« December 2005 | Main | February 2006 »
January 25, 2006
Prof's warning rings true
What's particularly troubling about President Bush's unwarranted wiretaps is that so many Americans apparently approve of them. An article by Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services notes the results of a poll showing that only a slim 51% of respondents in Arizona felt that the President should be required to get court approval before tapping the phones of suspected terrorists. (And keep in mind that under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, wiretaps can be hooked up first, authorized later -- so it's not as though the warrants required by the Constitution prevent quick action to gather intelligence on terror suspects.)
Fischer's article quotes Congressman Rick Renzi, who represents Flagstaff, as saying "It's not domestic surveillance," instead dubbing it surveillance for terrorist cells within the U.S., whatever that's supposed to mean. Renzi (never the sharpest knife in the drawer, although I did vote for him) is quoted as saying, "If we had done this prior to Sept. 11 (2001), we certainly would've been able to make some connections."
That's hogwash. The intelligence services had plenty of information on what was going on -- they just failed to do anything about it.
But back to Americans' acceptance of the Bush Administration's treating the Constitution as "just a piece of paper." This is exactly what an old history professor of mine, George Billias, told us would happen if the country were ever under serious threat from an external or internal enemy. He recounted an incident that had occurred in Germany, where his daughter had been traveling. There was a bank robbery, and in response, the local police and other law enforcement authorities sealed off streets, arrested all kinds of people, and took heavy-handed enforcement actions that would never have been allowed in this country. Germans, being accustomed to strong governmental authorities -- and not inclined to stand up for their rights -- routinely accepted such actions. Billias told us the same thing was likely to happen in this country, if we faced a threat. "You think you're all about Constitutional Rights, and that you're not going to stand for the government intruding on your lives, arresting people without charge, and putting them in jail without due process," he said. "But watch what happens when there's a threat to 'national security' from the Communists or some other bogeyman -- you'll give up your rights just as eagerly as the Germans did."
Pretty tough to argue with his assessment, isn't it?
Posted by Urbie at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
January 22, 2006
The White House -- nanny to the nation? Or, we're all Albanians now
The US Department of Justice has issued a subpoena demanding that Google turn over an entire week's worth of search logs. According to CNet's news.com, the DoJ wants the information to help it to establish how much pornography is available on the Internet. This is an attempt to figure out how to prevent kids from seeing things the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans think they shouldn't see, as specified in the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, which is being challenged in court by the ACLU.
There are a couple of issues here. No -- there are a truckload of issues here. But let's start with the most obvious ones.
If the Bush Administration wants to know how much pornography is out there, why doesn't it just sit a bunch of its spooks down at their computers and have them start searching for it? How is sifting through a week's worth of Google search strings going to make this task easier?
It would certainly be naive to assume, when surfing the net, that one is doing so anonymously and untrackably. But by and large, when you're Googling stuff, your assumption is not that Big Brother is looking over your shoulder.
The administration's fixation on pornography -- aside from being just plain unhealthy -- is most likely a cover for their wanting to keep tabs on people for any number of other reasons: keeping an eye on terrorism and left-wing politics, primarily. It's logical that they might want to monitor people's Web browsing habits, given that they already check up on the books you take out of the library (via the Patriot Act) and listen to your overseas phone calls (the infamous warrantless wiretaps). At a recent meeting between the President and some GOP Congressional leaders regarding renewal of the Patriot Act, Bush is said to have fumed, "The Constitution is just a piece of paper!" Apparently, Constitutional protections of free speech and privacy are less important than his inept efforts to keep track of what his enemies are doing. Richard Nixon would be proud!
I used to work for a large publishing company that produced a group of magazine database products accessible on-line (this was on CompuServe, before there was such a thing as a commodity ISP). We used to charge people $1.50 an article to read material from several hundred magazines, using what would now be called a search engine. The software that provided the service tracked its users very closely -- it kept a log of every search term they entered, how much time they spent logged in, and which articles they retrieved. We occasionally looked at the data using a "snoop" utility, to help customers who were having trouble getting what they needed out of the products. But we were extremely careful never to reveal to our customers the extent to which we could snoop them.
