Defending WikiLeaks

wikileaksAlthough my view of the latest WikiLeaks disclosures is much the same as FT’s Gideon Rachman (I mean, really, who would have thought that Silvio Berlusconi is feckless and vain?), my sense is that Will Wilkinson’s initial analysis correctly identifies the importance of these disclosures:

To get at the value of WikiLeaks, I think it’s important to distinguish between the government-the temporary, elected authors of national policy-and the state-the permanent bureaucratic and military apparatus superficially but not fully controlled by the reigning government. The careerists scattered about the world in America’s intelligence agencies, military, and consular offices largely operate behind a veil of secrecy executing policy which is itself largely secret. American citizens mostly have no idea what they are doing, or whether what they are doing is working out well. The actually-existing structure and strategy of the American empire remains a near-total mystery to those who foot the bill and whose children fight its wars. And that is the way the elite of America’s unelected permanent state, perhaps the most powerful class of people on Earth, like it. [.  .  .]

If secrecy is necessary for national security and effective diplomacy, it is also inevitable that the prerogative of secrecy will be used to hide the misdeeds of the permanent state and its privileged agents. I suspect that there is no scheme of government oversight that will not eventually come under the indirect control of the generals, spies, and foreign-service officers it is meant to oversee.

Organisations such as WikiLeaks, which are philosophically opposed to state secrecy and which operate as much as is possible outside the global nation-state system, may be the best we can hope for in the way of promoting the climate of transparency and accountability necessary for authentically liberal democracy. Some folks ask, "Who elected Julian Assange?" The answer is nobody did, which is, ironically, why WikiLeaks is able to improve the quality of our democracy.

Of course, those jealously protective of the privileges of unaccountable state power will tell us that people will die if we can read their email, but so what? Different people, maybe more people, will die if we can’t.

Reminds me of the debate that occurred as a result of similar disclosures over a generation ago.

The Real Threat of Security Theater

snltsaWriting in the NY Times over the holiday weekend, Roger Cohen lucidly identifies the true threat of the elaborate security theater that the Transportation Security Administration has foisted upon us in our nation’s airports:

I don’t doubt the patriotism of the Americans involved in keeping the country safe, nor do I discount the threat, but I am sure of this: The unfettered growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the T.S.A. represent a greater long-term threat to the prosperity, character and wellbeing of the United States than a few madmen in the valleys of Waziristan or the voids of Yemen.

America is a nation of openness, boldness and risk-taking. Close this nation, cow it, constrict it and you unravel its magic. [.  .  .]

.  .  . During the Bosnian war, besieged Sarajevans had a word – “inat” – for the contempt-cum-spite they showed barbarous gunners on the hills by dressing and carrying on as normal. Inat is what Americans should show the jihadist cave-dwellers.

So I give thanks this week for the Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

I give thanks for Benjamin Franklin’s words after the 1787 Constitutional Convention describing the results of its deliberations: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

To keep it, push back against enhanced patting, Chertoff’s naked-screening and the sinister drumbeat of fear.

Amen.

Putting the Pencil to the Federal Budget

CalculatorSeveral days ago, I posted on Twitter about the NY Times federal budget calculator, which is receiving well-deserved praise around the blogosphere.

For example, economists such as Clear Thinkers favorites David Henderson and Arnold Kling  — as well as financial columnist James Pethokoukis — provide their views on what spending cuts to make in balancing the budget within a reasonable period of time without raising taxes.

As John Goodman points out, though, the elephant in the parlor in cutting the budget is how to corral Medicare costs without causing corresponding harm to the elderly. Details, details  .   .   .

Nevertheless, Professor Henderson sums up the importance of the calculator as an educational tool:

Here’s a prediction: if the New York Times keeps this game up on its site, a whole lot of people are going to be more sympathetic to cutting government and more optimistic that it can be done.

One of my objections to Tea Partiers is how uninformed some of them are about the numbers. Now, thanks to the New York Times, they don’t have to be.

Will Security Theater Endure?

nun-muslim-frisk-300x261Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve been critical of the Transportation Security Administration’s absurdly inefficient and largely worthless airport screening procedures for five years now.

Although always hopeful, I never thought that it was realistic to dismantle the TSA entirely. Sadly, it’s become yet another governmental jobs program with its own vested interests lobbying for its existence in perpetuity.

Nevertheless, I remained hopeful that something could eventually be done to constrain the TSA’s seemingly unfettered capacity to make airline travel an mostly miserable experience.

