Truly Major Issues, helping decide the fate of democracy

I took a break from politics for a while, partly in order to gather breath and pay heed to so many great things that our civilization is doing, in tech and in freedom and rights -- on Earth and in space! It has been a spectacular year...

...the more so in that most of our dolor-addicted fellow citizens seem unable to even notice!  Indeed, all of the good stuff is threatened by the War on Science and by the re-ignited American Civil War.  

Hence… it is back to the political trenches, boys and girls.  And one thing I promise, when we do politics here.  It won’t be stuff you are reading anywhere else.

== Cranking back NSA spying...? ==

Topmost in the news, recently, the shocking ability of the U.S. Congress to actually pass a compromise bill, one that dials back a few of the powers given (since 9/11) to our Professional Protector Caste (PPC) in the Patriot Act.

Congress turns away from post-9/11 law, retooling U.S. surveillance powers. To be clear, this is a modest victory for those who always believed the Patriot Act was over-reach.  Indeed, look at page 206 of The Transparent Society (1997) to see how - back in the 20th Century - I warned about the "ratchet effect" of governmental powers, that moves them forward in a time of crisis, but never unwinds the crank very far, when things calm down.

This particular "unwinding" is a minor one, but symbolically it re-asserts the right of the people to sway their politicians and remind them that our watch-dogs are not wolves.  So why am I holding off any victory dance?  Because, in fact, the news media is filled with lazy folks who aim their gaze at the wrong things.  For example, it does not matter -- nor did it ever matter -- how much the NSA could see.  Indeed, they will be using insiders to do delicate and occasional meta-data sifts, within AT&T and Verizon and so-on. If you think limits on surveillance work, try showing us one example of that happening, across all of human history.  Ever. Even once.

Then go to an amusement park and play the game whack-a-mole. You’ll get what I mean. Fortunately... it doesn't matter.

What does matter are other parts of this law, which we have barely seen reported by media.  Portions that (with Obama Administration support) actually add greater supervision of our PPC. Slightly improving adversarial processes in the FISA Court, for example, so that sweeping data-trawls must be justified with plausible (if not probable) cause…. instead of simply hunches and whims.

Or constraining the formerly unlimited gag orders that were slapped willy-nilly on carriers for unlimited time spans, preventing them from even complaining that power was being abused. That practice was – to put it plain – inherently orwellian.  Indeed, the Obama-generated reforms are welcome -- they transform FISA from a mockery of a star chamber into an actual "court." 

Nevertheless, I want to know who appoints the court advocates who will question government search order requests! These should be chosen by stakeholders like the ACLU... from a pool of highly security-cleared individuals, of course, but civil liberties oriented skeptics after all. If this is not the case – if the adversarial court advocates are not appointed with input from adversarial (though demure) stakeholders, then that is where our scrutiny should go. That is where we should be militant for further reform.

Try, try to grasp this. It is futile to demand that elites not see! What we might be able to do, is force them to be supervised and held accountable, whenever they look at us. The former is a fantasm. A possibly-deliberate distraction. The latter is how we got the freedom we have. And it is how we'll keep from losing it.

== They want to blackmail you! ==

The latest incident of (purportedly) a major Asian nation hacking its way into western networks breached computer systems at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Records of up to 4 million current and former federal employees may have been compromised, giving hackers access to a treasure trove of personal information, including birthdates, Social Security numbers, previous addresses, and security clearances. All that data could help hackers identify information about specific targets, including potential passwords for websites that may be portals to information about weapons systems or other research data.

"They can dig down into that data and learn more about the individuals, what theirhobbies are, what their vices are, what skeletons they have in their closet.”

My own particular interest?  “Investigators believe the hackers sought federal employees’ records for a blackmail scheme,” says an article in the Los Angeles Times.  To which I can only reply: well… duh?

See how this verifies and validates my own oft-mentioned concern – that blackmail – and not tepid/limited bribery -- is one of the top methods used today to influence the modern political caste. 

Perhaps this will finally teach our most sincere leaders to do the obvious – declare an amnesty on minor sins that might be used for blackmail… on condition that those folks step forward during a one year period and tell-all. (Note this possible historic move you could make in your last year, President Obama! And you could do it yourself.)

