reminds me off the Hermann Goering quote from the Nuremberg trial in 1947.
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the
country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same in any country."
denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger
This is exactly what happened after 9/11 to those who opposed conflict in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Except these people weren't even "Peacemakers" per-say: they just didn't feel military excursions were an appropriate response to a terrorist attack.
Part of the problem is that the people have no direct voice over the policies that shape their lives. Even Plato hinted that people will always be unsatisfied with their rulers (be they kings or democratic electorate) in writing, "People unwilling to govern themselves will be ruled by those deemed unfit to govern."
Fortunately, ubiquitous computing opens up new approaches to democracy.
That's a bit simplistic, no? Sure, you might only come back to your farm in one piece, but what if the alternative to going to war is never coming back to your farm? What if it means leading a life that is far worse that what you currently have?
Yeah, what if indeed? Germany attacked Poland allegedly in self-defense, with exactly those arguments, can't wait for the mushroom cloud blah blah blah.
So are we talking about there actually being the need for self-defense, or about self-defense as pretext for self-destruction of the many for the gains of the few? The few existential threats the US faces seem mostly to be inside of it.
The Germans, going into WWII, did not. The term was coined later, and the devices it's meant nowadays to imply were developed later. This is, of course, an accident of history and I wasn't making a deep point, just having some fun, but I do think you missed my point which was that threats of a mushroom cloud in particular would be a difference not a similarity between the two situations.
"Mushroom cloud" to me basically means "we don't have time to think, because then it will be too late!". In that sense, there is exactly zero difference between Goebbels, Bush and Obama. They just outwardly behave less like total pigs in ascending order, but the rationale is the same. "Finance us, and finance us murdering you and people all over the world, or it will be EVEN WORSE."
The daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador pretending she's a nurse and that Saddams's soldiers are throwing newborns on the floor just because they can, Powell with his slides telling the UN some trailers could be weapons laboratories, and that Saddam must be attacked immediately, it's all the same to me... it's not really about nuclear weapons, whatever works is used.
denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger
What's worse, many citizens have long since adapted that "argument", and do the dirty work for their leaders without even having to be asked, much less ordered.
This is because the goal of a out-of-control government is always the same - to keep and extend its reach. No matter which slogan they write on their banners, once they feel they are no longer under the strictest and most vigilant control of those they purport to represent - they will behave the same. Once the relationship between citizens and the government changes from owner/hired manager to subject/ruler, there's no other way it can go. Unfortunately, current US government is approaching the citizens as subjects and not owners way too often.
While I could understand why the vast majority of the government is in favor of this, or why the mainstream media is with the government, too, however disappointing that may be, what is most saddening is that there are a lot of people out there who agree with them, too, maybe not the majority but even 40% would be a very scary number.
Even in the most ruthless dictatorships there were a lot of normal people who supported their leaders, the surveillance and police states. That's the scariest part about this. If so many people believe in such ideas, it can take several decades to turn away from that, just like if you would live in a "communist" or "muslim" state, you'd know you're probably not going to see a true democracy in your country in your lifetime, even if there's a revolution.
If US becomes a surveillance state and abuses are common, and people just learn to "live with that", instead of protesting [1] before it's too late, it's going to be very hard to fix that later on, and it's going to have to become a lot worse for every single person, before things even begin to change, and that will take many years.
In a free society, you can't guarantee that you will stop terror attacks. They do cause damage and mayhem, however that is strictly localised unless the government overreacts and introduces draconian measures in a mistaken attempt to find terrorists under every rock. The UK survived decades of terrorism (sponsored by some US politicians like Rep. Peter King, now so ferocious against terrorists) without relying on mass surveillance of the kind it is now engaged in, in partnership with the US. It's not necessary to stop the attacks, only to survive them. Your question is like asking: How can we stop the next war?
In fact the aims of terror are principally to provoke a government to introduce repressive measures and lash out, and in the process, damage itself and its credibility with citizens. I think the aims of Bin Laden were probably to induce terror, fear, and paranoia in the US, and unfortunately they have succeeded, probably beyond their wildest dreams. Huge amounts of money and numbers of lives have been squandered, and the only result has been a series of failed states half-way across the world, a casual disregard for the rule of law, and a growing surveillance state at home destroying the very ideas the US claims to represent.
It's time for the US to recognise that expanding the architecture of surveillance and engaging in an eternal war against an ill-defined enemy is not going to make anyone safer, quite the reverse.
Yes of course, but the key here is that even if you could stop all terror attacks, many things are more important than stopping terrorist attacks, many things which are undermined by dragnet surveillance. Stopping the terrorists is entirely the wrong debate and not the most important issue here - it's a convenient hot button issue which, because it has no solution and is emotive, distracts much time and attention from the real issues in question.
Like your previous question, this is a non sequitur. The answer to a local terror attack is not hysteria about stopping all terror and surveillance of all citizens (99.9% of whom will never encounter terrorists in any form). The answer is to give the police and law enforcement time to do their work (which they do very well) and support them in trying to catch the people who committed that crime. The Boston bombers were found by police work after the fact, not by the mass surveillance of the population you are advocating as a solution to 'stop terror'. That's a solution to another problem - it's far more useful for finding dissenters of any stripe and undermining the rule of law than for catching terrorists.
If I were really brave, like Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was after the 2011 massacre there, then I would stick by the ideals my country was founded upon and wouldn't particularly care about the public's reaction.
"At a press conference the morning after the attacks, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Justice Minister Knut Storberget addressed the country. Stoltenberg called the attack a "national tragedy" and the worst atrocity in Norway since World War II. Stoltenberg further vowed that the attack would not hurt Norwegian democracy, and said the proper answer to the violence was "more democracy, more openness, but not naivety".
By stopping to commit them. Oh wait, that's not what you meant, you meant terror attacks by Americans or foreigners against American officials, not terror attacks against foreigners by American officials, or terror attacks by american officals against American civilians, right? My bad.
For that I would hop into a time machine, not train Al-Quaeda, not mess with Iran, and let Saudi Arabia find someone else to buy their oil with which they sponsor what they sponsor.
Some might claim then I would have been utterly usurped by the USSR, and without a time machine, who knows. There's really only one way to find out what acting like a decent person, and in extension like a decent nation, would have lead to. Or what it might lead to starting from today.
The solution is to act nicer now and in the future. The solution is not act in more terrifying ways, both home and abroad. Don't torture and murder people.
I think this country needs to really (re-)internalize the importance of popular support, and the difficulty of fooling enough of the people enough of the time.
You're not questioning, you're proclaiming a statement which has no proof but the proclaiming itself. Following your metaphor, you should be feeling like you're in physics lab proclaiming the reason for gravity is God's will. Don't be surprised somebody would ask for some proof to that and for some explanation about how one could verify that.
No you are in a place that is full with people with very good mathematical and statistical skills that can call you out on the bullshit that is the treat of terrorist attacks and can detach themselves from the primal emotional reaction.
Ironically, that itself is also rhetoric. You didn't even address anything I said, can not point what makes what I said mere rhetoric either, but just dismissed it all with that statement.
So maybe even if there are solutions, even if they get posted in plain sight of you; as long as you're trying hard to not see them, you won't.
What you're really saying is "give me solutions which keep me and my current outlook intact", and I don't see a reason to automatically assume that's possible or desirable.
Solutions please.
The solution to what, exactly? To drummed up fear? To hypocrisy and double standards? That's all just in the mind, and as Bill Hicks said, I recommend sit-ups. Or do you mean the fires that in large parts don't just get fueled, but were started by the very people who claim to protect from them?
from your other post:
The lack of solutions itself is a sign that no one has anything better to offer than what the NSA is currently upto.
Does this not also apply to your comments? Why aren't you making the comments you want to see, instead of "crying" about the problems with the discussion? Because it's not that easy, is it?
Also, this is hardly an issue everybody is completely informed about, much less in the mainstream. Talking "solutions" now, instead of simply talking and see where that leads, strikes me as premature.
You can't change a century of statism and the shrinking of the individual overnight with a "solution". We need to evolve out of consumerism and passivitiy, out of confusing symbols and things, not just consume the right change or come up with the correct symbol. We need to overcome atomization and rediscover solidarity instead of better skinner boxes, and that may take more than a generation even. If it is something you or I can fully experience in our lifetime, it is not aiming high enough IMHO. If it is something that can be explained to someone without all of attention span, intellectual honesty and passion, it is not worth a second thought.
And in a process that involves all people on the planet, I would not ever hold my breath to ever have a full explanation of the full picture, or expect a full map before I even do one step. But I can get to know myself and my immediate surroundings, see how I feel about each and act on those.
To me that is infinitely better than a full, but false explanation of how the world is, which is exactly what most people operate on, stories that cease to exist the moment they're no longer told. This leads to incredibly insecure people, who go insane as soon as the jukebox who tells them who they are goes silent, which in turn leads to all sorts of nonsense. As Voltaire said, those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities. Oh, the irony of complaining about "rhetoric" and then expecting a "solution, pronto".
My "solution" would be, hmmm, we all read and implement the writings of Erich Fromm and Marcus Aurelius, get to know ourselves, all 7 billion of us. Then we have a second round of discussions. If you don't like it, give me a better one.
There is nothing I read of him that I didn't utterly love, so I'd recommend whatever is easily obtainable, it's all good. But "The Sane Society" particularly comes to mind.
His 'The Art of Loving' was hands down
one of the best things I ever read.
He explained a lot to me about
people, motivations, personality,
women, etc. A lot. Some of
his explanations were shockingly
succinct but from decades of
my checking empirically right on
target.
To me in that book, he is fully
credible. I can guess how he got
the insights: Be a bright guy,
have a good background in what
was known, at least empirically,
at the time about psychology and
psychiatry,
do a lot of clinical psychology,
listen to a lot of people, and identify
the main issues and forces in
common. Now I can look at
events A, B, and C, from Fromm find
the intuitive, qualitative version of the
conditional probability of
event X given events A, B, and
C -- P(X}A, B, C) -- when this
conditional probability is high, take X
as a candidate explanation, look
at some more data, and often
conclude that Fromm nailed it again.
Before reading Fromm, I never thought about the difference between having and being; but once seen it can hardly be unseen. Like when he talks about idolatry or God, with a point and seriousness and as atheist, or the distinction between necrophilia and love of life -- before Fromm necrophilia was something out of gross jokes to, not anything I could seriously ponder, but now I'm thinking we're just so deep into all that, so deep down the rabbit hole, that the truth hurts too much, but he never exaggerated even one bit.
[..] if one is in touch with one's own unconscious reality, I think one would have to admit that in all of us there is a piece of Eichmann, and if you ask why, on what basis do I say this, then I would ask you wether you have lost your appetite when you read that in India people were starving, or wether you have gone on eating. As soon as you have not lost your appetite, when you knew other people were starving, then your heart has hardened, and in principle, you have done the same which Eichmann did.
Nobody wants to hear that. I don't want to hear it either. If I read it in a book which otherwise is telling me many things that are obviously wise and come from a good motivation, I can ponder it. If someone just says that about me, to my face, I defend myself before I fully heard what was said. But it's true.
He goes on:
I don't think, that if we are really in touch with the inner reality of ourselves, that there is any crime, or perhaps any virtue, which we cannot discover in ourselves. We shut ourselves [off] from the awareness of our inner reality, we project the evil to our opponents and enemies, and believe that the good is in ourselves; indidivually, nationally, and group-wise in general.
