tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post2900585568575470387..comments2024-03-29T06:22:47.638-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Transparency Wins and Losses…David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-54480681506197198772013-11-12T16:48:39.347-08:002013-11-12T16:48:39.347-08:002) Edward Snowden has been more effective than any...<i>2) Edward Snowden has been more effective than any fifty Julian Assanges. Why Snowden, a low level worker, had access to so many potentially damaging reports, is beyond me. But it reveals a level of trusting naivete among NSA officials that could be viewed as (actually) rather charming in its innocence… no, that's not the word. Let's just reiterate naiveté on the part of men and women who are supposed to be hard-as-diamond realists.</i><br /><br />This is easy to explain. If you think you're doing the right thing, you don't worry as much about getting caught.Doug S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/11918949543315280580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-41856558855683451092013-11-06T08:24:05.211-08:002013-11-06T08:24:05.211-08:00David,
Good essay, but I disagree with the assumpt...David,<br />Good essay, but I disagree with the assumptions of this statement:<br /><br />"No, you and I should care far more what elites can do with what they see and know."<br /><br />I don't think it is wise or logical to make such a distinction. They are <i>doing</i> something by breaking the law, and shredding the constitution, in their surveillance.<br /><br />Spying on everyone is an act. It is doing something.<br /><br />If the elites/government/NSA is willing to flout the law, common decency, and the Constitution, why do we think they will then refrain from "doing" horrendous things? The facts show that they already do terrible things, and continue to do them.<br /><br />They let African Americans die of syphilus as an experiment. They imported Nazi war criminals and used the Nazi spy networks, and we currently use their methods of torture. WE have our own gulag at Guantanamo. <br /><br />If you are willing to admit the patterns, instead of screaming "conspiracy theory" at every bit of evidence that doesn't support statism, then it is likely the government is not just executing innocents abroad with drones, but people here who are inconvenient, such as journalist Michael Hastings (before you get your panties in a bundle, explain why war crimes and barbarism should stop at the border in the minds of our criminal elites).<br /><br />Regardless, I've made my point. Thanks for your blog.Jacob Gitteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10559764359800682222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43305773147099928052013-11-05T17:39:55.778-08:002013-11-05T17:39:55.778-08:00The Charlatan's new thread is lit, not pol, so...The Charlatan's new thread is lit, not pol, so I'll leave this here.<br /><br />Voter disenfranchising, friendly-fire edition: <a href="http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/even-elected-officials-have-trouble-voting-in-texas/" rel="nofollow">http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/even-elected-officials-have-trouble-voting-in-texas/</a><br /><br />Even republican politicians are getting caught by their own onerous voter-ID laws. (Of course, this will likely just be used to justify the laws, "I (by which I mean my staff) managed to deal with it, why can't you.")Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-48038773579945499112013-11-05T08:32:05.174-08:002013-11-05T08:32:05.174-08:00I predict this nostrum will lead to a deficit in p...I predict this nostrum will lead to a deficit in predictions, increasing the prices paid to remaining charlatans... I mean seers like me.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1507764092022067572013-11-05T08:10:35.198-08:002013-11-05T08:10:35.198-08:00I realize that David is gone for a little while, b...I realize that David is gone for a little while, but I'd like to leave this here for his comment (ours too, in the meantime). From Boing Boing, COry Doctorow interviews Terry Pratchett. <a href="http://boingboing.net/2013/11/05/a-conversation-with-terry-prat.html" rel="nofollow"> "I generally refuse to predict the future (on the grounds that SF writers who dabble in futurism are like drug dealers who sample the product—unlikely to come to a good end)." - Cory in one of the questions </a><br />David, I'd like to hear your take on this one. matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-19985723158203430572013-11-05T00:53:30.836-08:002013-11-05T00:53:30.836-08:00Frankfurt transit lounge on way to Lithuania...Frankfurt transit lounge on way to Lithuania...David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72079968237391517862013-11-04T16:11:04.997-08:002013-11-04T16:11:04.997-08:00Jonathan S:
