Choice of Venue, Choice of Issue
I'm in Geneva preparing for a meeting of a which has a non-trivial connection to themes like Internet Governance, Legal Intercept (wiretap) and National Jurisdiction, and so on, and will be held within the physical infrastructure of the ITU, and it occurs to me that there are issues more important than responding to Emanuel responding to Tancredo responding to Spitzer. We've got to stop FISA.
If FISA isn't stopped, speaking familial Spanish across the US/MX border can be legally intercepted, and using a phone while Mexican will be as dangerous as driving while Mexican.
I can't begin to describe how far reaching the electronic surveillance issue appears from my perspective, and this time I'm not in Beijing, at a significant confluence of wires and policy, I'm in Geneva. At a significant confluence of wires and policy.
Comments
So, my folks are immigrants, never naturalized. My brother and I were born here, but speak German. Badly. He's been out of the country for years now, and worked for an Egyptian mobile company doing business in places like Jordan and Baghdad for many of them.
I must say, I love the idea that the NSA had to hire a German-speaking flunky to listen to us bitch about our parents.
It's funny, because it's probably true. And my folks, for all their virtues, are really easy to bitch about.
Posted by: wcw | November 19, 2007 10:46 PM
All the more reason to speak Cherokee on the phone...
Posted by: The Local Crank | November 19, 2007 11:36 PM
As it happens, neither Tsalagi nor German identified classes of persons are the political targets of the RNC, and some of the DNC, in the current cycle, the date not being between 1820 and 1824, and 1914 and 1918, respectively.
That said, after "national technical means" have targeted "expressions made by persons within the "illegal class(es)" to political effect, measured both by the satisfaction of the political bases to which Emanuel and Tancredo address their messages, and the actual suppression of targeted expression by the targeted class, there will be less difficulty to similarly target other forms of socially deprecated expression.
Keep in mind that the checkout counter at supermarkets have supplied technical data for the identification of persons purchasing Persian cuisine in the US, and that there is no limit to how daft "national technical means" can be.
Posted by: ebw | November 20, 2007 01:51 AM