March 25, 2004 Email to Dave Zweifel, editor of Madison's Capital Times:

dzweifel@madison.com

Good Afternoon, Dave:

I find today's editorial on Wisconsin's decision to pull out of matrix disheartening. Why do you spin it this way?

The decision to join matrix was made by a Democratic administration:

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62564,00.html

I voiced my concerns to Therese Berceau here:

http://www.zmetro.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=matrix

There is much to criticize national data mining schemes, but let's be clear that both parties are making some poor choices (generally influenced by some special interest group). There are rare exceptions - emphasis on rare....

More from the aclu:

http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14257&c=130

Finally, you should financially support www.eff.org

The reality, of course, is that if folks want information (public, citizen or private sector), they will find it. A tech ceo correctly points out that "There are no secrets, just information you do not yet have"

This spun editorial is a great example of why newspapers continue to lose readers. Our population is more educated than ever, and is now comfortable with searching for information (and conditioned generally to question the media).

I expect more....





Jim