Asymmetrical Information

There's the Scottish football (soccer) headline:-
SuperCallyGoBallisticCelticAreAtrocious.

Heh.

It is pretty funny and not the typically left-wing peurile/repulsive "Chimphitler" slur against the President.

Of course few liberals are prepared to deal with the reality that Bush out-scored Kerry on an Army standard IQ test.

I liked too the sticker someone placed in public bathrooms during the Vietnam/Watergate era: "Please flush twice. It's a long way to Washington."

Bush did better on his SATs also. And if he had gone to law school he probably would have done better on his LSATs.

I agree with the consensus here. Bush is a Yale grad and a Harvard MBA. Those aren't usually things we associate with morons. The President's "simpleness" is a cultural affectation that I've seen a few times made use of by people from the South.

You also don't become a jet fighter pilot if you're stupid.

especially if the jet is armed w nuclear weapons.

It's an amusing graphic, but what's really amusing is the Left's hysteria over surveillance. How many phone calls and e-mails does this nation of 300 million people send and receive each day? Unless 10% of us are employed by the gov't to listen in on the other 90%, it's obvious that only a very minute fraction of these calls and e-mails are being read or listened in on.

The (non-criminal) public's paranoia over wiretapping stems from a fallacious belief that even the most outre things they say and do would be remotely interesting to anyone outside their small circle of acquaintences. Trust me, they aren't. Your wife may have a great interest in discovering that you like to wear her panties and call up transvestite phone sex lines, but NSA computers to not. The absolute worst-case scenario would be that some low-level flunkies in the bureau get a momentary laugh at your expense, and then forget all about you and move on to the next call. Unless you are famous, a criminal, or someone with serious enemies, your deepest darkest secrets are simply not noteworthy to anyone.

Of course, anyone who is paranoid can simply encrypt everything. A message (voice or text) encoded with 128-bit public-key encryption would take far longer than the sender's lifetime to crack, even if all of the computers in the world were singularly dedicated to the task.

And if he had gone to law school he probably would have done better on his LSATs.

Well, few of these guys would've gone to the schools they did w/out their familial connections and/or if they were modern applicants, judging from what I've seen of their SAT scores. That said, I don't know when the LSAT was first administered, but Bush's ability to make the cut at Harvard B-School and inability to do the same at UT Law School has always struck me as a weird bit of cognitive dissonance.

I think what many of the surveillance weinies are having a hard time understanding is, that if they are talking on their cellphone about something that (Oh My Heavens!!!) Big Brother might hear, then don't talk about stuff that could get you in trouble. You have nothing to worry about if you aren't breaking the law. Presidient Chimpy-McHitler's Gestapo are not going to kick down your door and take you and your loved ones away in the middle of the night because you releaved to your neighbor, the super secret Neiman Markus Chocolate Chip cookie recipie.

Now, if you talk about very personal, intimate, details on the phone, and you are worried that Big Brother invoking the Patriot Act for surveillance will in some way violate you and your right to privacy and communication, then damn-it, don't talk about personal, intimate, stuff on the phone! Why are you even doing that anyway? You wait until you are in the privacy of your own home with those whom you want to exclusively share those secret, private, details. Don't do that via Ma-Bell.

like the "reagan is an idiot" certainty of the left, the "bush is an idiot" is sure to be changed retroactively to grudging respect (because otherwise you were beaten by an idiot, which makes it worse and, at least in part, your own fault). particularly where's there's objective evidence that bush is not an idiot (regardless whether family connections got him into school, his SAT scores are pretty good for the family slacker, particularly back in the day, when competition was fiercer, test not "scaled" to make today's kid's feel better about their relative lack of intelligence, etc., and his grades at college are, again, not ridiculous for a family slacker at a time when real grades were given (that is, while you really have to work to get a C, or even a B-, at yale today, Cs meant what they were supposed to back then -- average))).

You certainly don't want to discuss anything sensitive on a cell phone. Some "cute old couple" cruising around in their Cadillac listening to their scanner might record your conversation and offer it to "Bagdad" Jim McDermott. I know it sounds far fetched, but it could happen.

You have nothing to worry about if you aren't breaking the law.

Did they stop making libertarians in these parts?

