Tag: You’re Doing it Wrong

Why Political Activism Won’t Stop Mass Surveillance

Time and again people ask me why I don’t involve myself in political activism to stop mass surveillance. My answer is doing so is pointless because no matter how hard you beg the state it will never handicap itself. Case in point, the Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring (USA FREEDOM) Act (I hope a staffer was paid a nice bonus for coming up with that acronym). It has been hailed as a solution to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) mass surveillance practices. However the bill, as so often is the case, does the opposite of what its name implies and advocates claim. Instead of curtailing NSA surveillance the bill codifies it:

After only one hour of floor debate, and no allowed amendments, the House of Representatives today passed legislation that seeks to address the NSA’s controversial surveillance of American communications. However, opponents believe it may give brand new authorization to the U.S. government to conduct domestic dragnets.

[…]

However, the legislation may not end bulk surveillance and in fact could codify the ability of the government to conduct dragnet data collection.

“We’re taking something that was not permitted under regular section 215 … and now we’re creating a whole apparatus to provide for it,” Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., said on Tuesday night during a House Rules Committee proceeding.

“The language does limit the amount of bulk collection, it doesn’t end bulk collection,” Rep. Amash said, arguing that the problematic “specific selection term” allows for “very large data collection, potentially in the hundreds of thousands of people, maybe even millions.”

In a statement posted to Facebook ahead of the vote, Rep. Amash said the legislation “falls woefully short of reining in the mass collection of Americans’ data, and it takes us a step in the wrong direction by specifically authorizing such collection in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.”

Political activism can’t solve problems. At most is can be used to convince the state to rewrite its rules, and then only temporarily, so that it can continue doing the same thing but claim it isn’t. The only way widespread surveillance can be curtailed is if every one of us begins encrypting all of our communications. Even if some of us utilize weak cryptography it will still increase the overall cost of operating the system. Clear text requires no resources to read. Weak cryptography still requires some resources to identify the algorithm(s) used and to reverse them. Furthermore the text of any encrypted communication is unknown to the eavesdropper until it’s unencrypted. Strong cryptographic tools, on the other hand, are practically (as in the time required is longer than the information’s usefulness) impossible for spies to crack.

Stop begging the state to neuter its spying capabilities and take back your privacy. A good place to start is to begin utilizing tools that allow secure communications.

They’re Finally Getting the Right Idea

The economically ignorant have been demanding the minimum wage be set at $15.00 per hour. If you understand basic economics you know that minimum wage laws don’t guarantee a living wage but merely make it illegal to hire entire swaths of people. Nobody is going to hire a teenager with no skills if they have to pay them $15.00 per hour. And a minimum wage of $15.00 per hour makes no sense for a teenager because they usually live at home, are fed by their parents, and have few bills. They live for a lot less money than an adult raising three kids. And if a business owner does decide to hire them for less then $15.00 per hour they will get a visit from the gang in blue who will either issue a fine or kidnap the owner.

But my biggest criticisms of people advocating for the minimum wage to be raised is their lack of belief. Why only $15.00 per hour? Why not jack it up to $20.00 per hour or even $100.00 per hour? Thankfully the Freedom Socialist Party (an oxymoron if there ever was one) has stepped up to the plate and is demanding minimum wage be raised to $20.00 per hour:

But Doug Barnes, the party’s national secretary, told The Huffington Post on Saturday that the group relies heavily on donations from low-wage workers and could not afford to pay much to an inexperienced designer.

“We’re practicing what we’re preaching in terms of continuing to fight for the minimum wage,” Barnes said, making his first public comment on the controversy. “But we can’t pay a lot more than $13.”

He said the party’s revenues would increase if the minimum wage were raised to $20 — and he’d even prefer $22, at least in Seattle. The city will begin phasing in a $15 minimum wage in April.

“Our donor base would all be affected, and the low-wage workers who support us with $5 to $6 a month would be able to give more,” he said. “That would affect our ability to pay higher wages as well.”

I love his reasoning. Raising the minimum wage will result in more money for the Freedom Socialist Party. How capitalistic of him!

But I do give him credit for at least believing in what he preaches to the extent of demanding an even more absurd minimum wage. Maybe he could kick start the minimum wage inflation movement where minimum wage will be set to inflate by at least two percent every year! That way we could render almost everybody unemployable and the underground economy would flourish.

As an agorist the best feature of minimum wage laws is that they push people into the underground economy. People aren’t going to stand by and starve simply because it’s illegal for anybody to hire them. They’re going to offer their services illegally. That means they won’t pay taxes on their income and will starve the state of some resources. Anybody partaking in illegal services isn’t going to pay sales tax, obtain permits, or do anything else that might tip the authorities off. Part of the reason I want to see minimum wage jacked up is because it will cause the underground economy to expand at a rapid pace. Socialists may have funny economic ideas but that doesn’t mean their ideas are without merit.

