---BREAKAWAY CIVILIZATION ---ALTERNATIVE HISTORY---NEW BUSINESS MODELS--- ROCK & ROLL 'S STRANGE BEGINNINGS---SERIAL KILLERS---YEA AND THAT BAD WORD "CONSPIRACY"--- AMERICANS DON'T EXPLORE ANYTHING ANYMORE.WE JUST CONSUME AND DIE.---
When mass shootings take place in the United States, corporate
news media can almost uniformly be counted on to act as stenographers to
power. They dutifully report exactly what they’re told by authorities
with wholehearted trust and close to no due diligence. This appears to
have been the case yet again in the May 23 Isla Vista California mass murder. The public has been propagandized with a familiar storyline that
law enforcement authorities have peppered with lurid details–including a
disturbing “manifesto” and YouTube soliloquy from a well-to-do yet
alienated man who had trouble forging relationships, so he went on a
wild shooting spree then committed suicide.
[Image Credit: WXYZ]
Like numerous other tragic events that cry out for heightened
measures against gun ownership, such as the Tucson shooting, the Sikh
Temple bloodletting, the Aurora movie theatre massacre, and the Newtown school shooting,
initial eyewitness accounts of what took place differ markedly from
what news media presented in subsequent reports—those laid out in law
enforcement press conferences just hours after the event.
Otto von Bismarck famously remarked, “Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.”
In a society where the Second Amendment and gun violence have been
vigorously politicized by powerful “reformists” like billionaire Michael
Bloomberg, Attorney General Eric Holder, and President Barack Obama,
journalists might be well-served by keeping this dictum in mind.
[Image Credit: YouTube]
What became the acceptable storyline remains dubious given initial
reports of the event. For example, Michael Vitak, a University of
California Santa Barbara student from the Czech Republic, stated in a
live televised interview that he saw more than one gunman–“’guys in a
BMW. Maybe they were trying to prove they’re tough.’” Vitak claims to
have witnessed the men shooting at two girls; one was shot dead, the
other was critically injured. “I heard shots, screams, pain,” says
Vitak. ‘All emotions. I hope she is going to be fine.’ Vitak asserts it
was too dark to see the suspects’ faces.”[1]
Mr. Vitak was one of many bystanders who saw two men carry out the
shootings. “Multiple witnesses say they saw two people inside the
suspect’s vehicle,” Santa Barbara television station KEYT reported.[2]
Another source conveyed how Santa Barbara County Sheriff public
information officer Kelly Hoover confirmed that a second suspect had
been apprehended.[3] Still, during an early press conference Santa
Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown would neither confirm nor deny whether
there was a second suspect, only “that there are multiple scenes and
multiple victims and that the situation is fluid.”[4]
Initial reports also describe the event as a series of “drive-by
shootings,” including a documented instance of “hit and run … that left
someone with major leg and head trauma.”[5] The Santa Barbara
Independent also related “[a]necdotal yet unconfirmed reports” of
bystanders “suggest[ing] that the vehicle involved was a black BMW with a
passenger shooting a handgun.”[6]
Another witness identified as Sierra said “she was approached by two
men in a black BMW. The driver flashed a small black handgun and asked
‘Hey, what’s up?’”[7] “Sierra” said at the time she believed it wasn’t a
real gun and continued walking. “Seconds later, she could hear real
bullets whistling past her. She managed to escape unharmed into a nearby
home filled with strangers also seeking safety” RT.com reports.[8]
Perhaps in the midst of concerted activity and scant illumination
multiple witnesses might of mistaken the number of individuals in a
darkly-hued vehicle recklessly speeding by. Yet here is “Sierra”–a
witness who claims to have encountered one of the assailants firsthand.
One must therefore ask, Why, with such compelling witness accounts, has
the ‘investigation’ been short-circuited in lieu of an arguably far less
tenable, even sensationalistic storyline? Indeed, much like the
estranged Adam Lanza, who similarly never lived to explain his
motivations, the Elliot Rodgers motif closely aligns with gun control
legislation and mental health protocols that powerful political
interests are hell bent on achieving.
When this author contacted the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s
offices—Isla Vista’s law enforcement arm and the main agency involved in
the inquiry—he was told that only those immediately involved in a crime
may have access to an incident report, and with regard to the May 23
shooting such documentation would likely not be forthcoming even to
those parties.
Initial witness recollections and those of press agent Hoover are
corroborated in police dispatch audio, where officers are first cautious
to enter into the immediate vicinity of the shootings. The crime scenes
were ostensibly established within the jurisdiction of the Santa
Barbara County Sheriff. Yet given the drastic circumstances it is
difficult to imagine such parameters would be closely adhered to. In the
captured audio an officer clearly states that “two suspects with
gunshot wounds [are] in custody.”[9] Following the melee Hoover told the
press that resources from throughout the county “were pouring into the
neighborhood … to help with the investigation.”[10]
What adds further complexity to the case is that an elaborate “active
shooter drill” involving multiple law enforcement agencies was
scheduled to occur on May 28th at nearby Santa Barbara City College,
where the alleged shooter was a student.[11] Regardless,
in the aftermath of such an event the public is fed what appears to be a
ready-made narrative complete with an unusually outspoken parent who,
alongside those from the Sandy Hook School massacre, appear to use such
events for furthering a specific political agenda. Richard Ross
Martinez, father of one of the reportedly slain students, is a
practicing attorney. One must therefore ask why he himself hasn’t looked
at the available data and seriously questioned what appears to be a
botched probe, or perhaps even a coverup.
[Image Credit: University of California]
In the end, journalism today is so perversely craven and devoid of
originality that editors happily toss documented facts and testimony
down the memory hole, particularly when they are confronted with a surge
of official statements supporting yet another “lone nut” storyline.[12]
Under ideal circumstances such pronouncements would be met with
skepticism and rigorous scrutiny. One is left to ponder whether there
would be any difference between the present propagandistic features of
news if journalism were subsumed and directly operated by the state.
Funding infrastructure through bonds doubles the price or worse.
Costs can be cut in half by funding through the state’s own bank.
“The numbers are big. There is sticker shock,” said Jason Peltier, deputy manager of the Westlands Water District, describing Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to build two massive water tunnels through the California Delta. “But consider your other scenarios. How much more groundwater can we pump?”
Whether the tunnels are the best way to get water to the Delta is
controversial, but the issue here is the cost. The tunnels were billed
to voters as a $25 billion project. That estimate, however, omitted
interest and fees. Construction itself is estimated at a relatively
modest $18 billion. But financing through bonds issued at 5% for 30
years adds $24-40 billion to the tab. Another $9 billion will go to
wetlands restoration, monitoring and other costs, bringing the grand
total to $51-67 billion – three or four times the cost of construction.
A general rule for government bonds is that they double the cost of projects, once interest has been paid.
The San Francisco Bay Bridge earthquake retrofit was originally slated to cost $6.3 billion,
but that was just for salaries and physical materials. With interest
and fees, the cost to taxpayers and toll-payers will be over $12
billion.
The bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles, another pet project of Jerry Brown and his administration, involves a bond issue approved in 2008 for $10 billion. But when interest and fees are added, $19.5 billion will have to be paid back on this bond, doubling the cost.
And those heavy charges pale in comparison to the financing of
“capital appreciation bonds.” As with the “no interest” loans that
became notorious in the subprime mortgage crisis, the borrower pays only
the principal for the first few years. But interest continues to
compound; and after several decades, it can amount to ten times
principal or more. San Diego County taxpayers will pay $1 billion after 40 years for $105 million raised for the Poway Unified School District.
Folsom Cordova used capital appreciation bonds to finance $514,000.
The sticker price after interest and fees will be $9.1 million.
In 2013, state lawmakers restricted debt service on capital
appreciation bonds to four times principal and limited their term to 25
years. But that still means that financiers receive four times the cost
of the project itself – the sort of return considered usurious when we
had anti-usury laws with teeth. Escaping the Interest Trap: The Models of China and North Dakota California needs $700 billion in infrastructure
over the next decade, and the state doesn’t have that sort of money in
its general fund. Where will the money come from? Proposals include more
private investment, but that means the privatization of what should
have been public assets. Infrastructure is touted to investors as the next “fixed income.”
But fixed income to investors means perpetual payments by taxpayers and
rate-payers for something that should have been public property.
There is another alternative. In the last five years, China has
managed to build an impressive 4000 miles of high-speed rail. Where did
it get the money? The Chinese government has a hidden funding source: it owns its own banks. That means it gets its financing effectively interest-free.
All banks actually have a hidden funding source. The Bank of England just admitted
in its quarterly bulletin that banks don’t lend their deposits. They
simply advance credit created on their books. If someone is going to be
creating our national money supply and collecting interest on it, it
should be we the people, through our own publicly-owned banks.
Models for this approach are not limited to China and other Asian
“economic miracles.” The US has its own stellar model, in the
state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND). By law, all of North Dakota’s
revenues are deposited in the BND, which is set up as a DBA of the state
(“North Dakota doing business as the Bank of North Dakota”). That means
all of the state’s capital is technically the bank’s capital. The bank
uses its copious capital and deposit pool to generate credit for local
purposes.
The BND is a major money-maker for the state, returning a sizable
dividend annually to the state treasury. Every year since the 2008
banking crisis, it has reported a return on investment of between 17
percent and 26 percent. While California and other states have been
slashing services and raising taxes in order to balance their budgets,
North Dakota has actually been lowering taxes, something it has done twice in the last five years.
The BND partners with local banks rather than competing with them,
strengthening their capital and deposit bases and allowing them to keep
loans on their books rather than having to sell them off to investors or
farm the loans out to Wall Street. This practice allowed North Dakota
to avoid the subprime crisis that destroyed the housing market in other
states.
North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, the
lowest default rate on credit card debt, one of the lowest foreclosure
rates, and the most local banks per capita of any state. It is also the
only state to escape the credit crisis altogether, boasting a budget
surplus every year since 2008.
Consider the Possibilities
The potential of this public banking model for other states is huge.
California’s population is more than 50 times that of North Dakota.
California has over $200 billion stashed in a variety of funds
identified in its 2012 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), including $58 billion managed by the Treasurer in a Pooled Money Investment Account earning a meager 0.264% annually. California also has over $400 billion in its pension funds (CalPERS and CalSTRS).
This money is earmarked for specific purposes and cannot be spent on
the state budget, but it can be invested. A portion could be invested as
equity in a state-owned bank, and a larger portion could be deposited
in the bank as interest-bearing certificates of deposit. This huge
capital and deposit base could then be leveraged by the bank into
credit, something all banks do. Since the state would own the bank, the
interest would return to the state. Infrastructure could be had
interest-free, knocking 50% or more off the sticker price.
By doing its own financing in-house, the state can massively expand
its infrastructure without imposing massive debts on future generations.
The Golden State can display the innovation and prosperity that makes
it worthy of the name once again. Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and a candidate for California State Treasurer running on a state bank platform. She is the author of twelve books, including the best-selling Web of Debt and her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, which explores successful public banking models historically and globally.
The Internet of Things Will Thrive by 2025
Many experts say the rise of embedded and wearable computing will bring the next revolution in digital technology.
This report is the latest research report in a sustained effort
throughout 2014 by the Pew Research Center Internet Project to mark the
25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (The Web at 25).
A February 2014 report
from Pew Internet Project tied to the Web’s anniversary looked at the
strikingly fast adoption of the Internet. It also looked at the
generally positive attitudes users have about its role in their social
environment.
A March 2014 Digital Life in 2025 report issued by Pew Internet Project in association with Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center
looked at the Internet’s future. Some 1,867 experts and stakeholders
responded to an open-ended question about the future of the Internet by
2025. They said it would become so deeply part of the environment that
it would become “like electricity”—less visible even as it becomes more
important in people’s daily lives.
To a notable extent, the experts agree on the technology change that
lies ahead, even as they disagree about its ramifications. Most believe
there will be:
A global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing
environment built through the continued proliferation of smart sensors,
cameras, software, databases, and massive data centers in a
world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things.
“Augmented reality” enhancements to the real-world input that people
perceive through the use of portable/wearable/implantable technologies.
Disruption of business models established in the 20th century (most notably impacting finance, entertainment, publishers of all sorts, and education).
Tagging, databasing, and intelligent analytical mapping of the physical and social realms.
This current report is an analysis of opinions about the likely
expansion of the Internet of Things (sometimes called the Cloud of
Things), a catchall phrase for the array of devices, appliances,
vehicles, wearable material, and sensor-laden parts of the environment
that connect to each other and feed data back and forth. It covers the
over 1,600 responses that were offered specifically about our question
about where the Internet of Things would stand by the year 2025. The
report is the next in a series of eight Pew Research and Elon University
analyses to be issued this year in which experts will share their
expectations about the future of such things as privacy, cybersecurity,
and net neutrality. It includes some of the best and most provocative of
the predictions survey respondents made when specifically asked to
share their views about the evolution of embedded and wearable computing
and the Internet of Things.
Survey respondents expect the Internet of Things to be evident in many places, including:
Bodies: Many people will wear devices that let them
connect to the Internet and will give them feedback on their
activities, health and fitness. They will also monitor others (their
children or employees, for instance) who are also wearing sensors, or
moving in and out of places that have sensors.
Homes: People will be able to control nearly
everything remotely, from how their residences are heated and cooled to
how often their gardens are watered. Homes will also have sensors that
warn about everything from prowlers to broken water pipes.
Communities: Embedded devices and smartphone apps
will enable more efficient transportation and give readouts on pollution
levels. “Smart systems” might deliver electricity and water more
efficiently and warn about infrastructure problems.
Goods and services: Factories and supply chains
will have sensors and readers that more precisely track materials to
speed up and smooth out the manufacture and distribution of goods.
Environment: There will be real-time readings from
fields, forests, oceans, and cities about pollution levels, soil
moisture, and resource extraction that allow for closer monitoring of
problems.
