Month: May 2016

The War Against Privacy

If you read the erroneously named Bill of Rights (which is really a list of privileges, most of which have been revoked) you might be left with the mistaken impression that you have a right to privacy against the State. From the National Security Administration’s (NSA) dragnet surveillance to local police departments using cell phone interceptors, the State has been very busy proving this wrong. Not to be outdone by the law enforcement branches, the courts have been working hard to erode your privacy as well. The most recent instance of this is a proposed procedural change:

The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure set the ground rules for federal criminal prosecutions. The rules cover everything from correcting clerical errors in a judgment to which holidays a court will be closed on—all the day-to-day procedural details that come with running a judicial system.

The key word here is “procedural.” By law, the rules and proposals are supposed to be procedural and must not change substantive rights.

[…]

But the amendment to Rule 41 isn’t procedural at all. It creates new avenues for government hacking that were never approved by Congress.

The proposal would grant a judge the ability to issue a warrant to remotely access, search, seize, or copy data when “the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means” or when the media are on protected computers that have been “damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts.” It would grant this authority to any judge in any district where activities related to the crime may have occurred.

In layman’s terms the change will grant judges the ability to authorize law enforcers to hack into any computer using Tor, I2P, a virtual private network (VPN), or any other method of protecting one’s privacy (the wording is quite vague and a good lawyer could probably stretch it to include individuals using a public Wi-Fi access point in a restaurant). The point being made with this rule proposal is clear, the State doesn’t believe you have any right to protect your privacy.

This should come as no surprise to anybody though. The State has long held that your right to privacy stops where its nosiness begins. You’re not allowed to legally possess funds the State isn’t aware of (financial reporting laws exist to enforce this), manufacture and sell firearms the State isn’t aware of, or be a human being the State isn’t aware of (registering newborn children for Social Security and requiring anybody entering or leaving the country to provide notice and receive approval from the State).

Perpetual Prison

A man is sent to prison. He stays his time. After being released he’s required to fulfill additional stipulations. Due to financial restrictions, which isn’t an uncommon restrictions for people getting out of a cage, he is unable to fulfill those stipulations. As a result he’s sentenced again and returns to prison.

What I’ve described is effectively a way for the State to imprison somebody for life for any crime. Jonathan Earl Brown probably isn’t most people’s idea of an upstanding person. He, at 26 years-old, was caught in bed with a 15 year-old girl. He was then sentenced to prison. It would be easy to toss him aside but justice is supposed to be blind so the situation he finds himself in should be analyzed separately from his person. And his situation is what I described in the opening paragraph:

After serving nearly two years for criminal sexual contact with a minor, Brown, 26, enrolled at Minneapolis Community and Technical College and began searching for a stable job and a place to live.

But just four months into his probation, Brown was sent back to prison. His offense: failing to enter sex offender treatment that he could not afford.

Attorneys and therapists say his case has exposed a major gap in Minnesota’s system of treatment for the nearly 1,600 convicted sex offenders who live under supervision in the community after leaving prison.

In Minnesota, sex offenders are often ordered by local judges to pay for their own treatment as a condition of probation. Yet many walk out of prison too broke to afford the co-payments. Brown was homeless, jobless and so destitute that his probation officer suggested he sell his blood to cover his $42 co-payment, court records show.

Last month a state appeals court panel upheld the revocation of Brown’s probation, triggering denunciations by prisoner advocates and public defenders.

People often like to bring up the recidivism rate amongst sentenced criminals as evidence that criminal behavior is something inherent in certain individuals. What is often ignored is the almost insurmountable odds many criminals face when they get out of prison. Prison sentences are supposed to be a means in which criminals can repay their debt to society (it’s a nonsense collectivist ideal since one cannot owe anything to an abstract idea such as society, but bear with me). Once that debt is repaid they’re supposedly free to return to their life. But most people who have served a prison sentence come out penniless and have few, if any, prospects for a job.

When you have nothing to survive on and you’re effectively blacklisted from legitimate work what are you supposed to do? Is it not feasible that many people who have been sentenced for a crime end up reverting to their previous criminal activity, such as drug dealing, because they have no other prospects?

