This is a Strange Day for this Argument, Comey
Default powerful encryption "breaks the bargain" between citizens and government, argues the head of the FBI.
I'm pretty sure we just this week had it confirmed that you have backdoor capacities to turn on the microphones in like everything we own, which means that encryption of voice calls is useless. Malware that lets you read keystrokes captures data before the start of the end-to-end encryption process, and if you can seize control of the computer you can read the data on the other end anyway.
Besides, encryption is a branch of mathematical logic. You can't ban it any more than you can ban people from doing math. If you made it illegal to manufacture commercial encryption, anyone with a computer could still brew it up if they bothered to learn how. At least this way you can bribe the tech companies to give you a backdoor or to leave vulnerabilities for you to exploit in the system (as the Vault 7 documents claim your friends at CIA have been doing).
If anyone has a right to complain about the bargain being broken, I would think it was the citizenry. The right to be secure in 'person and papers' without your having to get a warrant seems to be fading in this technological age. If there remain ways of defending yourself from intrusive surveillance, good.
I'm pretty sure we just this week had it confirmed that you have backdoor capacities to turn on the microphones in like everything we own, which means that encryption of voice calls is useless. Malware that lets you read keystrokes captures data before the start of the end-to-end encryption process, and if you can seize control of the computer you can read the data on the other end anyway.
Besides, encryption is a branch of mathematical logic. You can't ban it any more than you can ban people from doing math. If you made it illegal to manufacture commercial encryption, anyone with a computer could still brew it up if they bothered to learn how. At least this way you can bribe the tech companies to give you a backdoor or to leave vulnerabilities for you to exploit in the system (as the Vault 7 documents claim your friends at CIA have been doing).
If anyone has a right to complain about the bargain being broken, I would think it was the citizenry. The right to be secure in 'person and papers' without your having to get a warrant seems to be fading in this technological age. If there remain ways of defending yourself from intrusive surveillance, good.
SoA: Celebrating the Kurdish Female Peshmerga
Spirit of America has chosen to celebrate "International Women's Day" with this series of interviews. By virtue of necessity, 40% of the Kurdish fighting force is female as they struggle against ISIS and are surrounded by regional aggressors.
NSA Wiretap Whistleblower: Of Course Trump Is Right
Eat the rich? No, we eat everything.
He's almost twenty years out of date as a man in the service, which either makes this better or worse. If a 36 year member of the service says this is plausible based on nearly 20 year old data, then it's way more plausible today. On the other hand, he's been out of the game for a long time.
He's almost twenty years out of date as a man in the service, which either makes this better or worse. If a 36 year member of the service says this is plausible based on nearly 20 year old data, then it's way more plausible today. On the other hand, he's been out of the game for a long time.
Pineapple Pizza
I once bought a friend a pineapple pizza that he didn't eat at all, because he hated the stuff. I meant it kindly.
This happened in Iraq, in 2008 or 2009. My friend was a Warrant Officer in the US Army, and I had recently observed him -- on a trip to Victory Base Complex, where there were multiple Pizza Hut trailers as well as a real-life pizza restaurant on the west side -- to bring back several pizzas, including a Hawaiian pizza. This kind of pizza is not really Hawaiian. It's actually Canadian.
Anyway, I assumed he wouldn't have bought the thing if he didn't like it, so the next time I got over there I brought one back for him. He thanked me very kindly, and never once mentioned that he hated the idea of pineapple on pizza. I only found that out later. I felt bad at the time, although the only sad thing was that I guess the pizza was wasted. He appreciated that I'd tried to do something nice for him, and that was the really important thing.
I personally like very many things on pizza. This attitude is described by the author from the first link as proper to "[o]thers from pizza wastelands such as Australia and Atlanta [who] extolled the virtues of complementing pineapple and ham with even more revolting toppings such as... jalapenos." Why, yes, I would also like jalapenos on that pizza.
I mean, where pizza is concerned, I'm fairly broad-minded.
In any case, I didn't bring this up to offer a binding opinion on the question of what ought to be on a pizza. I was just appreciative of the occasion to remember a friend I haven't ever seen since he boarded a helicopter on FOB Falcon, to rotate back to Germany after a long and honorable service in Iraq. I hope he's doing well.
This happened in Iraq, in 2008 or 2009. My friend was a Warrant Officer in the US Army, and I had recently observed him -- on a trip to Victory Base Complex, where there were multiple Pizza Hut trailers as well as a real-life pizza restaurant on the west side -- to bring back several pizzas, including a Hawaiian pizza. This kind of pizza is not really Hawaiian. It's actually Canadian.