Expert respondent Patrick Tucker, author of The Naked Future: What Happens In a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?
provided a nice working description of the Internet of Things, writing:
“Here are the easy facts: In 2008, the number of Internet-connected
devices first outnumbered the human population, and they have been
growing far faster than have we. There were 13 billion
Internet-connected devices in 2013, according to Cisco, and there will
be 50 billion in 2020. These will include phones, chips, sensors,
implants, and devices of which we have not yet conceived.”
Tucker went on to forecast the benefits of all this connected
computing: “One positive effect of ‘ubiquitous computing,’ as it used to
be called, will be much faster, more convenient, and lower-cost medical
diagnostics. This will be essential if we are to meet the health care
needs of a rapidly aging Baby Boomer generation. The Internet of Things
will also improve safety in cities, as cars, networked to one another
and their environment, will better avoid collisions, coordinate speed,
etc. We will all be able to bring much more situational intelligence to
bear on the act of planning our day, avoiding delays (or unfortunate
encounters), and meeting our personal goals. We are entering the
telemetric age—an age where we create information in everything that we
do. As computation continues to grow less costly, we will incorporate
more data-collecting devices into our lives.”
Others we cite in this report are less sanguine about the
surveillance and tracking that is involved in making the Internet of
Things work. Their views are also extensively covered in this report.
This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals.
Prof. Janna Anderson, Director, Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center Lee Rainie, Director, Internet Project Maeve Duggan, Research Assistant, Internet Project
Find related reports about the future of the Internet at http://www.pewinternet.org/topics/future-of-the-internet/.
& we wonder Y "they" live in shit hole backwards country's ..ya know were "they" still wipe "their" ass's wit stones ...just wonder~in which God do "they" work 4 ? ..yup the 1 of Hate hum ...u talk bout backward's sick fucks ...who/ WHAT fucking DON'T "they" ...hate ! wonder what the "fat~ma" fer go fuck yer~self is ???kooky fuck !can "marry" a Woman u Love ...must hate Her tho...kooky ,fucking kooky ..which is the God of hate ...again ?
Islam permits Muslim husbands to abandon their wives to rapists in order to save their own lives—so says Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, vice president of Egypt’s Salafi party, the nation’s premiere Islamist party since the Muslim Brotherhood was banned.
Dr. Yassir al-Burhami, the face of Egyptian Salafism
Burhami’s fatwa, or Islamic decree, is not
altogether surprising. Earlier the Salafi sheikh said that, although a
Muslim man may marry non-Muslim women, specifically Christians and
Jews, he must hate them—and show them that he hates them—because they are “infidels” (even as he enjoys them sexually).
Now in his most recent fatwa—that husbands are permitted to forsake their sexually-assaulted wives in self-interest—Burhami relies on qiyas,
or analogy, based on the rulings of a prominent twelfth century jurist:
according to Imam ‘Azz bin Abdul Salaam, a Muslim should abandon his
possessions to robbers if so doing would safeguard his life.
Based on this logic, Burhami analogizes that the Muslim husband should abandon his wife if defending her jeopardizes his life—as she is just another possession that can easily be replaced.
In the words of a critical Arabic op-ed titled “Manhood according to Burhami!” and written by one Amani Majed, a Muslim woman:
So that which applies to abandoning one’s possessions to thieves and fleeing in fear of one’s life, applies—in Burhami’s view, sorry to say—to one’s wife and daughter. So if the wife is ever exposed to rape, she is seen as a possession. The husband
is to abandon her to the rapists and escape with his life. And why
not? For if he loses his possessions, he will replace them; and if his
wife is raped, he will marry another, even if she remains alive!
The op-ed goes on to consider the
ramifications of Burhami’s logic should every Muslim man follow it: if a
policeman patrolling the streets sees a woman—a stranger, not his wife
or daughter—being gang-raped, should he intervene, as his job entails,
and risk his own person, or should he think only of himself and flee?
Should the Egyptian soldier stand his ground and defend his nation against invaders, or should he flee to preserve his own life?
Three observations:
First: Salafis like Burhami, who try to pattern
their lives as literally as possible after Islam’s prophet Muhammad and
his original companions—hence the ubiquitous beards and white
robes—deserve attention for they are a treasure trove of information on literal Islam.
It’s always the Salafi-minded Muslims who evoke and uphold any number
of things deemed absurd or evil in a Western context—from trying to
enforce a canonical hadith that compels women to breastfeed adult men (ironically, to protect their “chastity”), to drinking camel urine for good health, to calling for the destruction of all churches.
Still, Salafis are much more frank and honest
than other, less overt Islamists, namely the two-faced Muslim
Brotherhood, which, now that it has been overthrown in Egypt, has shown
its true face—terrorism—causing it once again to be banned in Egypt.
Second: To be sure, many Muslims—perhaps the majority—reject Burhami’s latest “cowardly husband”
fatwa, in agreement with the aforementioned op-ed. The problem,
however, and as usual, is that while they agree that such behavior is
unbecoming of a husband, in the realm of Islamic jurisprudence, it is difficult to argue with the Salafi cleric’s logic. He used qiyas,
a legitimate tool of jurisprudence; and the imam whose logic he
analogized is widely recognized as an authority in Sunni Islam.
This is the fundamental problem facing all
moderate Muslims: despite what they like to believe and due to a variety
of historical and epistemological factors, they are heavily influenced
by Western thinking—protecting women and the weak in general, or
chivalry, is a Christian “innovation”—so whenever they come up against
Islamic teachings they cannot fathom, they collectively behave as if
such teachings don’t really mean what they mean.
Yet the Salafis know exactly what they mean.
Egyptian Salafis protesting
Third: This latest fatwa exemplifies
the lure of Salafism. This brand of literal Islam does not offer
anything profound or spiritually satisfying, but it does offer divine
sanctioning for unabashed egoism—in this case, forsaking one’s wife to rape in self-interest.
Justifying egoism is not limited to
preserving the self but also gratifying it—especially in the context of
jihad. One can go on and on about the other Salafi fatwas permitting rape, incest, and prostitution for
those fighting to empower Islam. Even renowned heroes like Khalid bin
al-Walid—the “Sword of Allah”—celebrated in the Muslim world for his
jihadi conquests, was, from a less hagiographic perspective, little more
than a mass murdering, sadistic rapist.
More generally, Salafi-minded Muslims believe
that all non-Muslims can be deceived, cheated, robbed, exploited,
enslaved and/or killed—all in the self-interest of the Muslim, seen as
one with the self-interest of Islam.
Why do they believe this? Because from a Salafi point of view, all free non-Muslim “infidels” who do not submit to Islamic law, or Sharia—Americans and Europeans for example—are natural born enemies, or harbis, and thus free game.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Middle East and Islam specialist and author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007).
