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US Official Urges Americans To Reconsider Privacy
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, a deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguards people's private communications and financial information. "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won. Anyone that's typed in their name on Google understands that," said Kerr. Kurt Opsahl of the EFF said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service. "There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties. We shouldn't have to give people the choice between taking advantage of modern communication tools and sacrificing their privacy." Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, requiring a court order for surveillance on U.S. soil. The White House argued that the law was obstructing intelligence gathering.
"There is something fundamentally different from the government having information about you than private parties."
The difference being that while I trust no one, I trust the government with the information even less, because they have the power to screw me over to such a greater degree.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
"Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information."
Yes, lets 'redfine' privacy to mean "we know what you do, we will just be responsible with the information"
Next Spring, almost every state will have political caucuses and conventions which will set the state parties' platforms.
Attend your local caucus or convention and try to get elected as a delegate to the state convention.
Introduce resolutions that value freedom and privacy. Lobby to get them passed.
Send a message to Washington: Privacy is important. Anonymity is an essential part of privacy.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The 4th ammendment says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated [...]". I think the attempt is to narrowly define "secure", here. If someone can unreasonably search all your papers, effects, etc., *but* that does not give you reasonable cause to feel "insecure", is that a 4th ammendment violation? There's rhetorical ground to be muddied, somewhere between "privacy" and "security". Now, I myself consider it inherently unreasonable for a citizen to accept government guarentees of security at face value, but that seem to be the arguement that's being put forward here.
Also, about googling your own name; I just did that and although there were over 1.5 million results, none of them were about me as far as I could tell
I guess I should be relieved, although I'm kind of disappointed that I'm not important enough to have my privacy violated.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
A detailed search on google will reveal WAY too much info on people. Certainly more than you'd want released to just anyone.
... laws will not change this fact ... this sucks. If google can build databases of people le, why can't the US govt ? At least US govt has this freedom of info act. Google obeys only the laws they truly have to.
More than this
Outlawing google also seems like a stupid thing to do.
He just makes the point that we can't have it both ways. We can't have a searchable internet and the privacy standards of 1960. It just doesn't compute.
-- Donald Kerr
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
-- Barry Goldwater
And the penalties for it.
The Bush administration has shit all over the Constitution and this country. They have committed treason.
Yes, there is something fundamentally different: After they take away your rights and screw you over, they can get themselves immunity. Private businesses generally cannot do that.
This guy is basically advertising a surveilance state, were everybody has to trust the government without reserve. Not a good idea. Historically that has always lead to a catastrophy. Unfortunately there will not be any allied armies to free the US population. I advise to stop this now with all possible legal means. A free society has to live with a real risk of terrorism. That is what makes it free: People have the freedom to go bad. If you remove that freedom, you cause much, much more damage that terrorists ever could do directly. All this "war on terror" is really a power-grap in disguise by power-hungry people without even a shred of ethics. You do not want to be ruled by this type of evil.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
On the New Hampshire auto license plates reads one of my favorite sayings: Live Free, or Die. This man would rather capitulate, and is therefore lost.
We will struggle, those that believe in liberty and freedom, against the tides that would try to drown us with rationalisms, excuses, and the madness of fealty to the corrupt and mindless sycophants of government.
There was a reason the founding fathers worded their documents they way that they did-- there was another King George that tried to shove fealty down our throats. This minor duke in his administration would have us believe that liberty and freedom != anonymity. He is wrong.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Really, I don't need to read beyond this. Does the US have a privacy problem with personal data held by corporations without regulation? Yes. Does the US have a privacy problem with novel government surveillance methods without (serious) oversight? Hell Yes. Can one be used to excuse the other in any way shape or form? Hell no!
This guy should not be the standard bearer for the dialog that the US needs to have over privacy in the age of information technology.
If I change my name to "John Doe"?
Bad terrorists kill thousands. Bad government kill millions. Their fear mongering and our cowardice are poisoning our nation's leadership.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
"so this kind of thing only works to screw with American citizens and accomplishes nothing of significance"
And this is news? America's biggest enemy is definitely within. It is lack of education and an easily terrified populace that can be manipulated with a few "support our troops" and "with us or agin' us" slogans.
