Will masks save us?

I'm not gloating, just sad. It turns out the one thing that might save us from the monsters in this looming night... is light. Did I tell you so, 22 years ago? No, make that 29 years ago. 

Ponder any aspect of the Putin-centered, Fox-propelled, Saudi/Mercer/Koch-financed Trump fiasco, and ask yourself: "What if every single secret were exposed?" Yes, including every secret of every Democrat or pundit or "deep stater." Fair exchange. Why am I confident which cabal would dissolve, like vampires under the sun? 

Because one of them openly raves against every possible type of revelation*, forbidding officials to speak, enforcing NDAs, railing against investigations, begging John Roberts to safeguard all their secrets. Oh, he will. But that won't be the end of it. Oh, no.**

== The dismal reflex ==

To be fair, it's not just the vampire right who declares hatred of light. Or suspicion of it. Some of the very best folks - those who honestly feel they are fighting for the enlightenment - fall prey to the lure of shadows. Take this example:

Can protesters hide behind masks? Recently - protestors wearing head-mounted cameras scanned 13,000 faces in D.C., as part of a protest organized by Fight for The Future. These privacy activists are vigorous and rightly concerned about misuse of surveillance tech. Right problem! They demand absolutely and spectacularly the wrong solution! One that is not only technologically and historically clueless, but that plays right into the hands of every would-be Big Brother.

I debated this very topic on NPR's "To The Point" with Warren Olney. An ACLU attorney - Kade Crawford - was smart, cogent, agile... and she again utterly missed what history tells us -- that it's no use 'hiding' from elites, and that technology does... not... stop still, no matter how hard you denounce it, or even if you pass laws. 

What works -- the only thing that has ever protected freedom and, yes, some privacy -- is when average citizens can maximally see, and thus hold elites accountable.

Why do you think Putin and Trump and Fox desperately seek to preserve secrecy? The sole fallback position of the GOP today always distills to "Don't Look At Us!" Tax returns, staffer testimony, Trump's bragged-about "Great Wall of NDAs"... enemies of the enlightenment are terrified of light! We mustn’t be the ones giving them excuses to blind us, while retaining in secret all the powers we foolishly “outlawed.” Listen to the stimulating debate on NPR.

Ironically, those Capitol steps protesters were doing the right thing. Looking. And teaching others how to look. And rightfully-rapidly criticizing today's perhaps-racially-biased facial recognition systems so that tomorrow's will be better. It's where you see open, knowing criticism that things are working. I worry about where the light isn't shining. 

== More smartpeople foolishness ==

But it goes on, the incredible foolishness of well-intended folks:

This article from The New York Times about "the Privacy Project" shines light on important topics. Alas, like nearly all paladins of privacy, the author yet again dances around the key point, never zeroing in on the blatant lesson. Take the following, excised from her piece: "Sahil Chinoy, a graphics editor for the Opinion Section, built a facial recognition system for less than $100. There are many ways this technology can be abused. San Francisco has banned the use of facial recognition technology by its police and other agencies, but other cities, including New York, haven’t taken any steps to impede its use."

Can it be that a knowledgable person of above average intelligence actually wrote that paragraph, without contemplating the ironic contradiction and conclusion? That banning face-recognition systems -- or almost any type of surveillance-type technology -- is not only futile and hopeless, but actually distracts from the real problem? And the real solution. Seriously. What can be replicated now for $100 will cost pennies, tomorrow.

I have been engaged in this issue for 25 years, having won the Freedom of speech Award for The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? I've been involved in so many Privacy Conferences and I hope the Privacy Project will help spread growing Awareness of the problems we face, especially as we see deployment of "social credit" systems and ubiquitous camera tech. Unfortunately, nearly all these conferences wind up being festivals of hand-wringing, offering no plausible solutions.

There is a way out -- a way we can forge into the future without falling into surveillance hell by governments, corporations and other elites. But it will not come by banning "Orwell Tech." Or hiding from it, or screaming "don't look at me!"

It happens to be the same method we've used with growing effectiveness for 200 years, the method that's responsible for all our freedom. Alas, it seems that it's utterly counter-intuitive to contemporary pundits, who cannot conceive of any solution except prescribing darkness.

Want a better example of transparency/accountability in action? “Law enforcement agencies in Dallas and Florida on Thursday became the latest to announce they are investigating allegations some of their employees made offensive comments on Facebook after a watchdog group compiled screenshots of the posts and shared them in an online database.”

This is how citizens can break omerto and corner the good cops into helping cull their ranks of the bad. Most are dedicated public servants. A large minority are former Jr. High bullies who crave the power to instill fear. The answer is simple. Hire and encourage and support the former... if they help rid the ranks of the latter.

 And if they do, then they can be trusted with the new technologies that are coming, anyway. That is, they can be trusted... if we get to watch.

