Wanna talk about this where political discussions are encouraged? (not that it's not fine to discuss it here too) Our monthly meeting in santa fe is tomorrow (thursday): http://www.drinkingliberally.org/locations.html#santafe (I won't be there until later, but others will be - just look for the little tri-fold markers on the table)
Also, groups meeting nationwide: www.drinkingliberally.org Promoting democracy one pint at a time. cheers! Jim G. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Pamela McCorduck Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2007 1:33 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Information technology judiiciary. Nick. I share your outrage--was just on the phone to an old pal who used to be John Kerry's legislative director. Those supine Democrats! I hate to give up my right to vote in a primary, but I'm appalled by both parties right now, and certainly don't feel I belong to the Democrats, who not only gave away my civil protections, but also my money to agri-biz, while my own senator is giving it away to the hedge fund boys. This isn't any party I want to be part of. My pal explained it as "inside the Beltway thinking," which is to say, "we can't hand the Republicans this issue right before an election..." Why not? Why not explain to Americans just what got handed where? I don't want to turn FRIAM into a political bulletin board, so perhaps I should simply say that yes, I agree that data mining presents very different issues, and needs some imaginative ideas for privacy protection. P. On Aug 8, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote: All, I feel like "WE" (by which I mean you-all) have something to contribute to the current discussion on warrantless wire taps. Note the Washington Post, below. Does anybody else agree that Data Mining needs an entirely different structure of civil rights protections then investigations of person? Should somebody ( by which I mean you-all) TELL the washington post that? I mean I assume we would approve of a universal search for "bomb-making materials --frequent holidays in Pakistan") but not for "sexual indescretions FRIAM members". The problem is, of course, that civil rights law is designed to protect individuals and we dont know what individuals are involved until we get a hit. Some judicial agency has to pass on the SEARCHES. What worries me more than national security data mining from a civil rights point of view is the complete freedom taht law enforcement seems to hav! e for searching in more personal areas. I think we need an ITJ ... i.e., an Information Technology Judiciary. The Democratic-led Congress, more concerned with protecting its political backside than with safeguarding the privacy of American citizens, left town early yesterday after caving in to administration demands that it allow warrantless surveillance of the phone calls and e-mails of American citizens, with scant judicial supervision and no reporting to Congress about how many communications are being intercepted. To call this legislation ill-considered is to give it too much credit: It was scarcely considered at all. Instead, it was strong-armed through both chambers by an administration that seized the opportunity to write its warrantless wiretapping program into law—or, more precisely, to write it out from under any real legal restrictions." Which of us is going to write the Washington Post????? Not me. I am just a psychologist. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org "Where words prevail not, violence reigns..." Thomas Kyd
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