So, the recent groundswell of opposition to the TSA’s latest  outrage in screening procedures – as summarized in this Art Carden/Forbes article (see also pilot Patrick Smith’s Salon op-ed here)- has been an unexpected but welcome movement. I mean, really. How many more TSA outrages such as the that  John Tyner chronicled will have to occur before politicians who oppose constructive change will be at risk of losing their jobs?

As airlines brace for the possible negative impact that the TSA agents’ boorish actions may have on the upcoming holiday travel season, David Henderson notes one of the unanticipated consequences of the TSA’s chilling effect on airline travel:

.   .   . let’s remember the stakes. It’s not just our privacy, our dignity, and our right not to be sexually assaulted. It’s also about our lives. People who decide to drive rather than take a short-haul flight will face approximately 80 times the fatality rate per mile that people on commercial airlines face.

The TSA is killing people.

Moreover, beyond the infantile behavior of TSA agents, the wasted time and expense resulting from these procedures is appalling. Michael Chertoff, the former head of Homeland Security, promoted the supposed benefits of the new scanners when he was in office, and now he is a lobbyist persuading TSA to buy them!

As with the overcriminalization of American life, the TSA is another symbol of a federal government that is increasingly remote and unresponsive to its citizens.

Is this a trend that can be changed? Perhaps the curious case of the TSA will answer that question.

The politics of increasing state power

elephant_and_donkeyWill Wilkinson touches on an interesting dynamic of current political discourse in the U.S.:

It sometimes does seem as though the American left has more or less ceded the language of liberty to the right.  .   .   . Why is that?

I think "the left’s confusion over how to respond ideologically" to the right’s libertarian-sounding arguments flows in part from the left’s own confusion about what it stands for. If the contemporary right is an uneasy fusion of conservative and libertarian articles of faith, the contemporary left is an uneasy fusion of technocratic progressive and liberal-democratic conviction.

One sees progressive managerial elitism most clearly in the left’s public-health and environmental paternalism. The rarely uttered idea is that the people who know best need to force the rest of us to do what’s good for us. Whatever you think of this sort of state paternalism, it isn’t liberal or liberty-enhancing in any non-tortured sense. The progressive technocrat’s attitude toward liberty is: "Trust us. You’re better off without so much of it."

The more the left is inclined to stick up for this sort of "activist government" as a progressive, humanitarian force, the less it is inclined to couch its arguments in terms of liberty. And that’s just honest. More honest, I would add, than social conservatives who in one breath praise liberty and in the next demand the state imposition of their favourite flavour of morality.

I agree with [Peter] Beinart that engaging the right’s worries about liberty by couching the left’s agenda in the language of liberty would improve the Democrats’ prospects. But I don’t think he should discount the extent to which a consistently liberal philosophy of government clashes with cherished and deep-seated parts of the American left’s identity. (For example, the part that insists on defending Woodrow Wilson despite the profound depths of his illiberalism.)

Those Americans currently agitated about the threat Democrats pose to liberty are not wrong to be worried. Where they go wrong is in thinking Republicans are better on this score. Democrats might be able to argue this point effectively if only their own commitment to liberty was less conflicted.

The inclination of both major political parties to increase state power has ominous implications for citizens. Is it possible to change?

Security theater run amok

AirportScan Security theater –  that is, the largely worthless waste of time that the federal government imposes on us in the security lines at our nation’s airports – has been a frequent topic on this blog. Arguably, no other current governmental action represents better just how out of control our government has become from the true desires of its citizens.

Given what appears initially to be some unsophisticated attempts at terrorist attacks on Thursday, we will likely in the coming days be regaled with the additional measures that the TSA will propose to impose on us as a result of this latest security threat.

Meanwhile, as this Jeffrey Goldberg/The Atlantic article notes, the federal government will continue to ignore the much more serious violations of civil liberties and basic human decency that already take place daily in our airports.

When will this madness end?

In this recent TEDxPSU talk, security expert Bruce Schneier provides an overview on how we should reconceptualize security so as to address the true security threats in an effective and reasonable manner. More constructive thought goes into this 18-minute lecture than what went into constructing the entire federal government elaborate security theater apparatus.

Metro, Proposition 1 and competing costs

News-Shelby-Buffalo-Bayou-Park-flood-May-2015_110239Given the regularity of gully-washers in Houston, flood control is something near and dear to the heart of any Houstonian.

So, the Renew Houston organization reasons, who could possibly be against Proposition 1 in the upcoming election? That’s the referendum that seeks to raise about $8 billion of dedicated taxes over the next couple of decades to fund flood control projects and other infrastructure improvements.

