How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Big Data

Mollie Hemingway

Some conservatives are cheering on the federal government's collection of data on all Americans' phone calls, internet activity, credit card transactions, etc.

Wall Street Journal: Thank You for Data-Mining

Andrew McCarthy/NRO: Phone Record Gathering Story Blown Out of Proportion

And I suppose there's no reason why conservatives who cheered on President Bush's expansion of the surveillance state should feel differently about it just because President Obama has further expanded it and given it some teeth. I'm much more weirded out by the liberals who screamed bloody murder at the Patriot Act who have suddenly gotten all comfortable with it under Obama.

But knowing that liberty-loving Americans are in short supply, I've decided to just join with the other side. Embrace Big Data and Big Brother and everything. Is there any reason we have to suspect that our federal government would ever do anything nefarious against its citizens? Anything at all?

In 2008, Ian Ayres wrote "Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart." It's about meta-data analysis. On page 34, he writes:

"Imagine a world where people looked to the IRS as a source for useful information. The IRS could tell a small business that it might be spending too much on advertising or tell an individual that the average taxpayer in her income bracket gave more to charity or made a larger IRA contribution. Heck, the IRS could probably produce fairly accurate estimates about the probability that small businesses (or even marriages) would fail. In fact, I'm told that VISA already does predict the probability of divorce based on credit card purchases (so that it can make better predictions of default risk). (A little later on, we will take on whether all this Super Crunching is really a good idea. Just because it's possible to make accurate predictions about intimate matters doesn't mean that we should.) But I might at least want the option of having the government make predictions about various aspects of my life. Instead of thinking of the IRS as solely a taker, we might also think of it as an information provider. We could even change its name to the "Information & Revenue Service."

Don't you feel better? 

Wouldn't that be awesome to get the IRS engaged in some meta-data analysis? Why this meta-data doesn't just fight terrorist bombings in Boston (OK, bad example) but it can also tell you to get a divorce! And once we drop those barriers between agencies, the sky's the limit about what Big Data Brother can do for you.

Who else is on board?

Gentlemen, It's Fishnet Friday

On the Decline of the Obama Presidency:

"The Obama administration is in an unexpected and sharp state of decline. Mr. Obama has little influence on Congress. His presidency has no theme. He pivots nervously from issue to issue. What there is of an Obama agenda consists, at the moment, of leftovers from his first term or proposals that he failed to emphasize in his re-election campaign and thus have practically no chance of passage.

"Congressional Republicans neither trust nor fear the president. And Democrats on Capitol Hill, to whom Mr. Obama has never been close, have grown leery of him. ...

"The Obama breakdown was not caused by the trio of scandals -- IRS, Justice Department, Benghazi -- now confronting the president. The decline preceded them. It's the result of what Mr. Obama did in his first term, during the campaign and in the two months following his re-election. But the scandals have worsened his plight and made recovery next to impossible." - Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard Executive Editor

Dancing Madly Backwards on the Constitution

NSA Collects Phone Records of EVERY Verizon Customer

Poor Richards News

"If thought government spying on your phone records was just for journalists that make the Obama administration mad, think again. If you have a phone, there’s a good chance the Federal government has already tapped your phone records. A newly revealed order from the NSA shows that the agency is collecting the phone records of every single Verizon customer."

from The Guardian:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government’s domestic spying powers.

Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.

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"The 4th Amendment is essentially a worthless scrap of paper at this point unless Americans begin to stand up and demand an end to this kind of totalitarian statism.

If you’re a Verizon customer, I would highly suggest looking into a class action lawsuit." 

June 6th......

Get a Grip Europe. I Doubt We Will Shed Blood for You Again

HHS Sec. Says Gays More Likely to Have Mental Illness

Washington Examiner - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Monday said that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community will be a special focus of Obamacare because "for too long...[they] were pushed to the side."

 "For too long, the health concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals were pushed to the side. LGBT individuals have faced limited access to health care and insurance. They have been less likely to get the preventive care they need to stay healthy, they have higher rates of tobacco use, and they are often at increased risk for mental health illness," said Sebelius in her statement.  

Wait a minute! Gays and Lesbians aren't some group of people hiding under bridges or refused health care. They have a larger proportion of disposable income then the average American.......cause they generally don't raise children. And the Obama administration is saying that gays and lesbians are more likely to have mental illness. Isn't that homophobic?  Or could the APA be wrong afterall????

If Obamacare will have a "special focus" on LGBT issues, what does that mean for the rest of the country? Will it be time for their needs to be "pushed aside"?   

h/t City Square

T. Rex Terrorizes Bridal Party

A Totally Obvious Fake Photo.......

I mean, come on. Really?
In high heels? Running on grass?

There's Love in the Air......

Democrat Donors Flock to Christie 

Gov. Chris Christie's re-election campaign is collecting maximum
donations from traditionally Democratic donors, including a top
bundler for President Obama in 2008.

The Power Couple

Gov.Chris Christie is rumored to be a possible candidate for President in 2016, but make no mistake.  

Chris Christie is not a principled Conservative. He’s a big-government loving liberal Republican who likes to pal around with Barack Obama and take donations from George Soros.

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NJ.com  - "Gov. Chris Christie is cashing in donations from top Democratic fundraisers and other traditionally liberal donors across the country, even nabbing the support of a handful of rainmakers aligned with President Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Star-Ledger review of state and federal records shows.

The checks are flying into the Republican governor’s war chest from all sorts of unlikely places — the hedge fund run by liberal billionaire George Soros, for example, and the politically progressive halls of the University of California, Berkeley.

The nascent support from Democratic donors is an early sign of Christie’s fundraising prowess in a potential run for the White House in 2016, experts and Democratic donors said, and dovetails with recent polls showing him gaining popularity nationally among Democrats and independents....."

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