I know he’s been a disappointment but I still think it’s out of line to imply that the President would be unfashionable enough to use one of those douchey bluetooth earpieces.
Is that suppose to be Romney in his sunglasses?
It’s a prop to throw people off - blueteeth don’t really fit in reptilian ears!
A few possibilities here. First, he may actually not know a lot of this, POTUS tends to have to rely on a large pool of people to filter the barrage of incoming data. If those folks decide he has better things to do than worry about such minor details then it simply gets filtered out, e.g. “Yeah, we had a few bad eggs in the NSA but Rogers is in charge now, it’s all better.”
The less palatable option is that there are “certain things” he’s been told he can’t touch or he gets the same treatment as any other world leader who dared to cross the powers that be in any meaningful way in the last 50 years. History tells us it’s the latter, but hope springs eternal for the former.
Personally, I’ve been completely amazed he’s been able to do as much as he has. He’s a master at playing opposing forces against each other, even if We the People don’t always see it directly.
I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but I think that’s a good look for him. Also, totally agree w/ @roomwithaview.
You have good points, and I am not going to argue them. But the part that sticks in my craw is there are already legal, agreed upon ways for accomplishing the missions we need. NSLs and bulk collection, unless there are literal aliens living here, are simply a solution looking for a problem.
My senators and house rep already support strong reform, and I do my own ‘grass roots’ advocacy in my field. But opposition to these techniques needs to scale better.
So just like every other promise he made about transparency or accountability. He talks a good line, but the amazing thing to me is that, even now, there are still plenty of suckers out there who buy his lies.
This is two separate issues, and if we marry them together then progress may not be made. The US does not guarantee rights for non US citizens. So the foreign surveillance may be slimy, it is totally legal. Surveillance on US citizens, until this last decade, took real legal oversight–and that is what we may have lost.
So the day that the feds come out to protect net neutrality BB doesn’t cover it but instead posts a horrifying illustration about the invasion of privacy we’ve already given up on?
Terrorists are just the latest excuse they use to justify this. We spy on our own people, and have for a long time. We spy on everybody. It is useful to those in power, as and when needed.
Nobody seems to care about the COST of this massive program as well. There are also so many agencies that are secret and they bump into each other, We need to demand that the costs not be kept secret!!!
Mayhap yea should endeavor to venture beyond yon filtre bubbel and meet some of the greate republican businessmen of Texas.
I remember that issue. The small text on the right reads “Ditch the headset. He can barely pull it off and you’re not him.”
Why all the headset hate? It’s just a tool like any other.
I did not use the Bluetooth ones, preferring the more reliable (and less prone to battery-dead-when-needed-the-least issues) wired kind, usually hacked from a computer-grade headset and doubling for music, but those do wonders when you are doing errands for yourself or some project and at the same time doing remote techsupport.
Plebes and their aesthetic oversensibilities…
When I need something like that, I use earbuds with a button to answer calls and another to change the volume. it’s very practical for a number of scenarios, and I imagine moreso if you’re an engineer and need both hands free. I recently ran a race while using them; I started at the back of the pack, so for almost half of the race I was overtaking people. At one point I had a call from someone - while it’s annoying enough to be overtaken, the looks on people’s faces suggested that being overtaken by someone who’s talking on the phone is worse. I’ll have to try running with a bluetooth headset next time.
You can mod any kind of a headset for this functionality. It’s just a resistor connected in parallel to the microphone.
http://shaddack.twibright.com/projects/reveng_NokiaHS47/
http://shaddack.twibright.com/projects/reveng_RemoteControlHeadphones/
Great! Now all I need is a couple of pencils and a matchbox, and I’ve got a headset!
I exaggerate for comic effect, but my personal distaste comes from the awkwardness of not knowing whether the person wearing it is actually listening to you or someone else. It’s one thing to wear one while driving but the rest of the time it’s just socially uncomfortable.
Kirk: Lieutenant?
Uhura: Yes?
Kirk: Has Starfleet responded to our last communication?
Uhura: Yes.
Kirk: What are our orders?
Uhura: No, not at all. (One moment, sir. I’ll be right with you.)
