Tag Archives: culture

Government Surveillance

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The French government is on the verge [a Tuesday vote as I write on Tuesday morning] of authorizing its police forces to

remotely tap into the cameras, microphones, and location services of phones and other internet-connected devices used by some criminal suspects.
The proposed law plainly stipulates that the procedure can be executed “without the knowledge or consent of its owner or possessor” but is limited to suspects involved in terrorism, organized crime, and other illegal activities punishable by five or more years in prison.

Whether the French vote is up or down, imagine such a capability in the hands of a government that considers enthusiastically protesting mothers to be potential terrorists, or a government that openly worries about traditional Catholics (or traditionals of any other religion), or a government that spies into the emails of journalists and their families, or a government that already (illegally) spies on its general citizens with the tools of an intelligence organization and a secret court system.

Do What I Tell You

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Nice little school you got there. Be too bad if somethin’ was to happen to it.

In response to the Temecula Unified School Board’s decision not to adopt a controversial social studies textbook in May, California [Progressive-Democrat] Governor Gavin Newsom challenged the board’s decision and threatened it with legislative consequences if it does not reverse course.

Here’s Newsom putting it plainly:

If the school board won’t do its job by its next board meeting to ensure kids start the school year with basic materials, the state will deliver the book into the hands of children and their parents—and we’ll send the district the bill and fine them for violating state law.

Nor is it Newsom alone. It’s the Progressive-Democratic Party at large, as illustrated by State Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D, 29th District):

The antics of the Temecula Valley Unified School District are intolerable and damaging to its students’ opportunities to grow, prosper, and succeed. Book bans betray the most basic of California’s core values. I hope the members of the school board are able to reflect on their decisions and come to make better decisions for our children’s futures.

Aside from the all-too-typical Progressive-Democrat lie—no books are being banned by Temecula—students’ opportunities to grow, prosper, and succeed depend on their being taught reading, writing, and arithmetic instead of being indoctrinated with the racism and the professional victimhood and oppressor class sewage of CRT.

The antics, to use Rivas’ distortionate term, center on protecting our children, and that’s something the Progressive-Democrat Governor and his cronies object to.

A Bogus Beef

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Some academics object to Texas’ Republican Governor Greg Abbott moving to ban TikTok from Texas government devices and from personal devices used to conduct Texas official business. Texas’ legislature passed the bill creating the ban, and Abbott signed it into law last December. Now a New York State-headquartered organization, ironically named The Knight First Amendment Institute, which is a facility of New York City’s Columbia University, is suing Abbott among other governors, over the ban, claiming free speech violations.

The lawsuit said the state’s decision…is comprising teaching and research. And more specifically, it said it was “seriously impeding” faculty pursuing research into the app—including research that could illuminate or counter concerns about TikTok.

This is, to use the legalese technical term, a crock. It’s also, to use a legal technical term, a frivolous suit.

Banning TikTok in no way inhibits what these academics say or collaborate over, nor does it in any way impede those academics’ speech or collaboration; it only bans one tool, a national security risk, from being used for the speech/collaboration. There are, after all, a plethora of communication and collaboration devices available other than TikTok. To name just a few (located after 10 grueling seconds on Bing search):

  • Slack
  • Zoom
  • Miro
  • MindMeister
  • Loom
  • Asana
  • Notion
  • Microsoft Teams

There are, also, freeware tools like Hugo and Scribe.

It’s hard to believe these So Smart persons aren’t aware of these tools. Maybe they should listen more to the students in their freshman orientation courses.

It’s even harder to understand why these Precious Ones insist on leaving their personal information; their research ideas, techniques, and progresses; their speech and thought available for People’s Republic of China government personnel to freely exploit; they should be called to explain that.

Their free speech interference claim is especially pernicious, given that these august personages are of the same guild that so zealously blocks, even with violence and firings, the speech of those with whom they disagree.

Mark Zuckerberg is a Far-Right Extremist?

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That appears to be what Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a columnist for MSNBC, thinks. In her diatribe against the very concept of physical fitness—it’s a white supremacist, right-wing extremist thing—she pointed out that, after all,

[p]hysical fitness has always been central to the far right. In Mein Kampf, Hitler fixated on boxing and jujitsu

Zuckerberg both is highly physically fit, and he pursues, with enthusiasm, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Hmm….

Blinders

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FBI Director Christopher Wray was wearing them, when he wasn’t overtly insulting the intelligence of committee members, when he testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee last Wednesday. Committee members asked Wray a number of questions that he refused to answer, even as he couched his refusal in a number of rationalizations.

Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R, OH) asked whether the FBI had asked financial institutions for customer transaction records in the DC area for the period surrounding the 6 Jan riots. Wray: I don’t know the answer.

Darrell Issa (R, CA) asked Wray whether FBI agents infiltrated those riots. Wray refused to answer altogether, referring Issa to “existing court filings.”

Matt Gaetz (R, FL) asked Wray how many times the FBI misused FISA authorities to spy on American citizens. Wray refused to say, or even to explain why the illegal searches happened.

Pramila Jayapal (D, WA) asked Wray whether the FBI was purchasing Americans’ personal data from the Internet or social media collectors. Wray refused to “confirm or deny.” When she asked how the FBI used such data, Wray said,

Respectfully, this is a topic that gets very involved to explain, so what I would prefer to do is have our subject matters come back up and brief you[.]

He thereby confirmed that his FBI does obtain such information, whether through buying it, or through other means. And his answer was insulting to the committee members, particularly to Jayapal, implying that the Congressmen were too grindingly stupid to understand the matter or by insulting their intelligence with his claim that he doesn’t understand the matter himself.

And so on through hours of testimonial evasion, pretended ignorance, and insults.

This FBI has long since outlived its usefulness, and it needs to be disbanded.