The tech includes drones, fancy cars, a crime-reporting app, body cameras, protective vests, and software that lets officers use the massive amount of data being collected. It all seems very impressive until certain issues become conspicuous by their absence.
Naturally, APB shows police using their new tools to catch people who viewers know are the bad guys. But as the newly outfitted officers of Chicago's 13th District drive around in their high-tech cruisers, not one person at headquarters or any of the officers on the street raise the privacy issues associated with the devices at their disposal, including a drone we see peeping into innocent people's apartments during a search for suspects.
The history of law enforcement shows that the government will use all manner of equipment to snoop on citizens. Drones and other new tools, real or imagined, are not likely to be any exception. Speculative fiction about the proliferation of this new police technology should tackle the privacy issues head on. How police use and abuse their tools is more important to citizens than the questions the show raises about whether those tools should be funded publicly or privately.
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]]>President Trump inherited vast immigration enforcement and surveillance capabilities from his predecessor. These capabilities were worrying enough under Obama, but they are
downright terrifying under Trump, given his enthusiasm for surveillance and his anti-immigration animus. The net impact of these measures won't be just to snag "bad hombres," but all undocumented aliens while giving the government powerful new tools to go after other Americans for other reasons that future administrations deem a danger to the Republic.
During his campaign, Trump described what came to be regarded as his plans for a "deportation force." In February, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly released two memos outlining his department's enforcement priorities and expanding the list of removable aliens. Under current policy, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will "not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement." This means that all of the roughly 11 million undocumented aliens in the country—with the possible exception of Dreamers (those brought here illegally as minors)—would be fair game for detention and deportation. One of Kelly's memos directed the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the ICE director to "expand their detention capabilities and capacities at or near the border with Mexico."
But in order for ICE to effectively execute these deportations, it'll need access to vast amounts of data. Thanks to new intelligence tools, ICE will soon have it.
In 2014, the Obama administration awarded Peter Thiel's Palantir Technologies a $41 million contract to build an intelligence system called Investigative Case Management (ICM), which is scheduled to become fully operational by September this year. As originally conceived, its purpose was to give the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit in the Department of Homeland Security the means to investigate serious cross-border criminal activity ranging from money laundering and commercial fraud to human smuggling. But the Trump administration may well turn it into a general tool to assist ICE deportations, reports The Intercept's Spencer Woodman. And also go after other Americans in the future.
How?
ICM allows ICE agents to access data housed in the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and others. In addition, another intelligence system called FALCON, also designed by Palantir, grants ICM users access to information from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Some of the information in these government databases might be gathered legitimately when suspects are booked for crimes. But some might actually be gleaned from information that citizens share for official business. An ICM requirements document lists the numerous sources it has access to including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which tracks suspicious financial behavior, travel and border crossing data from CBP's Automated Targeting System, and Black Asphalt, an intelligence system that allows law enforcement to share information (e.g. Social Security numbers, addresses) about motorists, including those never charged with a crime. Clearly, the information accessible via ICM isn't limited to immigrants or criminals.
Using all this information in various government databases, ICE is able to piece together a detailed portrait of their target, including not only biographical information, but also information about their financial history, physical features (scars, tattoos, etc.), education, and employment
But ICE uses ICM not only to collect information about its targets but also people who come in contact with them such as their associates and employers, citizen and non-citizen alike. In fact, an ICM funding document explicitly acknowledges as much. All of this is reminiscent of the scrapped 2003 Total Information Awareness program that sought to create a comprehensive database of virtually everyone to flag prospective criminals.
This hypothetical situation that ICE outlined to illustrate how ICM would snag drug dealers engaged in cross-border trafficking shows how it'll work:
A special agent named Jones from HSI responds to a "duty call" from a Customs and Border Protection officer about a suspect called "John Doe" they have stopped at a port of entry. Doe's vehicle contains contraband.
Jones enters Doe's information in the ICM and finds that he has a drug trafficking conviction and that Doe's business was the subject of a previous HSI investigation. Furthermore, CBP data reveals that Doe's vehicle has crossed the border 30 times in the last two months without being searched.
Jones interrogates Doe and discovers that a man named "Caliber" hired Doe. Caliber is, according to Doe, a 40-year-old white man who drives a Ford Mustang, is a "silent partner" in Doe's business, and uses a Cessna—a small plane—to import drugs into the U.S. Jones takes what he has learned and inputs it into ICM, discovering an HSI record for a case concerning "Calvin Clark," who looks a lot like "Caliber."
Now, Jones can open an ICM case linking all of the information he's discovered about Doe and Clark. Jones' investigation leads to Clark's arrest.
The ICE presentation obviously focuses on what many would consider the least objectionable case: aiding the arrest of a drug trafficker. But the problem is that ICM is a powerful tool that allows ICE to carry out "investigative research"—fishing expeditions in ordinary parlance—and query the system in order to identify targets within the Trump administration's sights without establishing reasonable suspicion or probable cause. It's this feature that makes ICM an ideal tool for identifying undocumented aliens for mass deportation.
But even supporters of the Trump administration's harsh immigration policies should worry about these intelligence systems. If the Trump administration can use this system to snag undocumented workers, a future administration could use it to go after its preferred category of lawbreakers. For example, marijuana dispensary owners in Colorado, not to mention their customers, are breaking federal law and could be considered fair game by President Jeff Sessions. Is a strict immigration enforcement regime worth intrusive government surveillance that would make ever-more Americans vulnerable to Big Brother scrutiny?
It is not clear if the ICM genie can be put back in the bottle. However, at the very least, Congress needs to ensure that this troubling tool is only used during criminal investigations based on individual reasonable suspicion as opposed to going on fishing expeditions to catch any category of lawbreaker that an administration fancies.
The Obama administration left dangerous tools in the hands of the Trump administration. These tools will hardly be swept under the rug when Trump leaves the Oval Office. What use will future administrations put them to? That question ought to spook everyone.
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]]>As gangster Griff Tannen emerges from the Hill Valley courthouse after a disastrous hoverboard chase, a USA Today media drone floats nearby, furiously snapping photos. The date, according to a nearby edition of the newspaper, is October 21, 2015.
This pivotal scene in 1989's Back to the Future Part II wasn't far off when it came to anticipating drone and camera technology. If anything, the movie's prop designers seem to have slightly underestimated the speed of technological progress. The drone is large and cumbersome, struggling to stay aloft under the weight of numerous camera lenses and incandescent light bulbs.
When 2015 actually did roll around, comparatively lightweight drones capable of carrying a single 360-degree camera were already ubiquitous, and the press was moving in to take advantage of the new technology. Last year 16 media organizations, including The New York Times, NBCUniversal, Getty Images, the Associated Press, and USA Today's parent company Gannett, partnered with Virginia Tech to test drones and train journalists in their use.
In December, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that every drone more than half a pound and less than 55 pounds must be formally registered with the federal government, including drones purchased before the new rules were enacted. Pilots who fail to register could face civil fines of up to $27,500 and criminal penalties of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to three years, according to the government's FAQ page. These are the first universal drone ownership and use rules, and they pull drones out of a legal limbo in which they have long hovered.
Whether set in the future, the present, or a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, works of science fiction offer examples of technology that may be with us sooner than we think. Such innovations are exciting, but they also pose challenges. Lawmakers should be ready for a time when facial recognition tech is more widespread and accurate, drones can be equipped with high-functioning A.I., and killer robots can fight our wars. Reading and watching more science fiction is a great way for judges and politicians to get prepared and immerse themselves in a few cautionary tales.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, perhaps the most lambasted movie of the Star Wars franchise, also has some pretty solid tech. The film includes a scene in which Sith apprentice Darth Maul travels to the desert planet Tatooine in order to find Queen Amidala of Naboo. When he arrives, Maul deploys three DRK-1 probe droids to aid his search.
The probe droids are unmanned aerial vehicles, a.k.a. drones. According to Wookiepedia, the all–Star Wars incarnation of Wikipedia, "the DRK-1 probe droid was a small, spherical automaton equipped with sophisticated sensor and communications packages….The DRK-1 version featured a trio of imaging sensors: a central photoreceptor, a magnetic imaging device, and a thermal imager. An antenna atop the DRK-1's dome allowed its master to relay commands to the probot, programming it to seek out individuals or information. Data was then sent back to headquarters via the transmission antennae." A little more sophisticated than what we have today, to be sure, but not altogether implausible as near-future technology, given the work already being done by researchers and military actors related to artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and drones. It will probably not be long before drones that can fly themselves and analyze audio/visual data will be available.
In Phantom Menace, one of the drones is destroyed by the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn, who declares it "very unusual…not like anything I have seen before." So far most defenses against unwanted spying have a DIY flavor in the real world as well. In October, a Kentucky judge dismissed a case concerning a man who shot down a drone launched by his neighbor. Bullitt County Judge Rebecca Ward told the courtroom that the drone flown over his family's property "was an invasion of their privacy and that they had the right to shoot this drone." In this, Ward seemed to be in agreement with Kanye West. According to TMZ, the rapper once asked, "Wouldn't you like to just teach your daughter how to swim without a drone flying?"
It remains to be seen how state and federal law enforcement agencies intend to track down every 12-year-old who got a drone for Christmas, immediately crashed it into a tree, and then hid the wrecked carcass in his basement.
But state and local legal restrictions are being considered for drone use, in addition to the federal registry. In some states, lawmakers have pre-empted some of the concerns posed by these emerging and improving technologies. For instance, legislation in California, undoubtedly welcomed in the West household, prohibits using a drone to take photos or video of someone "engaging in a private, personal, or familial activity." In Mississippi, lawmakers have moved to ban those of a voyeuristic persuasion from taking advantage of drone technology, explicitly banning "peeping Toms" from using drones in spas, tanning booths, massage rooms, fitting rooms, and "any other area in which the occupant has a reasonable expectation of privacy." Dozens of states have passed legislation addressing not only drones and privacy but also the use of drones as weapons.