(Remember, Bill was a lawyer before h...Jonathan S:<br /><i><br />(Remember, Bill was a lawyer before he ever went into politics!)<br /></i><br /><br />My theory about Bill Clinton's internal thought processes sprang <b>from</b> the fact that he's a lawyer.<br /><br />Randy Winn:<br /><i><br />...<br />This was not in Russia and not in China and not even in the UK, but in Alabama.<br /></i><br /><br />Sadly, that is not a surprise. One more reason to let the secessionists go next time.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-50981106102319805262013-11-04T15:44:55.015-08:002013-11-04T15:44:55.015-08:00Are you following the the "Legal Schnauzer&q...Are you following the <a href="http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow"> the "Legal Schnauzer" affair?</a><br /><br />A judge got angry at a blogger who kept reporting on a public officials transgressions, so the cops beat him and jailed him without bond.<br />This was not in Russia and not in China and not even in the UK, but in Alabama. <br />rewinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14008105385364113371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22364128169073816392013-11-04T15:28:25.287-08:002013-11-04T15:28:25.287-08:00Alex,
Not just a reduction, but an 88% reduction i...Alex,<br />Not just a reduction, but an 88% reduction in complaints, and a 60% reduction in the use of force. That's huge.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-73753931132186790312013-11-04T10:43:33.414-08:002013-11-04T10:43:33.414-08:00This is good news.
California police use of body c...This is good news.<br /><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/04/california-police-body-cameras-cuts-violence-complaints-rialto" rel="nofollow">California police use of body cameras cuts violence and complaints</a><br /><br />Not only are the videos keeping the cops more honest, but it seems to be a win-win.<br /><br />Now if only NYPD understood the lesson.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82444406578584404842013-11-03T18:31:31.699-08:002013-11-03T18:31:31.699-08:00Larry, the smoking thing is even more finely nuanc...Larry, the smoking thing is even more finely nuanced than you thought.<br /><br />In my experience, marijuana is indeed inhaled, and even held for a time (in order to maximize absorption of THC). However, when Clinton was at school overseas, it was the done thing at the time to mix the pot with tobacco, to make it last longer. And the tobacco of choice at his college was the harsh Turkish variety, for much the same reason as some drink espresso and disdain normal coffee.<br /><br />Now, one does not inhale Turkish tobacco the way one does, say, the milder Virginian variety, at least unless one does not care for one's lungs. Instead, it was shallowly puffed in the way you describe. So, in a strictly legalistic sense, he didn't actually inhale...<br /><br />(Remember, Bill <i>was</i> a lawyer before he ever went into politics!)Jonathan S.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15608871562043195672013-11-03T17:52:36.535-08:002013-11-03T17:52:36.535-08:00Robert:
I had an odd thought this morning. What i...Robert:<br /><i><br />I had an odd thought this morning. What if Republican efforts to turn abortion into a crime is in fact an effort to eliminate the right of women to vote? I mean, we're already seeing anti-abortion laws that add "deliberate miscarriage" as a crime that jails women. We also see laws that make it so that ex-convicts are stripped of their right to vote...<br /></i><br /><br />That makes so much sense, it HAS to be true.<br /><br />I've been wondering for months why the GOP is deliberately offending half its voter base. What you suggest is the only possible answer that doesn't involve their strategists being ridiculously insane.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-60022156556584305712013-11-03T17:46:43.046-08:002013-11-03T17:46:43.046-08:00Douglas Moran:
I should also mention a final cate...Douglas Moran:<br /><i><br />I should also mention a final category: The artistic truth-tellers. These are folks who tell you something that, if parsed juuuuuuust right, are the "literal" truth, and yet because of the way they have phrased things, everyone believes they have said something else. This is profoundly common in politics. The artist at this is Karl Rove...<br /></i><br /><br />I'm a Democrat, or at least a Dem-symp, but I think the absolute master at what you are describing was Bill Clinton.<br /><br />When he said "I didn't have sex with that woman," I'm sure he meant it literally. He engaged in oral gratification with Ms Lewinsky, but in a very technical sense, they did not have "sex" (if one thinks of sex as vaginal penetration), and so he didn't consider himself to be lying when he said that.