But if you can really see that every one of us, carries all of humanity, the good and the evil, within himself, then indeed is very hard to be a fanatic, then indeed it's very hard to be a judge, then indeed would follow, a deep understanding, if not love, of your fellow man. Which is part of being truly a person.
Bam. Consider how far this is from the maturity of our so called leaders and us, how far away from even our highest standards. The fact that this stuff comes across as cheesy rhetoric so easily, is just testament to how lost we are.
Sorry for rambling, but I can't deny it, I love that dude, and I honestly think everybody should at least try to read him because they might, too.
Wow! Some of that may also be in the
last half of 'The Art of Loving', but
what you wrote is new to me. You are
right -- just from what you quoted,
he had something perceptive and important
to say.
And on India, he's right: I refuse to
pay attention to India, and for essentially
just the reason he said.
I think many, if not all of his ideas show up in all of his writings here and there, he is consistent that way :) But what still positively surprised my about "The Sane Society" was the last third, where he goes into (then) recent history, and quotes a lot of people I never heard of about the up and coming age of industrialization. Very good stuff, and all news to me.
The whole concept of alienation found its first expression in Western thought in the Old Testament concept of idolatry. The essence of what the prophets call "idolatry" is not that man worships many gods instead of only one. It is that the idols are the work of man's own hands -- they are things, and man bows down and worships things; worships that which he has created himself.
In doing so he transforms himself into a thing. He transfers to the things of his creation the attributes of his own life, and instead of experiencing himself as the creating person, he is in touch with himself only by the worship of the idol. He has become estranged from his own life forces, from the wealth of his own potentialties, and is in touch with himself only in the indirect way of submission to life frozen in the idols. The deadness and emptiness of the idol is expressed in the Old Testament: "Eyes they have and they do not see, ears they have and they do not hear," etc.
The more man transfers his own powers to the idols, the poorer he himself becomes, and the more dependent on the idols, so that they permit him to redeem a small part of what was originally his. The idols can be a godlike figure, the state, the church, a person, possessions. Idolatry changes its objects; it is by no means to be found only in those forms in which the idol has a socalled religious meaning.
Idolatry is always the worship of something into which man has put his own creative powers, and to which he now submits, instead of experiencing himself in his creative act.
Among the many forms of alienation, the most frequent one is alienation in language. If I express a feeling with a word, let us say, if I say "I love you," the word is meant to be an indication of the reality which exists within myself, the power of my loving. The word "love" is meant to be a symbol of the fact love, but as soon as it is spoken it tends to assume a life of its own, it becomes a reality. I am under the illusion that the saying of the word is the equivalent of the experience, and soon I say the word and feel nothing, except the thought of love which the word expresses.
The alienation of language shows the whole complexity of alienation. Language is one of the most precious human achievements; to avoid alienation by not speaking would be foolish -- yet one must be always aware of the danger of the spoken word, that it threatens to substitute itself for the living experience. The same holds true for all other achievements of man; ideas, art, any kind of man-made objects. They are man's creations; they are valuable aids for life, yet each one of them is also a trap, a temptation to confuse life with things, experience with artifacts, feeling with surrender and submission.
To me Erich Fromm's writings are like a holograms, they all seem to contain a rough version of the whole ^^
Terrific. You/he did it again. I wouldn't
have thought of more than 10% of that,
even on a good day.
There are some connections with some of
the content in 'The Art of Loving',
especially his -- rough quote:
"The fundamental problem in life is
getting security in face of
the anxiety from the realization
that we are vulnerable to the hostile
forces of nature and society.
Human intelligence enables this
realization.
For responding to this anxiety,
only four approaches have been
tried, (1) love of god,
(2) love of spouse,
(3) membership in groups
(get praise, acceptance, approval,
feeling of belonging, coalition, support),
and (4) 'orgiastic' behavior
(sex and drugs) to suppress
the feelings of anxiety."
So, the "idolatry" can be seen as
another response to the
anxiety, that is,
a false approach to
(1)-(3).
Fromm had another one, that can
regard as a 'secret scorecard'!
He explained that in a good case of
love, the couple
gives to each other
knowledge, caring, respect,
and responsiveness. So, in "knowledge"
they keep each other informed
on their thoughts, feelings, concerns,
desires, etc. In "caring", they
actually, actively care about each other.
In "respect" they respect the other
person, e.g., don't regard them
with contempt or to be manipulated
or exploited. For "responsiveness",
they 'respond' to each other,
e.g., don't do what was long in the
Sunday newspaper cartoons of the
wife talking to the husband
over the breakfast table
and the husband behind a newspaper
repeating "Yes, Dear. Of course,
Dear. That's right, Dear.
That's nice, Dear. Yes, Dear.".
Then take these four 'attributes'
and evaluate them for couples you
know. If the couple gets a bad
grade on all four, try to short
the stock of their marriage,
if it is possible to do that!
Or be very cautious about marrying
one of their children!
That little scorecard can give some
surprising results: Can discover that
some couples are going along for
decades with what externally to
the community looks like a good
marriage but according to the
scorecard really would like to
knife each other in the back!
Or, people can put on some really
big acts.
There's more, from Fromm, and still
more if combine Fromm with some
other good sources (of which
I know only a few).
Here's an exercise: Watch 'Roman Holiday'.
There the reporter Bradley
(Gregory Peck)
and Princess Anna (Audrey Hepburn)
were from the beginning basically
lying to each other about whom
they were but slowly mutually
but silently worked past the lies.
Then evaluate the scorecard:
They did great. On each of
the four, they started off okay
and then grew to a grade of A or A+.
Then they were in love. Otherwise
they showed it by only quite
subtle means, but it was
convincing and enough. The
writer (Trumbo), director
(Wyler), and the actors did
fantastic jobs. Fromm's scorecard
wins again!
People really in love will likely
be doing well on Fromm's scorecard
whether they have heard of the four
items or not. If they are not in love,
are pretending to the public to be
in love, and
have not heard of the four items,
then there is a really good chance
that their act is not working and
they are showing that they
are not in love by getting bad grades
on the scorecard.
I doubt that Trumbo or Wyler
had read Fromm, but they knew enough
about love to give a really good
presentation of it including on
Fromm's scorecard.
Note: I call Fromm's four attributes
a 'scorecard'; I doubt that Fromm
ever did!
That Fromm's little four item
scorecard can look like X-ray
vision through the public
'presentation' of couples
trying to pretend in public
to have a good marriage is to me
amazing and astoundingly valuable.
Some of the best information about
anything I ever got.
One more exercise: The first item on Fromm's
scorecard is giving knowledge.
Well, that is a form of 'intimacy'.
If you are in a romantic relationship
without intimacy, then you are in
deep trouble! On the other hand,
if meet a girl and soon she is
telling you lots of things
from between her ears, then that's
intimacy and inviting a romantic
relationship. I've been in
'romantic' relationships where
the girl was much more open about
what was between her legs than between
her ears. Or in 'Roman Holiday', they
started between their ears and
slowly worked down to, say,
a nice hug and a kiss. In real life,
it can be much more common to start
below the waist and maybe move up,
maybe never get above the shoulders,
and only rarely get between the ears.
Or, in middle school
it can appear that a lot of the mothers
told their daughters to stay away
from boys, not to talk to them:
"Don't tell them anything. If they
ask 'why', just say 'because'. Say
it over and over until they feel
insulted and give up." So, such
mothers know that this way they
can throttle a path toward intimacy
for their middle school daughters.
I don't. We could have a 9/11 type event every year, and it would still not be as big a problem as automobile accidents. If we're going to live in a police state, I would hope the police state would focus on major causes of preventable death, like disease and automobile accidents. Terrorism in the United States is not a serious problem worthy of this level of concern.
This is like saying lets have a lottery every year that picks 3000 people and send them over to the middle east.
My point is people have to be pushed to answer the question on how to tackle terrorism to take this debate in a constructive direction. Ofcourse governments will do dumb things but the terrorism problem is a hard one.
The terrorism problem is a manufactured one. You want to fight terrorism? Fine, your budget is proportional to the budget we use to solve other types of murder based on the number of lives it costs us, and you can use the same methods. If you don't agree you'll have to distinguish terrorism from other types of murder in a defensible way, otherwise we should be treating them equally.
What is this obsession with body counts? To bang again on my favorite drum, many, may more Americans were dying of polio or coal mining accidents in 1941 than German or Japanese bombs. That doesn't mean it was stupid to enter World War II.
Obviously those who have chosen to deliberately kill civilians in spectacular ways are not right now a danger akin to imperial Japan or Nazi Germany. But will it really take a dirty bomb, a successful mass infection/poisoning, or god help us a nuke to stop this silly argument?
It's bizarre to me that one of the anti-anti-terror arguments of choice reflects that hilariously dystopian scene in the film Brazil, wherein the staff and patrons of a restaurant that has just been bombed attempt to paper over the incident by completely ignoring it, as innocent people suffer and die.
>Obviously those who have chosen to deliberately kill civilians in spectacular ways are not right now a danger akin to imperial Japan or Nazi Germany.
Obviously. Which is the point.
>But will it really take a dirty bomb, a successful mass infection/poisoning, or god help us a nuke to stop this silly argument?
These are movie theater plots. "Mass poisonings" are a very poor attack vector because as soon as they're identified they get publicized and people stop consuming the adulterated product, which minimizes the impact. Spreading infection has similar constraints, is difficult to contain (i.e. the attacker can't prevent it from spreading to his own family/country), and it is vastly more difficult to obtain weaponized infectious materials than poisons.
And dirty bombs are a media fabrication. Here's the money quote from Stratfor: "By its very nature, the RDD is contradictory. Maximizing the harmful effects of radiation involves maximizing the exposure of the victims to the highest possible concentration of a radioisotope. When dispersing the radioisotope, by definition and design the RDD dilutes the concentration of the radiation source, spreading smaller amounts of radiation over a larger area."[1]
Which leaves The Bomb. But terrorists can't build nuclear weapons. States can barely do it. So if your concern is nuclear terrorism, the solution doesn't require you to catch the terrorists, all you have to do is limit the availability of weapons grade material. Which is a completely different problem with completely different solutions that don't involve domestic surveillance or foreign wars, is required to prevent state-level nuclear proliferation regardless of terrorism anyway, and mostly just involves being the highest bidder if weapons grade material ever becomes available on the black market.
>It's bizarre to me that one of the anti-anti-terror arguments of choice reflects that hilariously dystopian scene in the film Brazil, wherein the staff and patrons of a restaurant that has just been bombed attempt to paper over the incident by completely ignoring it, as innocent people suffer and die.
I don't think anybody is arguing that there should be no response to a terrorist act. But why can't the response be to bring the terrorists to justice as international criminals, and not to let it change the fabric of our society?
"dirty bombs are a media fabrication" ... I don't know about this, once you factor in Green hysteria about radiation. I suspect a dirty bomb in e.g. Germany would have amazingly disproportionate results compared to the actual threat.
In the US, we'd probably do what they did in NYC after 9/11 WRT to the excessive claims of danger from asbestos, say "never mind" (after cleaning up hot spots). And "don't eat dirt" and the like, but who knows?
Elsewhere I've touched on how I'm not as sanguine as you over the real nuclear threat.