The argument "If you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" makes little sense to me. Just as the argument, Paul, "(I)f you ... are worried that Big Brother... will in some way violate you and your right to privacy and communication, then damn-it, don't talk about personal, intimate, stuff on the phone!"

That's not the point, and certainly (allegedly) in this country, we have the right to talk about anything of a personal nature we want with whomever we wish. Why should the government be allowed to record anything about that call?

It doesn't matter if it's call to your mistress, to a gay sex chatline or the pizza delivery man, it is not the business of the government to track the dialing habits of the governed. That is not the role we, as its electors, have decided for government.

Should I wish to talk about the most appalling violence or depraved sexual activity or even advocate the overthrow of government, I should be able to speak about that.

When we relinquish these kinds of liberties, what is next? Will we allow government to track our viewing habits? Our library habits? The songs we download? The books we read? The websites we frequent?

Will they want copies of our family photos? Videos? Will they want to know what we're doing in our bedrooms? What we talk about, think about or feel?

But then, I guess if you don't feel anything and only listen to Toby Keith, what do have to fear from government, right?

I just don't see the relevance of the image. In fact, I think that it's below the usual level of discussion here.
I would expect to see this at Daily Kos, or some other Bush-bashing site, but not here.

That's not the point, and certainly (allegedly) in this country, we have the right to talk about anything of a personal nature we want with whomever we wish. Why should the government be allowed to record anything about that call?

We can talk about anything we wish. And as I said earlier, Big Brother is not going to send the Gestapo over to your house if they "hear" that you were calling your mistress. That is the business between you and her (and presumably, your wife.) The Government doesn't care where you put your d*ck.

However, the first (and primary role) of Government is to keep you alive. Big Brother thought he could do that without nasty, invasive, violating, legislation like the Patriot Act, and wiretapping.

Then 9-11 happened.

The world changed forever on that morning, and not for the better. Bush does not have a crystal ball. The only way that particular terrorist attack could have been prevented (so says the Government) would have been if they had the right to listen in on phone calls and in essense, violate the privacy of Mohammed Atta and his minions. Then (and only then) would they have known about it, and there is still a chance that they might not have known.

I don't like the thought of some stranger listening to my phone conversations. I don't like the thought of the government crawling through my bank records and looking at (and accounting for) each and every deposit and withdrawal. I hate that. We all hate it. But I would rather be alive, hating what the government is doing to me than to have my privacy, if having that privacy means that more ordinary Americans are needlessly murdered. You make your choices.

And I choose the wire tappings.

Come on, its a joke, one I expect the President would find (mildly) humorous.

Come on, its a joke, one I expect the President would find (mildly) humorous.

"However, the first (and primary role) of Government is to keep you alive." Wrong. That's what YOU want most. What THEY want most is to keep and extend their power. You hope you elected someone with enough integrity to try to keep his power by advancing your interests, but don't count on it.

Forty years ago, a man named Lyndon B. Johnson obviously decided that the best way to keep his power in the face of a war that he couldn't realistically expect to win without doing something politically hazardous was to get something like 60,000 young American men killed while slowly losing the war. He was wrong and didn't even try to run for reelection - but competence is another thing you can't count on from government officials.

The problem with the government keeping a database of all the numbers anyone called isn't that they might know that Paul is eating way too much pizza and making phone calls to a woman other than his wife. It's that maybe in 2012 President Hilary (ugh!) will be digging into that data and checking up on whom her opponents and critics have been calling.

On the other hand, it's just possible that Paul should worry. Maybe his mistress's husband has access to that database, and now that he's identified the other man, he's taking a night job as a deliveryman where Paul orders his pizza, and just waiting for the opportunity to add some "special sauce" to the next delivery to Paul's home address. It'll be just too bad if it turns out that Paul and Mrs. X just happen to be the co-chairman of the float committee and there was nothing going on but the planning of decorations...

Then there was the recording of actual conversations with one end in the US and one end overseas. That's a whole mountain of calls to tech support, but somewhere in there you'll find other things, including business trade secrets and credit card numbers. Think about this: if you order a computer from Dell by telephone, chances are you're giving your credit card number to someone in India - and the call may well have been recorded by the NSA. What happens when one of their clerks can't pay his bookie and starts hearing from a legbreaker?

