Spying on US phone records, etc.

I find the latest uproar about the Verizon calls and "PRISM" mildly amusing. Many liberals are saying that it's not so much that the data are being acquired but that the programs are secret that bothers them.

This really has to give comfort to al Qaeda. Apparently, it's OK for us to protect ourselves from al Qaeda but ONLY if we explain exactly, in detail, how we plan to do it. This, naturally, will give al Qaeda the ability to develop counter measures. Personally, I am opposed to that, but I guess it would somehow be un-American to put terrorists at a disadvantage.

The fact that the Federal government has access to all calls placed and their duration bothers me a lot less than the fact that AT&T or Verizon et al has this information in the first place. Corporations in the US have an expressed evil intent to make as much money as possible from the personal information they gather from us. In contrast, the government wants this information to keep us safe. I find it a lot easier to believe the government is on my side that I believe that any corporation is on my side.

As an aside, in the old days, when we were charged by the duration and distance of a telephone call, it made sense for the telephone company to record this information for billing purposes. Now that the vast majority of plans are flat rated, the telephone company really has no reason to gather this information at all. My guess would be that collecting and storing this information is a significant part of the cost of providing the service. Given that I have no real interest in this data, I think that at the very least, if the government wants access to such information for law enforcement purposes, then it should pay for it and my bill could be reduced accordingly.

I accept that the government needs oversight - we can't just trust government always never to misuse the information that is so gained. But, alas, the First Amendment guarantees that the government MUST keep the press in the dark, since if the press learns of a program, there is nothing to stop them printing it. Imagine, for a moment, how D-Day would have turned out in 1944 had the press printed the plans of the Normandy Invasion several days before. I believe some sort of scheme is needed where journalists pick a small number of representatives who will represent the general press. These special journalists could then be briefed fully on such programs, including on the rationality for the program and for the need to keep it secret. These journalists would be expected to keep the secrets but we, the people, could be assured that respected journalists were indeed being briefed. Clearly, if these journalists, discover that they are being kept in the dark, then the government has broken the deal and they are free to share and publish what they know. Of course, the administration should also be overseen by the Congress and by the Courts, but we don't seem to trust either of those institutions very much, which is rather sad, when you think about it.

The PRISM program seems to have generated even more outrage, but this is baffling to me. Of course, most people, including journalists, appear not to bother to read even their own stories. But, as far as I understand this program, it appears to be aimed at people accessing, let's use Gmail as an example, Gmail from overseas to communicate with other persons oversees or even in the US. Now, imagine if you are the head of al Qaeda. You could set up an alqaeda.com server and give all your operatives emails at alqaeda.com but something tells me the US and other governments might get wind of that. So instead, you think to yourself, why don't we all get nondescript accounts from Gmail and we can access them from around the world and Google is brilliant at keeping its servers running 24/7. Plus, and this is a big plus, we know that the US government is prohibited by its own constitution from monitoring all those emails. So now you have, as the boss of al Qaeda. set up a reliable worldwide email system that your enemy isn't allowed to monitor! Brilliant. So if you work for the FBI in counter terrorism and if you have a brain, this might occur to you. And so you think to yourself that as long as you target the communications of non US residents, then I can safely monitor such sites. But, of course, the last thing you want to do is to let the terrorists know that you are monitoring their emails, but the press makes sure that you know.

So it seems to me that we have two choices. And the choice really is up to us. On the one hand we can insist that programs and surveillance like this stop, or we let it continue, albeit being monitored by some appropriate method. But if we choose the first option, then we also have to agree that we won't cry and protest and get all distraught if a terrorist attack succeeds.

What is freedom?

The recent Supreme Court decision that allows people who have been arrested to have a sample of DNA taken has caused a lot of controversy. Does this help or hinder "freedom"? We hear all the time on TV about "our freedoms" and always in the context that they are a "good thing". It was alleged that al Qaeda hated us for "our freedoms". So I pose the question "What is freedom?" On one level freedom is obvious, but in reality it's a lot more complicated. In the US, we have been taught to believe that we live in a "free society". Is this the result of indoctrination, wishful thinking, or examination of the facts?

I think we can fairly say that in comparison to the old USSR or to North Korea, we are a free society. I can't imagine anyone arguing with that. But what if we compare ourselves to Europe or Australia or Canada - are we freer than they are or not? I assert that depends very much on your definition of freedom. On the face of it, we would appear to be less free. After all, the incarceration rate in the "land of the free" is higher than any peer with which we would wish to be compared. At 5% pf the world's population we have 25% of the prisoners. So clearly, larger numbers of Americans are less free then their counterparts in Europe, etc. And by less free in this context, I am not comparing the quality of freedom, but that Americans are actually incarcerated which is unarguably less free than not being in prison.

