Trump, The Worm In The Apple
Feb 20, 2016 2016 Election, Commentary
The terrorists who murdered people in San Bernardino before they were shot to death by law enforcement left behind an Apple iPhone and the FBI can’t crack into it. It seems the encryption in place will not allow the FBI tech folks access to the phone. The FBI wants Apple to access the device.
Apple claims it cannot do so unless it creates some kind of back door access that would affect all other iPhones. It seems Apple really did a bang up job of securing their phones after a lot of public outcry about privacy and the assistance given by the government to many tech companies.
[note]Apple made a point when it launched its new security to tell us they could not access an individual’s phone. At that time government protested and is evidently using this phone to make its case.[/note]
The issue here is a big picture issue. Apple says it can’t access the phone without building a means that would allow access to all phones. This, of course, is what the FBI (read government) wants. The government does not like the idea that it can’t access your stuff. I know there will be promises that this is just one phone and they would never use the technology to access other phones but they lie. We have seen far too many instances of surveillance overreach by the government. Stingray is one little thing they have developed and overused even allowing local police to use it provided they keep it secret.
Government will always abuse any tool or power it gets. They always justify it (or should I say rationalize it) by saying they are trying to keep us safe or that it is for the greater good but the reality is they want power and control and the San Bernardino terrorist attack provided the catalyst for the FBI to gain access.
Look, there might be important things on the phone that would help round up other terrorists but that alone is not a reason to develop something that would allow access to millions of phones that belong to people who have done nothing wrong. If accessing this phone at the expensive of others is deemed acceptable then what will stop them when the argument is eavesdropping on all of us is OK because they might find a few bad guys while doing it?
Donald Trump threw his hat into the fray over the phone by declaring Apple should do what the FBI wants and people should boycott Apple until they acquiesce. When asked by commentators at Fox about how the back door could be used to access even his phone the Donald said if it meant more security he was OK with it. Security was more important than liberty, in the mind of the Donald.
Donald, a Founding Father of this nation had something to say about people like you:
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~ Ben Franklin
The quote may well have dealt with security and taxes during the French-Indian War but the words are well adapted to our civil liberty. If you Donald are willing to give up your liberty (as you stated when you said it was Ok for the government to have access to your phone, and by extension all of ours) because it was for security then you really deserve neither.
The ends do not justify the means in this case and if Trump thinks they do then he might as well be quoting Rules for Radicals.
There are plenty of tech experts in this country and no doubt a number of them have the ability to hack into that particular phone. If the FBI wants to pay one such person (one has already offered to do it for free) then that is up to them.
To leave all of us vulnerable to unwanted and unconstitutional violations of our privacy because of one phone that belonged to a terrorist is not a tradeoff worth considering.
Maybe, just maybe, if you believe in liberty you should consider boycotting Trump instead of Apple…
Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
How Far Will Government Intrude Into Our Lives?
May 24, 2011 Political
The federal government under the watchful eye of Barack O’Bama (nobody is more Irish you know) is making sure that no one spreads lies about the Dear Leader. Now I don’t really care if the O’Bama regime is out there monitoring the Internet but I also know that the lies end up being anything they do not like about O’Bama. The one thing I want to know; is the person hired to work in the White House Communications Department to specifically build Obama’s online presence and squash negative stories paid for with taxpayer dollars? If Jesse Lee, the Director of Progressive Media and Online Response is being paid for with taxpayer dollars he better not be doing anything that deals with reelecting O’Bama, which is what this position is described as. Keep an eye folks, if your money is being spent on campaign items it is a violation of the law.
So with O’Bama’s spies watching to make sure you do not talk badly about Dear Leader, there is another intrusion into states rights and our lives by the federal government. The federal government wants to pass a law to force motorcycle riders to wear helmets. Before some loon liberal jumps in here let me make it clear. I think that wearing a helmet, just like wearing a seatbelt, is a smart thing to do but I also feel it is up to states to decide and if states do not take a decision then it is up to the individual. It is as simple as that. The federal government does not belong intruding into our lives this way. Like I said, I think it is smart to wear safety equipment but I feel it should be a state issue or an individual issue. The only thing I think regarding this is if people decide not to wear a helmet or a seatbelt and those people get injured in an accident then they should have to pay the costs that insurance does not and if they die their families cannot sue. Other than that, be free.