I think Osama bin Laden hit the jackpot with his 9/11 attack. He spent some 19 lives and a few tens of thousands of dollars and in return, he, through the current moronic, paranoid, and opportunistic administration, has thoroughly destroyed what used to be the most powerful and respected Nation on earth.
What this guy Kerr and the rest of the Bush Regime and it's merry henchmen haven't figured out yet is that the real trick is to protect a free society without interfering with it's ability to function as one. This guy fits Mr. Justice Brandeis observation that the real encroachments on liberty come, "from men of zeal, but without understanding." This guy fits that cookie cutter perfectly-- his reach exceeds his grasp. And because that's common in government, they're fast becoming a bigger threat to the ordinary citizen than the often notional terrorists are.
If the government wants to change what privacy means to THEM, they need a constitutional amendment.
The "right of privacy" is a judicial construct. I'm not saying that it is a bad construct, but you'll never see the word "privacy" in the Constitution. In interpreting the 4th Amendment, the Supreme Court has constructed a Constitutional protection of privacy. Maybe the definition of "activist judges" depends on where you sit. Anyway, the courts have acknowledged that this is an implicit, rather than explicit right.
Legislative acts have also defined privacy in their own ways, but the term "privacy" is a difficult one to define with precision when we're dealing with electronic communications. If the limits of privacy are no longer defined by your physical presence, how far does your right to privacy extend? With so much of our lives being lived online, would excessive provisions for privacy actually extend the doctrine further than it was originally intended?
Another question: We place our trust in Google every time we use its services, but why do we place more trust in a profit-maximizing enterprise than in our own government? Ostensibly we can hold our government accountable through elections, but we have less influence on corporations. Sure, we have the power of the wallet, but when's the last time you saw an effective consumer boycott in the information economy?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
...the clamps start getting put in place. They turn the screws a thread at a time, make lots of fuzzy statements like "Protecting anonymity isn't a fight that can be won." The fight is lost. There is no fight. Submit. Submit.
If you believe you can have privacy, security and anonyminity you are wrong. You might get any two of those. Maybe.
Privacy and anonymity are essentially the same thing. A USSC ruling even stated this in the early 1800s. If a person couldn't reasonable expect to keep their privacy then freedom of political speech didn't mean anything. Without remaining anonymous people wouldn't be willing to talk openly about politics for fear what they say can be used against them. I think the appropriate third word is "cheap" though "fast" is good too.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Someone needs to inform these people that [their idea of] security is not the end all. They seem to act as if anything that is in the way of security has to be removed. Difficult to gather intelligence? Sorry. Tough shit. That's unfortunate but you'll have to work with it because we aren't giving up our liberties. I wish I could change everything that makes my job tough to suit my job first but that's not why I'm there.
I must add, that I think they're lying anyway. They will use that excuse to get greater control and a lot of feeble minds right now are bowing to the security threat bs. Grow a backbone already and tell these clowns to get stuffed.
Maybe we can invite a Brit to weigh in on whether or not it's irony, but what fascinates me is that many of the same people who cry the loudest about the Bush Administration's actions are also the ones going on about the need for social welfare programs and universal health care.
Look: either the government pervades your life, or it does not.
The debate is healthy, though. Perhaps it will lead to clearer rules of engagement on security and privacy. If you're tasked with ensuring security, you really want clear ROE, so that the next time Mr. Extremist makes history, you can say: "Well, that sucked, but that was the way the public wanted to manage the probabilities."
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Instead of "redefining" privacy to mean "we know your private data, but we'll be responsible with it", how about we re-institute actual privacy? Instead of giving our personal information to companies who lose it or sell it or share it, how about we the people guard our own data? Instead of keeping it on their computers, let's keep it on our own.
In my opinion, software as a service and registration based software are two of the biggest perpetrators of data and privacy violations. They take away your right to manage who knows what about you, forcing you to provide whatever data the "service provider" chooses or dictates that they "need".
1) Make it illegal to force consumers to turn over private information unless it's a functional requirement of the process (not just data mining or marketing enhancement)
2) Make it illegal for companies to sell or share ANY personally identifiable data they collect, even names, phone numbers, and addresses.