> I don't think anybody is arguing that there should be no response to a terrorist act. But why can't the response be to bring the terrorists to justice as international criminals, and not to let it change the fabric of our society?
Why not both? I've yet to be convinced that warrant-based searches of Internet traffic by a resource-constrained agency would actually appreciably change the fabric of society. Especially if we force better transparency and accountability controls on what is now present.
But also, while we're itemizing potential terrorist activities, am I the only one who is worried about MANPADs?
Finally someone with a realistic solution that can be politically acceptable.
Amazing to watch how defensive people get over a question.
So thank you, for showing everyone else who has been downvoting me into oblivion, the right way to react to questions that make one uncomfortable.
And in the end, this debate will only move forward over reasonable solutions.
Not fancy speeches on privacy and freedom.
Which I have had more than enough off.
Other people have in fact been pointing out this very fact/approach as well, you just chose to ignore them. Coming in at the last moment and saying "Finally!" is just dense and completely transparent.
"Practically nobody" has been caught up in NSA shenanigans either. What people are worried about is the possibility of this destroying our Republic, but we've actually watched the planes fly into the Twin Towers. So one of these concerns is more concrete, if that's all you're worried about.
The normal recommendation is "good old-fashioned police work", as if strong police states are known to be beacons of freedom.
Some simply recommend to just suck it up as the price of doing business, but that goes against everything America has typically done with regard to terrorism, all the way back to the Barbary Pirates: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"
That's why the surveillance state will exist. Cause the answers are non-obvious.
What I find most annoying about the comments on hacker news over the last couple weeks, is the amount of people crying about the problems or potential problems and hardly anyone talking solutions. The lack of solutions itself is a sign that no one has anything better to offer than what the NSA is currently upto.
Simple proposal that I think everyone would agree is preferable to what the NSA is currently up to:
What the NSA is doing, but properly implementing mandatory access control (like what they added to Linux over a decade ago with SELinux) to ensure that admins do not have more access than they should.
That said, I'm not eager to let them define the Overton window and just settle for that - I'm leaning a little further on the "radical transparency" side of the spectrum - but clearly, what the NSA is up to is not treating our data with the care it merits.
I'd even add more technical controls on top of accountability/oversight compliance organizational changes:
- Any data collected under a general warrant is encrypted immediately.
- Access to this data is audited to a WORM-style server.
- Decrypting the data requires 2 persons to provide a key (I believe there are crypto schemes that do this in the literature; if not I'm sure NSA could figure it out).
- The process that decrypts the data after the authentication creds are provided also notifies a random 3rd party within NSA (or even a Congressional/FBI/etc. panel setup for this purpose).
On top of this there need to be changes to how NSLs and FISA warrants are treated. They are secret only so long as needed for the law enforcement purpose.
Afterwards, if there is still an issue of sensitivity from a counter-terrorism standpoint (e.g. enemy groups would learn too much about our capabilities if fully detailed NSLs/warrants were public), then they are scrubbed as little as necessary to allow for public dissemination. This could mean aggregate reporting, sunset provisions for gag orders, etc. But having permanent gag orders is not befitting our Republic.
Finally I agree that having NSA write its own rules is not a good idea. I would require Congress to set overarching policy and limits on NSA's actions and prevent Congress from delegating that into the Executive Branch. I think even the Dems and GOP could hopefully get along long enough to ensure national security is being guarded...
I agree with everything here. Given a free hand, I'd likely go significantly further. I was simply proposing the simplest, smallest change that I think everyone serious would agree an improvement over what has been implemented. I don't think it's anywhere near enough.
> The lack of solutions itself is a sign that no one has anything better to offer than what the NSA is currently upto.
Not doing what the NSA is currently up to, and letting a 9/11 happen every year, would be better than what we're currently doing.
"Preventing all terrorism" is both impossible and wildly impractical: to even get close, you must eviscerate the freedoms in your society and undermine the rule of law.
The "solution" is "be an adult, and don't go in to a frenzied panic every time you get hurt".
> "Preventing all terrorism" is both impossible and wildly impractical: to even get close, you must eviscerate the freedoms in your society and undermine the rule of law.
Preventing all terrorism isn't actually the goal though.
Just like our vaccination regimes are not intended to completely eradicate disease, merely prevent epidemics and pandemics, the anti-terrorism programs are intended to increase safety and security for Americans (and by proxy, other nations who would also be targets of the groups aligned against the USA), in a way such that terrorism does not happen so often that the people demand the police state we all claim here to despise.
It is recognized that completely eradicating terrorism is probably impossible, but the U.S. can make it almost impossibly difficult to form large enough terror cells to repeat things like 9/11.
And unlike your rather defeatist attitude, I think that can be done without "eviscerating" civil liberties, as long as we employ ample doses of transparency, watchdog groups, and organizational structures designed to keep those programs directed to the mission and provide accountability and oversight. Of course it can be done; how do banks holding billions of dollars of their customers funds manage to provide strict accountability for those?
Pretty much every prior technological breakthrough has made tyranny in the U.S. more likely, and the U.S. has managed to pull through in each case (though sometimes with roadbumps...).
And, if you're really concerned about the rule of law you will do everything possible to avoid "a 9/11 every year". When the state fails to protect the people, the people (armed by the 2nd Amendment) will take matters into their own hands, and it won't be pretty for many innocents in America.
But again, if you have better ideas I'm sure the NSA is listening...
Not doing what the NSA is currently up to, and letting a 9/11 happen every year, would be better than what we're currently doing.
In a democracy, you have to at least try to get people to agree with you, and given what we know about the NSA program, you're nuts if you think any politician who proposed the tradeoff you're making would get 15% of the vote.
What about spending the anti-terror money to make the US "look good" to the people that could be terrorists? That would lower the probability of terrorist attacks.
I know this sounds cheesy but I think repression is just making things worse.
You've asked some tough questions which are really against the grain here. You've been respectful, direct to the point and articulate.
Just felt a simple up vote didn't convey enough of a thanks. You've provoked the conversation in far more interesting directions than it would otherwise have taken. Thank you sven7.
If asking a question, in what generally appears to be an open minded forum of seemingly well read people of above average intelligence, can be this complicated...its easy to imagine why Congress has a tough time doing anything.
I guess we just have to keep trying to refocus on solutions and hope for the best.
That's unrealistic, because we simply won't put up with mass casualty events. The key is to focus the response productively and avoid mission creep. It's the potential if not inevitability of the latter that makes the current NSA et. al. stuff so bad.
This is different, this is a president who's cut from the same cloth as Nixon, in everything from being the first one since him to refer to his political enemies as "enemies" to this new model of the Plumbers ... except the establishment and media hated Nixon with a passion starting in the late '40s, 1950 at the latest. Obama hasn't been subjected to that level of feedback, e.g. note how many on the Left are happy with or at least excusing his Administration's suppression of the TEA Party et. al., which is one of the things that casts the NSA's extreme data gathering---not "collection", you must understand...---in sharp relief.
>That's unrealistic, because we simply won't put up with mass casualty events.
Honest question: Why not?
Obviously we don't want mass casualties, but we don't want thousands of traditional murders or automobile fatalities or cancer deaths every year either, and we don't allocate insanely disproportionate budgets or construct a surveillance state to address any of those things. If anything we under-perform in addressing them.
I mean let's even compare to other mass casualty events. There have been hurricanes that have caused more deaths than 9/11. Where is the call for a war on CO2 to reduce climate change induced mass casualties? The answer is that there is no lobby for it. Nobody is going to get paid a trillion dollars, if anything the oil and coal companies would lose money. So the mass casualties there don't get politicians, lobbyists and PR flacks whipping the media into a frenzy over it, instead it just gets swept under the rug.
We as citizens have a duty to not allow ourselves to be manipulated like this.
Well, my take on the American character is wildly different, then again I'm culturally a Southerner, we're always ready for a fight. (I mean, if you've missed "the call for a war on CO2 to reduce climate change induced mass casualties" we are definitely existing in different universes, then again We've always been at war with Eastasia, I remember when it was SO2 we had to fight since it was obviously causing an ice age.)
But, geeze, this united the nation for a very brief period, I mean, when the ruling class in their national cathedral sings The Battle Hymn of the Republic 3 days after 9/11 it does mean something (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic...).
Millions of our ancestors died fighting for freedom in the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI and WWII. To lose freedom would to squander their sacrifice. They would not forgive us, nor would those yet to be born.
"Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." -Edmund Burke
I feel this comment is missing "think of the children". Practically any government excess can be justified once it is claimed it is to combat terrorism or protect children.
Oh, the answer to you question is simple - you can't. We just had a terror attack in US not so long ago. And there probably would be others, unfortunately, though nobody could predict where and when. If somebody promises you he'll stop all terror attacks - he's lying. If somebody claims he can give you safety only if you surrender your freedom - he is lying and he's trying to enslave you, using your fear against you.
I am completely convinced, however, that US government, with all its enormous might, is perfectly capable of ensuring reasonable - not complete, as it is impossible, but reasonable - level of safety to US citizens without turning into a police state and shredding the Constitution. Yes, it will be harder and some important people would be forced to work a lot harder than otherwise and spend more money and stay longer hours, and be frustrated and annoyed by how they have to follow all those pesky little rules while doing their work. It is the only way to do it without turning from citizens to subjects.
There are often politicians (and others) who say "we will not let them change our way of life, because that would hand them victory". The fact remains that our way of life has changed, in the name of security.
Try doing an exercise that is incredibly useful for those talking about terrorism--remove the word "terror" from what you're saying and see if your question remains reasonable.
"And how do you plan to stop the next attack?"
Suddenly the supreme vagueness of the question becomes apparent. After all, attacks in general provoke terror (at least for me--some random guy can rush at me on the street and I'll feel terror). So what attack are you talking about? By whom? The U.S. already has a framework to prevent "attacks" in general-- the CIA, the military, the police, the NSA, etc. Like with all security systems, it's a matter of calibrating them so they don't undermine our way of life.
As a micro example -- I can prevent future (terror) attacks on myself by burying myself in a sealed metal casket. But my way of life would be seriously undermined. So how do I want to calibrate my safety vs. how I want to live?
The exercise of removing the word "terror" is useful in almost all situations, because it actually makes things a little more accurate. For example, the "War on Terror" becomes the "War on ...". Which, as it panned out, more accurately describes the outcome.
By nuking the rest of the world to glass. If only USA exist there will be no more terrorism. I also intend of stopping crime by preemptively incarcerating everyone and sending them to prison. And I will also stop rape by freezing the sperm of every man when he gets his first ejaculation and then castrate them.
The prevention efforts should be reciprocal to the threat.
What do you think is going to happen to the Muslim parts of the world that aren't in majority non-Muslim nuclear states after the, say, third Muslim origin nuclear weapon slags a US city?
That's a pretty powerful motivation to keep this beat back, to e.g. as I noted WRT to Afghanistan post-9/11 send a strong message that if you kill thousands of us we will return the favor to the leaders and enablers.
The same that will happen when my little pony characters begin to worship chaos undived and add Abbadon the Despoiler in the crusade against Gandalf who is sitting on the golden throne.
The idea of a successful attack on US with missile is just bad B movie trope. Even USSR strategies were for massive waves of missiles that could overpower the defenses.
