July 09, 2003
PPS Goodies
I have been taking a break from blogging, being stuck with some personal events and ponder over my career. To catch up my blog reading with surfing PPS, wow, there’re lot of well written pieces. I got a long list to read, and notice some thought provoking blog:
Jeff got an idea to set up a CIA, where CIA stands for Citizens’ Intelligence Agency — similar to MIT Media Lab’s GIA. The mission is to provide an information repositary of individuals/organization/corporations related to government, and setup a secured channel for citizens to submit government related issues/information.
This is an good idea, though controversial. In one hand, it’s a channel for citizens to have a clear understanding of how the people we vote for run the government. There are so much policy/procedure/execution of government where we don’t really how it is being decided or executed. Increasing transparency is definitely a good point and nobody would against. But that brings up a few questions:
- Where do we get those government related information?
- If we could get it, how do we verify it?
- ISA — Internal Security Act, how should we cope with the fear and uncertainty? Where’s the boundary?
Considering the organizations outside of government: Keadilan, DAP, PAS, NGO, Malaysiakini…etc, the source of intelligence input might not be a problem. It might even play a better role to monitor government than the major media. Verification? I have no idea on a reliable verification mechanism.
ISA and OSA are law our govenment applying. There’s just no way you’re going to take easy on it. But there’s always boundary. It would be critical on the accuracy of information submitted. That’s why the important of verification.
Go take a look on the discussion, it’s well worth being posted on the issue.
Najah is making a note to herself: “NEVER GIVE INTERVIEWS TO JOURNALISTS”. She blog on her experience of how the paper media screwed what she said, which, either misquoted, out of context or viewpoint being bended. Her rant getting intense responses, where other people commented on different angles of view from journalist, the editing process, or personal experience. An interesting read. :-)
[update] Here’s a personal press of Najah again :).
Sad
I heard enough bad news today. This morning, I was told father of my brother in law passed away today. Then at the afternoon, I got a SMS — telling me on the decease of a friend’s dad.
It’s a sad day, hearing all these news, and the failed operation? of conjoined twins Laleh and Ladan Bijani. In their last letter, they said:
Both of us have started on this journey together and we hope that the operation will finally bring us to the end of this difficult path, and we may begin our new and wonderful lives as two separate persons.
Nobody could really imagine how they actually gone through all these years. I take my hat off to them, for their courage. And may them rest in peace.