Random Weekend Pictures
Majority See Government As a Threat
Government is a threat. Sound crazy? It didn’t to the founders of our country who, after witnessing the ostensibly-republican government of Britain’s despotism toward them, crafted a government for the new United States of America that would have strictly limited and broadly distributed powers and authorities. They saw government un-checked as a threat to liberty and did everything they could to ensure that our government would always answer to ‘we the people.’
It turns out, however, that the founders and I are preaching to the choir these days. Amid the Great Awakening in America going on now, CNN reports that 56 percent of Americans now rightfully view the government as a potential threat to our civil liberties. Broken down ideologically, strong majorities of both Republicans and independents (70 percent and 63 percent, respectively) see the government as a threat. 37 percent of Democrats are also mistrustful of the government.
I’m cautiously optimistic that the people of this great country are finally waking up.
Hooray for Health Insurance
I’m not generally a fan of medical insurance companies, but boy do I appreciate them at times like this. I just got our claim information for Melissa’s surgery in January.
The total hospital bill was $21,823.93, but we only have to pay $385.51. Not bad, huh?
Keep in mind too that this is just the hospital stuff. The surgeon’s bill is handled separately, as are some of the other things, so the real total bill amount (and the real total out-of-pocket amount) will be much higher.
But, because we have the good sense to be insured against this kind of thing, we’re certainly not at any serious financial risk. The total out-of-pocket amount will probably be less than the cost of a major car repair.
Palm Pre Plus and Palm WebOS
Background
In September of 2008, I wrote about the then-sorry state of smartphones. I wanted five things: reliability, extensibility, usability, push email, and a real keyboard. At the time I went through the litany of major smartphone operating systems available at the time and how they all fell short on one or more of my simple requirements.
A little over two months later, I bought the best phone available at the time: the BlackBerry ‘Bold’ 9000. It served me very well for the time I had it, and I really only had two major complaints—the reliance on the Research in Motion (RIM) data center as a data go-between, and the lack of real IMAP email support. Of course, it was also on the AT&T network, which deteriorated rapidly over the last six months or so in the D.C. metro area. That can’t be blamed on the phone or its operating system.
When we decided to eat our early termination fee and switch back to Verizon, it was time to evaluate our smartphone options once again. Since I got the Bold, two new players came on the scene: Google’s Android operating system, and Palm’s WebOS. Both bring the flare of a modern mobile operating system without the kludgey limitations of Apple’s iPhone or the RIM data center. After considering both options (and also duly considering sticking with BlackBerry), we decided to go with our old friend, Palm.
Public Schools: Still Shredding the Constitution
I really still can’t make sense of why so many public schools insist that they have the right to invade the privacy of their students. Even though they are government entities, and thus bound by Constitutional limits on the powers of government, they blithely insist they have the right to subject students to invasive searches without probable cause, confine them against their will, limit or eliminate entirely their free speech and press rights, and more. These things are bad enough on school property during school hours, but more and more our public schools claim these same fictional authorities over students after-hours and off-grounds.
A fine example occurred recently in Pennsylvania—one that is surprising to me only because people are acting like it’s something out of the ordinary. The Lower Merion School District, like many districts, issued laptop computers to its students for the year which, provided they paid for some insurance, they were permitted to take home and use after hours. The school, however, had installed software that allowed them to remotely monitor the webcams on these computers. The district claims that they only used the technology when laptops were reported stolen, but at least one student—who is now suing the district—was confronted by school officials after being caught on webcam supposedly breaking school rules in his own home.
First off, school rules and authority do not apply at home. Period. The end. Even if the school had the right to use the webcam to take the picture of the student supposedly doing something wrong, what happens outside of school is none of the school’s business. Second and more importantly, schools simply do not have the authority to invade a student’s home, electronically or otherwise. In fact, what the school system did here was egregious enough that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation . . . though if they were to start an investigation every time a public school trampled a student’s legal rights they wouldn’t have time for much of anything else.
What on earth made the school officials think this was appropriate? We live in a country where fourteen-year-old girls get slapped with child pornography charges for taking photos of themselves; what if the school had turned on the webcam and captured a student in a state of undress? That’s transmitting child pornography over the Internet, plain and simple. Using recording devices in this way is also an unreasonable search and seizure (unless they had a warrant), and violates federal wiretap laws.
This has gotten far, far out of hand. Once again, maybe our schools would be a bit better if they redirected their efforts toward education instead of spying on, restricting, and micromanaging their students.
Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.