Today's must read: "The banality of the surveillance state"

Glenn Greenwald, who blogs for Salon.com has posted "The banality of the surveillance state," “Another federal database is launched to monitor the behavior of Americans, and, as usual, it receives little attention and has almost no oversight.

“Independent of revelations yesterday that the FBI has been abusing its NSL powers for years, it was also reported that the Federal Government is now launching "a domestic intelligence system through computer networks that analyze vast amounts of police information." The system will store broad new categories of data about the behavior of Americans -- from the mildly suspicious to the perfectly innocuous -- and will create "new power to discern links among people, patterns of behavior and other hidden clues."

Yesterday I saw the articles Greenwald is referring to above and sent them off to my son, Jeff Jonas, because he’s created software that mines data. Also, Jeff was quoted in front page articles in The Washington Post about the NSL letters, here, and about the ineffectivness of warrantless eavesdropping in finding terrorists here (“Techniques that ‘look at people's behavior to predict terrorist intent,’ he [Jeff] said, ‘are so far from reaching the level of accuracy that's necessary that I see them as nothing but civil liberty infringement engines.’”

I’m not sure what I expect Jeff to do, but I’m hoping he can tell me that it isn’t as bad as it sounds.

The Greenwald post is worth reading in its entirety.

(Caricature of Glenn Greenwald from his blog)

On this day 20 years ago...

On February 29, 1988, my 23 year-old son, Jeff, broke his neck. He was in the back seat of a BMW wearing a seat belt. The driver, who apparently thought he was Mario Andretti, failed to follow the road around a curve and drove the BMW into an embankment at high speed.

My son recovered consciousness but couldn't breathe because his airway was blocked. He observed that his fingertips were blue. Apparently out of nowhere and quite miraculously, a passerby opened the car door and gently straightened out Jeff’s neck so he could breathe. He held his head in position until the ambulance arrived and Jeff’s neck was stabilized.

When the family gathered at the hospital the next day, we were told that Jeff would most likely be paralyzed, but there was no way to know how extensive or how permanent the paralysis would be. At first, Jeff couldn’t move his limbs and also suffered from sensory loss. There are more details at Jeff’s post, My Broken Neck: A 20 Year Anniversary.

Jeff spent months wearing a “halo” and still has the marks on his temples where it attached to his skull. He slowly regained mobility and the sensory loss lessened.

Ten years later, in May of 1998, Jeff and I ran a marathon together. It was his first competitive race and his training consisted of several eight-mile runs on an indoor gym track. We didn’t break any records.

A few years later, Jeff entered his first full distance triathlon and is now doing them all over the world. He shares his athletic experiences here.

On February 23rd, Jeff participated in the Ironman Malaysia Triathlon. It was tough in the heat and the mosquitoes came out as the sun set. Here he is, halfway through the 26.2 mile run:
With very little training, he managed to finish in approximately 14 hours and considers it a warm up for the Ironman South Africa on April 13th.

There’s a lot more to Jeff than his competitive races. A Google search will satisfy the curious.

I’m just so grateful that Jeff recovered and that he is packing so much into life and getting so much out of it.

(photo of Jeff from his blog; photo from Malaysia triathlon, thanks to Jeff’s girlfriend, Michelle)

Where have I been?

I missed posting yesterday, even though I was home.

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

1. This morning I took a hike at Lake Sonoma with my friend and fellow family law attorney, David Gonzalez. 2. This past week, I spent a lot of time working in my law office.
3. I spent Monday and yesterday caring for my eleven month old grandchildren, Sophia and Rody. 4. I’m getting new flooring for my kitchen, a gift from my sons, Jeff and Rody. Last Saturday I went to the natural flooring store, Naturlich, to pick out the lineoleum I wanted. While there I met an old attorney friend and her husband. We spent about 45 minutes talking in the parking lot, and I discovered that the husband, Dan Gurney, also blogs.

He’s "Mr. Kindergarten," and now I have the link on my desktop so I can frequently check on what he’s doing. If you need a spirit-lifter, check out his blog.

An altogether satisfying week even if I missed posting yesterday.

Briefly noted: My older son, Jeff Jonas, is quoted in a front page article in today's Washington Post

My older son, Jeff Jonas, is one of several people interviewed in ”From Casinos to Counterrorism - Las Vegas Surveillance, U.S. Security Efforts Involve Similar Tactics,” published today in the Washington Post:

“A 43-year-old technology visionary and high-school dropout, Jonas … realized that his system could …identify employees colluding with gamblers, say, by discovering that they share a home address. He calls his program NORA -- for Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness….

“The idea was so powerful that the CIA's private investment arm, In-Q-Tel, poured more than $1 million into NORA to help root out corruption in federal agencies. Then, after the Sept. 11 attacks, it became clear that link analysis could be useful in tracking terrorist networks.

"In 2002, Jonas shared his technology with Pentagon officials, who were researching a more controversial technique called pattern-based data mining. Their aim was to identify terror networks from patterns of behavior, by plowing through vast beds of data such as hotel, flight and rental-car reservations. Jonas, now an IBM chief scientist, said narrowly focused link analysis is less invasive because it starts with a known suspect rather than casting about in the general population.”

(photo of Jeff from his blog)