Non state actors cannot manufacture nuclear weapons. This thing is hard. They could obtain possibly - but the fact is that US is somewhat defended by geography alone so Israel is much better (and more hated) target.
Now I know that the majority of US ruling class act as if USA is just some territory belonging to Israel and not sovereign country.
But if any credible nuclear threat for the US is to appear - it will be from a country. And there are better ways to contain Iran or Pakistan than to become surveillance state.
Who said anything about missiles? For best effect, smuggle in a device and do the mother of all "suicide bombings" from a general aviation plane at optimum height and location. Nasty detail: as of when I left the D.C. area, the defense plans for the White House would only shoot down the 2nd airplane which violated the relevant restricted air space....
We also have absolutely no defenses for anything from our east, unless an Aegis ship with SM-3s and the upgrades to fire them is near the target and properly alert. This lack of protection was, after all, one of the reasons for the Bush plan to put ABMs in Eastern Europe, they'd protect everything there to the west, including the eastern part of the US.
As for sources, IF they got enough HEU they could most certainly manufacture working gun assembly nuclear weapons; as usual the trick is getting the fissionables, but are you entirely, "You Bet Your Life" sanguine about Pakistan's control over its nukes and nuclear materials??? And how responsible Iran will be when they get "the bomb" remains to be seen.
> As for sources, IF they got enough HEU they could most certainly manufacture working gun assembly nuclear weapons; as usual the trick is getting the fissionables, but are you entirely, "You Bet Your Life" sanguine about Pakistan's control over its nukes and nuclear materials???
I will note that Manhattan Project scientists were so confident in the gun-assembly nuclear bomb, that they didn't even bother testing it (in the age before computer-aided design, no less!). The first working gun-assembly bomb was detonated over Hiroshima. In other words the first atomic bomb ever dropped in anger had never been test-fired, that's how confident the designers were that it would work.
The real magic of the Manhattan Project had been the industrial-scale development required to piece together all that weapons-grade nuclear material in the first place, not the design itself.
My only quibble, and I think it's a big one, is that they did before hand prove they knew what they were doing with the plutonium implosion Trinity test. When that much more complicated Gadget worked, it gave everyone a lot of well deserved confidence in the whole effort.
Remember a few year back when a group of Irish were the worst terrorists in the world? Oh, wait, a few people in the United states funded them!
There will always be people that fight nations with non traditional warfare. Today it happens to be from the middle east. Tomorrow it may be Hello Kitty fanatics.
To me, the scariest part of all this is your opinion.
Nations are, and have always been, in a state of competition for dominance and resources.
Knock one out, and some other will fill the vacuum instantly, while their people clap and cheer - death to the USA, my country #1.
This idea that the USA should just leave everyone alone, and then the world will be a perfect place is so naive that it's absurd and self-destructive.
Pretending that you can get a job as an IT guy at some contractor's place, then steal government laptops, bring them home, then sift through the data to gather whatever dirt you can find, and give that dirt away to other nations is most certainly treason and espionage.
He didn't give them away to other nations, but to journalists. And he's exposing illegal acts that actually are treasonous ("National Security" is just an excuse to protect existing power structures, not the actually best-interests of the common good).
Are you talking about the "direct pipes" PRISM and FISA media story?
Or all the other documents he is releasing about the USA spying/hacking on other nations? Because that's what the NSA and CIA do, and all the other countries take part in. It's part of the game nations play.
Or are you talking about whatever else he has / will release to help damage the USA?
Not only did he release those documents for anyone to see (in effect), he and his "journalists" sensationalized it to the point of it being a falsehood...
Read the response of the government, the number of FISA requests involved, how they are handled, the limited number of phone taps done, how this does not aplly to US citizens at all, and what the involved companies are saying. Even Google is claiming the media is downright lying about what is going on (no "direct pipes")...
> Google's reputation and business has been harmed by the false or misleading reports in the media, and Google's users are concerned by the allegations.
Or just keep ignoring the facts, and pretend you know better because the government must be evil and you live is a Nazi Germany like state.
> Because that's what the NSA and CIA do, and all the other countries take part in. It's part of the game nations play.
Yeah, and so? That doesn't make those actions right, nor Snowden's actions wrong.
> Even Google is claiming the media is downright lying about what is going on.
It's he-said they-said right now, but Snowden has documents that allegedly corroborate his story, while all we get from the ISPs, telecos, and the government are simple denials.
> Yeah, and so? That doesn't make those actions right, nor Snowden's actions wrong.
It makes those actions necessary, and his actions absolutely wrong.
> It's he-said they-said right now, but Snowden has documents that allegedly corroborate his story, while all we get from the ISPs, telecos, and the government are simple denials.
What we got was clarifications and specifics to the media's sensationalism and falsehoods. But you've already made up your mind...
"Direct pipes" turned out to be nothing more than FTP accounts at google and facebook, were data has to be requested first, looked over by lawyers, and then moved to. And "unlimited wholescale spying" turned out to be extremely specific targeting of a few hundred phone accounts. Not to mention that US citizen targeting turned out to be completely against the rules.
Actually, the most appalling thing could be that warrant to the business unit of Verizon for 3 months of ALL their phone call metadata, every single phone line. Now, if it's limited to business accounts that would imply something congruent with this topic, a focus on leakers. If it's matched by ones for residential lines, non-business mobile phones, etc. it's downright chilling, I don't care what's "completely against the rules", especially with an administration that doesn't care about the concept.
Look, even DNI Clapper has admitted he lied, in giving the "least untruthful" answer to the question of whether the "NSA collect[s] any type of data at all on millions of Americans". Which apparently hinges on a definition of collect where they Hoover up lots of stuff, and promise to only look at it if they're following their rules.
Now, if we think the downright wrong things aren't some combination of Snowden's limited understanding of things AND the filter of the reporter and his editors, we might wonder if that warrant wasn't fabricated or sexed up. I don't know off the top of my head how to proceed on judging its validity.
> It makes those actions necessary, and his actions absolutely wrong.
Why do nations and states get special status in the geopolitical game? (Because it's a way to ensure that each maintains its own power, and not let those dumb plebs fuck up their designs.)
> But you've already made up your mind...
You're assuming that I believe all the claims he's made, when I've said nothing of the sort in this entire thread. Indeed, it rather seems that you are the one who has made up their mind that the clarifications made must be genuine, just as you have accused me of assuming that all of Snowden's allegations are geniune... Doesn't feel good, huh?
Ive tried to stop myself from forming opinions of the residents of other countries by the actions and rhetoric of their political leaders, whether elected or otherwise. I would hope others do the same and don't believe the actions of DC to be anything more than an exaggerated and often inaccurate caricature of the American people.
I've quickly changed my mind about this sort of thinking. It's a nice little "get out of jail free" card for everyone. We should be held responsible for our government's actions, at least to some degree (especially in a democracy). How many of us really sacrifice significant resources and time to causes that would make the country/world better? How many here spend more at the bar than they do in charity every month? How many spend hours consuming media but don't take the time to keep educated about politics? What's the turnout at major primaries? Ten percent? Twenty?
It's easy to say, we shouldn't judge the people of the country because it feels good to us and, in reality, most people are rather decent. However, I think it should be the opposite, we should all be ashamed of ourselves for letting ourselves get bought off for a little convenience and comfort. We're all guilty to varying degrees. We should step up and accept that. The first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem.
I can see your point, but at the same time I have to look at the situation most people are in.
Sometimes people are truly in the minority, say for instance a gay man in Jamaica. He could essentially sacrifice his life to try to move the needle on his countries tolerance level, or he could be discrete and live his life. I'll be the first to cheer on the former, but I don't believe that its my place to judge the latter for inaction.
I don't believe that its right to hold people responsible for their governments actions while much of the world lacks freedom of movement, and those in power have nearly all the tools at their disposal to hold onto that power.
If there isn't a significant change in the country's direction within the next few years, say, perhaps by the end of the decade or a little after, we'll know the answer is cemented as the former.
What I see now as US is a very different place from the one I imagined only 20 years ago. In this very short time span it went from THE place to go to in terms of Freedom to "are you nuts? - it's communist Russia in disguise".
I've heard there are "no-fly" secret lists which you can't challenge because, you know, they are secret. That can't be true, right? grin
You can challenge them, e.g. ask the TSA or whomever to reconsider, but you won't be told why your name was put on it ... which is not at all insane if you think about it. The existence of the list(s), and their many false positives, e.g. the late Senator Teddy Kennedy, is no secret at all, just their contents and methods.
You see the problem here? These are tactics of a police state. In a free world there is no secret police doing secret stuff that I have to jump through hoops to challenge.
The moment people get used to this shit - they have won.
We're Americans, I assure you however much we're "used to it" there's a smoldering anger that is getting hotter and hotter as this goes on. The TEA Party et. al. are part of that, which is of course why it was imperative to suppress them.
As the organs of the state continue in this ... well, it isn't going to end well.
Not being told why your name is on a secret no-fly list is insane if you think about it. Either sufficient evidence of criminal activity exists--at which point the accused has protected rights to know the charges and confront the accusers thanks to the 6th Amendment--or sufficient evidence of criminal activity does not exist and the person should not be on a no-fly list.
That is not even including the insanity or illegality of having a no-fly list to begin with.
I mean the purpose of the list will be defeated if the methods by which it was created are disclosed. Which says nothing about the desirably of such a list or this use of it. (For that matter, the gun grabbers keep campaigning to deny gun ownership to anyone on it, can't have guns in "terrorist hands"....)
A bit off-topic, but related: there's also a huge increase in the number of federal agencies who are outfitting their own SWAT teams. (This type of service, if really needed, could be delivered by the FBI or local law enforcement)
SWAT teams traditionally have been there to diffuse potentially violent confrontations -- to reduce violence. But in the last decade or so [correction: three decades], we've seen a change in the nature of SWAT. Now the teams are being used increasingly as shock police forces, bringing an escalated level of violence to a situation in order to overwhelm any possibility of danger to the officers or general public.
Seeing guys like the FDA, DOE, or EPA with their own SWAT teams is a bit unsettling, to say the least. One wonders where this will all stop.
"SWAT teams traditionally have been there to diffuse potentially violent confrontations"
Your news is about 30 years out of date. Since the late 80s, there has been a massive increase in the use of paramilitary police teams to serve basic search-and-arrest warrants. SWAT was used against hackers in the 90s, it is routinely used to prosecute drug cases (perhaps most famously), and of course against protesters. What has changed in the last decade is that paramilitary teams can be seen simply standing by in public places; whenever I visit my family in NYC, I see paramilitary teams. Once I even saw a heavily armed SWAT team in Greenwich Village, apparently guarding a bank (or maybe the newspaper stand near it).
You are right that it is disturbing, but this has been happening for a long time. The past decade's increase is part of a trend that has been occurring since I was in diapers. Sadly, most people believe that we need SWAT and that it is entirely acceptable to use paramilitary teams in this manner. There is also a shocking lack of transparency in many places, where the police need not disclose how often paramilitary teams are deployed nor why they choose to use such teams.
That is also an exceedingly rare crime. It would have been acceptable to let the robbers get away, and then catch them later (if at all). Our cities are not war zones (thankfully).
To put it another way, this is no different from saying that the police should be armed with anti-aircraft missiles, because of the 9/11 attacks.
