FIGHTING WINTER-PRIVACY AND FREEDOM-RAPE AND FOOTBALL

FOR THE WINTER WEARY

     This post offers a few scenes for those of you who are winter weary. We hope the color, green and sunny scenes bolster you through what remains of that cold gray or worse.

     Our morale booster follows below.

 PRIVACY IS A FREEDOM

      It is a hard call, privacy vs investigative reach, but Apple is correct is denying access or a back door into personal information on phones or other devices.

      Privacy is under attack just in the way we live with technology and marketing. The Snowden and Wiki leaks disclosures detail how government is and can snoop. People often forget how willingly they open their lives to surveillance and manipulation via social media, on-line commerce and other transactions.

      We appreciate how difficult is the task of those who work to provide security. Intelligence and law enforcement are challenged by increasingly sophisticated adversaries and the capacity of modern communications. Still we cannot concede an inch of our right to privacy even if it makes investigation, prosecution or intelligence gathering easier. 

      We discovered the excessive reach in the Patriot Act, an emotional response to 9/11. If we give up expectations of privacy and personal rights the bad guys begin to win. It is an objective of terrorists to force democratic governments to behave like fascists or repressive regimes. When that happens we loose.

       Despite the difficulty a democratic republic must value individual rights and liberties. There are many other reasons beyond the philosophical rightness, not the least of which is human incompetence which can and has infected government agencies. There is also the fact that even with good intentions, governments can be used and manipulated by administrations and regimes with less than honorable intentions. Two names to help make that case-Richard Nixon and Watergate cover up. There is also Dick Cheney and his corrupt manipulation in energy and war business. If other less than honorable or zealot driven governments had what the government is pushing Apple for, then what happens to the freedoms we say make us different than dictators, strongmen or others like Stalin, Hitler, Putin, Assad, Isis, and etc.?

       Freedom means just that. Nothing less. 

 NATURE SAYS CHEERS!

      Hang in there, spring is on the way.

 RAPE AND FOOTBALL

     It's unclear how the Tennessee matter will resolve in the courts but football thuggism and sexual assault continue to plague us. In this most recent case a Tennessee player came to the aid of a rape victim. She had been attacked by two of the man's team mates. Later the good Samaritan was attacked and injured by team mates and when he complained to his coach Butch Jones, Jones berated the man and said "he betrayed his team."

     There is ample documentation of how players are coddled, how aberrant behavior is overlooked, how educational standards are ignored so a football player can compete. It starts in public schools, continues in some colleges and we have all seen how many NFL players are involved in criminal activity, assaults and domestic battery.

     When coaches like Butch Jones are around it's no wonder.

THE COAST IS CLEAR

     Coming soon, up the coast.

     See you down the trail.

Safe Google-Magnificent Undulations-Would you say Vivid?

PAINTING THE SKY

 Sweet light on the California central coast.

more scenes follow below

WHAT IS REASONABLE?

     Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt opened the window on the tenuous world we inhabit at a Surveillance, Privacy and Civil Liberties conference Friday, but the light he let in captures a multi dimensional web where the map is being improvised as we go along and the perils are grievous.

     Schmidt explained how shocked he was to learn from the Washington Post that his own Google empire was being surveilled by the FBI.  Google now encrypts data between their data centers to protect privacy. Schmidt believes Google to be the safest information purveyor if you wish to avoid surveillance.

     The CATO Institute, a Libertarian think tank, sponsored the first Surveillance conference hosting experts across the disciplines and issues involved in surveillance, privacy and civil liberties. I spent hours at the conference, thanks to  C-SPAN, that special blessing of our information age.

      It appears all of us will move into a time of greater use of encryption. An affect of the Snowden NSA leaks is  everyone now knows a lot more about who is spying and how they are doing it thus the free market response is a series of applications, technology, services and methods of operation to protect privacy.  

     Schmidt observed the rules of this new world are hammered out in a cat and mouse game where governments seek and push Google and the other tech companies who then respond. Legal discussions or suits ensue and become  the process to negotiate a path to established policy. It's all new and the dynamic is ongoing.

