[IP] Reply to EPIC letter questioning Roberts' views on electronic privacy [priv]
from
Thomas H. Lipscomb
Founder of Times Books
Begin forwarded message:
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Date: September 21, 2005 12:48:00 PM EDT
To: politech@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Politech] Reply to EPIC letter questioning Roberts' views
on electronic privacy [priv]
Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/09/20/judge-john-roberts/
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [Politech] Judge John Roberts' views on electronic
privacy: should we be worried?
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:56:43 -0400
From: <tomlipscomb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan@xxxxxxxx>
Declan:
" What..? Me worry?"
Total nonsense!
EPIC has done fine work... but on this they are simply absurd. This is
tribal Tutsi vs Hutu... it has nothing to do with any kind of juridicial
reality. It is pure and simple blackmail subtext and like the irascible
sweet-talked kid in the highchair in the Carl Rose NYer cartoon
facing an
anxious Mommy and her offered spoon... "I say it's spinach and I say the
hell with it!"
The usual teeny weeny tiny minority party line groups are showing up
with
the usual suspects muttering their eternal "doubts" about what THEY have
decided is in the best interest of the vast majority.
Well I have "doubts" TOO about Roberts.. And that is exactly what I
want to
have with any decent candidate for SCOTUS-- just like the able Ruth
Bader
Ginsburg.
EPIC should join the "Psychic Friends Network" and continue vacuous
speculations about their "beliefs" about what Roberts may or may not
"believe," or get REAL.
A Congress so irresponsible as to rush to sign the ghastly Patriot Act
without even bothering to read it... is hardly an ideal place to
criticize a
judge that is at least appears to be doing his best to have an open
mind in
spite of catechism drafts offered for his signature by Senator Chuck
Schumer
and Ann Coulter. I'd frankly expect Roberts to do far better for us on
privacy than the miserable "Patriot" Act. And in the end... EPIC may
well
celebrate his contribution and the right feel abused.
Of course he IS Christian... and ( gasp, horrors! ) Catholic, and is
that so
hard for the less than 1% and diminishing percentage of liberal Jews
in the
American population that is so "deeply concerned" about ANY GOP
Christian
nominee... to allow the majority of Americans?
How much of a percentage of the "restricted" Bar Association senior
positions for "gentiles" at the law is small enough for the barely 1%
of the
US population so disproportionately in power not to be
"concerned...?" And
then let's go on to the dying MSM positions or intellectually stagnant
academia for that matter. Take a quick look at the most unbalanced,
financially perilous, and counterproductive "affirmative action
program" in
America. You are seeing it in action here as the NY Times/Boston Globe,
Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and other papers fire hundreds of
valuable staff rather than face facts. And more importantly, we are in
danger of seeing one of the most essential foundations of popular
democracy
being suffocated in the hands of a kieretsu monopoly, unwilling to
respect
their responsibility to their shareholders or their markets rather
than the
shibboleths of their intransigent top-down elitism.
Unrepresentative WASP-ridden media were dying in the 1890s before in
desperation they included the fresh blood of emerging immigrant
talent. And
a resulting burst of "yellow journalism" was the best thing that ever
happened to the press for the next century.
So check the carefully ignored demographics of the fields of the law and
journalism, so universally detested today by every opinion poll of the
American people. If the American Bar, much less Bill Keller at the NY
Times,
wants to "preserve our readers' trust," how hard is it? How about
stopping
holding tedious, incomprehensible conferences about minute issues of
minority representation more suitable to medieval scholastics and
starting
to worry about why the majority of markets are finding them increasingly
irrelevant?
Doesn't this all look all too familiar? Do we have to go through all
this
again, just because elites can't learn from history? Does it really
matter
who the elites are?
And isn't that REALLY the tribal subtext of all this? And isn't all
unbelievably stupid, sad, and anti-democratic?
Thomas H. Lipscomb
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