NOW WHAT-THE DANGEROUS RIGHT

SIGNALS OF SUMMER

    While summer visitors jam our coastal village, we can all find emotionally nourishing scenes, sounds and peace.

BITTER AND SWEET

   The affairs of life can sometimes smack you in the jaw in one moment and in the next excite your most joyful imagination.  So it was a couple of days ago.

    He was wedged between his octogenarian mom and his wife, waiting for the concert to begin. One of the most popular guys in the village, a long time resident and respected craftsmen, there were a couple of people in front of me chatting with him. 

    "Hi Tom how are you. I saw Lana earlier," he said smiling sitting, his hand resting on a walking stick.

     "Last time we chatted you were waiting on a diagnosis," I prompted.

      "It's bad. I have ALS. Do you know what that is?"

       "Yes," I winced, "Lou Gehrig's disease."

      "It's awful. It's just a horrible disease, but right now I'm happy and enjoy everything. Plus I'm too busy to be depressed."

      "Yea, he's working too hard not to be happy" his mother said smiling.

     This is a man who's family has experienced trauma, tragedy and death in larger portion than seems fair.  Through it all he and his irrepressible wife continue to beam a joy at living and devotion to work and cause.

     Hearing his diagnosis seemed horrible, even crushing. 

     As I turned after finishing our conversation with an obligatory though sincere but still impotent "you'll be in our thoughts and prayers" I spotted another friend.

     This fellow is probably the most energetic, fit specimen of manhood I know. Not a nano bit of body fat, buffed, muscular and as smart as he is in great shape, though he is fighting a deadly disease and has been for at least a couple of decades-but he's unlike anyone else.

     In all truth he is an experiment and cannot discuss nor publish specifics. It is an almost miraculous story and includes treatment protocols that are every bit as fascinating as science fiction.

     He has helped advance medical science by being a human test subject and the recent advances could have been written by Issac Asimov or Philip K. Dick. 

     He is without a doubt an incredible human being and I have found him to be one of the most inspirational people I've know.

     Within five minutes the roller coaster of life left me a bit drained.  Despair in learning of a terrible diagnosis and then another update from the future, dazzling with prospects of "Star Trek" style treatment and healing. But each "scenario" is a personal face and real story. Two good men, two bad diseases, two futures. And selfishly I thought of my younger brothers, both struck down in young manhood and the lives they did not get. I can make no sense of such narratives, but to seek shelter in the bromide that health is everything and that we should indeed be grateful for each moment. And we should celebrate life. 

RUMINATION

      Life is so precious as to not spoil and to protect. Life itself and the resources of our life on this blue planet need vigilant protection. As Californians the four years of drought are teaching us. We can still be smarter in how we use water, how we conserve, save and harvest. Even as diligent as the state has been, there are technologies, applications and enforcements that are needed to help us live more wisely.

       Freedom is also precious as to not spoil and to protect.

The Supreme Court's decision that all people are entitled to the dignity to marry the person they love is an affirmation of what some Christians have been approving in their denominations, though not without decades of opposition. 

   And now the evangelical Christian right, personified by people like Ted Cruz, must face a new reality. It seems  they are stuck on the idea that an LGBT person is someone or something less than they themselves. Some of these evangelicals say LGBT people are "sinners," because of who they are or who they love. I heard a right wing Dallas preacher talking about his "Almighty God!"  It was as shrill as a radical proponent of sharia law. 

       All through this gender and sexual identity debate  those who were denied full freedom and protection of law sought just to have the rights due all people. Those in opposition seem stuck on the act of making judgements. It is as though to impose a morality on everyone and doing so as the only true interpreters of religion. Reminds me of Isis, or Wahhabists, or when Catholics and Protestants were at war, or Sunni and Shia, or how the Christian church banned or persecuted Copernicus and Galileo, or how Massachusetts  Christians conducted witch hunts and executed 20 people and on and on. 

       Civil law, as imperfect as the process may be, is for the good of society. Spiritual law on the other hand is for the good of the individual heart, as imperfect as we may be. We do not want or need a theocracy in the US, but that is route the Ted Cruz mind set seeks to chart.

     As noted before, the eminent theologian Walter Brueggemann  says "When you think you know the mind of God, you are on a slippery slope."  Now the court has ruled how do we protect ourselves from those who would put us on the slope? 

     Religion has been too frequently weaponized. History is a litany of how religious people have done horrible things, imposing their view, stirring up movements and mob mentality and making judgements--- like those who executed a rabbi named Jesus.

    

     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.