3) Dismantle companies that violate privacy laws, retain identifiable customer data, or insist on data that is not a necessity to do business.
It's pretty simple! You own YOUR OWN data. No one else has a right to it. No one can force you to turn it over to do business with them unless it's a functional necessity of doing business and not just a preference. Anyone that violates privacy laws is dismantled.
BUT! BUT! It won't happen, because we live in a fascist corporate pathocracy where companies and money rule politics, the individual citizen, nay citizens period, are not considered, asked, or involved in any decisions, and THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOUR DATA ALSO. So they can spy on you. It's all to protect YOU from the "terrists" you know.
Nevermind the true terrorists are OUR OWN GOVERNMENT.
Vague "terrorist threats", data mining, advertising, marketing, and "revenue enhancement" ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE REASONS TO DISMANTLE PRIVACY. Money and fear are NEVER reasons to willingly accept oppression or subordination.
Fight for your rights, America. Our rights aren't what some company claims they will recognize, or what our government claims they will 'allow'. These are inherent to our existence, and they are for US to decide, not someone else. Fight for your rights! Wake up before it's too late.
Without anonymity the small voice with be Bitch SLAPPed into silence!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What scares us is that you shitheads let them get away with it. You almost impeached a president for lying about a blowjob, but you don't take down an administration that is actively dismantling everything your ancestors fought and died for.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Issues like this go to court, courts are driven by lawyers, lawyers are not ever not even slightly interested in the truth, or what is right (morally/ethically or otherwise). They are only interested in proving whatever their client is paying them to prove.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
This is affirmed by the 9th Amendment, although the right exists independently of it.
You're the sort of person for whom the Bill of Rights was added, because you simply don't understand the concept. The Constitution gives the Federal Government no power to intrude on privacy, therefore the right is retained by the people.
-Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, no. 84
Much US "case law," isn't law (in the exact same sense that our current money doesn't have value). It's not founded on any pure principles of ethics or logic, despite the claims of weasly lawyers and congresscritters, but upon convenience and authority through force. It's a history of progressive ursurpations of powers not granted by the people, and is illegitimate. The king has no clothes.
That some judge states "black is white" doesn't make it so, and simply weakens any legitimacy the law once had.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I for one don't think we'll get MORE liberties by voting for right-wing populists.
Traditionally, tortious trespass is trespass, regardless of whether or not there is a sign. Now, it's not trespass if you're thrown on to the private property, or if you run there to take cover from an act of god. But if you are wandering around and merely don't know that it's someone else's property, then you are liable. Of course, tort law varies from state to state. But the general upshot is that a "no trespassing" sign doesn't do much.
Secondly, as mentioned previously, some consider that this might fall under "trespass to chattel." I can't remember the case offhand, but there was a case where IBM attempted to sue a disaffected employee who had been e-mailing current employees. They tried to sue for trespass to chattel, arguing that the e-mail was trespassing on their computers, this failed, however, since trespass to chattel generally requires damage to be done. There was no damage done to the computer from the e-mail, only to the workers' productivity. I imagine similar reasoning could be used to negate any such claims then.
To get back to the point, you are suggesting some sort of electronic shrink-wrap license that binds employers to not use information from a social networking site towards hiring practices. I'm not sure if there's some precedent that would endorse this idea, but my own gut feeling is that it would fail. There isn't an adequate public policy reason to disallow companies from using social network information (in fact, there may be incentive for companies TO do such a thing, to reduce their hiring of 'troublesome' workers). Secondly, since people are willingly volunteering this information to the public at large, it would be hard to argue that one special class of people is not allowed to view or use that information. It's kind of backwards compared to most other privacy issues, where people giving information to a specific class of people are trying to PREVENT the general public from viewing/using it.
And ethically, I, speaking personally now, see nothing wrong with denying someone a job based on information that they have willingly submitted to others. If they had broadcast something on tv that made them less 'hire-able,' the law certainly wouldn't protect it. Therefore, if it's your prerogative to post pictures of you drinking yourself into oblivion or complaining about your awkwardness at social functions, I think it's perfectly reasonable for an employer to deny you a position based on that information. Now, of course, if they deny it to you because of your race, creed, etc. then that would be unfair according to our laws. That, however, is already protected regardless of if you post it on the internet or not. So I am not seeing the reasoning behind not holding people accountable for their own actions here.