His writings have appeared in a variety of media, including the Los
Angeles Times, Washington Times, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle
East Quarterly, World Almanac of Islamism, and Chronicle of Higher
Education; he has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters,
Al-Jazeera, NPR, Blaze TV, and CBN. Ibrahim regularly speaks publicly,
briefs governmental agencies, provides expert testimony for
Islam-related lawsuits, and testifies before Congress. He is a Shillman
Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an Associate Fellow at the
Middle East Forum, a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution,
and a CBN News contributor. Ibrahim’s dual-background — born and raised
in the U.S. by Coptic Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle
East — has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in
English and Arabic, to an equal understanding of the Western and Middle
Eastern mindsets, positioning him to explain the latter to the former.
name just 1 thing Our so~called gov. IS fucking any good at ? ah oh yea pissing OUR $$$$$$$ away oops or spewing fucking shit ALL over This ONCE Great Country ! but here's the kicker folks ...u & fucking i ...let em
“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come
to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you
and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse
case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it
is better to perish than to live as slaves.” & it looks more & more & More ....it's what it will come down 2...what's the plan folks ....we just gonna piss IT ALL ..away huh ...that it the Grown Jewel in the Living God's ...creation ( Us) ...this is the best we got ,the best we ALL's can come up wit hummm ...lets try put~in Our hands down once huh ..lets try that ! ....don't ya think we've em~bare~assed ourselves ...enough ..were fuck~in better than...this
If you still think Obamacare is
wonderful, you should pay attention to the daily scandalous news about
the criminally-run Veterans Administration hospital system.
By Richard Amerling, M.D.
American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)
May 26, 2014
Scandal at the Phoenix Veterans Administration lifted the curtain of secrecy on the VA’s secret waiting lists. The VA lies while patients die.
This is by no means a new phenomenon. The
nation’s single-payer system for veterans has long been greatly
overloaded. Congress tried to fix it in 1996 by passing a law requiring
that any veteran needing care had to be seen within 30 days.
The VA is supposed to have a wonderful electronic medical records system, and the EMR is supposed to be the magic formula for efficiency and quality. The VA gamed the electronic system to hide the waiting lists.
Readers of the British press will be struck
by the similarities between fudging waiting lists at VA hospitals and
stacking patients in ambulances outside UK hospitals. Finding it
impossible to comply with a National Health Service mandate that all
patients admitted to an emergency room be seen within four hours, so Hospitals kept patients waiting in ambulances outside the ER!
Britain’s NHS and our VA system are both
administratively top-heavy, command-and-control bureaucracies. All such
systems tend to expand, along with their budgets, as administrators hire
more and more people to do what they were supposed to be doing. There
is no competition, and virtually no accountability. Every problem is
always someone else’s responsibility. Mandates and quotas, rather than
incentives, are used to motivate those in the trenches.
Physicians working in the VA system, like the NHS, are mostly salaried employees.
There are many fine doctors in both systems, but the incentives in
place do not reward them for going the extra mile, seeing the additional
patient, or doing another procedure if it means going past their shift.
Inevitably, these systems create backlogs and lengthening queues for
care.
Americans need to take a close look at the VA—and not only because of their concern about poor treatment
of our wounded warriors. It is the prototype for Obamacare. The intent
behind Obamacare is to completely centralize control over health care,
and thus turn American health care into one huge Veterans’
Administration.
In 2011 I wrote that Obamacare was designed
as Medicaid for all. Medicaid expansion is a key component of the law.
If Congress wanted to expand coverage to the ten million or so
individuals who fall through the cracks of the private/public health
system, this could have been accomplished easily by offering them
Medicaid or Medicare. These creaky systems could be made to work better
simply by eliminating the price controls on physicians and allowing them to balance bill patients for the difference between payment and the cost of providing service. But expanding coverage was not the goal.
The stated goal of government central
planners, and of many medical elites, is to abolish traditional
fee-for-service medicine. They wrongly blame FFS for out of control
health care spending. This is absurd on its face. FFS medicine pre-dates
the massive health spending inflation that was largely brought on by
Medicare and Medicaid, and the domination by third-party payers. The
lack of price transparency and the removal of most disincentives to
utilization of health services are what led to the incredible
over-spending on health care that we’ve seen since the ‘60s. FFS is the
only way to insure the prompt delivery of needed care.
But what central planners want is for all physicians to be salaried employees
of either the government or of large hospital systems. Then planners
could centrally control care through “payment-for-performance”
algorithms built into electronic records. The promptness and quality of
care will suffer.
Obamacare is already becoming like the VA. A kidney transplant patient suddenly developed blurred vision. This alarming symptom
could signal a brain tumor or other serious diagnosis. I would have
arranged for an MRI to be done the same day. Her new Obamacare plan,
however, offered a specialist appointment two weeks hence.
The shameful backlog in our VA system could
be remedied overnight by either giving veterans vouchers for care in the
private, FFS system, or by building incentives into the VA payment
structure. Ah, but this would require an acknowledgment that their
top-down system has failed.
________________
Richard Amerling, MD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and a
renowned academic nephrologist at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New
York City. Dr. Amerling studied medicine at the Catholic University of
Louvain in Belgium, graduating cum laude in 1981. He completed a medical
residency at the New York Hospital Queens and a nephrology fellowship
at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He has written and
lectured extensively on health care issues and is President-elect of the
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Amerling is the author of the Physicians’ Declaration of Independence.
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 21: General
Manager Glen Sather of the New York Rangers (L) introduces Alain
Vigneault as the new Rangers coach at Radio City Music Hall on June 21,
2013 in New York City. (Photo by Scott Levy/NHLI via Getty Images)
He resembles how a cartoonist from the New Yorker
might depict a professional hockey team’s general manager: Old, sly,
worry lines cross-crossing his brow and a cigar found in his maw.
They don’t make’em like Glen Sather anymore. Guys who played 658 NHL
games and then coached 932. Architects of five Stanley Cup champions who
become Teflon general managers in New York of all places, where players
and coaches are usually run out of town by their third bad pun negative
headline on the back page of the Post. (“SLATS ALL FOLKS” had to be one, right?)
The New York Rangers
didn’t make the conference final in 12 years under Sather, and now have
made it two of the last three seasons; advancing to the Stanley Cup
Final 14 years after Sather was hired as the team’s president and
general manager, which followed 21 years in that position for the Edmonton Oilers.
He’s beaten his critics, agents, collective bargaining agreements, his many missteps and, oh, you know, cancer
in that span. His team is now four wins from delivering on the promise
of his hiring: To bring another Stanley Cup to Manhattan.
The constructions of this Rangers’ team reveals some new tricks
learned by an old dog over time, but also some incredible good fortune
smiling on him. Some of that luck was simply drawn from the Rangers
being who, and where, they are. And some of that luck involved other
general managers, and his own owners’ wallets, being so kind as to make
Sather’s blunders disappear.
The end result is the first conference championship in 20 years. But the journey there was anything but orthodox. The Rebuild
In 2004, Year 4 under Sather, the Rangers changed course. They traded
Brian Leetch. They purged the roster of high-priced veterans like Alex
Kovalev, Matthew Barnaby and Petr Nedved. Mark Messier played his last
NHL game as well.
