ZDNET: CISPA More Henious Than SOPA And It just Passed-reports:
According to TechDirt, a site I quite respect, CISPA just passed the House in a rushed vote, with some amendments that TechDirt claims pretty much, well, here, read it for yourself:The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crime”. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all
Now, I haven’t sat down and read the entire bill as revised and just passed by the House, but I will. You should, too. Here’s the PDF to the bill, directly from the House’s mouth (PDF).
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First Things has an essay on the Hunger Games.
I'm not sure I agree with him on the Peeta vs Gale part: Gale became pretty ruthless in the third book and probably designed the plan that killed Katniss' sister...
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America's cultural borders
interesting, but superficial and meaningless...
What he doesn't get is that people in different cultures actually THINK differently about different things, make different assumptions based on those beliefs, and that what he is measuring is only the technical data of what they use, not culture...
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So who was the whistleblower on the "boys having fun in Colombia" scandal?
A black woman.
Paula Reid, at right, walks in a motorcade alongside President George W. Bush's limousine shortly after his inauguration on January 20, 2001. (AP Photo)
AfroCom reports:
Paula Reid is the 46-year-old special agent responsible for blowing the whistle on the sex scandal... Reid, the head of the service detail down in Latin America, discovered that at least 11 agents, including two supervisors, had brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, just days before the president arrived for an international summit. Such action posed a significant security risk for the commander-in-chief...The 2001 photo suggests she's been in the Secret Service for awhile, so she must have guts...
As Elizabeth I says in "Shakespeare in Love": I know something of a woman in a man's profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.
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I use facebook, but not their "TimeLine"...I just admonished a friend who was putting all sorts of personal information on her Timeline that she should be cautious about identity theft.
Usually banks etc. have "security questions" about what year you graduated, or where you were born etc. and a lot of this is on time line...
Of course, it's probably easier to steal your identity by hacking into medical records, especially since the government is requiring all docs use electronic medical records...and most docs became doctors to treat patients, not to follow government regulations.... but still it could be a problem.
Heck, Robin just found someone stole her credit card numbers and now she can't use her credit card here in the Philippines. Bummer.
As for me, I'm just paranoid. When we lived in one African country, missionaries had their mail read, and several were thrown out for bad remarks about the regime. Missionaries were notorious for being whistleblowers on government atrocities, and often collected information for human rights groups, which they often smuggled out hand carried by someone who was traveling to Europe etc.... As a result, when we went on leave, my bags were carefully searched for contraband letters...which I didn't carry.
However, my mother, who was traveling with me, did not have her bags searched, because she was just a little old lady...so when we arrived in Europe, she took the letters out of her pockets and mailed them...
Nowadays, all they have to do is snoop your blog or internet mail...
No, I am no longer involved in missionary work, nor do I blog about human rights atrocities, but you might notice that I haven't named the name of the SOB who ordered the hit on his rivals that killed our nephew on the blog, because he is still at large and there is a strict libel law here in the Philippines.
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