Anyway, I assumed he wouldn't have bought the thing if he didn't like it, so the next time I got over there I brought one back for him. He thanked me very kindly, and never once mentioned that he hated the idea of pineapple on pizza. I only found that out later. I felt bad at the time, although the only sad thing was that I guess the pizza was wasted. He appreciated that I'd tried to do something nice for him, and that was the really important thing.
I personally like very many things on pizza. This attitude is described by the author from the first link as proper to "[o]thers from pizza wastelands such as Australia and Atlanta [who] extolled the virtues of complementing pineapple and ham with even more revolting toppings such as... jalapenos." Why, yes, I would also like jalapenos on that pizza.
I mean, where pizza is concerned, I'm fairly broad-minded.
In any case, I didn't bring this up to offer a binding opinion on the question of what ought to be on a pizza. I was just appreciative of the occasion to remember a friend I haven't ever seen since he boarded a helicopter on FOB Falcon, to rotate back to Germany after a long and honorable service in Iraq. I hope he's doing well.
Anybody 'On Strike' Tomorrow?
I asked my wife if she knew that she was supposed to be on strike tomorrow. She said, "No, what's tomorrow?"
"International women's day," I said.
"That sounds like some UN Commie bull****," she might have said.
"Well, you're supposed to refuse to go to work tomorrow," I told her, "and also not to do any work here around the house. It's a way of protesting Donald Trump."
Her response to that was unprintable.
What about those of you around the Hall of the feminine persuasion? Don't take my ferocious wife to be off-putting. Thomas, who met her recently in Dallas, can tell you that she's a woman of her own mind (as well she ought to be). If you've chosen to strike, that's just fine. Feel free to tell us about your reasons, assured of a respectful discussion according to Hall rules.
"International women's day," I said.
"That sounds like some UN Commie bull****," she might have said.
"Well, you're supposed to refuse to go to work tomorrow," I told her, "and also not to do any work here around the house. It's a way of protesting Donald Trump."
Her response to that was unprintable.
What about those of you around the Hall of the feminine persuasion? Don't take my ferocious wife to be off-putting. Thomas, who met her recently in Dallas, can tell you that she's a woman of her own mind (as well she ought to be). If you've chosen to strike, that's just fine. Feel free to tell us about your reasons, assured of a respectful discussion according to Hall rules.
Georgia Legislature Update
Religious freedom is dead this year, having been referred to languish until it was too late to act upon. Last year it passed and was vetoed by Governor Deal. Support for religious freedom is even weaker in the legislature this year, while corporate opponents of religious freedom have proliferated.
SB 49, the 'redefine what a knife is' bill, also appears not to have managed to "cross over" to the House by the required deadline. It will not become law.
However, three gun related bills did cross over, and are still in the running. This includes this year's version of Campus Carry, HB 280. You will remember that Governor Deal, who is still the governor, vetoed that bill last year as well. However, Rep. Powell of Hartwell, Georgia, says he believes this year's version addresses the governor's concerns. We'll see, maybe.
SB 49, the 'redefine what a knife is' bill, also appears not to have managed to "cross over" to the House by the required deadline. It will not become law.
However, three gun related bills did cross over, and are still in the running. This includes this year's version of Campus Carry, HB 280. You will remember that Governor Deal, who is still the governor, vetoed that bill last year as well. However, Rep. Powell of Hartwell, Georgia, says he believes this year's version addresses the governor's concerns. We'll see, maybe.
USMC Scandal, Continued
American Military News has interviews with some female Marines, at least one of whom appears in the database of nude female Marines. At least the ones they spoke to all agree that this is a problem with male Marines, period. At no point do any of them appear to entertain any idea that there's any additional discipline that might be imposed on the exercise of sexuality in general.
Maxmilian, the creator of Terminal Lance, agrees. The idea that discipline should be imposed on sexuality is right out:
This is an area where the law is really not very helpful. In general, if I take a photograph that photograph is my intellectual property and I can share it if I want to do. If I share it with you and you, without my consent, publish it widely I can sue you for copyright infringement. But if you took the photo -- even if it's a photo of me taken without my consent, if I was in a public place at the time -- you can do whatever you want with it. It's your intellectual property.
One woman in another context tried to copyright the image of her own breasts as a method of using copyright infringement law to get her images taken down from 'revenge porn' sites. The method seems clumsy and impossible to extend to a broader set of cases, and may only have worked because she herself took the photos. If her boyfriend had taken them, it's not clear to me that she would have had a claim to copyright his photos (taken with her consent) even though they were images of her.
