Category Archives: Politics

NSA Whistleblower Might Be A Genius, Might Be An Idiot

Posted by on June 10, 2013 No comments

Ok, “genius” is probably a stretch, but the guy does appear to be smart:

  • He rose through the ranks of the government from enlisted soldier to security guard, to IT guy, to really well-paid IT contractor guy in Hawaii in less than 10 years
  • He’s definitely well-spoken and looks pretty smart in the video
  • He had the foresight to nobly out himself, get the protection of the public, get a pat on the back from the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, and go down in the history books, rather than wait until the CIA renditioned him to Poland
  • He gave up a super-well paying job in paradise to protect our democracy

Then again, he may not be the sharpest tool in the shed:

  • He gave up a super-well paying job in paradise to protect our democracy
  • He fled to Hong Kong, which is apparently the second worst place to flee to, if you’re running from the US government
  • He apparently used his real name when checking in to his hotel in Hong Kong, pretended the journalists got the wrong guy when they called, and then checked out
  • He doesn’t even have his high school degree, and even failed to get his GED
Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden

 

So at this point, Edward Snowden (whose name, it has to be said, kinda sounds like a Game of Thrones character or two) is to us much like Schrödinger’s cat, at both times smart and dumb. As for the NSA, if he’s smart, then he might’ve bested the them. If he’s dumb, how dumb is the NSA to have hired him?

One final note as we find out more about him: while all of the above is hard to dispute because much of it came from Snowden himself, one must also keep in mind, that when the Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, came out, the Nixon administration tried to discredit him in all kinds of ways, going as far as breaking in to his psychiatrist’s office, and hashing a plan to drug with him LSD. Of course, that action caused Ellsberg’s mistrial and is the reason he’s a free man today. The Obama administration will likely not make such an error, meaning that unless he escapes extradition, Snowden’s best chance is jury nullification.

In the meantime, we should all at least thank him for revealing the actual Facebook privacy settings:

Facebook privacy settings, with NSA

 

See also:

Via The Wall Street Journal, Slate, NPR and Gawker and FAIL Blog

Obama Makes Distinction Between Light And Hardcore Surveillance

Posted by on June 7, 2013 1 comment

“Nobody is listening to your telephone calls.” The government collects “phone numbers … and duration of calls… they are not looking at people’s names and they are not looking at content.” – President Obama, today in San Jose, CA

That roughly translates into “we’re just kinda keeping an eye on you, not really… you know… super-monitoring your calls hardcore.” As if light surveillance is somehow okay in a free society and we should just get used to things being like this now. In a few more years, when persistent drones fly in our skies high above the clouds, and news breaks out that the feds are monitoring everyone’s movements on the ground, the response will be:

“Nobody is bugging your house. We’re just looking at where you go and for how long… we’re not looking at people’s names and we’re not watching you inside your own house.” – President Obama in the Panopticon of the future

Because that would be crossing some kind of line, whereas just keeping tabs on everyone is perfectly normal for a democratic government, composed by the people and for the people, to do.

 

Update, June 9th: The very next day, Obama added:

“You’ve got private companies that have a lot more data and and a lot more details about emails and phone calls than the federal government does,” he said.

“So we’re going to take that data from those private companies by force, because we realize that no one would sign up for a government-run Facebook.”

One nation, under surveillance

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Via NPR

Relax, The NSA Snooping On You Is Perfectly Legal

Posted by on June 7, 2013 1 comment

Many of the people that found themselves living in Soviet America today believe that the administration overstepped its bounds when it gave the NSA permission to monitor all calls in the country made on Verizon (and likely, all other carriers) and to search anyone’s data on Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, etc. But what’s more shocking than the fact that the NSA is doing it is the fact that it’s all on the up-and-up.

Can you hear me now? Then the wiretap is functioning properly.

