They'll Only Listen If It's Evil

Quote:  “It’s just another ‘trust us, we’re the government.’” Kurt Opsahl, senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Figure of Speech:  metallage (meh-TALL-uh-gee), the getting all medieval figure. From the Greek, meaning “making a swap.”

The feds are using My Space as a model for privacy policy. Your right should be limited to protecting you from getting your identity stolen or your bank account drained, according to Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence.

A privacy advocate responds with a first-rate metallage, a figure that takes a verb or adjective and uses it as the object of a sentence. You can hear it in the movie Pulp Fiction, when Ving Rhames threatens to “get all medieval on your ass.” Parents use it when they ask their children, “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand? And the president tossed one at the Democrats when he called them “the party of cut and run.” We’re talking heavy metallage music here.

Figaro especially likes Mr. Opsahl’s metallagizing, because it employs a commonplace that works for both the left and the right in this great libertarian country of ours.

We just hope the government doesn’t get all Putin on us for saying that.

Snappy Answer:  “Can you repeat that? Our tape ran out.”

Comments

[terre]

Brilliant!

[Linda]

I remember reading this in the news. Very scary when the government wants us to base our right-to-privacy concept on what kids are doing in MySpace. What sort of rhetorical mumbo-jumbo is the government pulling?

[Figaro]

It's a definition strategy. By divorcing anonymity from privacy, the government gains a great deal of power--by definition.

Fig.

[Kare Anderson]

How was the book tour?