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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 Wired quotes Clinton: 'At all levels, the privacy protections for ordinary citizens are broken, inadequate and out of date.'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?
Not only would it sway my vote, but a positive stance on privacy would damn-near guarantee it. Over the years, the U.S. government has eroded its citizens' rights to the point of absurdity. This latest president has only made a bad situation worse.
There are other issues at stake, of course, but none quite as dear as those that hit close to home. I'm tired of watching my privacy dwindle away, and I want it to stop.
Would you consider a candidate's stand on privacy important enough to sway your vote?
Yes, sure I --
*bzzzt!*
Ouch! Er... I mean, no, no I wouldn't.
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...
if privacy isn't important, why do homes have curtains?
Clinton gave a speech last June to the American Constitution Society
Uh-huh. Tell me what she says at the Society for People Unreasonably Afraid That Their Children Are Going To Die in Terrorist Attacks, and then we'll decide if she gets points for this.
Not bashing her just beacuse, but her history does not support her intent to protect privacy. This is just poliical rhetoric to get elected. ( typical of *all* candidates as they ramp up towards an election )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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".
I've already seen her stance on video games, that's all I needed to know.
Wasn't she the Senator who wanted to force government regulation of video games?
So, um, no. I don't think I'd vote for her regardless of what her stance of privacy is.
Now, you may say that this is not germane to the privacy issue. But it is, because it shows that Hillary will say anything, at any time, to acquire and hold power. The value of her promises is null. The value of her insight is null. The value of her candidacy is negative, because it is most likely going to give the Presidency to those she claims to fight, while mimicking as closely as possible.
I won't be voting for Bush.
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.
...what events in Clinton's life might have motivated her push for more privacy? Muhahahaha!
One of NORML's primary arguments about private (ie: 'at home') consumption is that it is protected under the Constitutional "right to privacy".
...Because those the rocks that many ships have wrecked upon.
Hillary? Is this just going to be about electronic surveillance and security of digital information repositories?
Or are you going to tackle the larger issue of protecting personal activities in private spaces.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I mean, I'm posting this over a wifi connection that I perceive to be secure, using a name and password that I believe is uncompromised...
Then again, I am using a cantenna to connect to a router that is perceived to be secure from the viewpoint of the guy providing me with free bandwidth, shared iTunes, and an OS with remote support enabled, and the 'guest' account allowed to be part of the 'everyone' group...
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Not hers. She's a US Senator, former First Lady, and the democratic front-runner for the presidential nomination in 2008. She's been in the public eye for years, she's wielded real power for years, is perhaps the most influential woman in the US after Oprah (seriously...); and yet our privacy has continued to be diminished on her watch without so much as a peep. You apparently have to go back to a talk she gave to the American Constitution Society to even know what her stance on personal privacy is, and I had to go to Wikipedia to find out who they are. Where's the public outrage if you care about privacy so much, Hillary? Lord knows you don't have a hard time getting in front of a TV camera with a chance to express it.
Will I support a candidate who's serious about protecting personal privacy? Hell yes. It's the most important issue I can think of. Hillary Clinton isn't that person, and neither is any other mainstream candidate. Pretty fucking sad.
Game... blouses.
My problem with this is the use of the phrase "right to privacy." Clinton is a brilliant lawyer, and I know that she understands what "right to privacy" means in the legal sense. The "right to privacy" is the (supposedly) constitutionally protected right for a person to make decisions intimately affecting their own lives. This "right to privacy" allows a person to raise and educate their children as they see fit (allowing Amish people to educate their kids at home despite laws mandating public education for all), have an abortion prior to the time the fetus is viable, marry across racial lines, use birth control, cohabitate, and a few other like things.
This "right to privacy" does not apply to personal information out there on the internet. There might be laws protecting some aspects of this information, but it isn't a constitutional thing.
Clinton knows this. Non-lawyer tech geeks don't know this. She's using this lack of knowledge about what the legal term "right to privacy" means, intentionally allowing techies to confuse it with their concept of right to privacy, trying to attract votes.
Don't be fooled. The right to have information about yourself be private is purely statutory (without such a statute, there is no such right). This is not a constitutional right. It is fleeting. Don't let Clinton convince you that judges would extend this "right to privacy" to personal information (the judges know better, just like Clinton does).
...that even among other such politicians, Hillary is one of the most blatant, shameless populists ever to have walked the Earth. Her perspectives, her very mind itself in its' entirety is completely for sale, for the purpose of gaining votes.
She might be making noises about the "right to privacy," right now, but please try and remember that when Jack Thompson and the other usual suspects were screeching and crying about violence in video games, she supported that, too. She tries to determine which way the wind is blowing, and when she suspects that she has, then jumps on what she feels is the dominant voter bandwagon at any given point in time. But she is not the archetypical Slashbot's friend...or really anyone else's, for that matter.
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.
So since ab initio you declare all politicians equal (-ly corrupt) and the differences to be merely a matter of taste, there is no point in actually doing the work and comparing what they actually have to say, or their actual programs, thereby letting them get away with not even having real solid programs anymore even more easily. Well done. Very convenient for you, very lazy. And on top of it all you can even look down on those stupid suckers who actually care about the political process!
