Slashdot Mirror
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 Wired quotes Clinton: 'At all levels, the privacy protections for ordinary citizens are broken, inadequate and out of date.'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.
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.
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!
Someone neglected to include our current president on that memo. He's made plenty of pseudo-law with his ongoing abuse of signing statements.
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.
So she supports privacy when it suits her agenda, just like everyone else in DC.
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
> 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.
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?