Are Private Conversations Private?...NOT Always

Tyreek Hill
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Turns out the NFL has a new player scandal, this one involving Tyreek Hill, a receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Earlier Thursday evening, KCTV in Kansas City aired part of an 11-minute audio file in which Crystal Espinal (Hill's fiancee) tells Hill that when asked about an injury to the child's arm, the boy replied: "Daddy did it.''

"Hill denies any role in what happened to the child's arm, adding: "He says Daddy does a lot of things."

"Espinal then says, "A 3-year-old is not going to lie about what happened to his arm.''

"Daddy did it," Espinal says, paraphrasing the boy. "He is terrified of you."

"Hill responds, according to the recording: "You need to be terrified of me, too, b----."

"Later in the recording, Espinal says, "He kept saying 'Daddy punches me,' which you do when he starts crying. What do you do? You make him open up his arms, and you punch him in the chest. Then if he gets in trouble, you get the belt out.''

"The conversation was recorded as the couple walked through Dubai International Airport, according to KCTV. No date for the conversation was given.

"The portion of the recording played on KCTV on Thursday starts with Espinal saying, "We were getting into it, and he said, 'Daddy, you're mean.' So we walked up the stairs. You said, 'Come back down here,' and he didn't want to go down there. But I was like, 'Go down there because it will end up worse for you.' So he walked down there and then you were getting on his [deleted]. ... Then he started crying, and you were like, 'Shut up, shut up, stop crying. Shut up, shut up, stop crying.'"

"Hill replies, "Right.'' (http://www.espn.com/…/hill-barred-chiefs-activities-wake-au…)

My wife made an interesting point, "Who hasn't uttered angry, off color, regrettable things in private, especially at home." She considers recording such private statements for public consumption and personal gain, "the greatest violation of trust."

That was her response to the recent Tyreek Hill comments, as it was to when V. Stiviano surreptitiously recorded Donald Sterling.

The fact is that such private utterances aren't really protected.

Often such publicized private utterances hurt people, as with Alex Baldwin's released answering machine message to his daughter (used against him in divorce proceedings) and sometimes they don't, as in the case of former Clippers owner, Donald Sterling.

Except for the public embarrassment, Donald Sterling wasn't harmed at all by his regrettable comments to V. Stiviano, as Sterling had bought the then (1981) struggling San Diego Clippers for $12.5 million and when pressured to sell, the Sterling's sold the Clippers to Steve Balmer for $2 BILLION!

Good for the Sterling's. They did good business. Live and be well.

On top of all that, Donald Sterling's family sued his mistress, V. Stiviano and courts ruled that V. Stiviano had to return $2.6 million in gifts (a Condo, cars, etc) to the Sterling's.

As of now, Tyreek Hill has been suspended from all football activities with the Chiefs. It remains to be seen whether this ends his NFL career, or not. He seems to be a potentially dangerously unstable man.

While I agree with my wife about the recording and publicizing such utterances as a violation of trust, the law doesn't really protect such utterances as "privileged."
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Thank You Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban

Mark Cuban, the maverick entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks stirred up controversy among media dopes by...telling the stark truth, that EVERYONE harbors some petty bigotries and prejudices.

Cuban has said before that he worries about an ominous precedent that could be set by the NBA’s removing lowlife owner Donald Sterling.

The Mavericks owner tackled the subject in an interview with Inc.’s Maria Aspen at the conference:

"In this day and age, this country has really come a long way putting any type of bigotry behind us, regardless of who it's towards - whether it's the LGBT community, whether it's xenophobia, fear of people from other countries - we've come a long way. And with that progress comes a price. We're a lot more vigilant in what we ... and we're a lot less tolerant of different views. And it's not necessarily easy for everybody to adopt or adapt or evolve. We're all prejudiced in one way or the other. If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face - white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere - I'm walking back to the other side of the street. And the list goes on of stereotypes that we all live up to and are fearful of.

And so in my businesses, try not to be hypocritical. I know that I'm not perfect. I know that I live in a glass house and it's not appropriate for me to throw stones. And so when I run into bigotry in organizations I control, I try to find solutions. I'll work with people. I'll send them to training, I'll send them to sensitivity training. I'll try to give them a chance to improve themselves. Because I think improving, helping people improve their lives, helping people engage with people they may fear they may not understand and helping people realize that while we all have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it's an issue that we have to control - that it's part of my responsibility as an entrepreneur to try to solve it, not just to kick the problem down the road. Because it does my company no good, it does my customers no good, it does society no good if my response to somebody in their racism or bigotry is to say, 'It's not right for you to be here, go take your attitude somewhere else.'”

