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The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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You are here: Home / A Grand Stand

A Grand Stand

by @heymistermix.com|  August 13, 20139:04 am| 128 Comments

This post is in: Security Theatre

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Justin Amash is selling the notion that ignorance about the scale of intelligence gathering led the poor freshman class of teatards to vote for renewing the PATRIOT Act (here’s the vote). His argument is that the Intelligence Committee (run by Republicans, mind you, so this is an intraparty “scandal”) didn’t distribute a report detailing the scope of NSA data collection. If they had, then the House would have killed the Patriot Act, on Amash’s telling.

I’m not buying. A majority of Democrats (70%) voted against the PATRIOT Act reauthorization. Were they all briefed? Or did they just see the Act for what it is: a symptom of 9/11 panic that needs to be dialed back, with obvious possibility for abuse. Amash was right to be in the 14% of Republicans who voted against it, but his excuse-making for the rest of his colleagues is pretty lame.

This is not to say that Congress could be better briefed, just that Congress has had plenty of opportunities to rein in the NSA and the other intelligence collection agencies, and they’ve let those opportunities slide. The current media environment just assumes that Congress will do nothing, gives them a pass, and focuses on the Obama Administration’s execution of the laws that Congress has passed. If Amash’s colleagues were really concerned that the NSA could collect domestic intelligence, they could pass a bill clarifying exactly what the NSA can collect. They were too busy repealing Obamacare for the 93rd time to do that, and Amash’s attempt to be the House’s Rand Paul is transparent bullshit.

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128Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    August 13, 2013 at 9:25 am

    Excellent post.

  2. 2.

    Belafon

    August 13, 2013 at 9:27 am

    Yeah. You gotta wonder why Congress didn’t freak out like bloggers at the mere mention of NSA. Actually, I know why: For all Republicans talk of hating big government, they’re all for Big Daddy (them) having power.

  3. 3.

    Ahasuerus

    August 13, 2013 at 9:27 am

    Two things. First, the trivial; “reign in the NSA” should be “rein in the NSA”. Second, I’m just going to point to the naked tribalism in the current House majority and argue that in fact, if they had seen the report, they might have voted against reauthorization simply because the administration (in the capacity of its avatar, the intelligence community) was in favor of it. Yes, I realize it’s a bit of a simplistic stretch, but given their history of infantile oppositional behaviour I believe it to be a possibility.

  4. 4.

    mistermix

    August 13, 2013 at 9:34 am

    @Ahasuerus: Reign/rein fixed – always get that one wrong.

    On your second point, maybe there would have been a reflexive spasm against Obama, but the sentiment underlying Amash’s remarks (which I take to be “my fellow teabaggers are the true civil libertarians, if they only knew how bad things were”) is bullshit: they all want a “strong defense” and the only concern they have for government overreach is when a Democrat (and worse, a black Democrat) is in office.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 13, 2013 at 9:35 am

    His argument is that the Intelligence Committee (run by Republicans, mind you, so this is an intraparty “scandal”) didn’t distribute a report detailing the fact that Obama would be running the NSA data collection. If they had, then the House would have killed the Patriot Act, on Amash’s telling.

    FTFY.

  6. 6.

    drkrick

    August 13, 2013 at 9:44 am

    To the extent Amash is trying to provide a face saving path for his ignorant colleagues to change their position, I’m OK with this. To the extent he believes it, he’s an idiot.

  7. 7.

    Emma

    August 13, 2013 at 9:48 am

    The argument reminds me of the old Russian story about the peasants being beaten up by the Cossacks: if only the Tsar knew. The little father would never let this happen if he knew.

  8. 8.

    srv

    August 13, 2013 at 9:50 am

    > 70%

    Funny, Congressional democrats would appear to be more progressive than the mass of Obots of the Left here.

  9. 9.

    Hal

    August 13, 2013 at 9:50 am

    They are deeply concerned because it’s Obama. Hence the defunding attempt of specific NSA program instead of overturning the patriot act whose own author is pretending he’s suddenly shocked at the way the law is being used.

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    August 13, 2013 at 9:51 am

    @Emma:
    Yep. If the Teabaggers had only known the Kossacks hated the NSA…

  11. 11.

    Belafon

    August 13, 2013 at 9:58 am

    @srv: Yeah, let’s confuse the issues here. I’ll be glad when the PATRIOT act is repealed. Yes, the NSA could abuse some of the abilities they have. “Can” does not mean “is”.

  12. 12.

    Jeremy

    August 13, 2013 at 10:00 am

    @srv: I think everyone is for greater transparency and reigning in the laws that were passed after 9/11 but we must strike the right balance. Terrorism does exist and we can’t simply pretend that it doesn’t. Having that stance does not make someone a bot.

  13. 13.

    cleek

    August 13, 2013 at 10:02 am

    @srv:
    your assertion is that > 70% of people here like USA PATRIOT ?

    that seems… unfounded.

  14. 14.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 10:02 am

    @Belafon:

    You gotta wonder why Congress didn’t freak out like bloggers at the mere mention of NSA

    Minus a crowd of pitchfork wielding surfs, there is not many ways to change the equation that makes it difficult to vote against policing/security powers. Many in the Executive and in Congress might actually feel the need, in general, for reductions, but it takes courage to vote for something that will be thrown back into one’s face the next time (and there will be a next time) terrorists kill Americans. Truly courageous office holders are in short supply.

    Most bloggers don’t run for office.

  15. 15.

    Violet

    August 13, 2013 at 10:02 am

    @Hal:

    the patriot act whose own author is pretending he’s suddenly shocked at the way the law is being used.

    Reminds me of that famous scene in Casablanca.

    Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
    Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
    [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
    Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
    Captain Renault: Oh, thank you very much.

  16. 16.

    mistermix

    August 13, 2013 at 10:04 am

    @Belafon: Let me understand this. Are you saying:

    1. The NSA is not abusing its authority because they are following the law to the letter, even though that law allows collection of massive amounts of domestic intelligence.

    or

    2. The NSA is not abusing its power because the claims that it is collecting mass amounts of domestic intelligence are unproven.

  17. 17.

    The Moar You Know

    August 13, 2013 at 10:04 am

    In defense of Congressional Republicans:

    1. We all know they never read the bill anyway. I suspect a large proportion of the teatard congressional delegation can’t read.
    2. It had the word “Patriot” in it, and therefore AMERICA FUCK YEAH

    But seriously, number one. They didn’t read it. Most of them have admitted as much.

  18. 18.

    Robert M.

    August 13, 2013 at 10:05 am

    @mistermix: Exactly the problem. Amash is trying to rationalize away the fact that 86% of his pro-freedom, anti-tyranny colleagues voted to re-authorize the largest domestic intelligence-gathering project in the history of the country, while only 30% of the pro-socialism, anti-American liberals did the same. It sure looks like the Democrats are more or less on the side of civil liberties, here, while for all their Tea Party rhetoric Republicans remain reliable votes in favor of every expansion of the modern security state.

    What he comes up with isn’t terribly persuasive given everything we knew even before Snowden’s allegations, but I think he gets partial credit for at least trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance.

    (From some of Amash’s past issues, I get the sense his educational experience has included a lot of pity partial credit.)

  19. 19.

    NonyNony

    August 13, 2013 at 10:07 am

    @Ahasuerus:

    Second, I’m just going to point to the naked tribalism in the current House majority and argue that in fact, if they had seen the report, they might have voted against reauthorization simply because the administration (in the capacity of its avatar, the intelligence community) was in favor of it.

    Well, no. Much like they don’t vote against military spending just because the administration is in favor of it.

    What has happened is that the Tea Party voters have suddenly changed their mind on this issue. Previously they were peeing in their pants afraid that terrorists were gonna get ’em and so the intelligence community needed to be listening in on the calls of all of the terrorists and reading all of their e-mail and doing “whatever it took” to catch them.

    Now they’re finding out (AS I TOLD THEM BACK WHEN KING BUSH SIGNED THE GODDAMN PATRIOT ACT) that if you tell the security community to do “whatever it takes” to “catch terrorists” it’s a funny thing – they really WILL DO “whatever it takes” to “catch terrorists”. Even if they have to read e-mails and listen to the phone calls of white, Christian Republicans to do it. None of them want to be the ones who have the capability of catching a terrorist and failing to do so because they didn’t check the “one thing” that could have done it. So they expand their searches and they do more and more until they’re monitoring EVERYTHING.

