Backdoor access?

There is a lot of talk about how terrorists communicate. The big issues are the encryption communication apps on cell-phones. Yes, they exist and available to anyone who chooses to download them.

The fearful of losing more privacy liberties would like to ban the ability of the Silicon Valley companies to provide the access via a backdoor in all cellphones. Governments and law enforcements agencies would like to have an entry to surf the communications for terrorist behavior. There are valid arguments on both sides.

I would bet that each company that manufactures the cellphones have a top secret back door accesses into each phone sold in order to protect their mercantile survival just in case some cataclysmic event happens in the future that threatens their existence. I would think that the existence of a top-secret code is known only to a very few or maybe just an individual programmer. If I were running a major, multi-national company with profits in the billions I would have such a code. Greed and truth have their limits when extinction is the result.

I acknowledge that my thinking is pure speculation, but to me it makes sense.

The Lake

A friend of mine died just about a year ago. He was young, vibrant, active and enthusiastic about life. For some reason we cannot know now, he passed quickly to the other side.

He and his wife had just finished refurbishing a home within a family spit of land on a beautiful lake in upstate New York. I think about Jay often and so dedicate the following poem in his honor and memory.

The Lake

©2015 Rolland G. Smith

(Dedicated to the memory of Jay Andretta)

There is a place where family goes

Beyond the strife of daily clime.

To where the light and water glows

And mountains blend as if in rhyme.

There’s history there of family ties

And memories of childhood.

When life and times had different sighs

And children played by shore and wood.

In time there came another home

On land adjacent to what’s known;

In many ways, a palindrome

Of what’s before and what is sown.

New visions came from dreams and mind

And crafters set them in its place

For family, friends, to all unwind,

Where cares and troubles all erase.

Creation always has a name

Where thoughts and hopes are held keepsake.

The beauty wrought from place and frame

Does name the pristine home, “The Lake.”

But now the home does ache and weep

It’s missing one, a gentlemen.

He left to go to Heaven’s sleep

Where we will go when we are done.

So what’s to happen to this place

That holds a past from long ago?

No passage eases family’s trace,

But how we wish he did not go.

Notes To:

Note to Trump, Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Congress, Governors and all seekers of liberty and leadership.

If we turn our back on the wretched refuse, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We extinguish the lamp beside the golden door.

Let go of your fear America and embrace why you live in this country. Sure, some bad things will happen. Do you think that all immigrants, refugees and scoundrels who came through Ellis Island were saints? Of course not!

Are things more complicated today than then? Of course. Are we more equipped to screen, discern and deport than then?  Of course! Is America as a haven for exiles gone? I hope not, for if it is, we may be no longer be protected by the loving Source of Creation who destined this nation to be the haven of freedom.