It was a rebuild, but not one without marquee names: When the Washington Capitals had to rid themselves of Jaromir Jagr
for their own reconstruction of the roster, Sather obliged, costing him
Anson Carter and getting Ted Leonsis to pay part of Jagr’s salary.
Then the lockout happened, and the cancelled season. When the Rangers
returned, they did so with Jagr leading the team in every offensive
category and a rookie goalie named Henrik Lundqvist sporting a .922 save
percentage in 53 starts.
As the years passed, the formula that would eventually turn the
Rangers into a winner was starting to take hold: Star players, acquired
from elsewhere, leading the team in scoring; homegrown talent filling
out the roster in front of what was obviously a franchise goalie. Dan Girardi debuted in 2006-07, as did Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky.
Alas, old habits die hard, and the Rangers were soon breaking the
bank in 2007 for two free agents that would prove to be disappoints of
varying magnitudes: Scott Gomez for $51.5 million and seven years from
the Devils and Chris Drury for $35.25 million and five years from
Buffalo.
Meanwhile, Jagr lost his center in Michael Nylander as the Rangers
opted for Gomez and Drury. The next year, the Rangers let Jagr walk to
the KHL, citing a desire to move in a different direction.
They signed Wade Redden to a six-year, $39 million contract that same summer. So, like, the wrong direction, then…
View gallery
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Gomez
Mistakes Were Made
In 2010, the minor league burial of Redden’s contract began. Drury
was clearly on his way to a buyout, which he would receive in the
following season. And Gomez, whose tenure with the Rangers remains one
of the biggest smudges on Sather’s record, was on the trading block.
The Montreal Canadiens
wanted him as their No. 1 center and, inexplicably, traded a blue chip
prospect in defenseman Ryan McDonagh for a player (and a contract) the
Rangers desperately wanted off their books. Once it was, they signed
former Minnesota Wild star Marian Gaborik to a rather robust $37.5 million contract over five years.
It’s here we start to see the pieces fitting. Girardi was regarded as
one of the NHL’s best defensive defensemen, a spotlight he’d share with
Marc Staal, a Rangers draft pick now in the lineup. Brian Boyle was
acquired from the Kings.
But by 2011, the John Tortorella Rangers were beginning to take on
the characteristics that would eventually lead to his demise: Grunts
that fit his style perfectly, and skill players that simply didn’t.
Which is partially why Sather decided to pursue a skill player that
had excelled under Torts, to the tune of a Stanley Cup and a Conn
Smythe. They Had Big Apple Fever
In some ways, it’s unfair to judge anyone else in contrast to the Rangers’ acquisitions of Brad Richards,
Rick Nash and Marty St. Louis. The team had a Scrooge McDuck Moneybin
of funds through which to pay their salaries. And in each case, the
players choose New York as much as New York chose them.
Richards joined the Rangers in 2011 on a nine-year, $58.5 million
contract as a free agent from the Dallas Stars. He was courted heavily
by other teams, but the sense was always that he’d end up in New York
with Tortorella.
In 2012, Nash wanted out of Columbus after having been their
franchise player for the last decade. His suitors were many, but he
wielded a no-trade clause that limited those options.
The Rangers always seemed to be the fit, even if the market seemed to
be the opposite of the kind of personality Nash embodies. To get him,
Sather packaged two homegrown top six forwards – Artem Anisimov, Brandon
Dubinsky. They won the Rick Nash Derby, if there ever was one beyond
his desire to play in New York.
The same scenario played out in
2014 with the stunning Martin St. Louis deal. He had a long-standing
desire to play closer to his Connecticut home. His relationship with the
team soured after GM Steve Yzerman’s Olympic snub for the Sochi Games.
He wanted out and the Rangers were the only place he wanted to go. It
took what’ll now be two first-round picks, but that added scoring
dimension has been essential to the Rangers’ conference title this
postseason – along with the unexpected emotional jolt he gave the team
when he lost his mother in the semifinals.
The Rangers have all three of
these players because they’re the Rangers. But that’s the hand Sather’s
played throughout every major transaction. He usually gets his man,
whether they work out or not.
Thank You, Columbus
The Nash trade gave the Rangers the kind of scoring winger they
coveted, a.k.a. the kind of scoring winger that Marian Gaborik wasn’t
going to be under John Tortorella. So they flipped him to the Blue
Jackets at the trade deadline in a blockbuster from the Columbus end,
acquiring three players that are on this playoff roster: Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett, and John Moore.
Gaborik is the leading goal scorer in the playoffs … for the Los Angeles Kings, who traded for him in 2014 after he wore out his welcome in Columbus.
View gallery
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NEW YORK, NY - MAY 29: Carl Hagelin #62 and Chris Kreider #20 of the New York Rangers celebrates after defeating …
Homegrown Talent (And Borrowing That Of Others)
No one’s going to confuse the 2014 Rangers with Sather’s Oilers Cup winners, whose best players were drafted by the team. (Seriously, like, all of them were.) But a surprising number of impact players in this postseason, beyond Lundqvist, actually are homegrown.
There are eight players drafted by the Rangers on their playoff roster, including Dominic Moore,
who was drafted by New York in 2000 before going on to play with every
NHL team outside of the Golden Seals. Among the eight are Derek Stepan,
Carl Hagelin and Chris Kreider, three players directly responsible for
this team playing for the Stanley Cup.
Three more – Girardi, Mats Zuccarello and Cam Talbot – were undrafted free agent pickups.
Nine players were acquired via trade, with four of them coming over from Columbus.
Three players were drafted by other teams and then signed as free agents with the Rangers, including Richards.
Let it never be said that Glen Sather isn’t aggressive in getting
what he wants: He’s traded three first-round picks and nearly a
half-dozen top six forwards in building this team.
But in the end, there is a balance between the players that the
Rangers drafted and signed to their first NHL deals, and the big names
they’ve brought in from other teams. Live, Learn And Win
Sather hasn’t been perfect. In fact, he’s made over $100 million in
mistakes that either had to be traded or buried in the minors or bought
out.
But the philosophy behind this incarnation of the Rangers is akin to that of the New York Yankees
during their 1990s run of championships: Yes, they needed Clemens and
Wells and Cone and every other star from another team’s toy chest who
became Yankees because, well, they’re the Yankees. But they
never purchased a World Series title. It was always built on a
foundation of the players they drafted and developed: Jeter, Rivera,
Pettitte, Posada, Williams and others.
As Joel Sherman of the Post wrote: "If you were starting a team from
scratch and could pick what you want, how different would it be from
those traits attached to a switch-hitting catcher and center fielder
with power and patience from both sides, an all-world shortstop, an
unflinching lefty starter and the best closer ever?"
This isn’t to say the Rangers are any sort of dynasty, although one
has to be encouraged by the ages of much of that homegrown talent.
(Kreider and Stepan are 23, Hagelin in 25, McDonagh is their 26-year-old
elder.)
This is to say that Glen Sather, the man who paid $45 million to
Bobby Holik and $39 million to Wade Redden and $35 million to Chris
Drury and then paid them all to make them go away, is four wins away
from the Stanley Cup because of the foundation he laid and the trades he
made, and not because of the Cablevision money he threw around for
players outside of the organization.
