Category: Politics

Rand Paul Wants To Bring Back Religious Profiling

Here’s a reminder, for those who need it, that Rand Paul is not a libertarian nor an advocate of liberty. After the shooting in Chattanooga the presidential wannabe took some time out of his busy schedule to urge for the reimplementation of a program that almost exclusively profiles Muslims entering the country:

Yet, Paul commented to Breitbart:

I’m going to have our subcommittee and maybe committee in Homeland Security look into whether or not we could reinstitute this NSEERS [National Security Entry Exit Registration System] program.

So what did this program do? It not only singled out Muslims entering the country for extra interrogation at the airport (which is stupid because if they pose a threat then why grant them a visa at all?), it required Muslim foreign boys and men over 16 years already in the country to personally appear before Uncle Sam’s functionaries and register. Explains the Migration Policy Institute:

Registration includes a meeting with an immigration official where the interviewees are fingerprinted (both digitally and with ink), photographed, and asked a series of questions under oath. In addition to the initial registration, foreign visitors must also appear at a U.S. immigration office within 10 days of the one-year anniversary date of initial registration. All of these foreign visitors are required to complete a departure check only at a designated departure port (of which there are approximately 100 nationwide) on the same day that they intend to leave the country. Willful refusal to register is a criminal violation; overstaying a visa is a civil violation.

Expecting terrorists to voluntarily stroll to an immigration office to be fingerprinted and IDed is absurd, of course. So the entirely predictable upshot of the program was that although it managed to obtain not a single terrorism-related conviction, it did ruin plenty of lives of peaceful Muslims caught in its dragnet. Consider the case of Abdulameer Yousef Habeeb, a refugee from Iraq. As per the ACLU:

he was lawfully admitted to the United States after suffering imprisonment and torture by Saddam Hussein’s regime. Habeeb was on a train from Seattle to Washington, D.C., to start a new life when Border Patrol agents singled him out for questioning without any individualized suspicion. As a refugee, Habeeb was not required to register with NSEERS, but when he showed the border agents his refugee documentation, the agents insisted—incorrectly—that he was in violation of NSEERS’ registration requirements. Detained for a week, Habeeb lost his job. Habeeb was terrified of being returned to Iraq, yet the government stubbornly continued deportation proceedings for six weeks. Ultimately, after the ACLU filed suit, Habeeb won an apology from the government stating: “[T]he United States of America acknowledges that, by not registering under NSEERS, you did nothing wrong [and] regrets the mistake.”

Paul maintains that immigration is not a right; it’s a privilege. But the Constitution guarantees immigrants in the country the same due process and other basic rights as citizens because it understands that a Leviathan that is authorized to abuse the rights of one set of people is not likely to respect those of others for very long.

I checked the link that explains what NSEERS is and it clearly noted that, “Except for North Korea, nearly all of the countries designated in Special Registration are predominantly Arab and Muslim.” In other words this program places special restrictions on people from specific countries that grants Border Patrol agents the right to harass them without cause. Even somebody who advocates for controlled immigration should acknowledge that placing additional restrictions on specific people is not an acceptable way of handling immigration. It’s necessarily collectivist in nature, which should be the first clue that it’s a bad program, since it focuses on where a person is from and not the person themselves.

Unlike his father, who was a true advocate for liberty, Rand Paul isn’t even pretending to be an advocate for liberty anymore. He just wants to be president and will say anything that he thinks will gain him the nomination. If he gets elected there is absolutely no reason to believe he won’t continue this trend of kowtowing to neocons as he will likely want a second term.

When The Only Thing You Have Is Legislation Every Problem Looks Like It Can Be Solved By Passing A Law

Politicians are trying to infringe on both the rights of self-defense and free speech in their latest attempt at the impossible. With the 3D printing revolution taking place many politicians see the writing on the wall and realize their power to regulate manufacturing is waning. Hoping to head this technology off at the pass they’re trying to find a justification that people will fall for to pass regulations against 3D printing. Their betting everything on the populace finding the prospect of 3D printed firearms scary enough that they’ll support laws restricting what individuals can print on their 3D printers. But the rhetoric is especially amusing:

The notion of a 3-D printable gun has become the perfect flashpoint in a new conflict between digital arms control and free speech. Should Americans be allowed to say and share whatever they want online, even if that “speech” is a blueprint for a gun? The State Department has now answered that question with a resounding “no.”