<br /><br />Similarly, the bit about not inhaling. I'm not experienced here myself, but from what I understand, the way one takes a hit from a joint is akin to sucking a bit of smoke into the mouth and then puffing it out, without taking a drag into the lungs as one does with a tobacco cigarette. If one convinces oneself that the act described as "smoking" involves the inhalation of the smoke, then one could claim without thinking of it as a lie that he did not "smoke" marijuana just as he could credibly claim not to have "eaten" or "drunk" marijuana.<br /><br />BTW, I'd fail the lie detector every time, because when someone levels an accusation at me, a part of my brain "knows" that I'm really guilty, no matter what the accusation is or whether I remotely ever did anything like that. So if we're entering a world in which everyone will be judged by lie-detector apps, I might as well guillotine myself right now and get it over with.LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44777601540229966982013-11-03T16:09:19.141-08:002013-11-03T16:09:19.141-08:00I won't be in contact much the next week. Thou...I won't be in contact much the next week. Though I will be posting prepared blogs. Enjoy good discussions! Keep em lively! ;-)David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-17018547103519213012013-11-03T11:15:38.905-08:002013-11-03T11:15:38.905-08:00Voter ID laws already threaten women who have not ...Voter ID laws already threaten women who have not perfectly changed all ID names after getting married or divorced. <br /><br />Still Rob, your scenario has an extreme feel of a Margaret Atwood story. Um. One hopes...David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-19534683311689651112013-11-03T05:17:14.392-08:002013-11-03T05:17:14.392-08:00I had an odd thought this morning. What if Republi...I had an odd thought this morning. What if Republican efforts to turn abortion into a crime is in fact an effort to eliminate the right of women to vote? I mean, we're already seeing anti-abortion laws that add "deliberate miscarriage" as a crime that jails women. We also see laws that make it so that ex-convicts are stripped of their right to vote. (And there are even situations where a law intended to punish men who abuse women and accidentally cause a miscarriage are being used against women who miscarried naturally.)<br /><br />If these laws are upheld by the Supreme Court, you may see their widescale use. More and more women will be tossed into jail for miscarriages and actions that threaten a child (you're pregnant and you had alcohol? You are guilty of attempted murder!) which "lenient" judges will then turn into Damocles Swords with suspended sentences... which still strip the right of these women to vote because they were convicted of a crime.<br /><br />The end result is a growing number of Republican states where an increasing number of women are denied the right to vote. When people try to protest they are painted as liberal and soft on crime and wanting to let murderers vote... and any attempt to claim otherwise is shouted out as "you want murderers to vote!"<br /><br />Add in anti-minority efforts, and you have a retained Republican majority despite the voting base being a minority. The people who suffer, women and minorities, aren't voting Republican, so laws punishing and discriminating against them become the natural weapon of Republicans while people protesting these laws are accused of being "soft on crime" and the like.<br /><br />Rob H.Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59161314161355919452013-11-02T23:17:52.082-07:002013-11-02T23:17:52.082-07:00Paul and David,
I need to call you out on calling...Paul and David,<br /><br />I need to call you out on calling Snowden a low-level worker. He had worked for the CIA, the NSA, Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton for several years building trust along the way. His salary alone suggests he was valued more than a one-star general. This is not typical contractor pay and as sysadmin, he'd get to see a lot more than what a typical contractor would get to see.<br /><br />Paul, I'm not quite sure why you're saying Snowden's company only works on security clearances. Booz Allen and Dell have fairly large contracts with the government and work on several different projects. Are you thinking of USIS, the ones who vetted Snowden? Snowden never worked for them.Kelseynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78134537017887791252013-11-02T22:36:59.717-07:002013-11-02T22:36:59.717-07:00"Pre vett those guys out of politics (but not..."Pre vett those guys out of politics (but not law) and we might make real progress."<br /><br />Attorneys, lawyers, - possibly<br />Never let them become Judges!<br /><br />It would be a good test for senior management,<br />Possibly on the lines of an extra insurance the company must carry if its senior executives don't pass the test Duncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-90555432314017890642013-11-02T18:08:17.792-07:002013-11-02T18:08:17.792-07:00Law in the courtroom is inherently psychopathic-ad...Law in the courtroom is inherently psychopathic-adversarial. Lawyers act pretend as if they actually believe their clients. Creepy! But how it worksDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-92220624430773167232013-11-02T16:17:11.054-07:002013-11-02T16:17:11.054-07:00David,
