Politics

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Cory Doctorow: Our dangerous statistical ignorance

Terrorism is a lot less common than one in a million and automated “tests” for terrorism ”“ data-mined conclusions drawn from transactions, Oyster cards, bank transfers, travel schedules, etc ”“ are a lot less accurate than 99%. That means practically every person who is branded a terrorist by our data-mining efforts is innocent.

Cory appears to be complaining about the statistical ignorance of “others” at same he is displaying his own statistical ignorance. His primary complaint is that the security agencies are branding people as terrorists with inadequate information gleaned from “statistics”. He goes on to voice his fear that the security agencies are rushing to judgement based solely on these statistics and yet that is exactly what Cory is doing to the security agencies with his choice of statistical gleanings. He is using his own selection of statistics to condemn the entire investigative process used by the security agencies. Cory’s condemnations without corroborating evidence are exactly what he does not want the security agencies to do with data about us. Oops! Sorry Cory! You are probably not their role model! My guess is that statistics is just of one of many tools the security agencies are using to identify terrorist suspects.

Cory Doctorow: Our dangerous statistical ignorance | Technology | guardian.co.uk

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"Wisconsin is in many ways a liberal state… but its electorate showed this week that it favors judicial restraint over activism."

Just after I had finished reading a FactCheck.org article called Winning Ugly in Wisconsin, I see this post on Ann Althouse’s blog. The premise of the FactCheck article is:

In Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race the winner was on the side that threw the most mud.

Ann points out  that John Fund at the Wall Street Journal highlights a different interpretation of the defeat of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler.

[T]he liberal majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court [has] made so many suspect calls [beginning] immediately after Justice Diane Sykes stepped down to join a federal appeals court. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle replaced her with Mr. Butler, a former Milwaukee judge and public defender who had lost to Ms. Sykes by a 2-1 margin in a nonpartisan race in 2000. Justice Butler soon wrote the infamous decision in Thomas v. Mallet, which created a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach to product liability. Wisconsin became the only state to adopt a "collective liability" theory in lead paint cases: Whether a company actually produced the lead paint that harmed a claimant was irrelevant to its guilt or innocence….
… Louis Butler’s bid this year for a full 10-year term was bound to be contentious. Teacher unions, trial lawyers and Indian tribes (which had benefited from the court’s controversial expansion of casino gambling) poured money into third-party ads attacking [his opponent] Judge Gableman. They were matched by business groups such as Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which ran ads noting that Justice Butler had earned the nickname "Loophole Louie" from fellow public defenders for winning reversals of his clients’ criminal convictions. Justice Butler made the mistake of embracing the nickname, claiming it was "affectionate." Voters weren’t amused.

Fund’s bottom line is in favor of judicial elections as "a check on the judiciary."

If judges are umpires [as Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts once said], the best way to ensure that they make the right calls is to bounce those who abuse their power from the game.

Politics is a necessary evil but this is far more than I ever wanted to know about Wisconsin politics and judiciary. What I found truly interesting was that the completely different views of John Fund and FactCheck on the same issue. FactCheck appears to have completely dismissed the complexity of Wisconsin politics in favor of a single issue, the effectiveness of attack politics. As a resident of Ohio I think I can feel Wisconsin’s pain.

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Obama and Change

A black community activist was interviewed recently by a local radio station and was asked what she thought would be the impact on the community if Obama was elected president. She said,

I think we will have to come up with a new excuse. We can’t blame it on the man if he is one of us!

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Political Ads for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama

Recently I have been overwhelmed with cynicism towards Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Living in Ohio we have been inundated  with political ads for these two candidates. What some may view as entertaining and thought provoking last week is extremely annoying after you have seen the same ad for the hundredth time. My son and I are so annoyed with the ads that we embark on impromptu parodies of the ads whenever they appear. I guess our parodies are pretty bad. My wife just grimaces. She does not share our sense of humor. I cannot overlook the amount of the money being spent by these two candidates so that they can talk about social change. They have this hypocrisy thing going on under this veil of ultra-competitiveness. The irony is that this political excess is detracting from charitable giving and “real” social change. This is not hard to figure out. Political contributions are discretionary spending just like charitable giving. I am guessing that Habitat for Humanity could have funded a new house for a needy family with the “excess” ads from just one news hour in the Cincinnati market. I try not to think about how big an impact this competitive campaign has had on charitable giving in the United States as a whole.