The wiretapping is allowed by section 215 of the Patriot Act, which was the legislative overreaction to 9/11. (The feds already had all the information they needed to stop the attacks — they just hadn’t put all the pieces together yet.)  Originally, then-Senator Obama was against the KGB-like powers the bill gave to the government agencies, and in 2005, he even sponsored a bill that would’ve put an end to it all. But, in early 2006 the powers that be got to him, and he actually voted to extend the Patriot Act. In this video from his 2008 campaign, he explains why, starting at 3:15:

 

Long story short, he didn’t think the Patriot Act was all that bad anymore, he tried to make it better and promised to remove the illegal wiretapping via executive order, when he got to office. And so he did: now, the wiretapping still goes on, but it’s all legal. The feds secretly ask a secret court to issue a subpoena for vague “national security” reasons, and it happens. There’s Congressional-ish oversight, in that the 7% of Congressmen — those who sit on the Intelligence Committees – get biannual reports on the NSA’s actions. But, if they don’t like something, all they can do is make vague warnings because all the information they get in those reports is classified. With 93% of Congress in the dark, the rest under a gag order, and the secret court handing out blank checks, the system ensures that abuses of power can never see the light of day.

And again, it’s 100% legal: this is how terrorist wiretapping is supposed to work, under the Patriot Act. As for getting a backdoor to search all the data Google and Facebook have to offer, that’s also legal because it’s all voluntary-ish: the feds offer those companies legal immunity from lawsuits, and in return they get to snoop on everyone conversations. Let’s just hope they don’t accidentally leak more of Petraeus’ emails.

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From NPR

TSA Backtracks On The New Relaxed Rules, Thanks To Flight Attendants

Posted by on June 5, 2013 2 comments

Back in March, the TSA decided to go further with their historical lack-of-thinking-rules-through and not-trying-to-have-them-make-logical-sense by allowing certain knives and “sports sticks” on planes again, because — no kidding — Europe was doing it. Well, when the stewardesses heard about this, they got all up in arms because now that they don’t have to deal with drunken passengers wielding Swiss Army knives anymore, they don’t wanna start again.

TSA's small knives guide

This WAS going to become the new rule, but not anymore…

 

Because, screw the fact that it’s only happened once in history  – they were sober and wielding box cutters on 9/11, but still — it could happen again. Astronomical odds always trump passengers’ convenience, and at 2,000 pocket knives being confiscated every day by the TSA, that’s quite the trumping. Long story short, the TSA finally gave in to its wife, the International Flight Attendants Association, and had to go back and tell us kids that we’re too young to keep those Swiss Army knives after all. “As mommy pointed out, just because the European neighbors are doing it, that doesn’t mean it’s right for us.”

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Via NPR

Gay Marriage May Pave The Way For The Legalization Of Polygamy

Posted by on April 19, 2013 Comments Off

In the US, marriage licenses were introduced the late 1800s in most states as a way to stop interracial marriages. By the early 1900s, the legal age of sexual consent was raised from 12 (roughly the age when puberty starts) to 16 — though some states still allow marriage as early as 14 years old. The marriage license was then also used to prohibit marriages with people that were too young. Also in the late 19th century, polygamy became illegal throughout the country in response to the rise of the Mormons, and marriage licenses were used to stop it as well. Finally, as homosexuality came out of the shadows in the 1970s, the licenses were used to prevent gay marriage.

marriage license

Since marriage is usually a religious rite, in a country with nearly unlimited religious freedom the government’s interest in marriage should only pertain to secondary issues of taxation and arbitration (inheritance, custody, distribution of assets, etc). Given that, the various prohibitions on marriage by government have never made any sense from the standpoint of civil rights. The issue first came to a head in the 1960s, when the Supreme Court invalidated miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Almost fifty years later, the Court is now poised to invalidate the prohibition of gay marriage. If it does, marriage licenses will only have the power to prohibit polygamy and violations of age of consent.

A federal suit challenging Utah’s polygamy law was brought in 2011 by the cast members of the Sister Wives reality TV series, and a decision should come soon. Regardless of the outcome, an appeal will likely be made to the 10th Circuit, and then the Supreme Court. Which brings us back to the current gay marriage case: Justice Sotomayor, who will likely vote for legalization of gay marriage, asked attorney Ted Olson, who is arguing that gay marriage is a fundamental civil right, if any restrictions on marriage can exist. His answer was a “yes”: polygamy can be banned because it’s a law prohibiting conduct, whereas gay marriage bans are based on discrimination of a class of people based on their status as homosexuals. Given that both arguments can be applied to both gays and polygamists, it’s a very weak one.