CAT AND UMBRELLA-IS PRIVACY FREEDOM?-GOODBYE CHARLIE

THE CAT AND THE UMBRELLA

  An umbrella drying on the spa provides a perfect place for a Hemingway nap, interrupted by camera sounds.

  "Hmmm. You woke me up bub!"

  "Ahhh!  Big stretch and look at these polydactyl paws."

  "Looks like little sister Joy is curious." 

  "Hey, I was here first!"

  "Good, she's gone.  Now if Mr Camera would leave me alone I could get back to napping."

TIME WITH THE CITIZEN

   The complex detail and playing time will rule this film off  people's list, but it is a film citizens should see.  CITIZEN FOUR is a nearly two hour examination of leaker Edward Snowden's act of leaking the documents that alerted the world to the pervasive surveillance under which we live.

    Most probably have an attitude about Snowden and what he did, but it's my take that until you've looked very closely into this, as documentary maker Laura Poitras has done, you've made your judgement without benefit of intimate, revealing, complex and important detail.  CITIZEN FOUR is about detail and implication. My bias is journalism; information gathering, fact checking, analysis with opinion or judgement coming last.  

    Even with all I have read and studied, I was still undecided about Snowden- a patriot, hero, trader, goat, grandstander? I've been given a closer examination of the leaker, his motivation, the absolute lying by US Government  officials, the specifics of the surveillance, the handling of the story around the world, an ultra-pervasive British spying program and the relationship between Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story and Snowden. 

    It's still a confusing situation on which to draw a judgement. It is clear to me Snowden was a young idealist and perhaps even a bit naive in his actions.  Seeing him now in Russia, you see a changed man. He looks worn, fatigued and even beaten emotionally. He says he did the right thing, but I sense he didn't fully estimate the toll it would take.

    Did he do the right thing?  Paths diverge at this point.

Those whom this nation tasks with its protection, security and law enforcement face a more difficult and lethal challenge than civilians can begin to understand. It is a hostile world and information and intelligence is a tool and weapon. Technology has provided keys to amassing that information. But should all citizens be subjected to a loss of privacy in an effort to provide security.  As an analyst in the documentary says, privacy is freedom and liberty. Loosing any privacy is a loss of freedom.

     It is not as though a monolithic dictator or fascist regime is using the gathering of the data to their specific advantage, but it is only a step from having the data to that kind of reality.  

     Presently information is being collected and gathered by a variety of agencies and in numerous ways. Now, this is a muddled kind of security, but the lack of federal coordination and the inability federal agencies to communicate well and to cooperate is a hedge against the information's singular mis-use. Still, in my mind, that is no defense. The point is, we are all suffering from a loss of privacy. Some of it we give up willingly. Social networks and commercial organizations gather and collect lots of data. It is something else when the federal government lies to us about what they are doing and what they are doing with what they gather. It is quite more serious when they use the cover of national security. Politicians have used that cover before, for all of the wrong reasons.
     Some have said if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. That is faulty thinking and is tantamount to  permitting a stripping away of any expectation of privacy, your most intimate freedom. That thinking is a slippery slope.

     The public has a right to know almost everything. The safety of agents, troops and critical operations must be maintained and that by nature puts some information out of public view, but in our process of governance there should be congressional oversight and judicial review.  We have a right to know that we were being spied upon and that our government lied about it. Had it not been for Edward Snowden, all of this would have been academic if not non- existent.  Did he violate a law? Yes. Did he tell Americans that his government was also violating the law? Yes again. He also revealed how.

      Attend Citizen 4 with friends and you may disagree with what it means to you individually, but it raises the kind of issues a democratic republic needs to address in the 21st Century. It is a bit slow, even tedious, but freedom is worth all of that.

IN THE SURF

    

GOODBYE CHARLIE

     Charlie Skinner, president of ACN died with his boots on but I hate it. As the extraordinary HBO series The Newsroom comes now to the finale, Sam Waterston's expertly portrayed old hand news executive goes out in a rant and rage. The networks new owner, a tech company billionaire is imposing  his silly but all too real reliance on social networks to guide news content and well, old Charlie's heart just couldn't take it.  I was particularly fond of the Waterston character who's life and death could have been drawn from real case studies. That is the beauty and brilliance of Aaron Sorkin's drama-there's a whole lot of truth in that fiction.

See you down the trail.

DOES IT MATTER?-NSA AND FREEDOM-CURIOS AND A THROWBACK

DOES IT MATTER?