    So no – they didn’t care at all when the renewal vote came along. The only reason that Amash has to say this shit instead of saying “welp, we were wrong” is that:

    1) Tea Party Conservatives CANNOT admit being wrong. Being wrong and “changing your mind” is “flip flopping” and a “sign of weakness of character”. Conservatives should be resolute, unbending and unchanging. Admitting you were wrong and having a nuanced view on learning lessons is a mark of liberalism, and will cause you to get cast out of the tribe.

    2) Because TP Conservatives cannot admit being wrong, they have to rewrite history. They can’t be in favor of something before they opposed it, they have to always have opposed it. Which means that if it LOOKS like they were in favor of something they are now always supposed to have opposed, they have to turn themselves into a pretzel to make that not true.

    And thus we have Amash saying that TP conservatives would have voted against the PATRIOT act if only the Republican RINOs on the Intelligence Committee hadn’t stabbed them in the back and lied to them. Now that they “know” that the NSA is really just a branch of Obama’s Secret Police and the foundations of his Secret Black Helicopter Air Force they’re ready to vote against the PATRIOT Act if only that RINO Boehner would bring it to a vote. Which he won’t, so they’re safe to say it.

    (You can see the same thing with how the TP conservatives react to “drones”. “Drones” being used to bomb weddings in Pakistan? Who cares? Drones being used to fly over metro areas for police purposes that might see them in the hot tub? WORST CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION IN HUMAN HISTORY! And now they’ve always been against “drones” because shut up that’s why.)

  20. 20.

    Ahasuerus

    August 13, 2013 at 10:11 am

    @mistermix: Sadly, I must concur. My point was at best a far-fetched hypothetical, and the authoritarian mindset they exhibit would almost certainly be the overriding driver of their behaviour. Although OzarkHillbilly makes a point that might favor my initial counterfactual.

    I’m replying somewhat later in the thread because I spent the last half hour typing out a thread-buster, but I didn’t want to hijack the conversation. It did help crystallize some things that have been kicking around for a while, so I want to thank you for that.

  21. 21.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 10:11 am

    @NonyNony: Actually, a very reasonable scenario.

  22. 22.

    I Heart Breitbartbees

    August 13, 2013 at 10:11 am

    @Belafon:

    Yeah, let’s confuse the issues here. I’ll be glad when the PATRIOT act is repealed. Yes, the NSA could abuse some of the abilities they have. “Can” does not mean “is”.

    True, “can does not mean is.” However, the Snowden leaks, the torture of PFC Bradley Manning, and the abuses both exposed certainly lend credence to the belief that there are significant abuses in the NSA and other aspects of the intelligence and military community. Sure, the NSA isn’t abusing its powers. That’s why the NSA giving information to the DEA is okay because shut up, that’s why, even though it takes a steaming shit on the 4th Amendment. It may also run afoul of the 6th Amendment.

  23. 23.

    Belafon

    August 13, 2013 at 10:11 am

    @Keith G: I know. And I’m pretty sure it’s hard to undo something you thought was good, especially if you are from a party, the Republicans, that doesn’t like to admit they are wrong (actually, I think that’s an American condition in general). Then, to compound this, they are part of the party that has encouraged people to think that the blahs, browns, people with scarves on their heads, libtards, and cops are coming to take their money, land, daughters, guns. And if they retired in protest, they would get replaced by someone worse.

    I also agree with the part about “what if there’s another attack?” Because the US has been relatively unscathed by the worlds problems until recently, there’s definitely this idea that we can go back to the way the world was before 9/11

  24. 24.

    burnspbesq

    August 13, 2013 at 10:11 am

    Our current heavily fragmented and highly divided polity is uniquely ill-suited to dealing with issues that require hard choices and careful balancing. Trying to reach a consensus as to the right balance between transparency at a policy level and operational security is, I submit, guaranteed to end badly.

  25. 25.

    RaflW

    August 13, 2013 at 10:12 am

    The actual Rand Paul was on the Daily Show last night, lying his ass off. He was trying to scare 30-somethings by claiming that people that age who make $30K will have to pay $15K per year in health insurance premiums under Obamacare.

    I know John Oliver is a humble comedian, but I wanted him to just maybe ask where the hell Rand was making that number up from. I would like to think John Stewart might have gone after that particular steaming pile of Randian bullshit, but who knows? Republicans can make shit up non-stop and no one cares.

  26. 26.

    Botsplainer

    August 13, 2013 at 10:12 am

    The air force could hypothetically drop a bomb on my house. I demand that they not keep bombs because Freedom.

  27. 27.

    Ahasuerus

    August 13, 2013 at 10:15 am

    @NonyNony: Y’know, I think your explanation nails it right on its pointy little head. Were you a Tea Partier in a previous life? (just kidding – I don’t think any of them could write half as coherently).

  28. 28.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 10:19 am

    @Botsplainer: Continuing this gem of a hypothetical, how would you feel when you found that the Air Force has detailed surveys of your property and your schedules, and has been conducting test runs of such a mission?

  29. 29.

    Butch

    August 13, 2013 at 10:22 am

    Very, very trivial, but Amash is known on local progressive blogs (yes, there are some in Michigan) as “Li’l Fella.”

  30. 30.

    Suffern ACE

    August 13, 2013 at 10:25 am

    Two years ago, you couldn’t get any republicans to vote against reauthorization. Now you have 14% of them. At this rate, 1000% of Republicans will vote for repeal in 2030. Prepare to catch that faux liberterian wave while it is hot.

  31. 31.

    Belafon

    August 13, 2013 at 10:28 am

    @Keith G: And let’s change it slightly: What if you found out that the Air Force could pick any house they thought might contain someone dangerous, either now or in the future, and has been conducting tests runs?

    And then you realize there are 100M+ homes.

  32. 32.

    Belafon

    August 13, 2013 at 10:30 am

    @Suffern ACE: That’s only if we keep electing Democratic presidents.

  33. 33.

    Botsplainer

    August 13, 2013 at 10:34 am

    @Keith G:

    Somebody needs to replace his volume of Catcher in the Rye. The pages are falling out of yours.

  34. 34.

    John

    August 13, 2013 at 10:39 am

    You have to be kidding. Congress must have been the only people in the world that did not know what was going on.–http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2006-05-12/us/27806456_1_nsa-bush-conduct-eavesdropping

  35. 35.

    drkrick

    August 13, 2013 at 10:39 am

    @RaflW: Have you ever seen a Jon Stewart interview? Oliver’s work was perfectly consistent with the tradition of the show. If liberal powers that be want the obvious BS of people like R Paul Minor called out, they need to do it themselves, not sit on their couches waiting for late night comedians to do it for them.

  36. 36.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 13, 2013 at 10:39 am

    @Keith G: but, you know, they haven’t. There are detailed maps of my house at the county clerk’s office, and the local cops might be sketchy, but I don’t think that means that the police are using those maps to plan a raid. The maps are probably just sitting there, on file, until someone for some reason has to look at them. That’s the difference between data collection and use of the data. Both need to be regulated, but discussions of one have had a tendency to become discussions of the other.

  37. 37.

    chopper

    August 13, 2013 at 10:40 am

    @Belafon:

    indeed, the air force has planes that can drop a bomb on any house in the country, including yours. also, the pentagon has run many simulations and come up with many contingency plans including those that involve bombing american soil.

    OH GOD THEY’RE COMING RIGHT FOR US!

  38. 38.

    NonyNony

    August 13, 2013 at 10:42 am

    @Ahasuerus:

    Y’know, I think your explanation nails it right on its pointy little head. Were you a Tea Partier in a previous life?

    No. But my trajectory in life is probably familiar to people around here – I started as a Republican, became disgusted with the GOP, slid towards Libertarian for a while before realizing “holy shit most of these people around me are sociopaths” and then eventually settled in my old age as a liberal who thinks that the Democrats are too goddamn conservative. Most of that happened in the 90s though – by the time George W. Bush was running in the ’00 election I was happy to cast my ballot for Al Gore. My wife suggests that by the time I’m ready to retire I’ll be advocating for a People’s Glorious Workers Revolution or something.

    My family is full of Fox News watching Tea Partiers, though. Which makes for some fun family gettogethers let me tell you…

  39. 39.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 13, 2013 at 10:42 am

    @RaflW: Nah. Jon Stewart is essentially a libertarian, IMHO, only with more of a conscience than most, so I don’t see him nailing a libertarian bro like Rand Paul. I remember his having been quite kind to Ron Paul in the past.

  40. 40.

    Mike in NC

    August 13, 2013 at 10:43 am

    a symptom of 9/11 panic that needs to be dialed back

    After 9/11 a lot of people suddenly found it necessary to proclaim their patriotism not only by wearing an obligatory flag lapel pin (made in China, naturally), but by putting a fucking flagpole on the roof of their car. Sometimes one wasn’t enough; sometimes they had four of them. This fad (like silly “Baby on Board” signs) eventually ran its course, but lately I see it returning.