What happens when we put drones in the hands of the people who make the rules in the first place? There's not much appetite for restraint at the higher levels of government, that's for sure. In the wake of attacks in San Bernardino and Paris, Republican candidates Jeb Bush and Chris Christie made sure to mention that the law enforcement and intelligence communities should be fully outfitted. During the fifth Republican presidential nomination debate Bush said "we should make sure that we give the FBI, the NSA, our intelligence communities, all the resources they need to keep us safe," and Christie argued that the government should restore "tools to the NSA and to our entire surveillance and law enforcement community."
When it comes to cautionary tales about surveillance, lawmakers need look no further than George Orwell's classic 1984. The police-piloted helicopters of Oceania "skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle" while "snooping into people's windows."
Even with current tech, footage captured by law enforcement drones similar to those bluebottles could be extensive. The U.S. military has developed technologies like ARGUS-IS, which allows for the persistent surveillance of up to 15 square miles by using what amounts to a 1.8-gigapixel-resolution camera unit, which automatically tracks moving objects. This is, as the PBS series NOVA explained in 2013, the "equivalent of having up to a hundred Predators look at an area the size of a medium-sized city at once."
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has been using military-grade X-ray vans, which can see through walls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the NYPD has proven reluctant to release information about their use of a technology that not long ago would have belonged in the panels of a Superman comic rather than the news pages. The implications for civil liberties are obvious.
Those hovering police patrols are quickly dismissed by the narrator in 1984, who notes lightly that "the patrols did not matter….Only the Thought Police mattered"—snoops gazing out from ubiquitous screens in homes and workplaces.
Back in the real world there is an ongoing debate about government screen-snooping, with some law enforcement officials demanding "back door" access to encrypted communications and civil libertarians warning of such an approach's worrying privacy ramifications. The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mike McCaul (R–Texas), who clearly hasn't revisited Orwell since high school, declared on Face the Nation in November that "the biggest threat today is the idea that terrorists can communicate in dark space, dark platforms, and we can't see what they're saying." Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, chimed in to agree, calling encryption the "Achilles heel" of the Internet.
Apple's Tim Cook pushed back on 60 Minutes that same month, explaining the importance of data security. "Here's what the situation is on your smartphone today, on your iPhone, there's likely health information, there's financial information. There are intimate conversations with your family, or your co-workers. There's probably business secrets and you should have the ability to protect it. And the only way we know how to do that, is to encrypt it. Why is that? It's because if there's a way to get in, then somebody will find the way in. There have been people that suggest that we should have a back door. But the reality is if you put a back door in, that back door's for everybody, for good guys and bad guys."
Presidential candidates have weighed in on the issue: GOP presidential wannabe Carly Fiorina took the softest stance (and perhaps also the most Orwellian) during that surveillance debate, arguing that when it comes to cooperation between tech companies and the FBI, "They do not need to be forced. They need to be asked."
Then there's artificial intelligence. Long familiar to science fiction fans, thanks to creations from William Gibson's citizen–A.I.s in Neuromancer to the out-of-control ship computer in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, weaponized A.I. is already a reality, whether it's the X-47B, an unmanned fighter jet that is capable of autonomous inflight refueling, or the SGR-A1, a South Korean sentry robot that can spot intruders autonomously.
Some activists have already taken steps to prevent or limit the use of weaponized A.I., arguing that we should stop intelligent machines being used in combat. For instance, Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the unambiguously titled Stop Killer Robots campaign. Concerns about the rise of A.I. have brought together a range of academics, business leaders, and researchers, including inventor Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and physicist Steven Hawking, who all signed a letter last year urging a ban on autonomous weapons.
The A.I. nightmare scenario resembles the almost century-long Butlerian Jihad of the Dune novels, in which humans battled "thinking machines," resulting in widespread devastation. According to the semi-canonical Dune Encyclopedia, "the Jihad, smashing first interstellar communications, razed large and small governments planet by planet, leaving only rubble, ready for reassembly by the nimblest barbarian." The devastation of the Butlerian Jihad prompted the commandment "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind" to be added to the Orange Catholic Bible, a fusion of ancient scriptures created after the conflict.
It would be a mistake for politicians to take as drastic a step as completely banning artificial intelligence, but the Butlerian Jihad and other events from science fiction provide us with cautionary—if not fantastical—tales about the future.
Urging lawmakers to take science fiction technology more seriously could have drawbacks. (Just think of the bizarre legislation we might get.) And science fiction doesn't always correctly anticipate tomorrow's tech. At the end of the year, hoverboards were shaping up to be one of 2015's most popular Christmas gifts, though these two-wheeled contraptions are somewhat misnamed, since—unlike Back to the Future Part II's famous floating skateboard—they remain firmly earthbound. And then Amazon had to recall a bunch of them because they kept catching on fire.
But lawmakers should prioritize their Netflix queues and rulemaking. Facial recognition software and drones already exist, and research on A.I., biometric readings, robotics, and weapons is not going to slow down any time soon. Debates on A.I. citizenship and homesteading on Saturn's moons can wait. Debates on surveillance and drones cannot.
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]]>The Harlem Hellfighters, written by Max Brooks and illustrated by Caanan White, is a fictionalized account of the African-American 369th Infantry Regiment during World War I. The graphic novel captures the horror of the trenches as well as the challenges and indignities suffered by members of the 369th in the country they were fighting for.
Although the Harlem Hellfighters were an American unit, they fought with the French. The contrast between their treatment by the French and their fellow countrymen is a fascinating part of this graphic novel, which also illustrates the ferocious reputation the Harlem Hellfighters earned among their enemies.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. Plenty will be written about the war and its lasting effects on American foreign policy. The Harlem Hellfighters offers an entertaining look at not only the butchery of war but also at how shamefully America has treated some of its soldiers.
-Matthew Feeney
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]]>In Transcendence, Johnny Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, a scientist working on a sentient computer when he is assassinated by a Luddite terrorist organization. To preserve Caster after his bodily death, his wife Evelyn uploads what she believes to be his consciousness to a quantum computer. The movie, directed by Wally Pfister, attempts to grapple with the idea of a coming Singularity, the point where artificial intelligence converges on and exceeds human intelligence.
Evelyn and the sentience she uploaded travel to a facility where nanotechnology development allows for seemingly miraculous medical advances and adaptations. In a realistic plot twist, the existence of this facility scares the feds, who strive to shut down the artificial intelligence housed in the desert lab.
At times clumsily told, Transcendence highlights interesting dilemmas, life-changing innovations, and ideological tensions that will accompany real-life advances in artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.
—Matthew Feeney
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]]>At the end of April, New York City's ban on smoking e-cigarettes in bars, offices, and other so-called public places went into effect. In response to the scheduled ban reason co-hosted a "Vape-in" at the Museum of Sex in Manhattan, where participants defied the authority of their paternalistic lawmakers at the stroke of midnight and celebrated the benefits of increasingly popular e-cigarettes, which are now being sold by tobacco companies.
Speaking to Reason TV at the vape-in Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania said, "I think these products are just as important for public health as childhood vaccines and antibiotics and sewage treatment and water treatment."
Despite e-cigarettes' effectiveness at helping smokers of old-style cigarettes quit, critics insist that vaping products must be strictly regulated or even prohibited to send the message that orally delivered nicotine is bad.
A few days before the NYC ban came into effect the Food and Drug Administration, which tried to ban the sale of e-cigarettes in 2009, proposed subjecting each new e-cigarette product to agency approval.
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]]>In April American Green, part of the Tranzbyte Corporation, unveiled a marijuana vending machine in Colorado intended for medical cannabis patients. The company plans to install its ZaZZZ vending machine in Herbal Elements, a medical marijuana dispensary in Eagle-Vail, Colorado.
ZaZZZ is out in the open, but allows customers to make their own choices in peace and relative privacy. In order to use the vending machine, customers must first present their IDs and medical marijuana cards at the door of the dispensary and then use an ID verification scanner attached to the vending machine. Tranzbyte COO Stephen Shearin told The Cannabist that the machine "uses the same technology that checks age/ID fraud under the Control Meth Act. Your identity is confirmed against active biometrics."
The ZaZZZ will stock a range of marijuana-related items, including joints and edibles. Herbal Elements owner Greg Honan told Denver's Fox 31 TV that the vending machine will make it easier to track inventory. The vending machine's contents go straight "from our budtender right into the machine," he explained. "There's no room for theft by patients, by employees."
Matthew Feeney (mfeeney@reason.com) is an assistant editor at Reason 24/7.
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]]>In February, a U.S. appeals court ordered in a 2-1 ruling that Google remove the trailer for the film Innocence of Muslims from YouTube.
The controversial trailer, which depicts the prophet Muhammad as a violent child molester, sparked riots across the globe and was initially mistakenly cited as the cause of the September 2012 riot in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American citizens.
But it was not the controversial nature of the trailer that prompted the court to order Google to remove it from YouTube. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued the order after one of the actors in the film, Cindy Lee Garcia, claimed that she had suffered "irreparable harm" for appearing in the project and that she had the right to independently copyright her performance. A lower court had ruled that Garcia could copyright her performance in what was described by Wired as an "unprecedented decision that turns decades of copyright law on its head."