     The Google leader said we could almost "end all criminal activity" with greater surveillance but said we should not allow that. Schmidt said even the kind of surveillance used in Britain, facial recognition and other means employed by GC Hq (General Communications Headquarters) is counter to the American way of life. He said we must be careful to protect information privacy.

     Law enforcement has never discovered a surveillance technique it does not like. It gives you pause to learn how many local and state police departments use the FBI developed Stingray technology. That's the system that mimics a wireless cell tower. It's a cell sight simulator that forces all phones in an area to connect with it where it then gathers all of the stored data on a phone.  It can also deny cell service.  Think about it for a moment. The police can turn on a Stingray, which penetrates into your home, car or pocket and makes your phone connect with it where all of your private information is gathered up. How do you think Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, George Washington and our other founders would respond to that?

      Don't American's equate privacy with freedom and liberty? We do not tolerate a loss of freedom nor should we which is why we continue to fight over civil rights, gender equality, economic fairness. We remember the Nazis, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, et al.  We even intervene in foreign wars to "spread democracy" or "guarantee liberty." How seriously then are we considering implications of our communication practices? Your phone, pad or computer are extensions of your life and often are repositories of your most private or valuable artifacts or information. Don't you have a reasonable expectation to privacy/freedom from surveillance?

      Already batches of metadata have been collected. Algorithmic data analyzers are at work. How long should that information be kept? Washington Post National Technology Reporter Eric Timberg asked Schmidt about what happens in 20 years, or sooner, when he is gone from Google. Schmidt deferred to  Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin saying they share values and a belief in privacy. Schmidt noted they are young men.

      So it seems that a "belief" by young entrepreneur tech capitalists is our firewall. The personal belief of the men and women who have created these marvelous systems and technologies is the wall protecting our privacy and information security? Sorry, being a rich inventor or genius seems a thin credential. Henry Ford, for example, was a notorious anti-Semite. Then of course this is a world with other players, China, North Korea, Russia, Isis, NSA, CIA, GCHQ, FBI, all of whom come with their own idea of privacy, freedom and liberty. 

      Still loving that cell phone or pad?

SANTA LUCIA UNDULATIONS

shadows

post rain greening

THE EVENING SHOW

From a bluff near Harmony Headlands

    See you down the trail.

DO YOU WANT OR DESERVE PRIVACY?-THE WEEKENDER

NOBODIES READING YOUR STUFF, SO...

     It's late, your mate has gone to bed and you are getting to delayed emails. You're sleepy, your patience is waning and something a friend has written prompts you to burn a politician or in a moment of anger-driven overstatement you threaten an act you would never do.  You know you would never seriously even entertain such an idea and your correspondent knows that, but what about the algorithmic watcher?

     There's no way you'd ever cheat on your husband but a foreign account executive with whom you do business regularly loves to flirt, and you flirt back, all in fun and in the sake of business relationships. Nothing serious to it, even when there is an occasional passing comment that might sound akin to Fifty Shades of Gray. It's just play, but does a government cell call listener know that?

     Or maybe you and your lover, frustrated by a long distance and a separation crank up your endorphins with some intimate conversation.  Is that anyone's business?

     Perhaps you and like minded folks find the only way to get some political action is to plan a protest or demonstration and you discuss civil disobedience. You are only talking and the most dangerous outcome of your pipe dreaming would be maybe a sit in. Should big brother be snooping into your conversations?

     These scenarios are modern dilemmas and they are getting no simpler. Exercise your thoughts for a moment by considering what these folks have to say.

THE WEEKENDER LIGHT

    Here's some wisdom for you, direct from the recently poured cement at my daughter's cooperative apartment.

    And some of us may remember getting into trouble for 

leaving initials in new sidewalks or driveways.

THE COLORS OF A CONTROLLED BURN

    The drive south on the Pacific Coast Highway had an extra bit of color in the sky today.  Cal Fire was conducting a "controlled burn" on about 195 acres near the Harmony Headlands State Park.  

See you down the trail.