100% right on ALL counts! And anyone who doesn't give a hearty “harrumph” to those sentiments should be suspected of being a thought-nazi.

The Perils and the Virtues of Free Speech

Donald Sterling with V. Stiviano

Kathleen Parker recently courted ridicule with the 1^st Amendment-bashing comment, “Speaking one’s mind isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be...” A comment made more farcical as Ms. Parker makes her living “speaking her mind.”

Yes, like many of us, she meant that “the other person’s” right to speak his/her mind should be curtailed, net hers/ours.

Her comments were made, of course, over the recent Donald Sterling controversy, in which an apparently jealous, and definitely goofy old man said some very regrettable things...and the mob immediately demanded Sterling be crucified.

Troublingly enough, what the Donald Sterling episode proves is that most Americans seem neither to support, nor even understand the 1^st Amendment’s free speech provisions. Most also seem not to support, nor fully understand the privacy provisions of the 4^th Amendment either, but that’s another issue altogether and one in which technology is far outpacing our ability to defend what once was thought of as “basic privacy.” Again, that’s another issue.

As far as “free speech” goes, ironically enough, it’s ONLY offensive, ugly, controversial, inflammatory and unpopular speech that NEEDS such protections, so the 1^st Amendment, like it, or not was written precisely to protect the kind of speech Donald Sterling, the Nation of Islam, the KKK, the Five Percenters and the neo-Nazis all engage in - hateful, offensive and inflammatory speech.

What “crime” did Donald Sterling commit?

Aside from the crime of being “bad for business,” which the NBA has every right to remove him from that economic cooperative for, he actually committed no actual crime at all.

Moreover, it’s more likely than not that Donald Sterling ISN’T even the worst person involved in that mess. While Donald Sterling seems to be a “dirty old man,” as well as an all-around “bad guy,” the “love interest” in all this, the coquettish V. Stiviano is a cold-blooded predator. The “rich old man/beautiful young woman” exchange is very much like the standard illicit drug sale – without the buyer, in this case, the “dirty old man,” there could be no “pusher,” in this case the attractive young woman willing to sell her affections. BUT V. Stiviano appears to be far, FAR worse than a mere “pusher,” or prostitute, she appears to have been an adept blackmailer who had already shaken down a rich old man Sterling for a Ferrari, TWO Bentleys and a $1.4 MILLION Condo (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614216/A-Ferrari-TWO-Bentleys-1-4MILLION-apartment-Race-row-NBA-owner-Donald-Sterlings-lavish-gifts-girlfriend-argued-racist-recording-revealed-wife-50-years-lawsuit.html), prompting a lawsuit from Shelly Sterling - “the wife.” Subsequently, in an apparent fit of anger, Ms. Stiviano apparently made good on a “blackmail threat.” So, Donald Sterling was probably right when he recently told Anderson Cooper that he “should’ve just paid her off.”

In fact, Ms. Stiviano’s greed embarrassed organizations like the NAACP (which had given Sterling numerous awards), cost others their jobs and livelihoods (L.A. NAACP head Leon Jenkins was forced to resign in the wake of the scandal)...and YET, in the eyes of many misguided Americans, Ms. Stiviano is seen, if not as a heroine, at least as a benign character, rather than the abhorrent predator she really is!

Now that says a LOT about the state of Donald Sterling’s sub-par judgment, but it STILL does not make bigotry, or offensive speech a crime. In FACT, the only potential felony here is Ms. Stiviano’s apparent illegal recording of those private conversations (California DOES NOT allow for “one party consent” to record) and selling them to TMZ.

If such speech were criminal, then Jay-Z (Shawn Carter), a former minority partner in the Brooklyn Nets would’ve been likewise crucified for his own behavior, which was even more despicable than Sterling’s. Jay-Z attended a Nets game wearing a “Five Percenters medallion” (the Five Percenters are a radical offshoot of the hate group known as “the Nation of Islam”) who teach that “blacks are gods and whites are devils,” AND for hosting a party in February 2010 at the Merah club in central London, in which whites were banned from attending. (http://www.thepcmdgazette.com/news/black-nba-owner-holds-blacks-only-parties-no-whites-allowed-nba-silent/  & http://www.thepcmdgazette.com/news/jay-z-wears-islamic-medallion-symbolizing-all-whites-are-wicked-and-weak/).

