Tag Archives: privacy

Lies of Progressive-Democrats

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Here’s another.  Recall Congressman Joaquin Castro’s (D, TX, and brother of Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Julian Castro) doxing of donors to a Trump campaign organization.

[T]he Texas congressman’s original tweet included a list of San Antonio residents who had donated large amounts to the Trump campaign, along with the names of their employers. …
“Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump,” Castro tweeted, along with the Twitter handles of several owners of local businesses who apparently donated to Trump. …
The list—titled “WHO’S FUNDING TRUMP?”—had 44 names of donors and their employers.

Now Castro is claiming the list was no problem at all.

[He] is not backing down from his tweet outing Trump donors in San Antonio, insisting they weren’t “targeted or harassed” and that it wasn’t a “call to action.”

And that’s Castro’s straight-up lie.  The exposure itself was a targeting move, and a call to action—a call to harass those 44 folks who’s only wrong-doing was their effrontery of disagreeing with Castro.  Castro knows this, and in his own words to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (D, CA), Castro is too cowardly or agreeable to Party to admit his misbehavior and to correct it.

I’ll add a couple more words: Castro’s behavior is typically dishonest.

Castro’s claim that the data he published were already publicly available? A cynically offered sophistry. He didn’t need to broaden the availability.  He chose to do so, though, for his carefully developed and executed purposes.

Warrant-Proof Encryption

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Attorney General William Barr, in front of the International Conference on Cyber Security at Fordham University, said that

“warrant-proof” encryption was “enabling dangerous criminals to cloak their communications and activities behind an essentially impenetrable digital shield.”

Of course.  And the FBI, in the aftermath of a mass-shooting in California a while back, (in)famously said that it needed Apple to crack the lock on one of the murderer’s smartphone so they could read it, insisting they were helpless without Apple’s cracking (and they demanded then, too, that Apple install encryption backdoors on its commercial cell phones).  Then the FBI hired a third party, which cracked the encryption forthwith.

And before that, crime investigations were hindered by lack of fingerprints because the crooks wore gloves.  Until DNA technology and testing opened other avenues of identification.  With search warrants required before that DNA could be sought out from individuals so that crime scene deposits could be matched.

And before that wired messaging, done privately, hindered crime investigations until wire tapping technology opened that for investigation.   With search warrants required before wire tapping could be done.

It’s always an arms race between the bad guys and the good guys.  And the good guys always win in the end, because they’re always able to get the better technology.

This time, The Wall Street Journal says, is different, though, via its subheadline at the link:

[Barr] offers no clear path forward

Of course, there is a clear path forward: get a warrant.  Do old-fashioned detective work.

And: hold onto that communications device. There’s no such thing as unbreakable (and so warrant-proof) encryption, there’s only encryption that can’t be broken today.

The PRC and Facial Recognition

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The People’s Republic of China is moving “beyond” the use of smart phones for making on-the-spot retail payments, starting to supplant that with facial recognition—with personal images tied to personal financial accounts.

Ant Financial Services Group and Tencent Holdings Ltd, rivals that operate, respectively, Alipay and WeChat Pay, China’s two largest mobile-payments networks, are competing for dominance in the next stage of China’s cashless society. Each is racing to install its own branded facial-recognition screens at retail points-of-sale all over the country, marketing the screens as a way to speed up sales and improve efficiency.

Marketing the screens as a way to speed up sales and improve efficiency.  A way to speed up and broaden PRC government knowledge of what its citizens are doing, where they are going, what they’re spending their money on, where they have their money, also.  In fine, a way to extend the PRC’s ability to control, not just the population over which it reigns, or subgroups of it, but down to the individual level.  George Orwell knew about this, and about the debilitation it inflicts on liberty, even on moral and on morale.

This is not an advance over smart phone payments.  Not at all.

Abortion “Rights”

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Senator and Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D, CA) wants to further erode Federalism in our nation’s structure and have the central government pass on certain kinds of State laws before those laws can be…permitted…to take effect.  Harris’ position and proposal is well summarized in the sub-headline of the article at the link:

The Democratic presidential hopeful wants the Justice Department to review state laws restricting abortion before they would take effect

Since a core principle of our nation, acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence, centers on our Creator-endowed right to life, and it is the duty of any government, especially including ours, to protect the lives of those in its care—or even simply within its jurisdiction—I offer an alternative requirement, albeit one that parallels Harris’ attack on our federal structure.

The Justice Department should review state laws permitting abortion, particularly with a view to assessing their impact on life, before they would take effect

This would enable the central government to protect the baby’s life from being aborted in any but the most extreme circumstance.

It should be clear, after all, that abortion has absolutely nothing to do with women’s right to control their own bodies and everything to do with the baby’s—who in any abortion procedure has no one to speak for him—right simply to maintain his body.  Abortion has absolutely nothing to do with women’s “rights” generally and everything to do with the baby’s right to life.

Except in the minds of Progressive-Democrats.

Blowing Up Settlements

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The one being sabotaged here is between Facebook and the FTC over the FTC’s proposed settlement of Facebook’s “mishandling” of consumer privacy data, including surrendering millions of consumers’ personal information to Cambridge Analytica.

FTC Chairman Joseph Simons has the (Republican) votes he need to impose the settlement, from the FTC’s perspective, on a 3-2 partisan vote.  He’s quite rightly trying to get at least one of the Progressive-Democrats on the board to vote with him, but they’re bleating that a $5 billion fine and other controls don’t go far enough.

This is naked obstruction, though, based on a cynically manufactured beef.

Another impediment to the settlement is a textbook example of why Federal agencies ought not be spring-loaded to settle cases with miscreants.  “Settlements,” should be vanishingly rare, and they should occur only after the teeth from a history of court cases have been manifested.  This time, the block is whether

to name Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a respondent in the complaint that would be filed by the agency as part of the settlement. Naming Mr Zuckerberg as a respondent could make him liable for future privacy missteps—and give the FTC leverage if it should seek to remove Mr Zuckerberg from the company’s management in the future.

Whichever party wants this included, it’s an entirely legitimate inclusion.

“Facebook representatives,” though, object, and they say Facebook will not accept a settlement that includes this.

There’s nothing here for Facebook to accept or reject, though. Facebook screwed up with consumers’ private, personal information, and the screwups identified in this putative settlement are just the latest in a long string of such…errors.  That those prior misbehaviors are not part of this case does matter in determining the price to be paid in this instance, but they should inform the FTC’s willingness to go to court rather than itself settle for a settlement.

There should be no settlement on the table or on offer in any guise.  The case should be in the courts, moving apace—the FTC should not allow Facebook’s lawyers to drag things out, and neither should the courts—with a court judgment sought. That judgment should include, at minimum, a company fine of $5 billion or more, Zuckerberg named as correspondent, and Zuckerberg personally fined for his role as the MFWIC condoning, if not actively authorizing, such privacy invasions and sales.