Google filed an emergency motion following the court's ruling in an attempt to keep the film on YouTube. In the appeal, Google said, "Protected speech on a matter of broad public interest is undoubtedly being gagged." That appeal was denied and as of March, the full trailer remained unavailable on YouTube.
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]]>At the beginning of this year, transitional controls on the migration of Bulgarians and Romanians within the European Union were lifted. At the time, I argued that free marketeers should welcome Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), whose members are not fans of the E.U.'s free movement policy, claimed that with transitional controls lifted, the crime rate would increase and between 350,000 and 400,000 Romanians will come to the U.K.
In fact, in the three months since the remaining transition controls were lifted there was a 3,000-person decrease in the number of Bulgarians and Romanians living in the U.K. While there has been an 18.5 percent increase in the number of Bulgarians and Romanians living in the U.K. compared to this time last year, Alan Travis points out that there will be 60,000 fewer Romanian and Bulgarian workers in the U.K. after the closure of an agricultural workers scheme.
One likely reason that there has not been a massive influx is that Bulgarians and Romanians have had the freedom to move to the U.K. since 2007; it is only the labour market that they did not have access to until earlier this year.
Scott Blinder, the director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said in January 2013 that "We just don't know" how many Bulgarians and Romanians would come to the U.K. in the wake of the change. Interestingly, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said something similar in a speech in September 2013:
And from the 1st of January next year, the risks increase massively.
The seven year period is up and nearly 30 million of the good people of Bulgaria and Romania have open access to our country, our welfare system our jobs market.
How many will take advantage of that no one knows.
The Home Office don't have any idea at all. The previous estimate was 13,000 in total. Migration Watch thinks 50,000 a year. It could be many times that.
Never mind that recent immigrants to the U.K. are net contributors to the British public finances. It is revealing that Farage accepts that he can't predict migration patterns.
Markets are much better than politicians at determining what the price and supply of labour should be. Policy makers should accept that they don't have nearly enough knowledge to manage immigration on that level, get out of the way, and let markets do their thing.
Watch Reason's recent debate on whether the U.S. should open its borders below:
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]]>United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has accepted the resignation of the U.N. and Arab League's special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been unable to make any significant progress toward ending Syria's bloody civil war.
The news came on the same day French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius expressed regret over the fact that the Obama administration had not carried out strikes in the wake of the Assad regime using chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August. Fabius also said that there are "indications" that since the Assad regime agreed to give up its chemical weapons it has carried out 14 chemical attacks.
It shouldn't be surprising that Brahimi has been unsuccessful in working toward a conclusive peace agreement between warring parties in Syria. He had an impossible task given the diversity of the pro and anti-Assad forces and the diplomatic entanglements involved in trying to secure an agreement involving Western powers and a regime supported by Russia (which has a permanent seat and veto power in the U.N. Security Council) and Iran, which backs the pro-Assad Lebanon-based group Hezbollah.
Even if Brahimi had been able to secure some sort of agreement between the Assad regime and the represented opposition at the Geneva II conference meetings earlier this year it is unlikely that it would have led to an end to the bloodshed in Syria given that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the al-Nusra Front, both anti-Assad jihadist groups, rejected the negotiations.
How the conflict in Syria will end will almost certainly be decided by the fighting between pro and anti-Assad forces, and not an international agreement that the U.N. has a role in shaping. This was true before Brahimi assumed his special envoy post, and remains true now.
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]]>According to polling from Pew there has been a slight increase in support for the European Union ahead of next week's European Parliament elections following an unsurprising drop in support in the wake of the euro crisis.
The Pew article goes on to note that a median of 71 percent of respondents from France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the U.K. claimed that "my voice does not count in the EU."
That the voices of citizens of E.U. member states don't count is not just a widely held belief, it is inevitable given the absurd way the European Parliament functions.
You would be forgiven for believing that because the European Parliament has the word "Parliament" in it that its 765 members have the power to propose legislation. However, this is not the case. The European Parliament has the power to approve, reject, and amend legislation, but it cannot initiate it. However, the European Parliament's website notes that "the European Parliament has a right of legislative initiative that allows it to ask the Commission to submit a proposal."
The European Commission, which has "legislative initiative," has 28 members (one for each E.U. member state), none of whom of are elected by the people of the E.U.
When you consider that a decreasing number of people vote in European elections, that the people elected to the European Parliament represent a significant number of constituents who did not vote for them, and that members of the European Parliament have no power to introduce legislation it is easy to see why E.U. citizens don't feel like their voice counts in the E.U.
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]]>Over at his Telegraph blog Dan Hodges asks what we're going to do if Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist organization that recently kidnapped over 200 girls, doesn't succumb to the demands of those posting the #bringbackourgirls hashtag.
Boko Haram recently released footage of some of 136 of the kidnapped girls. In the footage the girls repeatedly recite the first verse of the Koran, and Boko Haram's leader says he might consider swapping some of the girls for imprisoned militants.
As Hodges notes, the heart-wrenching situation, and the reactions to it have caught the attention of First Lady Michelle Obama as well as British Prime Minister David Cameron. But, Hodges asks, "What are we going to do about it?"
Hodges says that he is ok with "some big, rough men, with very big guns to say to Boko Haram: 'We've come to take our girls back. And if you try to stop us, it's the last thing you'll ever do.'" However, Hodges goes on to note that this approach could be a problem: What are we supposed to do if Boko Haram carry out another mass kidnapping, or a similar horror is carried out in Syria or Ukraine?
More from Hodges:
Do we want to be the world's policeman, or do we not? If we don't, then fine. But let's take down the signs, and the hashtags, because all we're doing is communicating our own impotence.
It shouldn't be forgotten that the social media campaign related to the recent Boko Haram kidnapping is expressing outrage over what is a comparatively minor atrocity by the group's standards. Boko Haram has not only kidnapped girls, it is responsible for thousands of deaths. Indeed, only a few weeks after the kidnapping the group killed hundreds of people near Nigeria's border with Cameroon.
Thankfully, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said yesterday that the U.S. did not intend "at this point" to send ground troops to Nigeria to help in the search for the missing girls. However, U.S. military advisers are in Nigeria as part of an international search effort.
Remember, the awful kidnapping is not a threat to U.S. national security. As Reason's Nick Gillespie noted over at Time:
The goal of our foreign policy, and especially interventions involving soldiers, should always be tightly tied to protecting American lives, interests and property.
As horrific as Boko Haram's kidnapping of the school girls is, it in no way poses a threat to "American lives, interests and property."
Read Reason's Ed Krayewski on "Four Reasons US Intervention in Nigeria Is a Bad Idea" here.
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]]>Polling shows that most Americans agree with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) when it comes to foreign policy. Much of the American public, who have endured years of deadly American military adventures overseas, believe that the United States should be less involved in the rest of the world's affairs. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed that 47 percent of Americans believe that the United States should be "less active" in world affairs. In December, The Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations released a poll on Americans' attitudes towards foreign policy and found that Americans are opposed to intervention more than any time in the last half century.
These results should be good news for Paul, who is widely expected to run for president in 2016 and has made a name for himself as one of the GOP's most prominent non-interventionists since being sworn in back in 2011. On the intervention in Libya, the response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and the crises in Ukraine and Egypt, Paul has demonstrated that he is far less keen to get the United States involved in other countries' affairs than many of his Republican colleagues. Paul's positioning on foreign policy prompted Leon Hadar to write in The American Conservative that Paul should go on the offensive and hold public meetings across the U.S. focusing on foreign policy.
It's true polls suggest that if Paul were to hold the sort of meetings that Hadar mentions he would meet with many people who already agree with him. The problem for Paul is that while many Americans agree with Paul on foreign policy, many Americans do not view international affairs as the biggest problem facing the U.S. today.
In a Reason-Rupe poll released in December respondents were asked in their own words to answer the following: What would you say is the biggest problem facing the country today?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, very few of the respondents listed international affairs as the biggest problem. Sixteen percent of respondents said that jobs and wages were the biggest problem facing the United States, and 10 percent said that taxes, spending, and overreach were. Only 3 percent listed international affairs as the country's biggest problem.
Earlier this month Gallup polling asked respondents to describe America's most important problem. The results showed that only 4 percent of Americans think that "Foreign Aid/Focus Overseas" was America's most important problem. Only 1 percent felt the same way about "Wars/War (nonspecific)/fear of War."
Like other potential GOP 2016 contenders, Paul is anti-Obamacare, anti-excessive regulation, pro-life, and pro-Second Amendment. At the moment it looks like what would distinguish Paul from other contenders in a Republican primary are his positions on foreign policy (which very few Americans view as a priority) and his comparatively liberal stances on drug sentencing reform and the NSA's snooping.
However, there is a way that a non-interventionist foreign policy can be argued for in a way that will make it part of a discussion on Americans' primary concerns like spending and the economy, which 11 percent of respondents said was America's biggest problem: highlight the economic case for a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Paul has rightly pointed out that arming anti-Assad rebels or carrying out air strikes in Syria could lead to problematic outcomes, that our foreign aid policy towards Egypt is a mess, and that members of his own party should avoid Cold War attitudes amid the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. These are all valid points to make, but they don't directly address what polling suggests is among Americans' primary concerns.
Take a look at the 2013 federal budget. It's jaw dropping. Defense accounted for $626 billion of a $3.5 trillion budget, 3.8 percent of GDP. U.S. defense spending is shocking in isolation, but it is especially worrying when you compare it to the defense budgets of other nations. For example, in 2012 the U.S. accounted for 41 percent of global defense spending, which is especially astonishing when you consider that the U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world's population.
Reduction in defense spending is an area where many Republicans, supposedly the party of less government spending and limited government, are curiously reluctant to live up to their rhetoric. Even Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, who is often portrayed as a fan of reckless spending cuts, proposed a budget last month that would increase defense spending by $273 billion over 10 years—more than President Obama called for.
