Skating on Stilts

French agency gives Americans a human rights lesson, but maybe not the one it intended

A French court has upheld a government agency's order requiring that Google post a notice on its famously clean home page.  The notice draws attention to the agency's ruling that Google violated French privacy law when it collected personal information under a consolidated privacy statement rather than using several different statements for its different business lines.

Translated loosely from the French, then, the ruling is:

"You have learned facts that the government did not want you to learn without first saying words that the government wanted you to say. To make sure you never do that again, the government will now require you to say other words that the government has written for you."

And all in the name of human rights.

2015 Privies: Even the EU chokes on Turkey's privacy law

You've got to hand it to the Turks.  Just when it seemed that the European Union would never see how abusive privacy laws can be, the Turkish Parliament adopted a privacy bill that caused even the EU to choke.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the law is a prime candidate for a Privy -- a genuinely Dubious Achievement in Privacy Law:

The law, which must be approved by President Abdullah Gül to take effect, would allow the agency charged with monitoring telecommunications to block access to Internet sites within four hours of receiving complaints about privacy violations. ...

"The approach that the Internet is being banned, is being censored is wrong," Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Minister Lutfi Elvan said Thursday. The measure will prevent infringement of personal rights by bypassing lengthy court procedures that failed to protect privacy in a timely manner, he said.

Shortly after the bill passed, the European Union, which Turkey seeks to join, criticized it for introducing restrictions on freedom of expression. Turkey has an estimated 40 million Internet users.

"The Turkish public deserves more information and more transparency, not more restrictions," said Peter Stano, spokesman for the European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Füle. "The law needs to be revised in line with European standards."

Meeting "European standards" for privacy law?  That'll be tough.  I'm guessing the Turkish Parliament could choose between renaming the law as "The Reding Right to Be Forgotten, Faster, Act" or simply amending it so it applies only to American corporations.

The Wyden-Clapper affair -- a parable

The press is still after James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, for his statements in response to a question from Sen. Wyden (D OR) in March of last year. Wyden asked whether NSA was collecting data on millions of Americans. “Not wittingly,” Clapper responded.

CNN's Jake Tapper asked President Obama on Friday whether he had concerns about Clapper's answer. Tapper got the Presidential equivalent of a shrug:

"I think that Jim Clapper himself would acknowledge, and has acknowledged, that he should have been more careful about how he responded," Obama said. "His concern was that he had a classified program that he couldn't talk about, and he was in an open hearing in which he was asked, he was prompted to disclose a program, and so he felt he was caught between a rock and a hard place."

The press keeps wondering why Clapper's response hasn't wrecked his career. Maybe a parable will help explain his survival.

Imagine that the Senate is preparing to confirm the nomination of a well-known woman to an important administration job.  The committee chairman loathes the nominee and her policies. But his investigators have turned up nothing against her – until they discover that she had an affair with a foreign national fifteen years ago, about a year before the birth of her only son.

The chairman calls the official into his office and confronts her with the evidence.

“It's true,” she says. “It was a terrible mistake. I ended it almost immediately. Then I discovered I was pregnant. The biological father doesn't know. Neither do my husband or my son.”

“This affair was as reckless as your policy judgments,” thunders the chairman. “The committee and the American people deserve to know your true character.”

“Please,” she pleads. “I will tell every member of the committee about it, and if they want to vote against my confirmation, so be it. But I beg you not to disclose this publicly. My son and husband will find out, and it will wreck their lives.”

“Oh, I won't disclose it," says the chairman. “You will. Because one of my first questions at the hearing will be 'You and your husband have had one biological child together, is that correct?' “

He smiles. “You can answer that question honestly and disclose the affair, or you can commit perjury. Your choice.”

At the hearing, the chairman asks the question.

“Yes,” the official answers, “My husband was there when I gave birth to my son, and he's been there for us every day since.”

So here's my question: Who is the hero of this story and who the villain?

If you can't bring yourself to condemn the official or to praise the chairman, well, now you understand the executive branch's view of the exchange between Clapper and Wyden.