Your attitude is a real threat to democracy, and stupid, and self-fulfilling. Thank you for doing your part in killing honest political and social discourse on the issues that matter. Yes, such discourse is difficult and tiring. It involves questioning whether Clinton was, as another poster put it, preaching to the choir or actually serious. But this discourse is the core political process of democracy. As long as you don't actively participate in it and try to get others engaged as well you have no right whatsoever to complain about the state of politics.
...stand on the First Amendment? Remember Hillary was the Senator leading the charge against Take2/Rockstar over Hot Coffee.
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
Did you invade her privacy to determine that she's a girl?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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
Someone neglected to include our current president on that memo. He's made plenty of pseudo-law with his ongoing abuse of signing statements.
Interestingly enough, he's also a candidate for the 2008 presidential election. Congressman Paul ran for president once before as a libertarian candidate, but was defeated (no suprise, since only republicrats are allowed to win) He has since aligned himself as a Republican congressman, but maintains libertarian values and has consistently voted against bad policy (he voted against the Patriot act, against Iraq, against the Military Commissions act, and against the John Warner Defense Authorization Act)
As far as I've read, Ron Paul has never made a campaign promise that he didn't keep. If he makes it onto the presidential ballot, he has my vote.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I'm sure few people here actually read this. I can hardly blame you -- it's long, and it's mostly just bland generalities, with the details both rare and disappointing.
There's nothing new in the speech. She talks a lot about data breaches. Those are devastating, sure, but they're hardly an "issue." Being against data breaches offends no constituency (who *isn't* against them?) -- it's like being "tough on crime." She seems to be against a lot of things that nobody is for.
However, she spends very little time on what most of us think of when we talk about "privacy" -- that is, the government's prohibition, under the fourth amendment, against searching us without probable cause, and without a warrant. In fact, she comes to the conclusion that the warrantless searches the Bush administration are doing are probably fine. She believes in the same odious calculation that defines rights and security as mutually exclusive constraints, that have to be "balanced."
Rather, she only takes Bush to task for not letting congress in on the action. That is, had only Bush asked congress for "authorization" -- which would surely have been forthcoming -- everything would have been okay. "Let is in on the action," she seems to say, "and we'll make sure you get the warrants so your policies will be easier to sell to the masses." Instead of real criticism of a policy that's both illegal and that actually makes us less safe, we get criticism over tactics, and parochial self-interest.
The title and blurb for this are completely misleading.
"Would you consider a candidate's stand on privacy important enough to sway your vote?"...yes, it would, but certainly not Hillary, not with her background, but any consideration would have to take into account all the issues..
IMO, the US has had quite enough with the bush/clinton dynasty for a quarter century now to show that aristocracy doesn't work and is a bad idea. I'm sorry but we aren't supposed to have some sort of hereditary "lords" class. It's just slap wrong. 300 million and change now in this nation, how about we give some other folks a crack at it, eh?
How about a candidate who is concerned about ALL your rights, all of them up and down the list, and has the best track record bar none in Congress to protect your rights *and* your wallet, and really groks what national security and soverignty is really about and wouldn't try to pass off blood profits wars for the transnationals as being in our best interest, someone like Ron Paul, who has an exploratory committe open now?
If he got 1/50th of the news coverage Hillary gets from the controlled propaganda press, or even 1/10th the coverage that Obama dude gets, he'd be the next president handily. Well, given we clean up blackbox voting first of course.
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
This is very odd - this is the same politician who signed on as a sponsor of a flag burning amendment (thus proving she doesn't understand the 1st amendment, it's the unpopular speech that needs protecting). I guess that means we can burn flags in private ...
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
So she supports privacy when it suits her agenda, just like everyone else in DC.
Well on the marriage topic:
Marriage is a religious construct, e.g., a contract between a man and a woman and "God." Government should have NO say whatsoever where it comes to say who can or cannot marry whom because it is infringing on freedom of worship. Leave it up to the churches/temples/mosques/synagogues/etc. to decide who can and who cannot marry.
This solves the problem of the "marriage penalty" - and as far as benefits, insurance, etc. are concerned? Choose companies which honor the type of "marriage" or "contract" or "partnership" you have.
Tax breaks for dependents? Eliminate them. If you have dependents, you are using more public resources than single folks or "married" people who have no children. If anything, you should pay MORE taxes, rather than relying on those who use few resources to give you a free ride on your children's education. Better yet, send your children to private schools; provide a higher-quality education for them, and leach less off of public resources.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It's not possible for the government to provide you with health care AND protect your privacy at the same time.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Don't get me wrong: I despise libertarians (not just their ideas -- the people as well; I'm bitter like that :) ) and I think they're living in a deranged fantasy world where people get along by magic and things get done because divine intervention coordinates peoples' efforts ... but at least they don't go around trying to justify Fascism. That's a marked improvement over the current political debate in America. One side promoting a vision of a theocratic police state, the other side trying to convince people that they share that vision. What the hell!
