Is this really who we need as a privacy officer?!!!!

[lander1205]

Ok. Now I'm really offended. Tom Ridge just named Nuala O'Connor Kelly as privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security.

O'Connor Kelly is currently serving in the Commerce Department's Technology Administration as privacy officer, chief counsel for technology, and the deputy director for policy and planning. Before that she was the vice president for data protection and chief privacy officer for DoubleClick Inc., an online advertising and marketing company.

full story here: http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/0414/web-kelly-04-16-03.asp

and another: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39211-2003Apr16.html

DoubleClick?!!! They're the founding fathers of spyware for heavens sake! What the heck is Ridge thinking?!!! DoubleClick's goal was to see how much private info they could leech from every pc connected to the internet! How is she going to be an advocate for or protector of my privacy?!

I'm so annoyed I could scream.

[luckymomx4]

ahh, big brother is always watching. Now it seems they'll be watching even more!


Pam
:rolleyes4 :worry: :shocked2:

[moviemave]

wrote my congress women! (not that it will make a difference - but hey, what the heck)

[carogonza]

Our government at work. How scary!!

By the time Bush is out of office, it will be 1984 (the book) and Big Brother here is the U.S>:(

[Feisty Girl]

Bush also wants to change the overtime laws. They couls work you 60 hr one weelk -with overtime-then only 20 the next .Not sure which jobs this will effect. They already are forcing more people on 12hrs at my job. They don't see there families or get to talk to them and by the end of the shift are so tired. I don't see more production out of them only less by the end of the shift. I feel for all the women and men with young kids -no wonder they sleep on the conveyers and floors at breaks(2-10mins & 1-20min,this is not allowed but the supervisors don't say anything)

[MrDave]

Ah - how wonderful.

[tncorgi]

Libraries & the Patriot Act/Be Afraid, very Afraid..

http://www.fwweekly.com/issues/2003-04-17/feature.html/page1.html



.....Today, some fear, what you read might well wind up in an FBI file. Like credit cards, internet accounts, and phone bills, the library card in your wallet has become yet another tracer the government can use to identify and collect personal information about you in the unfolding war on terror.

Librarians say that a provision of the USA Patriot Act, the anti-terror measure Congress passed following Sept. 11, makes it easier for government to access the records of library patrons, book-buyers, and internet users. At the same time, they say the law makes it virtually impossible for individuals -- or the public -- to know if, or how often, such intrusive snooping takes place. In the smoke and shadows of the war on terror, this is, perhaps, the equivalent of double-secret probation, an invasion of privacy so secretive that even the victim is unaware of the intrusion. Has the FBI copied your book-borrowing records? Your librarian isn't allowed to say.

....If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, it's because the attacks are frequent -- and come from within. The Patriot Act, according to Melody Kelly, the associate dean of libraries at the University of North Texas, is merely the latest chapter in a long history of such restrictions on civil liberties in the United States.

"It's happened before,'' she said. "It happened before at the beginning of the country [with] the Alien and Sedition Act," the notorious 18th-century legislation that temporarily outlawed "scandalous and malicious'' writing against the government. Similar attempts were made to roll back freedoms during virtually all of the nation's major wars, from the Civil War to Vietnam, she said.

The assault on liberties made in the name of the war on terror, however, is unlike its predecessors because of our society's reliance on computerized records -- blips of data that record conversations and transactions both mundane and momentous.

"The major difference today is the technology is so different from what it had been in the past, '' Kelly said. "The electronic technology allows you to go further ... than they've ever been able to go before. Plus, our own systems are our greatest enemies in some ways. Before, if you deleted a paper record by shredding it or throwing it away, it was gone. But with electronics, there is a capability of going back and reconnecting. E-mail is never deleted.''


http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/Stories/0,1413,91%257E3089%257E1313444,00.html

...."I believe the Patriot Act," the librarian continued, "sacrifices critical privacy of the citizens for very little return in tracking down terrorists, and I have had patrons come in and express concern that the Patriot Act opens up private details of their lives and their accounts. I tell them that, like most libraries, the way we are dealing with it now is keeping very little in the way of records, so if we ever were subpoenaed, we would have very little to give them."