Again, ONLY vile, offensive, controversial and inflammatory speech...the kind most people find uncomfortable NEEDS the protection of the 1^st Amendment.

While I personally revile the black supremacist ideology of the Five Percenters and the NOI, the 1^st Amendment legally protects such speech, at least from government censure and arrest. YES, such speech can get you fired by companies and organizations that can’t be associated with such speech. They have that right as private entities. And it CAN subject you to public ridicule, but the 1^st Amendment bars government from punishing those who engage in such speech.

Is Donald Sterling a “bad guy”? Of that, I have little question. He’s a lifelong “progressive” after all. BUT should he be destroyed for a few ill-conceived private utterances? ONLY if that’s going to become our “new normal.”

OH...The HUMANITY!

There’s a great scene in that Mel Brooks movie Blazing Saddles (http://www.amazon.com/Blazing-Saddles-30th-Anniversary-Special/dp/B0001Z4OXS/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1400087266&sr=1-2&keywords=blazing+saddles), in which the Governor demands a “Harumph” out of everyone around the table, after loudly declaring, “Gentlemen, we NEED to protect our phony, baloney jobs here!”

That’s kind of what’s gone on in the media lately, EVERY “journalist,” EVERY commentator, on news shows, sports shows and entertainment shows HAS TO excoriate Donald Sterling, or risk being suspected of being a “racist.”

Worse STILL, somehow anti-black bigotry is seemingly defined as “racism,” when the reverse tends to be politely overlooked! Fact is, there’s precious little of the virulent anti-black bigotry that existed just decades ago, sadly the same CANNOT be said for the virulent anti-white bigotry of the Nation of Islam, the Five Percenters, the Black Israelites, etc.

Donald Sterling is almost certainly an asshole, BUT contrary to a very comfortable MYTH, many of the "best & brightest" among us are deeply flawed, often anti-social and utterly ruthless people. Very often super high achievers are singularly driven people. They take a laser-like and single-minded focus on the one thing they excel at, often at the expense of developing social skills, being well-read, well-rounded, or otherwise decent people.

WHY is that at all surprising? ONLY the most ruthless sharks get to that rarefied air of the Billionaires club. ANYONE who thinks Sterling amassed his wealth by ever backing down or apologizing to others is nuts. This guy's been a ruthless, cut-throat, highly litigious individual his entire life and he’s probably NOT going to stop being that NOW!

We hold to many myths to preserve this thin veneer of civility. Some would argue that the fact that most of us cling to, at least the illusion of humanity and decency shows that, at heart, we all WANT to be that, even if we often fall short.

I’m more cynical about that, myself. I think most of us admire the ruthless sharks among us, that even if we don’t act as ruthlessly, we’d very much like to, so I hold us humans in pretty low regard, so far as civility and humanity go.

Donald Sterling isn’t even a rare, let alone singular example of the outrageous excesses of the “best & brightest” among us. We’ve seen it recently in the cases of Oscar Pistorius of South Africa (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/06/oscar-pistorius-murder) and Bruno Fernandes of Brazil (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2579411/Goalkeeper-girlfriend-kidnapped-murdered-fed-dogs-allowed-prison-12-months-22-year-sentence-continue-play-professional-football.html)...both were focused and driven high achievers who murdered their paramours, Pistorius allegedly in a fit of rage and Fernandes, angered at a woman with whom he’d had an affair (Eliza Samudio) demanding child support for the child that union produced. The Samudio murder was particularly gruesome, as Fernandes reportedly had Ms. Samudio handed off to a crew of killers he knew from his days growing up in Brazil’s slums.