It may also be the case that copyright law, which is how we usually control images, really misses the point of what's going on here. We have stalker laws that punish what is otherwise perfectly legal behavior, for example, taking photos of someone in a public place. Perhaps the nature of the offense here is such that the ordinary laws shouldn't apply.
Maximilian speaks to this issue:
Nevertheless, I still think that the coed combat arms are going to present a very real readiness concern that earlier integration did not. The Marine Corps' leadership was prescient about it, but they were told to shut up and stop thinking by Secretary Ray Mabus. Here are the first fruits.
UPDATE: The DB takes another swing.
Maxmilian, the creator of Terminal Lance, agrees. The idea that discipline should be imposed on sexuality is right out:
To the first point, everyone sends nudes in 2017. There are so many photos of myThat's a pretty big generational shift. Even 20 years ago, the mere existence of nude photos -- physical ones, which couldn't be instantly transmitted around the globe -- was pretty racy stuff.modestly largepenis out there that you could fill a 7-ton if you printed them out. The argument that women are asking for it is rapey as hell and straight up victim-blaming. Nude photos sent or received, unless otherwise specified, have a pretty clear implication of privacy involved in it.
This is an area where the law is really not very helpful. In general, if I take a photograph that photograph is my intellectual property and I can share it if I want to do. If I share it with you and you, without my consent, publish it widely I can sue you for copyright infringement. But if you took the photo -- even if it's a photo of me taken without my consent, if I was in a public place at the time -- you can do whatever you want with it. It's your intellectual property.
One woman in another context tried to copyright the image of her own breasts as a method of using copyright infringement law to get her images taken down from 'revenge porn' sites. The method seems clumsy and impossible to extend to a broader set of cases, and may only have worked because she herself took the photos. If her boyfriend had taken them, it's not clear to me that she would have had a claim to copyright his photos (taken with her consent) even though they were images of her.
It may also be the case that copyright law, which is how we usually control images, really misses the point of what's going on here. We have stalker laws that punish what is otherwise perfectly legal behavior, for example, taking photos of someone in a public place. Perhaps the nature of the offense here is such that the ordinary laws shouldn't apply.
Maximilian speaks to this issue:
There’s an underlying reality that needs to be addressed, and that male Marines need to really internalize here.He goes on to note that women are only 7% of the Marine Corps, and thus can't effect changes in the culture on their own. Male Marines will have to help them, if it is to be done.
Female Marines are female.
We can talk about one team, one fight and all of that, but at the end of the day they are still women.
Nevertheless, I still think that the coed combat arms are going to present a very real readiness concern that earlier integration did not. The Marine Corps' leadership was prescient about it, but they were told to shut up and stop thinking by Secretary Ray Mabus. Here are the first fruits.
UPDATE: The DB takes another swing.
Big Stories, Small Time
There are two huge stories today: Paul Ryan's Obamacare-lite bill, which will surely die as it is opposed by CATO, the Club for Growth, Paul's libertarian faction, Cruz's conservative faction, all Democrats, but not Susan Collins. It deserves more attention, but won't get it because...
...of the second big story, Wikileaks' huge CIA dump. This purports to come from a leaker within the intelligence community itself, and to give away the store on the CIA's hacking techniques. Allegedly they can take over your car (or a big truck near your car) for assassination purposes, and listen in to your conversations through your iWhatever or smart television. This, likewise, is huge news if true and needs to be carefully studied, but we won't get to do that because...
...of yesterday's big story, the new EO on immigration and refugees. It is supposed to be a significant improvement over the first one, and Trump's legal team is in place to fight challenges as they arise. Opponents are swearing to combat it, but most of us won't have time to pay attention because...
...of the weekend's big story, on 'wiretapping' accusations, which threatens to turn into an all-engulfing war between the two leading political factions in America. This is likewise an intricate story that needs very careful parsing, but we won't get to do that because...
...of all the other stories, and the ones that will come starting tomorrow.
...of the second big story, Wikileaks' huge CIA dump. This purports to come from a leaker within the intelligence community itself, and to give away the store on the CIA's hacking techniques. Allegedly they can take over your car (or a big truck near your car) for assassination purposes, and listen in to your conversations through your iWhatever or smart television. This, likewise, is huge news if true and needs to be carefully studied, but we won't get to do that because...
