Over The Top

I enjoy listening to talk radio, and watching Fox news.

Yes, I am one of THOSE people.

Although I am a firm believer in most of what these entertainers say, there are times where they fall into the same trap as their opponents.

An example of this is recently Glenn Beck has been going off on the warning banner for the "Cash for Clunkers" screen. I will admit that the warning screen was a bit scary sounding, but it is a typical warning banner for a lot of government systems you might come across.

I really can't make the leap that the government is planting spyware into our systems and taking over all of the computers that surf their websites. What I can believe is that some government employee was told to create this website and they pulled this warning banner from another similar site and added it to the front of that site.

You find these warning banners everywhere on government sites because if they don't have them they can't prosecute people who log in and do malicious things to the governments networked computers.

Think of it like the "No Trespassing" signs you see on just about every fence you come across. Without the signs anyone can come onto your land and say that they did not know they couldn't just wander around your property. You don't have any legal ground to prosecute them.

Same thing holds true for food places, garages where you get your car worked on, etc... Look at their walls. They all have signs and warnings to cover their butts both for insurance reasons and legal reasons.

So the banner on the front of this website was merely an attempt for the government to cover their butt legally in case someone came into their system and did something naughty.

I chuckled at the people Glenn had on his show that were fueling the conspiracy about what the government was trying to do to our computers.

The one lady was clueless what she was saying, speaking merely at a user level and making scenarios based on things that she apparently had seen in movies.

The so-called computer security expert was adding hysteria to the whole story rather then approaching it from a more logical viewpoint that was based in reality. It seemed as though he was enjoying his 5 minutes of fame and was milking it for all it was worth.

Don't get me wrong, I think the warning banner's text was way out of line, but I blame a government employee's stupidity rather the some clandestine plot by the Obama administration.

Let's face it, after seeing this current administration in action, doing something that sneaky would be beyond their IQ level.