Essays Tagged "MPR NewsQ"
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"Zero Tolerance" Really Means Zero Discretion
Recent stories have documented the ridiculous effects of zero-tolerance weapons policies in a Delaware school district: a first-grader expelled for taking a camping utensil to school, a 13-year-old expelled after another student dropped a pocketknife in his lap, and a seventh-grader expelled for cutting paper with a utility knife for a class project. Where’s the common sense? the editorials cry.
These so-called zero-tolerance policies are actually zero-discretion policies. They’re policies that must be followed, no situational discretion allowed. We encounter them whenever we go through airport security: no liquids, gels or aerosols. Some workplaces have them for sexual harassment incidents; in some sports a banned substance found in a urine sample means suspension, even if it’s for a real medical condition. Judges have zero discretion when faced with mandatory sentencing laws: three strikes for drug offences and you go to jail, mandatory sentencing for statutory rape (underage sex), etc. A national restaurant chain won’t serve hamburgers rare, even if you offer to sign a waiver. Whenever you hear “that’s the rule, and I can’t do anything about it”—and they’re not lying to get rid of you—you’re butting against a zero discretion policy…
Technology Shouldn't Give Big Brother a Head Start
China is the world’s most successful Internet censor. While the Great Firewall of China isn’t perfect, it effectively limits information flowing in and out of the country. But now the Chinese government is taking things one step further.
Under a requirement taking effect soon, every computer sold in China will have to contain the Green Dam Youth Escort software package. Ostensibly a pornography filter, it is government spyware that will watch every citizen on the Internet.
Green Dam has many uses. It can police a list of forbidden Web sites. It can monitor a user’s reading habits. It can even enlist the computer in some massive botnet attack, as part of a hypothetical future cyberwar…
So-called Cyberattack Was Overblown
To hear the media tell it, the United States suffered a major cyberattack last week. Stories were everywhere. “Cyber Blitz hits U.S., Korea” was the headline in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. North Korea was blamed.
Where were you when North Korea attacked America? Did you feel the fury of North Korea’s armies? Were you fearful for your country? Or did your resolve strengthen, knowing that we would defend our homeland bravely and valiantly?
My guess is that you didn’t even notice, that – if you didn’t open a newspaper or read a news website – you had no idea anything was happening. Sure, a few government websites were knocked out, but that’s not alarming or even uncommon. Other government websites were attacked but defended themselves, the sort of thing that happens all the time. If this is what an international cyberattack looks like, it hardly seems worth worrying about at all…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.