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The Privacy Candidate
Alsee writes "Wired News reports 'electronic civil libertarians' hearts are a-twitter' over US Presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton's bold stance on the right to privacy. Wired quotes Clinton: 'At all levels, the privacy protections for ordinary citizens are broken, inadequate and out of date.' Clinton gave a speech last June to the American Constitution Society (text, WMF) in which she addressed electronic surveillance, consumer opt-in vs. opt-out, cyber-security, commercial and government handling of personal data, data offshoring, data leaks, and even genetic discrimination." Would you consider a candidate's stand on privacy important enough to sway your vote?
The real question is, did she say what she did because she wanted to preach to the choir, or because she actually believes in privacy?
It was the American Constitution Society after all...
No, a strong stance on the right to privacy won't sway my vote. All politicians of all levels of government should respect this, regardless of party.
However, a stance against personal privacy will strongly sway me against you. Fortunately for Hillary and other pro-privacy advocates, many candidates are easy to admit they'd spy, loot, and plunder in the name of "the children".
Hillary Clinton's idea of "privacy" is about the same as that behind the "Medical Privacy Act". This made it a Federal offense to disclose medical records, standardized the records keeping, and made it all available to the government upon request. To her "privacy" is that between civilians; the government and its employees are a whole 'nother matter.
In Australia we have a preferential voting system which I believe empowers voters to rank candidates - hopefully by policy (possibly in descending order of evil *grin*) - but we do have compulsory voting: the merits of which are debatable.
In fact, they often reduce our federal elections to a one-policy debate: economics. Compulsory voting with the threat of higher interest rates under the potential leadership of the opposition arguably scares the politically unmotivated or uneducated to vote with this threat in mind.
As Bill Hicks once said, "There are more important things to vote with than your wallet."
Why is he not the for runner of this article? He is greatly opposed to the govt's invasion of privacy, he strongly opposed the REALID Act, and he continues to argue for INDIVIDUAL'S rights.
I'm not saying that the right to privacy shouldn't be taken into consideration but when it is a defining factor then it will only get worse.
We don't have fixes to welfare or unemployment because we need them as issues to run on. We cannot have some government body fixing itself out of a job either. At best we can have numbers that are acceptable to some but not others. And this it the reason that it will get worse.
Some politician's main platform stands on continuously fixing the existing issues of what seems wrong. When this is determined as a deciding factor for a vote, it will be yet another never fixed issue that gets people elected. As for Senator Clinton being a pro privacy advocate? I would say that needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It was her husband who started echelon and green lantern were some computer searches calls and emails for buzzwords then tells a live agent when something is found. Of course that was her husband and not her. But I would suggest that she could have been more vocal about it back then instead of running the race with it now. And YES, I believe this question is more or less a trial balloon to see if it is good enough to campaign on. But this doesn't surprise me much. Slashdot was more or less a republican bashing ground lass election.
For a candidate running for Senator or Representative.
For a presidential candidate, their stand on privacy really doesn't matter, just like their stand on a whole host of other things that Congress gets to determine doesn't matter.
Now, a stand on privacy is not to be confused with a stand on constitutional rights. Whether mailling lists are opt-in or not, or what kind of opt-in they have to be, isn't a constitutional issue. But having a president who believes being president doesn't give them the right to listen to my phone calls, or detain me without trial, is DEFINITELY a constitutional issue.
So, having a stand on privacy is a non-issue for me. If you want to grab my attention, promise to recind every invasive executive order from the Bush presidency. Promise to avoid signing statements. Promise to institute executive orders that prohibit you and future presidents and their respective executive branches from taking the same liberties with our liberties as this one has.
Taking a stand on who can see my credit report is a cop-out when the issue of when, and if, I get to see a lawyer is on the table.
paintball
I know. If we get a Clinton/Obama '08 ticket we can get over two residual prejudices at the same time. As an added bonus the Democrats might actually manage to not drop the ball.
We are all just people.
I do not trust Hillary Clinton at all. She is a blatant political opportunist of the worst sort. I have no doubt that she would talk loudly about privacy when anybody was looking, then implement totally opposite policies to gain political favor.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
in advance: I'm not informed as to her opinion.