DRM, Not Even Once

Keurig, the manufacturer of a machine that makes a single cup of coffee, recently implemented Digital Rights Management (DRM) (and oxymoron of a term, I know) on its latest model to prevent users from using cheaper third-party coffee grounds in the machine. This did not sit well. In its lust for money by forcing people to buy its overpriced coffee in addition to its coffee maker Keurig managed to pummel its stock price:

Sales of Keurig brewing machines and accessories tumbled 23% in the first quarter compared to the prior year.

The company had a lot of excuses, but the basic problem is there are too many Keurig machines in stores and people aren’t buying them, especially the newest Keurig 2.0 model.

“We do have some headwinds,” said Chief Financial Officer Fran Rathke on a call with analysts.

Investors are fleeing the stock. Keurig (GMCR) dropped 10% Thursday when the market opened for trading. Shares are now down more than 25% this year.

It’s a big change for the company which had been one of the hottest stocks in 2013 and 2014 and does over $1 billion in sales.

CEO Brian Kelley says he’s listening to consumers and is ready to make changes. The biggest frustration for customers is that the 2.0 model only brews Keurig branded coffee cups.

Let this be a lesson to other companies. If you try to control how your customers use your product you’re going to have a bad time. Companies like to use the combination of DRM and selling a device that relies on consumables at a loss. The most famous market that has built an industry around this combination are printers. Most printers are solder either at a loss or for no profit with the expectation customers will buy overpriced printer ink from the manufacturer. DRM is usually used to prevent third-party ink cartridges from functioning although the schemes are almost always bypassed.

Keurig thought it could get away with such a scheme for its coffee maker. But I think Keurig made a fatal mistake. If you’re going to use DRM you really should use it from the start. When consumers are used to using your product in a certain way they probably won’t be happy if your change the rules on them. And when entire companies exist from selling a product that’s used in you’re device you’re going to have some major players investing resources into bypassing your DRM scheme.

Keurig really fucked up and their stock price shows it. This should be a lesson to every company that DRM is something you shouldn’t even try once.

Your Government at Work

When people discuss government waste the topics of extravagant dinners, vacations, lifetime healthcare for politicians, etc. usually come up. However the topic of law enforcement doesn’t come up nearly enough. Truth be told federal law enforcement agents are some of the biggest wasters of tax victim money out there. Consider the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). One minute it’s creating terrorists for it to stop and the next minute it’s investing years into studying the lyrics of a song with several other alphabet soup agencies:

You know the song. You also know the lyrics are completely indecipherable. However, with Ely’s death, there’s been renewed attention to the fact that the FBI spent nearly two years investigating the damn song. It is just as ridiculous as it sounds, but the FBI has released the file on its investigation and it’s a rather hilarious read. It turns out it wasn’t just the FBI, but involved the FCC and the Post Office:

Apparently people reported that the song Louis Louis was obscene so the federal government decided it need to investigate just in case it had to stop down some free speech. But it gets better. Wasting money of fruitless investigations isn’t the only way the FBI has to waste money. Failing to call up other government agencies that could actually solve the investigation immediately is another way it likes to waste money:

Also, as Marc Randazza notes, it took nearly two years for someone in the FBI to think, hey, isn’t the song registered at the Copyright Office down the street? Maybe we should send someone over there to find out what it says? This was after the FBI had reached out to the record label (who gave them the accurate lyrics) along with the original author of the song, Richard Berry, who told them the lyrics.

Government waste comes in many forms and a lot of those forms have to do with enforcing victimless “crimes”. Even if the lyrics of Louie Louie were obscene no crime was committed because offensive lyrics don’t harm anybody.

It’s the Man, Not the Machine

There are several well-known figures in the shooting community that, for the life of me, I can’t understand why they’re famous. One of those figures is Bob Owens. His advocacy of guilty until proven innocent leaves a bad taste in my mouth but when I read prime derp like this I’m left questioning is credentials:

In terms of mechanical design, there are few flaws with Glock pistols. If a law enforcement officer, soldier or citizen does exactly what they are supposed to do all of the time with cyborg certainty, there will be no problems with the Glock or other popular pistols mimicking its basic design. Unfortunately, “RoboCop” is only a movie, and humans are liable to make similar mistakes over and over again.

The underlying problem with these pistols is a short trigger pull and the lack of an external safety. In real-world encounters, a short trigger pull can be lethal, in part because a significant percentage of law enforcement officers — some experts say as high as 20% — put their finger on the trigger of their weapons when under stress. According to firearms trainers, most officers are completely unaware of their tendency to do this and have a hard time believing it, even when they’re shown video evidence from training exercises.

