OK, this is kind of a convoluted story here. According to two articles at ReadWriteWeb.com (here and here) President Barack Obama has had an interesting time using YouTube to deliver his weekly addresses.
As everyone knows, Prezzi Barry O'bama was posting his weekly vids on YouTube, but privacy advocates raised a big stink. The stink seems to be well founded since YouTube uses "long-term tracking cookies". My guess is that these cookies allow Google to know where you go after you leave YouTube? I don't know to be honest. Regardless, it seems that the White House using said cookies violates federal law. Yep. How many times did Bush violate federal law? Just a few times.
But worry not, Obamafans! The Obama Administration stopped violating federal law by, essentially, giving itself a pass. Which, you know, is pretty shitty. Talk about kingly behavior. I can hear Obama now:
"What's that? Using YouTube is uhhhhh violation of federal law? Well, uhhhh, let's just uhhhhh... changethelawforonlyus."
That's the very definition of being above the law. At least he had the decency to do it, uh, legally, by issuing himself an official exemption--just like Bush did with all of his signing statements.
Now, that was back in February--yesterday, ReadWriteWeb.com reported that the Obama Admin was ditching YouTube in favor of Vimeo (see cap above), and would no longer be using those pesky long-term cookies (we assume). Still, Obama and Pals broke the law.
Is this a concern of Abu Ghraib proportions?
Of course not.
But if this is how Obama treats the little laws, how is he going to treat the big ones when lives depend on it? Will principles, morals and/or the law win out? Or will the myth of security beat all?
The ObamaWatch continues...
This is not Obama's fault, one of his people should have informed him about the long term cookies.
ReplyDeleteNick’s last blog post: Windows 7
Nah, sorry--you're saying Obama isn't responsible for the people he hires? He's not the guy at the wheel?
ReplyDeleteHe's in charge, he takes the blame when things go wrong.
If his Internet guy didn't tell him about the long-term cookies, it's Obama's fault for hiring the wrong guy.
That's like forgiving George Lucas because none of his lackies didn't tell him The Phantom Menace script sucked. I'm sure Lucas had no idea how bad that script was and no one told him. And look at the horror that came from it!! SIGH....