 And if a person is already being blackmailed for more major things? Even partial amnesty for those misdeeds should still be good enough to lure victims out of the shadows of fear, letting us hunt down the real villains. The blackmailers themselves. 

Do you think I am making up a “story”? There is no way on Earth this is not already huge. Thwarting this failure mode should be one of our very topmost priorities.  And you civil servants who ignore this… you’ll be remembered for this laxity, when finally the fit hits the shan.

== Speaking of which… justice at last? ==

Oh… oh finally.  Comeuppance for an individual whose direct treason against the United States of America is incomparable since Jefferson Davis. 

“J. Dennis Hastert, the longest serving Republican speaker in the U.S. House, was indicted Thursday by a federal grandjury on charges that he violated banking laws in a bid to pay $3.5 million because of “past misconduct.”  Moreover, we now know that misconduct includes well-supported allegations of child molestation that go way back.

Why did I just go ballistic on the guy? Because he was all holier-than-thou during Bill Clinton’s much milder peccadillos? Nope. Because as speaker he helped thwart investigations of other House member-perverts like Mark Foley, who molested under-age pages? Not even that. 

It is because he created the “Hastert Rule” that now controls every aspect of today’s Republican Party, fiercely enforced by Rupert Murdoch and his Saudi co-owners of Fox News.  The rule that no GOP office holder shall ever negotiate in good faith with a democrat. Ever, under any circumstances -- not even if the dems are offering up the GOP's own plans!  (As happened with Obamacare.)

Moreover, the Hastert Rule commands that the reflex position of the Republican Party should 100% of the time be to oppose and thwart any democratic president, no matter what the issue at hand, going so far as even to stymie the Infrastructure Bill, so that our bridges fall down.  And moreover, that any GOP politicians who violate this sacred commandment shall be punished severely…

…as Hastert and Tom DeLay and other radicals savagely punished Newt Gingrich, in 1996, for having committed the ultimate heresy -- negotiating in good faith with Bill Clinton, delivering us major bills, both Welfare Reform and the Budget Act, for the good of the nation. Yes, Newt was (and remains) at least 40% crazy. But he actually wanted to get stuff done for America (as he saw it.) And we have reason to look back in fondness at guys like him… or Barry Goldwater or even Richard Nixon or Reagan… who were Half-Crazy, too, but who never declared – openly, as Hastert and McConnell etc. have – a wish to tear the country down around them, in the interest of outright civil war.

== The Seven Dwarves expand… ==

Speaking of Republicans, just look at the field of contenders for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.  Seven of them stunningly reactionary sons-of-Hastert…

…and then there’s Rand Paul, whom I deem crazy and hypocritical, but at least he's his own man. Indeed, Paul is the one out of that passel who occasionally says something consistent with the real world.

His purpose, of course, is still vile -- to maintain the illusion-delusion clutched by most libertarians, that the GOP is their “natural” home, and that it will be their “hold your nose” place to vote, in November 2016. Under the "anyone but a liberal!" narrative. That delusion – pure insanity – is decrypted elsewhere.  

And now Huckabee (whom I used to fear, because of his charm, but who thankfully appears to have utterly lost that trait) has joined the pack! …and Lindsey Graham… and Perry… and Trump?  Oh, my.

Only my wife asked an interesting question: “Where is Paul Ryan?”  

Seriously, he’s slightly less demented than most of that pack! With a markedly higher IQ than any of them. Moreover, isn’t he the heir apparent of the Republican Party?  Have we missed something, here? Oh, yes. The less-demented part. And the higher IQ part. I guess it is all-explained, after all. Never mind.

== And finally… =

A very interesting essay, on the 150th anniversary of Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, asserts that: "The Civil War Isn't Over."