  41. 41.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 10:47 am

    @Belafon: Interesting. Rather than another narrowing of the distance between the two, I would just mention some underlying issues:
    -What is the chain of command?
    -Who is making these decisions based on what criteria?
    -Is there a regular review process and who conducts it?
    -What are the safeguards?
    -How is accountability for mistakes handled?
    -How is accountability for willful misconduct handled?
    -Is the initial need for this program ever reevaluated?

    This is a democracy with a uneven record of its elected officials and their bureaucrats consistently doing the right thing. We cannot afford to trust humans on their own. We must create systems of open information, regular accountability, and adversarial power bases.

  42. 42.

    chopper

    August 13, 2013 at 10:48 am

    @RaflW:

    somebody needs to tell paul that young people aren’t quite as easy to fool with that load of horseshit as teabaggers are. half your gross income? lol.

  43. 43.

    NonyNony

    August 13, 2013 at 10:53 am

    @FlipYrWhig:

    That’s the difference between data collection and use of the data. Both need to be regulated, but discussions of one have had a tendency to become discussions of the other.

    That’s because in this day and age “data mining” brings “data collection” and “data use” together.

    To go with the example of plans being available at your local county office. Suppose your county office moves all of the house plans to online CAD files stored in a database instead of on paper. And the cops have been given a tip that houses with certain floorplans have “extra space” in the basement that doesn’t show up as a room but has been used at least once to build a meth lab in the community. How many of those houses with that floorplan are there in the county? How many of them have changed hands recently? Who owns those houses now?

    All of those documents are in the public domain, but previously nobody but a dedicated detective would sit down to try to figure out those questions. And even then his time would be better spent on other things. Now, given the right database, you can just plug in a data mining algorithm that can plop back answers to those questions.

    And now we can go further – let’s look at all of the floor plans of houses that we know have contained meth labs. Or indoor pot gardens that we’ve busted. Or whatever illegal activity that we’re looking for. Let’s take those floor plans and other attributes of those houses and do some data mining on our whole database. Do we come up with some other suspicious houses? It becomes trivial to do these kinds of things.

    And that’s why data collection and data use become conflated – because now (as opposed to 20 years ago) once you have collected the data it is AMAZINGLY easy to use the data. And data sitting unused is like an open box of donuts sitting on a counter at work. Eventually those donuts are going to be gone, and eventually that collected data is going to get mined.

  44. 44.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 10:53 am

    @Botsplainer: LOL I never read that book. Being a history nerd, I preferred James Madison,

    “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

    …and all that.

    Sorry to disappoint.

  45. 45.

    Sloegin

    August 13, 2013 at 11:03 am

    Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Seems like I’ve heard that somewhere before.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    August 13, 2013 at 11:03 am

    @NonyNony:

    And that’s why data collection and data use become conflated – because now (as opposed to 20 years ago) once you have collected the data it is AMAZINGLY easy to use the data.

    Well, sort of. Assuming that the people who input the data used the correct keywords, spelled those keywords correctly, and that those keywords are still useful. If, say, the plans started being input 5 or 6 years ago and the keywords changed/evolved or the database administrator changed, it’s not going to be nearly as easy to pull that data up as you think.

    I say this as a daily user of an image database at work that has a lot of “legacy” (ie completely fucking useless) keywords in it that we don’t have the time or personnel to update. Databases are only as good as the person/people who set them up and maintain them and people who think of them as magical knowledge-givers that can tell you anything about anyone in seconds has been watching too much “CSI.” It’s more like Brazil, where a spelling error means that Mr. Buttle gets arrested rather than Mr. Tuttle.

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 11:08 am

    They were too busy repealing Obamacare for the 93rd time to do that,

    DING DING DING DING DING

    As for the vermin that are the teatards being “civil libertarians”, BULLSHIT. They are racists, they are fascists, they are utter scum.

  48. 48.

    boatboy_srq

    August 13, 2013 at 11:08 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: @mistermix: EXACTLY. TABMITWH, pure and simple.

    @NonyNony: I think it’s simpler than this. Since it seems the GOTea is largely populated with ethically-challenged volk of the likes of Sanford, Vitter, Craig, Foley, Cunningham et al, it seems much more likely that they’re waking to the fact that the Scary Black Man in the WH can suddenly read their email/SMS/chat and learn about their mistresses/boyfriends, campaign “contributions”, numbered Cayman Islands bank accounts and/or Bermuda-incorporated shell companies, controlled-substance habits and the like. And suddenly, now there’s not a Gud Ol’Boy in the WH, that’s something to be concerned about. It goes hand-in-hand with the sudden flurry of impeachment chatter: get the ni-CLANG out of office before somebody finds out what you’re doing when you’re “in recess.”

  49. 49.

    Anybodybuther2016

    August 13, 2013 at 11:08 am

    @mistermix: keep phucking that chicken tool.

  50. 50.

    Mandalay

    August 13, 2013 at 11:10 am

    @Keith G:

    -Is there a regular review process and who conducts it?
    -What are the safeguards?
    -How is accountability for mistakes handled?
    -How is accountability for willful misconduct handled?
    -Is the initial need for this program ever reevaluated?

    Right – this is the approach Congress should take. Rather than voting to fund/defund data collection, why not instead try to increase accountability in the existing process?

    It’s easy for Congress to oppose defunding in the interests of “our national security”. Not so easy to oppose increased accountability in the interests of keeping citizens in the dark.

  51. 51.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 13, 2013 at 11:11 am

    @NonyNony: that’s all fair enough, but the authorities coming to the house deemed suspicious by “analytics” (I think that’s the right buzzword) still need warrants and court orders and such. It seems like that kind of data collection is more like expanding the world of “tips,” which still have to get funneled through the same routine processes we’re accustomed to. If the tip-gathering automaton, like a dowsing rod, passes over my house and doesn’t react, I’m not sure I’ve been harmed. If the cops come to my house and dump out all my stuff, I’ve been harmed. But none of these practices seem to me to be the functional equivalent of the cops dumping out all my stuff.

  52. 52.

    Woodrowfan

    August 13, 2013 at 11:14 am

    @NonyNony:

    I started off cheering Humphrey in 68 and keep inching slightly left ever since. But we’re glad you joined us, even if it took awhile. Better late than still a Republican!

  53. 53.

    lojasmo

    August 13, 2013 at 11:15 am

    @cleek:

    that seems… unfounded.

    S/He did use the term “obots”. S/He is full of shit.

  54. 54.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 11:17 am

    They were too busy repealing Obamacare for the 93rd time to do that,

    Unfortunately, some are going to make the case that the Obama administration busy repealing Obamacare.

    I know that is not the case. Still the administration action described below will cause problems – maybe even to me it seems.

    The first year of the Affordable Care Act may not be too affordable for some. The New York Times reports that another key part of ObamaCare—this time, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses for patients—will be delayed by a year. The law was supposed to guarantee that individuals would not have to pay more than $6,350 and families more than $12,700, but insurers argued successfully that they needed more time to comply. The reason? They say they haven’t had enough time to get their computers in sync on the issue.

    The delay could hit hardest those who need pricey drugs for things such as multiple sclerosis and cancer, say patients’ advocates.

    I hope this gets analysed in a subsequent post.

  55. 55.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 13, 2013 at 11:19 am

    @Keith G: I agree with all you wrote above, but I’m not sure a hardcore civil libertarian would be as satisfied. My sense is that a lot of people would claim that heightened regulation wasn’t good enough because it would be admitting that the practices could be cleansed and made legitimate, when in actuality (they would say) they are abominations that cannot be countenanced. Think of the Snowden comment about how the only things stopping the government from spying on you are “procedural.” What you wrote is certainly “procedural” in focus. That’s what we have: procedures. If fighting abuse with procedures is laughable, what’s the alternative?

  56. 56.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 11:23 am

    @Mandalay:

    Right – this is the approach Congress should take. Rather than voting to fund/defund data collection, why not instead try to increase accountability in the existing process?

    Exqueeze me? This Congress, which can’t find it’s own ass with both hands even with someone assisting them by grabbing their hands moving them to the ass?

  57. 57.

    Anybodybuther2016

    August 13, 2013 at 11:24 am

    @Keith G: @Keith G:

    That depends, am I the leader of a white supremacist militia group that is planning to carry out Oklahoma City events all over the country?

  58. 58.

    Anybodybuther2016

    August 13, 2013 at 11:30 am

    @RaflW: follow up questions are for democrats, if you are a repugnicans you get get to spout as much unchallenged bullshit you can get in before the commercial breaks.