Finally I found a little creativity in this over-hyped campaign. Thank you Jack! I think I am doomed to get re-runs until Tuesday but this personal ad by Jack makes the campaign a little bit more tolerable.

 

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Emotions raw over FISA bill — Security Bytes

It is my understanding that the primary purpose of this bill is to “allow the intelligence services to conduct surveillance of communications between persons located outside of the United States when the communications happen to pass through domestic networks”. With this bill the NSA can go up the road to AT&T and run a wiretap program to monitor the phone call between Osama in Pakistan and a suicide bomber in London. Without this bill the NSA or CIA has to get the cooperation of Pakistan or England to install the wiretap program in their countries. Several years ago a federal judge ruled that his court had jurisdiction over this area even though it involves communications that would not normally be under his jurisdiction because the router is located in the United States. This bill was designed to satisfy the requirements of the court and address the challenges posed by technological advancements. The legal jurisdiction of wiretaps was so much simpler to explain twenty years ago. The bill does not authorize monitoring internal communications within the United States. Monitoring internal communications within the United States falls under the jurisdiction of federal wiretap laws and the FBI.

Emotions raw over FISA bill ”” Security Bytes

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OBAMA ON POLICY: A roundup….

A 1942 essay by George Orwell offers a highly qualified appreciation of the then (and still) politically incorrect Rudyard Kipling.

To govern is to choose, a Democrat of an earlier generation, John F. Kennedy, famously remarked. Is this generation of Democrats capable of governing?

Op-Ed Columnist
Democrats Should Read Kipling

By WILLIAM KRISTOL
Published: February 18, 2008

My guess is that Obama and Clinton have the best chance of the remaining candidates in becoming the next president. Recently I read the economic policy statement from the Obama web site and I was left a little confused. I expected the “change” candidate to advocate some major economic changes but I only saw only minor changes. This leaves me a little uncomfortable on his ability to govern. He sounds good on his sound bites but am I being sold the sizzle instead of the steak. I suspect that he will adopt Clinton’s plans if he wins. Although I am not a fan of Clinton’s plans, the Clinton folks have at least have put some thought into their plans. Since neither candidate has any significant political experience at this level and they look like they are going to be Democratic party conformists, it looks like they will have difficulty governing for a couple of years. They do not have to look far for the source of the problems. I think both candidates will be viewed as weak presidents and it is doubtful that either candidate will be able to unify their party.

In my peculiar view of the world, John McCain looks like he will have better relations with the Democratic party than either Obama or Clinton. This may not please some conservatives but it continues to make him appealing to independents who would like to see a president who could work with a House and Senate controlled by the Democratic party.

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Is this the person you want to be listening to a year from now?

Barack Obama responds to the State of the Union address.

Is this the person you want to be listening to a year from now?
Ann Althouse
Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:16:00 GMT

Maybe it is just me but now that I have heard Obama speak, I am becoming more convinced that he will not be able to govern if elected. It is bad enough that he is relatively less experienced than the other candidates but now he sounds like a person that will have difficulty reaching out to the republican and independent side. If that is not tough enough, getting his own party to unify behind him is beginning to look like an insurmountable task. His speech sounded divisive and his recent spat with the Clinton’s does not give the American people much hope for this candidate of “change”.  My gut feeling is that he will make the situation worse rather than better. There have been some moments a few months ago when he sounded “presidential”. Now he sounds like just another self-centered politician appealing to his party’s faithful. If Congress is going to continue to have a Democratic majority, Obama is making it easy for the independent voters to vote for a republican presidential candidate.

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The Intelligence Community Needs Clear-and Permanent-FISA Reform

 

The Senate is on the verge of passing legislation to extend the important intelligence surveillance authorities of the Protect America Act, passed six months ago. Those authorities, set to expire on February 1, allow the intelligence services to conduct surveillance of communications between persons located outside of the United States when the communications happen to pass through domestic networks.

The Intelligence Community Needs Clear””and Permanent””FISA Reform
The Heritage Foundation – Robert Alt, Todd Gaziano, and Brian W. Walsh
Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:39:55 GMT

 

I must admit that most of my information on this subject came from big media and their version of the issue portrayed a much different problem. This does not sound like the spying on the American people portrayed in the press.