If he runs for president in 2016 Paul will have the opportunity to argue for a non-interventionist foreign policy (which many Americans are sympathetic to) in part by making arguments related to government spending (which many Americans consider the most important issue facing the United States). This is especially important conisdering that Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie thinks that it's a problem that we're not as involved in world affairs as we used to be and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), another potential GOP 2016 contender, said at this year's CPAC that the U.S. is the only nation "capable of rallying and bringing together the free people on this planet to stand up to the spread of totalitarianism."
Although 2016 presidential campaigns have yet to (officially) begin, Paul has already been facing lazy accusations of "isolationism," which will almost certainly become more prominent once Paul makes his widely expected White House bid official. By emphasizing the economics of U.S. foreign policy, Paul will not only be able to ask his interventionist presidential contenders to justify involvement in the affiars of other countries, he will also be able to press them on how they can justify vast defense spending.
The post Rand Paul Should Highlight the Economic Case For Non-Interventionism appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Yesterday London's Metropolitan Police began a one-year trial of cameras being worn by police. Five hundred of the Axon Body cameras, which record audio and video, will be attached to the uniforms of officers across 10 of London's 32 boroughs.
London's Metropolitan Police force are implementing the trial after calls for increased transparency in the wake of police shooting of Mark Duggan, which sparked riots across London and other parts of the U.K. in 2011, as well as the force's use of Stop and Search (sort of like a London equivalent of NYC's Stop and Frisk).
The footage from the cameras will be stored for 31 days. Police are required to state when the camera is recording.
According to Metropolitan Police's website, smaller-scale camera trials have resulted in improved evidence and increased transparency. Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said that people are more likely to plead guilty if they know that police have been wearing cameras:
Improved evidence and increased transparency have already been achieved thanks to officers wearing the cameras in previous smaller-scale MPS trials. The footage can also demonstrate the professionalism of our officers in the many difficult incidents they face.
Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said: "Body-worn video will not only help us fight crime and support victims but help the Met to be more accountable.
"Our experience of using cameras already shows that people are more likely to plead guilty when they know we have captured the incident. That speeds up justice, puts offenders behind bars more quickly and protects potential victims.
"Video captures events in a way that can't be represented on paper in the same detail and it has been shown the mere presence of this type of video can often defuse potentially violent situations without the need for force to be used.
"I believe it will also show our officers at their best, dealing with difficult and dangerous situations every day but it will also provide clearer evidence when its been alleged that we got things wrong. That has to be in both our own and the public's interest."
However, the Metropolitan Police also notes that the cameras will be permanently turned on:
The cameras will not be permanently switched on to ensure our interactions with the public are not unnecessarily impeded but members of the public will be informed as soon as practical that they are being recorded.
Earlier this year Reason TV's Paul Detrick sat down with Steve Ward, the CEO and founder of Vievu, a company that makes wearable cameras for cops.
The post London Cops Begin Body Cameras Trial appeared first on Reason.com.
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]]>Earlier today Jesse Walker noted the stupidity of the Daily Mail front page featuring a prominent headline reading, "Millions Are Eating Halal Food Without Knowing It." The Mail's article explains that some supermarket chains in the U.K. do not label meat that is halal. As Walker points out, the story doesn't have much at all to do with concerns about animal cruelty but has a lot to do with the fear "that that meat certified as halal carries some sort of Islamic cooties."
Thankfully, British Prime Minister David Cameron has decided not to get involved in the supposed controversy. A Cameron spokesman said that the prime minister believes that the issue of halal meat labelling is "an issue of consumer choice and consumer information," and that "it is a matter for retailers and restaurants to work with customers and consumer groups and representatives of faith organisations."
Good. Cameron may be a fan of unnecessary and paternalistic policies, but it's refreshing to see that he doesn't feel the need to get involved in this particular issue, which can be dealt with outside of government. The BBC notes that Cameron's spokesman added that the prime minister believes customers being demanding of retailers is "absolutely the right" approach.
The BBC goes on to mention that if those calling for halal meat to be labeled are concerned about animal cruelty, labelling will not be at all helpful:
Simply labelling food as halal is not the answer, said Robin Hargreaves, president of the British Veterinary Association, which campaigns for an end to non-stunned slaughter.
Mr Hargreaves told the BBC most halal meat had been stunned before slaughter, but added: "The problem is, if you just talk about labelling halal, it doesn't help you at all because you don't know which are stunned and which aren't."
The post David Cameron Won't Get Involved in Halal Furor appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the primary sponsor of the bill and author of the PATRIOT Act, urged other members of the Judiciary Committee to back the 35-pages of changes to the USA Freedom Act that were unveiled on Monday.
Reaction
Over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation Kurt Opsahl praised the Judiciary Committee advancing the USA Freedom Act, but mentions some concerns:
There are a number of surveillance issues that are not yet addressed by the current version of the USA FREEDOM Act. In particular, the bill does not address the collection authority under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The bill fails to fix the "backdoor loophole," in which the NSA interprets the law to allow searches of the data collected under Section 702 for the purpose of finding communications of a United States person. Section 702 authorities need to be sharply limited to ensure that collection is only possible for communications to and from a designated target, not merely those who mention a target in a communication. The scope of Section 702 should be limited by requiring a description of who, what, and where the NSA is targeting.
In addition, the FISA court reform provisions in the current version of the USA FREEDOM Act provide a starting point, but more is needed to ensure a fair adjudication of surveillance authorization. The legislation has a provision that allows the FISA court to assign amici, meaning non-parties can brief issues before the court. But the court has already determined that it has the authority to do this. In fact, EFF filed a brief with the court just this year on an evidence preservation issue. The bill must go further and introduce a special privacy advocate who can review, challenge, and appeal orders in the highly secretive FISA Court orders.
Furthermore, the transparency amendment that was included in the bill did not go far enough, adopting a modified version of the Department of Justice's existing permission to report in broad bands. This legislation should provide stronger transparency provisions to ensure that users know, with as much granularity as possible, how and when the government issues orders for user data and how many accounts are affected. This is a vital check against government surveillance abuses.
And finally, we urge Congress to acknowledge that non U.S. persons have fundamental rights to privacy, and NSA surveillance should be the minimum necessary to achieve a desired result and proportionate to the actual threat.
At Techdirt, Mike Masnick wrote that a "generally good amendment" was not "as strong as it should be" and that the latest version of the USA Freedom Act removed an attempt to close a loophole that allowed warrantless backdoor searches on Americans:
As expected, the USA Freedom Act has been passed out of the House Judiciary Committeetoday, moving the bill forward in a process that will likely bring some version of it to the House floor in the next few weeks. The markup include a variety of amendments, some dopier than others. One generally good amendment was added, bringing back the transparency provisions for tech companies to reveal some information about government requests they receive. Unfortunately, this wasn't as strong as it should be, keeping very wide "bands" under which the tech companies have to obfuscate how many requests they actually receive and how many users are impacted. There was some push to tighten the bands, and that is likely to continue, but it's unlikely to change. Late yesterday, the manager's amendment also added an important definition for "specific selection term"—which if left totally undefined would easily lead to abuse. The definition is… not great. It can still be abused, but not as readily as when there was no definition.
The other major problem is that this new version strips out the attempt to close the loophole that allowed backdoor searches on Americans without a warrant. This is a big deal as the original version would have closed that loophole. The NSA apparently lobbied hard to remove it, and when Rep. Zoe Lofgren tried to amend this new version to bring back the ban, it was rejected quickly. In other words, the NSA (who has pretended this is no big deal) likely uses this "loophole" quite a bit and doesn't want to lose it.
The White House praised the advancement of the legislation:
President Obama called for the legislation in a speech earlier the year, given amid mounting concern over the surveillance programs revealed in leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
"In March the President laid out his proposal to reform Section 215, and called upon Congress to act quickly to pass implementing legislation. We applaud the House Judiciary Committee for approaching this issue on a bipartisan basis," National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said in a statement. "The Judiciary Committee passed bill is a very good first step in that important effort, and we look forward to House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence action on it tomorrow."
Read more from Reason on the NSA here.
The post White House Praises NSA Reform Bill, Privacy Activists Still Have Concerns appeared first on Reason.com.
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]]>Take a look at the group in the image below and guess which branch of the military they below to.
Marines? Nope. Army Rangers? Nope. These are Michigan cops who graduated from Emergency Support Team 11th Basic School.
The picture was mentioned yesterday by Washington Post blogger Radley Balko, who published a post on the image after it appeared in a tweet from the Michigan Department of State Police and was retweeted by Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.
The original tweet has been deleted from the @MichStatePolice Twitter account.
From Balko:
There are good reasons for state police agencies to have SWAT teams. In fact, it's far preferable for a well-funded, well-trained, full-time SWAT team from a state police outpost to respond to emergency situations than for every small town in America to have a SWAT team of its own. (Typically, most places have both.) But until Canadian troops start marching on the Upper Peninsula, it's hard to envision a scenario under which state troopers would need to don camouflage uniforms, face paint and ghillie hats.
Even if one could fathom such a scenario or two, it's also regrettable that this is the face the Michigan State Police want to project to the public. These guys aren't the military. Their mission is not to annihilate a foreign enemy on a battlefield. They're domestic police officers who serve the residents of Michigan. Their mission is to protect the constitutional rights of those residents. It's important that they, our elected officials and we all know and appreciate the difference.
More from Reason on the militarization of police here.
