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Virginia Tech Report Cites Privacy Law Problems
RickRussellTX writes "A panel of Bush administration officials, including several bureau chiefs, concludes that confusing privacy laws contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. The report claims that confusion over student privacy and medical privacy laws "has limited the ability of these officials to prevent the kind of violence that occurred at Virginia Tech.""
No. Free circulation of guns contributed to the Virgina Tech shootings. These kind of things just don't happen in countries that have sane gun laws, privacy laws or not.
c++;
from BOTH sides. Liberty idealists (that never be any intursions in privacy in the name of security, ever) talk like there is a vast conspiracy in the evil government to take away all of your rights. Security idealists (that security trumps all other concerns, even in bizarre cases) talk like everyone walking around with a ball point pen is going to kill dozens.
It's hysteria, from BOTH sides of the issue. It is EQUALLY hysterical to view your own government as a B grade movie plot one dimensional comic book villain as it is to see terrorists and madmen around every corner ready to kill you 9,000 different ways if you don't duct tape all of your windows.
No, the government is not out to turn the world into 1984 Wilbur, really. The government is populated by well-meaning bumbling idiotic bureacrats, not Senator Palpatine and Agent Smith. Although Dick Cheney does need a pencil moustache to twirl with his fingers, but I digress. And no, terrorists and lunatics are not lurking in every airplane and convention center Dorothy, really. The threat of mass mayhem is real but miniscule and rare.
If you talk about these things issue by issue, even the hysterical twits on either end of the spectrum of Liberty/ Security can have some sense talked to them: "Yes, I suppose it makes sense to search airline pasengers before boarding airplanes, and this isn't a vast conspiracy to remove your rights." or "Yes, I suppose it makes sense to detain and prosecute suspects according to well established law and not throw out our entire legal system, and that such suspects aren't going to suddenly turn around and carry a suitcase nuke into Midtown Manhattan."
In other words, common sense prevails (or should prevail, outside the minds of those drowning in FUD). And one of the hallmarks of common sense is that each of us, every day, in big ways and small ways, gives up some Liberty for the sake of Security, and gives up some Security for the sake of Liberty. And each of those ways is a prudent calculation. And each of those calcluations is made by us as individuals AND as a society. And that's ok, and that's no big deal. Really. No FUD, no hysterics, from either extreme. Simple common mundane common sense. Imagine that. Nothing to get your panties in a twist over.
And perhaps, just perhaps, in the SPECIFIC case of Cho, ie, someone with who could be sniffed out via suspicions of his teachers, that there could have been a follow up by some mental health professionals, perhaps a little shaving of those hallmarks of Liberty could have achieved a little more crucial Security... again, in the SPECIFIC case of a college student with some earmarkers of mental illness. NOT the vast sweeping impositions on Liberty floated by some in this case, whether in the report of bumbling and stupid but well-meaning bureaucrat, or in the paranoia-addled fantasies of a LIberty-or-nothing hysteric.
But of course, for saying that simple small thing, you will now see me skewered by the screaming zombie Liberty idealists. You may commence calling me Hitler, of being a Neocon, of desiring us all to be anally raped by Men in Black, and please make sure to trot out that tired old Benjamin Franklin quote, as if it were a flyswatter replacement for simple prudent thought.
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Video (link to part 1):8 38285177
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=881321004
Torrent:
http://torrentreactor.net/view.php?id=788304
Download & Streams, various bitrates:
http://greylodge.org/gpc/?p=81
Regarding the last link:
HTTP download of 3 x 1GB+ files? Go get 'em, slashdotteres!
I lost my sig.