Letters to the Editor

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ondelette

Published Letters: 1973     Editor's Choice: 19

  • I got into science and math...

    [Read the article: PBS's "Frontline: Spying on the Home Front"]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    ...for the beauty of it all, so I could understand things, to make a better world, to participate in the creation of knowledge, for the excitement of solving a problem, to invent new ways to improve the world, or maybe because I was good at it. I got into language because I hoped it would help my painting. I got into painting to create beauty.

    So when I was in my twenties, they told me I could make a living spying on people, in my thirties, making ways to disperse nerve gas, and in my fifties sifting through other people's electronic lives. Why?

    Just because it is made of electrons and photons doesn't mean it isn't a fortress, and no one seems to care anymore that a fortress becomes a prison. There are so many things of beauty you could do with data, but no, we have to assume that 6 billion people are terrorists so we can look for ticking time bombs? And if you don't want to, you can crank out IP for greedy corporations who will never fund anything but a sure bet.

    Sorry, but my steam valve blows once in a while.

    Giving credit where credit is due, the lack of attention to datamongering below the radar was pointed out by Lisa S. not shooter.

  • Idealism isn't supposed to be realistic...

    [Read the article: What Fred Thompson means by the "rule of law"]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    ...it's supposed to be touching. The alternative is aspen trees turning yellow in clumps, which is supposed to be the rule of law.

  • O/T but on the last T

    [Read the article: What Fred Thompson means by the "rule of law"]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    Let's see if this works: Here is one source for the TIA project moved to Singapore, using the tinyurl format that Karen M. was trying:

    http://tinyurl.com/38ver9

  • I guess there are people still here

    [Read the article: PBS's "Frontline: Spying on the Home Front"]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    So I'll put it up here (sorry for moving on and posting an O/T on the Fred Thompson subject).

    I had posted earlier about the Total Information Awareness program never having quit, just moved to Singapore. Here is a link (I had promised one in my post):

    http://tinyurl.com/38ver9

    Given what Tukey once said about torturing the data until it confesses, could moving your datamining operation to a country that permits it be considered a form of extraordinary data rendition?