== Worries about deadly drones ==

In “The Real Robot Threat,” Robert Zubrin (otherwise known as a zealous proponent of Mars colonization, asserts that autonomous weaponry — bereft of conscience or human sentiment — could become either police state enforcers or the ultimate doomsday weapons.  To be clear this is a step beyond today’s mere remote-controlled drones, whose operators have been shown to be just as morally cautious — if not more so — as the pilots of fighter-bomber aircraft. Zubrin frets that whole swarms of  robot killers might be dispatched by a single tyrannical decision-maker, and even that entity might not be human.

Of course we’ve all seen the movie. And there’s an interesting thing about such flicks… in a free society, they have often become self-preventing warnings.  In this case, it had better be. Zubrin cites a commission that recommended a worldwide moratorium on development of such tools, along with weapons that find, track, and engage specific individuals whom a human has decided should be engaged within a limited predetermined period of time and geographic region.

== Incantations for aristocracy... on the left ==

Lest it ever occur to you to imagine that dogmatic insanity is restricted to the mad-right, go every now and then to any university campus and attend a lecture on semiotics or post-modernist criticism. Here’s one that defends the power asymmetries that have always given elites control over information flows and thus power over nations, peoples and races… all couched in airy fairy claims to “liberate” us from neo-liberalism: Transparency as Ideology; Ideology as Transparency by Jorge I. Valdovinos: 

“Abstract: Along with the increasing commodification of all aspects of culture and the persistent aestheticisation of everyday life under late capitalism, there is an equally increasing longing for objectivity, immediacy, and trust. As the mediation of our everyday experiences augments, a generalised feeling of mistrust in institutions reigns; the sense of a need to bypass them increases, and the call for more “transparency” intensifies. As transparency manages to bypass critical examination, the term becomes a source of tacit social consensus. This paper argues that the proliferation of contemporary discourses favouring transparency has become one of the fundamental vehicles for the legitimation of neoliberal hegemony, due to transparency's own conceptual structure—a formula with a particularly sharp capacity for translating structures of power into structures of feeling. While the ideology of transparency promises a movement towards the abolition of unequal flows of information at the basis of relations of power and exploitation, it simultaneously sustains a regime of hyper-visibility based on asymmetrical mechanisms of accountability for the sake of profit. The solution is not “more” transparency or “better” information, but to critically examine the emancipatory potential of transparency at the conceptual level, inspecting the architecture that supports its parasitic logic.”

This Orwellian gobbledygook is part of a general shriek of hatred aimed at all flat-open-fair systems of accountability that are rooted in the thing they hate most – the very concept of objective reality. Never forget that our enemy is zero-sum, incantatory justifiers of bullying power. And while today the worst examples work for a powerful "rightist" attempted Oligarchic Putsch, aiming to restore 6000 years of feudalism, there are would be savanarolas and Robspierres and Stalins among our (temporary) allies on the far-left, as well. 

== Transparency-pertinent news items ==

The 15 Biggest Ever Cases of Bank Fraud. Wow, a fascinating recounting of thefts and frauds, showing how much is being stolen by hackers and insiders… and this is probably not a complete list, by far! And the only long term solution is not “security.” It is transparency.

"Stephen Fry has narrated a new animated intro video for ChangeAView.com, discussing why we need (and may get) much better forums for argumentation and negotiation. The enemy of knowledge is not ignorance… Stephen Fry narrates.

Finally, futurist speaker David Orban offers a video on 21st Century Life Design Skills.

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===footnotes ====

* Except for the malignant, spiteful, sadistic and opposite-to-Jesus "Book of Revelation," which the Dominionists worship instead of Jesus.

** When, not if, John Roberts succeeds in demolishing the credibility of the US Supreme Court, it will be up to all of us to stand up for Enlightenment Constitutionalism in our own ways. I offer 100+ suggestions in POLEMICAL JUDO.

Steps toward openness

I was recently on NPR's "To The Point" with Warren Olney, debating privacy/transparency matters, soon. So it seems appropriate to do a posting on the issue. And no, we'll put aside one political cult's eagerness to end fact-based accountability in America -- and human -- life. Back to politics... and cool science... soon! But now, instead...

The Panama Papers have actually had some effect. The giant spill of documents from a Central American law firm has revealed a vast, international network of shell corporations that hide much of the oligarchy’s lucre, facilitating tax-evasion and organized crime. Now – in part thanks to the efforts of Transparency International - it seems it’s led the EU to actually clamp down on banking secrecy and declare substantial whistleblower protections, and about 40 other nations have pledged at least partial measures. Alas, while the U.S. has been among to top complainers about offshore banking havens, it remains one of the worst offenders when it comes to shell corporations. Especially in Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware.  Joe’s an okay guy, in my book. But he is often a decade behind, and he needs to get in front of this.

