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05.02 11 Baltimore City Students Win Awards in Md. History Day Competition
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Ref. : Letters to the editor
05.15 Horrific Injuries Linked to BP Dispersant Corexit
05.15 'Last Call at the Oasis': Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water
05.14 German Government to Oppose Fracking
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05.02 Common Pesticide “Disturbs” the Brains of Children
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Ref. High health-care costs: It’s all in the pricing - graphic
Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians
Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics
Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators
Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here)
Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries
05.01 News Corporation has sought to undermine elected governments
Daily The Daily Howler
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05.03 Supreme Court Favorability Reaches New Low
05.01 Eliot Spitzer’s challenge to DOJ as it investigates Wall Street: ‘Bring some cases’ - video
05.01 Laissez-faire with strip-searches: America's two-faced liberalism
05.16 5 Ways Conservatives are Destroying the Institution of Marriage
05.16 Congress: The TSA Is Wasting Hundreds Of Millions In Taxpayer Dollars
05.16 The Economic Case for Same-Sex Marriage
05.16 If Information Is Power, What Is Lack Of Information? [video]
05.15 IMAGE: It doesn't have to be true, just credible...
05.15 WEDDING BELLS
05.15 Memo to Mitt: Time to Fess Up on Bullying
05.14 “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”
05.14 Hedges: How Our Demented Capitalist System Made America Insane
05.11 Why Atheists Have Become a Kick-Ass Movement You Want on Your Side
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05.10 Ballot Access
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05.03 Occupy May Day: Voices from the LA protests [video]
05.02 Jon Stewart Assails GOP for Their Hypocrisy on Obama Campaign Bringing Up Bin Laden [video]
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05.02 The Administration Is Scared of Its Own Regulatory Shadow
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05.16 Republican Party suckles at the breast of Big Business
05.16 Weisbrot and Krugman are Wrong: Greece cannot pull off an Argentina
05.15 Greek deadlock heightens fears of full European economic crisis
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05.11 Indentured Servitude for Seniors: Social Security Garnished for Student Debts
05.11 Breaking Up Four Big Banks
05.11 Wall Street’s immunity
05.11 How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
05.10 Real Estate 4 Ransom -- locking up the Great American Dream
05.10 Quelle Surprise! Fed Defends Incompetent Bank Management Against Investors
05.10 Europe’s Problems Multiply
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05.09 ALEC Affiliated Corporations
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05.01 Under Catholic pressure Paul Ryan backs away from Rand, Objectivism
05.01 Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!
05.01 Tea Party Congressmen Accept Cash From Bailed-Out Bankers
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05.01 No alternative to austerity
05.15 IDF closes Palestinian school to make way for West Bank training zone
05.14 Noam Chomsky on:
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•
Occupy Wall Street "Has Created Something That Didn’t Really Exist" in U.S. — Solidarity [video]
•
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05.14 INFOGRAPHIC: Gas Spending Around The World
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05.02 Collapsing Afghanistan & Pakistan Refuse to Cooperate with Obama Photo Op
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05.01 Quebec students ignite the popular imagination
05.01 Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in Resurgence
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COMMENTARY:
Thinking About Privacy
You see, the explosion of technologies and databases which has occurred in recent decades documents the minute details of who we call, who we email, what websites we visit, where we travel/drive, and what we purchase via credit/debit cards or checks. These data are ever so accessible both legally and illegally/covertly. The ever-present eye of the fictional “Big Brother” of George Orwell’s book 1984 is alive and with us in the twenty-first century.
Under the guise of Homeland Security in the post 9-11 era, we the people have learned of government access to phone records, credit/debt card statements, global positioning satellite (GPS) trackings, web searching histories, and surveillance videos—all gathered by Uncle $ugar without benefit of either subpoenas or search warrants. We have been told such data is merely generic and is necessitated in the interest of security. The legal justification came from nothing more than the “I need it, I want it, it’s mine” of a gaggle of executive orders from the President.While there has been a tempest in a teapot on the web, there have been no court challenges—yet.
From my experiences as a forensic accountant investigator for the FDIC/RTC working on cases for failed banks and savings and loans, I know how the seemingly harmless “generic” data (that fell into my lap during the interventions at those institutions) could be leveraged into killer questions at subsequent depositions—and later into specific warrants and subpoenas. This is spinning straw into gold—pure and simple. When dealing with reputations, the appearance of impropriety is as lethal as any actual impropriety. Or, as in an underlying theme from the 1970 Oscar winning movie, "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion": “in every criminal a subversive may be hiding, and in every subversive a criminal may be hiding.”
Other than an occasional partisan “burp” from Capitol Hill, our elected members of Congress have been deafeningly silent on the assaults made on the privacy rights of mere citizens—until an ongoing bribery investigation of a US Congressman led to a search of his congressional office, that is...
Now, judging from the brouhaha coming from both sides of the aisle, the right to privacy has “roots” in the separation of powers guaranteed by the US Constitution. To fully appreciate/understand this blatant hypocrisy of selective outrage, one need only look to George Orwell’s other book, Animal Farm, which states that “all animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.” Orwell’s choice for “the first among equals” species is just too metaphorically on point to be politically incorrect.
I’m Fred Cederholm and I’ve been thinking. You should be thinking, too.
To “audit” this column and to learn more about the subjects discussed, please check out:
- Things that are not in the U.S. Constitution
- U.S. Constitution: Ninth Amendment
- 'Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion' (1970)
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on June 8, 2006.
