Thursday, July 29, 2010

DRAT, another article

Okay, so someone data mined Facebook and posted all the information where it could be seen and linked to other personal information. To develop relationships of trust, ones in which we speak freely, people must respect your trust. Facebook is a whore because they made changes to your privacy without telling you in advance, they did not respect their relationship with you.

Part of the issue is unilateral versus consent. Informed consent. The ex gave her boyfriend my personal e-mails and then told me nothing I said was private. She used my trust in her against me. She told me that our conversations were private and then made them public, actually worse, she gave them to her boyfriend.

I hired someone from another department, he is dead now; but, never forgotten. I hired a second person from another department. I told them both the same thing. I will never ask for information about your department that was given in confidence and I expect that you will never give confidential information about my department to others.

People tell me things, some in confidence and some in the hope that I will release the information. I try to find out what their intent is. I try and act as a filter with integrity. I am imperfect; but, I try. There are many things that I have not posted. There are many secrets that were given in confidence that I have not posted. I respect that trust I was given and that mine was respected, it is about mutuality. Even though my ex-wife treats nothing I have said with privacy (her words), I still respect hers. I may get angry at times; but, I will not post her name, nor mine.

Facebook does not respect it's relationship with you. It does not consider anything you post as private. Someone recently stalked the founder of Facebook and attempted to say that because he did not respect privacy they wanted to see how he felt about disrespecting his privacy. I disagree, we cannot promote privacy by violating privacy. Pretty much my problem with Assange and Wikileaks.

God has other plans

I had not intended to write again tonight because of the bronchitis. Problem is, there is a great article about Wikileaks and it dovetails with my last post. The article discusses how Wikileaks publication of certain government documents regarding the war was criminal.

Wikileaks left the names of hundreds of informants on some documents. There is a very real chance that these people will be killed. The documents were leaked to Mr. Assange or stripped from the web. If they had been leaked to the Afghans we are fighting then that would be traitorous for an American. Mr. Assange is not an American. The release of the documents may make him an enemy. If I release a foreign nations secret documents it is spying.

Somethings are private and somethings are state protected. If I beat my child and break a bone, it should be known. What is rightfully private and what it means to release such information is the line we must understand. The ex gave her boyfriend some of my e-mails to her, they were private and she knew they were just meant for her. She informed me that nothing I ever said to her was private although together 27 years.

The issue is the same in both examples. When do we have a duty to keep things private and when do we have a duty to investigate and possibly report? I believe it depends on the level of trust and the intimacy or risk of harm. I would respect Mr. Assange more if he had either left out the names or took a position in favor of the Afghans insurgents. I can respect releasing our information if he is willing to be treated as the enemy. If he wished to be a reporter then he should have erased ALL the names excluding the President of other elected officials. We have a right to know their decisions.

We have done some bad things in Iraq and Afghanistan, these things should be known; but, not the names. Our need to know and our right to know is so that we can decide as a nation if we want to be in these wars and if we are doing things in the right manner. We don't need the names of the informants to make these decisions unless they are officials.

Blogger Suits

Here is the story. A black woman who was in the Department of Agriculture, specifically the Director of Rural Development in Georgia, had been filmed talking about how she had not helped someone as much as she should have because he was white. The video was shown by a blogger. She then was let go by the Obama Administration very quickly.

A few days pass and she states how her speech was taken out of context because she was talking about how she was wrong to have done what she did and that she eventually ended up friends with the farmer and saved his farm. A few more days pass and she is offered a different and better job; but, she doesn't take it yet. A few more days pass and she decides to sue the blogger.

You are being led, the media is being used to manipulate you. The complaint she is making is that bloggers are dangerous, that we don't give all the facts and should be regulated. I have been talking about these issues because it is an attack on free speech.

Firstly, free speech means people will not give all the facts it is impossible. Secondly, she gave the speech in public and he showed part of it, the news always only shows clips. Thirdly, she admitted to having misused her position, it does not matter that they kept their farm. It also does not matter that she changed. Those things may speak well of her willingness to grow and learn, heck I hope we learn and grow cause we don't start out knowing it all. It is admirable that she had the courage to admit that she had been unfair in the past, she did not have to. The issue the blogger, it says, was addressing was that racisim exists on all sides and within the NAACP. The blogger should have shown the whole video and explained that she had changed; but, it is not a requirement and should not be.

I intentionally do not edit my source documents, I intentionally tell people to read the source documents and provide links. I then attempt to discuss aspects of what I have read. I am more interested in getting people to consider things than in leading people to a conclusion. By providing source documents the reader is encouraged to investigate for themselves. That does not mean that I should not be allowed to take positions and just show the parts that favor my position. My approach is my approach, others should have the freedom to approach things differently, nobody is all knowing or perfect and the truth is not owned by the mass media, we are all entitled to our opinion.

We must be careful not to slander others in public. IN PUBLIC. I do not cuss on my blog because it is public. It is not a question of privacy versus control, we do not have to choose between the two. Yes, because the internet is anonymous we do see people write some very false and obscene things. We should not regulate what is said on the net anymore than in the newspapers. This creates a problem, children do not know what appropriate limits are. Neither do many adults because they never had to address the issues before. Newspapers did have to worry about libel.

If people are allowed to publish anything, and the internet is publishing, they can seriously harm others. It is one thing to tell a friend that your ex is a whore, it is quite another to tell their boss (no my ex is not a prostitute, not about my ex) or to publish it. The possible consequences are vastly different. In casual conversation we do not choose our words precisely and people have a tendency to use the internet the same way. Many people who do not write for a living do not understand the difference. Yet, anyone can publish on the internet.

People get mad, we get angry and say things in private with people we know that are not meant to go beyond them. We do say things that are venting. Not long ago my "son in law" posted a comment on this blog. He said some very hurtful things even though I have done more for him than he recognizes. He posted to me, he did not plan for the world to view it, at least I do not think so. I removed my post and everybody's comments. I removed it because it was too public, I had wished that he had spoken to me directly so that we could have a complete conversation, the blog was not the place for it.

On a few occasions one of my friends has commented on posts and left names, when I notice this I remove the comments and post. I don't want to identify people, I moderate the comments because I care about privacy. If somebody chooses to use their real name as their screen name, that is their choice. I want people to speak freely, within the legal bounds and have privacy at the same time. If people choose not to be anonymous, that is their choice and I respect it. But I want us to have choices. And I have the choice of how I manage my blog.

On a side note, I was needed somewhere and had to stop in the middle of this post, actually towards the end. I have had pneumonia twice, both times I failed to take care of it in a timely manner. I sometimes suffer from bronchitis as a consequence. Today the sky is filled with smoke and ash, the ash dusted my car. I had a short episode of bronchitis and had to finish this quickly. My apologies, I am sure privacy and blogging will be in the news again and I will comment.