That isn’t even the correct question. What everybody should be asking is if it’s even possible to enforce a law restricting what individuals can do with their 3D printers. The answer is no. Computer technology is far too pervasive to control anymore. Information can be shared amongst individuals around the world almost instantly. Anonymity tools allow individuals to share information without being identifiable. And even if people in the United States comply with a law against sharing 3D printer designs for firearms the rest of the world isn’t bound by such nonsense.

Censorship is dead and the Internet killed it. Any restriction against the sharing of ideas is unenforceable and therefore shouldn’t even be a consideration for politicians.

If A Law Is Passed And Nobody Can Enforce It Is It Still A Law

Online harassment, often called cyber-bullying by legal marketing teams, has become a very hot topic in the last couple of years. More people are seeing first hand how ruthless denizens of the Internet can be and are demanding something be done. Governments around the world are acknowledging this issue and addressing it in the only way they know how, issuing decrees. New Zealand has lead the charge by passing a law making online harassment illegal:

The Harmful Digital Communications Bill passed its third and final reading last night.

[…]

The bill’s key elements:

Harmful Digital Communications Bill: key provisions

  • A fine of up to $50,000 for an individual or up to $200,000 for a body corporate, or up to two years’ jail for posting or sending a “harmful digital communication” – aka cyber-bullying with a post likely to cause distress. The bill covers racist, sexist and religiously intolerant comments, plus those about disabilities or sexual orientation;
  • Up to three years’ jail for the new crime of incitement to suicide;
  • An “approved agency” will advocate on behalf of complainants. The aim is that the agency will be able to make direct contact with web publishers and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, where a member of the public often has trouble getting heard (the Law Commission has recommended NetSafe be the approved agency; the non-profit NetSafe’s backers include InternetNZ, the NZPolice, the Ministry of Education and private companies);
  • If the approved agency makes no headway, a complaint is escalated to a District Court judge; and
  • Web publishers can opt in to a safe-harbour provision, protecting them from liability (and arguably also crimping free speech) if they agree to take down allegedly offending material on demand or at least within a grace period of 48 hours.

When used outside of legal circles the word law implies something that, as far as we know, cannot be violated. The laws of physicals, for example, state that the speed of light cannot be exceeded. That leads me to ask an important question, if nobody can enforce a law is it still a law?

If you read through this bill you’ll quickly realize that it puts the legal burden on the content host. In order to avoid being held liable for user content the host must agree to remove reported content within 48 hours of notifying the author if the author doesn’t submit a counter-notice within the same span of time. Anybody who has worked in a sizable company knows that the default position of the legal department is always on the safe side. That being the case this bill will likely convince companies to pull down any reported content with little or no investigation. So this bill, on the surface, appears to solve the problem by ensuring companies are motivated to remove harassing content (and, as a more concerning aside, could end up being a tool useful for general censorship as well if companies remove content without actually investigating it).

But deleting content doesn’t actually solve the problem of online harassment. Content is easy to create and post. If something harassing is deleted it can simply be posted again. Even if the account of the person posting offending content is shutdown it’s a simple matter on most sites to create a new account. And if there’s a specific person being targeted by numerous individuals, such as the people targeted by GamerGate, it quickly becomes infeasible to shutdown accounts faster than they’re created. A handful of administrators charged with reviewing complaints and closing offending accounts is no match for hundreds or thousands of individuals dedicated to posting harassing content. Therefore I would argue this bill isn’t a law because it can be easily bypassed by online harassers.

I’m not a fan of complaining about a proposed solution without offering one of my own. To that end I want to diverge from the topic of whether or not this is a law and focus on what is actually needed to counter online harassers. Dealing with the issue of online harassment means focusing on the harassers, not the content hosts. But siccing law enforcers after individuals who have effective tools to anonymize themselves (as with any technology, tools that anonymize people can be used for good and bad) is also infeasible. How, for example, can law enforcement agents pursue an Internet protocol (IP) address, which is the only identifiable information content hosts may have access to, of a Tor exit relay or a virtual private network (VPN) provider in a foreign country? Even if the IP address can be traced back to an entity law enforcers can go after how can they verify the owner even knew their network was being used for online harassment? A depressingly large number of people have no idea how to secure their wireless access points and many businesses that offer wireless access to customers do so with open networks because the logistics involved in doing the same with a secure network is too complex for them.