  59. 59.

    Anya

    August 13, 2013 at 11:33 am

    Via the invaluable, Think Progress: Dying Teen Is Being Denied A Heart Transplant Because He’s Had Trouble With The Law.

    It’s truly horrifying that the doctors are making decisions based on a kid’s conduct in school and minor interactions with the law. What kind of a society have we become? Truly sick! What the fuck happened to do no harm?

  60. 60.

    The Moar You Know

    August 13, 2013 at 11:34 am

    The first year of the Affordable Care Act may not be too affordable for some. The New York Times reports that another key part of ObamaCare—this time, a cap on out-of-pocket expenses for patients—will be delayed by a year. The law was supposed to guarantee that individuals would not have to pay more than $6,350 and families more than $12,700, but insurers argued successfully that they needed more time to comply. The reason? They say they haven’t had enough time to get their computers in sync on the issue.

    The delay could hit hardest those who need pricey drugs for things such as multiple sclerosis and cancer, say patients’ advocates.

    @Keith G: The law was only passed four years ago. I understand how an insurance company, flush with cash and record profits, would have difficult hiring someone to fix some computer software.

    Sarcasm aside, this is flat-out another unforced error by the administration, and this time it’s pretty serious.

  61. 61.

    Patricia Kayden

    August 13, 2013 at 11:37 am

    “If Amash’s colleagues were really concerned that the NSA could collect domestic intelligence, they could pass a bill clarifying exactly what the NSA can collect.”

    AMEN!

    Let’s see how much concern Amash’s colleagues really have in September when they get back to “work”.

  62. 62.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 11:39 am

    @NonyNony:

    None of them want to be the ones who have the capability of catching a terrorist and failing to do so because they didn’t check the “one thing” that could have done it.

    This is a key point, because the MSM WILL (especially in the case of anyone in the White House with a D after their name…an R not so much) find that “one thing” and in retrospect demand the heads of security bureaucrats who missed the “obvious” (although it may not have been so obvious at the time, but we’re talking about self-righteous asswipes like Jake Tapper and Chuck Toad here).

    You’ll note how the MSM simply cannot pillory the deserting coward for blowing off that briefing 12 years ago this month prior to the fireworks on September 11th 2001, nor can they pillory him and the Dark Lord for blowing off all those outgoing Clinton national security types who told them, repeatedly, that Al Qaeda would be their single greatest concern and they blew them off because they were outgoing Clinton national security types.

    Obama has to be twice as competent as his predecessor at actual terrorism prevention, and the problem with terrorism prevention is that it is by its very nature can’t be proven. Only the lack of competence, as in a terrorist attack taking place, can be demonstrated, and Obama would never get the free pass that the deserting coward got for his fuckup. Because D, and blah, you know.

  63. 63.

    The Moar You Know

    August 13, 2013 at 11:40 am

    It’s truly horrifying that the doctors are making decisions based on a kid’s conduct in school and minor interactions with the law. What kind of a society have we become? Truly sick! What the fuck happened to do no harm?

    @Anya: Organs are limited. REALLY limited. And you will find that transplant criteria always take into criteria the behavior of the recipient* – because they’ve found that really makes a difference as to how successful a transplant will be.

    *exemptions for the rich abound – granted, I think most go out of country and get them in China – and are another subject that MUST be addressed or people may just stop donating. Examples:

    Larry Hagman – shouldn’t have gotten one due to continued drinking, but did so.
    Steve Jobs – who suffered from an incurable disease and shouldn’t have gotten one, but did.
    David Crosby – who had a drug abuse issue his entire life and should have never gotten one, but did.

  64. 64.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 11:41 am

    @FlipYrWhig:

    If fighting abuse with procedures is laughable, what’s the alternative?

    I assume that’s rhetorical, since that is all we have. That, in a nutshell is the genesis of our government – Checks and Balances and all that (see below). That’s what my quoting of Madison was getting at. Men and (even) Man’s best governments are imperfect and that imperfection will always assert itself. Always.

    but I’m not sure a hardcore civil libertarian would be as satisfied

    And neither were the hardcore socialists. Disappointment is also a big part of the human experience.

    Re: Checks and Balances and all that…
    This is why I have to be as concerned about Obotism as I was of Shrubbotism or Reaganbotism. All politicians are, by definition, flawed. Their administrations are capable of much good and much bad and all are a mix of the two extremes.

    The remedy?

    Information and a blisteringly certain accountability. When the systems they are leading step into troubling territory, or don’t act when action is required, they must be confronted – even/especailly by their truest supporters.

  65. 65.

    Chris

    August 13, 2013 at 11:41 am

    @The Moar You Know:

    Sarcasm aside, this is flat-out another unforced error by the administration, and this time it’s pretty serious.

    They’d better get as much of HCR in place as quickly as possible. We have no guarantee of still having the White House in 2016, and I can’t imagine that implementation would get any better with a Repub in office.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 11:41 am

    @Anya:

    It’s truly horrifying that the doctors are making decisions based on a kid’s conduct in school and minor interactions with the law.

    If only the kid had been instrumental in launching a war of naked aggression, and personally approving torture of captives, they’d have given him the transplant without the slightest hesitation.

  67. 67.

    Betty Cracker

    August 13, 2013 at 11:42 am

    @Anya: I agree if it’s true it’s based solely on the kid’s grades and conduct. “Non-compliance” can cover a lot of ground, though, including taking medication as prescribed and showing up for follow-up care, both of which are absolutely essential in a successful transplant.

  68. 68.

    Mandalay

    August 13, 2013 at 11:43 am

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    This Congress, which can’t find it’s own ass with both hands even with someone assisting them by grabbing their hands moving them to the ass?

    Yes, this Congress.

    Amash’s bill to defund almost passed. Do you seriously believe that a less extreme bill, to increase accountability on the existing process, would have done worse? Surely that would have attracted more votes from both Democrats and Republicans.

  69. 69.

    I Heart Breitbartbees

    August 13, 2013 at 11:44 am

    @burnspbesq: Yes, trying to reach consensus on how to strike that balance between the rights of the individual and the need for security is guaranteed to end badly, but what’s the alternative? Throwing our hands up in the air and surrendering? Even starting that conversation is a welcome and necessary improvement, albeit a very belated one.

  70. 70.

    ericblair

    August 13, 2013 at 11:45 am

    @NonyNony:

    And that’s why data collection and data use become conflated – because now (as opposed to 20 years ago) once you have collected the data it is AMAZINGLY easy to use the data.

    Um. As somebody who’s had to work with new, large datasets (nothing to do with the subject at hand), a lot of databases are inconsistent fucking messes in inconvenient formats and it’s a hard slog to get useful information out of them. There’s work to make this easier, but data is not information is not knowledge. I’m not trying to blow your point out of the water, but just realize that there’s a really big step to getting useful results.

    In the example: sure, municipalities might put all their building plans in accessible databases. However, they’ll probably be just scans of the paper copies, they’ll be in different formats, they’ll have different metadata, and a lot of the metadata will be wrong or incomplete because nobody’s given a shit about it up till now. Now you can try to analyze the images, but of course they’re drawn differently and labelled differently and some of them are probably crappy quality. So now you’ve got to figure out from this what are the “suspicious” spaces given some heuristics that you’re about to figure out the deficiencies of.

    When you have billions to throw at these problems that can solve a lot of them, but many really need human intervention at multiple levels and it can’t be ignored.

  71. 71.

    JPL

    August 13, 2013 at 11:47 am

    @The Moar You Know: You forgot Dick. There has been a lot of coverage on the young man who is being denied a heart on the local news stations in Atlanta. It’s tragic.

  72. 72.

    Jeremy

    August 13, 2013 at 11:48 am

    @Chris: It’s going to be fully implemented by the end of next year so I wouldn’t worry. And though we won’t know exactly what will happen in 2016 I believe the Democrats have a great chance of retaining the White House based on the candidates on the republican side and their extremism.

  73. 73.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 11:48 am

    Everything’s turned into something to bash the other side with. The Republicans (specifically Bush/Cheney/Rove) started it, but now that the poison is out there, everyone is doing it, down to punters in internet comment threads.

    I read Kevin Drum’s note about Obama’s speech. It was weaksauce and the inflammatory title was stupid shameless clickbait. He actually ends with some sort of slippery slope fallacy that fails to address the reality that executive branch spying has been ramped up and down, both legally and illegally, since the Cold War began and neither Obama nor anybody else has a really great plan to prevent the next admin from going Full Metal Nixon on their enemies.

