblivious to the fact that they are being manipulated. It cuts both ways.

Kjella

(not actually anonymous; one more observation)

[happymedium]

Meh! I posted the above, but apparently the great Slashdot didn't see fit to log me on even though I told it to. I'm certainly not afraid to criticize dead conservatives.

Anyway, one more observation on this topic: conservatives tried to excuse all of the above inconsistencies by saying thay they were for the sake of fighting communism. What are we doing today to keep the charade going? Fighting terrorism! That's really the most relevant parallel between 1984 and today's situation: just like Ingsoc, the U.S. always needs an enemy.