As an aside, you do know that Americans already pay, through the government, nearly 70% of what Canadians do, for Health care? And for what? If anything, a universal healthcare system (not necessarily a single-payor system like ours, but SOMETHING) would provide vastly better value for your tax dollars. As it stands, Americans are paying that 70% for basically nothing. It's not hard to see why the universal healthcare movement in the US is gaining momentum -- especially when "conservatives" aren't willing to reclaim that money by cancelling existing national healhcare programs. That said, of course, it's not really the federal government's business... Even in Canada, the provinces are the ones in charge of the healthcare program. The Federal government just mandates that such programs have to be in place, as well as providing a certain amount of the funding.
You'll probably start caring a lot more about public healthcare when there's a major outbreak of TB in your city and your kids get sick ... just because the low income families that live on the other side of town can't afford antibiotics, people with HIV can't get their medications and act as reservoirs for TB to fester and become more virulent, there are no programs to get junkies (another major TB reservoir) off the street, etcetera. Diseases affect everyone. For that matter, worker productivity affects everyone -- healthy people contribute more to a strong economy than low taxes do. There are very good economic reasons to get behind universal healthcare of one kind or another. And until employers start giving full health-benefits to their part-time and contract workers, universal healthcare is the only way that low-income families will ever have access to a reasonable level of medical care.
All that said, you still get a high-five for not getting behind the Blackshirts. Good job. I'd rather vote Libertarian than Republican or Democrat (thankfully, all three of the major Canadian political parties are vastly superior to either of them).
Bullshit. If the benefits are for the kids, then they should be categorizing the taxpayers according to who has kids and who doesn't, not by who is (religiously) married and who isn't!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'd also warn everyone that the founder of Hillarycare - the mandatory socialized medicine boondoggle that would have banned private payer insurance - doesn't sound all that right-to-privacy to me (the right to privacy, not enumerated in the Constitution, was based on liberty). And let's remember that it was her hubby who authorized Echelon and searching Aldrich Ames without a warrant.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
> And just what is it that makes an invasion "legitimate"?
That country invading an ally of yours. George H. W. Bush's invasion of Iraq was legitimate.
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.
This page has a table that shows the number of vetoes each president has made (including a surprisingly high number of pocket vetoes). You'll notice that those numbers are quite high amongst some of our more respected presidents of late (Reagan: 78, Eisenhower: 181, Truman: 250, FDR: 635). Of course you said, "presidents aren't likely to use it when it needs to be used", so perhaps the emphasis is on "when it needs to be used". Do you have any examples in mind? (I'm not disputing your point, I just can't say I've paid that much attention to it.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
this is the woman who was the architect a proposed healthcare plan that would make it ILLEGAL to see a private doctor of your OWN choosing. I can't take seriously any current stand regarding the protection of any U.S citizens' right to anything.
She's not interested in your rights, she interested in empowering the government to dupe you into giving away all individual decision-making to it. Her idea of an ideal society can bee summed up here:
"Give me your soul and I will take care of you."
How many times will this model have to fail before people finally get it. When will people realized that the government cannot even take care of itself, let alone you. Governments exist to govern, not to be your nanny.
I don't want anyone taking care of me.
I don't want Social Security.
I don't want Medicare. It's a crime that Medicare is forced upon you when you turn 65. You cannot even opt out of it without losing coverage from your private health insurance.
I don't want to pay income taxes that nearly 50% of the population DOES NOT pay. At the very least, I should be paying the same percentage of my income now as I did when I was making 20k a year. I want me and my money to be left alone to prosper in the free-will, free-market society that the founders of this country intended to created.
I don't want to be forced to send my daughter to a government school based on my zip-code. I should be able to opt-out, take my property taxes, and put that towards sending my daughter to ANY school I choose based on whatever criteria I want. My daughter has Down Syndrome, and I cannot divert my taxes to pay for the private schooling she is going to require. Government school will want stick her in a room with kids having various disabilities and give them crayons to eat.
If I wanted to live in a socialized country, there are plenty of other countries in the world that would be more than happy to take my paycheck. I want to take care of myself and my family how I see fit. Not allowing me to do that is a violation of my civil and human rights.
This is why I will never vote for a Democrat at any level. If Republicans want to spy on me, let them. I have nothing to hide. Just let me live my life. Freedom is more important to me than privacy.
Republicans support the freedom that Democrats fear. I only wish Republicans would quit worrying about who marries whom and who kills their baby. If you want to kill your baby, fine. That's one less of your loser line to infect the world. If you want a gay marriage, great. That's one less child being born into this screwed up world. Stop worrying about what other people do with their lives...it doesn't have anything to do with you.
We need to libertarian wing of the right to take control of the party. The Losertarians need to get off their collective pompous horse-asses, dump their loser third-party and start making change in the mainstream party. There has been too much focus on these evangelical nutjobs. We need to lock them in the closet. They are morons that will vote Republican anyway. We all need to stop listening to all the political posturing and start using some common sense.
That's about all I have to say.
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?