As if this is not bad enough, the federal government wants to install black boxes on all new cars.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is expected to issue new regulations next month that will require a black box style data recorder be fitted in all new cars. DVICE
The devices will record data about speed, seatbelt use, and brake application prior to accidents. The details being worked out now are who can access the data and when. This is a bad idea and it is Big Sis prying into our lives. There is no reason for them to know my speed, whether I used my seatbelt (see above) or how my brake was applied before I ran into something.
I understand that they can use the information to figure out what happened and who was to blame but that is not a good reason to allow the intrusion into our lives. If they had everyone’s DNA it would be easier to identify remains but that does not mean we should all provide a sample. Like DNA collection, the black boxes and the information they contain can (and will) be abused. The military collects DNA and when that program started it was ONLY for identification of remains as the result of conflict or other service connected deaths. Now the information is part of the national database.
How long will it be before the government decides to track our movements or issue speeding tickets based on information in the black boxes?
The federal government does not belong involved in our lives. How long will it be before the people push back?
Sadly, many will be silent as their rights are taken away and government intrudes into their lives.
And that kind of apathy is what allowed a group of people to be marched into gas chambers.
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: black boxes, government lies, helmets, intrusion, Obama, Privacy, rights, seatbelts
More Intrusion Into Our Freedoms
Jun 19, 2010 Political
Big Sis, Janet Napolitano, thinks that there needs to be monitoring of the things we do on the Internet because of homegrown terrorism. Yep, she says there is an inevitable trade off when it comes to privacy and keeping people safe.
Forget for one moment that she is a member of the political party that opposed most of the Patriot Act as an invasion of our privacy and focus on what she wants to do.
Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation’s homeland security chief said Friday. FOX News
The left went nuts when legal wiretaps were used (in accordance with law and precedent) to monitor people who were suspected of terrorism and where one party was out of the country but thinks it is OK to monitor communications on the Internet.
This woman also thinks that full body scanners are not much of an invasion and are warranted because her department and her boss were unable to keep the underwear bomber off an airplane. No, it is an invasion of privacy and people have every right to refuse them (of course they will then be harassed with a secondary screening) but to Big Sis, it is OK to invade our privacy at the airport, just as it is on the Internet.
Look, if the government wants to troll around and see what websites are trying to recruit people that is their business but to target individuals or to monitor specific people is an invasion unless it is known that the person has terrorist connections. We already know who this jackass thinks is a domestic terrorist and it is everyone who is not a liberal leftist.
And how about these morons worry about the real threats, you know terrorists from other countries, men, who strangely enough, have Middle Eastern names and practice the religion of Islam?
I have an idea how we can handle Napolitano and her invasion of privacy and stop the oil leak in the Gulf.
How about we stuff her fat *** in the leaking pipe?
Never surrender, never submit.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
Tags: napolitano, Obama, oil leak, patriot act, Privacy
News From The World Of Politics
Feb 12, 2010 Political
Obama Won’t Play Nice At Recess
When Barack Obama was a Senator he was part of the minority party and that party, rather than give an up or down vote on Bush nominees, filibustered them. When John Bolton was nominated to the UN, Obama and the Democrats worked to defame the man and then filibustered his nomination. George Bush appointed him during the Congressional recess.
Barack Obama said that Bolton was damaged goods which was a Democrat theme. The idea being that any appointee not confirmed by the Senate was damaged (the DU agreed with this). Now that Republicans have played the same game with Obama nominees (some Democrats joined the Republicans) Obama is talking about making recess appointments to key positions. Verum Serum
So will these appointments be “damaged goods?”
Roland Martin of CNN has suggested that Barack Obama go gangsta on the Republicans with regard to the recess appointments. The funny thing about this is that Martin completely ignores Obama’s history of doing the very thing Martin wants him to go gangsta on. Obama seems oblivious as well:
If the Senate does not act — and I made this very clear — if the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess, because we can’t afford to allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government.”