       First Amendment rights are being challenged by an information gathering surveillance function of the NSA.
       The First Amendment protects and therefore guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press and the right to assemble to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK

CURIOS AND KNICKKNACK'S

 Curios are rare objects of value.  Knickknacks are odd, small and supposedly worthless household items. 

 THROWBACK TO LATE 70'S

   Hanging out with Elliot Gould who was passing through on a promotional tour.  Yep that's a chef's jacket I'm wearing. WNAP FM, where I was a newscaster, would frequently choose a location, set up a tent and cook breakfast for anyone who stopped by. We frequently created massive traffic jams.  On this day the crowds were even larger.

   See you down the trail.

WHO DETERMINES YOUR INFORMATION NEEDS? and ALONG THE CLIFF-THE WEEKENDER

SNOOPING IN THE NEWSROOM

     Have you followed the firestorm of comment about a proposed FCC study into newsroom decision making?  It's off! The FCC has junked the idea, as it should be.

       The concept, introduced late last year, was stupid for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was wrong. No one, no government agency, no consumer advocacy group, no corporate sponsor, no dunderheaded general manager or broadcast division ceo, no one should be involved in editorial, coverage, or content decision making except journalists and news personnel.  That is not because we are sainted with divine knowledge or know more about social good. No, in fact we can and have made poor decisions, but the right to make those decisions, in a nation where freedom of the press is constitutional, is the role of the press.  Over the long haul of American history, journalistic decisions have been more often right than wrong and more often in the public interest than against it.

       To work properly, the press needs to be free from interference of any sort.  Now we can argue about how well the press functions today, but that is an entirely different discussion. Still, the judgements made about what you read, see or hear from the news media need to emanate from a process that honors and hews to standards and judgements that are based on canons and codes of journalism and not from outside forces.  Historically we have been well served by the system, if not perfectly.

        Aside from the constitutional issue, there was the Orwellian level absurdity of the idea that a study could determine your, mine, or any one's "information needs"? Yes, we may have desires, curiosities and even a need for information, but in the beauty of this democratic republic the specifics of such are based on individual choices and lives. Community needs? Who determines "community?" 

        For a survey to try to ascertain "needs" and then measure or analyze how those "needs" were being met by newsroom decision making just opens so many trap doors on what is supposed to be a constitutionally protected process as to be fitting of a Paddy Chayefsky and/or George Orwell world. Or  even more fittingly a Stalinist or Hitlerian world of gulags and camps where offending journalists and readers are taught what happens to people who think for themselves or who dare to have "information needs" other than those proscribed by Big Brother or who may be in a "community" that is not sanctioned or deemed worthy or out of favor. See the hellish rat hole that ensues?

      This weekend I suspect liberals, conservatives, libertarians and anarchists can bang beer mugs, wine or cocktail glasses with real journalists in toasting the end of a bad idea. Here is an issue on which all of our tribes can agree. One less idiot idea, trotted out by a mindless Federal agency without serious forethought or consideration of implication. Free is free-even if you don't like what you see, hear or read. To the First-Cheers!

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

        You can read the latest post from Tim Cavenaugh here.  He first broke the story on the CIN. 

   

ALONG THE CLIFF

      On the way back I noted the additional message on the back of the Danger-Warning sign.

    Differing "community needs" maybe?

      See you down the trail.

CAN IT BE TURNED BACK?

WE ARE SUFFERING SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS

     It is as though we've crossed a "Rubicon" and now worry about the consequences. Big Data, Surveillance, Algorithmic Analysis, NSA, etc, etc.

     Now FaceBook confirms that up to six million users' personal data, even that which is not public, has been seen and or gathered by third parties.  Many have argued those who post so much personal information willingly have themselves to blame when that data is hijacked, hacked, sold or used to either bug or defraud you.

     A couple of experts are now saying that analyzing big data needs to be more effectively used by federal authorities.  They contend the alleged Boston bombers history of viewing violent or terrorist prone on-line videos should have led to an interdiction before they acted out what they were thinking.  Thought police? 

     Being a First Amendment advocate, I've been posting about this crunch since I entered the blogosphere.

      Here's an earlier set of thoughts, dealing with this idea of thought police. The Eli Pariser video should be must viewing for anyone who spends anytime in cyberspace.

      The point is our privacy suffers, by our own hand, by commercial enterprises, by government agencies and by information pirates. It is just out there and all to easy to overlook or put out of mind.  But like most things,it grows.  What can, what should we do about it?

Jon Stewart

The Diplomat

     Those of you who appreciate the satire of Jon Stewart

know he is off this summer, directing a film in the Middle East.  Well, he's made an interesting appearance.