...of yesterday's big story, the new EO on immigration and refugees. It is supposed to be a significant improvement over the first one, and Trump's legal team is in place to fight challenges as they arise. Opponents are swearing to combat it, but most of us won't have time to pay attention because...
...of the weekend's big story, on 'wiretapping' accusations, which threatens to turn into an all-engulfing war between the two leading political factions in America. This is likewise an intricate story that needs very careful parsing, but we won't get to do that because...
...of all the other stories, and the ones that will come starting tomorrow.
Privileges Abound
A couple of experiments that both involve switching the sex of a person to see how it impacts how people receive them. It turns out that, liberal though the professors and their audience both were, switching the sex in the second Trump/Clinton debate only proved why Clinton lost.
Clinton's mode of trying to smile off serious charges, backed with carefully-worded responses that are technically true but completely misleading, turns out to look even worse on a man. The audience described him as “really punchable.” The kind of smarmy 'I think I'm smarter than you so I'm going to give you an answer you know is false but can't prove is false' mode is completely unacceptable from a man, so much so that it provokes the impulse to give him a sock in the chops for trying it.
I wonder if it isn't only our society's very strong mores forbidding violence against women that allows someone like Clinton -- or Pelosi, or DWS -- to get away with this mode. Maybe Obama could do it, protected by a similar set of mores among educated Americans against similar lashing out at African-Americans. The protections extended to them, out of a kind of respect for the vulnerability of their position, can turn out to enable bad behavior. Not voting for one of them, though, isn't violence against them -- and it isn't sexist or racist, not if you'd reject the same mode in a white man (and indeed, even more strongly reject it).
The female Trump stand in, meanwhile, was not rejected (as the organizers expected her to be) for being too 'pushy' or outspoken. Instead, people were suddenly able to see in her answers what they had been unable to see in the same answers given by Trump himself.
Clinton's mode of trying to smile off serious charges, backed with carefully-worded responses that are technically true but completely misleading, turns out to look even worse on a man. The audience described him as “really punchable.” The kind of smarmy 'I think I'm smarter than you so I'm going to give you an answer you know is false but can't prove is false' mode is completely unacceptable from a man, so much so that it provokes the impulse to give him a sock in the chops for trying it.
I wonder if it isn't only our society's very strong mores forbidding violence against women that allows someone like Clinton -- or Pelosi, or DWS -- to get away with this mode. Maybe Obama could do it, protected by a similar set of mores among educated Americans against similar lashing out at African-Americans. The protections extended to them, out of a kind of respect for the vulnerability of their position, can turn out to enable bad behavior. Not voting for one of them, though, isn't violence against them -- and it isn't sexist or racist, not if you'd reject the same mode in a white man (and indeed, even more strongly reject it).
The female Trump stand in, meanwhile, was not rejected (as the organizers expected her to be) for being too 'pushy' or outspoken. Instead, people were suddenly able to see in her answers what they had been unable to see in the same answers given by Trump himself.
We heard a lot of “now I understand how this happened”—meaning how Trump won the election. People got upset. There was a guy two rows in front of me who was literally holding his head in his hands, and the person with him was rubbing his back. The simplicity of Trump’s message became easier for people to hear when it was coming from a woman—that was a theme. One person said, “I’m just so struck by how precise Trump’s technique is.” Another—a musical theater composer, actually—said that Trump created “hummable lyrics”...The second one is about a lesbian feminist who undertook the experiment without telling people she met she wasn't the man she was pretending to be. You've probably seen this one before, but it compares and contrasts nicely with the NYU experiment around Trump/Clinton.
I was surprised by how critical I was seeing [Clinton] on a man’s body, and also by the fact that I didn’t find Trump’s behavior on a woman to be off-putting. I remember turning to Maria at one point in the rehearsals and saying, "I kind of want to have a beer with her!"
Clarance Thomas on Civil Asset Forfeiture
“This system — where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use — has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses,” wrote Thomas. “I am skeptical that this historical practice is capable of sustaining, as a constitutional matter, the contours of modern practice.”That's a good originalist objection: that the original justification for the practice no longer applies to the way the practice is currently being used. Piracy and customs involve things moving into the jurisdiction of the United States that, for example, you might have reason to believe were stolen goods. "Prove that these goods were not stolen if you want to bring them here" is much more reasonable than "prove that this money in your pocket was not stolen" when you and your money were always here. The burden of proof much more obviously falls on the government when the whole affair has happened within the jurisdiction of its courts and law enforcement officers.