Some of my blogs go...bacterial? If you missed my careful decryption of myths about "central planning" and those who support/oppose it without adequate knowledge, see it re-posted on Phil's Stock World.

== Gerrymandering gradually gives way! --

The Equal Citizen campaign of Lawrence Lessig & co. deserves your support. But in wake of John Roberts's decision to choose party over country, the straw Lessig co. now cling to is hope for a 'bipartisan" anti-gerrymandering bill. Huh? You expect GOP defectors from the never-negotiate Hastert Rule? Good luck with that. Meanwhile, you'll find my own proposal what to do next, in the fight against this outrageously criminal cheat, in POLEMICAL JUDO.

In a major upset and victory for the enlightenment, Virginians just voted to leave the Confederacy and go deep blue, which will of course lead to gerrymandering's demise in that state. And let this be a lesson, the most important fight, next year, beyond getting Putin's grip off of Washington DC, is in the state legislatures. Pick a local battle at that level and you can do some real good.

Still, Virginians - there’s one reform you mustn’t overlook, because history shows you may not hold onto power. And when the confeds retake Richmond they will re-establish every crime… unless you enact something they dare not take back. A true referendum process like many (especially western) states have long had, and that many citizenries used to overcome gerrymandering. Create such a full-process in VA and the GOP won’t dare try to end it.

Meanwhile, President Obama and former Attorney General Holder are leading the charge to at least end gerrymandering in the few remaining blue states where it's practiced. So here's one IDEA: Obama and Holder etc. should arm-twist the legislature of Maryland to make an OFFER to TEXAS.

"We'll stop gerrymandering, if you will."

It's plausible! MD legislators will go along because they know TX republicans would refuse. Texas will refuse, but it will be a black eye. Texas pols will sneer: "All we have to do is wait. Most blue state voters have been forcing an end to gerrymandering anyway, leaving red states with this cheat advantage, hurrah."

Sure. But that statement will come back to bite them.

In fact, my MINIMAL OVERLAP solution to gerrymandering is designed to get around John Roberts's excuse of "legislative sovereignty." It has the approval (informal) of a friend of mine who sits on a federal bench. (Also in Polemical Judo.)

Summary extract: "Moreover, even if this method has flaws, it is a clear limiting case that deprives the courts of any “we see no clear remedy” excuse. For all its faults, Minimal Overlap is palliative, equitable and enforceable. It also gives a nod to state sovereignty and legislature privilege, by allowing the legislature to continue complete, discretionary control over one chamber, while the other two are set by a neutral computer reacting to their assembly boundaries."

It does an end run around Roberts. Checkmate - in just three sentences. Except there's no way in heck that any of the supposedly clever goodguy lawyers will even look at it.

 == Fact-checking ==

Trump says cities are ‘a mess.’ They’re actually enjoying a golden age. Many city neighborhoods have become the most coveted places to be. Even in Detroit, long a symbol of blight, urban spaces are roaring back.

See this from The Washington Post: “For Trump and his cronies, draining the swamp means ousting experts.” 

Trump attacks ‘socialists’ at home, but he just sided with the Communists. And… it surprises anyone?

== The cleansing power of light ==

Spain is being rocked by a huge scandal that might benefit us all, especially the civilization we dream of achieving. The agency of redemption is the one I’ve long touted — light. A senior Spanish police official has been arrested with terabytes of recordings revealing his nested web of blackmail and his service for years as a secret fixer for Spain’s rich and powerful, spying on their rivals and smearing their enemies.

I've long maintained that the core element of the worldwide oligarchic putsch to end the Enlightenment has to be blackmail. Mere corruption would not be enough to explain to total subornation we see in so many places. (*cough* William Barr.)

The Spanish revelations illustrate the nightmare of the worldwide blackmail cabal -- that a breakdown somewhere - perhaps anywhere - might lead to a cascade of searing-cleansing light.

Before we dive too deep into the next election cycle, it's important to get some perspective. What values do you prioritize above others? Do you have a clear idea where/how you got those values? See my “questionnaire on ideology” where I ask some pretty fundamental questions that probe underneath the comfy reflexes. Example: Do you believe humans knew a natural idyllic condition at some point in the past, from which we fell because of bad, inappropriate or sinful choices, thus reducing our net wisdom? (The Look Back View.) Or do you consider such tales mythological. Wisdom is cumulative and anything resembling a human utopia can only be achieved in the future, through incremental improvements in knowledge or merit. (The Look Forward View.)

If you hold to the Look Back View, then whatever the details – Christian, Hindu, Von Daniken – you will resist having your tenets scrutinized and possibly refuted by evidence. Most of our ancestors had that view, which is one reason progress came slow, and was bloody.

Try the questionnaire on my website!