P.S. This is just my response to the points you have brought up. The main point of contention from Kerr, that of giving up anonymity in favor of having the government 'safeguard' and be 'responsible' for our private data, I find to be completely ridiculous. Our government should not play the part of some wizened patriarch. It is here to enhance our ability to organize (economically and militarily). It should be a moderator, not a bully.
......to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects.......
I suppose it can be debated whether some ephemeral electronic impulses in some distant computer apply to the above. In the days this was written, any government agent who did want these, had to physically come to the subject persons house or office and take such persons or items with him/her.
It seems that in this day, the only way to keep anything truly secret, is to not tell anyone, anywhere, by any means and make sure it isn't recorded anywhere it is possible for another person to discover said secret(s). Sending a secret out by any electronic device is likely not much different than shouting it from your roof-top.
Maybe Jesus had this in mind what is recorded in Luke 12:3?
"For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor anything hidden that shall not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light. And that which you have spoken in the ear in secret rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops."
This was written long before mankind had our modern means of eavesdropping.
All theory is gray
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Have you seen Bruce Schneier's opinion on your plugin?
If your plugin still works as described, then I'd say it's very imperfect. I don't think the approach is completely wrong though, but it could use improvements.
This reminds me of the old idea of randomly embedding key words like "president", "nuke", etc in mail and usenet posts, to mess with with Echelon/Carnivore. A mail with random key words inserted in places would work for triggering the data gathering, but look obviously unrelated to a human who reads the message, as the extra stuff would be inserted in nonsensical places.
Now if your plugin happens to google for "raping virgins" how will you prove this wasn't a real search you tried to hide among a heap of a lot of grammatically incorrect ones? Searches that make grammatical sense will be a minority, and with a list like that there's a high chance that they won't be things normal people google about.
Then there's that it doesn't seem it actually follows any links from the searches, so if the ISP is doing logging it's easy enough to tell what is being actually used.
This seems to me like going to a library, and borrowing 20 books at once, including the Anarchist Cookbook and Mein Kampf, to try hide your actual and much more harmless interest in reading a book on say, Neopaganism. If your history is checked, all that extra stuff you didn't read isn't going to help you any, because there's no way to tell that most of your history was intended to be padding and you haven't even opened it.
A lot of people aren't voting for Ron Paul because they believe the same things he does. They're voting for him because he represents the only politician who they believe means it when he says he's going to completely upset the status quo.
If he were elected, I'm not sure how much of his own agenda he'd be able to accomplish since he can only propose new legislation & veto things he disagrees with, but he could make it VERY difficult for Congress to pass things that there wasn't unanimous agreement about, and he wouldn't be giving the protection of the President's Office to those agents of the executive branch who are blatantly violating the Constitution.
NO! Bad! This is not about "feeling" secure, it's about BEING secure. There's a huge difference. If someone can unreasonably search all your papers, effects, etc. then you're not secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, are you? It has nothing to do with how you feel about it. I see people making this fallacy all the time, that it's about feeling secure rather than actually being secure. That's not how it works. There is no rhetorical ground to be muddied.
Not quite what I meant. The constitution lists government powers, not citizen's rights. We always had the right to privacy. Just like we had the right to bear arms before the second amendment was written. Which is why it says the government may not infinge on our right to bear arms and not that the people have a right to bear arms. The right already existed.
It requires trusting the people who will be collecting the information. Experience proves that they are *NOT* trustworthy, and don't have your best interests at heart.
Even if you can't get total privacy, get what you can, and don't give up easily. Those who are trying to replace privacy with trusting large organizations are doing so because large organizations can be threatened by larger or more powerful (or even just more committed) organizations.
