Going Dark on Facebook

I’m so glad “friend” has become an active word.
Facebook has taken that stalwart noun and made it an action verb. It can be conjugated. It has a present and past tense. He friended me. What a nice notion.

I’ve had the lovely experience in recent weeks of former students friending me. It’s so very sweet when they have the momentary thought of my being “the bomb” of a principal and choosing to find me online to tell me so. In that moment, they friend me, and I confirm their friendship. We usually exchange pleasantries:

“How’s it goin’, Mrs. Plath? How do u like your retirement? I’m going 2 DVC and it’s cool so far.”

“Great Brandon! So nice to hear from you! I know you’ll be successful!”

In the next moment, they forget that as their friend, I can now observe their online activities and overhear their conversations. I keep their lapses of memory in mind when they post a video of themselves and their friends circled around a buddy who’s hunkered down in a cardboard box with only his feet protruding. We all watch and laugh as he totters around, ultimately breaking through the circle and becoming a curiosity among the crowd outside AT&T Park. I try not to be too judgmental.

But now all our government secret agencies want to access to our email and social network pages. Actually, if a warrant is issued, they already have the authority to read our email and listen in on our Skype conversations, look at pictures of our grandbabies, and hear of our son’s job interviews. They call it “going dark.” They have the authority, just not the ability in this age of peer-to-peer communication without central hubs, and third party encryption.

Now they want insurance from the service providers that they actually can tune in when they want to. If approved, new legislation will mandate that service providers make all our stuff intercept-able / snoop-able.

It is the nexus of national security, right to privacy, and technical innovation.

We've been saying for a while; don't post it if you don't want the world to know about it. Now, not only can all your friends, dear and forgotten, observe your foibles, the government also will be free to misinterpret your words and meddle in your business!

A great big throwback to the sixties part of me says, “Keep 'em out of my facebook!” Then what comes to mind is that they don’t want in my facebook. Not really. Like most, my facebook page is about as intriguing as home movies have ever been, regardless of our awesome trip to Yellowstone. And honestly, I’m glad they’re huddled up in basements with headphones, looking out for me and foiling the bad guys.

But fair warning, if they decide to check me out on a slow news day, it might quickly become a slow snooze day. Just the idea of someone peeping, though, still gives me the creeps!

Then I think, it hasn't been that long ago since teenagers all over the country were talking about "the bomb." The Homecoming Dance was "the bomb." Their parents are "the bomb" (if they gave the kid what he wanted.) How many untamed geese would an agent have to corral before he realized the kid wasn't really talking about capital T, capital B, The Bomb, but rather ephemeral adolescent ecstasy? You feel me? (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

And what about “Muslim”? That might be a word that would catch an agent’s attention. I have former students who are Muslim, and they’re my friends on facebook. Two of them have moved back to their native Egypt with their family. One of them, now a university student, posts all the time.

I don’t usually respond to her updates since she’s a teenager still and I’m a grown woman. But she caught my attention recently when the would-be Quran burner was big news.

Reacting as a teenager might, and probably having forgotten I am part of her audience, she said the only thing Americans need to burn is fat. Hahaha.

I felt compelled to speak up and remind her that that nut did not represent America. That’s what a friend would do, help put things in perspective.

But, suddenly, it doesn’t seem so far fetched that a CIA agent, hunched over a screen in a dark room, scanning for trigger words, might have his attention piqued, as well. He might recognize our exchange for what it was, proud principal and passionate young student feeling their way through an emotional issue.

Or, would he flag her, and me, and tune in again regularly? He has to be discerning, doesn’t he?

If I knew he was there, I’d friend him, and ask.

Don't Be a Hater

Here’s an idea from a teenager’s T-shirt---“Don’t Be a Hater.”

Oh those crazy kids. What’ll they think of next? Give peace a chance? Make love not war?

I traveled with teenagers to the feared Soviet Union in 1990. One big surprise for naive me was that the hated people of the USSR, now Russia, were peace-loving. This was in direct opposition to all I had learned of them. What I knew was that we had better be prepared to defend ourselves against the Soviet threat.

That evil empire plotted through each night to decimate us. Each rising sun renewed their resolve to obliterate our soldiers and our school children. I was sure of this because I saw the stunning images of atomic bombs blasting the skin off mannequins and flattening buildings in the desert. I had to practice hiding under my desk or curled head-to-butt with my 10-year-old classmates in an interior hallway of Louisa Mae Alcott Elementary School. Our neighbors built bomb shelters in their back yards and let us come in to hide from the Soviet menace.

But almost immediately upon crossing into St Petersburg, I learned the Russian word “mir” because it was posted so frequently. Peace. The people valued peace. This knowledge flowed over me like warm oil. Of course. It’s not the people of the Soviet Union we’ve built such an enormous arsenal to annihilate. It’s the Soviet Government that’s hell-bent to kill us. They built a war machine, so we built a war machine. But the people want peace. Just like we do.

Wait. So, it was our fear, fueled by our press. Those among us who were truly fearful and lived their lives based on fear and the hatred and anger that arise from fear created a false image of the Soviet people. That’s all I listened to and all I knew. Fear-based ranting and hatred created the great demon Russia. We hated the Ruskies blindly and en masse.

Then I had the chance to travel there chaperoning students as a part of People to People / American – Soviet Youth Exchange. We spent three weeks around the Union, staying in the homes of the Soviet people getting to know them. President Eisenhower knew what he was doing when he established that organization.

He knew that most of us are just like Will Rogers. We rarely dislike a person once we’ve gotten to know him. We have to acknowledge that person’s humanity. We cannot ignore our bonds in human experience. Peace seems possible when you know the guy.

Right now we’re in the midst of another frenzy of fear-based hate building complete with book burning. Good citizens locked up in a frantic round of pin the tail on the enemy lash out with blindfolds in place. As though trapped in a corner, they swing wildly at anyone who could be threatening, especially if he’s non-Christian and brown skinned.

But what about our brown-skinned non-Christian citizens? The ones next door, on our kids’ soccer team, at the farmers’ market? Shall we burn their Qurans? Will we circle up and play the hurtful game of exclusivity? Tick tock, the game’s locked and only white “Christians” can play.

I’m unsure how each of us can get to know the Muslims around us, but it seems like one-to-one would be a good start. Or are we too wound up with fear and anger? Fear has tunnel vision and anger quashes opportunities.

Some who are angry and fearful will say, “Oh what? Just make nice?”

Well, no. I get that things are more complicated than that. We cannot pretend that our world is without danger, ignorance, and violence. We must be diligent and watchful. Prepared, of course. Proactive, certainly. These are the things our government must do for us.

For our part, for us, the people, acting on stereotypes is demeaning --- to the receiver and the giver. By design they minimize critical thinking and insight. Based on ignorance and its natural companion, fear, stereotypes weaken our culture. We, the people, are less when we employ them.

I think it would be good to take a breath, to listen, to think. To recognize a human being when we see one.

Act like Will Rogers: Get to know a person.

Don’t be a hater.