I’m Totally Crushing Brad At This Point

No insightful commentary from me this time, but there is an article at Slate that seems appropriate for this blog:
Here’s how the economy at graduation impacts the long-term job prospects of a new Ph.D.

And You Who Were Already Conquered… Oh Wait, We’re Still Missing The Victory

I’ve been wanting to post something on this for the past two days, but I haven’t really been able to get my thoughts together. Here’s the initial reaction. I know Steve will be just as upset when he hears the news as I am now, but he may still have a different reaction than my own. Please don’t take my words as his even though I’m posting here.

US troops are being accused of engaging in a massacre of over twenty Iraqi civillians. Congressmen are now making further accusations of an intentional cover-up.

Anyway, the thoughts I’ve put together:
If guilty, these soldiers should spend the rest of their lives in prison. So should their commanders and anyone involved in hiding the facts. I will not even listen to disagreement on that point. Moreover, we as a nation, if such a thing exists, need to question our own role in creating a war that allows atrocities such as this. I don’t know what comes next, but something must.
It’s hard to honor Memorial Day with the respect our fallen soldiers deserve when the news is filled with stories such as this one.

George Will Writes An Entire Column Based On A Lie

Since Steve is bothered by George Will perhaps even more than he is bothered by Charles Krauthammer, and since I maintain that the anti-Spanish pro-English movement is nothing but disgusting extremist nationalism, I must comment on today’s column.
To summarize, the column centers around the idea that, because immigrants are required by law to make progress in learning English if they wish to earn citizenship, it is ridiculous to permit bilingual ballots. Will writes, “If someone needs a ballot written in a language other than English, that need proves the person obtained citizenship only because the law was not enforced when he or she sought citizenship.”
It sounds totally logical… until you remember that there are plenty of legal non-citizens in this country who have the right to vote in some, albeit not all, elections. That’s right: Many local elections permit legal resident non-citizens to vote.
Could George Will possibly be any more a waste of space than he already is?

re: Ciao!

Don’t get used to this because I don’t think there are many internet cafe’s around in Camogli or Cortona, but since I found one here, I thought I’d post the beginning of my travel notes – with pictures! PS – apologies for any typos, Italian keyboards take some getting used to.

May 18, 5:40 pm (EST) – BWI Airport.

I made it to BWI several hours early, which proved a waste. I navigated BWI’s international counter in a matter of minutes and security took even less time. I had to check a bag, which I was not happy about. I have to pick it up at Heathrowàs baggage claim and then take it with me to Gatwick and then RE-check the bag at Gatwick. Fun times.

The international terminal is practically deserted I am here so early. By the way, the paper towel dispensers in the men’s room are terrible. The wheel you must turn is on the side of the dispenser facing the mirror. The wheel is indented and you have to grip the grooves in the wheel and turn it towards your own body while reaching across the dispenser. And, of course, it is also made pointlessly difficult by the fact that your hands are wet, which is why one needs the paper towels in the first place.

Friday, May 20 (Italian Time), Piazza San Maggiore, Bologna:

The trip was long, but now I am here (see above) and Italy is beautiful as always. I am slowly coming around to see that I need not fear the same curt treatment from the Italians here that I recieved in London. As much as I feel that I should like London, every visit there seems to sour my mood.

I was greeted at Heathrow by a bus driver who yelled at me when I became very confused about how to get to Gatwick by bus. ‘Come on, son!’ he barked at me. It was the second time in my life that had been publicly scorned by a member of London public transit within thirty minutes of arriving (in 2000, it was at the ticket counter for the Undergound).
I saw the Alps from the plane on my flight to Bologna. They were as incredible as advertised. I have officially put the majesty of the Alps on the list of things that are talked about to the point of clichè, and yet are still as good as advertised.

Bologna is fantastic so far. Though I am not too much longer for this city. Here are a couple of quick tourist highlights thus far:

Fountain of Neptune:

Due Torri:
That’s it for now, enjoy Andrew and Brad’ posting for the next two weeks. I’ll pop back on when I can!

Alright, Kids, Let’s Get Rolling

I said back at home that one of my obligations over the next two weeks is almost certainly to keep up with Krauthammer in Steve’s absence. I was partially joking, but let’s kick off my part-time tenure here with some Krauthammer nonetheless. In today’s column, Chas explains to us that America needs real border security and the President’s failure to provide it is the reason so many people are angry at him. Fine; I’m quite honestly sick of talking about immigration and don’t feel like debating him on that. Here’s what I do want to discuss:

Bush’s enforcement provisions were advertised as an attempt to appease
conservatives. This is odd. Are conservatives the only ones who think that
unlimited, unregulated immigration is a detriment to the republic? Do liberals
really believe in a de facto policy that depresses the wages of the poorest and
most desperate Americans, African Americans most prominently among them? Do
liberals believe that the number, social class, education level, background and
country of origin of immigrants — the kinds of decisions every democratic
country makes for itself — should be taken out of the hands of the American
citizenry and left to the immigrants themselves and, in particular, to those
most willing to break the very immigration regulations the American people have
decided upon democratically?