For more than 35 years, officer-involved accidental discharges with Glocks and Glock-like weapons have been blamed on a lack of training or negligence on the part of the individual cops. What critics should be addressing instead is the brutal reality that short trigger pulls and natural human reflexes are a deadly combination.

Here is another problem with Owens, he’s a cop apologist to a fault. In his world, as far as I can tell, police officers are seldom, if ever, at fault for their screw ups. But the reason people blame the lack of training for negligent discharges is because it is entirely due to a lack of training. Blaming the short trigger pull of a Glock pistol ignores the fact that an officer who fired negligently had their finger on the trigger before they were ready to shoot. There’s a reason that’s one of the four rules of firearms safety: so long as your finger isn’t on the trigger the gun will not fire.

Adding a manual safety won’t solve this problem because an officer will likely train to disengage that safety as they’re drawing their weapon. Longer trigger pulls don’t address the problem of the finger being on the trigger when the officer is not intending to shoot. So long as an officer’s finger lies on the trigger when they’re not planning to fire the chances of catastrophe are infinitely higher than they would be otherwise.

It’s no secret that police officers receive substandard training. Many officers only fire their gun during annual or biannual qualifiers. Some hit the range between qualifiers, which is good. But I think officers should also be participating in action pistol sports to get some semblance of handling their primary firearm under stress (granted, a sport isn’t as stressful as getting shot at but it at least familiarizes you with how you will operate a firearm under stress).

Being a Bigot Can Pay Surprisingly Well

I’ve seen the name Pamela Geller pop up on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. One side of the isle, mostly the jingoists, have been jerking themselves off to her because of her strong anti-Islam stance. The other side, because there are only every two sides to an issue in this country, see her as a bigoted bitch. Not surprisingly the former side has been trotting this woman around as a hero of free speech. But I think love of free speech isn’t a big motivator for her. In fact I’m not even sure if she really hates Muslims as much as she says she does. Why else would an individual be such a vicious person if not for heroism or exaggerated fear? Money. Lots of fucking money:

It was Geller’s second victory over the MTA, which in 2012 lost a battle to prevent ads in the subways that included the words, “Support Israel, defeat Jihad.”

The group was described in 2013 tax documents as a nonprofit “dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and individual rights under the law.” It listed contributions and grants that year of more than $958,000, compared with $157,855 the year before. Geller, its president, is paid about $200,000 a year, according to the group’s filings.

For $200,000 per year I could probably be convinced to say some pretty terrible shit (just kidding, my price is a bit higher). Geller’s organization, which carries the Orwellian name American Freedom Defense Initiative, seems to be raking in some decent cash. This also isn’t very surprising considering the number of people in this country who has Muslims. But it does make one wonder if the organization is full of true believers or just people who recognized that there are suckers who will throw their money at anybody who confirms their bigoted biases.

One of these days I might have to start an organization that panders to people’s unwarranted fears. Maybe I can help fund the construction of a bunch of mosques or something else that will send these jingoists into a tizzy.

Like You and Me, Only Better

People charged with unlawfully killing somebody often have their passport revoked to prevent them from leaving the country. I guess that general rule, like most general rules, doesn’t apply when you have a shiny liability shield:

A volunteer sheriff’s deputy plans to vacation in the Bahamas while facing a second-degree manslaughter charge in Tulsa, his lawyers told a judge Tuesday. The deputy, Robert Bates, 73, pleaded not guilty during the hearing in Tulsa district court. Mr. Bates, a former insurance executive, has said he confused his handgun for a stun gun when he shot Eric Harris after the suspect ran during a sting investigation involving gun sales. His lawyer told the judge that his family intended to take its previously planned vacation ahead of his next court date, in July.

My money is on him not coming back. It is nice to know that you can still take your foreign vacation even though you’re facing manslaughter charges if you happen to be a cop.

The United States Doesn’t Have Shit on France When it Comes to Religious Discrimination

The United States has a bad reputation when it comes to religious discrimination. This reputation isn’t undeserved as the country’s new boogeyman is Muslims. But the United States doesn’t have shit on France. France takes religious discrimination to new levels. Where else could wearing a long skirt be considered provocative? Apparently it is in France, at least as long as the skirt is being worn by a Muslim girl:

According to French media reports, a 15-year-old French Muslim girl was banned from her class twice for wearing a skirt that was too long, and therefore supposedly a conspicuous display of religion. France’s state secularism has led to very strict laws prohibiting students from wearing overtly religious symbols in institutions of education.

The student, identified as Sarah, already apparently removed her headscarf before entering the school, in accordance with French law. But her long skirt was deemed a “provocation,” and potential act of protest.

If a skirt is too short the poor girl would have probably been sent home for being sexually provocative. I guess the French policy regarding skirts is now that they must all be below the knee and above the knee. Unless the student is Christian, of course. Then I’m sure a skirt can be a long as the wearer wants without any issue.

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.