Tag Archives: freedom

Privacy Innovation

Posted on by
Reply

The FBI’s management says it supports strong encryption, but out of the other side of their mouth they claim that the FBI’s

inability to access data [is] “an urgent public safety issue” that requires “significant innovation.”

Here we go again.  Heads up for FBI Director making plain what he’s now only hinting at: he wants a backdoor into our encryption so Government can enter whenever it takes a notion to.

FBI Director Chris Wray is seeking to reboot the privacy-versus-security debate surrounding law enforcement’s inability to access data on electronic devices protected by powerful encryption.

Over the past year, the FBI failed to access data from nearly 7,800 devices, Wray said Tuesday at the International Conference on Cyber Security in New York City, adding that the number continues to grow[.]

This is disingenuous.  The FBI, in the San Bernardino terrorist shooting, pretended it was unable to open decrypt the cell phone of one of the terrorists because they couldn’t hack the password.  They also pretended difficulty decrypting the contents when they did get the phone opened.  In both cases, when a private enterprise was allowed into the problem, that private company cracked both problems lickety-split.

But we can trust Government.  Nobody in Government would abuse that backdoor.

Here’s an innovation: do your own work at keeping up in the encryption/decryption arms race; don’t demand private enterprise hand you the keys to our kingdom.

Here’s another innovation: get a warrant.

Time to Visit

Posted on by
Reply

Li Kexin, Minister, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America, says

The day that a US Navy vessel arrives in Kaohsiung is the day that our People’s Liberation Army unifies Taiwan with military force[.]

Kaohsiung is a major seaport on the southwest coast of the Republic of China.  Since the PRC now is threatening to invade and conquer a sovereign nation that is an ally and friend of ours, it has become imperative that we do a number of things, including:

  • send a USN combatant ship and a hospital ship to Kaohsiung for a friendly visit
  • resume patrols in the Taiwan Strait between the PRC and the RoC
  • upgrade the RoC’s Air Force with newer fighter and ground attack aircraft, and greater numbers of them
  • sell to the RoC, and train their personnel in the use of, missile defense systems, including Patriot and THAAD
  • broker deals between the RoC and Israel for the RoC’s acquisition of Iron Dome and Arrow rocket and missile defense systems (the latter to complement Patriot)
  • increase our sea and air patrols of PRC-seized islands in the South China Sea, sailing as close as the waters will safely allow, and making low-level flights over the islands
  • increase, in coordination with Japan, our sea and air patrols of East China Sea islands harassed by the PRC’s navy and air forces
  • patrol the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea with missile defense capable naval shipping

This also is an attempt by the PRC to distract from its decision to not enforce in any serious manner the sanctions against northern Korea and its decision to not persuade its new BFF, Russia, to seriously enforce those sanctions.  We need to make appropriate responses against those PRC and Russian entities, both business and government, that are disregarding the sanctions’ requirements.

The PRC has been asking after our cauldrons since early in the Obama administration; it’s long past time to respond to the PRC’s Warring Nations mentality.  For our allies’ and friends’ safety, not only the RoC’s, and for our own safety.

Porch Dogs

Posted on by
Reply

Some of you may be aware of the protests in Iran, protests that are growing in size and becoming subject to increasingly violent attempts at suppression by the Iranian government.  “Some of you” because the NLMSM isn’t talking much about the protests.

It turns out that Iranian women are playing a prominent leading role in those protests.

  • a young Iranian woman standing atop a container and shedding her hijab…while simultaneously waving it as a flag
  • a woman confronting security forces and proclaiming “Death to Khamenei” while crowds around her join in
  • Another woman was seen on tape declaring “You raised your fists and ruined our lives. Now we raise our fists. Be men, join us. I as a woman will stand in front and protect you. Come represent your country.”

And on and on.  These women are risking their freedom, such as it is in Iran, risking arrest, beatings, perhaps their lives just to be in these protests, much less to lead many of them.

But, where are the Western “feminists” who were willing—anxious, even—to protest loudly against the inauguration of a President of whom they disapprove, protest against the perceived evils of Civil War heroes of the Confederacy, against sexism and sexual harassment and assault in the halls of Hollywood and Congress?

Never mind that these protests all were conducted wholly within the safety of a nation that proudly protects the freedom to speak one’s mind, to protest against government or any other ill, real or imagined.

Where, now, are Linda Sarsour?  Elizabeth Warren?  Nancy Pelosi?  Kathy Griffin?  Kamala Harris?  Kirsten Gillibrand?  Amy Klobuchar?  Debbie Stabenow?  Debbie Dingell?  Madonna?  Amy Poehler?

Others, like Catherine Ray, Federica Mogherini’s spokesman, has uttered only bland platitudes about rights to peaceful protest and free speech.  The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy herself has chosen, so far, not to speak at all in her own voice.

What are these women, safe and sound in the bosom of the United States and Europe, saying and doing in support of those Iranian women?  Not much.

Susan Rice, ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) National Security Advisor and UN Ambassador, says the timidity is proper:

Stephen Miller, the author of the piece at the link, wants to know why these modern “feminists” don’t speak up or act concretely in support of those Iranian women.  I have a different bit of advice: stay up on the porch, ladies.  It’s safe there.  Real women are taking action.

Even porch dogs yap, though.

A UN Vote

Posted on by
Reply

Recall that the UN voted strongly to condemn the Trump administration’s decision to move our Embassy to Israel to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.  In a Letter to the Editor of The Wall Street Journal, one letter writer objected to our response to the vote.

America should support other countries’ right to vote their conscience as the US does, whether or not we agree with them.

America does support other countries’ right to vote their conscience, whether or not we agree with them. It’s a two-way street, however. Others, including our letter-writer, need to support America’s right to act in accordance with our conscience—to object to those votes and their outcome, and to act accordingly.

No one—most especially America—moved to prevent those votes from occurring.  Others, though, including our letter-writer, are acting, it seems, to deny our right to respond.

We Can Help

Posted on by
Reply

And we should.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has pledged to step up defense spending to defend the self-ruled island’s sovereignty in the face of China’s growing military assertiveness in the region.

A good start would be to sell missile defense systems to the Republic of China along with modern aircraft—both air defense, like updated F-16s and F-15s, and ground attack, like F-16s and A-10s.

We also should resume sea and air patrols of the Taiwan Strait, something we’ve not done for far too long.