It's not the data collection itself that worries me. It's that as far as I can tell, there are no safeguards against misuse of the data by either powerful officials or by the clerks and system operators that are actually in charge of it. When phone numbers called are collected under the laws governing "pen registers", there are some safeguards. When calls are recorded under the wiretapping law, there are more safeguards. Bush decided he is above the law...

Worst of all, if he gets away with it, his successors will take this power for granted.

"The only way that particular terrorist attack could have been prevented (so says the Government) would have been if they had the right to listen in on phone calls and in essense, violate the privacy of Mohammed Atta and his minions. Then (and only then) would they have known about it, and there is still a chance that they might not have known."

This is of course incorrect. There were a number of reports of suspicious behavior by the 9/11 hijackers, such as trying to learn how to fly but not land planes, and James Woods observed and reported them taking a "practice" flight. We had sufficient information, but we failed to correlate it. I see no indication that these new surveillance programs will do anything other than drown intelligence analysts in a sea of false positives.

"But I would rather be alive, hating what the government is doing to me than to have my privacy, if having that privacy means that more ordinary Americans are needlessly murdered."

Crime can be quite low in police states...

It doesn't matter if it's call to your mistress, to a gay sex chatline or the pizza delivery man, it is not the business of the government to track the dialing habits of the governed.

You're missing the point. Nobody even wants to track this stuff, and given the sheer volume of electronic communications that flow around the globe each day, it isn't possible anyway. NSA systems intercept an estimated 3 billion communications each day, there are only 30,000 people employed by the agency, and only a fraction of those employees are likely to be involved with the direct monitoring of communications. In other words, the most they can do is flag a tiny portion of the unencrypted communications that pass through their surveillance system (ECHELON, plus whatever else they're using) for further inspection by an agent. Given this obvious and severe limitation, what kinds of messages do you think they are bothering to sniff for? Domestic calls to mistresses, Dominos, and gay sex lines? Or calls in Arabic from Yemen to Brooklyn containing keywords like "bridge", "bomb", and "infidel"?

Should I wish to talk about the most appalling violence or depraved sexual activity or even advocate the overthrow of government, I should be able to speak about that.

Nobody is claiming that you shouldn't be able to say whatever you want. On the other hand, if the things you say give strong indication that you are involved in criminal activities, it's the job of law enforcement to keep an eye on you. That's what we hire them for.

When we relinquish these kinds of liberties, what is next? Will we allow government to track our viewing habits? Our library habits? The songs we download? The books we read? The websites we frequent?

Will they want copies of our family photos? Videos? Will they want to know what we're doing in our bedrooms? What we talk about, think about or feel?

Do YOU care what Frank Smith from Duluth watches on tv, takes out of his library, or downloads from the internet? Do YOU want copies of his family photos and videos? Do YOU care what this boring anonymous nobody talks about, thinks about, or feels? Of course not, and neither do "they" (by which I guess you mean the Bush Administration and the beaurocrats and functionaries in Homeland Security). And guess what? Nobody is the least bit interested in your life, either, unless you happen to be a terrorist or mobster. Even if anyone cared, there is no way that "they" can monitor this kind-of stuff for a nation of 300 million people.

As for the picture: very funny. I enjoy things like this, also pictures comparing Bush to a chimpanzee or Kerry to Lurch. However, anyone who assumes that any politician is really as dumb as he looks is a fool. Most successful politicians try to appear to be "a regular guy", which means taking at least 20 points of their IQ in public.

Some carry it further than that - Jerry Ford made a career that led through Congress and the Senate to the Presidency out of appearing like he "played football without a helmet too often" and couldn't "walk and chew gum at the same time." Having spent a few years in Ford's original Congressional district, I'm pretty sure he's no dummy. But a guy that looked to be too stupid to steal or plot had an advantage in a period of political scandals.

G.W. Bush not only plays this game, but he's also got something like dyslexia of the mouth. (His father had the same condition, maybe not as bad.) Getting the wrong word now and then doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's saying. And the simple language and coined words that say exactly what he wants to say at a third-grade level - that's political genius.

As I've said before, I don't think Bush is a moron. But things can be funny even if they aren't true; I find "What's an Irish seven course meal?*" funny, even though all the memberes of my Irish family are extremely moderate drinkers.