That's because people have a right to expect that searching for information on-line is not subject to surveillance. Whether you and I happen to be offended by what certain individuals are searching for is irrelevant. (This sounds hopelessly naive, I know -- but that doesn't make it less true.) The whole idea of the right to privacy, the 4th Amendment, and other protections against government intrusion into our lives, is that we, as a society, are willing to put up with a certain amount of harmful activity (including crime and terrorism) as the price we pay for having laws that provide fundamental protection for individuals.
What's even more disturbing is the Bush administration's likely next step: prosecuting individual citizens based on their having viewed illegal Web content (traceable by matching Google searches to the IP addresses of the computers that performed them).
Sitting at a Web browser, typing in a URL or clicking on a link, and looking at the text and images that appear on the screen (no matter how offensive they might be) is not, and cannot be construed as, a crime. It's like listening to a radio signal.
In some countries, listening to a radio signal is a crime -- I attended a gathering of Monthly Review readers some years ago, at which I listened to someone who'd spent a lot of time in eastern Europe discuss his experiences there. He mentioned that in Albania, it used to be illegal to listen to Greek radio stations coming in from across the border. Albanians could be arrested and jailed for the simple act of listening to the radio.
Loading a Web page -- assuming the content was created by someone else, and you're not paying them for it -- is exactly the same thing. If the Bush Administration makes this a crime, they're doing exactly what the Albanian government was doing when it banned Greek radio. Is this what we want?
Besides that, what does the DoJ think it's going to find, by looking through a week's worth of search requests? Surely they can't feign surprise that a lot of people are searching for Web content that caters to, shall we say, the more base aspects of human nature. Why is it necessary to spend taxpayers' money to confirm what we already know?
Posted by Urbie at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2006
Psssst! Wanna buy some answers?
Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported that college students now have the option of outsourcing their homework -- in some fields, like programming, it's easy to hire someone to write a program for you, for an assignment in a programming class:
The computer-programming student who goes by the handle "Lover Of Nightlife" did last month, as the fall semester raced to a close, could only have happened in the age of the Internet: He went online to outsource his predicament.
"This is homework I did not have time to study for," he said in a message on a Web site devoted to outsourcing computer projects. "I need you guys to help me."
Attached was a take-home final exam for a computer class that Mr. Nightlife Lover wanted to pay someone else -- presumably, someone from a place where people can't afford a lot of night life to begin with -- to take for him.
"This bit of commerce took place on Rentacoder.com, a Web site that has been mentioned before in this column as an example of globalization in all its blood-curdling efficiency. Rent A Coder enables people -- usually Americans -- who need computer programs to put them out to bid -- usually for cut-throat prices by Indians and Eastern Europeans." This is from Lee Gomes's "Portals" column.
Meanwhile, there appears to be a black market in textbook answer keys as well. Although some textbook publishers readily make available their solution manuals for student use, some are much cagier about it. As a result, there are people on eBay who are willing to sell electronic copies of the manuals (where they got them is anyone's guess).
It should be no surprise that there are plenty of places to buy old term papers -- and, in response, sites like turnitin.com, which are designed to help professors catch plagiarists. But the black-market solutions manuals are a new one on me. (I should note here that none of my accounting instructors grades homework on correctness -- some of them check to make sure you've done it and give you a few points on your semester grade for doing so, but they don't care if you've got the right answers or not; just that you've sat down and done the work. And in certain particularly tough classes, it's a good idea to go beyond doing the assigned homework and do as many problems as possible -- ideally, every problem in the book. In such a situation, an answer key would -- speaking hypothetically -- be useful for checking your own work to see if you're on the right track. But that would involve actually purchasing the item to find out for sure if it's real....)
Posted by Urbie at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2006
Time to tee it up again
OK, I've got my pencils sharpened, books bought, schedule arranged, and even went by the new business school building for a little advance reconnaissance the other day. Tomorrow, spring classes get underway.
I'm still not sure why last semester was such a struggle -- but the decks are cleared, ACC 455 is in the crosshairs, and other distractions have been reduced to a minimum. I'm relinquishing my part-time job as of February 3rd -- after that, I'll be a full-time student.
Meanwhile, I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to shoot 38 on the front nine at Beaver Creek on Saturday despite failing to hit a single green. On the scorecard, it's pretty clear how -- six one-putts -- but usually, no greens hit indicates a struggling day, while Saturday, I had my swing grooved pretty well. (Of course, that was of little help on the back nine, where although I did hit two greens, I shot 47.)