Nowadays, the police shotgun, with a maximum effect range of 100 yards shooting a slug that can be stopped by soft body armor, is largely being replaced by the much more versatile and accurate "police carbine", i.e. an AR-15. Only hard plates will stop the .233/5.56 NATO rounds those shoot, and they're way too heavy to do more than protect some of your torso.
The Hollywood Shootout, as the link notes, had "Several officers also appropriated AR-15 rifles from a nearby firearms dealer." and mentions how this incident propelled the move to patrol carbines.
(Given how obnoxious they were afterwords about returning them, the gun dealer should have insisted they come back after the normally mandatory 2 week waiting period....)
It's rare because police can handle it now. If you let head to toe kevlar robbers get away all the time, well, you'll have a lot of those types of attacks.
It was rare before SWAT, before the LAPD carried AR-15s in their patrol cars, and before it occurred. It is just a rare crime, even in a large city. I think the theory that there would be copycats is easily disproved: this was their third bank robbery, yet there were no copycats following the first two, nor following their successful armored truck robberies. Those crimes occurred over a period of several years, more than enough time for a copycat to get the guns and armor.
On the other hand, paramilitary police teams targeting the wrong house or killing innocent people happens with frequency. It happens every year. Even if only 1/1000th of the raids that occur each year were done in error, you would expect about 40 such mistakes to occur per year. SWAT teams do not need to hide their existence, they are rarely punished for attacking innocent people, and they exist even in small towns.
The numbers that were given were contracts that allowed them to purchase up to that amount of ammunition at a given price over 5 years. The actual quantity purchased last year was more than an order of magnitude less than reported.[1]
As far as the DoE goes I pretty sure NNSA contracts out the majority of their security positions. I think this is a somewhat recent development because I think they used to have a highly respected security force. Who would you prefer to have guarding DoE nuclear sites?
That's by definition a paramilitary, but they aren't SWAT teams, e.g. their formal rules of engagement are very different.
For that matter, informal, I doubt they get off on killing dogs (if you don't know about that, search on swat puppycide, Radley Balko has written a lot on it).
A few weeks ago, I was in Chicago, eating breakfast. I didn't realize that it was a national holiday. I came out of the diner, and turned a corner, and said "Whoah, when did a millitary parade happen?"
Then, I saw the words on the side of the APC: "Chicago Police Department SWAT."
After the G20 came to Pittsburgh in 2009, the city used the money to purchase four of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Range_Acoustic_Device During the event, I had the privilege of becoming one of the first Americans to have this particular, previously military-only weapon used on me. Why would a city of 300,000 people need four of these, especially as we're closing schools and cutting bus lines?
The militarization of the police force is a real problem.
More over, why so many perceived enemies who are US citizens? Why is the US government treating its own citizens as enemies of the state?
As a non American, I take a perverse sort of comfort from that idea that it looks like the US government is as scared of its own people as it is foreigners. At least we foreigners and American citizens are in it together.
Truth is, we are enemies of US government behavior, not the United States of America or its fine people. We critical non Americans are actually arguing for America to be better, not worse. We want it stronger through fairness, justice and, well, just plain decent behavior. Not through cowardice, fear, and the bullying fist. Just imagine how powerful the US could be if the rest of the world actually liked and respected it, rather than feared it. People who fear you are not friends, they are people who will bite back the second they can.
However, what I'm not sure of is whether or not the US government is actually as the majority of Americans want it. It is a democracy after all. I realize that democracy is distorted by money and vested interests, but TBH, given what we know today about all that, surely the American voter cant use that as an excuse any more. All those nasty lying attack ad campaigns, the distortion of facts, etc.... we all know how that works. So, surely Americans cant be swayed by that sort of thing? Would it not be a bit daft to know you are being manipulated, but still go along with such manipulations? So, cant people vote smart?
We've got an entrenched ruling class that's very distinct from the bulk of the county, who are remarkably inept, and who's interests are very much not those of the rest of the country's. This includes the Republican Party establishment, GOPe as some are starting to label it.
For more details, this article is the best initial exposition I've found, "America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution", "The only serious opposition to this arrogant Ruling Party is coming not from feckless Republicans but from what might be called the Country Party — and its vision is revolutionary.": http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-cla...
And the "revolutionary" bit, of an American nature, not at all in the violent French tradition, explains why the TEA Party et. al. has to be suppressed at all costs, and why the GOPe wasn't and still isn't interested in stopping it per se (e.g. the IRS has not changed its policies). We are existential threats to the GOPe, as e.g. Republican ex-Senator Richard Lugar knows as he's now spending more time with his family.
The author is an old school Cold Warrior, so I'm not dismissing his dismissal of e.g. traffic analysis and the general utility of the NSA's current methods out of hand, I'll have to read it carefully.
> More over, why so many perceived enemies who are US citizens? Why is the US government treating its own citizens as enemies of the state?
My guess is because we are told that we live in a Democracy and our vote and our taxes going to aid and abetting the people that are responsible for massive amounts of random acts of violence all over the planet.
We are such a peace loving nation we would never do anything like finance a coup in a oil rich nation so we can murder and imprison the democratically elected leaders of a country in order install a tyrant so that we can hand over ex-British petroleum fields to American corporations.
Then later on we wouldn't do things like finance and arm both sides of a ethic war in the hope they would keep each other weak and easy for us to control.
Our government wouldn't do terrible things like sell weapons to a enemy of Israel using the government of Israel in order to finance anti-democratic warlords in Central America, even though Congress specifically said supporting such groups was illegal without them approving it.
When that failed we wouldn't do such things as import cocaine into the intercity and destroy the lifes of tens of thousands of poor black Americans in order to finance the warlords in a less discoverable manner.
We didn't do things like smuggling heroin into the USA to finance the various assassinations, political coup, vote rigging, and terorrist training activities that we didn't secretly engage in from the 1950's through the 2000's.
We would never do things like that. Because drugs are bad, M'Kay?. Because our US soldiers wouldn't being spending their time killing and dying in foreign lands, while protecting the drug trade and the primary source of income for their adversaries. And if they did that it would only be because we care sooo much for the farmers.
The secret activities that the USA government and their invasions of your privacy, if they even occure, are obviously for your benefit. And if the NSA or CIA or Obama hit squads ever grossly infringe on the constitution they will be very careful to only infringe on it when it's necessary for your own safety. Because, darn it, they just care so much.
Who was in prison for 3 years without a charge for leaking? Charging is easy, Snowden has been charged within a short time. Why would US government omit such an obvious and easy step as charging in such a clear case as leaking? Who is the guy you are referring to?
You've contributed nothing with this shameless strawman of an argument. Nobody here made that claim, and probably nobody ever has made that claim. Who are you arguing against?
I suggest that, on the question
prominent in this thread, "what should
the US do about terrorism and
the claimed excesses of the NSA", there is now
an answer that is unavoidable,
rock solid, quite clear, maybe
crystal clear, even if it does not
address all concerns.
Here in logical steps is the unavoidable
answer:
(1) Due to whatever in history before
1776, the US founding fathers gave us
the Constitution. Soon they gave us
the Bill of Rights. In particular
we have the Fourth Amendment.
(2) Congress, the FISA 'court',
the Intelligence committees of
Congress, the president, the NSA,
etc. may have done this and that,
but there are claims that
the Constitution has been violated.
(3) Law suits are being brought
claiming that the Constitution has
been violated. Apparently there
will be suits from Google, EFF,
and the ACLU, and there's little
to stop more suits from being brought.
It appears that quite generally
lots of lawyers will be burning
midnight oil, word processing,
filing cases, etc.
(4) Very likely some of these law
suits will make it to the steps
of the Supreme Court, be taken
in by the court, studied, argued,
and decided. If the Constitution
has been violated as clearly
and strongly as it is easy to guess
from the recent news, then the
court will likely strike down at
least some of the laws that
enabled the violations. Really,
for this process, nothing can
stop it now -- not the president,
the NSA, the FISA court,
Congress. People can argue
this and that, that we need what
the NSA has been doing or we
don't, but still the Supreme
Court will take this issue and
address it.
(5) The founding fathers made sure
that the Supreme Court was not just
a bunch of kids playing tag on a
playground. Instead the SCOTUS
(Supreme Court of the US)
is about as serious as anything
in this solar system. The court
is absolutely, positively 100%
aware of the Constitution, their
role in defending it, and threats to it.
Arguments
of short term expediency, the
threats of Boston loser wackos
with backpacks with pressure cookers,
Jihaders with chembio in public places,
or well funded efforts to
sneak a nuke into a major US
city will not be seen as
repealing the Bill of Rights
or even one comma in the Constitution.
And the SCOTUS is just awash
in power, both in principle and in
practice, to strike down as unconstitutional
whatever parts of the Patriot Act,
the FISA court, etc. they
conclude, with considerable
study and wisdom, is appropriate.
The process of (1)-(5) has now
started and will move forward
"with all deliberate speed"
which might be 1-2 years.
In simplest terms, the SCOTUS can,
yes, understand the threats of
terrorism but can understand
with much greater concern the
threats to the Constitution.
The SCOTUS has no choice but to
pay essentially all their attention
just to the threats to the Constitution.
It's the process: The Executive
branch is supposed to follow the laws
and, really, can't change the laws.
If the laws are
too limiting for the important work
of the Executive branch, then
have Congress
pass some new laws. We did that. If the new
laws are unconstitutional, then bring
suits before the SCOTUS to have the
unconstitutional laws struck down.
We're now in the process of doing just that.
The SCOTUS
has to protect the Constitution and
can't change it. If the
Constitution needs changing, then
that's 2/3rds of the House, 2/3rds
of the Senate, and 3/4ths of the
states.
So, in 1-2 years we will know.
The smart money is on the Constitution
coming out whole. And the chances
of an amendment to the Constitution
are as usual from slim to none.
So, where will the SCOTUS defending
the Constitution
leave Congress,
the Executive branch, the NSA,
the FBI, local police, etc.?
They will have to put their
thinking caps on and find
ways to
protect the
US from the Jihaders within
the Constitution.
Or the Executive branch will
find more ways to violate
laws and/or the Constitution,
and then there may be more leaks,
law suits, etc.
Whatever, and it may take time,
in this mud wrestling
the Constitution stands to
come out whole. Thank you
founding fathers.
Did the founding fathers see
this coming? Absolutely.
Been there; done that;
got the T-shirt, 200+ years ago.
Or, we need to defend the US.
One of the best parts of the US
is the Constitution. So, it is
logically impossible to defend the
US and trash the Constitution.
Instead, in defending the US, it
is in particular necessary to
defend the Constitution. For also
defending the rest of the US,
that's a problem we have to
work to solve; I have no doubt
at all we can solve it.
In simple terms, the problem is
not finding ways within the
Constitution to stop the Jihaders.
Instead, the problem is
stopping intellectually lazy,
empire building
bureaucrats
and CYA politicians
from using the Jihader threat
as an excuse to
trash the Constitution,
build empires, and CYA.
You seem to have great esteem for how the Supreme Court might rule on the 4th Amendment here, in light of how the court has narrowed the law in regards to the amendment in the past few decades.
This language ("aiding enemies of the US") is going to be specifically used to justify calling leakers "treasonous". The words are directly lifted from Article III of the constitution, part of which outlines what it means to commit treason.
There are certainly holes in the constitution, which over time politician and bureaucrats always find a way to "hack" their way into securing more powers for themselves, such as the commerce clause, the general welfare clause, or vague interpretations of the definition of "public", in the takings clause, that is used to justify eminent domain abuse...