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OpinionJournal – Featured Article

A Tale of Two Prosecutors
Mike Nifong is punished, but Patrick Fitzgerald isn’t.

OpinionJournal – Featured Article

Recently I have been thinking about the damage these two prosecutors have done to the legal profession. My thoughts came together after reading this article in the OpinionJournal. Ms. Rabinowitz did a fine job of explaining a lawyer’s perspective on these two cases. I will pursue the viewpoint of the simple man. The damage caused by Mike Nifong is fairly obvious and pretty simple to understand. Even for those of us without legal degrees it was obvious that the common sense portion of the judicial procedures were deliberately ignored. The civil rights cases that fine-tuned our judicial procedures and forced the creation of safeguards to protect our civil rights for all citizens were thrown out in this rush to judgment. Mike Nifong will pay the price and the rest of the lawyers are forewarned.

The damage to the legal profession caused by Patrick Fitzgerald is more insidious. The public has always been skeptical of the honesty and integrity of lawyers and this case does not help the situation. Mr. Fitzgerald was charged with investigating a possible crime about who leaked Ms. Plame’s identity to the press. It was a potential national security crime with some political overtones. Early on Mr. Fitzgerald had a problem that the alleged crime may not be a crime due to Ms. Plame’s special status at the CIA. Later when his investigation identified who leaked her identity and there was no indictment, the public assumed that the investigation was over. This was an investigation everyone wanted to end but Mr. Fitzgerald. The journalists were distraught that they were forced to reveal the unseemly side of political journalism, their cozy relationships with sources inside the government. The Democrat faithful were dismayed that they could not get either Rove or Cheney indicted for something. The Republicans were reminded that this was one of several inept CIA operations that led up to the Iraq war and highlighted the dysfunctionality in the Central Ineptitude Agency. To everyone’s surprise Mr. Fitzgerald continued his investigation. Eventually he was successful at convicting Mr. Libby of obstructing justice. For a simple man this should mean that Mr. Libby somehow hindered the efforts of Mr. Fitzgerald to determine who leaked Ms. Plame’s identity. However, we know that Mr. Fitzgerald already knew who leaked the information so Mr. Libby could not obstruct Mr. Fitzgerald in this area. The surprising piece is of information is Mr. Fitzgerald chose to not reveal this critical piece of information to Mr. Libby or close the investigation. Both Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Nifong chose not to reveal key information. Mr. Nifong’s actions were wrong and it is one of the reasons he is being disbarred. Somehow Mr. Fitzgerald’s actions are “right” even though it looks like Mr. Fitzgerald entrapped Mr. Libby in the obstruction of justice charge that did not have an effect on the investigation. It looks and smells like Mr. Libby is the designated fall guy for the alleged crime of leaking Ms. Plame’s identity for political purposes. This is where a simple man has problem with lawyer ethics. Mr. Fitzgerald’s actions look like he abused the trust and authority given to him when he went “fishing for a crime”. Mr. Fitzgerald can argue that he is pursuing the truth but the results are already different for the larger population. The conviction has created a more adversarial role between prosecutors and witnesses. Truth will be especially hard to pursue in this environment. Mr. Libby’s biggest mistake was not the perjury charge but in trusting Mr. Fitzgerald. Special prosecutors have absolute power and Mr. Fitzgerald showed that absolute power corrupts absolutely. I doubt other officials will forget this lesson any time soon. The Libby case has already caused at least one person to be less willing to testify before Congress. The Libby case is a good sign that a witch hunt is underway. For most officials the trade off between helping Congress or a special prosecutor find the truth and being indicted for some unknown crime if the investigation does not work out as planned for the prosecutor is pretty simple. It is not worth the risk to speak freely. Both Mr. Nifong and Mr. Fitzgerald show that prosecutorial abuse exists and is especially likely with cases that have political overtones. Hopefully we will re-establish some common sense in the Libby case and outlaw “fishing expeditions” by special prosecutors. We should try to make lawyers and the judicial process look honorable rather than petty. There is no moral high ground for Mr. Fitzgerald. He was “right” in the legalese that only a lawyer can appreciate but woefully short on the justice and fairness that a simple man can understand. He abused the system.