*Answer: a potato and a six-pack. Yes, I know you've all heard it before, but just in case . . .

It's that maybe in 2012 President Hilary (ugh!) will be digging into that data and checking up on whom her opponents and critics have been calling.

And what could she possibly do with this information, that doesn't involve impeachment and jail time?

Maybe his mistress's husband has access to that database, and now that he's identified the other man, he's taking a night job as a deliveryman where Paul orders his pizza, and just waiting for the opportunity to add some "special sauce" to the next delivery to Paul's home address. It'll be just too bad if it turns out that Paul and Mrs. X just happen to be the co-chairman of the float committee and there was nothing going on but the planning of decorations...

Oh, please. Why dream up such a far-fetched scenario? First of all, do you really think the government has a record of every call ever made, or do you think they get this stuff from the phone companies? It's possible that someone who works for the phone company could look up his wife's phone records, suspect she's having an affair, and commit murder. It's also possible he could suspect she's having an affair for many other reasons, not involving phone records at all, and do the same thing. Should we eliminate anything that might lead someone to mistakenly think his wife is having an affair?

The deterrant, in any case, is a long prison sentence.

...if you order a computer from Dell by telephone, chances are you're giving your credit card number to someone in India - and the call may well have been recorded by the NSA. What happens when one of their clerks can't pay his bookie and starts hearing from a legbreaker?

You are really grasping at straws here. What happens when the clerk at Sears can't pay his bookie? What happens when someone at Amazon.com can't pay his bookie? Ok, maybe they steal your credit card number. Should we eliminate credit cards altogether since they can be used fraudulently?

By the way, if someone goes on a spending spree with your stolen card, your maximum liability is $50 under Federal law.

The deterrant for this crime, yet again, is a jail sentence.

This is of course incorrect.

Of course?

There were a number of reports of suspicious behavior by the 9/11 hijackers, such as trying to learn how to fly but not land planes, and James Woods observed and reported them taking a "practice" flight.

Yes we all know about what he reported seeing. I don't doubt him for a minute.

That said, James Woods has an IQ of 143. James Woods may very well be one of the smartest actors in all of Hollywood (maybe of all time.) And the point you are making may be one of the dumbest points I have ever seen.

We had sufficient information, but we failed to correlate it.

We had sufficient information on the people who James Woods saw on his flight. Period. All 19 hijackers were not on that plane, now were they? So what could we have really done? Here is the best case scenario:

I suppose we could have had the FBI put a perminant tail on those people who James Woods claimed were doing a "practice run" the minute they got off his plane, even though the suspected future terrorists had yet not committed a crime. Okay so now we are watching them. And the minute they got back on a plane, we could have had the director of the FAA ground all the planes before they took off.

I hope for our sake, that those "suspected terrorists" that James Woods saw, were the ones that were on American Flight 111 that crashed into the first Tower. I'm sure the information of who he saw is out there somewhere but I am too lazy to google. Because if they were the four Muslims on United 93, then the CIA would have been tailing the guys getting on the last flight hijacked and nothing was going to save the WTC and the Pentagon from their fates.

That is about the only way we could have prevented 9-11, and that is a long shot. That is assuming that the CIA would have devoted the manpower to pursue (at that time) innocent people based on the "hunch of an intelligent actor." That is assuming a lot now isn't it?

I see no indication that these new surveillance programs will do anything other than drown intelligence analysts in a sea of false positives.

Oh I see. And because YOU see no indication, that must mean that no one ELSE can see any indication that surveillance programs will help. Thanks so much for fixing the problems with our intelligence agencies.

Of course, anyone who is paranoid can simply encrypt everything. A message (voice or text) encoded with 128-bit public-key encryption would take far longer than the sender's lifetime to crack, even if all of the computers in the world were singularly dedicated to the task.

You certainly don't want to discuss anything sensitive on a cell phone. Some "cute old couple" cruising around in their Cadillac listening to their scanner might record your conversation and offer it to "Bagdad" Jim McDermott. I know it sounds far fetched, but it could happen.

Wow.

And I've been told its liberals who have no sense of humor. This thread has certainly proved otherwise.

And the point you are making may be one of the dumbest points I have ever seen.