Now imagine somebody like Brown who not only has nothing to survive on but must meet financial obligations just to remain outside of the State’s cages. He’s being required to fulfill criteria that he cannot fulfill and is being punished for it. Is this justice? If so, what’s to stop a judge from perpetually returning somebody to prison by knowingly placing an unmeetable probational burden on them?

Perks Of The Job

What’s the best way to fight the State’s war on drug users? Apparently by becoming part of the State and working from within:

A former Massachusetts drug-lab chemist was high on the job nearly every day for eight years, according to a report from the state’s attorney general. The report said that the chemist, Sonja Farak, was under the influence of drugs like crack, meth, LSD, and ketamine as she testified in court in drug cases and while examining drug samples in a crime lab between 2004 and 2013.

The report from AG Maura Healey also said the chemist cooked crack cocaine in a crime lab at night while working overtime.

Anthony Benedetti of the Committee for Public Counsel Services said that “thousands” of drug prosecutions were imperiled. “Anything that went through that lab while she was there is in question,” he told the Boston Globe.

I’m being a bit humorous here. It would be far better if those drug users were never imprisoned in the first place. But it is amusing that a large number of prosecutions may be jeopardized because the lab technician was herself doing drugs.

I wonder if she every had to testify in court immediately after dropping the acid that was taken off of the accused? It would be hard to keep a straight face in that situation. Either way, she deserves some credit for being high at both the lab and in court for eight years without anybody noticing. That’s impressive.

An Ancient Historical Lesson Repeats Itself

What happens when a government hands weapons to men and trains them to kill? It establishes a military. What happens when the same government ceases to pay this new military? The military uses its weapons and skills to prey on defenseless people:

The situation in Venezuela has become so bad that even soldiers are struggling to support themselves.

Over the weekend, six members of the Venezuelan military were detained by local authorities for stealing goats, the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported Sunday. It said the soldiers confessed to stealing the goats and said they did it to feed themselves, since they had no food left in their barracks.

“It’s not a good sign when your military doesn’t have enough food, and when the military has been relegated to guarding and protecting food lines,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “This is endemic of the problems going on across the country.”

If you’re a student of history you’ve probably read about this happening numerous times. It shouldn’t be surprising either. The primary skill of a soldier is using force. That is, after all, their job. When they suddenly find themselves impoverished and starving they use the skills they have at hand to do what they believe is necessary to survive.

A notable difference between professional militaries and militias is that the latter are generally employed in another field and only act as soldiers temporarily. Since they’re not reliant on the government for the entirety of their income they have other skills to fall back on if the government stops paying soldiers. Professional soldiers, on the other hand, often lack other skills as well as experience in operating in a market. When they stop receiving a paycheck they, like a militia member, rely on the skills they have. The difference is the skills of a militia member are often honed in a market environment whereas the skills of a professional soldier are not.

With The Zodiac Killer Out Of The Spotlight Everybody Needs To Watch Their Backs

Ted “The Zodiac Killer” Cruz has dropped out of the race, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining candidate for the Republican presidential nomination (What? Kasich is still in? I’ve never heard of him.).

Unfortunately this means Peter King won’t be eating cyanide, which is a tremendous loss to the world. What is more concerning though is that the Zodiac Killer is now out of the spotlight so everybody needs to watch their backs.

Why Democracy Sucks Part XXI

Barack Obama is once again pushing science fiction as official policy. As usual this has caused a great deal of ignorant individuals to voice their unqualified opinions on the matter. Surprisingly, in a sea of shitty media discussion, one publication managed to hit the nail on the head as far as the entire smart gun discussion is concerned:

Guns are a technology, and, like most members of the general public, gun control advocates are thoroughly confused about how guns operate outside of Hollywood — as in, “the Internet is a series of tubes“-level confused. It’s hard for me to overstate just how bad it is out there, even among much of the gun-owning public.
[…]

This, then, is what the NRA is terrified of: that lawmakers who don’t even know how to begin to evaluate the impact of the smallest, most random-seeming feature of a given firearm on that firearm’s effectiveness and functionality for different types of users with different training backgrounds under different circumstances will get into the business of gun design.

And they’re right to be afraid, because it has happened before.

You can substitute gun owners for the National Rifle Association (NRA) since the opposition isn’t limited to just that organization. But the point stands, most lawmakers are entirely ignorant about the technology behind firearms. That brings us to today’s lesson: democracy sucks.