Zac Bissonnette has chronicled Magic Johnson’s association with numerous “predatory financial services” scams that have primarily “targeted low income communities, from Jackson-Hewitt’s refund anticipation loans, to prepaid credit cards, to his partnering with Washington Mutual in a subprime mortgage scam. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AVP7cUPAhM)

John McAfee (the anti-virus creator) is suspected of murdering a neighbor (Gregory Viant Faull -  http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/05/12/john-mcafee-portland-belize-mysterious-murder/2135255/) in Belize. McAfee initially avoided Belizian authorities, saying that he’d always been afraid that the police would kill him, in refusing to answer their routine questions. Subsequently, Belize's prime minister Dean Barrow has called McAfee "extremely paranoid, even bonkers". McAfee fled Belize when he was sought for questioning concerning the murder, but was caught in Guatemala for illegally entering that country and his request for asylum there was denied.

Only the most driven, the most obsessed, the biggest sharks rise to such levels and yes, people of that ilk have their flaws...often many, MANY great flaws. The “best and brightest,” the most productive, etc., are rarely “the nicest, kindest and most decent,” that’s just the way it is. WHY should that surprise any of us?

How pervasive is this ruthless, shark-mindset? In the late 1970s after the Trilateral Commission (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilateral_Commission) issued a report titled, “The Crisis of Democracy” (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0814713645/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3F4Q0Y2GSP126&coliid=IGH7BEARBDV02) in which, among other things they expressed the concern that many of the social and economic problems have resulted from an over-educated populace that had unreasonably high expectations concerning quality of life. During the Carter administration all of the top positions in the government - the office of President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Defense and Treasury - were held by members of the Trilateral Commission, and the National Security Advisor (Zbigniew Brzezinski) was its director. Many lesser officials also came from this group. No less a Leftist that Noam Chomsky noted, “It is rare for such an easily identified private group to play such a prominent role in an American Administration.” The Trilateral Commission was set up byDavid Rockefeller in 1973.

Chomsky asserted that, “Its vision of "democracy" is reminiscent of the feudal system. On the one hand, we have the King and Princes (the government). On the other, the commoners. The commoners may petition and the nobility must respond to maintain order. There must however be a proper "balance between power and liberty, authority and democracy, government and society." "Excess swings may produce either too much government or too little authority." In the 1960s, Huntington maintains, the balance shifted too far to society and against government. "Democracy will have a longer life if it has a more balanced existence," that is, if the peasants cease their clamor. Real participation of "society" in government is nowhere discussed, nor can there be any question of democratic control of the basic economic institutions that determine the character of social life while dominating the state as well, by virtue of their overwhelming power. Once again, human rights do not exist in this domain.” (http://www.chomsky.info/books/priorities01.htm)

When the primary global leadership see their own “best practices” as rooted in a feudal-styled system, they prove themselves no more “evolved,” no more civil, or decent than the likes of the Bruno Fernandes’, the John McAfee’s and the Donald Sterling’s of the world!

It would be a good thing if the outrage over the Donald Sterling affair was about our collective mythos falling, but it’s not. Sadly and disastrously, it’s mostly about “the evils of white “anti-black racism”), which pretty much amounts to chasing unicorns.

But the real cost is that some very ugly issues get ignored. One of the very few to point some of these out has been yet another committed Leftist, Bill Maher, who correctly pointed out, that we SHOULD ALL have a HUGE problem with the way this private conversation was made public. That's the sordid part of all this that most people would like to simply ignore. YES, today, many of the same people who excoriate Nazi Germany's "informant culture," where children were taught and encouraged/rewarded for reporting relatives who weren't “pro-nazi enough,” seem to laud this behavior by a possible blackmailer. I think that's called hypocrisy.

As I’ve said, I have long ago acquiesced and accommodated myself to the new realities of the surveillance state in which we all live. I have 3 video cameras set up in my car, a half dozen outside my home and more inside my home. I have NO expectation of privacy outside my front door.

I also know how easy it is to track cell phone calls and record them (I've done it myself)...Newt Gingrich had some of his private cell calls made public years ago. It's easy to do and those who cheer when a Gingrich is brought down HAVE TO (yes, it's a legal mandate...implied within the law) also support the SAME being done to those they might support...or perhaps even themselves! It IS what it IS.

Once we accept the righteousness of such an intrusion in one case, it is de facto accepted in ALL others...or, in the Latin-rooted legal term..."No BACKSIES!"

That SHOULD BE a problem for most of us, hell even I (who endorse much of the modern surveillance state) object to and worry about much of this private data-mining, BUT instead, most of the talk today STILL centers around this national obsession with our masochistic self-flagellation over race.