So the question becomes, what can be done to counter online harassment? Back when malicious hackers acquired login credentials for several celebrities’ iCloud accounts I said a counter-hacker initiative was needed and I believe such a tactic could be applicable here as well. Groups dedicated to countering online harassers could raise the costs of harassing people online, which is nearly zero at the moment. The key, in my opinion, is having people dedicated to the task (in other words, like any private security group, paid for their services so they can focus on providing them) that aren’t restricted by state decrees and have the motivation law enforcers lack.

Is this the only solution? Hardly. It’s just one that I can think of. Would this solution work? I believe so but I can’t say for certain. What I do know is finding a solution to online harassment, as with finding a solution to any problem, requires markets. The creativity of the world has to be tapped to find a way to effectively address this problem because the creativity of the world is currently being tapped to create this problem. Relying on a handful of individuals to write unenforceable words on pieces of paper isn’t going to accomplish anything.

Like Vultures to a Corpse

One of the hardest things to stomach after a shooting, besides the event itself, is the way politicians swoop in to exploit the situation for political gain. Before anybody has even had a chance to breathe we are subjected to politicians getting on screen and blaming the event on whatever hot button issue they’ve been pushing. Obama, for example, decided to take a moment to remind the country that he’s been pushing for stronger gun restrictions:

President Barack Obama on Thursday expressed profound “sadness and anger” at the Charleston church shooting as well as deeply personal frustration that America’s political climate makes it virtually impossible for now to tighten restrictions on who can buy firearms.

“We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun,” Obama said in the White House briefing room, Vice President Joe Biden standing at his side.

Thanks a lot, jackass.

But Obama wasn’t the only politicians exploiting this tragedy. Everybody’s favorite religious zealot, Rick Santorum, was compelled, probably by the voice of “Jesus” that he constantly hears in his head, to talk about religious liberty:

Presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) on Thursday called the attack by a white gunman on a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. part of a broader assault on “religious liberty” in America.

“It’s obviously a crime of hate. Again, we don’t know the rationale, but what other rationale could there be?” Santorum said on the New York radio station AM 970.

This is why nobody likes you, Rick.

I swear America has found a way to politicize everything goddamn topic and event in existence. If a skyscraper full of people collapsed tomorrow every politician would be be on camera within the hour arguing why it was caused by their pet political issue. They’re all a bunch of vultures. Actually, scratch that. Vultures serve a valuable role in the environment. Politicians don’t even do that.

The Only Solution for Marriage Equality

The problem with suffering under a state for the entirety of your life is that you become conditioned to seeing everything as a political solution. Take the issue of same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage has been a political hot button issue in recent years. One side, the sane one, wants same-sex couples to enjoy the same privileges and heterosexual couples while the other side, the insane one that believes legislating morality is good policy, oppose the idea. The first side wants to legalize same-sex marriage whereas the other side wants to keep it illegal. Too few, due to conditioning instilled by a life under statism, ask the import question, why is the state involved in marriage at all?

Marriage, after all, is nothing more than voluntary association. Two or more people, sometimes under religious rules and sometimes not, decide they want to enter an agreement that typically involves sharing property and power of attorney. It seems that Alabama is the first state where this question was genuinely considered and it resulted in the abolition of marriage licenses:

Why are there marriage “licenses” – a permission slip granted or denied by the state – rather than just contracts like any other? Why does government stand in the position to veto the choices of two people who want to commit to each other?

These are questions that the Alabama Senate considered in May this year. The result was the passage of Senate Bill 377, supported by 22 senators and opposed by only 3. Under this legislation, licenses would no longer exist for marriage. Marriage would become a plain contract filed with the Probate offices.

In effect, this would restore the traditional role of law in marriage as it has existed in most times and places, before the racially motivated and eugenically inspired idea of “marriage licenses” came along in the early part of the 20th century.

