Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Bacon Bits: The Madness Continues…

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

Yes, Virginia, our long statewide nightmare is almost over. Lawmakers in the General Assembly are scheduled to go home next week. In the meantime, life goes on, and we get news like this…

Silver Line looking tarnished. Phase 2 of the Silver Line, which extends the Washington Metro commuter rail to Washington Dulles International Airport, is already two years behind schedule. Now it could face more delays due to new problems revealed in a Metro Inspector General report.  The latest review, reports the Washington Post, found recurring problems with surge arresters that protect the Metro’s electrical systems; problems with the insulated rail joints at the rail yard; and a software validation issue relating to the system that allows operators to reduce train speeds. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) has been responsible for oversight of the two-phase, $5.8 billion Silver Line construction. The first phase opened in 2014.

The Blue Coats are Coming! The Blue Coats are coming! As the Democratic-controlled General Assembly puts the finishing touches on its gun control legislation, gun-rights activists in Amherst County and Nelson County are issuing calls to muster for the purpose of forming militias. In an interview with the News & Advance. Nelson County organizer Don Heres was vague about the proposed militia’s purpose. “He sees the future militia as a “resource for the county.” But “everything is all preliminary. We’re not really started yet. It’s a citizen’s group and the citizens will decide what we do, what we’re called, all those things.” Organizers in both counties are hoping for turnouts of 100 or more. The musters are not sanctioned by the county governments.

One Ring to rule them all. Shades of 1984 (or Sauron, take your pick)… The Albemarle County Police Department is partnering with Ring, the doorbell camera company, to get video from county residents deploying the surveillance cameras. The police department first started thinking about a partnership when a burglary victim brought a photo from his Ring app to police. Roughly 1,000 other departments are partnering with Ring, according to the Daily Progress. Said Police Chief Ron Lantz:“I think this is a way for us to partner with the community to help make this a safer place to live.”

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5 responses to “Bacon Bits: The Madness Continues…”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    The Ring phone idea is both intriquing and disconcerting if you think about the police also have the ability to use facial recognition.

    so many camera – everywhere – now sending images to a server that hold all the images in a city and the police (and probably individuals) being able to identify who image was captured.

    As they say, if you ain’t done nothing wrong – no worries !

    1. Steve Haner Avatar
      Steve Haner

      Practice your Mandarin…Tik Tok Tik Tok….Hey, I’ve had enough conversations on this to know few think about privacy anymore. Amazes me, but there it is. Hardly new that people will sacrifice privacy for perceived safety.

  2. Jim Loving Avatar
    Jim Loving

    I’ve been spending lots of times lately researching, and thinking about privacy. My former company, IBM, was among the first to instill a “Chief Privacy Officer” 20 years ago. But, it was also the chief promoter of increasing greater Instrumentation, Interconnection and Intelligence – read a sensor in everything, all connected and reporting, all consumed and sifted by increasing AI, anticipating and predicting and influencing human behavior for greater profit.

    Here are a couple of links: One a 35 minute podcast that interviews two authors and an investigative journalist, its a good start, and a link to a recent article which also has a short 7 minute video at the end of it, also very good.

    It most definitely past time for legislatures to begin thinking about, and acting on this issue.

    The privacy podcast, 35 minutes, from Derek Thompson of the Atlantic and his “Crazy Genius” series. Last year’s podcast series, starting in May, was dedicated to “unbreaking the internet” and the first episode was “Why Should We Care About Privacy?” (May 9, 2019).

    It is definitely worth a listen, as it gets into the substance of the answers to the podcast question, and how to think about this issue for yourself and for our society at large.

    In the podcast, he interviews three people:

    Sarah Igo, Vanderbilt historian and author of the book The Known Citizen – A History of Privacy in Modern America.

    Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (I have previously sent links on this)

    and Julia Angwin, an investigative journalist, now the editor of a nonprofit news site that aims to explore the societal impact of big tech and algorithms called “The Markup.”

    Their conclusions are very interesting, following the history of privacy protection concern in the US and the rise of the technology that heightened this concern.

    They conclude that this is not an individual privacy concern per se, the big problem is a “Collective Harm” problem, similar to Global Climate Change, and that individual action alone (like with solving GCC) will not address the underlying issues, but rather larger collective laws and procedures are needed.

    The second link is the the recent article – “A World Without Privacy Will Revive the Masquerade
    As the growing scale of facial recognition shows, more data can always be extracted.”

    Bacon’s Rebellion leaders and readers need to get up to speed on this, and let the opinionating begin.

    https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iswseg72nczz5ddixgxnqncrxgq

    https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/02/we-may-have-no-privacy-things-can-always-get-worse/606250/

  3. Jim Loving Avatar
    Jim Loving

    And, speaking of Virginia based jobs within an ED strategy, related to violations of privacy, here’s one about a company just down the street from me in Reston.

    https://www.protocol.com/government-buying-location-data

    1. vaconsumeradvocate Avatar
      vaconsumeradvocate

      Thanks for sharing these Jim Loving. I’ve long believed that privacy is dangerously ignored. One of my students will appreciate your info for her research!

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