Open Letter to a PUMA

Dear Ron:
In your letter, you said:
I’ve supported the Democrats for 40 years because the Dem party was also the democratic party. This year, those two things have diverged.
No, they haven’t.  One candidate won the primary with the most votes and the most delegates.  PUMA is standing against democracy in democracy’s name.  Why should the majority [...]

Facebook and Your Data

Facebook is watching you.  From the article:
Berteau claims the results of the tests prove that Facebook is able to collect information about its members’ surfing habits on affiliate sites, regardless of whether permission has been granted.
Facebook replied to CA’s concerns in a letter describing the ease with which user’s can opt out of having the [...]

Analysis: Obama’s Argument on FISA

The last thing Obama wants to do is move closer to John McCain and George Bush on issues of constitutional rights.  But take a look at his own rationale for his terrible decision to vote for the FISA bill (TPM, emphasis mine):

Obama on the FISA ‘Compromise’ …
“Given the grave threats that we face, our national [...]

Roll Call: Telecoms Allowed to Spy Illegally

I don’t see any reason to pretend this is anything other than an incredibly shitty decision to allow illegal and unconstitutional behavior.  Here’s roll call highlights:
Voting For this travesty: Obama, Lieberman, Hagel, Snowe, Specter, Webb, Warner, Hatch, Graham
Missing the bloody vote: McCain, Kennedy, Sessions
Voting Against: Clinton, Kerry, Feingold, Boxer, Schumer, Leahy
…
To the constituents of the [...]

Spying on Americans: Strike Back

Anyone in Congress voting to give telecoms immunity does not deserve to remain in office.  The deal brokered under heavy influence of lobbyist cash from the industry is a deep betrayal of the trust we put in our elected officials to represent us in government.  Slashdot:

Bimo_Dude writes “Today (June 20), Steny Hoyer is bringing to [...]

Specter Calls to Finally Investigate Illegal Spying On Americans?

That’s what I first thought when I saw an opinion piece from SI.com on google news.  I quickly realized the venerable congress critter was talking about investigating a fucking football spying scandal.
The chances of anyone in the Bush administration ever seeing justice for illegally spying on Americans?  Still zero.

Privacy Rights and Candidates

One year ago today, we found this out (Boing Boing via this Slashdot thread):
More information has come to light about the arrest of Josh Kinberg, the hacker who made a “dot-matrix bike-printer” to ride through the streets of New York during the RNC in 2004. The oversize bike had a laptop-powered array of chalk-sprayers that [...]