    The other issue is that Americans are complete asshats about privacy… apparently private companies snarfing up all the data and reselling it is just enhancing your commercial experience, but now let’s spread paranoia that government intelligence agencies are doling out your data to private companies because argle bargle revolving door. Earth to paranoiacs–companies can’t subpoena the USG to obtain intelligence data. Why not start with the basics–like a right to privacy–and apply it across the board. Then we might be getting somewhere. But glibertarians aren’t worried about the worries of private people (women with violent exes, ex-felons who rehabilitated themselves, children of celebrities who want to be left alone, government employees who are part of unpopular subcultures in their private lives). If they worry about anything it’s the gubmint arresting their dealer and making them go without pot. (Note I have yet to meet the libertarian afraid of arrest himself, as they know, whether they rationalize it away or not, that they are not truly at risk themselves of such sanction… that’s for other people.)

  74. 74.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 11:50 am

    @Mandalay:

    I question whether this Congress can come up with such a bill. You have to remember, it has to get past Rethuglican controlled committees to even get to a floor vote. Carefully crafting it is bound to make it more difficult to pass given the climate right now, because careful crafting is itself a sign of the very qualities that drive the teatards berserk.

  75. 75.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 11:51 am

    @I Heart Breitbartbees: The right to privacy and to be left alone in our private lives versus the God-Given All-American Right To Make A Profit (especially off the misery of others). What to choose, what to choose.

  76. 76.

    Soonergrunt

    August 13, 2013 at 11:51 am

    @Belafon:

    “Can” does not mean “is”

    APOLOGIST!

  77. 77.

    Roger Moore

    August 13, 2013 at 11:51 am

    @NonyNony:

    Well, no. Much like they don’t vote against military spending just because the administration is in favor of it.

    But they do routinely do the opposite and vote to spend more than the administration is asking for and to fund specific things that the administration is requesting be defunded. This, of course, despite their claims to be the fiscally responsible party that wants to rein in wasteful spending.

  78. 78.

    burnspbesq

    August 13, 2013 at 11:53 am

    @FlipYrWhig:

    the authorities coming to the house deemed suspicious by “analytics” (I think that’s the right buzzword) still need warrants and court orders and such

    Which makes United States Magistrates, who do the overwhelming amount of review of warrant applications in the Federal criminal justice system, the key gatekeepers protecting our fundamental liberties. In a system where I think most of us explicitly or implicitly assume that law enforcement routinely perjure themselves on warrant applications, is that really a system that gives you warm fuzzies?

  79. 79.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 11:54 am

    @The Moar You Know: The admin didn’t make 2010 a wave year for Republicans.

    The bad guys know they have the admin on the retreat to prevent GOP gains in 2014. That’s just a fact.

    The only way to fight back is to pummel the GOP on these national races.

  80. 80.

    ? Martin

    August 13, 2013 at 11:57 am

    @NonyNony:

    That’s because in this day and age “data mining” brings “data collection” and “data use” together.

    …

    And that’s why data collection and data use become conflated – because now (as opposed to 20 years ago) once you have collected the data it is AMAZINGLY easy to use the data. And data sitting unused is like an open box of donuts sitting on a counter at work. Eventually those donuts are going to be gone, and eventually that collected data is going to get mined.

    See, I think that’s backwards. Digital data means that it’s just as easy to use the data whether you’ve collected it or not. NSA could ask the phone companies to retain their metadata for a year, pay them to do it (which everyone will be happy to do) and to give them an API to access it. Done – same access to data with no collection needed.

    The way digital data works, there must at all times be the recognition for a policy layer between collection and use, because collection is routine to the point of being automatic and inavoidable. The very act of asking a question now doesn’t result in a decision: ‘do I need to record this interaction, transcribe it, tape it, etc.’. The interaction is now online and automatically recorded in a database. There’s no way to ask the question without doing the collection.

    The reason why HIPAA and other laws about user data are being created is due to a recognition of this – that in the public sector or in the service space are going to collect private data even if that’s not our intention, and we need to have very clear rules about use vs collection. I have an enormous amount of private data in the systems that I build, but we put very clear policies – both digital enforcement and audit measures on how that data can be used. Nobody views that data as an open box of donuts – more like an open box of scorpions. If you use the data inappropriately, you will be fired, you may be sued, you may go to jail. I have yet another workshop on this very issue in a few minutes.

    So, I suspect this situation looks very different depending on where you are positioned. I work in a government agency that (from my experience) would never abuse that data. I’ve been doing this for almost 2 decades now and have never been asked or even suggested to abuse that data. We’ve had some isolated incidents over that time, where some people were too curious about folks they knew, and they don’t work here any longer. I’ve never witnessed a malicious attempt to use that data for anything other than what the policy allows it for.

    Now, we’re relatively public, and so if we fuck up, it’ll be in all the papers. If the NSA fucks up, who’s going to know? And that’s a very important and valid distinction with the NSA, and one that only Congress can address, and they’ve done a shitty job of it. But I also know the kinds of people that go work there (because I know some of the people that work there doing this kind of stuff), and they went into this kind of work for the same reason I did. I’m not ruling out that there are some Nixons in there, but I have a hard time accepting that you have an institution of data guys with an attitude that its okay to use this improperly. There’s no power trip in this kind of work like there is in field work – it just doesn’t lend itself to abuses of power.

    But I guarantee that the NSA (and other agencies) have very formal and comprehensive policies regarding collection vs use. There is some real danger in the scope of it all, and it’s probably not hard to hide some abuses within the bulk sharing of data between agencies (which is what the DEA story that came out might be) as you move away from one set of use policies and into another set. That’s one of the harder aspects of this – “I collected this to be used in only this way, this other guy needs to use it in the same way, but if I give him access, will he use it in other ways?” Those things do come up, but I’ve never seen it happen as a malicious situation – rather as a misunderstanding that leads to many meetings and more work. This is another area where Congress is likely doing a shitty job. I have multiple areas of oversight, and they are often in disagreement. What this group will let me do (and needs me to do), these others won’t. I’m certain DHS has innumerable contradictory policies given them by the WH and Congress that they are left to navigate on their own.

    And that is really where we get forced down one of two paths – either we need to collect less, simply because we too often suck as a policy organization, or we need to go all in on a comprehensive policy. But we need to stop conflating collection and use because it’s an antiquated notion that will leave far more blind spots and dark corners for wrongdoing. If you assume that just because the NSA doesn’t have the data that they aren’t able to use it, you’re going to be in for a world of disappointment. Better to lay that out bare.

  81. 81.

    burnspbesq

    August 13, 2013 at 12:01 pm

    @I Heart Breitbartbees:

    what’s the alternative? Throwing our hands up in the air and surrendering?

    Of course not. It’s a dialogue that has to take place, and right the fuck now is a good time to start. I’m simply suggesting that folks need to manage their expectations, and if a small amount of progress is all that can be made in this go-around, take it and build on it instead of rejecting it because it’s not Perfection and a Pony.

  82. 82.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 12:03 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    To be fair, Congress has had this particular problem for a long time. New jets are sexy, spare parts are boring. We want sexy! And in my district!

  83. 83.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 12:03 pm

    @NonyNony: I thought our US American cops pretty much exhausted their investigatory efforts by getting “unusual” electricity bills forwarded to them by the power companies. They then get a warrant … of course, sometimes it turns out the bill was not because of a grow operation. “Oops.”

    Seriously, though, I like watching true crime reality TV and there is such a gap between British policing and American. The Brits put in way more manhours on investigations, they use a lot of community officers and technicians, their detectives seem to be better educated–and I know, we have this bias in the US that we don’t want cops to be too clever. The problem is that a lot of cops botch investigations, especially interrogations, due to sloppy practices such as misusing polygraphs and misinterpreting the results and falling prey to cognitive traps like getting tunnel vision on one suspect. And places with low crime often have the most botched investigations because they don’t call in help until after they’ve completely FUBARed the thing. The FBI is horrible at what they do, too.

    Now when cops are good, they’re good–there’s this detective on First48 in Texas who is some kind of genius. He just gets in the interview room and chats with the guy… it’s amazing. (Bilingual, too.)

    What were we talking about again?

  84. 84.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 12:05 pm

    @burnspbesq: Cops lie, but prosecutors scare me more.

    Somehow we need to change the incentives because these elected prosecutors have too much riding on a conviction, and they can and do cheat.

  85. 85.

    gene108

    August 13, 2013 at 12:05 pm

    @Keith G:

    The law was supposed to guarantee that individuals would not have to pay more than $6,350 and families more than $12,700, but insurers argued successfully that they needed more time to comply.

