41–46 of 46 posts
This "article" is just a nasty, shrill, highly political and vitrolic commentary. Can't we find more thoughtful content for HN? Yes I think it's significant that Chertoff's new company works for the body scanner folks, but this has already been dealt with on HN with links to much saner content.
Where would that "saner content" be?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-conf...
The issue is one of privacy. These corruption accusations detract from the heart of the matter. Would it be a "win" if the scanners were all removed because of corruption? No, the point is the acknowledgement of the rights of the individual to a certain level of privacy. By the way, it's not weird for a man to switch to a company he's dealt with personally and whose products he presumably respects.
> By the way, it's not weird for a man to switch to company he's dealt with personally and whose products he presumably respects. I think its troubling that you don't see anything wrong with this.
If it's perfectly reasonable that I'm prohibited from working for our printer paper supplier (however much I respect them) why is it ok for a government official to skip to a company that he wrote a big taxpayer check to?
I'd want politicians/bureaucrats to be able to earn a living after office, but I fear that more often than not, there's an old boy network of giving out high paid jobs to compensate for past favors.
This "article" is just a nasty, shrill, highly political and vitrolic commentary. Can't we find more thoughtful content for HN? Yes I think it's significant that Chertoff's new company works for the body scanner folks, but this has already been dealt with on HN with links to much saner content.
Dick Cheyney as sec. defense for Bush I setup the privatization policy for military non-combat jobs. Then he joined Haliburton - then went ad created a war to funnel profits his way.
Tom Ridge as the first director of homeland security required shipping containers to be searched and tagged and tracked etc - then he left to join the board of Savi/Lockheed Martin.
You think that Chertoff is any different?
What about Rumsfeld?
This is nothing new -- but it sure is getting annoying!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be a huge win if the scanners were removed because of corruption. It would be an even bigger win if people went to jail because of it, but I'm not holding my breath. "The heart of the matter" is restoring our rights at the airport. Exposing the corruption that's part of the surveillance-industrial complex can play a big role in this. Privacy, effectivness, civil liberties, impact on business, and kids rights…
How short-sighted. If they were removed because someone wrote a bad check would that be acceptable to you as well. The devices are an invasion of privacy and that should be confronted head-on, otherwise, there will just be the next invasive device to deal with.
The REAL ID battle of 2007 is a good template for privacy and civil liberties successes. The coalition involved privacy and civil liberties organizations, security experts, libertarians, progressives, migrant rights activists, fiscal conservatives, agriculturalists, transgendered people, biblical literalists, and states-right'ers. A lot of people believe that we won largely on the cost issues.
By contrast, activism against the PATRIOT Act and FISA hasn't assembled that broad coalition. And guess what? Thus far we've lost.
So yes, I certainly agree that it's critical to confront the privacy issues head-on -- and there's plenty of that going on too. I just don't think that's the only way to approach it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do sympathise but On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. There is no doubt that people find this relevant and interesting. It'll pass.
There is no doubt that "people" find this relevant and interesting. Do "good hackers", in their capacity as good hackers, find it relevant and interesting? I would definitely expect to see it high on the front page of Reddit, but this is not the sort of thing I come to Hacker News for. Politicians using their positions for future profit is not an interesting new phenomenon in any way.