The post Another Frightening Example of Cops Dressing Like Soldiers appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Last year EVE Online, the massive multi-player online game set in the fictional universe of New Eden, welcomed its 500,000th subscriber. (For comparison, Iceland, the country where EVE Online developer CCP Games is based, has a population of about 320,000.) A video game with a nation-sized economy throws off an awful lot of data, but can economists draw real-world lessons from the buying, selling, stealing, and destroying of virtual space gear?
As in-house economist at CCP, Eyjólfur Guðmundsson oversees all of New Eden's trucking and bartering. As Guðmundsson told the blog Massively in 2009, New Eden's economy behaves very well according to economic theories seen in the non-virtual world. "I have not found any example of an economic theory that does not apply to a virtual economy like EVE," he said. "And in all honesty, it looks to me that it even applies better than to the real world because there is less distortion in the EVE universe than there is in real life." Still, it would be unwise to think that New Eden's economy provides easy lessons for real-world policy makers.
For starters, EVE Online players are not demographically representative of a nation. The culture of New Eden appeals to a fairly specific sort of player, observes Dmitri Williams of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. "Where its players like the lawlessness," Williams says, "it's also famously hard to learn and is not for the faint of heart. Its players are anything but typical and representative of other games. Your Candy Crush-playing masses are not going to be happy (or welcome) in EVE."
Those brave enough to venture into New Eden can expect to reap some of the rewards of a game designed by people who understand the attraction of economic freedom and the value of community. EVE Online is a "sandbox" game where players create content, making it different from many other video games. Observing the emergence of trade there offers interesting insights on how market institutions might take shape against a relatively anarchic legal background.
But the history of New Eden is full of stories of loss as well as gain. For some players it is the more nefarious activities allowed in EVE Online, such as piracy and scamming, that are the most interesting. Games here are less a mirror of real life than a projection of how comparatively anonymous people will behave given the freedom to act out on fantasies that have little if any real-world impact.
"If you play games online you run into a lot of people—maybe a 12-year-old who doesn't get out much and doesn't have much outlet for his aggression—that will just be horribly awful to anyone he perceives as different or inferior, or even people he's insecure about comparing himself to," says Kyle Orland, who covers games for Ars Technica. "There's no lack of cruelty in online games. Just like in the real world, there's people who are going to be jerks like that, only it's exacerbated because people in these games are anonymous. There's really no repercussion for social malefaction."
Still, for many players, in-game economic behavior all too closely mirrors real life. In fact, one of the most notable battles in EVE's history began because of a forgotten bill.
When one alliance forgot to pay rent on a space station in the B-R5RB system earlier this year, the region exploded in a massive battle that involved more than 7,000 characters. During the 21-hour melee, now sometimes known as the Bloodbath of B-R5RB, dozens of ships, each worth thousands of real-world U.S. dollars, were destroyed.
Not every lesson learned in EVE Online can be applied to the bricks-and-mortar world. But the Bloodbath of B-R5RB provides at least one that can: Pay your rent on time.
The post A Video Game Economy the Size of a Small Country appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Today the London School of Economics' Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy published a report titled "Ending the Drug Wars."
Five Nobel Prize-winning economists, former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz, and British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg are among the 21 signatories of the report's foreword.
The foreword reads as follows:
The pursuit of a militarised and enforcement-led global 'war on drugs' strategy has produced enormous negative outcomes and collateral damage. These include mass incarceration in the US, highly repressive policies in Asia, vast corruption and political destabilisation in Afghanistan and West Africa, immense violence in Latin America, an HIV epidemic in Russia, an acute global shortage of pain medication and the propagation of systematic human rights abuses around the world.
The strategy has failed based on its own terms. Evidence shows that drug prices have been declining while purity has been increasing. This has been despite drastic increases in global enforcement spending. Continuing to spend vast resources on punitive enforcement-led policies, generally at the expense of proven public health policies, can no longer be justified.
The United Nations has for too long tried to enforce a repressive, 'one-size-fits-all' approach. It must now take the lead in advocating a new cooperative international framework based on the fundamental acceptance that different policies will work for different countries and regions.
This new global drug strategy should be based on principles of public health, harm reduction, illicit market impact reduction, expanded access to essential medicines, minimisation of problematic consumption, rigorously monitored regulatory experimentation and an unwavering commitment to principles of human rights.
In February I noted that Clegg, who said "I don't think we're winning the drugs war," does not back drug legalization and has expressed frustration with the Conservatives, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, who he says are not willing to examine alternative drug policies.
Indeed, Cameron thinks that the U.K.'s drug policy is working, despite the fact that a Home Affairs Committee report stated that Portugal's decriminalization policy "is a model that merits significantly closer consideration" and recommended that "the responsible minister from the Department of Health and the responsible minister from the Home Office together visit Portugal in order to examine its system of depenalisation and emphasis on treatment."
Cameron's stance on drugs does not correspond well with the attitudes of much of the British public and supporters of his party. Last year, a poll commissioned by the Transform Drug Policy Foundation showed that 53 percent of the British public and 50 percent of Conservative supporters are in favor of "legal regulation or decriminalisation of cannabis" and that 67 percent of the British public and 70 percent of Conservative supporters "want a comprehensive review of all policy options."
The post British Deputy PM Backs 'Ending the Drug Wars' Report appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker died over the weekend. Becker wrote on a range of topics, but one of my first introductions to his work was his 2010 Institute of Economic Affairs Hayek Memorial Lecture on immigration. The lecture, which can be viewed here, was also written up as a monograph, which can be read here. In the lecture Becker argued that "governments should sell the right to immigrate" and that anyone other than the very sick, criminals, or potential terrorists who pays the migration fee should be let in.
In his introduction to the monograph Philip Booth, the IEA's editorial and program director, writes that, "Gary S. Becker is not a libertarian when it comes to migration." Indeed, Becker preempts objections from libertarians who favor comparatively very liberal immigration policies such as those seen in the U.S. in the nineteenth century:
Some of my libertarian friends – with whom I have a lot of sympathy in most areas of policy – have said to me that we should just go back to US policy in the nineteenth century and allow unlimited immigration. Look at all the great value we have obtained from immigrants, they argue. I am second to no one in believing that immigrants have been a huge source of value for most countries, and certainly for the USA. My wife is an immigrant, my parents were immigrants and there's hardly an American, if you go back only a few generations, where you do not find immigrant ancestors. But the world is very different now from the way it was at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.
Becker goes on:
…the welfare state makes it very unattractive to go back to the immigration policies that the USA had in the late nineteenth century.
Becker's concern about the effect increased immigration would have on the welfare state is widespread. However, as the Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh and economist Zachary Gochenour argued in a Cato Institute paper, this concern is misplaced:
…historically, immigrants and their descendants have not increased the size of individual welfare benefits or welfare budgets and are unlikely to do so going forward. The amount of welfare benefits is unaffected by the foreign origin or diversity of the population.
Since 1970, no pattern can be seen between the size of benefits a family of three gets under welfare programs like Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF) and the level of immigration or ethnic and racial diversity.
And:
There is no relationship between the relative size of the immigrant population, diversity and the amount of economic freedom in the United States. The percent of the national population that is immigrant, Hispanic, Asian or any combination is also not associated with more or fewer burdensome government regulations and higher or lower tax rates.
Although Becker's reasons for not supporting an open immigration policy may be based on a misplaced concern regarding the welfare state, his proposals would be a vast improvement on America's current disastrous immigration policy.
Becker's proposals would raise revenue for the U.S. and could lead to opponents of immigration becoming more open to immigration:
Let us suppose that a price of $50,000 would attract one million immigrants. That price would yield $50 billion a year in revenue. since the USA has a big government deficit, $50 billion annually will not eliminate this deficit but it is a significant sum. At a 5 per cent interest rate it has a present value of roughly $1 trillion. With this revenue the opponents of immigration might decide that maybe immigration is not such a bad idea.
Becker quite rightly did not want his policy to exclude poor immigrants who would not be able to pay the $50,000 fee, and argued that something similar to a student loan system could be implemented in order to allow poor people to migrate to the U.S.
Read more from Reason on immigration here.
The post Gary Becker's Unlibertarian Immigration Policy Would Be an Improvement on the Status Quo appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>David Barron, who has been nominated to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals who used to work at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, reportedly drafted at least one secret memo approving of Anwar al-Awlaki's killing. Paul says that he will lift his objection to Barron's nomination if the Justice Department releases his memos related to the killing Anwar al-Awlaki.
DOJ's justification for Awlaki drone strike
In May 2013 Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) which laid out three circumstances that would justify the killing of an American citizen who is a senior operational position of Al Qaeda or an affiliated group in a foreign country:
(1) the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; (2) capture is not feasible; and (3) the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.
According to Holder, Awlaki met each of these three conditions.
Read the letter in full below:
Holder's letter to Leahy came a few months after Paul conducted a 13-hour filibuster in opposition to John Brennan's nomination to head of the CIA. During the filibuster Paul pointed out that the Obama administration had not ruled out the possibility of killing an American not engaged in combat with a drone strike on American soil. The filibuster came shortly after Holder had written a letter to Paul, who had asked whether the president had to authority to order a drone strike against an American on American soil without trial, which said:
…it is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.
Holder wrote a letter to Paul after the filibuster that said the following:
It has come to my attention that you have now asked an additional question: "Does the President have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?" The answer to that question is no.
Reason on Paul's filibuster
Nick Gillespie on progressive democrats explaining why they didn't #StandWithRand against drone strikes.
Brian Doherty on Rand Paul's Filibuster: its historical context, and its encouraging friends.
Peter Suderman on John Yoo, author of the Bush torture memos, criticizing Paul for taking an extreme position on drones.