Let’s ignore the fact that our current de facto policy DOES NOT depress wages beyond an exceedingly small segment of the population and overall helps everyone because, as I said, I’m sick of talking about that stuff. I do still want to point to Krauthammer’s gratuitous race baiting within that paragraph, because it’s really really gratuitous.
More importantly, however, what I want to say is that I, as a liberal, do believe in completely unlimited and unregulated immigration. In fact, I think we should go a step farther and allow ONLY criminals into the country! How does that sound, Chas? Want to quote me with that in your next column rather than follow the President’s lead and ask asinine rhetorical questions about unnamed liberals believing ridiculous things like you did today?
Thank you, Charles Krauthammer, for raising the level of debate in this country on an issue that belongs exactly where you placed it: Firmly on the stack of irrelevant gutter politics.

signing off for two weeks

Alright, I’m off to Italy in aocuple of hours. Usually such statements are proclamations of joy. I feel an overwhlemingly foreboding sensation about the whole thing. Oh well. Brand and Andrew will be posting here for the next two weeks (thanks guys!) and I will hopefully come back and share some pictures and travel experiences. I’ll see you on the other side, stay tuned for World Cup action upon my return!

Packing up for the summer…

Heading back eastward for the summer… off to Harm City. Before I go, I am watching the end of “Shake Hands With the Devil.” It does not leave one with positive fealing about Belgium. Towards the end, they show a Belgian Senator attacking Dallaire at a press conference. Their compaints are about Dallaire not doing enough to protect their 10 Belgian soldiers. Their critique is that Dallaire did not defy UN orders to raid the interhamwe weapons cahces, and that afterwards he did not risk the rest of his force to storm Hutu power military headquarters and rescue whatever Belgians were still alive.

That the Belgian government could colonize Rwanda, reinforce racial divisions that were artificial in the country both before and after an international force (including Canadians) had liberated Belgium in the middle of this century, and turn around and blast Dallaire for not supporting their ten soldiers when Beglium was unwilling to return the favor and make the same type of risk for the thousands of Rwandans who were murdered is beyond outrageous. When your government soldiers escort their own people out of a hospital surrounded by the interhamwe and tell them that “they have to solve their own problems” knowing that they are to be murdered… it goes beyond comprehension.

Bottom line, Belgium can question Romeo Dallaire’s decion and try to place the attention on him, but history will out Belgium. After decades of colonialism and creating the political environment that Rwanda found itself in, Belgium decided that 10 Belgians lives was too high a price to stop a genocide. Whatever mistakes Dallaire made those first few days, he stayed.

A Response to TMan from NiT

TMan wrote:

“1)If this data mining could have been used to stop the 9/11 attacks would it have been acceptable?

2)Do you believe this is solely a Bush/GOP initiative and this has never been done by other Democratic admins before?”

I think that these are very reasonable questions to raise. For my part, I want to stress again that I actually do not have a problem with data mining to fight terrorists. Scotland Yard has done some amazing things with the technology, and we are behind the curve in mass statistical crime fighting, at least in terms of what I hear from others on this sort of thing.

However, the “goodness” or “badness” of the program is not the point. Programs will come and go over time. Checks and balances, on the other hand, are a pretty important “load bearing” pole in the republican edifice, and I’d like to see that as sturdy as possible. Not only has Congress been repeatedly rebuffed in its attempts to learn more, but Congress has likely killed a very similar version of this program in early 2003 under the suspiscion that when it was under DARPA, its activities were illegal.

I would also say, if the program is such a great idea, why not tell the people as many details about it as possible so that they can support it? I see no reason that the public should not be consulted in making such programs BEFORE such programs are enacted on their behalf. To the extent that democracy turns the public into an audience that either grunts approval or disapproval AFTER the fact is simply not good enough, and is entirely un-Lockean governance. The government acts on the political power we give them in trust, not a reality show like “American Idol” or something.

