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general freedom ideological culture privacy

Something to Protect

Some people, enemies of drawing the curtains, say: “If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.”

Doesn’t follow. Hiding is a form of protecting. We all have things to protect. Innocent people advisedly hide information from neighbors, from bureaucrats eager to erode liberty, from plain criminals.

And from the political fanatic who acts as a criminal. 

If you’re a political activist with a public profile, or even just a voter, it may be a good idea to prevent ideological criminals from knowing where you live or work. That’s why God gave us post offices boxes and commercial mail receiving agencies.

Somebody recently firebombed the offices of Powerline’s John Hinderaker, a pro-liberty activist. One fire was set in an office that he subleases in “the building that houses Center of the American Experiment,” Hinderaker’s organization, another near a law center that he works with in the same building.

The suspects are many. Why? Well, as Hinderaker told federal investigators, CAE is “unusually effective across a broad range of issues.”

If bad guys can do something to hurt you — doxxing, stalking, firebombing — once they’ve got certain information about you, it is eminently reasonable to keep that information as private as possible.

Even when such data is already circulating, you can take significant steps to improve your privacy. Among the better books on how to do so is How to Be Invisible by J. J. Luna. More current and comprehensive is Michael Bazell’s Extreme Privacy.

Worth consulting, since — without the recourse these resources provide — the cost of political activism could induce us to cede to evil people the future of our country and the world.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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privacy property rights Update

Update: The “No Duh” Element in Private Property

In yesterday’s update, we directed your attention to a court decision that showed some progress in preventing the federal government from outright theft via the medieval civil asset forfeiture technique. The Epoch Times reported. But there was a passage we did not quote:

“Plaintiffs do have a significant privacy interest in their safe deposit boxes, given that their conduct indicates they intended their items to be ‘preserved . . . as private,’ and society generally views the privacy expectations of items in safe deposit boxes as reasonable,” Judge Smith wrote.

Yes, Judge Smith, we do have “privacy interests” in our . . . private property.

It is right there in the term, private property.

The conceptual fight to reclaim our rights can be a tough slog through the obvious.

Categories
crime and punishment election law privacy

Donors Don’t Donate Their Privacy

Alabama recently passed a law to prohibit public agencies from disclosing information “that identifies a person as a member, supporter, or donor of a 501(c) nonprofit organization . . . except as required by law.”

SB59 is comprehensive, stating that “notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary,” no public agency may compel disclosure of such information or itself publicly release such information. 

The initial delimitation “except as required by law” seems ambiguous. But SB59 goes on to specify that exceptions would pertain to things like the requirements of a “lawful warrant” or a “lawful request for discovery of personal information in litigation.”

Passage is a big deal because, until now, agencies in the state had been permitted to collect and disclose such information.

Many nonprofits are political or ideological in character, promoting causes that are controversial. When this is so, who especially appreciates unfettered access to donors’ names and addresses? Obviously, opponents of the cause who would like to target donors with propaganda or even actively harass them.

On the national level, recognition of the problem is represented by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta. The court threw out a California requirement that nonprofits in the state had to divulge the names and addresses of their biggest donors to the attorney general. The Foundation plausibly argued that the requirement would deter people from contributing.

Several other states have also enacted SB59-style legislation. The number we need is 50.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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international affairs privacy

The Cuban Missive Crisis

Very soon, maybe, the Chinese government will be able to peruse secret military and other electronic missives being transmitted “throughout the southeastern U.S., where many military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic,” according to a Wall Street Journal story.

Under an until-now secret agreement between China and Cuba, Cuba will charge China a mere several billion dollars for Cuba’s permission to build the eavesdropping station on Cuban territory.

If cited intelligence is accurate, the planned station would enable China to spy on emails, phone calls, satellite transmissions, and other communications. The data thus scooped up would probably facilitate China-sponsored cyberwarfare and other sabotage, as well as its pursuit of overseas Chinese nationals that the Chinese government wants to keep trapped in China.

Craig Singleton, an analyst for the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says that moving to establish the spy facility “signals a new, escalatory phase in China’s broader defense strategy. The selection of Cuba is also intentionally provocative.”

Perhaps the publicity about the spy station will help to stop it from happening.

John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, told the Journal that its story is “inaccurate” without spelling out the inaccuracies. He also said that the U.S. is taking steps to counter Chinese development of such spy infrastructure. “We remain confident that we are able to meet all our security commitments at home and in the region.”

I guess we’ll see. Before it’s too late, I hope.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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international affairs privacy

Delivering to Evil

Will Americans who demand the outing of anonymous donors to political causes listen to Jianli Yang?

One reason that people donate to organizations anonymously — just as they want their votes and other personal information to remain confidential — is to avoid being harassed by political opponents.

But being bullied in a restaurant is hardly the worst that can befall donors stripped of anonymity.

Jianli Yang is a Chinese dissident. In 2008, after spending years in a Chinese prison for his activism, he founded Citizen Power Initiatives for China, a US-based organization working to advance rights and democracy in China.

Yang notes that Chinese supporters of his organization, even if residing outside of China, “can face extreme consequences when they are identified by the Chinese government.” Without the right to protect donor privacy, affirmed in a July 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision on the associational rights of donors, donors can end up being punished by the Chinese government.

The risk isn’t just theoretical. In April 2021, one Mr. Lee, a businessman, was forced to appear on Chinese television to “confess” to supporting Citizen Power Initiatives for China. The government also sentenced Lee to eleven years in prison.

We must fight both the CCP and their wannabe branch in DC. Things are nowhere near as bad in this country as in China. But we don’t know what threats we will face the day after tomorrow even from our own government.

We need every First Amendment protection we can get.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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general freedom media and media people privacy

CDC’s Covert Data Crime

The Centers for Disease Control has been criticized so often over the past couple of years — justly, only about 90 percent of the time — that one almost hesitates to add to the pile.

But hey. If the CDC stops saying and doing awful things, we can stop slamming it for saying and doing them.

The latest is the agency’s apparent use of Big Data to surveil cellphone users in ways the users never suspected or authorized.

Vice reports that the CDC paid for location data “harvested from tens of millions of phones” in the U.S. to track patterns of compliance with curfews, visits to churches and schools, and “monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation.”

CDC documents obtained by Vice suggest that although the pandemic was the rationale for getting the data, the CDC has planned to use it for other purposes too.

U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, is calling for an investigation. “Just because data exists, doesn’t mean that the government should be using it to track Americans.”

He adds that “the government is becoming way too big, and way too powerful.”

Sounds like a new development. But, depending on how you’re measuring it, the metastasizing of the federal government goes back to the Civil War era — or at least the New Deal. So may I suggest a revision, Senator, starting with verb tense?

“Has become.” 

Has become way too big and powerful

And is getting even more so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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