Major Ivanov, the Path debacle, and the reasonable expectation of privacy

I grew up with very little expectation of privacy. Unpleasant as it was – and for the wrong reasons – this has me well prepared for today's society where we give up privacy voluntarily in exchange for free services. But I don't understand all the complaining about the lack of privacy. Why is everyone up in a tizzy over the Path address book debacle? What were people thinking? What were they expecting?

This old Soviet joke explains why no Eastern European of my generation will be surprised in the slightest:

Three strangers share a hostel room. Two keep telling political jokes long into the night, keeping the third from sleeping. Finally the sleepy fellow goes out to the concierge and asks her to bring a pot of tea to the room in 15 minutes. A little later, back in his room, he leans into the lamp shade and says: “This is Major Ivanov. Could you please bring in some tea?” Sure enough, the concierge brings in the tea. The room is quiet for the rest of the night.

The next morning our fellow wakes up all by himself. “Where are the others?” he asks the concierge. “Oh, Major Ivanov took them.”

That was then. You knew you had no privacy, and acted accordingly.

This is now. People expect privacy (which they gave up voluntarily), and are all bent out of shape every time a "privacy breach" gets exposed.

WIRED: January 26, 1999 – The chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems said Monday that consumer privacy issues are a "red herring." "You have zero privacy anyway," Scott McNealy told a group of reporters and analysts Monday night at an event to launch his company's new Jini technology. "Get over it."

So this is it – same thing. Except that now it is business doing the snooping, not the government. People should get over it and go on with their lives. Or stay out of the proverbial kitchen.

VIVA LO RESOLUTION

Christo's The Gates opened seven years ago

I went on opening day. It was Saturday, February 12, 2005. I brought home a fabric sample (swatch).

Gingrich wins South Carolina primary; hopes Americans have matured; I don't think so

Is Newt Gingrich electable?

I try not to get involved with US politics. Hell, I don’t even vote, so it’s none of my business, right? Yet, as a student of American society and of human nature in general, I cannot but wonder whether the Gingrich campaign has forgotten Gary Hart, or whether they think that American society has changed all that much in the last 25 years, or whether American society has indeed changed. It used to be that Americans didn't want their presidents to deceive their wives but they didn’t mind if their presidents deceived Congress. Is this not the case any more?

Let me remind you what the great John Irving wrote about Gary Hart and American society in “A Prayer for Owen Meany”:

Toronto: May 9, 1987 – Gary Hart, a former U.S. senator from Colorado, quit his campaign for the presidency after some Washington reporters caught him shacked up for the weekend with a Miami model; although both the model and the candidate claimed that nothing “immoral” occurred – and Mrs. Hart said that she supported her husband, or maybe it was that she “understood” him – Mr. Hart decided that such intense scrutiny of his personal life created an “intolerable situation” for him and his family.

[…]

What do Americans know about morality? They don’t want their presidents to have penises but they don’t mind if their presidents covertly arrange to support the Nicaraguan rebel forces after Congress has restricted such aid; they don’t want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don’t mind if their presidents deceive Congress – lie to the people and violate the people’s constitution! What Mr. Hart should have said was that nothing unusually immoral had occurred, or that what happened was only typically immoral; or that he was testing his abilities to deceive the American people by deceiving his wife first – and that he hoped the people would see by this example that he was immoral enough to be good presidential material!

Mask party at the art gallery

That's what I'm talking about!

US economic decline brings down immigration

What I have been saying for years, and what immigration attorneys have known all along, has now made it to Fox News: US economic decline brings down immigration. Which should be a serious cause for concern at the very top -- and I mean the US Congress. Without delay, the US must implement a radical change in immigration policy. Instead of trying to keep immigrants out, the US must find ways to attract them.

Writes Daniel Garza:

Previous generations of immigrants demonstrated a remarkable risk-taking spirit and a knack for creating jobs. Today’s potential immigrants are no different. But people see what is happening in America and are making a benefit/cost analysis of their options. And like never before, they are choosing to stay in their countries of origin because they do not feel they will be free to buy, sell, or trade in the United States at the same level immigrants who came before them were.

Full article at FoxNews.com.

Call for co-author(s)

As many of my readers know, I have entered the 21st year of my US immigration ordeal. In recent years I have been thinking about writing a book about the whole saga. Any doubts about whether I should proceed with the book project were eliminated by my (and my son’s) detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and subsequent release (after 65 days) last year. I now know the US immigration system inside and out, and I want to tell the world about it.

So the book project is on. I have tons of material, and copious notes from the two-plus months’ detention at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey. But while I have been writing and publishing technical articles for many years, I am hesitant to try to pull off a book project all by myself.

Here’s the call to action: If you (or someone you know) love to write, are interested in co-authoring with me a book on immigration, want to raise awareness about the issue, and could stand to make some money in the process, drop me an email at atanas.entchev@gmail.com.

I look forward to hearing from you.

PS To be clear, I have no problem with ICE. They are just doing their jobs, and doing them well. But I do blame the outdated Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1965(!) for labeling hundreds of thousands of people “illegal” who shouldn’t be, causing the break-ups of hundreds of thousands of families, and triggering the meaningless waste of public resources for incarcerating and deporting these people – instead of allowing people who have been contributing to the US economy for decades and have already assimilated into society de facto to become citizens de jure. The US will be better for reexamining and rewriting this half-a-century-old act ASAP. This will take some political courage. So this book will be a call for courage.