    As long as the premium support / tax credits are still in effect this should not be a major issue. The subsidies on the exchanges for the uninsured will be one of the major things needed to get the uninsured to enroll and as we approach universal healthcare coverage.

  86. 86.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 12:07 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I do believe you’ve hit the nugget, right here.

    Libertarians are remarkably blind to the collection of personal data by private entities seeking to monetize that data. Because profit IS sacred. It cannot be questioned, ever. Only those who do not have monetary profit in mind would misuse that data…hence the evil of the NSA, and government in general.

  87. 87.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 12:08 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Winning is the only thing, baby.

    Justice will just have to wait. I’ve got a reelection fight ahead of me.

  88. 88.

    Mandalay

    August 13, 2013 at 12:08 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I question whether this Congress can come up with such a bill.

    Fair point.

    I can only (lamely) argue that in the unlikely event that a bill to increase accountability for NSA surveillance was put to a house vote it would pass. But you are probably correct: it will never happen, and it will never happen because it would be in danger of passing.

  89. 89.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 12:10 pm

    @I Heart Breitbartbees: However, the Snowden leaks, the torture of PFC Bradley Manning, and the abuses both exposed certainly lend credence to the belief that there are significant abuses in the NSA and other aspects of the intelligence and military community.

    want to vomit?

    PENS Report – Hawaiian Mind Games – APA Fiddles While Psychology Burns

    1. A Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) psychologist picks up three adolescent boys under the age of 16 from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and transports them to Guantanamo. During the entire 22-hour flight they are dressed in diapers and orange jumpsuits, and chained to the floor in uncomfortable positions. At Guantanamo, the same psychologist is in charge of the boys’ interrogation, and claims this role enables him to protect their health.

    2. A Guantanamo interrogator seeks to obtain a confession to justify an adolescent prisoner’s detention. Concerned that this juvenile is experiencing severe psychological distress, as indicated by his talking to pictures on the wall and crying for his mother, the interrogator asked a BSCT psychologist to observe the next session. This psychologist recommends that the youth be placed in linguistic isolation, where no one speaks his language, and that he be told his family wants nothing to do with him. “Make him as uncomfortable as possible. Work him as hard as possible,” she writes in her recommendations to the interrogator.

    3. A psychologist at a military detention center helps to write and implement Standard Operating Procedures mandating that all new prisoners be subjected to 30 days of isolation indefinitely renewable. The purpose of the Behavior Management Plan is “to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process. It concentrates on isolating the detainee and fostering dependence of the detainee on his interrogator.” After this SOP is promulgated, other psychologists are involved in the process of deciding when the isolation has been sufficient and the prisoner should be released into the general population.

  90. 90.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 13, 2013 at 12:12 pm

    @Mandalay:

    In theory (theory, mind you) you make perfect sense. Pragmatic, thoughtful.

    Two qualities which John Boner’s mob of fuckheads do not posses, and are insanely suspicious of.

  91. 91.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 13, 2013 at 12:13 pm

    @burnspbesq: Maybe that should be reformed, then. But is it a change from longstanding practices? I think it’s important to distinguish discussions about how to make the nation more just from discussions about something gone recently wrong and whose fault it is.

  92. 92.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 12:15 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: It’s a remarkably circular worldview–I claim that all actions of the free market are good, therefore any action intended to increase profits is good by definition. Even if you perceive it as not-good, yours is a false perception because by definition profitable industry is advancing progress and your wellbeing and mine.

    Government, insomuch as it interferes with this process, is a retardant to progress and Bad.

  93. 93.

    Botsplainer

    August 13, 2013 at 12:16 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    If fighting abuse with procedures is laughable, what’s the alternative?

    Doing no collection at all, then wringing hands over the great destruction wrought by criminal acts of mass violence. See, the paranoid trembling of pasty white candy-assed “men” (both emoprog and teatard) over speculative “what if” overreach is far more important than real results from crime, genuine police overreach and terror.

    It is always better to be a white guy – your fears, regardless of how ridiculous, panty-wetting or silly they are will always be taken more seriously than real problems.

  94. 94.

    Valdivia

    August 13, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    amen.

  95. 95.

    Valdivia

    August 13, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    sorry, double post

  96. 96.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 12:17 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: To be fair, Congress has had this particular problem for a long time. New jets are sexy, spare parts are boring. We want sexy! And in my district!

    ohgodyes. This is the American Way.

  97. 97.

    Roger Moore

    August 13, 2013 at 12:18 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    New jets are sexy, spare parts are boring.

    OTOH, even spare parts have to be manufactured in some Congressional district, so they have a built-in constituency. My impression is that the bigger problem is that stuff is sexier than people, so we routinely overspend on equipment and underspend on salaries, benefits, and training.

  98. 98.

    Another Holocene Human

    August 13, 2013 at 12:22 pm

    @? Martin:

    There’s no power trip in this kind of work like there is in field work – it just doesn’t lend itself to abuses of power.

    This is just projection on your part. How do you know? Hansen went undetected by his own colleagues.

    Truth is, there are people who love having access to people’s private data. The NSA and other federal agencies are supposed to track access and swiftly eliminate people who make unauthorized access. But let’s not just hand-wave and ask “Who’d want to do that?” No. There are definitely people who are highly motivated to do this. Either for their personal ego, a vendetta, or because they are in the pay of a foreign government.

    Nor should we imagine that we can “screen out” the “bad eggs” as if humans who otherwise seem normal and pro-social don’t go through rough spots or, most importantly, engage in crimes of opportunity.

    In fact it is quite normal for the ordinary person to cheat, no matter how honest they seem or believe themselves to be, particularly if they believe that everyone else is doing it too.

    That’s why procedures are no joke–they’re vitally important.

  99. 99.

    RaflW

    August 13, 2013 at 12:23 pm

    @drkrick: I think I pretty much covered that in the GOP makes shit up and no one cares comment.

    And, for that matter, I spend a lot less time on my couch complaining than most people. For the past week (and month and 4 years) I and my colleagues have been kicking local and state politicians asses on Minnesota workforce development issues, racial and gender equity in the construction industry, and a fighting off a couple of state constitutional amendments.

    Kinda doesn’t leave a lot of time for me to go to DC and try and pester Paultard Jr. I’m sure I’m an idiot in your book for hoping that people like Stewart and Oliver will get at some of the blatant lies – but they have a national audience that I have no reasonable chance of having.

  100. 100.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    August 13, 2013 at 12:23 pm

    The correct response was to vote against it by default and consult the reports in order to be convinced otherwise. Maybe leadership would share more if the members would stop rubber stamping legislation.

  101. 101.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 12:27 pm

    @gene108: The final number are not in yet for me, but a sound working assumption (made a bit earlier) is that my health care costs will rise. Today’s news indicates that the increase may be higher. Nonetheless, I have been a vocal supporter of ACA, despite a good possibility of me taking a “hit”.

    It is not to hard to imagine that there will be folks ineligible for “support” who will find themselves really squeezed by this decision. Rightfully, they may well feel betrayed.

  102. 102.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 12:31 pm

    @Botsplainer:

    Doing no collection at all, then wringing hands over the great destruction wrought by criminal acts of mass violence. See, the paranoid trembling of pasty white candy-assed “men” (both emoprog and teatard) over speculative “what if” overreach is far more important than real results from crime, genuine police overreach and terror.

    You have a great talent for arguing against a point of view that I have not seen voiced (or typed) anywhere else.

    Awesome!

  103. 103.

    Roger Moore

    August 13, 2013 at 12:33 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:
    You’ve just described the basic problem with libertarianism and all kinds of laissez faire capitalism. Yes, greed can be good, but only when it’s constrained within a system that pushes it that way. People who want to rationalize their own selfishness turn around and try to dismantle that system in the name of allowing unfettered greed, completely missing the part where greed is only good within the system.

  104. 104.

    Anya

    August 13, 2013 at 12:33 pm

    @Betty Cracker: How do you sentence to death a kid for non compliance. He’s a kid, they do stupid things all the time. If stupid shit kids do guaranteed life sentence then no kid will ever get a second chance. My problem is that as a society we are so focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation. A kid does a stupid thing and his life is ruined.

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    August 13, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    Steve Jobs – who suffered from an incurable disease and shouldn’t have gotten one, but did.

    Actually, from what Jobs and his doctors said, his form of pancreatic cancer was one of the few curable ones when it was first detected, but he dicked around with “alternative” treatments first, which gave the cancer time to make itself incurable.

    I personally was astounded that they approved a transplant for a cancer patient — my dad was denied a spot on the kidney transplant list because of his cancer history (prostate and lung). I was under the impression that cancer patients could not receive organ transplants because of the high risk of the anti-rejection drugs causing the cancer to come back, but I guess that’s because we didn’t have Steve Jobs money.