I wrote about how Paul's filibuster highlights another reason why the U.S. needs an equivalent of the British Parliament's Prime Minister's Questions.
Matt Welch wrote that Paul's filibuster may have changed American politics.
Brian Doherty asked if Paul changed the GOP for the better in 36 hours.
The post Rand Paul Threatens to Put Hold on Obama Nominee Over Drone Memo appeared first on Reason.com.
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]]>Over at The American Conservative, Leon Hadar argues that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who he thinks "seems to be playing defense on issues like Ukraine," should go on the offensive on foreign policy, given that recent polls show most Americans agreeing with Paul when it comes to non-interventionism.
Hadar thinks that Paul's positioning on foreign policy suggests that he is cautious about annoying the GOP's interventionists. Paul, he argues, should hold a series of public events on foreign policy in places such as Iowa and New Hampshire:
Here is an idea: Paul could convene a series of public forums around the country to discuss the United States's role in the world, in which he could have a dialogue with "regular" Americans in places like Iowa and New Hampshire on how the U.S. should respond to the crises in Ukraine or Syria. Such forums could bring together Republican and Democratic speakers as well as political scientists and historians from local colleges, and could conclude with the attendees voting for or against proposed resolutions.
Hadar is right to highlight that most Americans agree with Paul on foreign policy. Reason's Ed Krayewski blogged here recently about a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that Hadar mentions. The survey shows that far more Americans today (47 percent) believe the U.S. should be less active in world affairs than did in 2001 (14 percent). A Pew poll from last year, also mentioned by Hadar, showed 53 percent of Americans believing that the U.S. "should mind its own business internationally."
These polls are good news for Paul, who since entering the Senate in 2011 has made a name for himself as one of the most outspoken non-interventionist lawmakers in the GOP. I agree that Paul should highlight his non-interventionist credentials in Iowa and New Hampshire ahead of his widely anticipated 2016 presidential campaign. It would be refreshing to have a major presidential candidate speak out in favor of a foreign policy much of the American public, but not many of their representatives, support.
That said, his arguments might be heard by an indifferent public. Americans may be fed up with interventionist foreign policies, but it remains to be seen if foreign policy will be a priority in the 2016 campaign.
The post Should Rand Paul Go on the Offensive? appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Today the White House issued a Presidential Proclamation announcing "Loyalty Day."
From the proclamation:
On Loyalty Day, we renew our conviction to the principles of liberty, equality, and justice under the law. We accept our responsibilities to one another. And we remember that our differences pale in comparison to the strength of the bonds that hold together the most diverse Nation on earth.
In order to recognize the American spirit of loyalty and the sacrifices that so many have made for our Nation, the Congress, by Public Law 85-529 as amended, has designated May 1 of each year as "Loyalty Day." On this day, let us reaffirm our allegiance to the United States of America and pay tribute to the heritage of American freedom.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 2014, as Loyalty Day. This Loyalty Day, I call upon all the people of the United States to join in support of this national observance, whether by displaying the flag of the United States or pledging allegiance to the Republic for which it stands.
Well, that's not creepy at all, is it?
This is not something President Barack Obama has come up with. Loyalty Day was first recognized in 1921 as a way to counter May Day, the day when lefties celebrate International Workers' Day (which Cato's Ilya Somin has sensibly suggested be renamed "Victims of Communism Day"). However, it was first officially recognized under the Eisenhower administration in 1958. Interestingly, it doesn't look like President Nixon ever signed a Loyalty Day proclamation.
The sort of suggested displays of patriotism mentioned in today's proclamation weren't justified during the Red Scares and they certainly are not justified now. I am still trying to get over the fact that it is considered normal in the U.S. for school children to pledge allegiance to the flag every day and for every sporting event to be preceded by the singing of the national anthem. Can't we assume everyone is a patriot until there is evidence to the contrary?
The post Happy Loyalty Day! appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Background on the Libya Intervention
In March 2011 NATO, Sweden, Jordan, Qatar, and UAE began a military intervention, thereby implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, aimed against Gaddafi's forces who were battling rebels intent on overthrowing the regime.
Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in August 2011 and killed in October 2011. Some of those fighting to remove Gaddafi were Islamists. In September 2011 Reuters reported that the U.S. was increasing efforts to identify Islamists who could threaten a post-Gaddafi Libya:
During the half-year campaign by rebels to drive Muammar Gaddafi from power, U.S. and NATO officials downplayed fears that al Qaeda or other militants would infiltrate anti-Gaddafi forces or take advantage of disorder to establish footholds in Libya.
Since then, however, the assessment of top experts inside the U.S. government has sharpened.
"It's of concern that terrorists are going to take advantage of instability" in post-Gaddafi Libya, said a U.S. official who monitors the issue closely.
"There is a potential problem," said another U.S. official, who said both the U.S. government and Libya's National Transitional Council were watching closely. Experts around the U.S. intelligence community "are paying attention to this," a third U.S. official said.
The September 2012 Consulate Attack
On Tuesday September 11, 2012, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked by a heavily armed group. U.S. Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack.
On Sunday September 16 then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that the attack on the consulate was not premeditated but rather a spontaneous assault, inspired by protests in Cairo that were prompted by the Innocence of Muslims YouTube video:
But our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous—not a premeditated—response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated.
We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to—or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo.
Indeed, in a September 25 speech to the U.N. General Assembly even President Obama said the following:
That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.
A day after Obama's speech, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Al Qaeda-linked terrorists may have been involved in the attack:
Now with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to maneuver, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions. And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions under way in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi.
The Latest
This week, it was reported that some Republicans believe a September 14, 2012 email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to Obama and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, provides evidence that the White House wanted the consulate attack to be blamed on a video protest. The email—which was sent to numerous White House staffers, including then-Communications Director David Plouffe—bore the subject line "RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET" and lists the follow as one of the "Goals":
To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.
Read the email below:
It turns out that six hours before Ben Rhodes' email was sent, the CIA sent talking points to the House Intelligence committee and others. A version of these talking points, which were released by the White House, include the following:
We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. consulate and subsequently its annex.
However, the same email goes on to say,
That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack.
Read those emails below:
Over at Slate, Dave Wiegel points out that Rhodes was repeating the CIA talking point:
The CIA was furthering the talking point that "the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo," etc. A later revision added that the agency had warned about social media organizing around a protest. What was the fresh chatter about? The "Innocence of Muslims" video.
So Rhodes repeated the talking point.
In a different Slate article Weigel makes the same point more bluntly:
…it's just lazy journalism or lazy politicking to blame Rhodes for a talking point that was fed from the CIA.
Although the recently released email is not the smoking gun some conservatives seem to think it is there is still plenty to be upset about when it comes to the U.S. response to the September 2012 consulate attack.
Today, while testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell, who was at AFRICOM headquarters in Germany while the consulate attack was going on, said that not only was the attack not a demonstration against a YouTube video, but that "we should have tried" conducting a military response to the attack.
Lovell also said that he believed Al Qaeda or their affiliates were involved in the attack "very, very soon" after the attack began. Watch a video of those comments below:
The post Retired General Says 'We Should Have Tried' to Send Help to Benghazi During Attack appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Gawker has stills of the footage.
Not the First Time
Almost a year ago it was reported that Ford had been captured on camera smoking crack. In November Ford admitted to smoking crack "probably in one of my drunken stupors," despite having previously denied doing so, but refused to resign.
Ford's crack scandal made headlines across the world, as did his behavior amid all of the extra attention he was getting, including his "I never said I wanted to eat her pussy" comment and a drunken rant in which he put on an apparently pretty good Jamaican accent. Ford also starred in his own TV show, Ford Nation, which was canceled after one show.
Reason on Rob Ford
Jacob Sullum wrote on the day that Ford admitted to smoking crack that the substance is not as addictive as it is commonly assumed to be and that alcohol, not cocaine, is the drug that is adversely affecting Ford's job performance.
A Reason-Rupe poll from January shows that 52 percent of Americans would continue to back a politician they supported if it emerged that he or she used marijuana in their personal time, but only 13 percent felt the same way about supporting a politician who used cocaine.
Nick Gillespie mentioned Ford in a Time magazine column in which he asked why snorting coke should be treated differently than drinking a beer.
More from Reason on Rob Ford and cocaine here and here.
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]]>Over at the Institute of Economic Affairs Senior Research Fellow Kristian Niemietz wrote an interesting blog post on the economics of political correctness that is well worth checking out.
Niemietz explains how those obsessed with political correctness use moral superiority as a "positional good," which is a "good that people acquire to signalise where they stand in a social hierarchy." In the post Niemietz uses expensive wine and a degree from a reputable university as examples of positional goods: the motivation for purchasing them may not be the taste of the wine or what is learned in pursuit of a degree but rather the fact that having expensive wine and a degree from a good university signal your social standing:
I may buy an exquisite variety of wine because I genuinely enjoy the taste, or acquire a degree from a reputable university because I genuinely appreciate what that university has to offer. But my motivation could also be to set myself apart from others, to present myself as more sophisticated or smarter.
Niemietz goes on:
…if you see me moaning that the winemakers/the university have 'sold out', if you see me whinging about those ignoramuses who do not deserve the product because they (unlike me, of course) do not really appreciate it, you can safely conclude that for me, this good is a positional good. (Or was, before everybody else discovered it.) We can all become more sophisticated wine consumers, and we can all become better educated. But we can never all be above the national average, or in the top group, in terms of wine-connoisseurship, education, income, or anything else. We can all improve in absolute terms, but we cannot all simultaneously improve in relative terms.
