A Friend of Mine
This is gonna freak out some male readers, but here goes.
I got a call from a friend today who says that she has had it had it had it with all these conservative white guys screaming about losing their freedoms and their liberty.
La de freekin’ da.
Until white men stop convening panels of all white men – none of them doctors – to discuss women’s health then shove it. Until white men get to decide if a doctor can stick a sonogram tool in my whoha without my permission, then shove it.
I ain’t all that pro-wiretapping and collecting DNA, but, dammit, your phone call is not as private as my vagina. So, maybe, just maybe Lady Karma is working her magic.
I just needed to get that off my chest before the weekend.
Thanks to Stephanie for the heads up.
Agreed. We ought to keep, ahem, our noses out of your veejayjays.But WTF is up with this? If Alberto Gonzales was doing this I would be outraged and it doesn’t make a bit of difference that it is Holder who is okaying these projects. This is wrong. If you want “safe,” move to a police state. If you want “free,” accept the risk that comes with living in a free country. When I was walking around Iowa in -20 degree weather in January ’08 to get out the vote for Obama, I certainly did not foresee him presiding over a 1984-esque program of warrant-less data mining and phone tracking. Is Cheney still running things?
1I agree. Enough is enough.
2A-MEN!
3Sister Juanita, best fact-laden rant I’ve heard all week! I, too, and for privacy. My rights start where someone else’s end [and vice versa] and theirs certainly do not include any part of my anatomy.
4Kharma is…… a B***h….. ain’t it?
5No, Cheney is not still running things. Think Patriot Act. You might recall that they recently re-upped the thing. Some folks tried to change it for the better but frankly it did not work.
6Since l am a Proud Far Lefty Prog, the NDAA along with Gitmo still open and corporate thieves’ tax evasion; banksters, et al ripping off us regular folks without doing hard time for their robberies, this phone business is not at the top of my list. I am grateful everyday we have President Obama rather than ANY Evangelibagger imbecile from the RePig party of idiot hypocrites and their idea of Freedumb!
7I want my old bumpersticker back: “Keep Your Laws Off my Body”.
8I agree, but then I’m an old white guy who loves Obama.
9By the way, what’s all this crap about security folks doing data mining? WhereTF were you guys 12 years ago, and 7 years ago, and 5 years ago when we were burying Congresscritters in email trying to stop this crap? A blind monkey could see what was in the “Patriot” Act, and it would take a pretty stupid monkey to believe the promises that it would only be used against “terrorists”. Do terrorists have their own effing phone company?
10Steve Martin once said, “I could not handle being a woman, I would stay home all day and play with my breasts.”
11Republican legislators can’t handle being women either, but they’re doing all they can to discuss, and research, and write, and debate, and dictate… probably with PowerPoint, Photoshop and laser pointers. Is anything else getting done?
I have no problem with them monitoring what numbers are called from business phones. Maybe because I am always ethical, and don’t call any ‘funny’ phone numbers.
12As the President said, in order to be secure, we have to give up a little privacy.
However, for a woman to give up access to her privates for some little wienered man wants to explore is WAY too far.
Let’s keep government out of both our private parts AND our private communications. Either way, they’re inserting themselves into private areas without permission.
On a side note: I seem to recall the need for a search warrant being triggered by a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” If government claims the right to poke around in private areas without our permission, we may not have any reasonable expectation of privacy anywhere>
13Ditto what Larry McLaughlin said.
Rick — I read that they named some public buildings, but that’s it, as far as I can tell.
14My phone call and my inter toobing is just as private as your vagina…..(dirty joke deleted, it would appear that my internal filter is working today)
15I’m a middle-aged white guy who is mad as hell about the government taking away our rights, whichever rights they choose to take away. I’m also a white guy who understands that taking away women’s rights is an assault on ALL our rights.
So I’m mad as hell about forced sonograms. I’m mad as hell about restrictions on a woman’s right to choose. And I’m mad as hell that the government is collecting our phone records and tracking our internet usage.
But at least the old white guys who are trying to take away women’s rights told us that was what they were going to do when they ran for election. They were up front about it. When he ran for office back in 2007/8, President Obama told us specifically he would end programs of warrantless spying on Americans. Instead, he’s expanded them. And if that doesn’t make you mad, it sure as heck should.
16Obama voted for enacting FISA, phone bugging, right before the 1st time he got elected. Obama is Bush in my mind. and giving up freedom for security never did work. Obama said lots of things and did the opposite. other than enjoying how the Right wing goes bananas over Obama, there is very little difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans are up front and in you face, telling you exactly what they will do to you. and then the Republicans do it. so i know who is worse, the Democrats who abet the Republicans in their Patriot Act Big Brother nonsense.
heh, it was a free country until the Congress varmints sold it to Big Business. and that took both DemocRATS an Republican Rats.
was it Franklin who said, “those who sacrifice liberty for security wind up losing both.” well thank Obama and Bush for Big Brother. all those time people voted for Republicans, well Alito, Scalia, Thomas Roberts and the Court system went Nazi Fascist. the Old Government is the Problem, Sayeth St.Ronald Reagan
we reap what we sow.
