I haven't been around here much, for reasons that I'm not particularly inclined to go into. But there have been a few changes…
First, you've probably noticed a couple of "ads" over on the right.1 Yes, I've joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and I've also re-registered with the Green Party of California. Some of you will be surprised by this, particularly the latter. You shouldn't be. I've been somewhat disillusioned with our current political system for years now, and the revelations by Edward Snowden surrounding the NSA and Prism convinced me that both major parties have been complicit in a massive violation of the Constitution, and are hopelessly corrupted.
So, after thirty years of voting strategically, being sometimes a Democrat and other times a Republican, the time has come for me to do something different. I've arrived at a place where you can believe that the government has a legitimate role to play, without violating the Fourth Amendment and becoming the modern American Stasi. Where you can believe that corporations shouldn't have unfettered free reign, that we need serious electoral reform, that secret courts should not exist in this country, and that the environment really does matter. Simply put, I've decided to stop voting for the lesser of two evils, and to use my vote for something I believe in.
Similar feelings attend my decision to join the EFF. It's one thing to voluntarily cede a degree of privacy to Google or Microsoft in the name of convenience; it's quite another for the government to track your location, and to access the metadata of every phone call you make and every web site you visit, with no recourse available to you because it's all been authorized by the decisions of a secret court to which you cannot lodge an appeal. That is not what America is about. It is, in fact, the very diametrical opposite of what America is about. The EFF is fighting that and other battles on behalf of all of us. It is fighting for your rights as a free citizen, and it deserves your support.
This was true when the blog was hosted on Blogger, but not now.