Being at work Tuesday evening, I missed most of the Democratic Party presidential campaign debate, broadcast on CNN. There were six candidates on stage, including senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both competing for the support of the party's more leftist progressive wing. From what I did hear at the end after I got home, each candidate seemed to express their positions and philosophies pretty well and were able to adequately answer the questions posed to them. Apparently, though, earlier on there was some kind of squabble between Warren and Sanders...following the debate, with the candidates still onstage congratulating each other, the two seemed to be engaged in a hushed argument, obviously not intended for others to hear. Initially unaware of the ongoing spat, one of the other contestants, Tom Steyer, approached them and was seen momentarily taken aback at the quarrel. Later on CNN he was asked what they were talking about and he responded by saying that he didn't hear it...a most diplomatic position when in all likelihood he did hear their conversation. Yesterday the news buzz wasn't about the actual content of the debate itself but that very brief disagreement between the two senators. And yesterday morning while I was waiting for the Senate to begin its proceedings on C-Span2, I watched CNN play an audio-enhanced recording of what they said, which eerily brought to me memories of an old 1974 movie starring Gene Hackman...
In The Conversation, Gene Hackman portrays a techno-geek who is known in his trade as an expert on bugging and surveillance. A powerful business magnate, suspecting infidelity on the part of his young wife, hires him to spy on her and bring to him evidence of what she is up to. Much of the movie revolves around a conversation he picks up...from his electronically souped-up van...between her and her suspected lover in an urban public park. The movie explores how he is able to filter out extraneous noise and enhance that conversation, giving the clear impression that nothing is private anymore and that anyone who can afford it can spy on anyone else...the movie's ending clearly places an exclamation point on that notion. Tuesday night following the debate, the CNN analysts did not as yet have access to the conversation between Warren and Sanders...only after a day of technical processing on somebody's part did they receive the audio. Now of course the two senators weren't really having a private discussion since they were front and center on the national stage, but it wasn't meant for outside ears nevertheless. Steyer was right in refusing to discuss what they said...unfortunately, CNN has revealed the depths to which they will go to push a story, in the process also demonstrating the utter lack of privacy or discretion left in our society...
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