Thanks, I try. As I noted and you ignored, what James Woods observed was just one of the multiple pieces of information that we had available. Your implication that our only hope of catching terrorists is widespread surveilliance of all Americans is ludicrous.

Golly. Bush was smart in high school and college?

I guess all those "This is your brain on drugs" commercials were right after all.

And I've been told its liberals who have no sense of humor. This thread has certainly proved otherwise.

I don't know, I think most of us conceded that it was somewhat clever and amusing. But there's always a serious point (two in this case, regarding wiretapping and Bush's intelligence) behind political humor, and of course the discussion is going to eventually end up being about that.

How many arguments over whether Bush did or didn't steal the 2000 election do you think was precipitated by someone wearing one of those "Sore Loserman" shirts in mixed company? It was a pretty funny shirt, though.

If Bill Clinton is so smart, then why did he sleep with Monica?

To quote the late, great Sam Kinison, "If you're gonna lose a kingdom over some [expletive], this is the girl?"

No matter which side you're on (liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, anarco-capitalist), when you start denigrating and demonizing opponents, then that's when you've definitely jumped the shark.

Jane,

If you think this constitutes great humor, you need to get out more. I'm sure the tinfoil Kos nuts think this is hilarious. That ought to give you pause.

I heard some funny Clinton rape jokes, too. And the evidence of rape is strong enough to conclude that it probably happened. I wouldn't put them on my blog, though. And I'm sure liberals would be outraged if I did.

I heard some funny Clinton rape jokes, too. And the evidence of rape is strong enough to conclude that it probably happened. I wouldn't put them on my blog, though. And I'm sure liberals would be outraged if I did.

To quote the not-late, still-sometimes-great Homer Simpson...crap on a crud! You're seriously comparing crude rape jokes about the previous administration to a gentle prod at the current administration's sometimes-bumbling public vocabulary?

I wonder what the more pithy expression for "pole-vaulting the shark while slathered in bloody chum, and on fire" is.

If the WaPo is MSM enough for the doubters among this thread...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/14/AR2006061402063_pf.html

Bush did take the LSATs and couldnt' get into law school. So much for that argument for his alleged intelligence.

Good grief - I'm a flaming conservative nutjob (see my blog) and I thought it was hilarious as hell.

OTOH, while I don't have a particular issue with the specifics of the recent NSA kerfuffle, it does have "the appearance" of - i dunno - out-of-touch?

If the WaPo is MSM enough for the doubters among this thread...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/14/AR2006061402063_pf.html

What does an article on data-mining have to do with "Bush is listening"?

Private companies have used data mining for target marketing purposes for years (you can largely opt out of this annoyance, btw). Every time I get a piece of junk mail hawking some lender's mortgage rate, and citing the exact amount of my loan, it's because my data met the right search criteria on some computer. If this computer generates a list of ten thousand names and addresses, and ten thousand corresponding pieces of junk mail are automatically printed up and mailed, is this really a violation of my privacy? It isn't like any human being, much less one I actually know and care about, looked at my personal records.

So now the Feds are using data-mining to identify likely terrorists, and for other law enforcement purposes. Say multiple data-sources are being queried, and your information appears in several of these data sources, but like almost everyone else, you don't fit the profile the computer is set to look for. Is your privacy really being violated in any meaningful way? If a computer aggregates and filters millions of records, including yours, but only a dozen highly suspicious records (e.g. some guy here on a Saudi Visa buys a gun one week, and a one-way plane ticket the next week) are flagged for further investigation by a real live agent, I fail to see how that violates the privacy of millions of innocent citizens.

That's good.

Carka, yeah, I guess both sides have their fair share of nuts. I'm suprized to see so many hyper-defensive commenters here though.

Right now it looks like both sides are in meltdown mode, I hope the results are good.

The first strong evidence that the right was due for a meltdown, I think, was the Dubai Ports World kaibash. It's kinda cool how the left has dragged on in the process and the right is speeding right into it so fast that they may both peak at the same time.

In the USSR, they had a bit of dirt on everyone. They didn't use it unless you started getting political. Considering that Bill Clinton could look through his opponents FBI files and not get seriously whacked for it... Watergate would be so easy today. No flashlights required. And remember, it was the 2nd in command of the FBI who tipped W&B off to what was happening. What goes around, comes around.

