Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes is Latin for who guards the guardians?. I say this in reference to the haredi's newest tepaishut (stupidity in hebrew) called Internet Gemachim, which are religious jews entrusted to search the web for other religious jews who are not allowed to use the internet.


Obviously there are multiple problems with this arrangement. 1 is, who guards the guardians? 2 is, why is it ok for some but not for all? 3 is privacy concerns. 4 is "religious police" concerns.


You can find the article at http://www.vosizneias.com/27436/2009/02/15/israel-internet-gemach-will-give-hareidi-public-info-from-the-web-with-out-connecting-to-the-internet/

1 comment:

Joshua said...

First time I read your description I thought that it meant that they would be trying to find chareidim who weren't supposed to be online who were online. Only after I read the article did I realize what you meant by "religious jews entrusted to search the web for other religious jews who are not allowed to use the internet."

I'm a bit confused it that is still what you meant, given your comment about the concern about "religious police."

The article is about an essentially volunteer service where people can ask questions to the gemachim who will do the searching for them. I agree that that sounds stupid, but once you accept the premise that the internet is evil, it becomes much more understanable.

"Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?" may not be a serious concern for the charedim here since it reduces the overall number of people who are exposed to the evil.