The Mental Masturbator

Imprudent Curiosity

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard of passport-gate, but I just heard a clip of Condi Rice that raised a few questions for me. Here’s the quote:

I’m certain that by now you’ve all seen the reports of an unauthorized look into the passport file of Senator Obama. We are very concerned about this. It appears on the first examination that indeed the system worked in that there is a flag that goes up if there’s any unauthorized look into a file of that kind. [source]

Ok, what kind of system is it where the computer recognises that an unauthorized access is taking place, and then instead of denying that access it simply allows it and takes note of it? That’s like me leaving my door unlocked and then, when I get home to find my house robbed, I find a note saying “Andrew, your house was robbed today!” Great fucking system.

And in the broader sense, this is why you don’t trust the government to spy on you! Obviously the government is going to have passport files, but it’s still a good example of why you don’t want all your private information in some database. It’s too easy for it to be leaked. And then your identity can be stolen, or if you’re a person of even mild recognition it can be used for blackmail or other shameless things. The point is that the government is a collection of people, and, like most collections of people, the majority of them are idiots. And all of them are flawed. And I don’t need a bunch of flawed idiots listening to my every word. I don’t need them scrutinizing my words to see if I’m a terrorist because flawed idiots might decide I am a terrorist even if it’s obvious I’m not.