The “Union,” and all that it meant to northerners as a kind of shield for liberal democracy against oligarchy and aristocracy, survived. It was transformed through blood and reimagined for later generations. The first American republic, created out of revolution in the late 18th century, was in effect destroyed. A new, second republic took its place, given a violent birth in the emancipation of four million slaves and the re-crafting of the U. S. Constitution in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Those Amendments—ending legal slavery forever, sanctifying birthright citizenship and establishing “equal protection of the law,” and creating black male suffrage—in effect re-made the United States Constitution. This comprised a second American revolution.  

  

How to regain trust in the NSA era: The IGUS Gambit

How might the Obama Administration best respond to wave after wave of "NSA revelations" that roil and cloud the political waters?

Ironically, almost none of Edward Snowden's leaks -- or those of Julian Assange -- revealed anything that was illegal per se. What they have done is stir a too-long delayed argument over what should be legal!  Specifically, the Patriot Act and the ratchet effect on surveillance that always happens when a country enters a state of panic. The post-9/11 alarm is finally fading and -- (barring some new, panic-inducing event) -- elements of the Patriot Act and pervasive surveillance are now up for public debate.

See page 206* of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to Choose between Privacy and Freedom? (1997) -- where this cycle of terrorism and increased government surveillance was predicted in precise -- and rather creepy -- detail.

 Elsewhere, I recently dissected and appraised the forty-two suggested reforms that a commission presented to President Obama, many of which he has instituted or sent to Congress. Here I want to focus on one important, trust-building measure that would make a huge difference.

= Meeting the needs of the Public and the PPC =

As expected, most of the current argument is about the wrong side of the issue -- mewling plaints calling to prevent society's elites (like the NSA or Google) from seeing -- an effort that is fated to be futile, condemned to absurdity by Moore's Law.

But at last there is talk also of doing what will work -- improving the degree to which the citizenry can supervise and have confidence that government remains essentially a servant of the people.

The main sticking point is over the need that members of the Professional Protector Caste (PPC) have for tactical secrecy, or the ability to conceal their operations from villains and adversaries.   This need is very strong, but so is that of citizens to feel assured that secrecy remains only tactical, short-term and pragmatic, never an excuse for permanent avoidance of accountability.

I have over the years offered several innovations that might achieve a win-win -- securing both tactical shadows for the PPC to be effective, while ensuring accountability that at least partially reassures the public. Foremost among these proposals would be to create the Office of Inspector General of the United States (IGUS).

IGUS could be established with a one-page law that simply transfers all of the inspectors general in every agency and department to an independent service under a figure of noted rectitude, whose staff might then perform their functions without the inherent conflict of interest that stymies so many IGs. IGUS members would be trained in both confidentiality and prim skepticism on the taxpayers' behalf, allowing PPC agencies to continue tactically secret investigations, but always with the peoples' delegated gaze over their shoulders.

A POLITICAL WIN-WIN: 
Without question, proposing and establishing IGUS would be an agile jiu-jitsu move on the part of the Obama Administration. It would simultaneously say:

"We understand that public confidence is shaken and this move should help to restore it while preventing the worst and most perniciously chronic abuses… while at the same time allowing our skilled public protectors to continue doing their important jobs. It is also the quickest way to do this, requiring the fewest changes in law."

Will this satisfy everybody? Of course not… nor should it! Indeed, I do not consider IGUS to be enough. I have several more proposals that would work in parallel with IGUS, so that in-sum we all can truly be sure that our watch dogs remain loyal (if fierce) dogs, and never wolves.

Nevertheless, establishing an Office of the Inspector General of the United States would be a good start. And it would allow the Administration to be seen acting vigorously, in a forward, pro-active direction that BOTH enhances public trust and allows our agencies to do their jobs.

My IGUS proposal was written in greater detail as one of two dozen "Suggestions for the Incoming Obama Administration" way back in 2008. Alas, not one of them got to anyone's ear. C'est la vie.

Still, you can read about it here: Free the Inspectors General!

== Political Miscellany ==

Lying with Data: Fox viewers in the family? Show them this chart that appeared on their news” network and ask if they can explain why almost no American scientists are republican, anymore.  See this appraisal, also: The Statisticians at Fox News use classic and novel graphical techniques to lead with data. 

*Page 206 of The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to choose between Privacy and Freedom?