What has this got to do with political correctness? Niemietz argues that those who enjoy acting like members of a political correctness enforcement brigade behave like people who couldn't tell the difference between vinegar and a glass of $400 wine but buy the $400 bottle in order to signal how sophisticated they are. And, like the owners of $400 bottles of wine who panic when others people start buying the same bottle, those obsessed with political correctness panic when more people start agreeing with them:
PC-brigadiers behave exactly like owners of a positional good who panic because wider availability of that good threatens their social status. The PC brigade has been highly successful in creating new social taboos, but their success is their very problem. Moral superiority is a prime example of a positional good, because we cannot all be morally superior to each other. Once you have successfully exorcised a word or an opinion, how do you differentiate yourself from others now? You need new things to be outraged about, new ways of asserting your imagined moral superiority.
You can do that by insisting that the no real progress has been made, that your issue is as real as ever, and just manifests itself in more subtle ways. Many people may imitate your rhetoric, but they do not really mean it, they are faking it, they are poseurs (here's a nice example). You can also hugely inflate the definition of an existing offense (plenty of nice examples here.) Or you can move on to discover new things to label 'offensive', new victim groups, new patterns of dominance and oppression.
So, next time you see people declaring their outrage at whatever the next political correctness fad is, consider if they really are upset, or whether they are feigning outrage to signal their social standing.
Disclaimer: I used to work at the IEA.
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]]>Last year, Bruce McLachlan, the principal of Swanson Primary School in New Zealand granted students at his school more freedom by not enforcing rules for the playground. With enforcement suspended, students are free to skateboard, mudslide, climb trees, and rummage among tires and old wood at the school during recess.
The move was part of an experiment on four schools run by researchers from Auckland University of Technology and Otago University. The unexpected result of the reduced rules: Bullying decreased so much that the timeout area at Swanson Primary School was no longer needed. The results of the experiment were so successful that the school continued to not enforce playground rules after it was over.
Surveying the outcome, McLachlan suggests that bullying occurs when students are not engaged or motivated. Rather than turn on each other in the absence of rules, the children took advantage of their newfound freedom to engage in creative and cooperative play.
The post Playground Freedom appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Jehane Noujaim's Oscar-nominated documentary The Square follows a group of activists from the 2011 Tahrir Square protests against Hosni Mubarak's regime all the way to the overthrow of President Mohammad Morsi in 2013. The Square highlights the violence, frustration, and political tensions that defined the period between the toppling of the two leaders.
Aside from the tragic images of police brutality, carried out in part with American equipment, The Square charts the dark story behind the story: how the ideologically diverse protesters who came together to oppose Mubarak's regime fractured as the Muslim Brotherhood seized opportunities after Mubarak stepped down. Revolutions can damage, if not destroy, their own fathers.
The Square can be viewed as merely a catalog of the awful unrest and misery that can follow a revolution. But the film also portrays the boldness, courage, and determination of young activists. Those qualities were in some ways naive and misplaced, but they were nonetheless admirable and awe-inspiring.
The post Revolution in Tahrir Square appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>The second season of Netflix's House of Cards follows Vice President Francis Underwood as he continues his political ascent, powered by the same sociopathic drive featured in season one. The season also includes stories about his wife, the president he seeks to topple, and the journalist who hopes to reveal Underwood's darkest secret. There's a lot that will be familiar to devotees of political drama: thinly veiled allusions to real-world crises, the sausage-making legislative process, and the paranoia haunting high office.
House of Cards works as juicy drama, but it is hard to imagine any actual politician being competent enough to execute as many schemes as the devilish Underwood without exposure or widespread public suspicion. Suspension of disbelief is required, but well worth it.
The post The Unrealism of House of Cards appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>In January, the British House of Lords backed an amendment to the Children and Families Bill that would empower ministers to make it illegal in England to smoke in a car with a child inside. In February, the House of Commons approved the amendment, clearing the way for the ban to be implemented.
The amendment is only the latest example of British legislators' nannying tendencies when it comes to tobacco. In 2007, bans on smoking in enclosed public spaces and work environments were implemented in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The British government is also considering following Australia's lead and requiring plain packaging for cigarettes. Proponents of the idea say it's for the safety of underage passengers.
The amendment was backed by the British Labour Party, which had promised to make the provision part of its manifesto if the measure did not pass. Conservative Party members were divided on the measure, with Prime Minister David Cameron backing the provision, and Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg arguing that the rule would "subcontract responsible parenting to the state."
The post Babies vs. Cigarettes appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>
The Daily Mail is reporting that the teenager in England who is suspected of recently stabbing a teacher to death in front of students played "ultra-violent video games," "experimented with drugs," and threatened to commit suicide after he complained about bullying. The Mail also mentions that the 15-year-old boy's peers regarded him as a loner who mostly did well in school but "seemed increasingly troubled in recent months." The Grand Theft Auto series and Dark Souls are all mentioned as games played by the suspect in the Mail's reporting.
Most readers will remember that after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in December 2012 it was reported that Adam Lanza enjoyed violent video games such as those in the Call of Duty series. In March 2013 The New York Times reported that according to one witness Lanza was a "shut-in and an avid gamer who plays 'Call of Duty,' amongst other games." According to The Daily Mail, Lanza also played Gears of War.
However, while it might be the case that many of those who commit violent crimes also played violent video games it is not clear that there is a causal relationship between playing violent video games and violent crime.
In the March 2014 issue of Reason Jacob Sullum points out that Lanza played Dance Dance Revolution every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in the months before the Sandy Hook massacre. No one is suggesting that Lanza's obsession with dancing as being causally related to his murder of 27 people.
Reason's Jesse Walker notes in the June 2014 issue of Reason that in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre there was support for action to be taken against video games across the political spectrum, with Donald Trump tweeting "Video game violence & glorification must be stopped—it is creating monsters!" and Vice President Joe Biden proposing a tax on video games.
It was not only Lanza's penchant for violent video games that some thought could in some way be linked to his violence; others pointed out that he had Asperger syndrome although, as Sullum points out, The New York Times noted that "there is no evidence that people with Asperger's are more likely than others to commit violent crimes."
Last year, Kotaku published an article on what 25 years of research on violence and video games has come up with. Kotaku notes that, "While there are no documented scientific links between video games and criminal violence, the question of whether violent video games lead to aggression has been hotly debated."
The article goes on to point out that "there have been two major meta-analyses" done on data relating to video games and violence and that the two groups that did studies on the data came to different conclusions.
Scientists such as Brad Bushman and Craig Anderson believe that there is "a definitive causal link between games and aggressive behavior." The Kotaku article notes that there is a distinction between aggression and criminal violence:
That distinction between criminal violence and aggression is critical. Science has yet to show any links between video games and violence, but violent games may have a more subtle effect on children: for example, they could make a child more inclined to bully or spread rumors about his peers.
However, researchers Chris Ferguson and Cheryl Olsen, who examined the same data as Bushman and Anderson, believe that there is no conclusive evidence between violence and video games. Ferguson told Kotaku:
I think anybody who tells you that there's any kind of consistency to the aggression research is lying to you, quite frankly… There's no consistency in the aggression literature, and my impression is that at this point it is not strong enough to draw any kind of causal, or even really correlational links between video game violence and aggression, even, no matter how weakly we may define aggression.
For more from Reason on video games click here, and be sure to check out Reason's June 2014 video game-themed issue.
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]]>Today almost 700 people, including the leader of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, were sentenced to death. The sentences were imposed for their alleged involvement in rioting that took place in the Egyptian city of Minya last August, resulting in the death of one policeman.
The judge who handed down today's judgement also finalized the death sentences of 37 of the 529 men sentenced to death last month for participating in the same rioting. Those who did not have their sentences finalized had their sentences commuted to life in prison.
Former President Mohamed Morsi, who was ousted by the military-backed protests last July, is backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and is himself facing numerous charges such as espionage, murder, and attempted murder.
The news of the latest mass death sentence verdict comes ahead of presidential elections next month, which Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to win. Gen. Sisi backed protests against Morsi's rule.
CBS news notes how extraordinary the recent death sentences are; even after President Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was assassinated only five people were sentenced to death and executed.
The news of the latest sentences comes on the same day that a court banned the secular April 6 Youth Movement, a decision the BBC says was made based on "a complaint that accused the group of 'tarnishing the image' of Egypt and colluding with foreign parties."
It was reported last week that despite all of the tensions and unrest in Egypt the U.S. is still planning on sending the current military-backed government in Egypt some military and counterterrorism aid. Apache helicopters, meant for counterterrorism operations in the Sinai peninsula, are among the pieces of military equipment to be released to the Egyptians.
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]]>The sanctions include visa bans and asset freezes for seven government officials close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to the White House statement on the sanctions, 13 of the targeted companies will be subject to certain restrictions:
…the Department of Commerce has imposed additional restrictions on 13 of those companies by imposing a license requirement with a presumption of denial for the export, re-export or other foreign transfer of U.S.-origin items to the companies. Further, today the Departments of Commerce and State have announced a tightened policy to deny export license applications for any high-technology items that could contribute to Russia's military capabilities.
Reuters is reporting that the European Union is expected to also impose more penalties on Russia.
Over the weekend leaders of the G7 agreed to intensify sanctions on Russia, and British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that damage to the British economy caused by sanctions on Russia would be a "price worth paying."
Background on Ukraine Crisis Sanctions
The sanctions announced today are only the latest attempt by the Obama administration to punish Russia for its recent behavior related to the crisis in Ukraine. Last month, in the wake of the controversial Crimea annexation referendum, President Obama signed an executive order expanding already existing sanctions, including asset freezes and travel bans, to 11 Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Soon after the Obama administration targeted the 11 Ukrainian and Russian officials, Obama announced more sanctions, which targeted some wealthy Russians, a Russian bank, and more officials.