Now, politicians and bureaucrats have seemed to have exploited a hole in the treason clause. Who gets to define what constitutes an "enemy" of the United States?
In theory the court should do no such thing. Judicial review is not a constitutional power but rather a power created out of whole cloth in marbury vs madison
(Not that I'm complaining, I'm fine with the court doing this, but it would be nice if it were an enumerated power)
Judicial review is not an enumerated power, but "created out of whole cloth" is misleading. It had precedent in Common Law, and purportedly it was discussed as a possibility before actually being used in Marbury (at which point the country had only been around ~12 years).
Its not a separately enumerated power, but you can't resolve a legal case without first determining what the law is, including resolving conflicts between different laws that appear to be applicable, such as the Constitution and federal statutes.
Further, setting a precedent of resolving conflict between laws by saying "These conflict and the constitution trumps statute" is overturning a law as unconstitutional.
I'd read something about it, but am not finding my sources, so I'll drop the claim for now.
However, it does seem to follow inherently from:
1) Precedent (as policy, not any particular instance)
2) The ability to determine/resolve contradictions between laws
3) The supremacy clause of the Constitution
If the court finds (per 2) that a given law is in contradiction with the Constitution, they must resolve the issue by deferring to the Constitution (per 3). Later courts must find the same (per 1). Therefor, you have a law which is effectively overturned by being deemed in conflict with the Constitution.
The job of lawyers is to find loopholes. Since the entire scotus is composed of lawyers we more strongly risk having a court that chooses to sympathize and reward cleverness in finding loopholes that are technically correct according to the letter of the law. For example, myriad genetics.
I just looked up Kelo and Myriad:
I don't know either case well, but
I'd heard of both of them.
Those cases involve really tricky stuff
in the sense that there's nothing
really clear in the Constitution
on how to resolve the cases. So, the
SCOTUS had to 'interpret'. For what
they did in those two cases, I see
no big threat to the US. For Kelo,
my sympathies for the poor guy
who owned the property that got
taken away from him. For Myriad,
I thought that that was a really nice
step toward something that makes
sense in patent law. So, if
invent some DNA, then maybe can
patent it. But if just read some
DNA from a drop of my blood, then
can't patent it. For cDNA, I
saved time by not checking out the
details -- maybe after I watch some
more Eric Lander videos!
But for the NSA getting the phone
call metadata on all 120 million
or so Verizon customers, apparently
once a day, for years, I see
mud tracked over the Fourth Amendment
with no real doubt. And I see
a threat to the US, e.g., another
Nixon "taking the gloves off",
using that data to go
after his "enemies", and
building a tyrannical dictatorship.
So, I can see it now: "Dear
NSA: I'm a good, long time
Verizon customer. I met this
girl on-line, and we met
at a bar and then went back
to her place. I saw her for
six months, and then she told
me that I'd gotten her pregnant.
I don't believe it. So, what
I need are her phone records
so that I can track down who
she was talking to on her phone,
who she was sleeping with, and
who got her pregnant. So, from
you, I need the phone records.
Help!"
So, between the two cases you cited
and the present NSA-Verizon issue,
I see a difference in kind.
There are some bright people
on the SCOTUS, even if they are
lawyers. Maybe they are bright
enough to go above some narrow,
loop-hole infested view of the
law and think effectively about
protecting the Constitution and
the US essentially as the founding
fathers did and intended. I hope so.
Kelo: Takings clause. (Fifth amendment, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_S...). I would not be so hasty to decide that it's not "a threat to the US". It's a big deal as to what constitutes a "public use", by and large, urban complaints over gentrification are exacerbated because cities will declare whole neighborhoods "blighted" and then turn it over to a politically connected rich guy to bulldoze and flip for wealthier tenants. One might argue the kelo case just got a lot of attention because Suzette Kelo is a white woman. Another big eminent domain abuser is Walmart, which without eminent domain would have a much much harder time building massive box stores.
Arguably eminent domain abuse is more of a big deal than NSA wiretapping, it's something that has an impact, an disproportionate impact on the unwealthy and politically marginalized, and it happens in your backyard, all the time, for example: http://reason.com/reasontv/2007/11/15/national-city
As for myriad, I happen to be against patents in general, but my point was that the myriad lawyers really did a solid job of patenting genes. Despite my objection to patenting, given that it's constiutional and legal, I disagree with the SCOTUS decision, that the PCR product (cDNA or otherwise) is actually an artificial molecule by any reasonable definition of molecule and should be allowed to be patented. More subtly, I think it is Congress' responsibility to decide whether or not genes (in the fashion of myriad's patents) should be patentable. So it's an example of crafty lawyers (myriad's lawyers) extending their de jure power (using "composition of matter" patents to de facto become "gene" patents). And then the SCOTUS comes and creates this convoluted judgement about cDNA vs PCR, and introns versus no introns, which speaks to my point about how the court (probably not deliberately) works to incentivise legal cleverness, further justifying the existence of its own profession - possibly at the expense of society's broad interest in having a simpler legal code.
If we have many citizens being
even 10% that thoughtful, then
we are okay.
> Arguably eminent domain abuse is more of a big deal than NSA wiretapping,
Yes, except for what I'm concerned about, another
President Nixon with an "enemies list" who
wants data not just from the IRS but also
the NSA, CIA, FBI, and Obamacare. Then he
might become a tyrannical dictator.
In the 'normal course of events', with the
NSA getting even a grade of C in protecting
the data they have, you may be correct that
Kelo is of more concern.
Apparently for now, so far, all that data
the NSA has gotten has not actually caused
much in real problems to our democracy.
And I can believe the claims that
we're talking only a few thousand people
in the US
individually 'investigated' via that NSA
data. And I can believe that on a good
day General Alexander really does do the
right things for the US and, really,
is a significant aid to US national security.
Still, there's the Fourth Amendment and the
chance of another Nixon. And there are the
concerns of the founding fathers. So I believe
that the NSA has been trashing the Constitution
and that the SCOTUS has to correct that
situation.
It might take two years for the SCOTUS
to issue even their first related opinion.
Really, the whole process will take time.
I don't think that what the NSA has done
so far is so dangerous to the US
in the short term that
we can't afford the time. Still,
long term, we need the Constitution
intact.
Here's some 'perspective' on
the threat of Kelo:
Last night watched a VCR of an old
PBS program 'Great Composers',
this one on R. Wagner. I like
classical music.
If forget about
everything about Wagner except
just the music, keep just the music,
and ignore even the libretti,
f'get about his love life,
politics, connections with wacko
King Ludwig, his various essays,
what his wife Cosima wrote about
some of what he said in his 60s, some of his
professional fights,
etc. and pay attention
just to the music, and there only
the better, say, 90% of his music,
and like classical
music, then he can be amazing. To
me, astounding.
I want to
get my start up done and then
work through some of his orchestration,
say, for the "Prelude" to
'Parsifal', and get an idea how
the heck he did it. The
orchestration for his "Magic
Fire Music", from 'Die Walküre',
is likely simpler,
and still I'd like to work through
the details.
Heck, I'd like
to type in such music and have
a computer-based synthetic orchestra
calculate the 'performance'
and then adjust the orchestration
to see what was causing some of the
amazing effects he did achieve.
Long ago
I picked out some of his
'themes' ('leitmotifs') on violin -- they
can be simple to play and still
be just magic, and much that
he did was not at all simple.
So, the PBS program mentioned that
Wagner had an idea: In Munich
is a big, long, wide street
with a big statue in a big
circle in the middle and the
street leading up to a big parliament
building or some such. So,
Wagner's idea was, next to the
parliament building, put up an
opera house, by far the biggest
ever, and have 'government and
art' joined! And before his opera
house he wanted another long, wide
street.
One little problem: His street would
require leveling much of old Munich,
much as you mentioned. Well, the
'city fathers' of Munich were not
quite as taken with Wagner's grand
dreams (likely great to have when
sitting alone at a piano and writing
fantastic music about
fantasies of magic swords,
flying horses, magic gold
rings, gods coming to earth
and mating with humans, etc. but a disaster if
applied to level much of Munich)
and turned down Wagner's dreams.
So later a much more reasonable
opera house was built for Wagner's
music in Bayreuth!
Wagner's music
was a good start on much of
the music of Hollywood of the
past 80 years or so, e.g.,
Max Steiner's music for 'King Kong'.
So, Wagner's music has had an
impact even without leveling
much of Munich!
Generally, if the city fathers of
Munich can turn down Wagner,
and maybe also King Ludwig,
then generally US city fathers
will be somewhat reluctant
to level large parts of
their cities, Kelo decision or not!
To the credit of what you say, though, 7 states have passed strong legislation against abusive eminent domain takings in the wake of Kelo, and 15 more have tightened the ship significantly, and a few state supreme courts have weighed in as well.
> The community’s efforts to have a meaningful say in its future, in the face of top down development and crony capitalism, is a universal story being played out all across the US,” said director Mike Galinsky.
Sounds like democracy, politics, or that
bad part of democracy 'the tyranny of the
majority'. Mike got elected and, one can
believe, has tried to 'make NYC a great place'.
In doing so, can believe he'd rather
eat a fancy lunch with the Barclays guys
than the Brooklyn neighbors of the
development site. It's 'democracy'
in that Mike was elected.
There's an old comment on democracy:
It's intention is just to avoid
bloodshed. So, fight it out at the
polls as a proxy for what it would
be like if the sides met with
weapons and fought it out to the
death. So, we've avoided bloodshed.
If we haven't been really fair or
achieved 'social justice', if some
'little people' got stepped on,
we expected something else? But,
for such tyranny of the majority,
courts and a constitution can
be important fixes.
I agree. But, we should not be
surprised since Jefferson told us
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
I believe, certainly I hope, that the SCOTUS
will see the danger with crystal
clarity. E.g., one of the main concerns
of the founding fathers and objectives
of the Constitution was to limit the
powers of the central government and
just because of the "dangers". I'd
bet that the SCOTUS will see all this
and not weasel out with some
nonsense about "aiding enemies of the US".
We need to protect the Constitution
and the rest of the US, not sacrifice
one for the other -- yup, Franklin
said something like that.
Then we are in deep trouble. We'd
have lots of demonstrations in the
streets, put new people into Congress,
and eventually hold a Constitutional
Convention to patch up the Constitution.
It would take a long time and might
be bloody and might even ruin the US.
But I believe that the founding fathers
saw this possibility and designed the
system to keep this from happening.
In particular, the SCOTUS is darned
serious; they understand with crystal
clarity the threats to the Constitution
and the US. Their main job is to
defend the Constitution. To this
end, they are plenty bright, are
awash in power and independence,
have plenty of resources, and do
have the respect of the citizens.
So, I believe that the SCOTUS
will do the right things.
"The founding fathers made sure that the Supreme Court was not just a bunch of kids playing tag on a playground."
The founders actually chose to be extremely vague as to the exact role and powers of the court and for the first several decades of the US, SCOTUS was irrelevant and weak. The Court led by Chief Justice John Marshall, solidified its role as the third check on federal power.
Thanks for the link. So, Marbury was
decided in 1803 and, thus,
added weight to the (by then already
old) concept of 'judicial review'
where a court can declare a law
unconstitutional.
