My Surveillance Problem and Yours

You can always retrieve that lost e-mail: The Utah Data Center, also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, under construction near Bluffdale, Utah. Photo: Swilsonmc

From the current issue of San Francisco's Marina Times — perhaps not an opinion likely to be met with love and charity in the land of the aging baby boomer:

BUSINESS AS USUAL
My Surveillance Problem and Yours
By John Zipperer  

Bay Area tech companies found themselves in some unfamiliar, muddied waters when it was reported in a British newspaper that a massive U.S. government spy program was collecting daily records on pretty much every user of Verizon. Next came disputed claims that the government had direct access to the central databases of such tech giants as Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, and others.  

Edward Snowden, the young CIA contractor who leaked the tech surveillance information, fled to Hong Kong, saying he had faith in its legal system to protect him. He is really saying he has faith in China’s legal system, because ... 

Read the entire article ...

ISI Full Civic Literacy Exam

In my new column in Northside San Francisco (which is out on the stands now, and I'll post a link to the online version in a week or so), I note some of those notorious survey results that show that Americans are less knowledgeable about the world than they should be. Real survey results, such as that more Americans can name two members of Snow White's Seven Dwarfs than can name two members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Or that a majority of Americans don't believe in evolution. Or that a quarter of Americans don't know what country we fought to gain our independence.

One could go on, but demonstrating the lack of informed opinion in this country is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel; it's just too easy. And all the water leaks out from the bullet holes.

So I was pleased when a friend send me a link to an online survey from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's 33-question Full Civic Literacy Exam. It notes: "The average score for all 2,508 Americans taking the following test was 49%; college educators scored 55%."

Take the test, then come back here and tell us in the comments section below what your score was. (Be honest; you can post anonymously.)

For the record, I got 93.94%. Now, that and $3.00 will get me a cup of coffee, and I don't even drink coffee, so it's pretty useless. But it should be noted that I'm an editor, writer, and publisher, not a college educator, so you can now think your own thoughts about the decline of American civilization.

UPDATE July 3, 2011, 9:35 a.m.: I should note that after I took the test and posted this to Facebook and my blog, I looked further into ISI, which is connected to the conservative Collegiate Network, which used to be known as the Institute for Educational Affairs (a nonprofit that helps conservative college newspapers, including one I edited back in the 1980s at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). The test isn't necessarily conservative, though there are a few economics questions that likely wouldn't please left-wingers. Just FYI, in the interests of full disclosure. (And though no, I wouldn't fit any real definition of a conservative today, I do think that overall this is a good test. It's not tricky, and most people really should know all of the information it tests.)

The Julian Assange Wikileaks Poison Pill

Supposedly Wikileaks provocateur Julian Assange – now languishing in a UK prison on suspicious rape allegations from Sweden – and his fellow Wikifreaks have a "poison pill" of information that gets automatically released if anything serious happens to them.

That might be true and it might not. Maybe we'll find out. But if this organization has some bombshell of information, why won't it just release it already? I thought the whole point of that group was to make secret information public, to take down what it sees as evil manipulative governments regardless of the cost.

So some information is worth keeping secret by Wikileaks, but governments don't get to keep information secret? And Wikileaks is the arbiter?

Governments have millions of shortcomings, but at least they are more responsible to their citizens than is Wikileaks.

Illinois Governor Blagojevich Arrested; Feds 2, Illinois Governors 0

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) recently urged President George W. Bush to commute the sentence of Blagojevich's predecessor, George Ryan (R), who was convicted of various crimes. No word yet on that pardon, but Blago (as he's known to his legions of enemies) may be in need of a pardon himself. This morning came the shocking news that Blagojevich has been "taken into custody" by federal agents as the result of an undercover investigation of a broad array of corrupt practices. Apparently, the guv was trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama.

Even in Illinois, that's illegal.

Read the charges and the latest updates. I won't reiterate them here.

I will, however, note that as a born-and-bred Wisconsinite (now living on the West Coast), this does somewhat amuse me. After all, in various social studies and civics classes on good government (and in Wisconsin, most social studies and civics classes are good government classes), New York's Tammany Hall and Chicago, Illinois, were the go-to topics to demonstrate the perils of unclean and corrupt government, influence-peddling, low-morals, etc., etc., etc.

Two consecutive Illinois governors have now been arrested. It'd be funny if ... no, it's funny.

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