Joel Johnson, gadgets editor for the tech/science site boing boing, pulled a Harvey Pekar during his recent guest appearance on the online AT&T Tech Channel’s “Hugh Thompson Show.”
In 1988, Pekar, the “American Splendor” comic book writer, torpedoed his eighth (and final) appearance on NBC’s “Late Night with David Letterman” by criticizing General Electric (NBC’s parent company), for manufacturing weapons.
Johnson, exhibiting a politeness foreign to the notoriously-cranky Pekar, nonetheless used his guest shot on Thompson’s show to call attention to AT&T’s newly proposed (and very creepy) plan to filter user activity on the Internet.
From Joel Johnson’s Boing Boing site.
As you can see from the video, the crew ended up scrubbing the interview about half-way through. Figuring that might happen, I asked my steely-nerved friend Richard Blakeley to tape the first take. I wanted to make sure that we had a record of the event, primarily to ensure that AT&T would have no reason to try to bury the interview entirely—the same reason I am running this clip now, while discussion about what to do with my segment in post-production is surely underway.
After the crew got their wits about them—they were not very happy with me, understandably—we went on to shoot a second take, which to Hugh’s credit also included not only talk of gadgets, but of network neutrality and AT&T’s collusion with the NSA. I look forward to seeing that segment air on the The Hugh Thompson Show.
The crew was upset with me not only because I was making their job more difficult, but because they feared that my stunt would cost them their jobs. Everyone looked at the staff member who booked me on the show with sad eyes, assuring me that he would certainly be fired. After their initial panic at an interview gone off the rails the crew acted professionally and efficiently to continue shooting the show. If AT&T ends up letting a single person go from that crew, shame on them. What I chose to do has nothing to do with the crew or Mr. Thompson himself, who despite being visibly perturbed handled the whole mess like troupers.
Article on AT&T’s proposal at Slate.com
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I frankly believe that the Joel Johnson/Slate approach to evaluating AT&T’s internet filtering proposal is flat out wrong …all emotion, no real facts.
Slate for example screams about monitoring telephone calls for NSA, an obvious left-wing slant. Neither Johnson nor Slate give much space for AT&T’s approach to prevent illegal internet activity. I am not smart enough to know the details, but just like NSA’s packet monitoring, AT&T cannot read every email or snoop every site visited. They simply do not have the employees to make such personal intrusions …and it certainly would not be a profitable activity.
Come to think of it, AT&T would be wasting its time following sites visited because Google already does that.
Here is the AT&T’s public statement:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080123/world_forum_at_t.html?printer=1
I think that spying on someone’s internet activity should be held in the same regard as tapping a phone or opening a letter - court order required. The problem is, the internet is largely unregulated by the government, so these rules don’t apply.
My prediction is that eventually internet usage will become such a critical part of personal and business activity that people will demand that the government extend these privacy safeguards to it. Of course, that is the excuse the government is waiting for, so they can begin assessing some type of user fee on internet activity.
“I am not smart enough to know the details, but just like NSA’s packet monitoring, AT&T cannot read every email or snoop every site visited. They simply do not have the employees to make such personal intrusions …and it certainly would not be a profitable activity.”
They certainly don’t have employees reading the stuff but that doesn’t mean sophisticated data mining software can’t go through all the material and pull out specific pieces of data for further review.
As for profitability - well let’s just say the government has a lot of our money to spend…
I predict that AT&T will search for evidence of married men having affairs. They will turn this information over to the NSA who will in turn blackmail these men.
The NSA will offer these men a class-action settlement: Take care of our unpaid telephone spying bills and continue funding the program for the next five years and we won’t squeal to your wives. We the People then get to enjoy the privilege of being spied on while not knowing about it and not having to pay for it.
This proposal is of course run past the Justice Department first to check for constitutional correctness. Their verdict: These men are unfaithful because they seek relief from a bad marriage. If they were not able to find another woman to sleep with them, then they would probably turn to drugs as an outlet for their frustration. And of course, drugs are the tool of the terrorist because we all know that drugs never existed before 9/11. In summary, these men are potential druggies (a.k.a. terrorists). Therefore they are lucky to only be getting a fine.
And of course We the People will be fully informed of all this through the redacted version which reads: Today —– —– —– we have found a private donor to fund the past and continued operation of ——– —- —– —– a program that never existed in the first place —- —- ————, —– and which will be discontinued immediately —— —— —– GOD BLESS THE USA!