Posted by Urbie at 06:07 PM | Comments (1)
January 11, 2006
Me and My Camera Phone: Who'da thunk it?
When it comes to technology, I'm a notorious late-adopter. For a long time, I didn't care about the Web, nor was I interested in streaming audio and video, etc., generally favoring the text-only, store-and-forward models of Internet usage. I didn't have a cell phone for a long time, nor did I want one. And I remain staunchly opposed to getting an iPod, despite efforts from various quarters to convince me that I should have one.
So it may come as a surprise that I've become a fanatical adherent of what I once thought was a totally unnecessary gadget: the camera phone.
Where I used to think a camera phone was a classic example of an answer to a question no one was asking, I'm always taking snapshots of stuff -- typically, of myself in various settings. For example, here's a shot of me on the golf course a couple of weeks ago. Here I am at Sunset Crater National Monument, on a recent motorcycle ride. A few miles down the road, I'm at Wupatki National Monument. And here's a shot of my dirt bike out in the Cinder Hills, not far from our backyard.
Today's Wall Street Journal says that 53,000,000 camera phones were sold last year, up from 22,000,000 in 2004. I can see why -- it's great to be able to snap a quick shot of something interesting you might happen across, as you go about your daily routine. Here's a shot of me at my office.
I've never been that much of a shutterbug -- on a cross-country motorcycle trip back in 1994, I brought a camera along but used it very sporadically -- looking through the stack of photos from that trip, there'll be a whole bunch of shots from one particular location, followed by a gap of several days and hundreds of miles during which I took no pictures at all. If I'd had a camera phone, it would have been a different story.
Anyhow, I'll never buy another phone without an integrated camera!
Posted by Urbie at 05:41 AM | Comments (1)
January 08, 2006
Knocking on the door again
Before I get packed off in a box, one of my goals is to post a golf score beginning with 7. I've only had a few legitimate chances to break 80, but two of them have come in the past couple of weeks. Yesterday's adventure went roughly like this:
I go down to Prescott and tee it up on the North Course at Antelope Hills. Starting off eight over par after seven holes, I proceed to make 9 consecutive pars. Not really thinking too much about it until after the 15th, at which point I think, "hey, even-par for the back nine -- that means I have to go one-under over the last three holes to shoot 44-35-79." A par on 16 means I need to birdie either 17 (478-yard par-5) or 18 (392-yard par-4).
Second shot on 17, I get tentative with a 4-iron and practically lateral it -- fortunately, it hits a brick OB wall and caroms back into play. I almost recover and make par, but can't quite coax in a putt from the fringe.
So I think I have to make 2 on 18. My tee shot isn't bad, but it's in the left rough, leaving about 185 yards downhill to the green, with some overhanging branches from a tall poplar. Trying to hole the shot, I go for broke, attempting a low borer with a 4-wood. But I come across it, pull it wide left, and it hits the poplar and bounces OB.
Drop, hit 3-iron (maybe a better choice), miss the green... etc. End up making a snowman. OK, that's the price you pay for trying a Hail Mary shot and failing. I shove the card in my pocket and head home; or actually, to meet Meg and a friend at a restaurant in Flagstaff.
Later in the evening, I sit down at my desk, take out the card, and add up the back nine: 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4 ,3, 6, 8: um, 40? Wait a minute: five over par -- shouldn't it be 41?
At this point, I finally look up and realize that THE COURSE IS NOT PAR-72, IT'S PAR-71 (36-35). Even-par on the last two holes would have done the trick! This would change the strategy on 17 -- maybe not so aggressive trying to make birdie. And even assuming the bogey on 17, there was no need to hole that second shot on 18! Had I realized that, I'd have tried a higher-percentage shot -- maybe punching something down in front of the green to set up a birdie chip. Having already chipped in twice on the back nine, a third one would not have seemed impossible. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
Oh, well -- this is why we keep coming back and trying again. And I certainly shouldn't be complaining -- 84 isn't a bad score on the 6551-yard North course (although driving distances were aided by the winter dormant-grass conditions).
Posted by Urbie at 01:09 AM | Comments (0)