Somewhere along the line the idea that everybody is entitled to their opinion morphed into the idea that everybody’s opinion is equally valid. That idea is nonsense. A theoretically physicist should no more regard my opinion of his work than I should regard the opinion of somebody who has never studied basic mathematics on an algorithm I’ve written. When somebody lacks the basic fundamental knowledge of a field their opinion on that field is not equally as valid as an expert’s.

But such facts are irrelevant to democracy since it is a system where a majority of a voting body makes the rules. Here in the United States that voting body is Congress. Congress is composed of members elected by the majority of their constituents. In the end the only qualification somebody has to have to rule on something in the United States is charisma. This becomes a major problem as soon as members of Congress decided to write a law because they — along with their peers — are entirely ignorant on the subject the law pertains to.

Issues revolving around firearms are being decided by people who are entirely ignorant about firearms. When the issue of smart guns arises the problem is compounded by the same people’s ignorance on computer technology. In the end you have people who know nothing about the technology being discussed voting on how that technology is to be used.

Imagine if we applied democracy to an engineering feat such as building a bridge. Instead of having architects, structural engineers, material engineers, and construction workers designing and building a structurally sound bridge we’d have a bunch of ignorant lawyers voting on how they thought the bridge should be designed and built. The only outcome of that would be failure. If we don’t apply democracy to building a bridge why do we think it’s an acceptable means of mandating laws involving technology?

Government Incompetence Saves Us All

Conservatives always tell me that they want a competent government. The worst thing that could happen to a government is if it became competent. Today people around the world enjoy incompetent governments, which means their random decrees are not nearly as consequential as they could be:

A Brazilian judge has ordered (Google Translate) that all mobile phone providers in the country block WhatsApp traffic for 72 hours, beginning yesterday.

However, Brazilians are discovering that the ban only covers mobile carriers—so Brazilians still can use WhatsApp over Wi-Fi or a VPN connection over their mobile data plan.

Imagine if Brazil’s government was competent. The entire country could have been cutoff from a very popular means of communicating securely.

I’m a fan of incompetent government. So long as a government cannot effectively enforce the decrees it issues the amount of damage it can cause is limited (when compared to what the damage could be, I’m not claiming the damage is usually minor).

On Edward Snowden

With the Edward Snowden movie coming out the conversation regarding his motives has been rekindled. I see a lot of people referring to him as a traitor because he didn’t go through proper channels to stop the National Security Agency’s (NSA) indiscriminate violation of our privacy.

What may people seem to have forgotten is that we already know what happens when whistleblowers go through proper channels. William Binney did exactly that. He went to his superiors and eventually went so far as to try to get the Senate involved.

What did he get for his efforts? A lot of stonewalling with a great big side of nothing. Okay, that’s not entirely accurate. He did get to experience seeing armed federal agents threaten his family at gunpoint and then being kidnapped by them.

Repeating the same thing over and expecting different results is often referred to as a sign of insanity. Knowing what happened to Binney what other recourse did Snowden have? Should he have just shut his mouth? If so, what recourse do the people have against an overreaching government?

The history of the NSA and its whistleblowers needs more consideration when considering Snowden’s actions.

Government Oversight

Every time the government initiates another secret program some boot licking apologist excuses it as necessary to fight the enemies of America. After all, our wise benefactors put safety measure in place so these secret programs aren’t abused!

Except those safety measures don’t stop anything:

The secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court did not deny a single government request in 2015 for electronic surveillance orders granted for foreign intelligence purposes, continuing a longstanding trend, a Justice Department document showed.

The court received 1,457 requests last year on behalf of the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for authority to intercept communications, including email and phone calls, according to a Justice Department memo sent to leaders of relevant congressional committees on Friday and seen by Reuters. The court did not reject any of the applications in whole or in part, the memo showed.

1,457 requests and not a single denial? Either the National Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are exceedingly cautious in with their requests or the court serves as a rubber stamp, not a check against abuse. Considering the history of both agencies I think it’s pretty safe to say the court is just a rubber stamp.

This is when some boot licker will tell me, “You don’t know that for sure, Chris!” And they’re right, which is the problem with secret programs. Everything takes place behind an iron curtain so the public has no way to verify if the program is being abused. What we do know is the lack of transparency creates an environment for abuse so even if a secret program isn’t currently being abused it will attract people who wish to abuse it.