Rabbi Michael Lerner gave a barnburner of a memorial speech at the memorial for Muhammad Ali.
Based on the reaction shots, Bill Clinton seemed to really enjoy it, especially the part at 6:20.
Also tempts me to buy subscriptions to Tikkun for a few former students I know.
Previously: DSC Plays Its Trump Card, Clinton Fires 1st General Election Salvo, Clinton Attack: Salvo 2.
In addition to the good things Edward Snowden did by alerting us to the reality of NSA surveillance, there is one way in which I think his revelations may hurt privacy. This is not to say that on balance his revelations were unjustified, just that there’s a complexity about the long-run consequence of his disclosure that we should keep an eye on.
Before Snowden, the fact of NSA’s collection was a very highly protected secret. Consequently, there was only limited data sharing with law enforcement, and then only on condition that the fact of the NSA’s role never show up in court. Now that the cover is blown, so to speak, we should expect not only covert inter-agency data sharing to increase, but also a prohibition on letting it into court. Maybe not open court, but perhaps in a closed hearing, or secret brief. Likely beneficiaries are the DEA, the FBI, and maybe even some local cops in big target cities like New York or DC?
So, perversely, I expect Snowden’s revelations to have a limited negative consequence for privacy to balance against however we measure the positives.
Note: I could have sworn I posted something about this previously, but EPIC‘s Marc Rotenberg said he hadn’t seen it, and I couldn’t find it, so this one’s for you Marc.
I’m on the (token?) Privacy session for a day-long event organized by a panel of the National Academies of Science on “Improving Federal Statistics for Policy and Social Science Research Using Multiple Data Sources and State-of-the-Art Estimation Methods.” In other words, how to get the government in on the big data bandwagon.
My panel is moderated by EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg, and also features IBM’s Jeff Jonas. I’ve attached my slides for the talk on privacy issues with sensor data collection.
The event open to the public, and runs all day at the Keck Center, 500 Fifth St.NW, Room 100, Washington DC. Come along if you are in the neighborhood.
Jotwell Blenderlaw