See you down the trail.

FREEDOM OR SECURITY-TALK IS NEEDED-Dangerous or Otherwise

FEELING MANIPULATED?

or as though someones listening in?

   The big yap yap now over the NSA disclosures at least

has people talking.

     And there is a lot of that going around.(Friend and reader Beverly noted, the bovine above is not a bull. Indeed, as a careful look will inform you. But just sort of go with it)  
      A question is, How do we want it?  What are the boundaries?

      Are we willing to give up liberty to feel safe? The conversation is needed and all of us, from voters to the intelligence community, need to weigh in. 

      I'm hung up on a couple of points.  Why is so much of our top clearance, security and intelligence work being done by private contractors? When and how did we decide to job it out and for who's benefit?  We are now paying private sources more money to do work that should be the exclusive franchise of US Government employees.

      Eisenhower had it right about the "military-industrial complex."  The modern codicil is "intelligence-industrial."  So a high school drop out, army wash out, can get hired by the CIA and get clearance and then quit only to be hired by a private contractor, paid reportedly a $ quarter million a year and have his ticket punched so he can purloin some of our most secret and sensitive information. Yea, that's intelligent isn't it!  Where are the adults?

      It's not an easy riddle. Americans voluntarily give up more private and specific data to social media, banks, in online purchases and e-mail than what the NSA has gathered in bundles. Private business knows more about you than do the spooks and some in the intelligence community  can't figure why that is, or why the current flap.

      Intelligence and security people reason they've been tasked with keeping us safe from harm and in their mind they cannot have too much information. But in the old days raw and irrelevant data got purged.  Now files are kept forever. Is that right?  It's another choice we have to make.

      The panel of Judges who guide the intelligence community in their acquisition of data also need to be heard from. It would be good for the Republic to hear the mind set and thinking of those who frame these vitally important considerations.

      And a word about Snowden as a leaker.  As a one time investigative reporter I could bore you with countless details about how a whistle blower or leaker helped get information to the public. In my experience there were many instances where the public good was served.
     Examples-an elementary school being built over a "forgotten" hazardous material dump, a grand jury being used to punish political enemies, mental patients being poisoned by inept or non existent medical supervision in over or wrong medication, Ku Klux Klansmen working on a city payroll as a result of extortion, managers of public housing selling material meant to improve housing projects out of the back door and profiting huge sums, a KGB officer trying to infiltrate a public office holder's staff, security breaches where some of this nation's most deadly nerve agent is stored, toxic poison leaking into a public water resource.

      I would not have been able to get that information onto the public agenda, had it not been for state, city and federal employees getting information to me-data, records, documents that had been buried, hidden, over looked, forgotten or in some cases "destroyed." 

      In my own little footnotes to history, our work prompted investigations, prosecutions, regulations, new statutes, and informed conversations. 

      We all would be well served by a robust conversation now about privacy, safety, expectations, propriety, and who should be minding our secrets.

       There's a great thought, attributed to both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  I'm comfortable with quoting them both-

       "Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either!"

   See you down the trail.

INFORMATION WARS

BATTLE LINES IN THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

A chasm sized absence has been launched as a defensive weapon in a profound and historic battle today.

Wikipedia has gone dark.

Link here for the Wikipedia rationale.

In summary a battle of giants is raging-

entertainment powerhouses of television, music and film versus Internet, tech and new media icons.

The focus is SOPA and PIPA-legislation designed 

to stop piracy and protect intellectual property rights.

Production companies, film makers, musicians and television networks want to stop uncompensated use of 

their material, primarily by foreign (outside the US)

web sites.  Google, Wikipedia, Facebook and other

cyber powers argue the legislation is poorly drafted

and will infringe upon free communication,

search, and the unfettered brave new world

of the Internet. Our parents would consider

this the stuff of science fiction, but information

wars are our reality. 

When I was ceo of a media and content production 

company I watched as some of our product was

pirated. It is theft, pure and simple.

Yet as we know the cure can sometimes be worse than

the disease and that is point of today's world wide

protest.

Many in the tech industry fear the legislation will

give too much power to the networks and film studios.

This is, as one account called it, a coming of age for

the world of tech, new media and the Internet.

A kind of wild west where anything that works, goes

is now faced with old fashioned power politics.

It is an historic battle and today's disappearance of

Wikipedia and other messages is an escalation.

DAY BOOK

MY OWN TECH EXPERIMENT

Today's study of the Cayucos pier is

from my smart phone, via e-mail.

Carry on cyber warriors.

See you down the trail.