P.S.: Remember that "Do Not Call" list? That one shares your phone number with all telemarketers, so they'll know who not to call. It expires next year, and they've got your number.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
And you wonder (maybe you don't) why the US consistently rebukes efforts to set up new bodies exercising international sovereignty, for example, the UN Law of the Sea Convention.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
If I could excuse myself from this "Social Security" situation, then I might agree with you.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Isn't it great how with one little change of definition, "privacy" can now mean "we keep private everything we know about you, which is everything."
This guy really should be fired. Out of a cannon. At a wall.
The ______ Agenda
3 years ago 70% of the stuff on the first search page were me, not a single result is today.
I quit posting with any reference to my real name/email. And thanks to recent use in a movie, my pseudonymn is no-longer unique also.
Although you can't delete your online history, it will get diluted quickly.
As long as 50% of the voters think it is murder, then there is a basic disagreement about what is the basic civil right (right to live or right to choose).
The basic organization of the US is to recognize that people disagree- and yet we can work together. When you force every single damn issue to the national level, then you leave people no chance to move away from areas they disagree with and they start getting pretty pissy and intolerant.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
From a Eurotrash American, some counter points:
1. Irrelevant. He was elected, however barely.
2. The minor protests were retarded, and the larger protests are late to the party - not to mention, about the wrong problem. They're certainly no credit to America.
3. You're kidding, right? If you didn't get the idea that Bush was going to send the US down the shitter before 2004, you weren't paying attention.
4. Irrelevant. Pointing out someone else's problems is no way to advance the discussion.
5. Treating the majority of Americans as responsible for Bush's election, and therefore responsible for his crap, is the one thing you can do. Not only did people vote for him in 2000 (which was retarded, but forgivable), but more people voted for him in 2004! At that point, they're responsible for his decisions, and the decisions his administration makes.
So in short: if you voted for Bush twice, I'm holding you personally responsible for the way he is acting. Your parent poster might have said it differently, but it's not far off.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I am afraid he would since many of his "morality" proposals require wide-spread governmental powers. Same for his militaristic (which he denies while actively foting for them) and many other aspirations. He simply wants the big governmental powers in places different from where they are now. This is in actuality the same problem most of the "small government" conservatives have, they all come with pet wacko social dogmas, enforcement of which is completely at odds with their espoused views on the mechanics of governance.
Only if it came to abortion ... or sex between people he does not approve of ... or racial segregation ... or religious persecution ... or corporate excesses such as trusts and monopolies ... or basic social safety nets ... etc and so on
See above. His practical, deeply cherished by him beliefs are at odds with his overall proclamations.
Err, it is not a good thing. Let me repost this link from another poster's post. Go see yourself.
Unfortunately Ron Paul is no panacea for this.
And is a faux-Libertarian, nationalistic religious racist zealot any better? This straregy of trying to elect a patently disturbed individual so to "upset" the staus quo of corrupt fat fascists does not strike me as a particularly wise one. There are some wee unintended consequences possible that I can see, even if you don't.
You're criticizing Ron Paul by citing Michael Moore?
Wow. I'm speechless.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
PopeRatzo, consider also that business is deeply intertwined with government in the USA. A sizeable chunk the people running policy at the appointed level, in the federal government, are fresh through the revolving door from the business side.
Are they in government to make policy that benefits the people, or the businesses? Look to where they go after stepping through the revolving door the second time to answer that question.
I believe that's what drives government to make statements and decisions that impact citizen privacy. Kerr, however, is a career spook. Spookland's interest in thwarting privacy is ostensibly about [preventing] terrorism, but when you consider the massive agglomerated databases of personal and financial history that government is buying/renting from private business, their objectives are not so clear. Let's see where Kerr ends up when his government tenure is over.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
After reviewing the summaries of the whole list, the only way I can see you justifying your claim of "whack-nuttery" is if you believe that government exists to allow you to force others to pay for your personal agendas or punish them for doing things that you don't like.
A big problem with that point of view is that it makes the government a puppet for whoever screams most loudly, at the expense of everybody else. And since the loudest voice is constantly changing, we end up with the worst of all worlds, more tangled laws and regulations than a reasonable person will ever read, and a rapidly growing government.
"Ron Paul's Congressional whack-nuttery" is the first real chance to break away from that in a very long time, and his claims are only further backed up by your link. I could run through that list of proposed bills one by one, if you like, but this really isn't the forum for that.
