Privacy Laws and Citizen Journalism: ACORN and Romney's 47% Speech

by Nomad

I wanted to take a moment to follow up on a post I recently wrote on James O'Keefe III and the ACORN scandal.

In a somewhat related story, CBS has reported details about that notorious secret recording of Mitt Romney last year. The controversial video became known as the "47%" speech.

As it turns out, the recorder of that video was not a reporter (even self-designated like O'Keefe) but a bartender who worked at the site in Florida where the speech was given. 

In the speech he told his audience of wealthy campaign contributors that 47% of the population would never vote for him. That percentage of the population was politically unimportant to him. 

"My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

On the surface, he had a point. And the results of the election confirmed it. The problem was the background to those remarks, who spoke them and to whom they were addressed. These factors behind his speech accounted for in the decline in his popularity of the candidate. He was none to popular in the first place.

I saw one comment that interested me since I had recently investigated the James O'Keefe case in which he was sued by a former ACORN employee for recording him without permission.

The comment  points out that since O'Keefe was arrested on Invasion of Privacy Laws, the law should apply to the bartender as well. The comment reads:

This guy should be brought up on charges for filming someone without there knowledge. If the Acorn fiasco taught us anything, it was that it was illegal to film anyone without there knowledge. Then the people in power get a video that was to there advantage and the rule dosnt [sic] apply. Figure that. Illegal is only illegal when? The line is getting pretty blurry.

It's a valid argument and something that troubled me when I wrote the post. 

The Truth Behind Palin's Soon-to-Be Released Book on Christmas

by Nomad

Decries the commercialization of Christmas
by peddling her book just in time for the holidays 

Rumor has it that Sarah Palin has another book in the works. Hurrah! According to USAToday, the book is "focused on putting faith and values back into Christmas."

The book, reportedly entitled "A Happy Holiday IS a Merry Christmas", is supposed to come out in November, right in time for the holidays. All carefully calculated to be a "hot" seller during the holiday season. (And who wouldn't want the a Sarah Palin book as a Christmas gift?)

No doubt Sarah hopes the book will be a money-maker for her. The timing of the release is wonderfully ironic. According to the publisher the book, a well-beaten dead horse if ever there was one, will deal with the commercialization of Christmas. Ho-humbug.

We can be assured it will take to task all those baddies who don't share her view that America is a Christian nation. No doubt the book will list every perceived offense, such as endangered nativity scenes on public property, etc. etc..  Anybody of you who dare to use the term "happy holidays" had better run for cover. Having failed in taking back America, Palin is now apparently planning to take back Christmas. 

In typical Palin-speak, Palin issued this statement through her publisher, HarperCollins.

"Amidst the fragility of this politically correct era, it is imperative that we stand up for our beliefs before the element of faith in a glorious and traditional holiday like Christmas is marginalized and ignored."

Fragility? How is a politically-correct era fragile? Could she have meant frigidity?  

She said the book will be "fun, festive" and "thought provoking." It will "encourage all to see what is possible when we unite in defense of our faith and ignore the politically correct Scrooges who would rather take Christ out of Christmas."

It's hard to imagine what she means by a politically-correct Scrooge. (Scrooge always sounded like a conservative to me.) But then it's generally hard to imagine what she means whenever she speaks. We will deal with the last part of her statement (Christ out of Christmas) in a moment.

ACORN and James O’Keefe III: The Tiny Crumb of Justice

by Nomad

Mr. James O’Keefe III has always been a useful tool for the conservatives. 

The right wing  can distantly applaud his antics under the pretense of social good works, and at the same time, they can disapprove of his controversial techniques. He can do things that no respectable journalist would dream of doing and, best of all, he can be painted as hero to naive but politically-mind young conservatives. 
By friends and foes, O'Keefe has been called many things: a hero, a prankster, a provocateur, guerilla reporter, a film-maker, an activist, a douchebag, even- though more rarely- a journalist.

Last week, 28-year- old O’Keefe was back in the news, but this time he was not in control of the spotlight. 

In the past, we have examined O’Keefe’s pivotal role in bringing down the community action organization, ACORN. Here’s a follow-up to that story.

Aaron Swartz: Was the DOJ Prosecution Political or Something More?

by Nomad

In what might seem as "stating the obvious" Huffington Post has an article about the prosecution / persecution by the Justice Department of Aaron Swartz. 

In a past post, we looked at the case in which Swartz, who committed suicide in January, had been indicted and faced prison time for downloading millions of academic articles from an online archive. 

According to the article:

A Justice Department representative told congressional staffers during a recent briefing on the computer fraud prosecution of Internet activist Aaron Swartz that Swartz’s “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto” played a role in the prosecution.

The manifesto said sharing information was a “moral imperative” and advocated for “civil disobedience” against copyright laws pushed by corporations “blinded by greed” that led to the “privatization of knowledge.”

“We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world,” Swartz wrote in the manifesto.

Open Thread: Speak the Truth....

by Nomad

I thought I would offer this open thread. To kick things off, here are some items making news:

Hugo Chavez, the left wing dictator of Venezuela, has finally died after a two year struggle against cancer. The citizens of the nation are in mourning for their national hero. However as one reporter notes, there's an ugly truth behind Chavez's rule:

The crime rate is Caracas is staggering. The capital metropolitan area notched no fewer than 3,218 homicides in the first ten months of 2012. Numerous government officials have well established ties to narco-trafficking groups. Human rights abuses have been selective but deeply cruel (just look at what they have done to Maria Lourdes Afiuni). Price controls and artificial exchange rates have barely kept a lid on soaring inflation and rising food costs, while a steep currency devaluation and increase in the price of fuel are long overdue. The last time that a Venezuelan government attempted to dramatically change the fuel subsidy, we had the Caracazo riots of 1989 and some 3,000 deaths, which is credited in part for laying down the social conditions that led to the rise of Chávez. No matter who clings to power after the president is gone, they will have to face the reality of some form of these difficult policies.

That's really not much of a legacy to leave behind.

*    *    *    *

The Dow Jones has closed at an all-time high, erasing all of the losses from the 2008 recession. Analysts suggest that the boom is a result of deep skepticism about the predicted damage that the Sequester fiasco will do to the economy. In any case, the people who will benefit from a bear market are very unlikely to feel the direct impact of the budget cuts. The question,  before we celebrate, is whether anything has really been learned by the economic meltdown or whether it's business as usual. If so, we should all be prepared for yet another bubble followed by yet another market crash. 

*    *    *    *

One story that I found quite shocking but seems to have flown under the radar (pun intended) is this one from PopSci:

A Drone Flew Within 200 Feet Of A Commercial Jet. How Legal Was It?

Yesterday morning, an Alitalia pilot reported seeing a remote-controlled aircraft near New York's JFK airport, where he was landing. The drone was flying about 4 to 5 miles west of the airport at an altitude of about 1,750 feet, and it came within just 200 feet of the Alitalia plane, the pilot said. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident, and the FBI announced that it is looking for information leading to the drone operator. But was it legal?

Eventually the issue of drones will have to be discussed. Hopefully before one of them brings down an airliner.