While IANAL (although my brother
got his Ph.D. in con-law),
I would guess that by now just how
the SCOTUS could strike down a
law is well established. History
aside, apparently the situation
now is that the SCOTUS can
strike down a law as unconstitutional
and the rest of government and the
citizens will accept that decision.
I am sure you meant well but I found your write-up somewhat scattered and lacking a logical conclusion supported by prior points. This is easy to do if one is writing with passion. I've done it too.
If your point is that we will ultimately be protected by the Supreme Court, I think you are wrong. This is the same Supreme Court that enabled Obamacare, a law that allows the Federal Government to force every american to buy something. And, if you don't or don't pay a penalty the IRS will come after you. Beyond that, this is a law virtually nobody read and, per Nancy Pelosi we had to "pass it to find out what's in it". I can't remember a greater perversion of authority in my adult life.
There is a stark difference, though, between a law which merely (allegedly) distorts economic behavior, and one that affects privacy. The former is only vaguely addressed in the Constitution, in the form fo the 9th and 10th Amendments, and even then the Commerce Clause gives the federal government much power in this arena. The latter, however, is very specifically addressed in the 4th Amendment, and there is no catch-all like the Commerce Clause that would undermine it.
True enough. However, something like Obamacare has the potential to cause both massive economic destruction and massive violations of privacy. I mean, the government --the IRS!!!-- will have access to your health data. Sit down and think about what they could learn about anyone by connecting the dots between your Internet, phones and health databases as well as those of the people connected to you. I don't see much good coming from this. I hate to take a paranoid stance but I sure feel, rightly or not, we are living through a pole shift. Our country is being mutated into a beast few of us might recognize as the USA in the future. This really saddens me. I hope I am wrong.
You see clearly, like seeing Godzilla
rising from the East River and
about to come ashore. And you
are 100% correct.
"All we need is another man
like Richard Nixon again" --
sung to the theme song of
'All in the Family'. So,
Tricky Dicky had an "enemies
list" and wanted to use IRS
data. If he had had IRS data,
NSA data, CIA data, FBI data,
and Obamacare data, we might
not have a country now.
> This is the same Supreme Court that enabled Obamacare, a law that allows the Federal Government to force every american to buy something.
That's exactly like saying the Federal Government forces everyone to get married and have children, since they'll charge you higher taxes if you don't.
As it stands, I can remember a greater perversion of authority: the USA PATRIOT Act...
I've been guessing that W, Cheney, etc.
knew quite well that the Patriot Act
was unconstitutional but estimated,
apparently correctly, that it would take
years for the SCOTUS to strike down the
law and in the meanwhile W, Cheney, etc.
could "take the gloves off", go after
the Jihaders, and teach them a lesson,
not to mess with the big, bad US, that
would last 1000 years. Why is it
always 1000 years?
However at this point it appears that
W and Cheney were not the brightest
bulbs on the tree because we really
have not exactly roasted all the Jihaders.
Indeed, OBL could laugh that just
a few wacko Muslims sucker punched
the US into wrecking its commercial
airline system, trashing its Constitution,
blowing $3 trillion (net present value)
on absurd foreign adventures, killing
4000+ US soldiers and seriously wounding
tens of thousands more, and still got
run out of Afghanistan like so many
before.
You know, there's good liberal stuff,
good conservative stuff, some places
for genuine argument, and then there's
just plain dumb stuff. We blew it.
No, the right analogy is to have someone write mission critical aircraft embedded code; don't have anyone review it; run no simulations; hell, don't even debug it; load it on a 787 and say "we have to fly it to see if it works". That's what our representatives did. Ready for takeoff?
When people see how bad it is,
e.g., the IRS grabbing money out
of their bank accounts,
the people will understand "what's in it".
The people who passed it had their fun
and, due to the delay in implementation,
so far have not had to pay for their fun.
When people don't like it,
Congress can repeal it, and the
next president can sign the repeal.
Mostly the waste will have been
however many paper pushers wrote
10^10th pages of bureaucratic nonsense
no one will ever read.
> I am sure you meant well but I found your write-up somewhat scattered and lacking a logical conclusion supported by prior points. This is easy to do if one is writing with passion. I've done it too.
IANAL! But my 'point' is that there is a process
of bringing cases, claims of unconstitutionality, to the
SCOTUS and now that process has started. There
will be the issue of a plaintiff having 'standing'
to bring the case, but maybe now 120 million
Verizon customers have such standing;
if not, likely still Google does. At this point,
someone's gotta have enough standing.
Then
the 'conclusion' is that in 1-2 years we will
find out what the SCOTUS wants to do about
what appear to be laws enabling serious violations
of at least the Fourth Amendment.
To respond
to much of the discussion in this thread, I
made a side point that it is the job of the SCOTUS
to defend the Constitution and not to
permit bending the Constitution so that
the Executive branch can find it easier to
go after bad guys. So, in particular, a lot
of the discussion here about just how
we will get the bad guys will mostly
just be set aside during this process
and mostly the SCOTUS will not be
much influenced by that consideration.
Sure, maybe some Admin lawyer can
argue something about 'treason'
or "the Constitution is not a suicide
pact", but my guess is that the
main issue will be just a simple,
clear protection of at least the Fourth
Amendment. SCOTUS is interested in defending
the Constitution and not much interested
in how to stop Boston wackos with
pressure cookers.
For a longer term 'conclusion', I pointed out
that if after the SCOTUS decision the
citizens still want NSA listening in on
pillow talk, steamy e-mails,
tracking people to their romantic
meetings, etc., then we can
try to amend the Constitution.
> If your point is that we will ultimately be protected by the Supreme Court, I think you are wrong.
No, in simplest terms the process has started;
likely nothing can stop it; SCOTUS will
make a decision, in all likelihood defending
the Constitution; and then we will see where
we stand.
That this process will move inexorably to
a solid (the other two branches won't argue with it)
conclusion is, in the context of
much of the discussion in this thread,
quite significant: Or, we can discuss
this and that issue and fine point and
what if, but, still, this unstoppable
process will move to its conclusion which
promises to be quite meaningful.
For being "protected", I see no alternative to
the usual from Jefferson
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance".
For Obamacare, I don't know what the legal
status is or what cases have been decided.
For me, my guess is just that Obamacare is
so poorly designed that too soon so many
people will be screaming bloody murder,
especially appropriate in the context,
that Congress will just repeal it.
I don't think that Obamacare was ever
a serious attempt to help the US healthcare
system but just some political posturing
-- Nancy had a really good time,
a lot of fun. She had the smile of
a Homecoming Queen. Now that she's
had her good time, we can go back to
reality.
Obama?
He knows nothing about Obamacare: How do we know?
Because during his efforts at helping it
pass, too soon he said things that were
really dumb, got slapped down hard, and then
just shut up. In particular, at one point
the US College of Surgeons put out
that what Obama said was "uninformed,
misinformed, just plain wrong, and dangerous".
And that caused Obama to shut up.
One more point was, one of his tear jerk
cases said that due to her existing
bad health she couldn't get insurance.
Nonsense: All she had to do was move to
a state with 'community rating', e.g.,
as I've been told, NYS. Obama's interest
in Obamacare was about political posturing,
not healthcare. Also someone from Arkansas,
maybe Bill Clinton, said
that Arkansas had a program for
people like her.
If the IRS comes after many people,
Obamacare will go down in flames.
But for SCOTUS and Obamacare, that case
is less clearly about the Constitution
than the attack on the
Fourth Amendment by grabbing all that
Verizon data.
> One more point was, one of his tear jerk cases said that due to her existing bad health she couldn't get insurance. Nonsense: All she had to do was move to a state with 'community rating'.
That's actually one of the points Justice Ginsburg addressed in her concurring/dissenting opinion about the Obamacare case.
In the long term Obamacare systems have failed in individual states that have tried to impose it, because the inevitable result is that neighboring states dump their unhealthiest people into those states using a community rating.
It's the same problem as any other actuarial scheme like life insurance or fire fighting. Having a lower whole-community rate for everyone only works when the most-expensive people can't unilaterally decide to arbitrage against the least-expensive community.
With Obamacare the incentive for that type of arbitrage is drastically reduced, as wherever you are moving from will have some form of community rating as well.
Of course with the old scheme it is likely that the state using community ratings would have moved to establish a firm time-based residency requirement. But then it would not be possible to claim that all someone has to do is move to the right state. For that 12-24(+?) month window that person would be essentially screwed.
You are trying to take Obamacare seriously. Sure,
it's a serious issue, and no doubt in the
2000 pages of the bill and the 10s of thousands
of pages of 'regulations' there is some good
thinking.
But my overwhelming impression is that Obamacare
was, in the end, poorly designed. Maybe enough
writers of 'regulations' can make it helpful,
but I doubt it. I just believe that the whole
thing was politics, not healthcare. Or, I
can't trust in the seriousness of something that
made Nancy smile like a Homecoming Queen.
And I can't trust the academic
'health care system economic
planning' community. That's
Karen Davis, right? I've been
too close to such academics,
and I wouldn't trust it to hand
me a band aid.
The exceptions have already started.
Supposedly Congress doesn't want
it for themselves (does this mean
they actually read some of it
or understood it was junk
just on general principles?).
Some states are fighting it.
My guess is that after Obama leaves
office there will be no one
strongly supporting it. Then
the IRS will torque off one too
many people, and Congress will
just repeal it. I'm just guessing
of course.
Congress already has healthcare (tremendously good healthcare), so obviously they wouldn't want to replace it with Obamacare, as that is only what is good enough for everyone. Instead they will simply say the existing Congressional pension/healthcare system meets PPACA requirements and call it a day.
That's the same thing they did for military Tricare health care (which is as socialist as they come, by the way :P). Instead of replacing Tricare with the national plan they simply declare that Tricare is a national plan that complies with the requirements for PPACA.
I wouldn't be surprised if Obamacare is altered in the future but I would be surprised if it's repealed entirely, especially once people start to realize how many people have nothing else to rely on.
And then in about 10-20 years or so we'll have people like today, screaming and protesting "KEEP GOVERNMENT OUT OF MY OBAMACARE" in completely unironic fashion, just as they do with Medicare today.
Yes, there are problems now, e.g.,
"how many people have nothing else to rely on.".
But, really, the existing system has faced
such problems for a long time and put in place
a complicated, disorganized, collection of
pieces, patchwork, to respond to it. E.g., there is the
Hill-Burton hospital act where to build a
hospital can get Federal money but then
can't turn away patients who can't pay.
So, do 'cost shifting' and charge more for
patients who can pay. Or have a city run
and funded hospital. Patchwork.
Could we improve it? To borrow from Cheney, no doubt. Could
we make it worse? No doubt.
To me, the 'sausage making' process
of Obamacare promises a poorly designed
product. And the origins and motivations
of Obamacare concern me: As I recall,
really Obamacare was in its first drafts
(did anyone read the 2000 pages enough
to do a second draft?) was basically pulled
off the shelf from where it had been
stored by a health care team under Senator
Ted Kennedy. There the dream, Ted did
like the "dream", was simple --
socialized medicine.
I suspect that 'socialized medicine'
can be made to work well; maybe it does
in Switzerland. But I don't trust
the results of the people who want 'socialized medicine'
in the US mostly just as I don't trust
the people who just want socialism in the US.