Does it go beyond just "Keep mature games out of the hands of minors"?
Because if thats all it is I refer you to:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/03/20
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
I work at a resort where Hilary came to stay on a few occasions. I got to speak with her for a few minutes each time (one before the 06 election and the other one after).Note this was RIGHT after the 06 election... I am talking a few days, so I addressed her as a momber of congress, not so much a future presidential candidate.I asked her this exact question, well along the lines of our current president has been trampleing on our civil rights be it on the net, the phone systems, what we do in our own homes. Will you be looking out for us and perhaps reversing some of the recent invasions, nsa wire taps and federal raids of medical marijuana patients.(I'm in New York, her state, we do not allow medical marijuana...yet) She said that she was very upset with these as well, she said something along the lines of some papers in the works to attempt to prevent further erosions but didn't give me any further details.
take it with a grain of salt as anybody can say anything, but to me, she seemed sincere.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Her stance on video games isn't just about video games. It shows she believes that I need protecting from myself, and that I am incapable of protecting my children from video games. It shows that she places these values above free speech. It shows that she is quick to jump on the "Think of the children!" bandwagon, regardless of any actual evidence or logic.
Her belief that she knows better than I do what's good for me is the big reason I don't want to vote for her (though I might, depending who the opponent is -- she'd be better than Bush, of that I'm certain). Her stance on video games is just one example of this.
The veto is an effective bargaining tool. After all, the president's power in making deals, political favors, consulting with lobbyists, etc is vastly enhanced by the knowledge that they can block bilsl that aren't solidly passed. IMHO a measure of Bush's power in his first four or five years was that he never had to veto a bill. And a omnimous sign of his crumbling power has been that he needed to veto a bill (last year I think) even though the Republicans dominated both branches of Congress at the time. A veto indicates that you failed to reach a deal with Congress. It's not a sign of power especially if you have to do it a lot.
I'd say across the world there are more people desperately disappointed in the USA than hate the USA. Lots of people really want to believe in the USA and are desperately disappointed when the rhetoric and the actions don't correspond. Help us to believe in you. Don't tell us you stand for liberty and truth and freedom and then carry out actions to the contrary. We want to believe in your rhetoric.
"are just words on paper that can be ignored as the powers-that-be wish"
ho-hum. In Ireland, we have a more restrictive gun regime. The government is no more corrupt and bloated than in America (though also no less so). Have you (as an American), or anyone you have ever known, or indeed anyone you have read about in the last 100 years changed the way the government has been eroding your rights through the use of a gun?
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with owning guns, just that it's not a great deterrent to the government to piss you off (how happy are you now?)
Johns: Well, how does it look now? Riddick: Looks clear.
Man, could you imagine if we got a president who refused to sign any bills that contained riders (good or not) that had little or nothing to do with said bill? That'd be a sight! He/she could just say, "I'm not signing any bills that contain unrelated riders," and then keep that promise. Sure, it'd result in government getting "shut down" for a while (not entirely a bad thing in and of itself), but it's hard to imagine that the president would be the one getting the backlash from that. Far too many US citizens have no idea how many stupid riders are added to our bills.
Other than the riders, most of what you cite are examples where the president is deliberately complicit. My question (which you did partially answer with the riders) is centered more around a case where the president chose not to veto a bill that he disagreed with. The initial premise, afterall, was that the president had little to do with what bills get passed. Surely this is true if the president actually agrees with Congress (e.g., PATRIOT ACT), but if the president disagrees, the veto can be used either directly or as a bargaining tool.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
> Why I'm voting against Hillary: she is Anti-Gun, pure & simple. without a strong 2nd Amendment, the other "rights" are just words on paper that can be ignored as the powers-that-be wish.
And just how is that different from right now? Well, except that all those guns don't seem to be helping anyone even in the slightest. Moreover, just who do you plan to shoot, anyhow? Unless there's an organized military force at your doorstep, exactly what CAN you do that wouldn't involve murdering innocent people?
Perchance you should think this through a bit more, outside of fantasy scenarios where you're part of a rebel force fighting against some unspecified corrupt military made up of people you've never met.
That aside, I don't exactly trust Hillary. Talk is cheap; sponsor or introduce some good bills to prove it.