More bad news
Here’s some even more bad news, from people who obviously are just clueless, yet somehow wound up in positions of power:
Driver’s license as De Facto National ID?. Here’s a quote (and a fine example of just how clueless some people are):
“These are state motor vehicle departments that will have these databases. This is not a national database,” he said.
Moran said that the database would not be centralized.
“You would have the capability, now that this is digitized, to check every state database. But you have to check individually. This is not a national data file,” said Moran.
“We’re deliberately preventing that from occurring. What’d you want to do is to check every state where the person says they have a drivers license, where the person says they used to live. So those are the ones you check. I don’t know that you really need to check all 50 states.”
Excuse me? It’s not centralized, but every BMV would have access to all of the other 49 databases, they’d have to search them individually, but all from the same place? Call it whatever you want, but that IS a centralized database, disguising itself as 50 separate databases. I’m not a programmer, but I can imagine that each state will have a script written to automatically search all 50 databases at once approximately 10 minutes after these are deployed, thereby creating a national database regardless of how it’s designed. Either this guy is lying through his teeth, believing that we’re all incredibly stupid, or he’s incredibly stupid. Either way, he’s not fit to be making these sorts of decisions.
Also there’s this gem from the CEO of Turner Broadcasting System:
JK: Because of the ad skips…. It’s theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn’t get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you’re actually stealing the programming.
CW: What if you have to go to the bathroom or get up to get a Coke?
JK: I guess there’s a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom. But if you formalize it and you create a device that skips certain second increments, you’ve got that only for one reason, unless you go to the bathroom for 30 seconds. They’ve done that just to make it easy for someone to skip a commercial.
Wow! First of all, what contract? I never would have agreed with that one! Secondly, I don’t watch commercials. I switch the channel, watch some other program, and switch back after the commercial. Am I a thief? Should my remote control be banned by Congress as the tool of a content pirate? According to what he just said, yes it should. Are we seriously going to get this ridiculous about media content? Sadly, the answer appears to be, yes.
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