My guess is that too soon we will be
paying too much (yes, we are now, also)
or screaming about bad medicine like
people do in the UK and Canada.
In a sense Medicare and Medicaid
have an advantage because they are mostly
just payment mechanisms placed on top
of what is roughly, very roughly,
a 'free-enterprise' system. But if just
socialize the whole thing, then
can end up with a bad version of the
USPS.
I'm not against the Federal Government
doing some things: In places what the
Federal Government does works out
great -- Hoover Dam, Bonneville Dam,
TVA, Los Alamos, NSF, NIH, DARPA,
funding of the top three dozen or so
US research universities, the Interstate
highway system, the FAA (the safety
and engineering parts; some of the
air traffic control parts), in the
end most aspects of the USPS,
the Agriculture Extension Service of
the USDA, the FDA (pretty good on
safety, a bit slow on efficacy),
and more. For the VA, I don't know:
There are complaints about the
access and quality, but I know no
details.
So, for Obamacare, I'm
concerned that in the US
'socialized medicine' is just super
tough to get right and that the
Nancy, etc. efforts are not even
10% as serious as needed. Then,
from the structure of the 'board'
or 'panel' appointed by the president,
I'm concerned that Obamacare
will become a
'political football'
that results in low quality health
care at high prices.
"Political
footbal"? For an example, that's my view of 'climate
change' and 'clean energy': For
fossil fuels, use 'climate change'
as an excuse to tax them and throttle
them. E.g., in his 2008 interview
at the SF Chron., Obama explained
his intention to raise carbon taxes
enough to "bankrupt" our coal fired
plants -- then 49% of our electric
energy and, as I recall, ~23% of all
our energy. I suspect he was just
posturing, but it was dangerous.
Then supposedly about $92 billion of
the various 'stimulus' and TARP
(I and II) funds went for 'clean
energy' but turned out to be
make-work jobs and campaign
contribution kickbacks. Supposedly
since then we've thrown another
$45 billion at 'clean energy' --
to me, 99 44/100% about politics,
e.g., campaign contribution kickbacks,
and the rest water and not at all
about energy or the even the climate
(in my view, there's no very good
evidence that the climate is at risk).
So, with US socialized medicine,
I fear 'waste, fraud, abuse' from a
political football.
E.g., now we've got NSA: Politics?
Sure: No politician wants to get
blamed for "being soft on terrorism".
So, NSA suspends good judgment and
goes overboard -- 'over reaches', e.g.,
data on calls of 120 million or so
Verizon customers, maybe all the
US e-mail traffic, maybe all the
US phone voice data.
E.g.? Sure: Snowden was a GED,
contract, bottom level employee in
Hawaii but apparently had his fingers
directly on huge volumes of data,
all at the NSA supposedly just
terrific at 'computer security'.
Why? Poor oversight. Poor
execution. From the White House,
don't give a sh!t about the details
and otherwise a political football.
I fear the same for a US national
health care system. Yes, what
we have could be better, but it could
also be worse, and for having it
worse Nancy is just the person to
lead us there.
Maybe in an honest moment Nancy
would have said, "We will just
pass it. That's all we can do.
Then we will leave the details
up to the execution of the Executive
branch, in some big office buildings
somewhere within 100 miles of the
Washington Monument, and pass more
bills if really necessary. So, we
will just get it started and then
let others make it work well."
But they don't have to make it
work well -- they might just make
a mess. I'm thinking, re-engineer
and rebuild a Boeing 747 in flight,
with people who just started learning
about sheet metal.
Well I think I agree in principle that the implementation of healthcare should be left to a free market-esque system, with oversight and resourcing provided by the government.
It could even be much like those "basic income" schemes being floated around here; the government pays out up to a certain cap to cover basic preventative and "major life function" care. If people want fancier doctors that's fine, but they have to pony up the excess themselves.
I think the best examples of government interaction with the business sector have come when the government says this is what needs to happen without enforcing how it has to be done, and then letting entrepreneurial types figure out how to do it best. I see no reason why healthcare has to be fully nationalized, or why ObamaCare can't be the first step toward a system like that.
More generally, you are correct because
you are trying actually to think about
it. If we think about it carefully,
we might actually get something both
better and quite good. E.g., along the
lines you said, if some Hollywood actress
wants her nose again to look like it
did when she was five years old, then
she can pay a top Beverly Hills plastic
surgeon. If some poor guy in a ghetto
has a badly swollen foot and can't
even pay taxi fare to the hospital,
then he gets the basic work on his
foot for free. Fine. That's like
a 20 second, free hand, rough sketch
of a Boeing 747 -- making it fly
like a real 747 is a lot of
hard work yet to do.
I wish we'd done that work. I
can't believe we did.
In simple terms, yes. Or if she
is really sick, just show up at the
emergency room of any Hill-Burton
hospital. The US healthcare
system is a patchwork with problems,
but broadly for people with
serious, e.g., life threatening,
medical problems, we don't turn
them away -- first cut, broadly,
with holes in the cloth.
But in the case in the Obama
town hall, supposedly the woman
could pay a reasonable amount
for health insurance. In that case,
just move to a community rated
state, wait whatever waiting period
if any, get medical insurance
at the same rate as everyone else
in that 'community rated' state,
and be fine.
Could argue that in part Obamacare is a
path to 'community rating' for
all the states. But some of the
states don't want community rating --
as far as I can tell, really only
the richest states want that.
My view, in brief, is that Obamacare
was not about healthcare. Instead,
Obama wanted to play politics and, generally,
just wanted a bigger Federal Government
to have still more ability to play politics.
Nancy wanted a big case of 'socialism' --
Nancy just dreams of socialism,
in particular
of Big Daddy Big Federal Government taking
care of everyone and making everything
'all right',
especially for
insecure, single women with
small children. Really Nancy
wants to use the Federal Government
to establish a lot of
'social and cultural values'
that would conflict with
'limited government'. Nancy
wants a big, security blanket,
socialistic
government providing a
basic level of material
support and quality of life
for everyone.
I could agree with Nancy except
I fear that her hands on the
economy would make the economy
so sick it couldn't provide
what she wants, that is,
she will choke the goose
that lays the golden eggs.
If Nancy could actually do a good
job, then we have something
to discuss; I just fear that
Nancy will make a mess,
a disaster. To me it's first
mostly a matter of simple
competence at execution
and not 'political principles'
or 'social philosophy'.
I just think her boat
will leak and not float.
And, yes, even if in simple
terms the execution is good,
there will be the issue of
motivation -- if the 'floor'
provided by the Federal Government
is high enough, then a lot of
people will try less hard
and the goose will lay fewer
golden eggs.
Yes, there's a 1-2 year timescale - but after those 1-2 years we won't necessarily see a SCOTUS judgment. There's nothing to stop complete martial law being imposed in the interim due to a non-specific threat (perhaps Ed Snowden and his super-secret cell of ninja-jihadist-nuclear-biological-ultra-weaponised mega-terrorists), at which point your constitution, its amendments, and all immediate hope go clean out of the window.
Then again, if a second civil war does end up playing out, it'll at least make for some interesting history.
Which people will hopefully learn from, but won't.
Denying the right of "We the People" to know what is being done in OUR name is anathema to the ideal of "the consent of the governed."
Unfortunately there are many who believe that because of the ethnicity of the POTUS he can do no wrong.
I spoke to a neighbor yesterday who is a staunch Obama supporter and he parroted the Cheney line completely.
When I mentioned the Bill of Rights he justified the spying as a necessary evil.
If the 4th Amendment is to be abrogated then it should be amended to reflect the current state of affairs.
There goes that fabled "Moral High Ground," again...
If the government was really concerned with our safety alcohol would be outlawed.
Compare the statistics regarding deaths attributed to "terrorism" and deaths attributed to alcohol.
That's way too binary of a wish, there hasn't been a "non-corrupt" America pretty much ever. I mean, go back and look at the Hamilton-Burr feud, or the etymology of gerrymander: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Etymology. The guy signed the Deceleration of Independence....
It's more a matter of degree, and pervasiveness. By many measures we're still a largely uncorrupt nation, but I find it difficult to believe that if what's happening at the top isn't stopped that it won't filter down a whole lot. Although e.g. the Japanese are an example of a largely uncorrupt people with eternally "corrupt" rulers, going back many centuries.
>But R. Scott Oswald, a Washington attorney of the Employment Law Group, called the Obama administration “a friend to whistleblowers,” saying it draws a distinction between legitimate whistleblowers who use internal systems to complain of wrongdoing vs. leakers, who illegally make classified information public.
Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, Peter Van Buren, and William Binney didn't seem to think that those "internal systems" were effective. Judging by their treatment, I can't blame Edward Snowden for not deciding to become another body amongst foundations.
At a less dire level, look at the early Obama administration treatment of Inspectors General (IG, try https://www.google.com/search?q=obama+inspector+general&oq=o...), i.e. the guys who's official job it is to expose problems. We're pretty sure that's why the IRS IG didn't even do an investigation, just an "audit" (really), with unsworn testimony with people's supervisors in the same room.
Anyone who makes this "a friend to whistleblowers" claim is simply not living in the same universe I am.
This is Bill Clinton speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative - whose spouse, from all accounts, will most likely be running for the office of President in 2016 - on NSA Security Leaks and Snowden.
"They (NSA) have prevented a very large number of harmful actions"
"I don't see any alternative to trying to track all these groups
around the world who are trying to wreck the ordinary operations
of life in America and probably kill a lot of people. I am not
persuaded that they (NSA) have done more harm than good"
In an increasingly uncertain world, the opinion among most American leaders and figureheads, on either side of the aisle, about the need for increased domestic and international surveillance, has already calcified.
For better or worse, they are overwhelmingly in favor of it. The debate being precipitated here and in mainstream media is largely symbolic.
It is time for privacy advocates to leave their dens and organize formally ( as in politically ) to advance their agendas. Washington only understands political clout whether it is a PAC or a lobby group.
Grassroots organizations will always go the way of Occupy Wall Street without formal leadership and a political consensus - lots of Zuccotti drama and nothing to show for it except for your obligatory iconic pepper spray photo.
You can mobilize politically in formal ways or bask in the warm glow of all the emotional outrage being voiced now and get your iconic photo spread.
and nothing will come off those riots either. Wanna wager a candy bar?
Let's check back 3 months from now and I bet things will have gone back to where they were without any concrete action taken and the crowds going back to their usual quotidian lives.
Clinton is the same guy who tried to press us into using key-escrowed encryption systems like the Clipper Chip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip) and his IRS was notorious for auditing anyone who committed personal, in your face lèse-majesté. You mention his wife, she of the "vast, right wing conspiracy"; these are not people who've ever been good on these subjects. For that matter, not that it wasn't largely bipartisan to begin with, but the reason the PATRIOT Act passed so quickly in such detail was it was a wish list left over from Clinton's administration, where it had been pushed without success.
You may not like Clinton but tons of people do. Ignore that at the peril of the political goals you try to advance.
But either way, the point is that Clinton's opinion is going to be a decent bellwether as to the general opinion. I think spitx is right on target on how to advance change (or at least, what to avoid).
Sure, "tons of people do", they're by definition part of the problem, since they explicitly or implicitly support these types of thuggishness, as long as it's directed at their enemies.
We on the other side mostly want to be left alone. Their side isn't willing to do that, which is why we're sliding towards a hot civil war.
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."