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    August 13, 2013 at 12:49 pm

    @Anya: I don’t know enough about the facts of this case to judge that decision on the merits — it may well suck as much as the TP article implies. But I do know a lot of medical professionals, including some involved in transplant decisions, and I suspect there is more to this story than they’re shutting this kid out because his grades suck or he’s had a few minor brushes with the law.

    I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that it seems unlikely. There might be medical compliance issues in the mix too, which could be relevant when making a decision on how to distribute limited benefits. Or maybe the people involved in making that decision really are just heartless monsters; I don’t know. I’m just pointing out there might be more to it than we know.

  107. 107.

    fuckwit

    August 13, 2013 at 12:53 pm

    What amazes me about this whole privacy/surveillance debate is how much strawman and projection and boogeyman there is in it. It’s such an emotional issue.

    Looked at coldly, things are indeed fucked up, and we’ve got some cleanup work to do, for sure. We have 30 years worth of drug-war laws to get rid of or dramatically curtail. We have over a decade of post-9/11 laws (PATRIOT Act, etc) to get rid of or dramatically curtail. We have some oversight and regulation needed. We have some investigation, and, possibly prosecution needed, i.e. of people inside who violated the laws even farther beyond the rather low bar that was set in them. We have to close Guantanamo, eliminate the gulag of secret prisons, and move terrorism prosecutions to the civiilan legal system. We have some serious awareness-raising and grassroots consumer activism needed to stop corporations from collecting all this data on us. We need serious grassroots political activism to get tighter regulations against government obtaining it and using it as evidence.

    Oh, and before we can hope to get any of the above done, we have to first wrest control of Congress away from the lunatic teabaggers– none of this can happen with Boner and Turtle gumming up the works and their revolutionary vanguards pushing them even further into monkeywrenching land. So you’re looking at 2015 at the EARLIEST before this really even starts to get fixed, and that’s only if we successfully kick ass in the 2014 cycle… and the odds do not look good so far. Maybe I should repeat this. This problem will not get solved until after January 2015, and then only IF we can do the impossible and take back a majority in the House AND get a supermajority in the Senate. Chew on that for a minute.

    So face the facts now. All of the above are hard. None of it is fast either. It’ll take years, probably decades, to get this all squared away. That’s not too surprising when you think about it a bit. Look, it took us over 30 years to fuck this up this badly; no magical pony is going to fix it in a week or a month or a year or 2 years or 4 years or 8 years or even 10. This is a long-term project.

    I don’t know if too many people want to hear that. But that’s reality. Laws get made by Congress. You get the Congress you deserve, and then you get the laws you deserve. To turn that around, build a movement, then sustain it for a generation or two. There is no other way.

  108. 108.

    Keith G

    August 13, 2013 at 12:57 pm

    @Anya: Since the kid is….a kid, I doubt that we will get a chance to see the paperwork on this case. If medical professionals say:

    …they don’t have any evidence that he would take his medicine or that he would go to his follow-ups,

    I am inclined to feel that they have good reasons.

    I do work for an urban charitable agency that deals with patients facing significant medical issues. Besides our support , nearly all whom I encounter receive medicine and treatments at significant tax payer expense. Noncompliance with a complicate medical regime is a big issue, but in the end it is only money and the life of that one patient.

    In the case you cite, there is another life involved. The life of another patient who has shown all of the abilities and desire/commitment to do the hardest thing they will ever face – and has the family/social infrastructure to aid in successful treatment. The heart Anthony Stokes would get will not go to a dying other. It’s a fucking tough call.

  109. 109.

    fuckwit

    August 13, 2013 at 1:02 pm

    Oh and I should add: we also should be using strong end-to-end encryption everywhere, and that too will take years of education and awareness (and pressure on corporations to support or allow it, and on governments to remove any laws prohibiting it) to get put into place. So, I advocate encryption as a defense against all these privacy violations by corporations and governments, but it’s no quick fix, it too is a long term fix when you consider the network effects and education/training challenges.

  110. 110.

    Betty Cracker

    August 13, 2013 at 1:08 pm

    @fuckwit: Amen, except I’d add that the problems pre-date the War on Drugs and that the most difficult hurdle of all has yet to be fully cleared, which is creating agreement that this is a fucked up situation that needs to change. I don’t mean here on Balloon Juice, where, contrary to trollopinion, practically everyone agrees that the current situation needs serious reform. I mean among people who don’t generally pay attention to this stuff at all.

    It took the Snowald dog and pony show to even begin to puncture the complacency bubble, so even if they are a pair of libertarian douchecanoes and even if the information they’ve leaked is known/misinterpreted/whatever, I’m glad the conversation got started. But I’m afraid we’re still far from having consensus on the extent of the problem, let alone what to do about it or how to put the necessary levers in place to achieve change, which, as you noted, will be incredibly difficult.

  111. 111.

    fuckwit

    August 13, 2013 at 1:14 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Good point. The problem is older than me, even. The problem dates back to the Cold War really, to the Dr. Strangelove era, or probably back as far as Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex” warning in 1961, or even back to WWII. If that’s the case, then for damn sure we’re not going to fix it in one generation even.

  112. 112.

    ? Martin

    August 13, 2013 at 1:20 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    Hansen went undetected by his own colleagues.

    Sure, but I don’t see how that’s relevant. We’re not talking about outliers that get other outside motives – those have always existed and always will exist. The situation is no better or worse. And nobody here is actually talking about those outliers.

    People here are describing an institutional abuse of that information – one that develops either from a high level or a low level which is abuse of information for the sake of the institution itself – be that the NSA in isolation or the US government more broadly. Hansen had nothing to do with that. Now, there’s plenty of examples of that kind of abuse in this country – the whole Iraq fiasco is an example of that, Gulf of Tonkin is, and at the other end of the spectrum a lot of police abuse is – things from stop and frisk to Rodney King. But that doesn’t really work so well at the data level – the hero complexes come from whistleblowing, not from finding novel datamining solutions to determine if you’re growing pot in your basement. There’s nothing sexy or exciting or adrenaline pumping about the data, and there’s nothing ideological there either, nor is there anything that influences people to get into this field along those lines. So rather than an abuse of your and my data, what we’re actually seeing is primarily an abuse of the government’s data, which is actually a feature to those complaining about the system.

  113. 113.

    Anya

    August 13, 2013 at 1:46 pm

    @Betty Cracker: @Keith G: I hear what you’re saying and I agree that we don’t know the whole story but as someone who worked in the mental health field, I know how easily can someone be labeled “non compliant.” I also know of a situation when someone who didn’t speak English and who misunderstood doctor’s instructions was labeled non compliant and refused liver transplant. That poor woman would have died if it wasn’t the intervention of advocates and caring service providers. There are a lot of caring doctors but the medical establishment can be a really cruel place for disadvantaged people.

  114. 114.

    The Moar You Know

    August 13, 2013 at 1:52 pm

    @Betty Cracker: Noncompliance is a big fucking deal. I have a family member who needed a kidney.

    Now, kidneys are easy, we – most of us – have two and can give one up. Hence you don’t have the issue of the donor having to be dead to extract one, which makes both donating and receiving a much less intense process.

    However, it’s still a big deal and has risks for both donor and recipient.

    They still won’t let you do it, even with a willing family member, unless you can show you’re compliant (you have to hold to an exact medication schedule for the rest of your life, you cannot do street drugs, you cannot regain your weight, or your new kidney will fail – and maybe take you with it), and my family member was borderline, mainly due to weight issues. He got the weight down, stayed there for long enough, got the surgery – donor from his brother.

    One year later, the weight is all back and he’s drinking again. Five years, outside, he’ll have trashed this kidney. So a valuable organ goes to waste and a family member’s sacrifice goes in vain.

    We cannot afford, as a society, to allow this. Organs are a precious commodity. You can’t just go tossing them out to the cutest kids or the hardest of hardluck stories. The families of those who donate have a right to expect that those organs won’t go to waste. The transplant system – which is ungodly expansive, by the way – has a right to insure that their resources and expertise are well spent.

    It sucks, and the scarcity could be dealt with by making donation mandatory, but there’s no way this country – or any country – is going to do that. In the meantime, people are going to die. People who shouldn’t have to. But they will. There just aren’t enough organs to go around.

    My family member is an asshole for doing this, by the way. We all stepped up to the plate to help this guy and literally save his life, and he goes right back to acting like an idiot. I had a feeling this might go down this way, but was hoping it wouldn’t.