Being a political solution I wouldn’t be surprised if something was inserted to fuck certain classes of people over (say polygamous groups) but it’s certainly a more sane solution than deciding whether certain forms of marriage should be legal or illegal.

Religious aspects of marriage, when applicable, should remain exclusively in the hands of the religious. The contractual aspects of marriage should remain in the hands of the individuals entering the arrangement and their representatives (and, if things fall apart, their chosen party to resolve the dispute). The idea that the state, which is the most immoral institution in the world, should be allowed to grant or refuse permission is ludicrous. How, exactly, is an organization build on theft, kidnapping, assault, and murder a good moral judge for deciding whether or not individuals can voluntarily enter a contractual arrangement? I’m glad everybody isn’t trapped in the legalize or prohibit mentality.

USA FREEDOM Act Signed Into Law

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring (USA FREEDOM) Act (that backronym still impresses me) has been signed into laws:

The Senate has approved the USA Freedom Act, which will alter the way U.S. agencies conduct surveillance and gather data. A final vote on the bill came late Tuesday afternoon, after amendments to the bill failed.

[…]

Following an expedited enrollment process, President Obama signed the bill into law late Tuesday.

Supposedly the National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying powers expired on Sunday, even though they didn’t, but the USA FREEDOM Act explicitly authorizes the program so we’re right back to where we started (the NSA’s spying programs being legalized redundantly).

Once again, political activism isn’t going to protect you from state surveillance. If you want to defend your privacy you’ll have to take matters into your own hands and learn how to use tools to encrypt and anonymize your communications and data. Because the passage of this bill shows that any political victory is, at best, temporary.

Remember When Obama Opposed Surveillance

Rewind to 2008. George W. Bush was finishing up his eighth year as president and many people were furious about all of the civil liberties he wiped his ass with since 2001. In comes Barack Obama who promises to curtail the surveillance powers enacted under Bush. Now we’re approaching Obama’s eighth year as president and he has not only failed to curtail the state’s surveillance powers but he’s actively campaigning to preserve it:

President Barack Obama called on the Senate Tuesday to extend key Patriot Act provisions before they expire five days from now, including the government’s ability to search Americans’ phone records.

“This needs to get done,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s necessary to keep the American people safe and secure.”

Is there any question why I don’t believe politicians?

Widespread surveillance has become a sticky issue. Part of the reason for this, in my opinion, is the fact both major political parties are performing constant maneuvers to oppose whatever the other party supports. In 2008 the Republican Party fully supported the surveillance state created under Bush precisely because it was created under a Republican president. The Democrats opposed the surveillance state because the Republicans supported it. When Obama came to power the Republicans started changing course on the surveillance state. Since the Republicans were changing course the Democrats had to as well less they be on the same side of an issue as their opponent. Now we’re in a position where the Republican Party is moving away from fully supporting the surveillance state and the Democratic Party is moving towards fully supporting it. What this issue has really shown us is that neither party has any principles and bases their stances almost entirely on what the other party espouses.

As the surveillance state is convenient for whatever party is in power it will never go away. Whatever party is in power will support it while the other party opposes it (I use the word “opposes” very loosely because they don’t really have any strong feelings other than opposing what the other party supports). This is why it’s important for everybody to utilize the security tools available to them. We’re always going to be spied on by the state so we need to defend ourselves regardless of what way the political winds are blowing. Politics won’t change the surveillance state but cryptography will help you defend against it.

United States Government Looking to Repeat Security Blunder

As we’re recovering from two vulnerabilities caused by old export restrictions on strong cryptography tools the United States government is looking to repeat that failure:

The U.S. Commerce Department has proposed tighter export rules for computer security tools, a potentially controversial revision to an international agreement aimed at controlling weapons technology.

On Wednesday, the department published a proposal in the Federal Register and opened a two-month comment period.

The changes are proposed to the Wassenaar Arrangement, an international agreement reached in 1995, aimed at limiting the spread of “dual use” technologies that could be used for harm.

Forty-one countries participate in the Wassenaar Arrangement, and lists of controlled items are revised annually.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is proposing requiring a license in order to export certain cybersecurity tools used for penetrating systems and analyzing network communications.