17I’m not sure why I’m not more outraged about the info collecting, but one thing that does get up my nose is all the outrage about Obama this and Obama that. Yes, he said he would stop it and yes, I’m angry that he’s still doing it (and hasn’t closed Guantanamo), but where were all these newly-outraged impeachment-screaming GOP when Bush was doing the same bloody thing? If it’s “been going on for seven years,” anybody who can count knows who started it.
18The new Obama Administration theme song: I’ll be Watching You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmDkqv5QmN4
Every breath you take
19Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you …
A. Obama does not “vote” on anything.
20B. If anyone is deluding themselves that this is ‘new’ policy, they are dumber than shrub’s a*s.
C. Where were y’all when the rest of us were writing petitions to stop the Patriot Act in 2001?
D. On December 8, 2010 Congress acted to block the closure of Gitmo, tacked it on the end of year spending bill.
I think the citizens of the US are forgetting facts that are crucial, and believing the propoganda machine that is the GOP.
A recent issue of WIRED magazine had an article saying bluntly that, among other things, privacy was and will be a thing of the past. Not endorsing it, just saying.
21Thank you, aj. Amen, amen!
22Agree with AJ. Now what I want to know is why nobody seems upset that telecom and/or browser companies have all that data to be mined. Did I miss something?
23The whole dadgum thang ain’t nothin’ but a bunch a Talibanners.
24Well, now we get to see who has the better End Game – The Rovians in turning Dems by Pointing the Finger at The President with “Ooo, He did it!” OR the President in Finally managing to dismantle the stupid Patriot Act by forcing it into the courts and in order to uphold it, Scalia et all would have to side with President O.and Congress would have no say…. Big Picture folks, if nothing, this presidency has taught us that there is more than one way to skin a cat… said cat being that grotesque group of 12 year olds known as congress. Besides, the difference between Understaffed, Sequestered NSA folks being overwhelmed with my Big Data, and Google and Verizon Selling it to the highest(Richest) bidder, Which could in a truly paranoid world, be Blackwater, or Haliburton, Keeping exactly the same records as the NSA but with all the latest gadgets and stuff that Sequestered govt can’t afford – Dang, just sceered myself – gotta go take a walk….
25To Hippie in the Hollar- In the old days of electro-mechanical telephone switching there was no real mechanism for collecting massive amounts of data. There were meters that measured usage and duration- LD calls were ticketed for billing purposes so there was a record of to-from and duration, but the record of local calls was just not measured or collected in any individual way.
Now in the age of electronic telephony switching it is possible to retrieve all kinds of data on a massive scale.
The funny thing to me is that when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s people were suspicious and careful about what they said on the phone- maybe that’s because they (my parents and grandparents) remembered party lines and when calls were manually switched by a central operator who could listen in on your calls.
An in those days public pay phones even indoors were in a phone booth to ensure privacy. Nowadays people do banking business at ATMs with people around them and blab loudly about whatever on cell phones.
Maybe it’s time to go back to my grandparents thinking and keep things private- private- including girls’ and women’s PRIVATE parts.
RANT over- thanks for the forum,JuanitaJean
26Right on, aj. It’s interesting that the Repugs who wholeheartedly supported the Patriot Abomination are now complaining the loudest. It was OK when Bush was on the other end of the phone, but now, oh my God, it’s Obama. That will not do.
27As for the Repig imbeciles on the “how can we completely control those uppity females” committee”, the more they open their mouths the more women they drive running and screaming from the Repig party.
I don’t have any problem with the government viewing who I call. Finding that some folks are calling known terrorist contacts is what the gov is attempting to track, and that knowledge is worth any freedom I lose. As far as the GOP griping about the data collecting. This is just a page out of the previous administration’s play book. They didn’t complain when it was their guy’s idea.
28To aj: To answer:
B) It being old policy doesn’t make it good policy.
C) I’ll tell you where I was: Petitioning the government right along with you. The reason I voted for Barack Obama in 2008 was because he promised us – explicitly – that he would stop all the abuses of the Bush administration. If we have another (heaven forbid) Republican president, will you be satisfied to see these policies continue?
D) This isn’t about Gitmo, and Republican obstructionism doesn’t explain a program President Obama started.
Those of us who generally support this president are not doing him any favors by failing to hold his feet to the fire when he does something wrong, and this is wrong. And we’re smart enough to understand the difference between politically-motivated lies (Benghazi, IRS, etc.) and real transgressions.