Which is something many of us never thought we’d say about Glen Sather as New York Rangers general manager.
But then again, many of us thought he wouldn’t still be in that job in 2014, either.
Wonder if the organizers of those “Fire Sather” rallies will be attending any of the Stanley Cup Final games at MSG …
HOW THE RANGERS WERE BUILT
PLAYER (PLAYOFF PTS)
BECAME A RANGER
ORGINALLY DRAFTED
Martin St. Louis, RW (13)
Traded by Lightning Ryan Callahan, a 2015 first-round draft pick, and
a conditional 2014 second-round pick (now a first) – March 5, 2014
Undrafted
Derek Stepan, C (13)
Drafted by the Rangers in the 2nd round (51st overall) in 2008
By Rangers
Ryan McDonagh, D (13)
Traded by Montreal with Chris Higgins and Pavel Valentenko for Scott Gomez, Tom Pyatt and Michael Busto - June 30, 2009.
By Montreal, 1st round (12th overall), 2007 NHL Entry Draft
Brad Richards, C (11)
Signed as free agent to a 9-year, $60-million deal – July 3, 2011
By Tampa Bay, 3rd round (64th overall), 1998 NHL Entry Draft
Mats Zuccarello, LW (11)
Signed as a free agent by NY Rangers - March 28, 2013.
Undrafted
Carl Hagelin, LW (10)
Drafted by Rangers in the 6th round (168th overall), 2007 NHL Entry
By Rangers
Chris Kreider, LW (10)
Drafted by Rangers in the 1st round (19th overall), 2009 NHL Entry
By Rangers
Rick Nash, LW (10)
Traded by Columbus with Steven
Delisle and Columbus' 3rd round choice (Pavel Buchnevich) in 2013 Entry
Draft for Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov, Tim Erixon and NY Rangers'
1st round choice (Kerby Rychel) in 2013 Entry Draft - July 23, 2012.
By Columbus, 1st round (1st overall), 2002 NHL Entry Draft
Derick Brassard, C (9)
Traded by Columbus with Derek Dorsett, John Moore and Columbus' 6th
round choice in 2014 Entry Draft for Marian Gaborik, Blake Parlett and
Steven Delisle, April 3, 2013.
By Columbus, 1st round (6th overall), 2006 NHL Entry Draft
Benoit Pouliot, LW (8)
Signed as a free agent by NY Rangers - July 5, 2013.
By Minnesota, 1st round (4th overall), 2005 NHL Entry Draft
Dominic Moore, C (7)
Signed as a free agent by NY Rangers - July 5, 2013.
By Rangers, 3rd round (95th overall), 2000 NHL Entry Draft
Dan Girardi, D (7)
Signed as a free agent by NY Rangers - July 1, 2006.
Undrafted
Brian Boyle, C (6)
Traded by Los Angeles for NY Rangers' 3rd round choice (Jordan Weal) in 2010 Entry Draft - June 27, 2009.
By Los Angeles, 1st round (26th overall), 2003 NHL Entry Draft
Marc Staal, D (5)
Drafted by Rangers in 1st round (12th overall), 2005 NHL Entry Draft
By Rangers
Anton Stralman, D (5)
Signed as a free agent by NY Rangers - November 5, 2011.
By Toronto, 7th round (216th overall), 2005 NHL Entry Draft
Kevin Klein, D (4)
Traded by Predators for defenseman Michael Del Zotto – January 22, 2014
By Nashville, 2nd round (37th overall), 2003 NHL Entry Draft
Dan Carcillo, LW (2)
Traded by Los Angeles for a conditional seventh-round draft pick in the 2014 NHL Draft - January 4, 2014
By Pittsburgh, 3rd round (73rd overall), 2003 NHL Entry Draft
J.T. Miller, C (2)
Drafted by Rangers in 1st round (15th overall), 2011 NHL Entry Draft
By Rangers
Derek Dorsett, RW (1)
Traded by Columbus with Derick
Brassard, John Moore and Columbus' 6th round choice in 2014 Entry Draft
for Marian Gaborik, Blake Parlett and Steven Delisle, April 3, 2013.
By Columbus in 7th round (189th overall), 2006 NHL Entry Draft
Jesper Fast, RW (1)
Drafted by Rangers in 6th round (157th overall) in 2010 NHL Entry Draft
By Rangers
John Moore, D (1)
Traded by Columbus with Derek
Dorsett, Derick Brassard and Columbus' 6th round choice in 2014 Entry
Draft for Marian Gaborik, Blake Parlett and Steven Delisle, April 3,
2013.
By Columbus, 1st round (21st overall), 2009 NHL Entry Draft
Raphael Diaz, D (0)
Traded by Montreal to the New York Rangers for a 5th round pick in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. – March 5, 2014
Undrafted
Henrik Lundqvist, G
Drafted by Rangers, 7th round (205th overall), 2000 NHL Entry Draft
By Rangers
Cam Talbot, G
Signed by Rangers as undrafted free agent. – March 30, 2010
Undrafted
Refreshing rationality: Why NOT believing in conspiracies is a sure sign of mental retardation
The phrase “conspiracy
theorist” is a derogatory smear phrase thrown at someone in an attempt
to paint them as a lunatic. It’s a tactic frequently used by modern-day
thought police in a desperate attempt to demand “Don’t go there!”
But let’s step back for a rational moment and ask the commonsense question: Are there really NO conspiracies in our world?
The Attorney General of South Carolina would surely disagree with such a blanket statement. After all, he sued five pharmaceutical companies for conducting a price-fixing conspiracy to defraud the state of Medicaid money.
Similarly, in 2008, a federal judge ruled that three pharmaceutical companies artificially marked up their prices in order to defraud Medicare.
In fact, dozens of U.S. states have filed suit against pharmaceutical
companies for actions that are conspiracies: conspiracy to engage in
price fixing, conspiracy to bribe doctors, conspiracy to defraud the state and so on.
The massive drug company GlaxoSmithKline, even more, plead guilty to a massive criminal fraud case involving a global conspiracy to bribe doctors into prescribing more GSK drugs.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. A deeper look into the criminality of just the drug industry alone reveals a widespread pattern of conspiratorial behavior to defraud the public and commit felony crimes in the name of “medicine.”
What is a conspiracy, exactly?
As any state or federal prosecutor will
gladly tell you, a “conspiracy” is simply when two or more people plot
to commit an act of deceit (or a crime).
Thus, when three hoodlums plan to rob the local Quickie Mart, they
are engaged in a “conspiracy” and will likely be charged with a
“conspiracy to commit armed robbery” in addition to the different crime
of “armed robbery.” The fact that they planned it with several friends
makes it a “conspiracy” worthy of additional felony charges, you see.
When these charges are brought up in court, the judge doesn’t look at
the prosecutor and say, “You are a conspiracy theorist!” That would be
absurd.
The idea, then, that there is no such thing as a conspiracy is flatly
ludicrous. And people who condemn others as being “conspiracy
theorists” only make themselves look mentally impaired.