Another great example of the state making the same mistake, only harder. Restricting the export of strong cryptographic tools put everybody at risk of attack and an export restriction against penetration testing tools would put everybody at risk of missing basic vulnerabilities in their networks.

Penetration testing tools, like any technology, can be used for good and bad. If you properly utilize the tools on your network you can discover vulnerabilities that are exploited by those tools and patch them. Not utilizing these tools allows an malicious actor to exploit your network using those tools. Any restriction on exporting these tools will leave networks vulnerable to them.

Why would the United States government propose implementing restrictions that put the entire world at risk? Most likely it’s because government agencies utilize penetration testing tools to exploit networks and would therefore gain considerably by making defending against them more difficult. This proposal shows just how self-centered the state really is because it’s willing to put billions of people at risk just to make its task of exploiting networks a little easier. Its narcissism is so bad that it doesn’t even care that this restriction would also make every network more vulnerable to exploitation by its enemies (if the United States can hack your network then foreign countries such as North Korea can as well).

Fortunately we learned what happens when restrictions are placed on ideas during the crypto wars. Even though the United States restricted the export of strong cryptographic algorithms the knowledge spread quickly. It’s pretty hard to restrict something that can literally be printed on a t-shirt, especially when you have a worldwide network that specializes in information sharing. If this restriction is put into place it will be entirely ineffective at everything but giving the state justification to put several very intelligent people in a cage for the crime of making our networks safer.

I’m Glad Minnesota Republicans can Find Time to Address the Really Important Issues

After the Minnesota Sports High School League announced a pretty decent solution for transgender students wanting to participate in sports the Republicans of this state have whining like the little bitches they are. Their belief in government so small that it can fit in your bathroom has moved them to overturn the Sports High School League’s policy by enacting a state law:

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota House wants to restrict transgender students’ access to school locker rooms and bathrooms.

Minority Democrats objected fiercely to a Republican move to include the provision in an education budget bill Saturday. The House approved the proposal in a divided voice vote.

Rep. Tim Miller’s provision says group locker rooms, bathrooms and showers designated for one sex can’t be used by the other. It doesn’t preclude schools from offering single-use bathrooms or changing rooms to transgender students.

Once again I’m left asking why. Why do Minnesota Republicans care about this? As supposed advocates of small government shouldn’t they support each school being allowed to make its own policy? Shouldn’t be they be happy that an independent organization created a policy that schools can abide by? How come their advocacy for small government always has an exception for issues regarding voluntary interaction?

Republicans are spending a lot of time complaining about the so-called war on Christianity. What they mean is they’re unhappy that people are using government to overturn discriminatory laws and, sometimes, punish people for discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. Anybody with even a basic education in physics knows that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. So long as the Republican Party sees it as necessary to use the state to dictate social issues the other side will see it as necessary to use the state for the same. When one person detonates a nuclear warhead the other guy wants to do the same in retaliation.

Without Government Who Would Raise the Gas Tax to Build the Shitty Roads

It’s no secret that the roads here in Minnesota are shit. This state will forever be known as the one that let a major bridge deteriorate to the point of collapse. In addition to shitty bridges the potholes here are so numerous that you practically need an off-road vehicle to go to the grocery store. Fortunately the state has been bleeding tax victims pretty hard so it now has a $1 billion surplus that can be used to fix the roads. Just kidding. The Senate just passed a bill that would raise Minnesota’s gas tax. To justify this even greater theft the Senate is bullshitting us about using the money to fix the roads:

The Minnesota Senate has passed a bill that funds road and bridge repairs by raising the state’s gasoline tax.

The plan would raise more than $6 billion for infrastructure repairs by adding a 6 1/2-percent wholesale tax on gas sales and hiking license tab fees. It also funds mass transit projects with a sales tax hike in the seven-county metropolitan area.

I guess that surplus is needed for better things such as a fancy new building for our rulers to rule from. With $1 billion of extra cash on hand they could make the entire facility out of marble and have a solid oak desk for each member of the ruling class!

It’s only a short hop for me to cross the river into Wisconsin and that sounds more appealing every day. That’s not to say Wisconsin is some kind of paradise but at least the rulers there will allow me to own a suppressor and seem less determined to bleed me completely dry immediately.