Seizure Disorder

Data Seizure At The Airport

Two years ago a freelance journalist named Bill Hogan returned home to Virginia from a trip to Germany and had his laptop seized at Dulles International Airport. U.S. Customs agents reportedly told him he’d been selected for a random investigation. The agents went through photos on his digital camera, he said, and impounded the computer for two weeks.

What the hell is a random investigation? Is that a joke? Is Glenn Beck hiding somewhere with a hidden camera? How can this sort of thing even be contemplated, let along perpetrated, by an agency of the US government? It’s so obviously unconstitutional, that you’d think no one would consider doing it.

"These highly intrusive government searches into a traveler’s most private information, without any reasonable suspicion, are a threat to the most basic privacy rights guaranteed in the Constitution," argued American Civil Liberties Union attorney Catherine Crump, who led an investigation into the problem.

Of course, this happened 2 years ago, when Bush was still appointed president. But as I’ve mentioned on this blog before, Obama thinks laptops can be searched too. And he definitely ought to know better. 

Originally posted to my old site, May 13 2010.

What do we have to do to get a government that respects the rule of law?

Taking The High Road

“It is more often from pride than from ignorance that we are so obstinately opposed to current opinions; we find the first places taken, and we do not want to be the last.”

- Francois De La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)

This is the quotation from today’s A Word A Day from wordsmith.org.

What strikes me about it isn’t the truth of the quotation itself, which is clever, but the occupation of its source. Francois De La Rochefoucauld, born almost 400 years ago, seems to have made a living as a moralist. And he lived a long time at it (he was 67), by 17th century standards.

I think that’s so cool. He wasn’t a statesman or a writer, a philosopher or a farmer. He was a moralist. I wonder if he had sponsors, like composers did then. And what did he get paid?

How can I get a gig like that? I would be so damn good at it.

I’m sure I could get the job by slamming my head against a wall and applying to Fox News. I could babble about babies and the moral purity of heterosexual oil exploration to reduce our dependence on imported tomatoes, and Murdoch’s people would hand me a check.

Or I could sniff paint and run for public office, but that seems less like honest work.  

You know, I think I’m beginning to get it. In France, in the century before the revolution, being a moralist must have been like being a blogger today.

Never mind, I’m doing that now. I like blogging. But thanks to the Internet, it doesn’t pay well anymore.

Of Politics and Facebook

Maybe I should stop posting political crap on Facebook. It’s a pointless, argumentative, and occasionally aggressive habit.

Why do I do it? Because I’m angry with the way things are. And I get frustrated that people I know and care about seem determined to vote against their own manifest self interest and mine, and show their soft throats to rich, powerful sociopathic asshats who would happily slash them to turn a quick buck.

It’s true that Barack Obama has not turned out to be the assertive populist I hoped he’d be. His propensity for compromise, and sometimes capitulation, with the minions of the rich has cost us dearly. But at least he tends in the the populist direction. No thanks to the Democratic Party, which is about as effective in driving meaningful social and economic progress as a flock of fat ducks quacking on a pond.

It’s true that the GOP are the lackeys and lawn jockeys of billionaires, that they care nothing about working people or the environment we live in. The values they say they have, they don’t have. But that “family values” fraud is how they get and keep the loyalty of millions of people who simply can’t, or would rather not, think for themselves.

It is shocking to me that the conservatives, who are not really that at all, have convinced their voters that it’s bad to use public money for the public good. They throw up the word Socialism without even defining it, and their people yell

Stop Socialism and Don’t Touch My Medicare!

And through the yelling no one hears the fact that social programs are a vital part of a mixed economy, and that all modern economies are mixed economies. Both government and private sector coexist, and have functions in the economy.

Socialism is where the government owns everything. There are no private sector businesses that aren’t owned by the State. … can you say North Korea?

I don’t belong to either of the two big political parties, because I watch what they do before I listen to what they say. They’re corrupt. They want our votes, but they don’t work for us.

The only people in America who aren’t directly threatened by the policies of the GOP are the very rich. If you work for a living, be afraid of them. They bust unions. What’s worse, they’ll sell you the idea that unions are bad. Never mind that unions helped build the middle class and drive the expansion of our economy in the 20th century. Republicans love to revise history.