To live in our modern world which is full of collusion and conspiracy
— and yet somehow DENY the existence of any conspiracies at all — is an
admission of a damaged brain. Of
course there are conspiracies, and when people analyze those
conspiracies, they are “theorizing” about what happened. This is, in
fact, precisely the job that police detectives and FBI agents carry out
almost daily.
Most police detectives are, in reality, “conspiracy investigators” and analysts.
There are endless examples of real conspiracies
Auto
manufacturers routinely conspire to cover up mechanical defects that
put customer lives at risk. Even National Public Radio lays out the full timeline of the General Motors conspiracy to hide the problem with its faulty ignition switches.
Last year, food corporations conspired with the Grocery Manufacturers of America (the GMA) to commit money laundering crimes in Washington state in order to funnel money into a campaign to defeat GMO labeling there.
The FDA conspired with a drug manufacturer to keep a deadly diabetes drug called Rezulin on the market in the USA even after safety regulators pulled the product in Europe.
Similarly, the corrupt, criminal-minded operators of mainstream science journals conspired in a particularly evil way to railroad Dr. Andrew Wakefield with provably false accusations about the nature of his research into the side effects of vaccines. The GMO Seralini study
has been similarly railroaded by a genuine conspiracy of evil, corrupt
science journal editors who routinely conspire to suppress all the
science they don’t want to be seen by the public. Fortunately, 150 other
scientists have come to support Seralini with a global condemnation of the obviously contrived scientific censorship.
We live in a world of such deception and collusion that, frankly
stated, it’s hard to find a large institution (such as medicine,
agriculture or the war industry) which isn’t involved in some sort of
conspiracy at some level.
What is a “conspiracy theorist?
The pejorative “conspiracy theorist” is meant to demean and ridicule skeptics of official stories.
Most so-called “conspiracy theorists” are really skeptics, by
definition. They’re skeptical of what the government tells them. They’re
skeptical of the claim that drug companies are really only interested
in helping humankind and have no desire to make money. They’re skeptical
that food corporations are telling them the truth about what’s in their
food. And they’re also skeptical of anything coming out of Washington
D.C., regardless of which party happens to be in power at the time.
People who are not skeptics of “official stories” tend to be
dull-minded. To believe everything these institutions tell you is a sign
of mental retardation. To ask questions, on the other hand, is a sign
of higher intelligence and wisdom.
Skeptics of official stories, it turns out, also have the support of
history on their side. How many times has it later been revealed that
the American people were lied to by the very institutions we were
supposed to trust?
For example, it is an historical fact that 98 million Americans were injected with hidden cancer viruses
which were later found in polio vaccines strongly recommended by the
CDC. In an effort to cover that up and rewrite history, the CDC later scrubbed all accounts of that history from its website, pretending it never happened.
That’s more than a cover-up; it’s an Orwellian-style conspiracy to
selectively rewrite history and deny Americans any memory of a
monumental, deadly error made by the CDC in collusion with the vaccine
industry.
According to two former Merck virologists, that company conspired to fake the results of its vaccine tests
by spiking test samples with animal antibodies, thereby falsely
distorting the results to make the vaccine appear effective. The two
virologists filed a False Claims Act with the federal government
detailing the conspiracy, saying: Merck also added animal antibodies to blood samples to achieve more favorable test results,
though it knew that the human immune system would never produce such
antibodies, and that the antibodies created a laboratory testing
scenario that “did not in any way correspond to, correlate with, or
represent real life … virus neutralization in vaccinated people…”
Conspiracies of money and big banks
Every month, the Federal Reserve
conspires to steal a portion of your wealth through “quantitative
easing” — an irresponsible money creation scheme that devalues all the
currency already in circulation (i.e. the money in your bank account).
The money the Fed creates is, not surprisingly, handed over to the big Wall Street banks — the same banks that received a jaw-dropping $29 trillion in “bailout money” since the near-collapse of U.S. banking in late 2008.
Why did this bailout money go to the banks instead of the American people? Because powerful people sat in dark rooms and colluded to send the money to the most influential banks. A conspiracy, in other words, by definition.
Had that same amount of money been equally distributed across the
U.S. population, the Fed would have distributed nearly $100,000 to each
and every citizen in America; man, woman and child. But instead of
enriching the population, the banking bailout burdened the population with the debt now owed to the Fed by future taxpayers.
Every $1 trillion created by the Fed, after all, is $1 trillion
“loaned” to the U.S. Treasury which must somehow be repaid. In truth,
the minute you start to investigate how money is created, why the
Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel and why the big banks get
all the bailout money, you run head-first into genuine conspiracies
almost from the outset. When you look up the word “conspiracy” in a
dictionary, it should probably say, “See Banking and Finance.”
Our world is full of conspiracies because it’s full of people who deceive
The reason conspiracies are real is
because humanity is a race capable of extreme deception. As long as
there are people whose actions are based in greed, jealousy and a desire
to dominate others, there will be real conspiracies plotted and operating across every sector of society.
The correct term for “conspiracy theorist” should really be
“conspiracy analyst.” Most of the people who are skeptical of official
stories are, in fact, analyzing conspiracies in an attempt to understand what really happened and what took place behind closed doors.
A highly-recommended book the delves into this matter in more detail is the five-star-rated masterpiece Official Stories: Counter-Arguments for a Culture in Need by Liam Scheff.
This book will open the minds of those who still have the cognitive capability remaining to grasp it. (Sadly, the injection of mercury into babies in the form of vaccines has damaged so many brains across America that many people are now cognitively incapable of rational thought.)
And remember: the next time someone flings the phrase “conspiracy
theorist” in your direction, simply know that they are effectively
wearing a DUNCE hat on their heads by admitting they have failed to
acknowledge that true conspiracies are rather commonplace.
That’s not merely a theory, either: it’s a statement of fact.
The
pace of technological change we have seen over the past fifteen years
has been so breathtaking, so unrelenting, that it’s worth pausing to
reflect on it for a moment. Fifteen years ago, our world was very
different. Bill Clinton was President. The Red Sox had not won the World
Series for almost a century. Mobile phones existed, but were little
more than walkie-talkies with flip-tops. And the idea of total
surveillance was unthinkable, a spectre of dystopian fiction and failed
communist and fascist states from our grandparents’ time.
Fifteen years ago, our politics simply would not permit total
surveillance, along the lines of the Stasi or J. Edgar Hoover’s
COINTELPRO. The veterans of the cold war against communism and the hot
war against fascism were still alive and vigilant. Surveillance was not
only politically inconceivable but also technically impossible.
Telephone metadata existed (including new forms of metadata for mobile
phones), but the amount of data humans generated in their daily
activities was vastly smaller.
What a difference fifteen years makes. Our technological and
political environment has radically changed. The combination of the
consumer phase of the digital revolution and the decrease in the
political will to watch the watchers has meant that far more about us is
digitized, much of it without any oversight or regulation. After the
shock of 9/11, Congress authorized the Patriot Act, and many secret
government programs (some legal, some not) operated under the radar.
