Carol Platt Liebau: Your "Privacy" Is Long Gone

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Your "Privacy" Is Long Gone

Funny how the civil libertarians object to mining data that can help protect Americans in the war on terror, but much less is said about much more intrusive government information gathering that isn't even being used for national defense purposes -- like the census.

In any case, those beating the drums of outrage against the NSA program had better realize that there's very little privacy left. Your social security number is used much like a national ID card. And you can see a satellite image of even one of the most secure private residences in the world.

3 Comments:

Blogger stackja1945 said...

There maybe privacy of the grave, but one day even that may need to be removed. In a war there is one right, the right of life. Ben Franklin spoke of liberty and rights but in his day there were limits to the wars.

6:43 PM  
Blogger Matt Brinkman said...

Nice rant, Carol. You are doing a good job trying to change the subject.

Perhaps you could let us know why our phone call records should not be protected from unreasonable search and seizure.

8:47 PM  
Blogger Bachbone said...

The 9/11 Commission Report is at best incomplete. At times, it is contradictory and at others, vague. Numerous critics say it did not "drill down" to get to facts that answered basic questions. Perhaps this is because the Republicans on it were playing CYA for the GOP and Democrats on it were playing CYA for Democrats.

On 8/11/05, the NYTimes reported that the 9/11 Commission had received intelligence information from a member of "Able Danger" (intelligence operation), but a commission member denied having been briefed, then remembered they had been after his memory was refreshed by Rep Weldon. Still the commission decided not to include information from "Able Danger," because it "...did not mesh with other conclusions that we were drawing" from the investigation and was considered by the commission "historically insignificant."

On 9/15/05, the Boston Globe reported that co-chairman, Thomas Kean, denied the commission had ever been told Mohammed Atta had been identified to them, despite the fact that Mr. Felzenberg, commission chief spokesman, on 8/11/05 verified that Atta's name had been given to the commission.

On 11/7/05, the Wall Street Journal reported this quote from former FBI Director, Louis Freeh: "The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it 'was not historically significant.' This astounding conclusion—in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger and incorporate it into its findings—raises serious challenges to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself."

So, how far did the commission "drill down" to "investigate" the matter of the Sudanese having offered to turn over bin Laden to Mr. Clinton? We don't know. But if it did as good a job on that matter as it did on "Able Danger," there is a lot more to be learned, at least. At best, we might be able to determine whether Sudan or Ms. Albright is better at remembering the truth of what happened.

4:51 PM  

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