The Brown Family, from TLC’s ‘Sister Wives’

 

Prohibition of interracial marriages was based on racism — the view that non-whites were lesser versions of humans, maybe even sub-human, and it would thus be almost as morally wrong for whites to marry them as it would be to marry animals. The prohibition of gay marriage and polygamy is based on religious beliefs. The concept of age of consent is based on a parental desire to prolong the chastity of childhood beyond its natural end at puberty. None of these legal prohibitions have anything to do with the government’s monetary and arbitrative interest in the private, and usually religious, institution of marriage. All four prohibitions are based on the moral fashions of certain periods in our history — fashions which are now changing. In fact, marriage itself is increasingly being seen as an outdated fashion, made pointless by the ease of divorce.

It’s also important to note that legal prohibitions of marriage have little bearing on reality. Whether or not they’re allowed to marry legally, interracial, gay, and polygamous couples/triples/etc still act like they are married for all purposes that matter: they live together, they have sex, they share expenses and have children. The only differences are legal, and therefore artificial: they have to jump through hoops to get certain rights like hospital visitations and power of attorney, and are denied certain benefits, like sharing insurance plans. It’s reminiscent of other toothless prohibitions, like those on alcohol and drugs. If 20th century legislation has taught us anything, it’s that it is almost impossible to legislate morality in a free country: as long as they have the right to privacy, the people will do what they want in their own homes.

Of course, our right to privacy is increasingly being threatened by technology, and it is now easier than ever for a fascist state to impose moral dictates on its population. Which in turn means that it is now more important than ever that our laws not curb the freedoms upon which America was founded.

See also:

via NPR

Nerdy Ways To Get Around Giant Soda Bans

Posted by on March 11, 2013 Comments Off

New York City’s giant soda ban was supposed to go into effect tomorrow, but a judge today banned the ban, citing both the regulatory overreach of the city’s health board, and the ridiculousness of a ban that has loopholes as big as the sodas of which it tries to rid us. However, this is hardly going to be the last word on the issue — the city promised to appeal — so here are some interesting ways to still get your fix, in case the worst does happen:

Giant soda hacks

A Klein Bottle is a theoretical surface that cannot exist in our three-dimensional universe.

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From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Unemployment Levels Are Taking 3x As Long To Recover

Posted by on March 11, 2013 Comments Off

The chart below, from NPR, shows what happened to unemployment in previous recessions: each line starts at the time of highest employment level before a recession, and shows what happened in the next 60 months (five years). In all recessions before 1980, employment levels fully recovered in about two years. Since then, however:

  • The 1980 recession recovered all jobs after 3.5 years
  • The 1990 recession, after 2.75 years
  • The 2001 recession, 4 years
  • The 2007 recession: it’s been more than 5 years and we’re still not there yet
Speed of job recovery in recessions 1948-2012

NPR’s original chart is interactive — click on the image to go to it.

As we’ve seen before, the GDP (along with productivity measures) has pretty much continued to climb this entire time, unabated by the high unemployment levels. (The Dow recently hit record highs, having recovered all losses following the crashes of 2007.) What this means is that businesses are doing just fine with less employees, due in part to outsourcing, and in part to automation.

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From NPR

TSA Updates Banned Items List To Make Even Less Sense

Posted by on March 6, 2013 Comments Off

After 9/11, the shoe bomber and the liquid explosives plot, the TSA did what any unimaginative, reactionary organization would do: it banned anything that was used in a previous attack, despite the fact that box cutters, shoe bombs and liquid explosives were never attempted again.

Now that some time has passed since the turmoil of the early 2000s, since bin Laden is dead, and since more and more people are starting to wonder how much sense it makes to ban some of the things on the TSA’s list, the agency has decided to chill out a bit and let us bring knives and sports sticks on board airplanes. Well actually, the official reason is that the Europeans are doing it – seriously. (No word on what the TSA would do if the Europeans jumped off of a bridge.)