If you have another reason for believing that the misrepresentations on the page linked are evidence of a real problem with Ron Paul's record, I'd love to hear them.
If he were elected, I'm not sure how much of his own agenda he'd be able to accomplish since he can only propose new legislation & veto things he disagrees with, but he could make it VERY difficult for Congress to pass things that there wasn't unanimous agreement about, and he wouldn't be giving the protection of the President's Office to those agents of the executive branch who are blatantly violating the Constitution.
The veto is anyone who wants to be president most powerful weapon. I'd love to see a president that would veto most of the bills passed by congress. In 2004 that's what Michael Badnarik promised. Congress can override vetoes but it isn't homogeneous enough to do it now. That would be a good sight to see, the federal government screeching to a halt.
FalconShould there be a Law?
nd as for the bit about having my own "like minded state", that's the last thing I want. Diversity breeds challenge and adversity. They in turn make life interesting and lead to new discoveries and developments. Diversity encourages constant change, and it is without a doubt a huge advantage that western nations have over more isolationist countries. It's also perhaps the best reason I can think of for NOT allowing states to become miniature nations - such a system would encourage further isolation and alienation amongst political, ural, and even religious lines. You think Texans New Yorkers now, just wait until they've been practically autonomous for a few decades. Do you really want to Balcanize the US?
That's the thing about states being able to set their own laws. Instead of one national lab, there can be 50 different labs. What then works in one state can be copied in other states and visa versa, what doesn't work in one state other states don't have to waste money trying out the same thing. In the end what works would spread faster and what fails will be gotten rid of.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"Ron Paul? Take a look at any message board where 9/11 "truthers" gather . . . amongst the mentally unbalanced, Ron Paul is practically a rock star."
."
Just because some fringe radicals support a particular candidate doesn't mean that candidate is "wrong" or somehow less deserving of support.
"[abortion] is not a decision to be made by individual states. It's a human rights issue . .
I believe that a woman should be free to make that decision, but abortion is not a "right" in the same sense as the "Rights" guaranteed by the Constitution, and it should most definitely be left up to the states. Your "legal child abuse" scenario is a silly straw-man argument.
"Diversity breeds challenge and adversity. They in turn make life interesting and lead to new discoveries and developments."
I don't see how restoring states' rights would impede discovery and development. If anything, you'd end up with MORE diversity. The fact that you point out a glaring difference between Texans and New Yorkers is even more evidence to show that a one size fits all Federal Government is inherently unworkable.
I did, and I can see how the author of this blog added a lot of spin. for example: He would deny the use of the Federal court system -- and even Federal precedent -- to people discriminated against because of their religious beliefs or sexual orientation If you read the summary text of Bill H.R. 300 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00300:@@@L&summ2=m&, it's looks like power from the federal courts is being handed down to the states so that they can decide how to handle these issues. If the states have the ability to make laws the way they see fit, then citizens are better represented by them.
Poor people move all the time. You can move across the country in the US for under two hundred dollars. I have friends who are poor single moms who have moved out of state and back in state in just the last three years.
You always have freedom to leave. You can *walk* across the country in 150 days. You can hop a bus for under $150 to cut most of that time off.
However, if the laws are the same everywhere, then freedom to move doesn't make much of a difference.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm sure there must be some reason why I can't tell whether that blog poster (and yes, the 'site' cited is actually nothing more than the incoherent ramblings of yet another of 10 trillion 'bloggers') is far left wing or far right wing. The only thing I can tell for sure is that they're unstable at room temperature.
Let's get a few things straight:
1) Refusing to finance a given decision does NOT mean you are against having choice in the matter
2) Shifting power from the Federal government to the state governments does NOT equal fascism
3) Refusing to subsidize something does NOT equate to being against it
4) Being thrifty when it's not your money does NOT equate to being a religious whackjob
5) The US Consitution still defines the role of the Federal government. Since the Federal government has proven many times over that it only does well the jobs laid out for it by the US Constitution, it makes sense that we restrict its roles thereto.
Ron Paul isn't a nut - he's just thinking far beyond the average member of the body politic.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."