Thomas went on to outline his concerns, noting that legal precedent ― most recently in the Supreme Court’s 1996 Bennis v. Michigan decision ― has been based largely on “early statutes” involving property related primarily to piracy and customs.
Not your circus, not your monkeys
Or as Ace says, don't buy tickets on the crazy train. He likens the psychic dislocations of 9/11 to those of 11/9.
Raising babies
Here's a theory that has a superficial appeal, especially to someone like myself with such ingrained anxiety about (and hostility to) dependence:
I'm much more drawn to the approach of this sensible lady, Brene Brown, who has my number when it comes to the fear of vulnerability.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has found:
Children in full-time day care were close to three times more likely to show behavior problems than those cared for by their mothers at home.
…
The more time in child care of any kind or quality, the more aggressive the child.
The result is young people who, a decade and a half after daycare, scream at the parent/State for not protecting them sufficiently. It is no coincidence that “safe spaces” resemble daycare centers.Granted, I recognize the behavior, but I can't reconcile it with my own experience of motherlessness. Maybe you have to combine daycare with the other silly trends in child development, which my full-time working father and stepmother were, to put in mildly, not into.
I'm much more drawn to the approach of this sensible lady, Brene Brown, who has my number when it comes to the fear of vulnerability.
Irish Unification
Sinn Fein did very well in the recent Ulster elections, and is now the second-largest party in the North -- second by only one seat. But that's not enough. It's time to re-unify, says Martina Devlin.
A united Ireland, a free Scotland, a newly-liberated England and an end to EU international socialism. All thanks to Brexit.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, there's a new documentary on women of the Irish revolution.
A united Ireland, a free Scotland, a newly-liberated England and an end to EU international socialism. All thanks to Brexit.
UPDATE: Coincidentally, there's a new documentary on women of the Irish revolution.
Swords at Dawn
"As for me, I was in a place by myself; in a time by myself. I remember the water sparkling around our ankles as we fought. One part of my mind could not help admiring how so very picturesque it was. I remember my opponents eyes especially. They were yellow, like he was on drugs."An actual knife fight, as metaphor for the current political feud. Wretchard, of course.
"Then I sensed, more than reasoned that I would die unless I ended this," he said. "So I stepped in and struck his arm. I didn't even feel the hit on my knee."
Media Moves to Make "Wiretapping" Purely About Phones
CBS: " Former president Barack Obama has denied President Trump's claims that the Obama administration wiretapped phones..."
Independent: "The FBI disputing Donald Trump's claim Barack Obama had his telephones tapped..."
AP: "President Donald Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his telephones..."
The FISA warrant apparently targeted a server, so it would be surprising if they tapped a telephone to find out what the server was saying to another server. I'm going to guess that the Obama team's careful denials, parroted by all these media outlets, mean that no actual telephones were "tapped." So we're only talking about internet traffic, servers being penetrated and covertly examined, maybe reading emails... but no, absolutely no "telephones."
The right thing to do would be to come clean on what spying was done, but of course they can't: all the information is surely classified at a high level. Still, some sunlight and honesty -- and not these carefully construed denials -- is the only way to restore any sort of trust.
Independent: "The FBI disputing Donald Trump's claim Barack Obama had his telephones tapped..."
AP: "President Donald Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his telephones..."
The FISA warrant apparently targeted a server, so it would be surprising if they tapped a telephone to find out what the server was saying to another server. I'm going to guess that the Obama team's careful denials, parroted by all these media outlets, mean that no actual telephones were "tapped." So we're only talking about internet traffic, servers being penetrated and covertly examined, maybe reading emails... but no, absolutely no "telephones."
The right thing to do would be to come clean on what spying was done, but of course they can't: all the information is surely classified at a high level. Still, some sunlight and honesty -- and not these carefully construed denials -- is the only way to restore any sort of trust.
That's How I Want Government to Work All The Time
Charles M. Blow at the NYT:
The American people must immediately demand a cessation of all consequential actions by this “president”.... no action to put this presidency on pause is extreme. Rather, it is exceedingly prudent.Don't stop there! Let's adopt this as the model going forward: the Federal government should do only the bare minimum of things that absolutely have to be done. I'd suggest that we draw the line at "anything for which there is not explicit constitutional warrant." But if that's not good enough, I'll consider constitutional amendments designed to make the "bare minimum standard" for Federal action even tighter.
Some things must be done and some positions filled simply to keep the government operational. Absolute abrogation of administrative authority is infeasible and ill advised. But a bare minimum standard must be applied until we know more about what the current raft of investigations yield.
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