TSA's small knives guide

But not all knives: just ones with a blade shorter than 2.36″ … because you gotta draw the line somewhere, people! Of course, if the knife has a molded grip, that somehow makes it more dangerous, so that’s still a no-no. And box cutters, that’s still verbotten: sure, their blade is like an inch at most, but their effectiveness in plane hijacking has been proven, whereas Swiss Army knives’ has not.

For the sports sticks: you can bring golf clubs — which are used quite a bit to beat people up — but you can’t bring full size bats… only bats that are less than two feet long. Because if you’re gonna beat the other passengers, they at least want you to do it with equipment from a classy sport like golf, not thug-ridden, steroid-laden baseball.

Update, 5 June 2013: Nevermind.

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From TSA, via NPR

Proof That Economists Make Wild Guesses, Not Forecasts

Posted by on February 22, 2013 Comments Off

A study by the Reserve Bank of Australia found out that their economic predictions could’ve just as easily been done by a monkey throwing darts at a chart:

  • Only 70% of inflation forecasts were accurate
  • Unemployment estimates were as good as a roll of the dice
  • Economic growth predictions were somewhere in between

They looked at 20 years’ worth of forecasts for the year ahead to get that data. Bottom line: forecasting the economy is like trying to forecast the dice in craps, but instead of losing money to the casino, you get paid a high salary and get mentioned in the news every year. Why? Because we need to plan for something in the future… even if those plans are based on fiction.

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From Australian Broadcasting Corporation, via Slashdot

 

Amish Guy Gets 15 Year Jail Sentence For Beard Cutting Attacks

Posted by on February 9, 2013 Comments Off

Not bear cutting: beard cutting.  At first, a 15 year sentence for cutting off someone’s hair may seem ridiculous — and strike fear in the hearts of barbers everywhere — but it’s a complicated issue. It all stemmed from a theological dispute between two Amish sects in Ohio, one of which decided to get violent. But not really violent, just home-invasion-for-the-purposes-of-cutting-off-their-enemies’-beards violent. Sixteen people were involved in follicular attacks on eight victims — some of them women, who got their hair shaved instead. Shaving someone against their will is pretty bad, of course, but it’s not worse than beating someone up — and that probably won’t land you any jail time, much less 15 years. But in this case, there are extenuating circumstances.

Samuel Mullet Sr, the leader of the beard cutters. Photo by Amy Sancetta/Associated Press

Samuel Mullet Sr, the leader of the beard cutters. Photo by Amy Sancetta/Associated Press

 

First, beards are a sacred thing for the Amish: they’re a symbol of their manliness and their religion, and having no beard is probably as embarrassing for them as walking around naked would be for us English. This concept actually goes back to Biblical times:

So Hanun seized David’s envoys, shaved off half of each man’s beard, cut off their garments at the buttocks, and sent them away. When David was told about this, he sent messengers to meet the men, for they were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back.” – 2 Samuel 10: 4-5

Second, besides the physical assault, there was home invasion. Third, because it was a group crime, there are conspiracy charges. The leader got 15 years, but the other 15 people got sentences ranging from one to seven years. (Most of the leader’s extra sentence was because he also punished his male followers for ogling non-Amish women, while pressuring his female followers to have sex with him.) Fourth, — and this is the more controversial part — the attacks were classified as hate crimes, because of their religious nature.

The legality of hate crime laws has always been controversial, because it amounts to punishing someone for their thoughts: if Nigel beats Fin up because Nigel is racist and Fin is Irish, should Nigel get punished more than if he were to beat up another Englishman? If so, why? The end result is still the same: someone got beaten up in either scenario. But then again, intent is a major component of criminal law: if Nigel accidentally pushed Fin down the stairs and he died, Nigel would get charged with manslaughter. But, if he intended to kill him, he would be charged with murder.

So the hate crime issue is complicated. And besides that, there are the breaking and entering and conspiracy aspects. But at the end of the day, putting aside abstract violations of the law, a number of people are in jail for years and years because they cut off other people’s hair.

From The New York Times, via NPR