But everyone has some embarrasing factoids about them somewhere, sufficient to take a potential political career down a notch or two. The key phrase here is written in the blog title. Access to this embarrasing information is asymmetrical, especially if you're in favor of a third party candidate who doesn't have a spiderweb of contacts in the current gov't.

One of my friends filed a lawsuit against the local police force and won. Whenever he drives through that district now, they pick him up and ticket him for the smallest little infraction.

The FBI was following MLK and trying to blackmail him because of an affair that he had, suggesting that he commit suicide.

The Philippines pulled out of Iraq and suddenly proof came out that the Philippine election had been rigged.

Tell me the US Gov doesn't go in for blackmail.

With government power, Murphy's law applies. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Ryan, those examples are all worth contemplating for various reasons, but I don't think any of them bolsters the ridiculous "George Bush wants to listen in on my phone calls" meme.

Your friend's issue with a vindictive local police force has nothing to do with access to priveleged information or invasion of privacy per se. Abuse of political power for personal gain - or, as in this case, out of simple spite - is as old as the world. Your friend may not be able to exceed the speed limit by 5mph or make a rolling turn through stop signs like the rest of us, but be thankful you live in a country where he's able to file a lawsuit against his police department and suffer no more retribution than the stringent enforcement of traffic laws.

The USSR, Watergate, Clinton, and MLK examples do involve either digging up dirt, exposing dirt, or threatening to expose dirt for political advantage over an opponent.

The Philippine election rigging I'm not so sure about - is there any evidence that the US had anything to do with digging up and releasing this info? And if so, so what? As long as it isn't fabricated, it seems perfectly ok to me for the US to do what it wants with it. Either release it, or use it as leverage to try to keep a reluctant ally on board. International politics is a Hobbesian state of nature, and in some parts of the world it's necessary for us to make deals with relatively unsavory governments. Pakistan's Musharaf wasn't exactly elected, either.

What exactly was the utility of "dirt" in a police state like the old USSR, anyway? In a country where anybody who tried to spread the "wrong" message could be whisked off by the KGB and locked up or put in a labor camp with little or no judicial process, why bother digging up actual dirt and using it for blackmail? Wouldn't fabricated charges suffice?

Watergate brought Nixon down. As you say, what goes around comes around. So much for Big Brother getting away with whatever he wants.

Clinton may have perused his opponent's FBI files, but apparantly he was unable to keep this a secret. I guess he did not get seriously "whacked" for it, but it was certainly a scandal. Was he able to exploit whatever info he found for nefarious purposes? Probably not, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Again, so much for Big Brother getting away with whatever he wants.

The FBI/MLK thing was indefensible, but we all know Hoover was no angel, and his legacy as a great American has been fairly repudiated.

Those who achieve wealth, fame, and power, or those who attract powerful enemies for some other reason (e.g. whistleblowers), have always had their own special problems to contend with, that the rest of us don't. You could bulk up with steroids and become the home run champ in your corporate softball league, and nobody would know a thing. But Barry Bonds is suspected of using, and every meeting he's had in the last 10 years is suddenly held under the microscope.

I disagree that access to exploitable information is a unilateral privelage of those with government positions. Indeed, these are among those with the most to fear. Every aspect of Bush's life has been subject to scrutiny, by both the press and his opponents. If the power to drag skeletons from closets is so asymmetric, why did we hear allegations of Bush's cocaine use and combat avoidance? Or Clinton's numerous affairs?

Most often, it's the press that digs up dirt. Al Gore tells some tall tale at Cannes about spending the summer in France when he was 15, speaking exclusively French and reading Sartre and Camus; Jonah Goldberg hops on Lexus/Nexis and finds out that Al got C's in his high-school French class, and spent his fifteenth summer working the family farm. Nobody gets away with anything these days.

The use of wiretapping and data-mining to hunt down terrorists is a good thing. The use of these things to persecute political opponents is a bad thing. We have laws to distinguish the two, and as history has shown, the second does not usually work out so well.

The use of wiretapping to listen in on citizen Joe Shmoe's inane phone conversations with his girlfriend - "no, YOU hang up first!" - is too ludicrous to worry about.