"Pre vett those guys out of politics (...David,<br /><i>"Pre vett those guys out of politics (but not law)"</i><br /><br />Can you elaborate on the parenthesized comment? Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10675552165731324202013-11-02T16:04:20.501-07:002013-11-02T16:04:20.501-07:00Paul451 the difference between Snowden and Manning...Paul451 the difference between Snowden and Manning is that Mannig had access to things that were mostly not incriminating. Assange has revealed very little that actually shook anything up. Snowden is another story. It is mind boggling… so much so that my author's mind comes up with hidden plots.<br /><br />C-J-in-weld your approach assumes the person has a conscience. Far more important (or supplemental) to a lie detector is a psychopathy detector. There are now tests. Pre vett those guys out of politics (but not law) and we might make real progress.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27003574590165915892013-11-02T15:52:08.833-07:002013-11-02T15:52:08.833-07:00Apropos transparency: http://www.alternet.org/file...Apropos transparency: http://www.alternet.org/files/matt_davies_nsa.png<br /><br />Anon,<br />Snowden was a sysadmin for a contractor that does security clearances. Why does he need to have access to documents about spying on national leaders? Or presentations about the capacity of the NSA to harvest information from companies like Google/Yahoo/etc. Or a fraction of the things he has released.<br /><br />As I said, there are going to be thousands of Snowdens amongst the millions of intelligence contract workers with equivalent clearances, only a handful will ever go public. Most will be working for someone else.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-37796292658018485512013-11-02T13:55:46.492-07:002013-11-02T13:55:46.492-07:00Unless brain scanning can pick up deceptive intent...Unless brain scanning can pick up deceptive intent regardless of actual words chosen...?Christian J. Schultehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06152984976764056219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-357019619832964142013-11-02T12:55:55.823-07:002013-11-02T12:55:55.823-07:00The hole in Lorre's theory is two-fold: The p...The hole in Lorre's theory is two-fold: The people who tell the truth anyway because they don't care about the evil shit they're doing; and the people who are able to delude themselves, either temporarily or permanently, that they actually believe the B.S. they're spouting. <br /><br />In the first category is Dick Cheney, who simply tells a tiny portion of the truth ("We're going to have to go to the dark side") and then stops. In the second category are people like George Bush, who seemed to actually and truly believe the insane nonsense he was spouting.<br /><br />I should also mention a final category: The artistic truth-tellers. These are folks who tell you something that, if parsed juuuuuuust right, are the "literal" truth, and yet because of the way they have phrased things, everyone believes they have said something else. This is profoundly common in politics. The artist at this is Karl Rove, who was subpoenaed five times and never found to have perjured himself--he says something that you take to mean "A", but when it's later shown to mean "B", he goes back and says, "Oh, no; you can *clearly* see I meant B all along." This is the more dangerous situation.<br /><br />A recent example: Obama said that we are not now nor do we plan in the future to spy on Angela Murkel. Well, that wasn't the question, was it? The question was, *did* we surveil her in the past?<br /><br />No amount of brain-scanning will be able to sift that kind of nonsense.Douglas Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16065006638857432850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-57127613582289745092013-11-02T12:23:54.702-07:002013-11-02T12:23:54.702-07:00Didn't Binney recently suggest that excessive ...Didn't Binney recently suggest that excessive data collection impedes intelligence work, not enhances it, because focus is lost?<br /><br />If one's thoughts were exposed, it is not clear to me that this would make a more honest/better society. It could make a society fearful of triggering "thought crime". Little lies that smooth social interaction would also be obvious, and therefore counterproductive. All that social grooming would become potentially useless and change behaviors, not necessarily for the better.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.com