The E.U. imposed similar sanctions on selected Russian and Ukrainian officials. Reason 24/7 wrote about the E.U. and U.S. sanctions that were imposed after the Crimea referendum, read that post here.
Reason on Sanctions
Zenon Evans on how sanctions against Russia could have affected a Miley Cyrus concert in Finland. It was later reported that Cyrus would be able to perform at Hartwall Arena, a venue in Helsinki owned by a Russian targeted by sanctions.
Steve Chapman on why sanctions against Russia are futile.
More from Reason on Ukraine here.
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]]>The Euroskeptics of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) had a couple of hypocritical embarrassing moments in the last week.
At the launch of UKIP's European election campaign earlier this week Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, interviewed UKIP's leader Nigel Farage, who has warned about Europeans taking British jobs. Farage is married to a German who is also his secretary. When asked by Robinson if his wife had taken a British job, Farage said "no" and went on to say, "I don't know anybody that would work those kind of hours."
Read Robinson's account of the encounter with Farage here and watch a video of the conversation below.
UKIP's European election campaign includes posters, some of which are below:
The posters convey much of the sentiment you expect from Euroskeptics, but they also contain another example of UKIP hypocrisy.
The actor who appears in the poster warning of "unlimited cheap labour" is Irish.
That UKIP would feature a non-British actor in a campaign poster warning that "British workers are hit hard by unlimited cheap labour" has unsurprisingly being called hypocritical by the vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, however some have pointed out that the Irish have been free to move to the U.K. since before the U.K. joined the European Union.
More from Reason on UKIP here.
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]]>More from The Washington Post:
In public, the board overseeing Cover Oregon is scheduled to vote Friday whether to join the federal insurance marketplace that already sells health plans in most of the country under the Affordable Care Act. Behind the scenes, the officials say, federal and Oregon officials already have privately agreed that closing down the system is the best path to rescue the state marketplace, the country's only one to fail so spectacularly that no residents have been able to sign up for coverage online since it opened early last fall.
The collapse of Oregon's insurance marketplace comes as federal health officials are also focusing intensely on faltering exchanges in two other states, including Maryland.
The news comes a day after it was reported that the chief operating officer for Cover Oregon submitted her resignation.
From The Oregonian:
Triz delaRosa, the chief operating officer for the Cover Oregon health insurance exchange, has submitted her resignation, one month after Gov. John Kitzhaber called for her removal.
DelaRosa, who'd worked for the exchange since June 2011, is just the latest political casualty of a fiasco that has already seen major turnover among managers who worked on the exchange, which continues to be the least functional in the country.
On March 20, at a press conference, Kitzhaber announced that he had accepted the resignation of Bruce Goldberg, the acting Cover Oregon director who, in his prior job as Oregon Health Authority director, had overseen the construction of the exchange. Kitzhaber also announced that he had asked the Cover Oregon board to remove Aaron Karjala, the exchange's top information-technology manager, and delaRosa.
Background on the Oregon exchange
Oregon's health insurance exchange failed to launch in October as planned and no Oregon residents have been able to sign up for health insurance through the exchange site. As Reason's Peter Suderman explained in January, the exchange received $48 million thanks to one of the federal government's "early innovator grants" as well as $11.8 million in IT support.
Suderman went on to explain that the attempts to build the Maryland and Oregon exchanges encountered similar problems:
Both states were recipients of "early innovator grants" from the federal government to develop what the administration hoped would be model exchanges: Oregon got $48 million, plus an additional $11.8 million IT supplement; Maryland got $6.2 million. Along with the grants came praise from the administration. In May 2013, a Washington Post report described the Oregon exchange as a White House favorite. And just days before the October launch of the exchanges nationwide, President Obama went to Maryland to tout the state's work developing its system.
And yet despite heavy funding and praise from Washington, there were clear early warnings that both exchanges were headed for trouble, with independent analysts telling officials in both states that the projects were not on track.
In Maryland, those warnings came from consulting firm BerryDunn, which warned of significant risks to the project as early as 2012. Oregon's warnings came even earlier, in November of 2011, when analysts from the consulting firm Maximus "noted high risks due to insufficient management controls," according to The Oregonian's report.
Both exchanges suffered under muddled leadership and lack of planning: Oregon's system was to be built by one bureaucracy, but managed by another, which led to managerial confusion and bureaucratic turf wars. In Maryland, BerryDunn reported early on that there was simply no one in charge of the project, and that no one had even taken the step of drawing up a basic timeline of milestones and achievements.
Watch a promotion video for Cover Oregon below:
Read more from Reason on Obamacare here.
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]]>British deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg has launched the pro-European Union party's campaign for next month's European elections saying, "For far, far too long, the isolationists have got away with peddling their myths, their fears, their falsehoods, without any challenge whatsoever, pretending that every problem in the world would somehow disappear, like the morning mist, if only we were to pull ourselves out of the EU."
Clegg recently debated Nigel Farage, the leader of the Euroskeptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), on two occasions. During his debates with Farage Clegg tried to characterize UKIP as close-minded and hesitant to engage with the world.
While I am not a fan of UKIP and am far from convinced that a British exit from the E.U. would prompt the British people to enjoy a more free-market economy, I do think that Clegg's characterization of Euroskeptics as "isolationist" is absurd.
Non-interventionist American libertarians will be familiar with the terms "isolationist" being mistakenly applied to lawmakers such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). To some, the term "isolationist" is an appropriate label for anyone who doesn't want our enormous military to stretch itself needlessly across the world.
In the U.K., the term "isolationist" is being used to describe Euroskeptics, who want the U.K. to leave the E.U. However, wanting a British exit from the E.U. does not necessarily entail a desire to become an isolated country. Indeed, Britain was trading with the rest of the world long before the establishment of the E.U.
In the second debate with Clegg, Farage said the following (referring to UKIP):
We want to trade with Europe, cooperate with Europe, get on well with our next door neighbours but we don't want a part of political union.
Farage went on to say:
I want Britain to get up off its knees, let's govern ourselves again, stand tall and trade with the world.
These are not the words of an isolationist.
It's a shame that Clegg is using such obviously misleading language ahead of the European elections. Farage and the party he leads do have objectionable policies that should be highlighted by their opponents. But that can be done with accurate language.
The post Like in U.S., 'Isolationist' Now Used As Lazy Slur in U.K. appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>British Prime Minister David Cameron has caused a minor controversy in the U.K. by writing in the Church Times that "I believe we should be more confident about our status as a Christian country." After the article was published, 50 public figures signed a letter to The Daily Telegraph objecting to Cameron's article, saying:
Apart from in the narrow constitutional sense that we continue to have an established Church, Britain is not a "Christian country". Repeated surveys, polls and studies show that most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities.
Unlike the American president, the British head of state (Queen Elizabeth II) is the head an established church (the Church of England). However, as the signatories of the letter to The Telegraph rightly point out, most Britons "are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities."
As the chart below from The Washington Post—based on 2011 British census data—shows, almost 60 percent of Britons identify as Christian, and a little over 25 percent are not part of a religion.
The Washington Post goes on to mention that according to the results of the 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey, 48 percent of Britons did not belong to a religion. In 2013, the Church of England said that church attendance rates were "stabilising" after years of decline, with 1.1 million attending weekly services in 2011. The U.K. has a population of almost 64 million. The British Humanist Association claims that many Britons identify as religious for cultural reasons, not because they believe in religious metaphysical claims.
While it might be the case that the British are not very religious, it is hard to deny that the U.K. and its institutions are drenched in religious history and culture, as Harry Cole explained in The Spectator:
Leaving aside the fact that 59% of the UK population self-defines as Christians, we need only look at our institutions and state structure to see how bizarre this row has been. England has an established church. English bishops sit in our Parliament. A glance around the rim of our £1 coin will show you that our Head of State has another far more interesting title – Defender of the Faith. The Left weren't so snooty about the Archbishop of Canterbury, our state-declared spiritual leader, when he was defending foodbanks.
We have a constitutional framework, legal system and legislature that is built around Judeo-Christian values. Almost every single bank holiday we have in this country is to mark some sort of Christian festival. Tens of thousands of children are educated every day in church-supported schools, and what is the first word of the national anthem again?
The British may not be a particularly religious bunch, especially compared with Americans, but they undoubtedly live in a Christian nation.
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]]>Last month Director of National Intelligence James Clapper signed a directive banning the employees of some government agencies from discussing intelligence-related work with the media.
Read the directive below:
In the directive "media" is defined as "any person, organization, or entity" that is "primarily engaged in the collection, production, or dissemination to the public of information in any form, which includes print, broadcast, film and Internet" or is "otherwise engaged in the collection, production, or dissemination to the public of information in any form related to topics of national security, which includes print, broadcast, film and Internet."
In an email, the Government Accountability Project's national security and human rights director, Jesslyn Radack, rightly points out that the directive "is a clear extension of the executive branch's war on national security whistleblowers."
This latest action is a clear extension of the executive branch's war on national security whistleblowers. It is a grotesque twist for James Clapper to limit public knowledge about government activity when he himself has been responsible for lying to Congress and misleading the public about the government's overreaching mass surveillance programs.
The lie in question can be watched below. In March last year Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Clapper responded, "No, sir." Wyden went on to ask, "It does not?" Clapper responded, "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly."
Under a heading titled "Policy," the directive says:
The IC [Intelligence Community] is committed to sharing information responsibly with the public via the media to further government openness and transparency and to build public understanding of the IC and its programs, consistent with the protection of intelligence sources and methods.
Remember, the Obama administration is supposedly "the most transparent administration in history."
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