The Rogers Doctrine: More Transparency Creates More Privacy Violations, Since You'll Find Out About Them
from the we-deserve-better dept
We recently wrote about the absolutely bizarre claims of Rep. Mike Rogers, the man supposedly in charge of "oversight" of the Intelligence Community, claiming that there can be no privacy violations "if you don't know your privacy is violated." This has resulted in plenty of mocking, including with satire so good many people believed it. It's also been picked up, somewhat, by the bastions of pop culture, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Stewart covered it on Wednesday's episode of The Daily Show, though it feels like he sort of underplayed the absolute ridiculousness of Rogers' statement. Colbert's version, however, was quite well done, and gets better as you go along (and, yes, I know, that video can't be seen in many regions, but if you can't watch the video, you can see the animated gif version instead:Let's say, instead of falling in the forest, the tree is standing outside your house and I'm hiding in it watching you shower. So far, I'm not violating your privacy. But the second you see me through the window, suddenly I'm the criminal? What about my privacy? I'm trying to masturbate here. Come to think of it, there are all sorts of victimless crimes like this. We know people getting assaulted because they call the police. But I've never heard of anyone calling the cops because they were murdered. Therefore, clearly, no one was killed. By the same logic, folks, I have not insulted Mike Rogers as long as he never hears me say: The reason Mike Rogers uses circular logic is because his head is jammed up his own ass.Meanwhile, over at Slate, Will Oremus has also written about Rogers' comment, and also come up with a name for it. He calls it "Rogers' Paradox," noting that it's a variation on the historical concept of "what you don't know can't hurt you," and how this is "an age-old excuse for people in power to trample on the rights of those without it."
Of course, obviously, I do not mean a word of that. I admire what historians will now call "The Rogers' Doctrine": when it comes to privacy vs. security, we can have one of them, as long as we don't know which one it is. That way, we can maintain our constitutional rights. Or, if they do take away our rights, just don't let us find out. That way, we'll still have them.
But, Oremus makes an even more pertinent point. If Rogers' statement is accurate (and it's not), then it would actually mean that greater transparency itself would harm people's privacy because they'd find out about it. Think about that for a second. Under the logic of Mike Rogers' twisted mind, the more transparency there is about privacy violations, the more those non-privacy violations become privacy violations -- and thus he must fight against such transparency at all costs to protect our privacy.
And this is a guy in power.
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Filed Under: mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, privacy, transparency
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The reason Mike Rogers uses circular logic is because his head is jammed up his own ass.
Clearly he used Rogers as the example. Although I must admit it's a pretty weird way of masturbating.
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It's why he's hilariously awesome.
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Seems pretty normal to me.
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Should we call that the Ostrich Power Position?
Doesn't that kind of pose diminishes the "stature" of the office while supposedly increasing its power?
Is this going to replace the five second rule?
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He belongs in a prison cell. Along with Feinstein, Alexander and Clapper.
Bottom line.
It is a grave injustice to the American people that these four are given charge over anything more than outhouse cleaning.
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If you steal all the money in a bank vault without getting caught, you haven't committed a crime?
Or is it just those who have sworn oaths to obey they law who get such privileges?
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http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-30-2013/a-bugged-life---plausible-deniability-scra mble
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OH, Mike! Just wait 'til you find out about Google's spying!
ALL SPYING IS CREEPY. And must ALL be limited before they've every last gadget in place: "the internet of things", where even your refrigerator will be a gov't/corporate agent.
The Google-Borg. Assimilating your privacy since 1998.
05:49:06[g-402-6]
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Google!
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Re: OH, Mike! Just wait 'til you find out about Google's spying!
Getting around the NSA is significantly harder and will require darknet usage which will have an effect on your browsing speed. Further, if things get bad enough the NSA might end up going after people just for using darknet or encryption protocols, rendering the exercise useless.
See, the NSA is worth dealing with first, then we can look at what needs to be done about Google.
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Irony
Further -
Why are we now dependent on our comedians for the only insightful analysis of what's going on?
"Life is but a dream" - Spock
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Remind me again who said "we can't find out how many Americans we have data on because that would violate their privacy"?
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The metadata is only collected if the information is read and I have no way of knowing if it's been read therefore the metadata hasn't been collected. I am once again ignorant of the fact that my privacy may have been violated and so it hasn't been violated.
If I consider that my private communications being stored without my knowledge is a violation of my privacy I am told that what I have heard and/or read isn't true and/or accurate which means I don't know what I know and if I insist I know what I know I simply don't understand what I know as it hasn't been explained clearly.
After this I am back to square one, I remain ignorant and my privacy hasn't been violated so I don't feel the need for anybody to be held accountable for illegal mass surveillance.
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Similar historical logic
introduction of helmets -> more wounded -> helmets "bad"
There was even a correlative and causative connection! Following such logic without question, one can than arrive at the conclusion that helmets were obviously a bad idea. Ta-da! Logic in action!
And why there were more wounded? Because soldiers who wore helmets received head wounds instead of fatal injuries and so lived instead of dying.
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You forgot something, He's also Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Chairman).
Some oversight this douche provides...
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SORRY, BUT THIS VIDEO IS UNAVAILABLE FROM YOUR LOCATION
It's one of the detriments of living under a monarchy. But in case you can't give up your vegemite and move to America, watch clips from The Colbert Report at the comedychannel.com.au
I looked at that website, it's a fucking tragedy when it comes to navigating to what you want. Sorry, but it gets a fail.
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Schrödinger's Privacy
Depends upon whether it was viewed.
Flawless logic there
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Jesus Christ!
Not to self - restore volume after blasting AC/DC
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