29Come on JJ…Everyone wants to know what sort of danger yer hoo haw presents to the country…we know the danger of “hoo haws” running rampant, crossing the border, and creating mayhem and lawlessness…oh wait, wasn’t there a movie made called “Hoo Haws Unchained”? if not there should be…I love the fact you have taken up the mantel of political activism…
30I’ve had this argument with 3 different men. they seem to think privacy is everything,probably because men love pron sites. I say, with cameras on every corner and social media, grocery stores keeping dtrack of what you buy, amazon, etc, privacy is so far out the windowyou can’t even see it. This is not one of my button-pushers. you can see what I write, where I go, who I talk to…just keep your damn hands off of me at the airport.
31I should make it clear that I believe a woman’s control of her body is among the most fundamental of human rights. I didn’t mean to veer the thread off topic but the context was why are the old white guys yelling about warantless search and seizure while they are legislating vaginal probes? Cant we be against the infringement of of all these rights?
32I’m with John in Lafayette, @Charlie, I wrote/am still writing a lot of letters about the Patriot Act, the NDAA, and Gitmo and I know how Govt. functions with Congress as the driving engine. And I support Obama, but to me that is one more reason to hold him to a high, high standard and call bullshit when he does things like curtailing habeas corpus, ordering ex-judicial executions, or authorizing warrantless searches. If he’s our guy, let’s make sure he’s doing things right.
@Larry McLaughlin & others who are not “doing anything wrong”- Rights are not something that aren’t important until YOU need them.
@Litlhorn- Obama has surprised me before when I thought he’d sold out. I hope you are right that it’s a ply to get the courts to outlaw warrantless searches but that seems a stretch.
Sadly, I’m pretty much convinced it’s too late and we will end up neither secure nor free.
The way I feel is, if the camera on the corner views and records what a cop standing there would see and remember–well, good! If the camera peers into my window–not good!
As far as right-wing “regulation” of women’s health care for political/religious reasons–IMO their legislation violates the 4th Amendment, which guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons…”
33When the ROC was voted into the UN, the US government invited some folks from Taiwan to the USA to study business methods. The VP of the Taiwan Telephone company came to observe the telephone industry. His per diem allowed him to stay at the Y.
He came to DH’s work group first in our town so he stayed with us for 6 weeks. When he returned home after 6 months, every piece of mail sent back and forth was opened. Letters, gifts, business manuals. All of it. Some of it vanished. He and DH thought their phone calls were monitored. What’s new?
34A good read is described below …note the release date (and know he had to do research and final drafts years before releasing). This isn’t a new subject matter as many commentors have stated and seem to also wonder where people have been in thinking it is.
I never give real information when filling out supermarket discount cards, etc. I don’t subscribe to things…as @Terri (31) said, ‘it is not one of my button-pushers’. It just IS.
This information gathering has been going on for many decades. Personally, I just attempt not to add to the cycle of how information can be collected (on me) if I can help it (and I do request to be removed from all people searches beyond the public sites in which some are real estate tax and voting registration).
Think of the added tax within your landline bill that goes towards the military funding–hidden taxes, hidden access–It is up to us to expose them, accept or prevent them, via writing to our congressmen, etc.
THE BOOK INFORMATION : No Place to Hide.
Release date: January 9, 2006
In No Place to Hide, award-winning Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., pulls back the curtain on an unsettling trend: the emergence of a data-driven surveillance society intent on giving us the conveniences and services we crave, like cell phones, discount cards, and electronic toll passes, while watching us more closely than ever before.
He shows that since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, the information industry giants have been enlisted as private intelligence services for homeland security. And at a time when companies routinely collect billions of details about nearly every American adult, No Place to Hide shines a bright light on the sorry state of information security, revealing how people can lose control of their privacy and identities at any moment.
Now with a new afterword that details the latest security breaches and the government’s failing efforts to stop them, O’Harrow shows us that, in this new world of high-tech domestic intelligence, there is literally no place to hide.
As O’Harrow writes, “This book is all about you and your personal information — and the story isn’t pretty.”
35OOPs–Released even earlier (2005 not 2006) according to Amazon. gosh, read the reviews…scaryyyyy…
Publisher: Free Press (January 12, 2005)
36Hi aj, Pres Obama DID vote when he was Sen Obama. Don’t know if Bernard is right, but he sounds very discouraged; who shall blame him.
@Litlhorn: the same thing flashed through my head when listening to some news blurb the other day. I’ve said it here before, I wouldn’t sign up to play chess with the Pres, he is FAR too clever by half! And he knows a little something about long-range planning!
@Rhea-something our people were doing or saying made me think that the other day too, like Animal Farm! To wit: can we please stop calling our Pres “Obama” with no honorific?? He is “Mr Obama” or President Obama” or “Commander in Chief Obama” already! Growl!
37Liz, I agree with you. Pres. Obama seems to be playing three dimensional chess, whyilst others are playing as tho it were checkers.
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