Ryan, those examples are all worth contemplating for various reasons, but I don't think any of them bolsters the ridiculous "George Bush wants to listen in on my phone calls" meme.

Of course. Becaue we're politically unimportant. That was my point. This whole "GWB is listening to MY calls" misses the danger entirely.

Your friend's issue with a vindictive local police force has nothing to do with access to priveleged information or invasion of privacy per se.

A lot of people see the police as the warm and fuzzy boys in blue. My point is that sometimes that trust of authority can be misplaced. There was a different case where I lived ( a nice, quite affluent neighiborhood, btw.) They consistantly tried to pin a murder on the wrong person. Their persistance only serves to lessen my faith in their ethical standards. A local journalist dogged them for it. Details here, if you want; nicarico.http://www.ericzorn.com/columns/nicarico/) My point is that power will be abused. And I think you agree. The police aren't always the good guys who serve and protect. The police wouldn't have memorized my friend's license plate number. We're not such a small town. They obviously had him flagged in the system somehow, and the local force responds to that 'flag.' They were essentially harassing him, and he eventually moved.

This shoulnd't happen, period. And if the neighiborhood had been less affluent, I'm willing to bet the police response would have been harsher. It's dangerous picking on people who have the wherewithall to defend themselves. We can justify any crime, abuse or injustice by saying that somewhere else the problem is worse. But why use that as an excuse to actually let things get worse?

>Abuse of political power for personal gain - or, >as in this case, out of simple spite - is as old >as the world.

Which is exactly why judicial approval for all wiretaps, especially those ordered by the cheif executive, is vital. And why separation of powers, in general, is vital.

What exactly was the utility of "dirt" in a police state like the old USSR, anyway?

Milan Kundera, a Czech author living abroad, described it as a practice of the secret police in the communist controlled Czech republic. Kundera discusses a woman being lured into an affair and photographed in the act, and that the practice was almost standard. I suppose it would be used to alienate her from her husband. It was implied that the information wouldn't be used if she didn't cause political problems.

>Watergate brought Nixon down. As you say, what >goes around comes around. So much for Big Brother >getting away with whatever he wants.

We know only about the times that the government has gotten caught. We don't know about the times they've gotten away with things scott free. Why assume that we're batting 100% and then turn around and use that assumption as justification for removing safeguards?

>I disagree that access to exploitable information >is a unilateral privelage of those with >government positions.

I never said 'unilateral'. It's certainly not. I said asymmetrical. Just because you can win a rigged game doesn't mean it's not rigged. Anyone who is famous gets put under the microscope, but there's somthing of a balance of power between Republicans and Democrats. The loser in that balance is, potentially, the third party candidate.

I'm not claiming that we're going to stop a person's friends from 20 years ago from talking or that an advantage is absolute. But what's the impact of having every phone call of a potential polititian recorded for 30 years and then selectively released to show their worst qualities? What if a FOI request could have proved Bush's cocain use, instead of us just hearing allegations? Or if someone could find a way for a political contact to misplace some files. Or delete them. The power is there to effectively knock any candidate out of the race. I want people worried about preventing this from happening and installing safeguards like judicial oversight. If a judge needs to quickly approve some search terms, the process can be expidited to make this practical.

Most often, it's the press that digs up dirt.

Though anonymous leaks certainly help. Again, as in Woodward and Bernstein's case a leak inside the government was critical.

The use of wiretapping and data-mining to hunt down terrorists is a good thing.

Why was Ted Rall's phone recently tapped? Why are journalists being spied on?

Data mining is a good thing. I just want there to be controls in place and for the political ramifications to be considered. This type of power has been abused before. It will be again. I'm really don't think we know our batting average in this regard. We shouldn't assume it's 100% just because we don't know when we've failed.

Anonymous sources are practically a mainstay of journalism. I don't think this will change.

>The use of wiretapping to listen in on citizen >Joe Shmoe's inane phone conversations with his >girlfriend - "no, YOU hang up first!" - is too >ludicrous to worry about.

I'm not worried about that. I agree, the meme is dumb. My point was that we are wishing upon a star for another J. Edgar Hoover.

Why was Ted Rall's phone recently tapped? Why are journalists being spied on?

Evidence please.

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/?uc_full_date=20060516

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