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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 Wired quotes Clinton: 'At all levels, the privacy protections for ordinary citizens are broken, inadequate and out of date.'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."
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
It will be interesting to see if any of the other republican candidates have the balls to debate him.
I think they'll try anything they can think of to keep him out of any potential debates. It would be intersting to see. As far as I know he is the only guy running who opposed the war in iraq, is anti
patriot act/ realid act, supports gun rights, and has consistently voted against pork.
Hell I'd just love to see a debate between him and the flunkies the GOP is running.
I've never voted for a Rep, but I'd vote for him in a minute.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
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.