DeMille spoke of what she called the freedom to read.'

"That is a tenet that is paramount in public libraries. It was affirmed by the America Library Association in 1953. Exactly 50 years ago we were facing the question of our freedoms and, of course, that was during the McCarthy era."

That era got its name from Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who, in the name of fighting communism, used his position to investigate and punish Americans with left wing beliefs.

Many were subsequently fired from their jobs and blacklisted, which meant no one else would hire them. Some agreed to inform on their friends and colleagues in an attempt to save themselves. McCarthy also went after books he felt were anti-American, many of which subsequently disappeared from public libraries.

Along with the McCarthy era, during the 1960s the FBI illegally spied on, infiltrated and harassed groups and individuals based solely on their political or social beliefs, even though they were not suspected of committing any crimes.

While many were targeted for their opposition to the Vietnam War, perhaps the most famous victim of such tactics was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was harassed by the FBI for years because of his civil rights activities.

"It was a time when individual freedoms and the freedom of speech and individual expression were threatened," DeMille said.

She and Watters expressed the hope that the Freedom to Read Protection Act, authored by Vermont Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders, would eventually become law. The Protection Act would still allow the FBI to obtain library records with a court-ordered search warrant, but agents would have to show some type of reasonable cause, and public disclosure would be required.

[bean_cat]

Wow gotta love the Bush administration, just keeps getting better and better and better. Pretty soon we are going to have video cameras installed in every room of our house so they can watch us at all times.

[ebjoram]

I can no longer be shocked by anything this so-called administration says or does. After the farce that was the 2000 election, I pretty much assumed it was all downhill after that. If I could, I would just as soon live in another country until these people were out of office. Funny how they no longer mention those weapons of mass destruction. I really wonder how this man can sleep at night. Not to mention his wife. As a woman and a mother, she should surely know that so many things about this presidency are (a) just plain wrong, (b) stupid beyond belief and (c) criminal. Well maybe, as the old saying goes, if we give em enough rope........

[tncorgi]

Board: New laws a danger
By JAMES HARRISON/The Daily Journal

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/Stories/0,1413,91%257E3089%257E1345336,00.html#


Wednesday, April 23, 2003 -

With the county's top law enforcement officials offering their support, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Tuesday to approve a resolution defending the Bill of Rights and the Constitution against the federal government's USA Patriot Act.

In doing so the county joins a growing list of 89 other local governments willing to publicly stand up in defiance of the Act and other laws which grant the federal government unprecedented powers to spy on law abiding citizens. Critics point to the FBI's practice of illegally spying on and harassing civil rights leaders, anti-war protesters and others during the 1960s and '70s to show that such powers can be and have been abused. Supporters argue the Act does not undermine civil liberties and is necessary to prevent future acts of terrorism.

Among other things, the resolution calls on local government not to participate "to the extent legally permissible, in law enforcement activities that threaten civil rights and civil liberties of the people of Mendocino County, such as surveillance, wiretaps and securing of private information..."

"I'm proud to have been asked to present this proclamation," said county District Attorney Norm Vroman. "This is a message to our constituents, the people who voted us into office, that we really do believe in the Constitution." He noted that when sworn in, public officials take an oath to protect it "against enemies both foreign and domestic."

The freedom citizens have is not something to be given or taken away by the government, Vroman continued; instead the government's role is to protect those freedoms. "It's our job," he concluded, receiving a burst of applause from the audience, "to make sure that the people enjoy those rights."

County Sheriff Tony Craver also voiced his support for the resolution. "I feel that any erosion of our individual rights will shift the balance of freedom," he warned, to more applause.

When it came time for public comment on the matter, speakers, including several veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars, stood before the supervisors and urged approval of the resolution.

Korean veteran William White spoke of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and suggested that the real threat to America's freedoms now came from within the halls of its own government.


ALSO~~~

Librarians Make Some Noise Over Patriot Act
Concerns About Privacy Prompt Some to Warn Patrons, Destroy Records of Book and Computer Use
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1481-2003Apr9.html