Well, I doubt many Houstonians oppose improving flood control and other reasonable infrastructure improvements. But reasonable folks can certainly differ over how to pay for it. And more precisely, whether local governments have already committed limited tax dollars to boondoggles such as the Metro light rail system that should have been used for the more beneficial projects that Proposition 1 proposes.

Metro’s defenders – many of whom are supporters of Proposition 1 – typically rely on the 2003 referendum as the primary basis for their continued support of the light rail boondoggle.

But the problem with the 2003 referendum and Proposition 1 is that they ask voters to approve large public projects in a vacuum while ignoring Peter Gordon’s three elegantly simple questions regarding economic choices:

1) At what cost?

2) Compared to what? and

3) How do you know?

For example, let’s assume that voters in 2003 had been informed that the expenditure of a billion or so of public money on building a lightly-used light rail system has real consequences, such as leaving inadequate funds available to make the improvements to Houston’s flood control system and infrastructure that Proposition 1 now proposes.

No one knows for sure, but my bet is that voting results would have been dramatically different if the foregoing alternative had been a part of the 2003 referendum.

Unfortunately, the relatively small groups that benefit from urban boondoggles have a vested interest in preventing the voters from ever examining those threshold issues. The primary economic benefit of such public projects is highly concentrated in only a few interest groups, such as representatives of minority communities who tout the political accomplishment of shiny toy rail lines while ignoring their constituents need for more effective mass transit; environmental groups striving for political influence; engineering and construction-related firms that profit from the huge expenditure of public funds; and real-estate developers who profit from the value enhancement provided to their property from the public expenditures.

As Professor Gordon wryly-notes “It adds up to a winning coalition.”

Once such coalitions are successful in establishing a governmental policy subsidizing boondoggles such as the Metro light rail system, it is virtually impossible to end the public subsidy of the boondoggle and deploy the resources for more beneficial projects.

How do these interest groups get away with this? The costs of such boondoggles are widely dispersed among the local population of an area such as Houston, so the many who stand to lose will lose only a little while the few who stand to gain will gain a lot. As a result, these small interest groups recognize that it is usually not worth the relatively small cost per taxpayer for most citizens to spend any substantial amount of time or money lobbying or simply taking the time to vote against a boondoggle such as a light rail system.

But would the citizenry react differently if they knew that their lack of action in the face of an urban boondoggle might prevent the funding of much more beneficial projects?

Writing about Phoenix’s new light rail system, which is just as uneconomic as Houston’s, Warren Meyer analogizes the funding of these systems to dubious household purchases:

[The] Phoenix light rail reminds me of a home I visited recently that had a $50,000 super-size 100-inch flat screen TV. That TV was gorgeous. Everyone who saw it immediately fell in love with it.  It worked flawlessly, and everyone at the party wanted one. In fact, it was probably the greatest, most sensible and successful purchase of all time .   .   . as long as one never considered the cost.  This is exactly how light rail seems to get evaluated.

In building a light rail system, did Houston buy an expensive flat-screen TV with funds that would have been better utilized taking care of the drainage problem in the back yard? Or are things going so well at work for Houston that it can do both?

We will soon find out.

The collateral consequences of overcriminalization

scales of justice The troubling overcriminalization of American life has been a frequent topic on this blog, but this Jack Chin/Balkanization post explores an underappreciated cost of the overcriminalization policy – the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction:

Conviction and punishment, it is said, are the ways defendants “pay their debt to society.” But it turns out that criminal conviction is a debt that can never be paid. In every state and under federal law, there are hundreds of collateral consequences that apply automatically or on a discretionary basis, to people convicted of crimes. Most of these apply for life, apply based on convictions from other jurisdictions, and can never be removed, or can be relieved only through virtually unavailable methods like a pardon from the President. The rise of computer databases means that factual disclosure of convictions is inescapable.

These collateral consequences, depending on the crime, include such things as deportation for non-citizens, ineligibility for public benefits, and government licenses, permits, and public employment, ineligibility for private employment requiring security clearances or contact with vulnerable populations like children and the elderly, loss of civil rights like voting, office-holding and jury service, and loss of parental rights or ability to adopt or be a foster parent.

These collateral consequences are particularly harsh on the young, many of whom believe that they will never be able to overcome the adverse impact of a youthful indiscretion.

In short, the collateral consequences of our federal, state and local governments’ overcriminalization policy inhibits hope. How does that make sense?