Yesterday, it was the Counter Culture. Today… it’s
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
More Here @ 3 pm (PST)
(This article refers directly to today’s issue of the Los Angeles Free Press. If you have not yet seen it, please, before reading further, click HERE.)
Yesterday, it was the Counter Culture. Today it’s…
all about who’s looking into our life and why, and how we, individually and collectively, have come to say no way, no more.
by Steven M. Finger
Thought it was important to let you know, via our first Item, that the invasion of privacy (in this case, pronounced as the British do…priv’acy) is not just an act of our government, but spreading throughout Europe like the latest fashion.
With that point made, we needed to return back to the US to make another one that may surely affect the future of our country. Most of us know of the Patriot Act, and we know it circumvents many civil rights we hold dear. But few of us have considered – may not even have known – of the impact it has on the rights of students. (Click here to review that posted article.)
In our earlier Series on the growing distrust of our government and the consequent rise of movements and third parties, students – educated, motivated and not willing to have their needs lowly prioritized – will be striving to be a larger component of the political process. The Patriot Act may put a brake on that.
On the other hand, an act of outright defiance – by what many consider one of the most meek and mild-mannered professional groups (librarians!!) – virtually ground one of those Patriot Act provisions to halt. While the article here speaks about the Chapters of the American Library Association putting forth resolutions, the word is that many a librarian simply put the regulation aside by refusing to record what books a patron choose to read.
They are lessons well-learned: divided we stand…, and personal courage shapes nations.
Our final Item ties more closely to those to lessons than you might suspect: it enables you to take a personal stand and it leads to a tale of personal fortitude and intrigue – another act of defiance that said, loud and clear that our personal business is our own business, here’s a wall for your peeking eyes.
Here are the keywords to our thinking today: Big Brother in Britain, Fair Trials International, James Slack, Surveillance Society, ACLU, Personal Privacy, Patriot Act, Section 203, Section 215, Section 901, Student Activist Groups, Students, Terrorists, American Library Association, Lauren Barack, Librarians, Patriot Act, Section 206, Section 215, Section 505, Cell Phone Encryption, PGP, Phil Zimmerman, Pretty Good Privacy, zphone, Art Kunkin, L.A. Free Press, Los Angeles Free Press, Changing Society, Self-Improvement, Social Change, Society & Culture
Here are links to today’s items:
[1] European police to spy on Britons: Now ministers hand over Big Brother powers to foreign officers
[2] Patriot Act Stands Over Students
[3] Librarians Push Against Patriot Act
[4] Encrypt Your Phone Conversations! Make Them Secure From Big Brother!