They’re coming for the last of the family farms; they’re backed by corporate megafarms. If you have kids, they’re cutting education. If you ever plan to get old or imagine you might get sick, you’re screwed.

And why are these people getting power from the people? Because they’ll outlaw same-sex marriage. They’ll tell you who you can love or not – and if not you then someone you know – and somehow that’s a family value. Never mind that the sanctity of marriage is a religious concept, and the Constitution says the government has to stay out of religion.

It amazes me that so-called conservatives talk about smaller government, and keeping it out of our business, but at the same time demand government prevent gay marriages and stop mosques from being built.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, so long as we all have the right religion.

They’ll rip the safety net out from under the oldest, sickest, youngest, poorest, neediest, most vulnerable people among us, just to pad the profit margins of corporations they now claim are people.

They waive a stop illegal immigration flag with one hand, while holding the door open with the other. Because easy immigration is good for the corporate economy. Actually, it’s good for the whole economy, but they won’t admit that.

People who want power need non-issues to distract public discourse away from the really important topics. Like who, really, has the skills we need for leadership, not just the vapid talk, and the ability to lead?

None of which makes Facebook a good place to voice my political opinions, though, does it? No, because my friends there already know all this, or they don’t care. And beating a hundred or so people on the head with my halfbaked thinking, in a closed social space, is useless and absurd.

No news link or picture, graph or quote by Jefferson or Paine is going to change anyone’s mind, once it’s made up. And most of the people I know have thoroughly made up their minds. So if the country is going to hell in a bucket, and I think it is, we’re all going together. And gravity, like stupidity, is an irresistible force.

The Right to Bear Arms

I've been seeing things like this on Facebook lately.

Naturally, my first temptation was just to dismiss this as fanaticism. But let us not be hasty. I also believe in the right to keep and bear arms. I just hadn't been previously aware that there was a social imperative that I make that fact publicly known.

I believe in the right to keep my weapon loaded and my mouth shut. In fact, I think it's unwise to tell people what valuables I have in my house, and that includes guns.  

I certainly don't discuss my home security. The element of surprise is far too valuable. And, at the risk of being blunt, it's none of your dang business. I prefer a little mystery about my defenses. No signs, no warnings, no second chances.

Let's examine for a moment the phrase, "…and you a re (sic) not afraid to show it…." Fascinating. I have never met anyone who had a strong opinion about his right to bears arms but was afraid, or even reluctant, to express it. Since it's a fundamental right, I see no need to talk about it.

So why bring it up on Facebook? Because if enough people on Facebook get complacent about gun rights, the guns in people's closets and nightstands are simply going to disappear. Guns are made of a strange metal that only remains solid as long as people are afraid.  

What some people are truly afraid of is that the rest of us aren't afraid of them, because we don't know they're heavily armed. They need to be reassured that we all know who we should be afraid of.

So we need a new constitutional amendment. 

We'll call it The Right to Threaten People at Random. 

No, The Right to Preemptive Deterrence. The GOP will like that better. 

How would we exercise this new right? Well I imagine it would happen like this. Say I see my neighbor out watering his hibiscus. I'd walk over and stick the barrel of my gun in his ear.

“Hey Bill, how's it going?”

"Hi Squelch, I'm good. You?"

"Fine. Fine as the fur on a frog's ass, Bill. I see you've got some new plants there. Very pretty."

"My wife and I got 'em at Lowe's. Say, Squelch?"

"Yeah?"

"Is this thing in my ear, um, loaded?"

"Well of course it is, as far as you know. So here's the deal. You come in my house, I kill you. You touch my stuff, I kill you. You call me Francis, I kill you. Got it?"

"You bet. And you want me to spread the word?"

"That's the idea. You know, just exercising my rights. Nothing personal."

"Sure, sure. … So I'll see ya, Squelch, old buddy."

"Not if I see you first."

And there would be much laughter. 

I'm afraid the last line "Guns don't kill people, people kill people," is beyond my poor powers to comprehend without laughing. Of course guns don't kill people independently. That doesn't turn the guns into cupcakes. People have guns to kill people.  People kill people using guns.  

And this was posted on Facebook to warn ones Friends that you're armed and prepared to kill them. … So who's afraid of whom, again?