As we move forward, it is essential that we figure out how to
translate the values of free speech, privacy, due process, and equality
into the new digital environment—what they mean in an era of big data
and pervasive surveillance, and how to build them into the fabric of our
digital society. We might decide to reject any idea of digital due
process. Or we might embrace it fully. Most likely, we’ll end up
somewhere in between. Regardless, privacy of some kind will be
inevitable — but what those rights look like depends on a democratic
environment.
Incrementally, the Internet has been transformed from a
place of anarchic freedom to an environment of total tracking and total
control.
Let’s consider first the inevitability of privacy. We
often think of privacy as a factual state – how much do people know
about me? As more and more information is collected and tracked, and
fewer dimensions of human life remain opaque to observation, privacy
would seem to be in retreat, perhaps irreversibly so. From that
perspective, it is easy for commentators to suggest, glibly, that
privacy is dead. Just this week, Thomas Friedman suggested in the New York Times that “privacy is over.”
But there are other ways of thinking about privacy. Web sites and
doctors’ offices have privacy policies about how they will keep your
information private and confidential. In an information age, this way of
understanding privacy—as keeping secrets rather than merely being
secret—will become more important. When we collect information about
people, what happens to that information? Is its use unrestricted? Is
its disclosure unrestricted? These areas will be regulated in one form
or another. Law will play a role, and if Congress is unable or
unwilling to regulate, then leadership will come from elsewhere, whether
the White House, the FTC, or foreign sources of law, like this month’s decision by a Spanish Court
giving people a right to control how search engines report results
about them. Globally-operating technology companies are bound by global
rules, and European and Canadian regulators don’t buy the “death of
privacy” fallacy. Even putting law to one side, information rules will
be imposed inevitably through social norms, technology, or the
competition of the market. Witness Facebook’s continual improvement of
its “privacy controls” after a decade of pressure.
When we understand that “privacy” is shorthand for the regulation of
information flows, it’s clear that information rules of some sort are
inevitable in our digital society. The idea that privacy is dead is a myth.
Privacy—the rules we have to govern access to information—is just
changing, as it’s always been changing. The rules governing the
creation, ownership, and mortality of data can be permissive or
restrictive; they may create winners and losers, but they will exist
nonetheless. And some of those rules are not just going to be privacy
rules (rules governing information flows), but privacy-protective rules -
ones that restrict the collection, use, or disclosure of information.
Consider the National Security Agency. The NSA purports to prevent
harm by tracking our movements and communications—denying us a factual
state of privacy we have enjoyed in the past from the state. This window
into our lives is one kind of privacy rule. But the NSA also argues
that it needs to perform its operations in secret—secret data
collection, secret technologies, secret courts. It claims that if it
were forced to disclose its operations, the targets of its surveillance
would be able to avoid it. This is also a privacy rule—the NSA argues
that operational privacy is necessary for it to do its job. Facebook and
other technology companies also use trade secret law, computer security
tools, and non-disclosure agreements to keep their own data private.
When the very entities that would deny the existence of privacy rely on
privacy rules to protect their own interests, it becomes clear that
privacy is not doomed. This is what I call the transparency paradox.
But if we care about civil liberties, we need to foster an ecosystem
in which those liberties can thrive. Take freedom of speech, for
example. We often (correctly) talk about the robust culture of free
speech enjoyed by Americans. Certainly, the Supreme Court’s
interpretation of the First Amendment has played an important role in
the exercise of this essential freedom. Legal doctrine has been
important, but the cultural, social, and economic inputs have been
equally essential in making free speech possible. Without a robust
democratic atmosphere, freedom of speech can become a shallow
protection, in which people might say a lot without saying anything of
substance at all.
In the twentieth century, this atmosphere was created by a large
middle class, universal literacy, broad access to education, a culture
of questioning authority and protection for dissenters, and cheap postal
rates for printed matter, among other things. In the digital age, if we
care about our democratic atmosphere, we need to worry about things
like access to technology, the “digital divide,” network neutrality,
digital literacy, and technologies to verify that the data on the hard
drives hasn’t been tampered with. We also need to ensure access to
effective technological tools like cryptography, information security,
and other technologies that promote trust in society. Reed Hundt’s fine
essay “Saving Privacy”
reminds us that government transparency is essential for democracy,
that we need to empower individuals in their use of privacy and security
tools, and that there will still be an essential role for law to play
in the digital world we are building together.
Let's be sure that intellectual privacy is part of our digital future.
Most of all, though, we need to worry about intellectual privacy. Intellectual privacy is protection from surveillance or interference when we are engaged in the processes of generating ideas–
thinking, reading, and speaking with confidantes before our ideas are
ready for public consumption. Law has protected intellectual privacy in
the past. But the digital revolution has raised the stakes. More and
more, the acts of reading, thinking, and private communication are
mediated by electronic technologies, including personal computers, smart
phones, e-books, and tablets. Whether we call it surveillance or
transparency, being watched has effects on behavior. When we watch the
NSA or the police, they behave better. And when the police watch us, so
do we, whether it is not speeding for some of us or not stealing for
others.
But critically, when we are using computers to read, think, and make
sense of the world and engage with ideas, there is no such thing as a
bad idea or bad behavior. If our society is to remain free, we must be
able to engage with any ideas, whether we agree with them or not. This
is true across a range of topics, from Mein Kampf to the Vagina Monologues,
and from erotica to Fox News. But constant, unrelenting, perpetual
surveillance of our tastes in politics, art, literature, TV, or sex will
drive our reading (and by extension our tastes) to the mainstream, the
boring, and the bland. As we build our digital society, we need to
ensure that we carve out and protect the intellectual privacy that
political freedom requires to survive.
Fifteen years ago, the Internet was heralded as a great forum for
intellectual liberation—a place to think for ourselves and meet like-
(and different-) minded people unmediated by censors or surveillance.
Yet, incrementally, the Internet has been transformed from a place of
anarchic freedom to something much closer to an environment of total
tracking and total control. All too often, it may seem like the digital
future is unfolding before our eyes in some kind of natural and
unstoppable evolution. But the final state of Internet architecture is
not inevitable, nor is it unchangeable. It is up for grabs. In the end,
the choices we make now about surveillance and privacy, about freedom
and control in the digital environment will define the society of the
very near future. I fear that the “privacy is dead” rhetoric is masking a
sinister shift, from a world in which individuals have privacy but
exercise transparency over the powerful institutions in their lives, to a
world in which our lives are transparent but the powerful institutions
are opaque. That's a pretty scary future, and one which we’ve told
ourselves for decades that we don’t want. The availability of cheap
smartphones and free apps shouldn’t change that. We should choose both
control of our digital information and the benefits of our digital
tools. We can make that choice, but the “privacy is dead” rhetoric is
obscuring the existence of the choice.
Let’s realize that privacy—some system of rules governing
information—is inevitable, and argue instead about what kind of digital
society we are building under the rhetoric. If we care about living in a
society with free speech and free minds, let’s be sure that
intellectual privacy is part of our digital future. Thumbnail image: Vu Bui
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