An excerpt from an article that appeared on the worldtechtribune.com site: http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz09232002.asp So why did McCullagh quote nothing but activists critical of the Bush Administrations policy of taking a hands-off approach to cybersecurity in his article with Robert Lemos for News.com? Why would journalists who so value Internet privacy and consider the government to be too intrusive suddenly complain that the government should be spending millions of taxpayer dollars and enacting legislation that forces companies and individuals to conform to government-mandated security controls? My reply to the article's author follows. (I neglected to mention that their commentary appears to be mistaken on the source of the August draft, see http://www.politechbot.com/p-03994.html). -Declan --- >Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 15:02:14 -0400 >To: scottat_private >From: Declan McCullagh <declan.mccullaghat_private> >Subject: Response to your article titled "Bush cyberstrategy and the >'libertarian' call for more Government intrusion" >Cc: publisherrjmat_private,bobat_private > >Scott, >I read with interest your provocative, if mistaken, article. You wrote >(http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz09232002.asp): >"Journalists and activists claiming to be staunch, limited government >cyber-libertarians but then moan that the government isn't doing enough to >protect cyberspace are obviously not real libertarians." > >Your article is mistaken on two points. First, a news article -- as >opposed to a column -- is not typically the place where reporters should >be spouting off with their opinions. In the case of the White House report >released last week, there was plenty of criticism of it, and our News.com >article accurately reflected it. Second, I did not write the article alone >-- a colleague wrote probably the majority of it, which is why his name >was listed first. Jointly-authored pieces are always a mix of two >reporters' views and writing styles. > >If you had wanted my own personal views, you could have asked me. Or you >could have spent a few moments reading a column -- as opposed to a news >article -- I wrote that appeared on News.com a few days before. It >included my personal opinion on the topic, with which you might even agree: > >http://news.com.com/2010-1074-957970.html >>I don't even think it's such a fabulous idea for the White House to be >>preparing these kind of grand Internet security reports. The federal >>government's tech-cluelessness is embarrassingly obvious, and it needs to >>solve its own problems first. The Internet is run by technology firms, >>which are in turn run by people smart and motivated enough to do the >>right thing without nagging by Uncle Sam. Sure, it doesn't always happen >>immediately, but market forces are better in the long run at figuring out >>the right approach than bureaucrats are. > >Good luck with your website. > >Best, >Declan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Sep 27 2002 - 13:14:31 PDT