It was perfectly OK for Obama to allow politics to stand in the way of a well functioning government when he and his fellow Democrats were the ones doing it.
I Wonder How They Would Feel If Someone Tracked Obama By Cell Phone
The Obama administration is arguing that people have no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to their location if they use cell phones (which can locate the proximity of the user, even if it is not actively being used for a call).
In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls. CNET
It seems to me that Obama was concerned about phone records being obtained by the Bush administration. When Obama took the Bush administration position and voted not to hold the companies responsible for honoring the request, Keith Olberman talked about how courageous it was. He talked about Bush as if he were Hitler over the very same issue.
But I digress. Should the police be able to obtain this information without a warrant that demonstrates probable cause? Evidently the Obama administration thinks so.
Budget Freeze In New Jersey Sends Chills Up Democrat’s Spines
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has ruffled the feathers of Democrats by freezing the state budget and cutting the budget in areas where money has been abused and where excesses exist. Christie promised to make New Jersey more fiscally responsible and the Democrats are not happy about that.
They are upset that he is doing this by executive order rather than the legislative process (he declared an emergency, not wanting to let one go to waste). The legislative process under the Democrats there is what caused the problem.
Let’s see how New Jersey does and then decide if Christie is doing the right thing. At least he is trying to get his arms around the out of control spending, something that has not happened in the past.
I bet New Jersey will see better days in the future.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
Tags: cell phones, chris christie, new jersey, Obama, Privacy, recess
Stop the ACLU Blogburst 9-27-07
Sep 27, 2007 Stop the ACLU
Recently, the ACLU set their doomsday clock at six minutes before midnight! Once it reaches the ‘dark hour’ of midnight…we will be slaves to the ominous and evil ‘surveillance society’. This isn’t science fiction. This is typical scare tactics from the ACLU.
They prey upon the paranoid. This is how they get donations to fund their machine. They cry about “violators of that very liberty. They have a massive database of their own member’s private financial information they use for soliciting donations.
The group’s new data collection practices were implemented without the board’s approval or knowledge and were in violation of the ACLU’s privacy policy at the time, according to Michael Meyers, vice president of the organization and a frequent internal critic. He said he had learned about the new research by accident Nov. 7 during a meeting of the committee that is organizing the group’s Biennial Conference in July.
He objected to the practices, and the next day, the privacy policy on the group’s Web site was changed. “They took out all the language that would show that they were violating their own policy,” Meyers said. “In doing so, they sanctified their procedure while still keeping it secret.”
Now the ACLU are proudly defending Rep. Larry Craig on grounds of privacy. In another recent case they are defending a “pre-operative transsexual” anatomically male’s “right” to use the female public restroom. Terrence Jeffrey calls out the ‘privacy hypocrisy’ on this one.
“The government does not have a constitutionally sufficient justification for making private sex a crime,” said the ACLU. “It follows that an invitation to have private sex is constitutionally protected and may not be made a crime. This is so even where the proposition occurs in a public place, whether in a bar or a restroom.”
But then the ACLU went a step further, arguing that there is not only a right to solicit sex, but also to engage in it, in a public restroom.
“The Minnesota Supreme Court,” said the ACLU, “has already ruled that two men engaged in sexual activity in a department store restroom with the stall door closed had a reasonable expectation of privacy. They were, the Court held, therefore acting in a private, not a public place.”
The conflated logic of the ACLU’s bathroom briefs seems to be that someone entering a public restroom intending to use it for traditional purposes has no protection either from the gender sign posted at the door or from the otherwise vaunted right to privacy. Someone entering a public restroom intending to solicit and engage in sex, on the other hand, is protected by both the First Amendment and the right to privacy.
What else would you expect from a group that embraces an ideology that holds that partially born babies have no right to keep their skulls intact?
Indeed. As my good friend Glib Fortuna puts it:
This about sums up the ACLU’s worldview. To the ACLU, the only “freedom” the ACLU truly believes in is “ACLU and its partisans.
This was a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay at Jay@stoptheaclu.com or Gribbit at GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Stop the ACLU
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Tags: freedom, hypocrisy, Link Fest, Privacy, sexual misbehavior, Stop the ACLU