Posts by Tom Semmens
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Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
In the internet/computer age the concept of privacy is evolving. Already, the Gaga kids of the Facebook generation have re-defined privacy (something our salacious steam age media is struggling to catch up with) to be something else than what someone older like yourself might think it is – and it will evolve again in the next ten years, probably in the same direction as it is already going. I can only assume you think history has no relevance here, but it has been less than 200 years since people strenuously opposed the establishment of the first police force on the grounds it would inevitably lead to dictatorship (and given the surveillance state Britain has turned into they may yet eventually be proved right). We’ve already seen what evil can be achieved when efficient paper based bureaucracies are turned to malevolent ends in the USSR, Nazi Germany or even Apartheid South Africa, and now we have ever more efficient data collating, storing and sharing across multiple government agencies – currently benevolent, but who can guarantee that state of affairs will continue forever?
The sorts of electronic records governments hold on us (and themselves) is unprecedented in all history. The technology to create and store these records in electronic form has only been around for twenty, maybe twenty five years. Who knows what information state agencies can summon at the click of a mouse on any of us? If we did know, it is odds on many of us would be shocked at the pettiness, the inaccuracies, the ease with the state has harassed and judged us. It is truism that knowledge is power. Much of the power that the state and it’s agencies has over us and our freedoms derives from the assumption of an absolute veil of secrecy in its dealings – often a veil of secrecy justified by a fig leaf of privacy.
Given the rapidly evolving nature of privacy in the electronic age and that these types of records are a new phenomena in history (although we are well informed of what evils they can potentially serve) it seems to me at least worth considering that Wikileaks offers a paradox around our liberties and privacy – that perhaps the best interests of us all are not served by reflexive secrecy of comprehensive records, but are rather better served by exactly what Wikileaks is doing right now in exposing the naked Emperors of our ruling class, and by extension by opening up to general scrutiny all the records the state might have on us.
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How much does the government know about you or me? What do government records really have to say about you or me? We don't know, or rather we didn't until Wikileaks came along. How long before the contents of the New Zealand Police computing system is lodged onto Wikileaks? The confidential records of WINZ or the IRD or of the DHB's uploaded by an anonymous employee, motives unknown? It will happen, it is only a matter of by who and when.
Then we will know what the government knows. All of it. And we will be shocked at the lies, at the venality, at the pettiness, and at the inaccuracies. We'll rage at the injustices revealed and may be shocked at the routine abuses of power by state agencies like the police or the SIS. And all of information would have been gathered and collated and filed and noted from behind an assumed veil of absolute state secrecy.
And that is what this is all about. Knowledge is power. Wikileaks has shattered the Brittle confection of sweet lies and smooth deceptions that the failed leadership of the West hides behind. Assange has given us a glimpse into the hollow core of grandiloquence at the very heart of our ruling elite, and the elite is reacting with all the spite - and more - you should expect.
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Meanwhile, Sarah Palin has called for the immediate shut down of Wikipedia.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to webweaver,
I don’t disagree, I am just saying we need to be cautious about judgment on every participant – good or bad – until we understand what caused this disaster.
What I fear most is we are going to discover that once the decision was made to build the mine, this tragedy was inevitable due to an inherently bad decision made in that first instance.
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While we should appreciate the communication skills and laud the undoubted sincerity of Mr. Whittle, we should not lose sight of the fact he is the CEO of Pike River Coal and therefore, when push comes to shove, a company man. This was nowhere more obvious than with his equivocation when asked if the mine would or should re-open. Before we deify Mr. Whittle, we should consider the fact that as the CEO he has been in charge of an organisation now responsible for the worst industrial accident this country in almost a century. Over investing in hero worship of Mr. Whittle on the basis of his performance in this crisis is a bad idea just now IMHO.
I will reserve my judgment on the man until after all the inquiries.
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Kraklite - it isn't the failure of the robot per se - it is the clear failure to anticipate the potential water problem. It is the failure to anticipate that this robot might fail and to try and source another such robot until after the first one got wet and conked out. It is the whole sequence of linear decision making that seems to be characterising this incident that bothers me.
We have a situation where the police are running the operation, but then it appears they are not running anything to do with the actual rescue, even though they front foot the press conferences - where the implication is the press should unquestioningly accept the authority conferred by a police uniform.
Whoever IS running the technical aspects appears to be doing a very poor job so far of taking charge and making timely and informed decisions and communicating these through the command structure and out to the public. And that is something that needs much further investigation, because it could point to the reason why this disaster happened in the first place.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Matthew, This waterproofing fiasco sums up the worrying failure of the rescue organisation to anticipate anything in relation to this rescue so far. If anyone isn’t putting his brain into gear it is you, I thought your touching child-like faith in the authorities to get it right went out the window at the Somme, but clearly you missed that particular historical event.
The Police have been high-profile in the command and control of this operation. In public, they are making all the executive decisions and are clearly the lead decision making agency. Yet there is a growing number of rescue management failures in relation to this incident. If the cops are not in charge of these technical aspects, then it is not clear to me who is. In which case, who is the person running the rescue? I am beginning to suspect that no one (or at least no one competent) is in charge of the rescue.
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Hard News: Where nature may win, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Right, so the cops are in charge, except when they are not, when no one is - or at least, no one with any common sense?
There seems to me there are two alternative narratives here. Either it was decided they were all dead on Friday, but that can't publicly be said yet, and the recovery effort is proceeding at a leisurely and risk averse approach commensurate with this, or the police (who might be good at taking over and administering an incident but are not experts in mine rescue) are presiding over amateur hour at the (literal) coal face.
Time will tell.
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They didn't water proof the robot...
Has anyone asked if the cops running this were transferred to the West Coast after they failed to find Anan Liu?
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The writing in the Herald is increasingly surreal. For example:
..."As the rescue preparations go up into the hills a group of rugged West Coast men, one with the handlebar moustache you see quite a bit around here, quietly drink beer outside the pub as the helicopter thumps away into the distance..."
I know how this goes!
"...I tapped my cigarette on the bar and turned to the men drinking. "Say, any of you boys got a light?" It was then she walked in, she was the kind of dame that could get a man into trouble..."