I hope that addresses point 1 to your satisfaction. As for point 2, I am sure that other admins have done similar things. FDR used the FBI in extremely inappropriate ways. Is it wrong when FDR does it, or when Clinton does it? Absolutely. Should the public demand a full investigation on such matters every time? Of course. The United States of America has amassed an amount of power in the world unparalelled in the history of the Earth. I don’t care if my mother is the President of the United States, if she authorized a program like this without telling the American people, I would be the first in line to demand an investigation. In my view, this has nothing to do with people’s brand-name allegiances to political parties, this has to do with belonging to the commercial democratic republic, believing that it is the best form of government possible, and being committed to uphold those things that truly make it a state strong enough to protect us, safe enough for us to pursue our own vision of the good life, and contentious enough to force us to keep ourselves at least minimally disciplined to be good citizens.

Hannah Arendt once wrote that there are two kinds of lies in politics. Lies directed at the enemy, and lies directed at one’s own people. We must be dilligent in seperating the two, because democracies have no “noble lies” because noble lies need guardian classes. The only things we don’t know are things that we consent to the fact that we “don’t want to know”. In this case a lot of people want to know and do not consent to not knowing. To ignore them is to be anti-democratic in a fairly serious way. I think the American people would very likely be wrong to dismantle the program, but my allegiance is to the people and not the NSA. I’m not trying to sound sanctimonious (or whatever word Sarcastro used last time I posted) I’m just sharing how I see it.

If we investigate the NSA program, I think we owe explanations to those who disagree, particularly when we are faced with reasonable questions like these two. We owe them reasons, but they owe us what we want if there are a lot of us out there – as I suspect there are.

Illustrated NSA Wiretap story…

Borrowing from the way people put together theories for the tv show “Lost” (a special nod to Andrew Smith)

Meet John Poindexter:

Admiral Poindexter was involved in a program at the Office of Information Awareness. A branch of DARPA that was interested in sohpisticated data collection methods and their relationship to fighting terrorism by making connections between people that the human mind could not process.

Now meet John Markoff…
And William Safire…

These two NYT writers wrote pieces about the Total Information Awareness Initiative. Markoff’s piece was printed in February of 2002. Safire’s column appeared months later, but the firestorm about TIA had started.

Now, let’s meet Senator Russ Feingold:

Senator Feingold introduced legislation to shut down the TIA program in early 2003. The legislation lays down one condition to keep TIA running – a sharing of information with Congress about what it is doing and specific approval from Congress so that Congress may ensure that civil liberties are not violated.

DARPA refuses to cooperate and changed the name of the program to the Terrorist Awareness Act, but this did not save it. Congress specifically defunded TIA and closed down the Office of Information Awareness.

Fast forward to last December. In December of 2005, the New York Times releases a story it had sat on for two years regarding an executive order that allowed the NSA to engage in warrantless domestic surveillance. The act is signed in late 2002, as Congress begins to send signals that it will shut down the DARPA projects.

Meet Judge Robertson:

Judge Robertson is a Federal Judge who used to sit on the FISA court, the court where the government needs to go to get surveillance warrants. He used to sit on the court, because when he learned of the NSA wiretap program, he abruptly resigned.

Meet Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez:

Mr. Gonzalez was White House Counsel at the time the NSA program was authorized. Mr. Gonzalez appeared on many different media occasions to defend the program. His claim is that the program is necessary and that Congress was briefed on the program. Why the program is necessary, however, Mr. Gonzalez claimed cannot be divulged for security reasons. As for the briefings of Congress, well…

Meet Senator Rockefeller:

It turns out that when Senator Rockefeller was briefed on the program, he was so disturbed that he sent the Vice President a letter of protest and signed a sealed copy that he kept for himself when word of the program got out. The letter shows that Congress was once again not satisfied that the White House was respecting Civil Liberties.

Despite the growing concerns, the White House refused to give more information about the NSA program to the public or to Congress. Senator Frist even hinted to Senator Reid that he would move to restructure the historically bipartisan judiciary committee if the committee voted to investigate the NSA wiretapping program.

Fast forward to today, with the USA Today story and the fallout throughout the day from this story, including an alarmingly swift reaction by the President.

It seems unlikely that anything can stop a Congressional Investigation now. Hopefully, we will finally see if DARPA’s projects were simply moved by Presidential fiat from Defense to NSA despite the fact that Congress specifically rejected the legality of what these projects were doing. Hopefully, we will finally see exactly what these programs were doing, and what it is about them that would cause a FISA Court judge to abruptly resign from that court. Hopefully, we will finally see that it is not okay to do something just because the executive thinks it is justified, particularly when the judiciary, the legislature and the general public are all apt to think that it is unjustified. This story is far from over.

All things NSA

I’m trying to amass as much NSA related stuff as possible right now:

Andrew Cohen’s post on WaPo’s Bench Conference.
The President this morning. Video. Transcript.
Online Chat with Dana Priest.
Original USA Today Story.
Senator Leahy on the USA Today Story.