  115. 115.

    patrick II

    August 13, 2013 at 2:44 pm

    Tea Party members ignorance seems to be an accurate reason to me. I am just surprised they admitted it.

  116. 116.

    Ruckus

    August 13, 2013 at 2:57 pm

    @NonyNony:
    This.

    And with people charged with securing the US from any terrorist act(which now seems to include any drug use) those donuts are going to disappear much faster.
    Taking human nature out of the equation is insane. Some one asked how many people break the law every day. My answer is almost everyone who drives breaks at least one law daily and gets away with it. Most of the time because no one is there to catch them. Who is there to catch the NSA?

  117. 117.

    Long Tooth

    August 13, 2013 at 3:06 pm

    70% to 14%. Your point echoes what Charles Pierce, who yesterday wrote about the thread that ties the Reagan administration to the war-on-some-drugs debacle, with today’s need for prison sentencing reform.

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    August 13, 2013 at 3:14 pm

    @ericblair:
    …and it’s a hard slog to get useful information out of them.

    I see this as an issue. You say useful information. What does that mean? Useful to whom? Cops get shit wrong all the time, wrong addresses, wrong people, stings that use “useful information” that is wrong. How many of those ever get even apologized for? Do you really think that given a lot of data and money, facilities to find or make connections, that the NSA is going to only act on valid information, or are they going to act on everything they think might be useful? They don’t even have to be what we might consider bad people, they are people charged with a job and whatever it takes to get there. Just like cops are charged with the end result of the war on drugs and they are going to do whatever is necessary to win that war, even if it is not winnable. They have the data, we now know that. They have the means and money and people to sift through the data and we know that. What is left except to use the “useful” information?

  119. 119.

    Thymezone

    August 13, 2013 at 3:46 pm

    Not buying the premise, which is essentially reactionary on the side of being anti-surveillance. Which is not better than the reactionary position of pro-surveillance.

    The fact is that starting on 911, American response to a terrorism world has been an ongoing experiment. We don’t really know what we are doing, just making it up as we go along. The immediate post-911 period was a trainwreck of overreactions, including but not limited to things like not allowing nail clippers on airplanes, starting the Iraq war, shaking down grandmothers at the airport, and telling people to rat on their neighbors and then go check the daily and useless “threat” color chart.

    The experiment is still ongoing and we really don’t know how much or how little phone and internet snooping is the right amount. So in that cloud of uncertainty mixed with the separation between the NeoCons and the even more idiot Libertarian-at-all-costers (all government is bad, etc) … everyone uses the issue as their own special soapbox. Producing churn and shit enough for a lifetime.

    What we ought to be doing is asking how much and what kinds of surveillance we need, asking how we think we know our answer to that, asking how much security we have, how much we need, how much we have to give up to get it, how much “privacy” (which is imaginary, mostly, in the electronic age) we really need, and how much time and energy we want to spend politicizing these questions to gain leverage over our adversaries. Those are the kinds of questions that might get us somewhere.

    Blabbering over old conflicts about Big Brother, or Evil Empires, or Wars on Terror, or any of that manipulative crap, isn’t helping.

    I am smart enough to know that if I want to keep something really private, I don’t send it out over public and pourous public networks of voice and data. I keep the fucking things private and voila, I have privacy, and if I have to trade a little “privacy” for my conversations with Aunt Alice to get some more protection against crazy bomb carrying motherfuckers, I am more than willing to make that deal as long as it has an expiration date and I can renegotiate later.

  120. 120.

    Thymezone

    August 13, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    I should add that the Patriot Act itself was an example of overreaction, in that it is just too … big and all-encompassing. Does it need to be “dialed down?” Sure, but not dialed out. What we need is a new, slimmer, more tractable Patriot Act that gets a new name which isn’t a manipulative symbol that says you either have to go along with it or you are not a patriot. But remember, stopping the government from doing surveillance is not something for patriots either. If we stop the government from doing surveillance we might as well just put signs up in all the vulnerable places that say “Please place bombs here for maximum effect” and then wear helmets and kevlar to work every day.

  121. 121.

    ericblair

    August 13, 2013 at 4:50 pm

    @Ruckus:

    I see this as an issue. You say useful information. What does that mean? Useful to whom?

    Probably dead thread here, but translate “useful” as “meaningful”. Like, not #UNDEFINED# or blanks or meaningless garbage. Of course there are going to be higher-level errors in the data, and those usually need to be fixed in a semi-manual, tedious process.

    They don’t even have to be what we might consider bad people, they are people charged with a job and whatever it takes to get there.

    They have rules. There seems to be a common misperception among people who haven’t worked with government data about the kinds of rules in place and how seriously the grunts and managers take them. It’s not the Wild Fucking West out there. The IRS “scandal”, bullshit as it was, centered around the selection of search terms in a query, which wouldn’t even register as something that could even be considered an issue in most private industries.

  122. 122.

    Older

    August 13, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    @Anya: Compliance with medical instructions is a very important point when we’re talking about organ transplants. And kids are already not very compliant.

    How many kids do you know like this: Kid gets the flu, or some other debilitating disease; spends time in bed feeling awful; then one day kid feels somewhat better, gets up, gets dressed, goes out to school/ to practice/ to hang out with friends/ whatever, just wants to go OUT. Couple of days later, kid is back in bed, sicker than ever.

    My kids did this, and they were good kids, not what teachers or coaches would have called “non-compliant”. One of mine, when hearing that someone he knew had to take a medication every day of his life, said he would hate that. I told him that a lot of people have to do that, including me. Years later, that very kid is doing things he was (medically) warned against, but now that he’s an adult, it’s none of my business, alas.

    Organ transplant means putting something in your body that your body will try to kill, and depending on that organ for your life. You can’t afford to fuck up.

  123. 123.

    johnny aquitard

    August 13, 2013 at 5:02 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    This fad (like silly “Baby on Board” signs) eventually ran its course

    Them flags are the equivalent of “Patriot on Board”.

    The demographic that made the baby on board a fad in the 80’s is the same demographic that now makes up the teaparty.

    I’d hazard a guess there’s an overlap between baby-on-board/teaparty/flag flyer.

    Boomer. Boomer. Bo-oomer.
    Banana-fana fo-oomer.
    Fee-Fi-mo-oomer.
    Boomer!

    Got to understand no one before or since got it right — babies or patriotism — until the boomers came along and showed us what it’s all about.

  124. 124.

    Mino

    August 13, 2013 at 5:21 pm

    @gene108: Gene, as I understand it, premium support is for a policy that has a certain set of no-cost medical procedures that are preventive in nature for the most part. If a patient becomes ill and needs treatment, it is not a first dollar policy like much of Western Europe, but a high deductible that must be out of pocket before the insurance kicks in. There are no supports for this deductible. And this deductible is the one that is open to insurance manipulation for a year.

    It is looking more and more like a catastrophic policy with a little preventive care.

  125. 125.

    Thymezone

    August 13, 2013 at 6:48 pm

    @ericblair:

    Nearly twenty years in govt IT .. and you are exactly right. People have no idea on earth how hard it is to run a govt IT shop … the rules of the game make it twice as difficult as it is in the private sector, and costly .. and of course, there is never enough money to make it easier, there is just bitching from every corner about whether you are doing it right or spending too much.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    August 13, 2013 at 6:51 pm

    @johnny aquitard:
    Boomers grew up in the shadow of the “Greatest Generation”, those that lived as kids through the depression and went to war. How do you live up to that without being a pompous arrogant ass? You don’t, and many, many boomers are not pompous, arrogant assholes. For this or any other reason. That is not to say there are no pompous, arrogant assholes in the boomer generation but then there are in every generation. Branding a whole generation is no different than branding any group by some arbitrary bullshit definition.
    Not all boomers are TP members. Not even close. And not all TP members are boomers either.
    Your point that there may be huge overlap in the two groups mentioned may be 100% correct. But your conclusion as to why is 100% bullshit.

  127. 127.

    lojasmo

    August 13, 2013 at 11:08 pm

    @Anya:

    We’re the kind of society that judges a person’s likelyhood of taking MANDATORY anti-rejection medications upon his or her demonstrable actions to date.

    That kid shouldn’t get a heart. Evidence based medicine is the best kind of medicine.

  128. 128.

    karen

    August 14, 2013 at 1:37 am

    @lojasmo:

    The kid has had bad grades and some run ins with the law. There is nothing in that article that says he was noncompliant with his meds or anything. YET. They’re assuming he won’t be compliant based on his grades and issues with the law. And don’t tell me that part of their assumption has nothing to do with the fact that he’s a young blah male. A white boy with the same bad grades and run ins with the law would NOT be denied. Period.

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