But are people in the US otherwise free from government intervention and control. Again, no. The US government actually prohibits its citizens, for example, from visiting Cuba. Most governments might warn their citizens against travel to certain countries, advising them that consular aid may not be available or that governments are known to be hostile. But a government of free citizens can hardly prohibit travel, and yet the US does. So it's far from obvious that people in the US are freer or less free than their counterparts.

As I see it there are two distinct forms of freedom - the freedom to and the freedom from. So deciding relative freedoms involves balancing the weight of freedom to and freedom from. And this is where the US has distinctly more freedom to, but the Europeans, Canadians and Australians have more freedom from. So, for example, in the "less free" nations you are unlikely to be sitting in your house and just randomly murdered by drive-by shooting or some random gang violence, or even in a home invasion. But this is achieved by restricting the freedom to buy as many guns of any types as you like. In reality, I think most of us, within reason, prefer freedom from things. We like that people aren't allowed to be a nuisance, or that people aren't allowed to build really ugly buildings within inches of our own homes. Some people will see it as an infringement of liberties that they aren't allowed to have a raucous party in the middle of the street at 2 am.

So what about taking DNA samples? I can't see that this is fundamentally any different from taking fingerprints or even taking a mug shot. That mug shot or fingerprint stays on file forever and is used to see if prints found at a crime scene match someone previously arrested. Now, it's true that this does seriously impact your freedom to murder people, since it does mean that you are more likely now to be apprehended. So this might act as a deterrent. On the other hand, insofar as it does act as a deterrent, this could significantly increase your freedom from, freedom from rape and murder. So, on balance, I support this decision. The fact that Antonin Scalia dissents may be the most compelling reason of all to support it.

AP Scandal

On the AP scandal, this is a difficult issue. It is pretty well known among intelligence services around the world that you should never share any intelligence with the US that you would prefer to keep secret. Naturally, this hampers national security. Consequently, the DoJ did have a good reason for investigating that leak. At the time of the leak a year ago, the Republicans were OUTRAGED at the leak and demanded the perpetrator be caught. This led to the DoJ investigation. Earlier, the Congress had tried to pass a "shield law" for journalists so that their records couldn't be subject to a subpoena but this law was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate.

So, to summarize, the Republicans refused to grant journalists immunity, and then demanded an investigation and now the AP has been investigated, they are OUTRAGED. I think if the Republicans would stop all this mock outrage and stop being so hypocritical, I might be able to share some of their anger.

The IRS Scandal

This IRS "scandal" is,indeed, rather scandalous. The IRS was totally wrong to single out the Tea Party groups on the basis of their names. However, 501C(4) are given tax exempt status only if they are "social welfare" groups but primarily political groups are expressly forbidden. Let's first remember that NONE of these groups was denied tax exempt status. And THAT is where the scandal lies. All political groups, including liberal political groups, should have been scrutinized due to their political nature and all of the political groups should have been denied.

This is all a result of the corrupt Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court. As these groups proliferated, it overloaded the IRS offices and so they looked for "short cuts" to identify potential abuse. But let me repeat, they were wrong to audit only Conservative groups, but they were equally wrong to grant any of then tax exempt status. As far as I can tell, Karl Rove'r group AND Obama's OFA should also have been denied tax exempt status.

More on Debts and Deficits

In my earlier post I commented on how many people confused the debt and the deficit. Rick Perry, never known for being the brightest tool in the shed, does so here. But I would hope most of my readers are a lot smarter than he.

But I also wish to make a further point about the deficit. We hear all of this talk about a balanced budget but no one ever explains why this is a good idea. Even households rarely balance their budgets. As I explained last time, the important number is the amount of debt as a percentage of GDP. This is analogous to saying that rich people can afford to borrow more than less affluent people, something that should be self evident. In the normal course of events, the GDP increases every year. If the GDP doesn't increase and instead decreases, we call this a recession and we all know this is not good. There are many factors why GDP increases, not least that the population increases, either by childbirth or by immigration. As a result there are more people working, more consumers, more people needing cars and houses, etc. So if GDP rises from one year to the next, it stands to reason that the debt can increase by the same percentage and still maintain the same debt to GDP ratio. Viewed simplistically, if the GDP increases by x% then it is reasonable to increase the debt by x% to maintain the same Debt to GDP ratio. That increase in the debt means that the deficit in that year can be x% of the initial debt. In practical terms that means that, at current values we can run deficits of about $450B per year without increasing the debt to GDP ratio.

Even minimum thought leads one to the conclusion that by far the easiest way to solve the "deficit problem" is to increase GDP. GDP is currently growing at around 2% in spite of the efforts of Congress to derail the recovery. Had we had a robust stimulus package, not laid off al the teachers and firefighters and police around the country, the economy might now be growing at 4% per year and we would be well on our way to solving the problem.

Sadly, the chances of Congress being reasonable any time soon are somewhere south of none, by which I mean they are far more likely to hurt rather than help the economy. I cite the current sequester as evidence.